“You were bluffing about the contract killing?” Mike was surprised.
“Nothing to gain in actually carrying it through.” Paul shrugged. “I was just going to toss him off the balcony.”
“Well, I suppose it’s nice he did it on his own,” Ed mused. “Death before dishonor…”
“Well, he was a Marine, after all,” Paul agreed. He looked at Sandy. “Did you guys learn anything of interest?”
A grin. “We had a first rate jaeger-schnitzel at a place on the Grande Allee, drank a bit too much lager and talked to a hell of a lot of idiots.”
Al picked up the story. “Then we went looking for that falafel hut you mentioned.” He held up a hand. “Don’t give us that look,” he insisted. “We didn’t learn a damn thing in the first-class areas, but it’s the vendors on the promenade that have to pay attention to what’s going on if they want to earn out their franchises.
“They need to read the crowds and identify the potential customers if they want to stay in business. Some of those guys would ace the deep recon course — they’re perceptive.”
“All right,” Paul held up his hands. “I withdraw my earlier remark. What did you learn at the falafel hut?”
“First off, this guy’s had the franchise on the Gliese run for more than twenty years, so he’s got a good feel for what’s normal and what isn’t,” Sandy explained. “He took one look at us and pegged us as officers in the 538.”
“The 538 specifically, huh?”
“That’s right,” Sandy nodded. His eyes suddenly lit up when he saw the open whiskey bottle on the sideboard. He nodded inquiringly in its general direction.
“Help yourself.” Paul dropped onto a couch as Sandy and Al made a beeline for the bottle. “Grab flasks from the drawer and fill ‘em up while you’re at it. That stuff’s too pricey to leave any behind for the crew to guzzle.”
Sandy rooted through the drawer while Al poured two tumblers. “So he knew the 538’s been shifting troops to the Gliese system for a couple of years now.” Sandy said. “Used to be a couple hundred per trip, at first, but now it’s just a dozen or so. That many grunts — some of them are bound to spill a few beans.”
“And they’re always in civvies,” Al added. “He made us for Marines in a heartbeat and the way we’re dressed had him thinking we’re officers. He asked us if we’re planning to move the entire unit to Irricana.
“We acted as though we had no idea what he was talking about, with a nudge and a wink thrown in so we wouldn’t scare him, and he took great delight in showing us what he knew.”
The four Marines were all at pay-band twenty or above. That meant they all had the advanced Prisoner of Conflict course. A big part of POC training was resisting interrogation which, of necessity, involved an understanding of interrogation methods.
Paul was pleased with the results of their efforts, but he wasn’t terribly surprised.
He held up a hand to pause the conversation. Accessing his cranial processor, he opened the queue with the facial recognition queries from dinner and added in a request for logistical records from the 538th Marine Expeditionary Force.
He’d seen more than a few sneaky deployments over the years and the troops themselves were usually hidden with great care, but a unit with fifty thousand personnel was a complex beast. Somewhere, there were details that the conspirators might miss.
The new request would synch with home-world as they traversed the event horizon at Sumpter station.
“OK,” Paul said, picking up his tumbler. “We should be able to find corroborating evidence if the 538 is really involved, but what is it they’re involved in?”
He looked into the amber liquid. “That’s a question we’ll have to answer when we reach Irricana.”
Enemy Contact
Landing
The view from orbit was more interesting than usual. Most planets were a more-or-less homogeneous spread of wildlife and habitation, but Irricana was very different.
The station was situated above the capital, Vermillion, and it offered one of the strangest views in the Imperium. Because the northern pole was constantly aimed at the system’s three suns, a broad, doughnut-shaped band of vegetation circled the day-side.
On the edge bordering the central dead-zone, the foliage tended more toward the green shades and faded to reds, oranges and yellows toward the equator, where the light was fainter.
There were cities down there, Paul knew, but they were all too small and compact to be seen from orbit. Though many colony worlds had been built with quaint, separate buildings, the vicious climate on Irricana ruled out any arrangement that required walking around outside.
With proper planning and a constant eye to the weather, one could go outside, but it was far better to simply employ the standard Imperial arco-designs. The arcologies were massive structures containing entire cities within one shell.
On Irricana, the arcos were built mostly underground. Storms coming from the eye of the day-side were incredibly corrosive, carrying sand at hundreds of kilometers per hour. They could eat away the outer shell of a concrete arco in less than a decade.
And speaking of storms, he could see a circling, reddish-brown mass closing in on the section of the band where Vermillion lay. That was why they were all standing in the departure lounge, staring out the window rather than sitting in a descending shuttle.
Ed took a quick look around the lounge to see if anyone was standing too close to them, but most of the waiting passengers were in a nearby bar. He stepped a little closer to Paul. “You told us, back at Sumpter, that the ‘ghost grunts’ were coming from 538 MEF, but you never told us what the proof was.”
Paul chuckled. “For future reference, Ed?”
