Duty, Honor, Planet: The Complete Trilogy

by Rick Partlow

  “So, what’s Kage’s objection?” he asked, as if he really wanted to know.

  “The original plan was to have his people all over on the Bradley,” Minishimi told him. “But Kage is insisting that his troops be divided among both cruisers. He says that will allow some to survive if one ship or the other is destroyed.” She snorted skeptically.

  McKay nodded knowingly. What Kage was really concerned about, he knew but didn’t say aloud, was making sure he had his troopers on both cruisers so he could at least have the threat of force available if Minishimi or McKay did something he considered against the wishes of the President.

  “Tell him it’s too late to make the changes he wants,” McKay said flatly. “We have a schedule to keep and we don’t have time to be shuttling Marines and Guard troops back and forth right now.” His lip curled up a bit. “Tell him we’ll reorganize later, if necessary.”

  “He won’t like it,” Minishimi warned him.

  “Then it’s a good thing he’ll be over on the Bradley,” McKay stated flatly, his eyes saying the rest: if Kage wanted to call the shots, he shouldn’t have fucked up so badly in Alaska. He checked the time on his ‘link. “I have to go get cleaned up. I’ll see you on the bridge.”

  “Oh Jason,” Minishimi said with a chuckle as he moved towards the door, “I can tell already this is going to be such a fun trip.”

  Chapter Twenty One

  Timothy Arellano seemed like a totally unremarkable man, Abshay Patel thought. His looks were average, his height was average, his un-dyed black hair was average length, and his clothes were well made but unobtrusive. Even his townhouse in the upper-crust New Brentwood district was much like any of the others on the block---though each was expensive enough that the rent would have made even Abshay’s well-to-do mother and grandfather blanch.

  But all that anonymity was a disguise, he knew. It was camouflage for a double life, but it was a camouflage they hadn’t yet penetrated. That’s why he was tailing Arellano, trying not to look like he was watching the man as they took the same sidewalk towards the train station. He purposefully kept his hands at his side, forcing himself not to pat his jacket where it covered his handgun, forcing himself not to reach into his pocket to feel for the injector he carried there.

  He still couldn’t believe they’d sent him…

  “Damn,” Franks had muttered as they all huddled around the hotel room desk, watching the output on the portable display from the insect drones. Carr had set them loose in front of Arellano’s house the night before, while Manning had guided some onto the man’s clothes as he’d returned home from a dinner out with a friend.

  The second any of the miniature spy drones had crossed the threshold of Arellano’s townhouse, they’d gone suddenly and irretrievably dead. Franks had cursed again under his breath as he ran a final diagnostic on the surveillance system hardware before giving up on it.

  “That house has a hard EMP set up at the door,” Carr had observed, sitting on the edge of one of the room’s beds. Like the rest of them, she was dressed in high-end casual wear, the sort of thing for which the locals in this neighborhood paid hundreds of dollars for the fabrication pattern in order to look as if they were slackers on the dole in government housing.

  “That’s not casual paranoia,” Manning had noted, shaking her head. “That’s some high-dollar hardware that isn’t easy to get. He’s definitely our guy.”

  “Any luck with his ‘link, Patel?” Franks had asked him, clearly annoyed by the turn of events.

  “No, sir,” Patel had responded, looking up from the tablet he was holding. On it, the penetration software they’d tried to load remotely onto Arellano’s ‘link kept displaying zero percent. “That ‘link is better protected than the ones Intelligence issues. I can’t say for sure we could penetrate it even if we had it physically in our possession.”

  “To quote a famous military officer,” Agent Carr had said, her grin seeming a bit sarcastic to Patel, “I guess it’s time to go with Option B.”

  “We have to snatch him,” Franks had reluctantly agreed. “But we have to do it fast and low profile. If whoever’s handling him spots it, they’ll burn any connections he has and we’ll wind up with nothing.”

