by Rick Partlow
McKay sighed with sad resignation. “Because, Konstantin…I wanted to give you the choice. The drugs won’t injure you…hell, you won’t even remember that you talked. But afterward, you’ll feel like something has been taken from you, something you can’t get back. You seem like a decent man. I’d rather give you the chance to talk to me willingly first.”
“Even if I believed you,” Konstantin said quietly, with little conviction and a great deal of hopelessness, “I could not talk. You will lose and the General would have me taken apart a piece at a time and put into the replication vats.”
“Why should we lose?” McKay asked. “He had much more of an advantage last time, and he still lost. He nearly lost everything. If we knew how to make your jumpgates work, we would have already captured him. Now that we are ready for him, how can he win?”
Konstantin looked him in the eye and McKay could see a very real fear in the man’s gaze. “You think General Antonov is mad, and you are more right than you could ever know, Jason. But he is also a genius…you are a smart man, I can tell, but he is smarter. Whatever you have thought of to defeat him, you can believe me, he has thought of it first.”
“That may be, Konstantin.” McKay allowed, feeling his gut twist up but trying his best not to show it. “But the fact is, your fate is tied to ours now. If we lose, you’ll likely die.”
“That didn’t work on me and it won’t work on him,” Podbyrin’s voice sounded in his ear. “Death in some maybe battle isn’t as frightening as being torn to pieces by the bogey man.”
“But I don’t think you’re a man who’s scared of death,” McKay went on as if he’d always intended to. “After all, you’ve lived with the threat of death for how long now? Over a century? Every single day, wondering if you’ll be the next one Antonov sacrifices to feed his madness? Did you travel all the way from Earth to Novoye Rodina with the General?”
“Yes,” the Russian answered quietly, eyes looking past McKay to a home he’d lost decades ago. “I was a drive technician on the first asteroid mining expedition.”
McKay felt a prickle of disbelief travel up his scalp.
Holy shit.
“Bozhemoi,” Podbyrin breathed. “McKay, if he was on the mining ship, he might have been there when they first triggered the wormhole! I thought those men had all been killed!”
“So,” McKay went on, “it must have been especially hard for you…I’m sure you were afraid for years or even decades that General Antonov would have you killed just because you might know something about the jumpgates.”
“I…I was put in confinement for weeks, interrogated by his internal security. They told me I would be executed for treason. I finally convinced them that I knew nothing, that I was a simple technician with no training in theoretical physics. After that, I volunteered for every job that would take me away from the General. I spent years crewing a cargo run from our first mining colony. When the opportunity came to be part of the security garrison here, I took it. I have been out here for over ten years. I would go on leave once a month, but not to Novoye Rodina. I would go to one of the mining colonies and stay onplanet long enough to stay healthy…you need the gravity, you know? And then back out here. For ten years.”
“This man is unhinged, even by my standards,” Podbyrin transmitted, “which I have come to understand over the last few years are a bit lax.”
You’re not helping, Jason thought hard at him, wishing he had a way to tell him.
“Konstantin, you don’t have to live like that anymore. If you help us beat Antonov, you can live wherever you want…you can have a house on any of our worlds and you’ll never have to work again if you don’t want to. Or if you decide you want to travel, we can get you a position on a ship.”
“You cannot beat him,” Konstantin insisted morosely.
“All right, let’s say we don’t,” McKay said with a shrug. “We can have restruct surgery done on you, totally change the way you look, even your height, the pitch of your voice. You can learn a new language, be given a new identity in our databases. Even if he wins, you’re still better off than you were before, because even if Antonov rules us all, he won’t know who you are or where to find you.”
“You can do this?” For the first time, there was an inkling of hope in the man’s eyes.
“In a week,” McKay told him. “And four days of that is recovery from the surgery. You get restruct surgery and we put you as an anonymous farmer or shop-owner or mine technician on a colony world and the worst that happens, if we lose, is that you wind up working for a new boss who doesn’t know you from Adam. And if we win, you get a guaranteed income for the rest of your life…and you get to be a hero. Famous, if that’s what you want.” He shrugged. “Or still anonymous if you prefer. But this time, it’s your choice.”