A shrug. “Never know when a fella might get caught up in a scheme,” he replied cheerfully. “The 488 is closely tied to the Nathaniel family, after all.”
The Nathaniels always had someone serving in the 488, usually at the rank of major or higher. Julius had commanded the units aviation group for five years and his younger brother, Tony, would be promoted into that role within two years.
Though there were rules preventing the noble families from suborning the Imperial Marines, there were always means of building a relationship with particular units.
The connection between the Nathaniels and 488 Marine Expeditionary Force went back to a time when the leading families were expected to provide troops for Imperial service.
Constantine Nathaniel had founded the unit as a naval infantry brigade five hundred years earlier, equipping the force at his own considerable expense. Eighty years later, the unit had been integrated during a reorganization of the Imperial Marine Corps, but the Nathaniels never forgot the unit’s origin.
Nor did the unit.
Not only did the 488 always have a Nathaniel serving in their officer cadre, they also got some of the best equipment and augmentation available, thanks largely to Nathaniel patronage.
Imperial apathy over military readiness had led to some surprising loopholes in the laws designed to keep the nobles’ hands off military units. The scarcity of official funding had led to a semi-official support system through various ‘associations’. The Marine Association and others like it, allowed public support, usually manifested in the form of better housing for military families.
Hadrian Nathaniel had caused one hell of a blip in the news cycle when he’d used the Marine Association to present the 488 with a brand new, Light-Hull, Voler-class planetary assault ship.
It may only have been half the cost of a super-dreadnaught, but there weren’t any companies left that could even build one of those monsters anymore. The LHV’s were now among the most expensive pieces of equipment the Imperium could produce and a private citizen had bought one for the 488.
It made them one of the few units that could deploy without relying on cooperation from the Navy.
Paul knew his patron was playing a dangerous game. Hadrian was now positioned as a go-to guy in the Gr
and Senate. If disaster loomed out on the fringes, the Grand Senate would see in Hadrian a man who could return to active duty and take the 488 to the trouble zone in a matter of hours.
It also made his colleagues nervous of his ultimate intentions. A senator who actively cultivated the loyalty of Imperial troops was a man to fear and that meant he had to live with a target on his back.
Paul broke out of his reverie as he noticed the shuttle’s flight crew running toward the boarding gate from the meteorological office.
“Flight IV-2332 to Vermillion will be departing in five minutes,” the dispatch system announced. “Passengers wishing to board this flight must pass the scanner within the next four minutes.”
Paul looked back out the window. What had been a dense storm now looked like a faint haze. The weather here could turn in an instant.
But the remnants of the storm were still there and he hated flying in abrasive conditions. He sighed, waving his comrades toward the gate.
Hopefully, they’d make it down in one piece.
The shuttle was half empty, most of the first-class passengers electing to finish their drinks while waiting for the next one. Paul and his group were able to have a ten-passenger compartment to themselves.
The passenger shuttles plying the orbits of Dangerous Weather Planets were always compartmented. In the event of an engine failure or a catastrophic weather incident, the compartments would be ejected, relying on their own emergency lifters and, as a last resort, parachutes.
Irricana was near the top of the scale, as DWP’s went, and more than a few shuttles had been lost to a sudden blow of hot, abrasive sand.
Ed sealed the hatch and strapped himself in. “So,” he began, resuming the conversation, “the proof? What did you find in the data?”
There was a distant clunk as the shuttle broke umbilicals, and Paul was suddenly glad of the chance to think of anything but flying through a hostile ecosystem in a three-hundred-year-old shuttle.
“There were a few things,” he began. “They were clever about it, but there are just too many details when you try to hide three quarters of an expeditionary force.”
Sandy had been looking out the portal at their destination, but he turned wide eyes on Paul. “Three quarters?” he blurted. “That’s tens of thousands…” He trailed off in shock.
“I figure they have a couple of battalions in barracks at most,” Paul replied. “Keeping the lights on and making it look like they’re all still there.”
“But how do you know that?” Ed demanded.
“For one thing, there’s the maintenance records.” Paul gave his restraint harness a quick tug as they hit the edge of the atmosphere. “There’s a constant flow of new parts for any unit — you guys know that — and the broken parts from equipment usage in a force that large always conforms to a statistical pattern.
“The inflow of new parts has continued to fit that pattern,” he continued, “but the outflow of broken parts to refurbishing contractors has dropped to a level indicating activity at a battalion level, two battalions tops.
“I found that by tracing an increased income in their parts flow. They’re still shipping out the expected number of parts, but they’re not going for refurb; they’re being sold back to the original supplier for nearly the full price.”
“So, the parts aren’t being used because the equipment’s not there to break down?” Sandy asked.
“That’s what I thought at first,” Paul agreed, “but their circuit usage is right where it should be.”
The Marines nodded. Most of their equipment had multiple redundancies built in because the electronics had a high failure rate. Everything from personal weapons to assault craft had organic circuitry that had to stand up to heavy abuse, and those circuits had a limited lifespan once taken out of an incubator and installed in an operational system.
