by Dan Moren
“Ah,” said Danzig. “The Black Watch.” Leaning over the desk, he tapped a few commands into his terminal; a holographic screen popped up, oriented toward Kovalic. “It’s a self-styled resistance movement, based out of Raleigh City. Estimated membership of a couple hundred, though most of those are casual, drawn from a street gang called the Tartans. The core group of the Watch is only about twenty-five people, led by a man called De Valera.”
Kovalic had come across the name in some file or other. “He’s been at this for a while, hasn’t he?”
Danzig nodded. “From what we can tell, he started the group himself twenty years ago, shortly after the occupation began, and we believe he’s continued running it to this day.”
“You ‘believe?’”
A slight flush crossed Danzig’s face. “We actually don’t know much about him.”
“Vitals?”
“No.”
“A picture?”
“Not as such.”
Kovalic drummed his fingers on the table. A ghost, then. Staying hidden for that long wasn’t impossible, but it sure as hell wasn’t easy. “What do you have on him, then?”
Danzig keyed something into his terminal and pages of text spooled across the display. “Angry tirades, mostly, posted on various networks over the last two decades, all of them insisting that Caledonia must rise up and free itself from Illyrican tyranny by any means necessary—though, as you can see, it appears force is preferred.”
The text was replaced by a series of images, each showing the remains of what had clearly been buildings, but whose twisted, charred metal now resembled abstract sculpture more than architecture. “The Watch’s chief modus operandi consists of attacks on Illyrican military and occasionally government targets, mainly bombings using crude but effective improvised devices.
“Under De Valera, the Black Watch have killed nearly three hundred people over the last twenty years, more than a few of them Caledonian ‘sympathizers’ who happened to work at those facilities.”
“Christ,” murmured Kovalic, shaking his head. He knew several career soldiers and operatives who didn’t have that high a body count put together. A ghost and a butcher. Not a good combination. “How the hell has Eyes not nailed this guy?” He’d seen enough of the Imperial Intelligence Service’s work up close and personal to have a grudging respect for his counterparts on the other side … on a purely professional level, of course.
Danzig removed his glasses and wiped them with a cloth. “I wouldn’t be surprised if IIS finds itself … hampered in that regard. The Black Watch claims it takes its mandate from the populace and, despite the number of Caledonians killed in their attacks, the locals still aren’t particularly willing to turn on them. De Valera may be a monster, but he’s their monster, and he can be quite the charmer when it comes to patriotic rhetoric. If you’d like, I can provide you with copies of his manifestos and statements of responsibility.”
Kovalic just shook his head, trying to ignore the roiling of his stomach. “Thanks. I think I’ll pass—I’ve heard enough justifications of this particular brand of bullshit.”
Dismissing the screen, Danzig tilted his head to one side. “And here I’d have thought you’d be a fan of taking the fight to the Illyricans.”
“I don’t object to the Black Watch’s motives,” said Kovalic, his chest tightening. If he hadn’t joined the military, chances were he’d have been doing something pretty similar back on Earth right now, though he hoped with somewhat more restraint. “I object to their methods. Killing innocent bystanders—your own people—and brushing it off as ‘collateral damage’ doesn’t really inspire my admiration. This De Valera asshole sounds like a real piece of work.”
“Well,” said Danzig. “It seems we agree on something, at least.”
“I’ll try not to get all mushy about it.”
Danzig cleared his throat and looked back down at the stacks of files on his desk. “If there’s nothing else …”
“There is one more thing,” said Kovalic, leaning forward in his chair. “As long as we’re on the subject of security, do you have an ID on your opposite number in IIS?”
Danzig’s eyebrows arched. “Why do you ask?”
Kovalic shrugged. “No offense to your professional,” he paused to glance around the room significantly, “capacity, but the Illyricans have been here longer, and the situation with the Black Watch means they need to have their ears to the ground.” And, he didn’t add aloud, even if they can’t catch this De Valera bastard, they still probably have more on him than we do—not that that would be hard, apparently. The trick was getting them to share nicely.
