Duty, Honor, Planet: The Complete Trilogy

by Rick Partlow

  “Yes, sir,” Fox acknowledged, nodding and Ayrock felt relief as he cut the transmission.

  It wasn’t as if he could enforce any authority over the man at this juncture. Later, when he’d won, he would have more organized and codified support structures in place; he hadn’t expected to have to dispose of Jameson and his Vice President so early in the game. He could control the Guard through Tran, but the rest of the military not so much. If only Kage could have done his job on Novoye Rodina…

  Ah well, at least he knew he had absolute control over the CIS. That reminded him. He touched a control on his ‘link.

  “It’s time,” he said to the senior agent on the other end of the line. “Have the strike team move on O’Keefe.”

  He cut off the response in mid-sentence, turning his attention back to the Tactical display projected before him and even more to the tactical assessment he was building behind his eyes. McKay was gone, Stark was in his hands, Minishimi was as good as dead; and in a few minutes, he’d have taken O’Keefe off the board as well. Given the situation just a few days ago, things could have been a lot worse.

  Which made him wonder what was going to go wrong next.

  * * *

  The night was chill and clear and even through the thick polymer of the window, Valerie O’Keefe could see the stars beginning to come out. The City was awash with interior illumination, of course, but part of the aim of the designers had been to reduce light pollution. Most of Capital City’s inhabitants were in no position to benefit from that, but the Executive Office and the Senate Office Building were both outside the enclosed portion of the City. She and a few hundred others had a wonderful view of the stars rising above the dark curves of the walls.

  Rank hath its privileges. It always had. Once, long ago, she’d thought she could change that. She’d been young and idealistic and so damned naïve…

  Now, she fully expected to be the latest in a long line of dreamers who’d given their lives for principles that always seemed important enough to die for but never crucial enough to live by. Tony, she reflected bitterly, would have been quietly adjuring her to get away from the window, insisting that it made her an easy target.

  “But that’s why I’m here,” she murmured to herself, as if she were talking to him.

  She hoped that Natalia would remember her. She’d been able to warn her father and he’d taken the little girl with him to what they hoped was somewhere safe. She was so young though…and life went on so long. She could barely remember her own mother, beyond what she’d seen in old recordings. Would that be Natalia someday? Trying to sort out which were her own memories and which she’d seen in old footage on the net?

  She felt tears welling up in her eyes and angrily blinked them away. She’d cried for Glen, but she wouldn’t cry for herself. When they came to arrest her or kill her, she swore they wouldn’t find her crying.

  She heard a warning beep from her security system and stepped back to her desk. It was styled after the antique wooden desks that were popular among the more powerful Senators and the President himself, but it was actually modern plastics with built in electronics. She passed a hand over a section of the desktop that was glowing red and a hologram appeared above its surface showing the exterior of the Senate Office Building. Like her desk, the building’s antique stylings were only skin deep: besides the Executive Offices, it was the most secure and hardened installation in Capital City. Automated security systems guarded every entrance, and if the stun fields and anesthetic gas failed, there were Capital City Police special reaction teams on call to handle any threats.

  None of them would help against the CIS Tac Team that was coming up the emergency stairwell, though. They had the authorizations and clearances that would override the automated security and shut down the alarms to the Capital City Police. She watched them for a moment, taking in their dark-colored body armor and mirrored visors. They weren’t carrying stun guns or sonic weapons, either, she noted with a critical eye. Ten years ago, she wouldn’t have known the difference, but exposure to Jason and Shannon had taught her the details. Their weapons were suppressed 8mm carbines similar to the ones Vinnie’s Special Operations teams carried, each with an under-barrel grenade launcher.

  “Seems a bit of overkill,” she said with a soft chuckle.

