Vendetta Protocol

by Kevin Ikenberry

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  What?

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  Son of a bitch! Disappointment blossomed, but so did seething anger.

  “You’re dead, Roark,” Bussot radioed. I could hear the smirk she wore. Her words dripped sarcasm, and despite my winning our engagement, I would get nothing from it but heartache.

  “So are you, Commander. My last shot was a fifty-six.”

  “It was a twenty-six, Trainee. You are mistaken.”

  I wanted to mash the button and call her everything in the book, especially given my rank, but that was part of the whole damned game Crawley wanted me to play. I had to take their cheap shots and learn what was locked up in my head from my first life.

  Lily? You have the data, correct?

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  I punched the instrument panel in front of my left hand. They’re cheating on every single mission, aren’t they?

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  Hand aching, I pressed the radio button. “Permission to RTB? Over.”

  Bussot’s Devastator twirled in the sky like a precision air show and dropped in off my left wing. She stared at me for a full ten seconds before responding. “Permission granted. I’m going up to Phobos for lunch with friends. I’d ask you to join us, but it would be dinner before you got there in that Skyhawk.”

  I clicked the microphone twice and broke away from her like a scalded dog. For a moment, I pushed the throttles forward in an effort to get home quickly. I couldn’t report the incident beyond talking to Admiral LeConté again. Lily, my saving grace in so many situations, was a limitation. As mad as I was about Bussot and the whole training charade, I could not compromise her. I flexed my fingers on the throttle and realized I was pushing six hundred knots.

  What am I hurrying for? The question struck me between the eyes. I had time to fly. Time was the resource I hadn’t been capable of controlling for most of the last few months. I contemplated the ground as I flew and reduced the throttles to a steady three hundred eighty knots. Mars rolled past like a butterscotch-colored canvas dotted with craters and exposed rock formations. Hecates Tholus beckoned in the distance. There were seven more hours of fuel on board and no real flight plan. With that knowledge, and an aircraft that wrapped around me like a blanket, I was content.

  I flew for an hour, thinking about holding ground as the pieces came back together and the chaos in my mind settled. Armies were meant to hold ground, and other services had their specialized domains, be they air, sea, or space, but the reality was they all held ground and had to do so in concert with each other. For the first time since I’d woken at Sydney Harbor, I thought I had an idea of what made me special to General Crawley. When I got back to base, I’d start putting it together on paper and see where it took me.

  Until then, it was nice to soar in silence without even a bird in the sky around me.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Adam Crawley left Paris on a direct flight to Sydney on a Terran Defense Force executive transport. At least, that was what he wanted the Terran Council, especially Penelope Neige, to believe. In reality, he ducked out of the rear door of the aircraft and into the concierge truck delivering food and drinks for the flight. The attendant, generously paid by the Terran Defense Force, gave Crawley no attention whatsoever. Tucked into a corner of the cart, between racks of fresh pastries and prepared dinners, Crawley rested against a small counter known as the “general’s bench.” For years, the way to find any degree of privacy in the higher ranks of the Terran Defense Force was to create it. Undoubtedly, the politicians and council members worldwide did something similar, but no one knew for certain.

  What Crawley knew, though, was how the other generals used the service. A lesson his father had shared forty years prior made all the difference. Be it a janitor or your boss, speak to everyone you meet. You never know what they’ll tell you.

  As the truck moved away, the attendant leaned against the counter on the opposite side. “General Crawley.”

  “How are you, Max?”

  “Not bad.” The man beamed. The truck bounced across the tarmac toward the main terminal. “The commanding general was through here yesterday. Is a lover still called a mistress if the general is female and the other isn’t?”

  Crawley chuckled. “I’ve never thought about it, Max.”

  “I’m always surprised what I see.” Max smiled. He swept a longish curly brown hair from his forehead. He spoke with the faintest hint of a French accent, most likely what he’d picked up over the last ten years.

  Crawley knew the story of how Max’s father was a merchant marine in the Great War who forbade his youngest son to enlist in any service. By the Battle of Libretto, Max’s father and his two older brothers were dead on three different planets. Unable to serve because of civil provisions for his mother, Max found a way to marry his career as a chef with service to his planet. His proximity to the core general officers of the Terran Defense Force made him a very valuable man to Crawley.

  “The Terran Council moved a young woman in a stasis tube a couple of days ago. Pretty high security—not surrounded by an entourage of armed personnel like their normal diplomatic teams, but more than a couple of bored guards.”

  Crawley nodded. “Did you get a good look at the girl in the tube?”

  “Blond, pretty face. That was about it.”

  “I see.” He braced against the cabinets as the truck took a right turn. “Where did the inbound flight come from?”

  “Columbia, out of the New Jersey terminus via Memphis,” Max said. “I believe that’s another one you owe me.”

