A nod. “Yes, ma'am,” he confirmed. “A colonel. Daughter of a middling noble family out of the Ganges system.”
“Came out with that adviser team under the late Rear-Admiral Crispin,” Williams explained.
“Pardon me, Captain,” the young woman interjected, “Did you say ‘late’?”
Williams touched a finger to the side of his nose. “Crispin had an accident with his sidearm shortly after they arrived in-system. Apparently, the poor fellow managed to shoot himself in the back three times, so now it’s a bit unclear as to who’s in charge. “They’re supposed to stiffen the sector defense forces, but she’s the only one doing any stiffening…
“Pardon my carelessness, ma'am.” He hastened to mollify the shocked young noblewoman. “I mean no double entendre. She’s just a damned good officer. Instead of endless lecturing on how to fight insurgents, she took them off to the edge of the Rim and beat seven kinds of Hell out of the raiders – even tipped into a skirmish or two with the Greys.”
“When she could have been back at 667, stopping secessionist terrorist attacks,” Paronius groused.
The captain turned on him with barely concealed disgust and Paul suddenly felt less guilty about tweaking Thatcher earlier. The fool really did have his own blood in the water and here he was, splashing it around like a maniac.
“How exactly would the SDF stop a stadium bombing? Fire on the bomb from orbit? They’d crack open the dome in the process and let that nasty weather in. I suppose you could at least claim the thousands of dead citizens weren’t casualties of the secessionists.”
Paronius developed a sudden interest in the restaurant’s ornate decor.
The captain turned back to the young aristocratic couple “She kept giving the SDF units victory after victory, y’see,” he resumed his explanation to the young woman who was now giving him her undivided attention.
“When they came back from the Battle of the Carbon Well, she gave them a present, the best kind of present a beloved leader could ever give her troops.”
“What?” the noblewoman demanded breathlessly, eyes shining.
“An identity. She declared they would no longer be miscellaneous, numbered SDF units. From that moment on, they would all be known as the 1st Gliesan Dragoons.”
“And that pleased them?”
“Ma’am, after that, they’d follow her straight into a black hole. She welded them together into a single unit, gave them something to hang their pride on. They don’t have to explain that they were with 724 Regional Defense Squadron which was one of the units that fought at Carbon Well. They just wear the 1GD on their shoulders and everyone knows what they did.”
“Random citizens buy them drinks,” the major drawled, rolling his eyes.
“Not to mention commercial captains,” Williams added emphatically. “We used to have six or seven piracy incidents a year — per ship — but since young Colonel Urbica and her dragoons started patrolling the Gliesan Main…”
He leaned back, spreading his hands. “Not a single attack in two years.”
“They’re that effective?” the young woman asked.
“It does strain credulity, just a bit,” her husband added. “The raiders were quite bold the last time we came out this way. We were overtaken and boarded in full view of the Iridium colony just four years ago.” He looked at his wife and shuddered.
“We were completely in their power.”
“Your lovely wife would have been quite safe, I’m sure,” the captain offered gently. “Most of those raiders are nothing more than businessmen, when you get right down to it.”
“Businessmen?” Paronius exploded. “They’re criminals, plain and simple.”
The captain arched an eyebrow. “What businessman isn’t a criminal? Perhaps their only fault is their lack of circumspection? I’ve known aristocrats who commit atrocities on a planetary scale and get Imperial commendations for it.”
He turned back to the young couple. “My point was that they usually have the sense to keep their hands off their high-born captives. Stirring up moral outrage is bad for cash flow.” He shrugged. “Last thing they’d want is a Marine Expeditionary Force sent to slap them down.
“That, in essence,” he explained, “is what Colonel Urbica is using against them. She knows she just has to make it too expensive for them to continue operations on the Gliesan Main. They’ve gone elsewhere.”
“Chasing off pirates doesn’t stop the secessionists,” the major observed.
“No,” the captain agreed, “it doesn’t, but it does slow them down, or do you think they get their supplies from legal sources?”