  She pressed her palm to a spot on her desk and a small compartment rose up with a whine of servos. She reached inside and came out with a compact handgun. Its lines felt alien to her hand, wrong somehow. Ten years ago, she’d never have considered even touching a gun. Five years ago she wouldn’t have…

  Then she’d found out that the evil people in the world didn’t care if you were unarmed, they didn’t care if you were a politician or a soldier or a little girl. They’d kill you just the same if you got in their way. She’d practiced with the little gun, but she knew it was probably useless against the Tac Team’s body armor. Still, it seemed obvious they weren’t interested in capturing her and she didn’t feel like going down without a fight.

  She looked at the corner of the office, where a hidden door led to a safe room. She could hold out in there for a few minutes, but their override codes would get them in there as well. She could, she realized with a blinding flash of hindsight, have asked Jason or Shannon to harden the room against any intrusion; but she hadn’t thought to be wary of federal law enforcement.

  How short-sighted of me. She wouldn’t make that mistake again, she laughed silently.

  She sat down on the couch beside the window and smoothed her skirt across her knees, then rested the handgun on her lap. Might as well relax…

  Her security system beeped for her attention again and she frowned. Wasn’t one team of assassins enough? Cursing under her breath, she rose from the couch and went back to the desk. When she tried to bring up the monitors, however, there was nothing but an error message. The warning moved from the street entrance to the emergency stairwell, climbing from landing to landing, and wherever it passed, the cameras went dark.

  “What the hell?” That didn’t make any sense. Why would the CIS bother to take out her camera access?

  She clutched at her pistol and looked at the door, feeling nervous for the first time. It was easy when she knew she was going to die. Now, she didn’t know what the hell was going on…

  * * *

  What the hell is going on? Agent Randal Hauser wondered silently as he led his Tac Team up the interminable emergency stairs towards the building’s fourteenth floor. He wouldn’t say it aloud…not to anyone, not these days. It wouldn’t be healthy for his career or possibly his life at this point. But the question ate at him as it had for days.

  The President and Vice President were dead, acting President Cumberland was nowhere to be found, and now he had to either believe that Director Ayrock had been brainwashing President Jameson for the last ten years and working with the Protectorate and the bratva terrorist criminals; or that Senator O’Keefe, General McKay and Admiral Minishimi had turned traitor and were trying to overthrow the government. And unlike most people, he had to decide which he believed right now.

  The weapon in his hands felt as if it weighed a hundred kilos and he was sweating in his helmet despite the armor’s cooling systems. He’d been specifically instructed to use lethal force if Senator O’Keefe resisted. She was a dangerous traitor; that was what he’d been told. He’d been told a lot of things.

  “We’re getting close,” he warned the rest of his team.

  There were twelve, including him: eight men and four women. They’d all been part of the Tac Team for at least a year but he couldn’t really say he knew any of them. Familiarity with coworkers was discouraged by the Director.

  Jesus, when had all this happened? He didn’t remember things being this way when he was younger. He knew things hadn’t been this bad for his parents. When had it all gone to hell? And what was he going to do about it?

  The grey walls of the stairwell seemed to be closing in around him and he had to shake h
is head to clear it of the illusion.

  “Gamez,” he asked the woman on point, “we getting anything from the insect drones?”

  “Just normal traffic so far,” she told him.

  “Sir,” Delsa called to him from the drag position, last in their line. “I’ve lost the feed from the rear security drones.”

  He frowned. The insect drones they’d spread gradually behind them were just a precaution to secure their rear; he hadn’t expected to need them for an operation like this.

  “Hold up,” he told Gamez, then pulled out a tablet from his thigh pocket, unfolding it and touching the ID pad to log in to the system.

  He accessed the building’s security monitors…and got nothing. Every single camera and security sensor between the street entrance and their floor produced nothing but an error message. It wasn’t like they were being jammed externally, it was as if someone had injected or activated a Trojan program and crashed the whole system. But that was impossible: this was the Senate Office Building. The only ones capable of doing that were…

  “Oh, shit,” Hauser breathed, his eyes going wide.

