They’d found Aunty’s and he was pretty sure the man sitting with his back to him was Morgan Alexander. Two men sat at an adjacent table, but they weren’t eating. They’d be the security detail.
Paul shivered, his thoughts reaching back across the years to his time on TC-465. Morgan had been a junior officer back then, in charge of ten men, including specialist Paul Grimm.
Then things had started changing, and a mentor became an opponent.
Paul took a deep breath and walked over to the table. The man looked up and frowned for a second. His eyes grew wide and his security detail came to their feet, hands reaching inside their jackets. It was Morgan, all right.
Morgan made a subtle gesture and the two men returned to their seats.
Paul gestured to the empty chair across from Morgan, raising an eyebrow. Morgan nodded his assent and Paul settled into the chair with a sigh. “You’re looking good, Morgan. Done well for yourself, I see.” He cast a glance at the residential levels that surrounded them.
“Surprised you aren’t back on home-world helping your little friend weasel out of the jam he’s gotten himself into,” Morgan drawled. “Or are you selling him down the river as well?”
“You’re still angry I called you up in front of the Provost Marshal?” Paul gave him a tired look. “I didn’t ask to be promoted over your head…”
“And you used to bitch about patronage even more than I did,” Morgan cut him off. “At least you did until young Julius showed up with all his wealthy connections.”
“And I suppose you would have refused a chance at promotion?” Paul arched an eyebrow. “I can see it all now: ‘No, thanks. I’m happy having no prospects. I’ll just keep on shoveling shit like I’ve always done…’”
“Six months in rank as a lieutenant,” Morgan stated flatly, “and then you’re my captain?” He looked away, into the crowd. “I always said the system’s broken.”
“Well, of course it’s broken,” Paul retorted irritably. “It’s been broken for centuries now, so we have to find ways around it or settle for what we have.” He looked at Morgan for a moment, then shook his head, ever so slightly.
“Matter of fact, I suppose you did turn down a promotion, back on TC-465.”
“Running the homicide cell out in the alien quarter?” Morgan snorted. “You call that a promotion? I’d still have been a lieutenant, and I’d have had to put up with all the crazy shit those little goolies get up to…”
“It was a promotion, you halfwit,” Paul insisted. “Captain Thule had Flinter’s Disease. He hadn’t been informed yet, but he would have been taken off active status within the month. You would’ve been the senior man in rank out there if you hadn’t been a massive jackass, sticking around to sabotage me.”
He caught the waiter’s eye, pointing at Morgan’s drink and holding up five fingers. “It was the perfect way to get you promoted. Nobody with the money to purchase a captaincy would be willing to serve in the alien quarter.”
Morgan stared. “You might have said something…”
A shrug. “Didn’t know he was sick at the time. They just told me you’d be running the shop within five weeks. You and I weren’t exactly on speaking terms. I figured you’d be happy to get out from under me. After, when you were stuck with me, I didn’t figure it would do any good for you to know you’d pissed away a captaincy.”
“Yeah, well…” Morgan groused, “you’re still an ass.”
Paul nodded judiciously. “It seems to be the consensus.”
“So, what brings the Eye all the way out to Irricana?”
Paul wasn’t entirely sure he could trust Morgan but he figured the man would’ve been more friendly if he were playing some devious game. He decided to take a plunge, since he had no other potential allies on this world. “There’s something going on out here, right under your nose.”
Morgan chuckled. “Oh no! ‘Something going on’ on Irricana?” He shook his head. “Listen, sonny, I have two million Humans in this hole-in-the-ground, another eight million spread around the other habitable-zone cities and then there’s at least sixty million alien laborers living in homes they dig off the sides of the mine tunnels.
“There’s always ‘something going on’ under my nose, so you’ll have to give me a little more to go on.”
“538 MEF has been sneaking troops out here for the last couple of years.”
Morgan stopped in the middle of raising a mouthful of curry rolled in a piece of flatbread. He gestured at Paul with the morsel. “How many, why are they coming here and how do you know?”