An assault craft would go through twenty circuits a month, just sitting in the hold of an LHV-class carrier.
“So it’s just the personnel that came out here, not even sidearms,” Paul emphasized. “What the hell are they doing out here?”
“How do we find out?” Ed asked.
Paul risked a look out the window, regretting it immediately as the reddish haze proved the storm was still out there. He shuddered. “I know the local police commissioner.” He looked at Ed, mostly to get his eyes off the homicidal weather. “He used to be my boss.”
Catching Up
Paul led his small team off the shuttle the instant the hull doors were unlocked. He wiped perspiration from the back of his neck as he moved toward the exits. The air was cool and, surprisingly, moister than he expected, having just flown through a sand storm.
The upper surface port was located at the border between the commercial and residential levels, centered in the middle of the huge core space. A network of bridges connected the terminal to the city proper.
Vermillion was shaped like a giant cone sunk point-first into the ground. The top two hundred meters were residential, a huge ring, two-kilometers in diameter, where three levels of parkland provided citizens a taste of the varied plant-life of the Imperium.
The commercial and business districts sat beneath and they took up the next five hundred meters, the cone narrowing to roughly one kilometer in diameter at the top edge of the industrial sector.
It was the industrial region, at the bottom of the cone, that provided the city with its life-blood. It recycled the air and water, but it also opened onto hundreds of tunnels leading to the region’s countless mines.
There were only two reasons for a colony in the Gliesan system — a bulwark against aggression from the technically advanced Grays, and erbium. The erbium mines on Irricana were keeping the computer and data transmission industries alive.
Without erbium doping, the power required to push information through glass and crystal would increase dramatically. The resulting heat would melt the fragile systems.
There were other sources of erbium, but this world was the biggest producer. More than three quarters of the current market came from this planet.
The occasional mining franchise was awarded from time to time for a competitor to develop a new world’s resources, but they were almost always bought out by the consortium running Irricana.
The few who had the clout to evade their clutches usually found supplies artificially expensive and the markets rather dry. Circuit producers preferred the lower-priced Irricanan erbium, even if it put them at the consortium’s mercy.
Paul stepped over to the railing that ringed the station and looked down into the misty depths. From this height it was impossible to see the industrial sectors.
He took a look around at the bridge network, hanging like a spider web between the residential and commercial zones. It was a hotbed of enterprise. Small shops, cafes and open-air restaurants covered every possible space. Even the mag-lev tracks used by the passenger trains were put to use.
He’d been watching a train as it approached the shuttle terminal and he couldn’t figure out how it would actually reach the structure. As he watched, a spice vendor concluded a transaction, rolled up his samples and dodged out of the way only seconds before the train roared past.
All along the route, shop keepers were vacating their spots, just moments before disaster. As the train passed, they flowed back into place like tidal birds chasing the waves.
Paul grinned. “This is the best place to start looking for my old boss.”
“Yeah,” Ed grunted noncommittally, “or you could just call his office — he is the top cop down here, right? He shouldn’t be all that hard to find…”
“Shouldn’t,” Paul admitted, “but, for me, he would be. It’s best if we just surprise him.”
He started at the center, near the station, and began checking out the spice vendors. They seemed to concentrate near the center of the bridge networks and Paul had a hunch that the type of spices gave an indication of the kind of restaurants one might find farther out.
He found what he was looking for and started working his way out toward the city proper. After a hundred meters he approached a local, a young woman with a small child. “Pardon me, ma'am,” he began politely. “Could you tell me where the best green curry might be found?”
She shrugged and he moved on, selecting a young couple. “Pardon me, folks, but could you tell me which shop makes the best green curry?”
“Slumming it, are you?” the young man asked with a grin. “Not many folks of ‘means’ bother to eat out here at a walk-shop. He leaned in a little, lowering his voice to a mock-conspiratorial whisper. “They have no idea what they’re missing!”
He straightened, returning to a normal tone. “Seriously, though, if I tell you, you’ll keep it to yourself?”
Paul squinted at him. “Why the big secret?”
“I’ll tell you why,” the young woman declared. “If word gets out, the place will get trendy and overrun with rich folk. The prices will go up and we won’t be able to eat there anymore.”
Paul nodded. “Fair enough. We don’t know many people here anyway, so it’s not like we’ll ruin it for you.”
The man regarded him for a few seconds, then sighed. “OK, it’s over that way.” He pointed past Paul. “Take that diagonal bridge over there and then double back for fifty meters or so. It’s a place called Aunty’s.”
Paul thanked them and moved off to look for the restaurant.
Ed was walking alongside him. “Green curry?”
Paul chuckled. “The man we’re looking for makes a virtue of predictability. There are a limited number of dishes he likes to eat, and he tends to return to the same place for each one.
“If Aunty’s really is the best, then it’ll be the place he goes when he’s craving…” He stopped walking and almost fell over as Al bumped into him.
Rebels and Patriots (Imperium Cicernus Book 3) Page 6