The major tilted his head, acknowledging the captain’s point.
Paul drained the last of his wine and set the glass on the table. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said, rising to his feet, “I believe I’ll explore the rest of our excellent ship. Sir.” He returned the captain’s nod and headed for the elevator.
Major Trouble
Paul wandered down the Grande Allee, a seven-story atrium in the ship’s main cylindrical hull, noticing the incredibly expensive merchandise with more than a little disgust.
The aristocracy was obsessed with their things. He gazed at a pair of shoes in a shop front. They cost enough to feed a family on a Rim world for an entire year.
What made a couple pounds of silicone and leather worth so much?
The value of things — such an artificial concept.
He shook his head and moved on. He was no paragon himself. The anachronistic mechanical timepiece on his own wrist would house a family for an entire year.
And he’d just given four of them to his Marine companions.
He’d bought them as camouflage, or at least that was what he’d told himself at the time. Even if it was camouflage, was it justifiable to spend so many credits simply to confuse aristocrats?
He knew it helped to move investigations along. When nobles couldn’t figure out what social order he belonged to, it kept them on their heels, made them slip up.
But he still enjoyed the effects of his camouflage and that always left a taste of guilt. If he’d had the money for just one of those watches as a child, his father wouldn’t have died as an impoverished miner on Hardisty.
He turned right and followed a corridor toward the center of the ship. The ornate hallway turned into a bridge as he stepped into the massive, cylindrical central atrium.
Roughly a kilometer across, the atrium was dominated by the central column. The sounds of music, shouting hawkers and passengers grew in volume as he reached the sliding joint between the bridge and the rotating central cylinder. He stepped onto the column and, preferring a little quiet to order his thoughts, angled toward the garden side.
That major would be his best bet. If he could find out who the Marine was reporting to on Irricana, he’d be able to move on to the bigger players. He knew there was no guarantee that the major’s plot was connected with Julius’ predicament, but it was definitely probable.
He suddenly caught a hint of cologne.
Those damned pheromones…
Faint footsteps approached, accelerating. He detected ozone.
A stun ball. He grinned, continuing to walk through the park as though he didn’t have a care in the world.
The major would be counting on his augmented abilities — implants that gave Imperial Marines incredible strength, speed and agility. He probably didn’t know he was approaching a target that represented a very rare convergence of factors.
Paul was ex-military and he’d won the patronage of a powerful aristocratic family. The Nathaniels had arranged for him to keep the basic military augment-suite on his discharge.
Then they sent him for testing.
He wasn’t part of that fractional percentage of citizens compatible with full augmentation, but he was eligible for a hell of a lot.
The Nathaniels had him tweaked within an inch of his life. There were times when he hated them for it, but it did come in handy at m
oments like this.
He felt a tingle at his lower back as the stun ball made contact. He turned to find his assailant twitching on the stone pathway. He crouched, offering his erstwhile attacker a friendly smile as though they were bumping into one another at a coffee shop or bar.
“Part of the electronic warfare package,” he explained casually, tapping his own chest. He brushed off the man’s feeble attempt to grab his arm. “Not to worry, the effects will wear off over the next twenty minutes.”
The Marine was purple with rage. His attack had been turned against him with alarming ease. He glared at Paul, who affected not to notice the hostility.
“Directed ionization, or something like that,” he mused. “I wasn’t really listening at the time — the pain was absolutely excruciating.”
He tilted his head. “But here I am, telling you what you already know. You’ve got the standard Marine package, I’m sure.”
There was no answer from the stunned officer, but he did hear approaching footsteps. Someone was moving through the trees to the left of the path.
Paul stood as Ed and Mike emerged, pistols in hand. “Gentlemen,” he greeted them warmly. “Your timing is impeccable.” He gestured to the helpless form. “We need to help the major back to our quarters. Seems he’s had a little too much.”