  “You can’t do it,” Manning had said to Franks. “As much high end security tech that this guy has, you gotta think he has biometrics on someone as well known as you. You get close enough for his ‘link to read you, he’ll bolt or call for help.”

  “I’ll do it,” Patel had volunteered, feeling the words jump out of his mouth before he could restrain them. He looked at Franks and saw the Captain peering at him closely. He’d waited for the man to shake his head and assign someone else to the task…but Franks had shocked him.

  “All right, Lt. Patel,” Franks had assented, “he’s yours.” Franks had waved at the display. “He takes the High Line to the Sunset District every Tuesday night to meet his girlfriend, Eva Constantine, at that Brazilian restaurant. That’s when we’ll get him. Abshay, you’ll tail him onto the train to make sure he doesn’t deviate from his usual schedule. You’ll have the injector and I want you to nail him with the trank in the aisle just before he sits down. Caitlyn, you’ll be in the same car and you’ll help Abshay lead him out at the next station. We’ll be waiting there with the groundcar.”

  And that had been that.

  Abshay glanced around him as he walked, watching for threats. One of the things he’d been taught in his training was to never be so focused on a target that you made yourself a target. But no one else walking along the firm but flexible surface of the moving sidewalk was paying any attention to him…hell, they didn’t seem to be paying attention to anything around them as far as he could tell. Too many were wrapped up in conversations or watching video on tablets or glasses or corneal implants, trusting the sensors built into their ‘links to warn them if they were about to run into anyone or anything.

  Of course, he admitted to himself, there really wasn’t that much to see. The townhouses and apartment buildings were ornately constructed and decorated, each block done in a different architectural style; but there were no stores, no theaters, no street kiosks, no museums. The richer the neighborhood, the more amenities that the inhabitants could have built into their homes, the less they needed any outside businesses and the less they wanted anything nearby that would bring outsiders in to visit.

  That was convenient for their purposes, as it forced Arellano to leave his house and take the train to visit his favorite restaurant. Not the same train that the normal peons took, of course. People who could afford to live in New Brentwood took the High Line: a smaller, faster, more luxurious and much more expensive maglev that ran on a separate track from the normal mass transit line. They were just lucky that Arellano wasn’t a bit wealthier or a bit showier about his money, since Trans Angeles was one of the few megacities that actually had surface streets accessible by civilian vehicles, at least by those that were willing to pay a heavy tax. It would have been much more difficult to snatch him out of a groundcar without it being noticed.

  Arellano passed by a police security scanner and didn’t give it a second look, but Abshay couldn’t help himself. He had an official TAPD identification signal provided by Fleet Intelligence that gave him a legitimate reason to be in the neighborhood and authorization to carry a weapon---without it, he would have already been arrested---but he was still worried that someone would notice the ID and send a warning to Arellano. It was a risk they’d had to take, or go unarmed.

  Abshay forced himself to stop obsessing over the details and concentrate on keeping track of Arellano. As the sidewalk rounded a corner, he could see the train station looming ahead, an abstract sculpture of multicolored transplas that curved around itself like multiple strands of DNA. The sinuous lines of it glistened in the golden rays of the descending desert sun where it still penetrated the artificial canyons of the partially open megalopolis.

  The place contrasted starkly with the cut-rate bui
ldfoam boxes of the free public train stations he’d seen, but he didn’t have time to appreciate the twisted architecture or the constantly shifting holographic artwork that lined the walls or the haute couture of the wealthy patrons as they walked its corridors. He let his eyes wander to them, trying not to lock his stare on Arellano’s back, but he didn’t actually see them.

  His biggest worry was that Arellano would change his plans at the last minute and head for another destination, but the man went straight for the train to Sunset, and Abshay followed, closing the thirty meter distance he’d been keeping as he made for the door of the train.

  “Your account has been charged $10 for train fare to Sunset,” an automated voice announced in Abshay’s ear bud as he passed through the convex portal into the spacious train car.