  Crawley sucked in a quick breath. Another piece of the puzzle came together. He would have to verify the server-confirmation request, but the intended recipient was very likely Chastity. He mentally slapped himself for missing the connection in the first place. Neige possessed the girl from Memphis. Chastity. What she’d get from the young woman’s scrambled brain was unknown and worrisome.

  “That’s precisely why I pay you, Max. Where will your mother want to go this time?”

  Max’s mother had decided that after the Great War, she would travel as far as she could in her remaining years. It was easy financing and an excellent bargaining chip. “She wants to go see Saturn’s rings. I think I can swing that now.”

  There wasn’t a shred of doubt in Crawley’s mind. He would ensure that Max and his mother would be well taken care of, as always. “Let me know if I can help.”

  Max studied him for a moment. The young man’s blue eyes were at once tired and alarming. “How long have we done this, Mon Général? Five years?”

  “Longer,” Crawley said. “More like ten.”

  “You’ve taken good care of me. Let me take care of you.”

  Crawley’s eyebrows rose, and he nodded. “What do you have in mind, Max?”

  The younger man stood and held onto cabinets on either side of the aisle built into the cabin on the bac
k of the truck. He shuffled to the window and looked outside over the nose of the truck. Crawley could see the fuselage of an orbital passenger transport in the distance. They were leaving the TDF-secured area. “Lucien is driving today. He is aware that you are here.”

  Max kicked the bulkhead between their compartment and the driver’s seat twice. The truck slowed down and turned left toward the Diplomatic Control Zone. The route to the terminal was a straight shot most of the time, though a few times they’d turned right to avoid traffic or detection from curious passersby.

  Crawley tightened his grip on the cabinet. His eyes darted around the compact work area, searching for a weapon. He hated himself for the thought and hoped that Max was simply protecting him rather than something more sinister. “What’s going on, Max?”

  Max turned and shrugged. “The council wanted you brought to them if you disembarked your aircraft. They’ve been onto our little game for a long time.”

  Crawley held his breath. Either he’d gotten sloppy, or they really were better at this sort of thing than they used to be. “What are you suggesting we do?”

  “Stay on the truck. Lucien will ensure no one searches it.” Max opened one of the small cabinets beside Crawley. “Better safe than sorry, though. It’s not much, but it will suffice. They will not search”—he shrugged—“as long as I give them the partially used bottles of alcohol from your aircraft. And your reservation at the Grand Embassy Sydney, which I happened to pick up accidentally during my cleaning routine.” Max produced a simple punched card from his shirt pocket.

  Crawley nodded, a flush of relief coursing through his system. Max was younger and untrained, but Crawley hadn’t recertified in unarmed combatives for several months. A fight would have been counterproductive, at the very least. “I understand, Max. Thank you.”

  Max shrugged again, “It is nothing, Mon Général. You are my friend, and those in power above you cannot change that.”

  Crawley folded himself into the small cabinets behind the aircraft-sized serving carts. The space was larger than he would have imagined and almost comfortable. Perhaps Max had done this sort of thing before. Crawley cued his neural network to record what might happen. Others might need to know. He scrolled through his files and found a simple audio track. Listening to the opening bars of “Take Five” took him back to the smoky jazz clubs of his youth. Opening the file ran an imperceptible route to his private server and sent a distress message he’d created years before.

  The truck came to a stop, and Crawley heard Max speaking in French. “General Crawley is aboard his aircraft and headed to Sydney. There were no issues.”

  The voices that responded were male, but that was all that Crawley could determine. They spoke too softly to be clear. The conversation moved farther away, leaving the truck in silence. Crawley sat for more than two hours in the small space, alternating between hoping for a bathroom visit and risking opening the cabinet. At the three-hour mark, doors on both the driver’s and passenger’s side of the truck’s cab opened and closed. The truck started and turned sharply to the left, tossing him roughly against the cabinets. He struggled upright, nursing a sore elbow and slightly more-wounded pride, and tried to feel the vehicle moving under him in order to move with it and avoid further embarrassment. After a five-minute drive, the passenger door opened. The attached cabin’s door opened, and the cabinet lock turned.

  “Mon Général?” Max opened the door. He was smiling, and more importantly, his hands were empty. “I’ve arranged your transport back to Sydney. You’ll have to fly through Brasilia, but it could not be helped.”

  Taking Max’s offered hand, Crawley unfolded himself from the compartment and stood in the cramped cabin. His back and elbow complained, but he was alive and still in the game on hostile ground. The truck started again and backed up, the braying of the reverse alarm piercing the low light of the cabin.

  “Madame Neige was very interested in your travel plans,” Max said. “I could not allow you to get on a marginally qualified aircraft.”