“Too much electricity, you mean.” Ed grinned. “We saw you come into the central atrium and figured we’d keep an eye on you.” He gestured down at the incapacitated Marine. “When this one pulled a stun ball, we almost dropped him, but I had a feeling you knew he was there.”
“Perceptive.” Paul raised an eyebrow. “And if I’d failed to detect his attack?”
Mike shrugged. “Well it was just a stun ball. We would’ve been able to get you both back to the room.”
“Well, we need to camouflage him before we start back to the room.” Paul nodded at Mike. “Dump some whiskey on him, get a bit of it down his throat as well.”
“What makes you think I have…”
“Flexi-flask, right front pocket of that new dinner jacket,” Paul cut him off. “I was in the suite when you put it in there, remember?”
Mike pulled out the small rectangular bladder and popped the spigot open, pausing to take a sniff. “Y’know, this stuff ain’t cheap.”
Paul bit down on the impatient response that leapt to the tip of his tongue. For a Marine non-com, whiskey, any whiskey, was an expensive luxury. Even the cheap rotgut currently leaking its aromatic compounds from the flask.
“Up in our suite,” Paul began in a salesman-like tone, “there’s a bottle of single malt, distilled on Iona. It spent fifty years in oak before they bottled it, five hundred years ago.” He tilted his head. “Some don’t care for the woody hints, but you,” he emphasized, pointing at Mike, “you, my friend, strike me as the kind of man who might just appreciate such a brilliantly composed whiskey.”
Mike was spellbound.
Paul knew he’d closed the bargain, but he just couldn’t stop himself. He might be a cynic where wine was concerned, but he had a real love for good whiskey and the anticipation was half the fun, something he wanted to share with Mike to the fullest.
“Fifty years in a sherry barrel,” he continued. “It was one of only eight hundred that survived the bitter trade-war between the Campbells and the MacGregors. It was bottled during the conflict, but then it sat, forgotten, for three hundred years while the Ionans rebuilt their war-shattered planetary economy.
“And then one day, they found the caverns where the last production run of Campbell’s distillery had been stored, and the bottles have been circulating throughout the Imperium ever since. Every now and then, someone dares to open one.”
Mike was nodding, his grin threatening to split his head in half. He stepped over to the major. “Ed, get his mouth open.”
Ed held the major’s nose and, when the man finally opened his mouth for a breath, Mike was ready, pouring almost half down the officer’s throat. Ignoring the strangled coughing, he poured the rest on the man’s tunic and pants.
“Right, let’s get him back to the rooms.” Paul gestured at the coughing form. “Gentlemen, perhaps you could give our inebriated friend a hand? I don’t think he’s quite ready to walk.”
Interrogation
Sandy and Al walked into the suite, just back from dinner, and stopped, staring at the scene before them as the doors slid shut.
Paul, Ed and Mike were sitting on the couches in the main lounge, laughing their heads off at the antics of a holographic cat and mouse.
A major of the Imperial Marine Corps sat in one of the club chairs, his hands tied and a lamp shade over his head.
“Pre-Imperial stuff,” Paul explained, waving at the cartoon animals. “It’s a wonder it isn’t banned. The cat’s constant failure to catch the mouse despite his huge advantage in strength could easily be seen as a sinister commentary on the Imperium.”
He looked back as Ed and Mike broke out laughing again. “That thing on the cat’s tail is evidently a trap and, from its size, designed for killing mice but it’s been turned on the cat instead.”
He shook his head as he chuckled. “How the Imperial censors never saw the allegorical reference to revolution is completely beyond me.” He looked at the newcomers and followed their gaze. “Oh, the major?” He smiled. “A real party animal, that one, but he didn’t care for the show, so…”
He stood, waving a hand to bring up a holo-menu and pausing the program. He walked over to the prisoner, removing the shade from his head.
“Let’s get started, shall we?”
He sat on the coffee table in front of the major. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like some whiskey? One sip and you’re transported back five centuries to the trade-war on Iona.”