“Looks like they left behind a battalion or two to keep up appearances; the rest are here.”
“That’s got to be at least thirty thousand, closer to…” Morgan trailed off, staring off into the hazy distance above the awning that covered the kitchen.
“Jiàn tā de gui,” he muttered quietly. “Would you say it’s close to thirty-seven thousand five hundred personnel?”
Paul had waved his four comrades to sit. He’d just indicated an order for a round of green curry by catching the owner’s eye and pointing at Morgan’s food when the oddly specific question was asked. “Yes. Pretty much exactly. Where did you get that particular number?”
Morgan sat back, his food forgotten. “Couple of years ago, folks started going missing. Thousands at first and then it trailed off to a trickle.”
He looked absently at Paul as he talked. “Round about that time is when we started having incidents.”
“Incidents?” The food arrived but Paul didn’t notice.
Morgan nodded. “Bombings, mostly. Transmission arrays, infrastructure disruptions, shuttles in transit…”
“Terrorists?” Paul suggested. “Secessionists?”
Morgan released a short, sharp sigh. “That’s what our idiot governor seems to think. Balthazar Thatcher,” he spat out the name. “Sharp as a bag of rocks and half as pretty.”
“I met his relative on the way out here,” Paul advised, “Paronius.”
“His brother,” Morgan confirmed. “He does come in handy. Makes Balthazar look smarter by comparison. The two of them are so plug-stupid, they’d be living in the mines if they didn’t have Irricana’s economy to embezzle from.”
“So, not terrorism?” Paul nudged him back to the topic.
“I’d be surprised.” Morgan took a drink of his ale. “None of it is ever serious. Very few civilian casualties, and the damage to infrastructure is always easily fixed within hours.”
It did seem odd. When a terrorist attacked your infrastructure, it was an attempt at reducing public confidence in the administration. A short interruption in service was more likely to draw attention to how well the government was responding to the unrest.
“Just had an attack on the HSVL a couple of days ago,” Morgan went on. “They used a small shaped charge to blow a hole in a maintenance hatch, but they only blew the inner hatch. Maintenance sealed the outer hatch and replaced the damaged one from the inside. Total down time was twenty-six minutes.
“One guy got killed because he hit the air before the safeties could stop his vehicle, but he was the only casualty, aside from the ‘bomber’ himself.”
Paul caught the inflection. “You don’t think he was the bomber?”
Morgan shook his head. “Real scumbag,” he growled. “I’d have killed him myself and slept easy the next night. He wasn’t the sort of guy who falls in with idealists and he didn’t have the brains to be trusted with explosives.”
“Just a scapegoat,” Paul mused, “to throw you off the scent?”
Morgan waved off the owner, who was gesturing at his drink. “It’s exactly what happened,” he insisted, grinning. “I’d bet your life on it.”
“Not your own?”
“If I had to, but I’d rather bet yours,” Morgan replied cheerfully. “I think this is the key to all our missing citizens. The Thatchers insist they’re running off to join the secessionists, but we didn’t even have a hint of secess
ion until two years ago. It’s just too sudden. It built up way too fast.”
“They’re not joining the secessionists.” Paul had worked with Morgan for years and he could still follow his train of thought easily. “They’re covering them. Thousands of scapegoats…”
“Except there are no secessionists,” Morgan insisted. “Why hide where they’re really coming from unless they’re up to something?”
“But what?” Paul still hadn’t noticed his food. “It can’t be an attempt to break the Gliese system out of the Imperium.”
Morgan raised his eyebrows as he nodded. “Even the Thatchers aren’t that foolish. Sure you can take a system, with enough force, but the Imperial Navy would show up sooner or later… or the Marines.”
“The Marines are already here,” Paul pointed out. “At least, the personnel are.”
Morgan nodded absently. “They just need a reason to come here officially. They can smuggle the troops out here, but ships and weapon systems are a little harder to hide.”