  If it had been a normal car on a free, public train it would have seated three dozen people; but on the High Line, the car held a maximum of sixteen in its broad, reclining chairs, each of them equipped with a drink dispenser and a personal holotank. Arellano made for the third seat from the door with a certainty that told Abshay that it was his regular spot, nothing in his demeanor showing that he noticed the proximity of the Intelligence officer. Abshay headed for the chair across from Arellano’s, one hand dipping into his pocket for the small injector gun, eyes flickering around as he scanned the other riders in the car. There were only three other people there with them, and they all seemed occupied with their own personal entertainment, showing no interest in Abshay or Arellano.

  “I know you’ve been following me,” Arellano said, his voice so unexpected that Abshay stopped in his tracks, just behind the man’s right shoulder. For a moment, he thought that Arellano was talking to someone on his ‘link, but then the man turned in his chair and locked eyes with him. “I know you people have been following me,” he said. “And I know why. But if you try to arrest me, they’ll kill me before they let you take me in.”

  Abshay had tensed up when the man began speaking, ready for him to spring up and attack, but Arellano seemed very composed and non-threatening, his hands motionless in his lap. Unsure of what to do next, the young officer slowly dropped into the chair opposite of Arellano, keeping his left hand on the trank injector in his pocket, while his right drifted under his light jacket to the pistol holstered there.

  “How did you spot us?” Abshay asked, surprised by the genuine curiosity that was overriding his fear.

  “It was the micro drones,” Arellano told him, matter-of-factly. His voice was deeper than Abshay had thought it would be, almost operatic. “My security systems detected them when you tried to send them into the townhouse. After that, I knew it would only be a matter of time before someone from the government showed up in person.”

  Abshay felt the train go into motion, shot a glance out the window and saw the car pulling away from the station and rapidly picking up speed until the surrounding evacuated maglev tube began to blur.

  “You don’t seem too upset, Mr. Arellano,” he observed, trying to sound calm and in charge, though he knew he was neither.

  “It was going to happen,” the man said with a resigned shrug. “If not today then one day. Many people died…many innocent people. After Houston, I knew what I had been paid to do was the cause.”

  “You said ‘they’ would kill you,” Abshay observed, trying to think quickly. “Who? Who paid you?”

  “I don’t know,” Arellano said, shaking his head. “They made contact via an anonymous account, paid me via an anonymous account; I never saw a live person. All I did was reprogram the security protocols to give them access to the facility.”

  “If you don’t know anything,” Abshay countered, peering curiously at the older man, “why would they kill you?”

  “Because these people do not take chances, Mister…” He trailed off, waving a hand uncertainly.

  “Lieutenant,” Abshay filled in for him, purposefully omitting his name. “How do you know they’ll kill you?”

  “Because they said they would, Lieutenant” Arellano told him, face screwing up in fear and frustration. “And since they showed no compunction about killing thousands of people who had done nothing to them, I believe it.”

  “We’ll protect you,” Abshay assured him. “We can take you someplace safe.”

  “Lieutenant,” Arellano said, hands clenching into fists in his lap, sweat beading on his forehead, “what the hell makes you believe anyplace is safe?”

  Abshay looked over Arellano’s shoulder and saw the door between their car and the next one opening and Agent Carr stepping through, a questioning look on her face. He made a decision in that moment, yanking the injector from his pocket and leaning as unobtrusively as possible across the gap between them to press it against Arellano’s thigh. The man tried to jerk away, but Abshay hit the trigger and a spray of the tranquilizer drugs coursed into his system, taking effect almost instantaneously. Arellano slumped back into his seat, eyes glazing over, still conscious but heavily sedated…and open to suggestion.

  “Sit back and be quiet,” Abshay instructed him.

  Abshay patted him down quickly, keeping an eye on the other occupants of the car while Caitlyn Carr strode through the compartment and sat down casually in the seat across the aisle from them.