  He explained that Crawley’s previously scheduled aircraft might not make it to Sydney. Something would happen, and it would be up to the pilots aboard to save it. A 50 percent probability of survival was enough for Neige to risk. That fucking bitch. He’d considered that she would eventually reach a decision to kill him, but not yet. There were unanswered questions she should be trying to answer instead of trying to remove the source of the problem at its head. Still, he didn’t feel threatened by her efforts. Instead of doing it herself—poisoning his dinner would have been an option—she left it up to others to get their hands dirty. The Terran Council and their minions always counted on menial workers, like Max, to do their dirty work so their greedy hands remained clean.

  “You and your mother can fly to Pluto as far as I’m concerned. If she wants a berth on a colony ship, you let me know.”

  Max nodded. “You are good for your word, as always.”

  “Thank you, Max.” Crawley extended a hand. “And this aircraft?”

  “I think you’ll find it very accommodating.”

  As the truck backed into position at the rear entry door, Crawley understood. The hatch worked open, and a tall, dark-haired Styrahi stood waiting. He smiled with recognition. It had been ten years since his predecessor had retired and turned over the reins of the program. Miles Flatley had pissed off the entire Terran Defense Force when he retired and resigned his commission to marry a Styrahi. The interspecies coupling wasn’t the issue. Thirenalla, his bride, was the Styrahi chief of intelligence and a target for scrutiny. For the general officers in the TDF, their marriage could be construed as sleeping with the enemy. To say some feathers were ruffled was a gross understatement.

  Thirenalla extended her hands, and Crawley took them as he stepped aboard. Like all the Styrahi he knew, her appearance belied her age. She smiled, revealing dimples at the corners of her mouth. She wore simple gold earrings, likely a gift from Miles, that made the flecks of gold in her irises iridescent in the cabin’s light. Were she human, he would have guessed her age as just past sixty. For a Styrahi, she could be nearly twice that, if not three times.

  He kissed her palms in the Styrahi way before she pulled him into a very human embrace.

  “It is good to see you, Adam.”

  “And you, Thirenalla. How is Miles?”

  She chuckled. It sounded like a purr against Crawley’s chest. “Busy with something that will interest you, but you know why I’m here, don’t you?”

  “Hard to believe the time has come,” Crawley said. “Can I borrow your secure-communications suite for a few minutes?”

  “It is ready for your use. You have about four hours until they realize where you are. Maybe two beyond that before things hit the fan, as Miles would say.” She gestured for him to follow her into the cylindrical cabin of the Styrahi transport. “We’ll land in New Zealand. I have a transport reserved at the Kawhia Spaceport for you.”

  Instead of the communications suite, she showed him to a chair with an intricate headrest. The Styrahi imprinting process was very different from his work with human clones, but the principle was the same. They’d planned for this day for more than ten years.

  “I suppose you were in the neighborhood?” Crawley asked.

  Thirenalla laughed. “We’ve been ready to retrieve you for two weeks, Adam. I’m glad you remembered the code.”

  “Like I’d ever forget it.” He turned toward Max. “I’ll be in touch.”

  Max nodded and closed the aircraft’s external hatch. In a moment, the concierge truck disappeared into the gathering darkness of the Orly Spaceport. As the vehicle receded, Crawley realized that Thirenalla was watching him curiously.

  “The council has been onto your generals for quite some time,” she said with a smile. “An extra layer of subterfuge was necessary.”

  “That’s why you’re here,” Crawley
said. “Miles said when the situation merited it, you would be here to show me the way.” He gestured toward the chair. “That includes getting a full download from me before they try to kill me, yes?”

  Thirenalla nodded. “Standard operating procedure. And yes, I do know that you’ve likely planned ahead for that eventuality as well. There are a lot of good people who could carry it on. Saving the program information is critical to future plans.”

  “Indeed.” Crawley sat in the chair, closed his eyes, and took deep breath.

  “Let your mind go as clear as you can,” Thirenalla said. “Miles said you should have no problem doing that, either.”

  Crawley laughed. “Tell him I said he is still a lousy bastard.”

  “I will. Do you want to make your calls before the procedure so they are on the record?”

  “No.” Crawley would only be making one call using Thirenalla’s encrypted line. His lines and Berkeley’s had to be under watch by that point. Even if they weren’t, he wasn’t going to risk interception. The procedure would take minutes and would seem like a barely remembered dream. “I won’t take up much of your time.”

  Thirenalla waved away his apologies. “I’m flying you home, Adam. I’d expect you would want to use a secure communications set along the way.”

  Crawley nodded and closed his eyes. Focus on nothing.

  Focus on nothing. Breathe and fall deeper. Breathe and fall deeper.

  “Stand by. Twenty seconds.”

  Crawley let the world drift away. He’d sat through the same procedure a dozen times over the last ten years, always being careful. What he knew, and the things he had experienced, could be easily passed to someone else if he died. His staff all went through the imprinting sequence to ensure that data was never lost. It was standard operating procedure. For the first time, however, he truly realized that he was a high-value target to the Terran Council. If they were successful in stopping the program, Earth would fall.