“So they’re providing their own justification by posing as secessionists.” Paul finally looked down at his food. He pulled loose a piece of flatbread and scooped up some of the aromatic mixture. “Kick up enough fuss and whoever’s behind this can have Kinsey request a full deployment.”
Morgan grunted. “And with your pal in prison for mass murder, the Nathaniels will be out of the running as the saviors of the Imperium. Kinsey will ask for the 538, since he officially has half the senior staff here as advisers anyway.”
Paul finished chewing. “This is so much better than that garbage you used to eat on TC-465.”
Morgan replied with a less than helpful suggestion of an auto-reproductive nature.
“So that gets 538 MEF out here, with their equipment.” Paul took a drink. “But what the hell are they going to do, once they’re here?”
“You’re talking to the wrong guy,” Morgan managed to say before belching. “My jurisdiction ends at the edge of the atmosphere. If you want to know what’s going on out in the black, you’ll need to talk to Kinsey, for form’s sake, then go have a quiet chat with Colonel Urbica.”
He stood, his guards following his lead. “I’m going to make a few new inquiries, now that I have a better idea of what’s going on.”
Paul nodded. “We’ll go visit the local forces.”
Morgan walked around to Paul’s side of the table and stopped, facing away into the crowds on the bridge. “Arresting an Imperial inspector would be problematic,” he said quietly, “so keep your nose clean, or your organs will end up in the under-market.”
Paul looked over his shoulder just enough to see his old co-worker in his peripheral vision. “So, I’m still an ass, huh?”
Morgan simply chuckled as he walked away.
“And here I thought we’d get a chance to see the sights,” Ed muttered.
“You will,” Paul returned to his food. “Same as on the ship, pair up and be tourists. Talk to people, go everywhere. I’ll put enough money in your accounts to cover food and lodging.
“We need to figure out what’s going on down here. They could be pulling these shenanigans anywhere, but they chose this planet, so I need you to keep your eyes and ears open. If thirty-seven thousand people have gone missing, it’s bound to be a popular topic.”
“And you’ll be visiting the local forces?” Sandy had finished his own plate and pulled Morgan’s half-finished lunch over.
“I will, and it’ll go easier if I don’t have to explain four Marines from the 488 to everybody.” He found the owner, paid the bill – including Morgan’s meal beacause the man had stiffed him with his own check – and started making his way back toward the surface station.
He fought down the growing unease. The Nathaniels were counting on him to solve this riddle but there was never a guarantee of solving any particular case. Julius’ life was hanging in the balance and Paul had no idea how much time he had left.
He knew conspiracies became harder to conduct as you added more players. This one had thousands. He took a calming breath as he moved through the crowd.
The answers were here.
He’d better find them.
In the Enemy Camp
Paul looked out the side portal of the Naval, ship-to-ship shuttle. Officially, traffic was kept out of a Naval vessel’s exclusion zone for security reasons, but it quickly became evident, as you approached, that there was a secondary reason.
With vessels like the INV Dauntless, the Imperium was showing its age. The closer you got, the worse a super-dreadnaught began to look.
The newest in the class was several centuries old. They had been through a few refits over the decades but their exteriors bore the scars of a hundred fights and a thousand small accidents.
An almost uniform patina of damage and discoloration testified to the long service of the massive ship.
At a distance, she was awe-inspiring but, up close, she showed a critical weakness in Imperial politics. Not that anyone dared to speak such a thought out loud.
They passed the nav shields and settled on the deck of the main receiving hangar. Paul joined the back of the debarkation line, ignoring the curious glances of the crewmen returning from shore leave. He knew the rumor of an inspector from the Eye being aboard would spread quickly enough, but he could at least slow that spread by waiting till the rest had passed the officer-of-the-deck before explaining himself.
He waited while the last crewman saluted the emperor’s crest at the aft end of the hangar and received permission to come aboard. Paul stepped forward and, since he no longer wore a uniform, turned to face aft and stood at attention for a few seconds.