  “Everything all right?” she asked quietly, not looking directly at Abshay; she could have been speaking into her ‘link’s audio pickup for all that anyone watching could tell.

  “He made us,” Abshay told her and also broadcast it over his ‘link to Captain Franks, even though Franks and Manning would have already heard it over his open pickup. “And if he did, I worry who else may have.”

  “No choice now,” Franks said in his ear. “Just get him out as quickly as possible once you hit the station.”

  “Will do,” Carr answered for both of them. “We’re ten minutes out.”

  While she was speaking to Franks, Abshay fished Arellano’s ‘link from the man’s jacket pocket and gave it a cursory examination. “Do you want me to keep his datalink for the forensics crew or destroy it so he can’t be tracked?”

  “Hold onto it,” Franks instructed him. “If we trash it, whoever’s minding him will know he’s been snatched. If they know already, losing the ‘link won’t accomplish anything.”

  “Understood,” he confirmed. He looked from the ‘link back to Arellano. The man’s face was slack, his mouth slightly open and his eyes unfocused. He wished he could question the man now, but the trank wasn’t an interrogation drug; Arellano wouldn’t be able to put together a coherent thought until it wore off.

  “Have you ever done this before?” Carr asked him.

  He shook his head. “You?”

  She laughed throatily, her eyebrow going up.

  “Not until I started working with you guys.”

  * * *

  Tanya Manning grinned as she watched Drew Franks drum his fingers on the dashboard of their rented car, his eyes constantly scanning the exterior of the Sunset train station.

  “Nervous about Patel?” she asked him.

  “Oh, I’m pretty much nervous about everything involving this operation,” Franks admitted, not looking away from the station.

  Unlike New Brentwood, Sunset station was a hub for both the High Line and the normal transit line, with the High Line on the upper level and the public transit line on the ground floor. It was also much busier, since it led into a business and entertainment district, and there was a constant stream of people into and out of the station. Manning knew that Franks had a biometric scan routine running off the visual pickups in his corneal implants but there were just too many people to count on it finding anything.

  “Why’d you let him do it, then?” Manning wanted to know.

  “Arellano would have recognized me,” he said with a shrug. “You were on the news too, back when. Patel was too, but he’s changed a lot from when he was a teenager. Carr…she hasn’t been trained for a snatch and grab. She’d have treated it like an arrest.”


  “Two minutes,” Manning said after checking her ‘link. When the train arrived, the plan was to move from the paid parking space they now occupied and pull right up in front of the station. They could have parked there already and gotten away with it, thanks to their military authorization, but that would have attracted unwanted attention.

  “Anyway,” Franks went on, “the kid’s gotta’ grow up someday. I know General McKay’s been holding back letting him go on field ops because of what happened with Admiral Patel but it’s not like there’s a whole lot of people we can trust right now.”

  “How the hell did it come to this?” Manning asked, half to herself.

  Franks looked aside at her for just a beat, then back at the train station. He didn’t say anything and Manning wondered if it was because he didn’t have the answer or because the answer was one she wouldn’t want to hear.

  “There they are,” Franks said suddenly, and Manning followed his gaze to the second floor exit from the High Line station.

  Three figures were coming down the escalator together from the upper level, and as they descended she could clearly make out Agent Carr standing in front, with Patel in the rear and a submissive Timothy Arellano between them, Patel’s controlling hand grasping his shoulder.

  “Heading your way,” Franks announced to Patel and Carr via his ‘link as he started the car, the hum of its electric motor barely audible.

  Franks gunned the accelerator and the box-shaped vehicle jumped away from the curb with a scratching of polymer tires on pavement. Driving on manual override, the Intelligence officer spun the wheel hard to the left, cutting across four lanes of traffic and causing two civilian groundcars running on autodrive to jerk to abrupt halts to avoid colliding with him.

  “You sure you know how to drive this thing?” Manning asked, her eyebrow rising as she steadied herself against the dashboard.