  He spun around and was taking a step back down the stairs when Delsa jerked and slammed against the wall as armor-piercing rounds cut through her. Hauser hadn’t even heard the cough of the suppressor, but he knew exactly who was firing at them before he caught sight of the armored troops coming up the stairs. He turned to run, but the gunfire was followed inevitably by the blast of a rifle grenade.

  The concussion threw him backwards, sent him sprawling down the stairs again. He couldn’t even feel the impact of the individual stairs through his armor, just a diffuse pressure that seemed to come from everywhere and an intense pain in his head and neck from the whiplash movement. His vision fogged with pain and he was having a hard time thinking, but he forced his eyes open…and saw a figure in mottled grey armor standing over him, looking at him through a mirrored visor, over the fat barrel of a suppressed carbine.

  But I hadn’t decided yet… He tried to say it, but all that came out was a dry croak.

  Then there was a subdued flash and everything was decided for him.

  * * *

  Valerie O’Keefe had nearly made up her mind to try the safe room after all when the door to her office slid aside and a man in grey combat armor stepped through, rifle held at port arms. She jerked her pistol upward, adrenaline surging through her, but halted as he pointed his barrel upward and raised a hand palm out.

  “Wait!” he said through his helmet’s external speakers. He worked at the catches on his collar and pulled the helmet off, revealing a chiseled, hawkish face with dark hair and olive skin.

  “Major Shamir!” Valerie exclaimed, eyes widening in surprise.

  “Senator,” he greeted her with a nod, moving aside as a half dozen other armored troopers stepped into the room behind him.

  “Major,” one of them said over his external speakers, “we’re secure. Security monitors are back up and slaved to our systems.”

  “Thanks, Sgt. Miller,” he said, voice as at ease as if he were ordering dinner. “Station troops at the stairwell and elevator doors, and make sure we have airborne drones to watch the roof and windows.”

  “Got it, sir,” Miller acknowledged, heading back out the office door.

  “Not that I’m not delighted to see you,” Val said, disbelief warring with an almost giddiness inside her, “but how the hell did you wind up here?”

  “You called for me, ma’am,” he told her, grinning. “Roza wanted to come, but we have the baby to think about.” He shrugged. “I think you’ll be surprised at just how many people heard that call.”

  She laughed, working hard not to make it sound hysterical. “So,” she asked, struggling to find words, “we’re staying here?”

  “Senator O’Keefe,” Ari replied gravely, “this is exactly where you belong. You told Ayrock you’d be waiting for him here. Now we’ll be waiting with you.”

  Ari paused and Val was sure he was listening to someone speaking into the ear bud for his ‘link. When he looked back at her, she saw a bemused concern in his eyes.

  “Ma’am,” he said slowly, “we have someone who came in via the emergency stairwell. My people are detaining him, but he wants to see you…says it’s urgent.”

  “Who is it?” she asked him, still somewhat in shock.

  She wasn’t sure what she expected, but the answer he gave her wasn’t it.

  “It’s Brendan Riordan.” He cocked an eyebrow. “He says he wants to make a deal.”

  She felt behind her for the arm of the couch and sat back onto it heavily, catching her breath for a moment before she looked up at Ari.

  “Send him up.”

  Chapter Forty Six

  “Stefan Fox, this is Captain Tandy Lee of the RFS Bradley.” Lee’s face was severe, her voice somber, and she seemed to fill the holographic projection with darkness just by her mood. “By now, you will have no doubt been given the order to attack the Farragut with your Eysselink drive missiles. This is an illegal order given to you not through your chain of command, not through the authority of your commander in chief, but rather from CIS Director Philip Ayrock.

  “Ayrock is a traitor to the Republic, and a criminal. He’s conspired with the bratva terrorist Yuri to slaughter our citizens for his personal gain. He will be dealt with and if you become part of his criminal conspiracy, you will be dealt with as well. You have the opportunity to do the right thing. If you ignore Ayrock’s order and stand down Lunar defenses, you will not face any criminal prosecution; I make this guarantee with Admiral Minishimi’s assurances that it will be honored.” Her expression somehow grew even darker, which hardly seemed possible.