“And if I still say no?” Konstantin asked, face thoughtful.
“Then we use the drugs and you tell us anyway, but it takes much longer and you get to spend the whole time in restraints. And afterwards, you’ll spend the foreseeable future in a detention facility. If we win this war, maybe you’ll get put on some backwater colony freezing your ass off.”
“That was low, McKay,” Podbyrin muttered sourly.
“If we lose…well, Antonov will know where you are and who you are and he’ll know we got information from you.”
The Russian was silent for a long moment, his face like a man facing a death sentence. “All right. I will help you. I…I know how the jumpgates are triggered. I know the exact location of many of them, including the one in the Solar asteroid belt and the three in this system.”
Thank you, God! McKay breathed a sigh of relief. He’d been waiting five years for this moment. He turned to the security guard. “Take off his restraints.” Once the Russian was set free, McKay held out a hand and the other man slowly, hesitantly stood and shook it. “I am Colonel Jason McKay of Republic Spacefleet Intelligence.”
“Lieutenant Konstantin Vyacheslavovich Mironov,” the Russian officer told him formally. “Engineer…” He paused, smiled slowly. “Formerly engineering officer in the Protectorate Space Force.”
“Konstantin Vyacheslavovich,” McKay returned the smile, “it is a genuine pleasure to meet you…”
Chapter Fifteen
Ari lay across the hood of the utility rover, looking at the stars. It was nearly one in the morning, and the training company had dug into a defensive position just before dusk, but he had not tried to sleep. The night was still and warm, the only sound the soft snoring of one of the training NCOs from his sleeping bag: no artillery simulators tonight. Theoretically the trainees were at 50 percent security, which in practice meant that half the people who were supposed to be standing watch were awake about half the time. Another night, he might be walking the perimeter, checking on them. Tonight, he wanted them to sleep.
He heard the footsteps behind him, but didn’t get up. “A pleasant night to you, Hassan Ali,” he said quietly. “Salaam alaikum.”
“Am I so predictable now, Mohammed?” He could hear the rueful chuckle in the man’s voice at being detected. “Alaikum salaam. I received your message…you said it was important.”
Ari rose silently, sliding off the hood of the vehicle to face the Guard Captain. Hassan Ali was dressed in field armor, his helmet under his arm, a rifle slung over his other shoulder, trying to blend in with the other troops.
“There is something you must see,” Ari said, stepping past him and beckoning him to follow. “It is not far.”
Hassan Ali followed behind him, slipping on his helmet to use its night vision as they strode through the defensive lines, past sleeping sentries and into the open fields around the encampment. Half a kilometer past the lines, there was a clump of tall ombu’ bushes that loomed dark in the moonless night like an impenetrable wall. Ari led the Guard Captain through a gap in the tree-like bushes, into a small, bare-dirt clearing.
Alida Hudec lay motionless on the dirt, hands and feet bound and a strip o
f utility tape wrapped around her mouth.
“What the hell happened?” Hassan Ali demanded, looking back and forth between Ari and the woman.
Ari sighed, running a hand through his hair. “She came to me tonight after dinner and asked to speak with me out here. She told me that she was an undercover investigator and that she wanted my help…that she liked me and didn’t want me arrested. She told me that she was calling in her people tonight, to arrest you and Colonel Lee and his staff and that if I didn’t agree to help her, I would be arrested as well. So I agreed of course…then I choked her out and tied her up. You need to alert the Colonel.”
“Dammit,” Ali hissed, pulling off his helmet and tossing it to the ground angrily. “I thought we’d have more time!”
“Shit happens, as my American friends say,” Ari said with a shrug. “Either she figured out that Lee was the biggest fish in this pond or her superiors grew impatient. Either way, I have bought us some time---she had not yet made the call for them to move in and make the arrests. But I would think that the GIS will send their forces eventually if they do not hear from her within a day or so. Do you have a way to get a secure message to Colonel Lee?”