He executed a smart left turn and came to attention once more, facing the OOD. “I request permission to come aboard, ma’am. Inspector Paul Grimm, ICI.”
The ICI had broad jurisdictional powers and an inspector from the Eye could assume control over a military case for almost any reason. As a rule, Naval officers had the good sense to cooperate with the ICI, but it never hurt to show respect.
Paul always observed the proper procedures when dealing with the military.
The lieutenant commander nodded. “Permission granted.” She waved him through.
Paul was instantly transported back to his years as a military policeman, even more so than during his meeting with Morgan.
In some ways, the military was almost like an alternate universe. It had its own internal economy, its own rules and punishment, and its own smells.
The scents of hydraulic fluid, lubricants, and sweat mingled with the metallic tint of untreated deck plating. Paul felt the unease of commanding his former boss, almost as fresh as the day he’d brought Morgan up on charges of dereliction. He even noticed a sneaking dread of the usual queue of data-work documenting the various crimes of TC-465.
He shivered, trying to shake off the past, and headed for the main starboard passageway. He followed the passageway aft for a few hundred feet until he came to the central monorail line.
Several crewmen waited on the platform and, from the sound of their banter, they were commuting home after completing their duty shift. He followed them onto a three-car rapid-transit unit, grabbing a strap as they lurched into motion.
Three stops later, only one crewman remained, and he showed no interest as the civilian exited the train in Marine country.
Paul placed his hand on a screen by the transit exit and a Marine guard waved him in. “Sir, you’re now in a class two zone. Your safety is your own responsibility. Are we clear on that?”
Paul nodded. “No problem, Lance-Corporal. I know the drill.” He nodded toward the Marine hangar. “Must be pretty quiet when you’re just doing an advisory mission.”
The Marine grinned. “Quiet as a temperance meeting on Donnegal Six, sir!”
Chuckling, Paul headed straight for the hangar entrance. Marine hangars on a monster like the INV Dauntless were designed to carry an entire expeditionary force, but this ship only held a s
mall detachment.
There was a pretty good cross-section of the ships used by a Marine force. Five dropships sat in a row near the barracks entrances. The squat, large-engined ships were so ugly they actually looked good in a twisted sort of way. They each carried eighty grunts in EVA suits and full packs.
Next to the dropships were two gunboats. The gunboats consisted of a twelve-man hull wrapped around an antimatter cannon. The antimatter weapon fired 30mm rounds designed to contain a minute amount of antimatter.
The explosive yield of the tiny payload was the equivalent of a thousand tons of TNT. The source of the antimatter itself was something of a mystery. Naval logistics ships left through the Solitude wormhole under heavy escort, returning several weeks later to offload their deadly cargo at TC-122-b.
TC-122-a had been inadvertently converted to an asteroid field in the early years of the antimatter program. The official response from the Navy at the time had been along the lines of ‘Mistakes were made — let’s move on.’
Eight ship destroyers were sitting in a neat row, closest to the launch doors. The ship destroyers were lightly armored and, like the gunships, consisted of a twelve-man hull. The main difference from the gunships lay in the ship destroyer’s primary weapon.
The 155mm launcher in the central axis of the small ship fired a much more devastating round than the main armament on the gunships. At an equivalency of twenty-six kilotons of TNT, the ship destroyers could wipe entire cities out of existence with a single shot.
A row of smaller, sleek craft were suspended from the ceiling. The Salamanders were used for amphibious operations and their main armament consisted of torpedoes. They used conventional warheads because the short ranges of underwater weaponry combined with water’s ability to transmit force made anything more powerful into a suicide weapon.
Of course, being Marine ships, they all bristled with an array of automated close-in weapon systems. ‘You never know when you might find yourself alone and surrounded.’ Paul remembered Julius’ response when hearing the vessels compared to a cactus.
He shuddered again. Julius was alone and surrounded. Paul needed to figure this out as quickly as possible and see if he could find the leverage to save his old friend.
Rebels and Patriots (Imperium Cicernus Book 3) Page 7