The major gave him a look of pure loathing. “Might as well start slicing into me,” he growled, “cause I’m not going to play along with any of this, you psychotic freak.”
“Well, of course you aren’t,” Paul said in mild surprise, as if he’d always taken the point for granted. “You’re a Marine, after all – incorruptible, after a fashion.”
He looked up at his companion’s frowns and waved a placatory hand. “It’s practically unheard of for a Marine to be bribed or compromised,” he allowed, “but what if you serve a leader who’s so morally compromised that you’re faced with a decision between obeying illegal orders or engaging in mutiny?”
“Like I said: start cutting.”
Paul shook his head. “I have no intention of torturing you, but I will destroy your reputation as well as that of the 538.”
The major frowned but kept his mouth shut.
“I can easily access a burner account,” Paul said as he opened a new holo-menu. “Easiest thing in the worlds to move several hundred thousand credits from that account into yours.” He closed the window.
“There! Payment received; now we just need to make it look like you carried out your little freelance assignment.” He leaned forward. “You’ve just been paid for the demise of one Paronius Thatcher, an aristocrat of some mild comedic value, but the Imperium’s better off without him, don’t you think?”
The captive’s eyes widened. “You murdering bastard…”
“And what was your plan for me?” Paul countered. “After you’d stunned me and done God-knows-what, were you just going to let me go, knowing who you were?”
“You wouldn’t have seen my face,” the major insisted. “I was behind…”
“Behind me, yes,” Paul admitted, “but wearing so much of that cologne you smelled like all the brothels on Narbonne combined. You’re so inept at this.” He shook his head. “You leave a trail like a quick-slug. It will be no surprise to anyone who knows you that you received a fatal defensive wound while murdering your target.
“Or you can tell us who you report to and I’ll remove the offending funds from your account.”
“Go to Hell!”
Paul sighed. “Are you so sure we aren’t alre
ady there?” He stood, looking at Ed. “Well, if he isn’t going to comply, we only have one use for him. Let’s get him down to Paronius’ cabin and…”
He tumbled back onto the coffee table as the officer lurched out of his chair and raced across the room. The major leapt, getting his right foot onto the low railing overlooking the central atrium, and pushed off, easily escaping the artificial gravity field of the suite.
As the five men stared in surprise, their escaped prisoner writhed in agony as he floated toward the central column. His skin slowly turned blue and ice crystals formed around his eyes and mouth.
Paul chewed the inside of his lip for a few seconds. “Well, that was certainly unexpected.” He looked at his companions. “Do you think he was aware of the extreme cold and lack of oxygen out there, or did it come as a surprise?”
“Came as a surprise to me,” Ed admitted.
Paul nodded. The atmosphere in the central atrium was held close to the central column through a process that involved an artificially created energy gradient. It drew oxygen and energy away from most of the vast, open space.
“Oh, shit,” Mike exclaimed. “His wrists are still tied. It’s going to raise questions.”
Paul gave it a moment’s thought, then shook his head. “No, it’s just as though he’d been dropped in a vat of liquid nitrogen. He’ll shatter when he hits the garden. Shipboard security will have a hell of a time figuring it out — probably write it off as a drunken leap.”
He opened a holo screen and located the ship’s outgoing message queue. He hacked into the secure folder easily and found one message from a major in the Imperial Marines. Just to be sure, Paul deleted it.
No sense in letting a message get out that might identify Paul as a threat.
“What exactly were you hoping to get from him?” Ed asked.
“I’d originally planned to keep a discrete eye on him to see who he’s dealing with on Irricana,” Paul explained as he watched the major impact the garden, too far away to see the grisly details. No sound reached them across the airless space.
“Unfortunately, he developed suspicions about me and tried to… Well, we’ll never know what he had in mind, but he forced a change in the plan. I was hoping he might trade a little information in return for my abandoning a plan I never would have carried out in the first place.”
Rebels and Patriots (Imperium Cicernus Book 3) Page 5