  “However, if you choose the wrong side of this conflict, not only will you face prosecution, you will bring utter destruction to yourself and anyone else in the Lunar defense base. I will do whatever is necessary to ensure the survival of this task force, up to and including evacuating this ship and ramming the launch center at relativistic speed.”

  She leaned into the pickup, her eyes smoldering coals.

  “Consider carefully your options, Captain Fox. History will judge what you do next.”

  Sergio Cahn leaned back in the chair he’d appropriated at the Lunar base’s Fire Control Center and grinned at Martin James.

  “Should we go ahead and tell her,” he asked his friend, chuckling good-naturedly, “or wait and let her make some more ominous threats?”

  “She does seem to like them,” James admitted, shaking his head. He was still dressed in full combat armor, his helmet resting on the console in front of him and his carbine strapped across his chest. Beads of sweat still rolled down his forehead despite the chill from the air conditioning in a chamber filled with superconducting computers.

  He still didn’t seem as at ease with their actions as Sergio, but the fact they’d been able to take the key areas of the base with no bloodshed and no real opposition had definitely cheered him up. The Fire Control Center was eerily empty but for the two of them and a technician James had trusted enough to bring in to lock down the controls; the rest of the Security force was busy blowing the vacuum seals that compartmentalized the whole section from the rest of the base.

  Only a full military assault could retake the Fire Control Center at this point, and James controlled the only military ground force on Earth’s moon.

  “Let’s not keep her in suspense,” James decided, reaching out to activate the communications board. “I’m sure the Fleet has other problems. Time to let them know we’re not one of them.”

  * * *

  Colonel Damien Tran cradled his helmet in his hands and looked up at the stars frosting the autumn night over what used to be Queens, New York. The chill breeze coming off the river felt good against his depilated scalp, drying the sweat that had built up in the hours he’d been wearing his armor. He could hear the whine of the turbines from the ground-support fighters as they circled somewhere up there, out
of sight, waiting for the order to attack.

  The enemy was on the other side of that river, his enemy and General Kage’s enemy. Tran wasn’t loyal to a flag, or a cause, or a belief system: he’d never found one that had meant a damn thing to him. But he’d been loyal to the General. Kage had found him running scams on the streets of New Canberra and had given him a chance to make something better of himself.

  This was his chance to pay that back. The people across that bridge were the same sort of self-righteous, self-important assholes who’d been responsible for Kage’s death. Tran hadn’t been there to save him, but he would be damned if he didn’t avenge him.

  “Tran,” he heard the words faintly over the speakers in his helmet and he quickly pulled it back over his head.

  “Tran here,” he responded, noting on the HUD that the transmission was directly from Philip Ayrock. He wondered if what Franks had said about the man was true…it didn’t really matter to him, but it would have changed the view he’d always had of the man as weak, soft and stupid.

  “We’ve lost Lunar base,” Ayrock said, his voice agitated and hoarse, worn down against a grindstone of stress and setbacks. “I’m trying to get Fleet Headquarters to launch on the Farragut but Captain Marlowe is a friend of Minishimi’s…and the station is out of position anyway.”

  “What about the planetary defense lasers?” Tran wanted to know. “If they drop their drive field to fire on us, the lasers could destroy them, still.”

  “They might,” Ayrock snapped, angry at someone or something but not at Tran, the Colonel knew, “if their targeting systems hadn’t been sabotaged. We can’t stop the Farragut, but we can make sure she has nothing to support. Send in the fighters, then get your ass across that bridge. Wipe them out.”

  Tran snorted a quiet laugh. Ayrock was desperate. He was a man losing a war, sitting in a house afire and pissing on the flames. It didn’t matter. All he wanted was to kill the people across that bridge.