“Of course,” Ali said impatiently. “There is an address…an anonymous account. I just leave him a coded message there and he can check it with any public terminal.”
“You need to get him to meet us somewhere remote and quiet,” Ari instructed. “We can take her there and determine how much she knows and how much time we have, then he can make a decision about our next move. And we need to do this now, before dawn, while we can still get her out of here unnoticed. And we need a vehicle that can meet us here, with a driver who can keep his mouth shut.”
“Um…” Ali dithered, beginning to be overwhelmed by the situation. “Ah…yes, let me contact the Colonel.” He pulled out his ‘link and gave it a net address, then recorded his message. “Chess aficionado seeks same, face to face game, on April 5th at three in the afternoon in the city park.” He looked up at Ari. “I just asked him to meet me at the old demolition bunkers in two hours. No one goes there anymore…they opened up a new range a year ago.”
“Good.” Ari clapped the man on the arm reassuringly. “Now get us a vehicle and let’s get out of here. I very much dislike standing out here in front of every satellite in orbit with her tied up on the ground in front of me.”
As Ali turned and stepped away to make the call to his driver, Ari glanced down at the woman he’d known as Alida. Her eyes opened for a split second, then winked at him before closing again. He fought back a smile.
Roza. It was a very nice name.
The old demolition range was an eerie moonscape of craters, devoid of life or evidence of life other than the one dirt road leading into it and the abandoned bunker at its center. Buried in the dirt up to a series of narrow view slits on its front face, the lone entrance was in the rear, an open doorway shielded by a meter thick concrete wall that stood claustrophobic guard just 70 centimeters away.
The only light inside the bunker came from old, half-exhausted chemical ghostlights, so Ari and Captain Ali had brought in a pair of lanterns from the utility rover before the Guard Captain had sent his driver away with the vehicle, telling her to park at least a kilometer away and wait for his call. The lights were set up on either side of the bound and gagged Roza Kovach, who had abandoned her pretense of unconsciousness and was glaring angrily at the two of them with frightening earnestness.
“The Colonel should be here by now,” Ali fretted, pacing back and forth on the dirt-coated cement slab floor. “It has been nearly three hours. It will be dawn soon!”
Ari shook his head as he sat on the concrete bench built into the wall, watching Ali wear a rut in the floor. “For the love of God, relax,” he muttered. “I’m sure the Colonel had business of his own to take care of and this place is on the ass end of nowhere. He’ll get here when he gets here.”
Inwardly, though, he was just as worried as Ali. This was their best shot at getting them both together away from the headquarters and away from prying eyes. If Lee got spooked and didn’t show up, it would make things much more difficult.
“Is that a vehicle?” Ali’s head whipped around. Without waiting for confirmation, he bolted up the short set of stairs and looked down the narrow dirt road. “There’s a rover coming up the road,” he called down to Ari. “I think it’s the Colonel. Yes, it is him...he has Captain Fillon with him and it looks like Major Sobawale.” Ari had heard their names before, but never met them: they were other participants in the conspiracy, also tasked with recruiting trainees. “That must be what took so long, getting them together without attracting attention.”
“If you ever leave the military, Captain Ali,” Ari commented dryly, “you should get a job as a sports announcer.”
Ari tried hard not to look at Roza---it was still hard not to think of her as Alida---as Colonel Lee stepped down the stairs with the other officers in tow. Captain Fillon was a tall, gangly man with fair skin and a dusting of red stubble on his shaven head, while Sobawale was short and muscular with the ebony skin of a native African. Both were dressed in their field utilities and wore sidearms, as did Colonel Lee. Lee frowned as he saw the woman sitting bound on the floor, looked between Ari and Captain Ali.
“So,” he said, “I see events have forced our hand.”
“We have hours,” Ari told him. “A day at most before the GIS moves in. The question is, do we run and hold up somewhere with the recruits we already have, or do we make a stand here?”
“If we battle them here,” Lee responded, shaking his head, “we take the chance of inviting a strike by the Marines before we are ready. Timing is everything.”
“Then we must run,” Ali said. “If we can find a secure place to marshal our forces, we can wait this out…they don’t have enough ships or men to arrest every officer in every armory in the colonies. As long as we can keep our forces in play, we can still do this.”
“You are more optimistic than I, Captain,” Major Sobawale said morosely. “Without access to the trainees here, we can’t field a large enough force to seize Buenos Aires. We only have about a hundred right now that we can count on to come with us. Our entire force would be no more than three hundred troops.”
“But we can recruit more support from the local militias and police forces,” Fillon reminded him, sounding more optimistic than he looked: his long, horsey face seemed to have a perpetual frown. “They wouldn’t be much use against Fleet Marines, but they could keep the rabble in check while we face the stronger forces. And soon, it won’t matter---the Marines will have other things to worry about.”
“Sir,” Ari interjected, addressing Colonel Lee, “do you know how much longer we have before the orbital strike occurs and we can launch our operation?”
“I am not totally certain,” Lee admitted, looking as if he had bitten into something sour. “I have not heard from my allies in weeks now.”
“Is there a way you can contact them, sir? We can’t make a decision like this without knowing how long we have to hold out.”
“He’s right, Colonel,” Ali said with an eager nod. “If it is only days away, we could hold out here…perhaps take hostages.” He nodded at Roza as an example.
“I was given an address to use in an emergency,” the Colonel admitted with a reluctant nod. “This most certainly qualifies.”
Ari allowed himself a smile. “If that is the case, Colonel,” he said, “then there is something you need to hear, something that our ‘Lt. Hudec’ told me before I captured her.” He walked over to the woman and yanked her to her feet by her shoulders. “You should hear it from her own lips,” he explained, ripping away the tape from her mouth, then moving behind her, appearing to hold her arms secure.
Roza worked her jaw, regarding the Colonel with rage in her eyes.
“Tell him, woman!” Ari snapped, yanking on her wrists.
Roza took a deep breath, let part of it out. “Col
onel Lee Jun-hwan,” she said formally, “I am Captain-Investigator Roza Kovach of the Guard Investigative Service, empowered by a personal warrant from General Kage, and I must inform you that you and everyone else in this room are under arrest. If you resist arrest, I am authorized to use lethal force.”
Lee stared at her for a moment, confusion and disbelief on his face, and then he started laughing. It was a high-pitched, surprisingly girlish giggle that seemed almost involuntary and he was quickly joined by Ali and the others. Ari chuckled appreciatively.
“That is it?” Lee demanded, still laughing. “That is what you had to say? Well, let me tell you, Investigator Gisela Katona or Roza Kovach or whatever your name really is…I most assuredly do resist arrest!” He looked around at the other officers. “What about you gentlemen? Do you wish to surrender or resist?”
“I think we will resist, sir,” Ali said, chortling.
Roza shrugged. “I tried,” she said.
There was the barest of sounds, a tick of plastic hitting concrete as the zip-tie handcuffs fell off her wrists. No one noticed it over the laughter, but they did notice when the tie around her ankles broke at the slightest pressure and she fell into a balanced shooting stance, bringing up the compact handgun that Ari had slipped into her hands when he was behind her.
“Gun!” Lee screamed, scrabbling at his waist for his own holstered sidearm. “She has a…”
He didn’t get another word out, because Ari grabbed him by his throat and the wrist of his gun hand, and slammed him to the ground. Lee’s breath left him in an explosive “whoosh” and his eyes rolled back in his head.
Roza ignored him. It was too dark and too close to use sights; instead she held the 10mm in an Isosceles stance, her arms making a triangle with her torso, the gun at the tip, and pointed her whole body at Major Sobawale. The Major was faster than the others…his service pistol had actually cleared its holster before she shot him. Two rounds through the chest and then a shift upwards and a third into his forehead. The triple-explosion of the Mozambique Drill echoed through the enclosed bunker like a snare drum, shocking the others.