Danzig grimaced, but once again leaned over and punched in the request at his terminal. The holographic screen above the desk shimmered and displayed a dossier.
“His name’s Shankar—Major Jagat Shankar, Imperial Intelligence Service, Section D.” The picture showed a man with a broad, jowly face, a nut-brown complexion, and a neat white mustache and goatee that were much too small for his generous countenance. “Ranking IIS officer in Raleigh City for about five years; prior to that, he was in counter-intelligence on Earth.”
Danzing skimmed through the record, summarizing as he went. “He’s an effective, if not particularly exacting officer, and a man of routine. Commutes into the office at almost the same time every day, takes lunch at the same time, leaves at the same time. Follows the same route every day. On Fridays, he stops for a drink at a local establishment—a pint of Bowman’s stout, just the one—and then goes home. He’s married with three children, the oldest of whom is at university back on Earth.” Danzig shrugged. “CID doesn’t have him expressly marked as a threat.”
Kovalic eyed the picture and just barely contained the urge to snort at Danzig’s assessment. “Oh, he’s a threat all right. You just haven’t gotten close enough to make him react. Every good intelligence officer—especially a highly-ranked one—knows that the opposite side’s keeping tabs on them.” Danzig colored under Kovalic’s sideways glance, but the operative steamed forward before the other man could get in a word edgewise. “Routines make surveillance teams comfortable, but more than that, they make them sloppy. You never know how the bear will react until you actually poke it with a stick.” He pressed a few keys on Danzig’s terminal and had a secure copy of the dossier sent to his comm.
Down to work, then. Cracking his knuckles, Kovalic leaned forward to peer at the screen. He glanced up at Danzig, hovering nearby. “Sorry, I need to file a quick report. Classified, of course,” he added apologetically. “If you could just give me the room for a minute?” He smiled. “Wouldn’t want to break protocol.”
Danzig’s expression froze on his face, lips pressed together in a thin line. Without another word, he spun on his heel and marched stiffly from his own office.
When the door closed behind him, Kovalic leaned back in his chair and allowed himself a brief, quiet chuckle before opening up a new message to the general.
CHAPTER FIVE
From space, Caledonia was a subtle patchwork of different shades of brown, from the almost gray of its ore-laden mountains to the rust brown, dried blood color of its scrublands. But the dark blue-green of its seas broke the monotony, lending just enough color to turn it into something more than a clod of dirt: an entire world.
Granted, Eli hadn’t spent much time looking at his homeworld from space on this trip—he’d been too busy concentrating on staying calm, despite the cold sweat trickling down the side of his head. It hadn’t been made any easier by the throbbing headache and persistent dry mouth that were his reward for having sobered up. His hands, white-knuckled, had barely let up off the armrests for the entire eight-hour ride from Jericho Station. Pretty sure my cramps have cramps.
So he couldn’t conceal his relief when the commercial transport finally set down at the Raleigh City Spaceport, bouncing slightly as its landing struts flexed under the pressure. The engines whirred to a stop, leaving only a brief respite of silence
before the passengers started unbuckling and wrestling their luggage out of the overhead storage compartments.
Everyone except for Eli. He took a deep breath as the lights came back on and ran a shaky hand through his hair, recently cropped short by a Commonwealth military barber. He was still getting used to the bristly feeling, like petting a cat the wrong way.
“First time?” asked the man who’d been seated beside him, a portly older gentleman. His bushy eyebrows wriggled like fuzzy caterpillars.
“It’s, uh, been a while.”
The man nodded knowingly. “You coming or going?”
Eli thought about it. “Neither, really. Well, both I guess.”
“Complicated, huh?”
“Yeah, you might say that.”
As the passengers filed off, Eli slung his military duffle—on loan from the Commonwealth’s stores—over his shoulder and traipsed out after them. His current clothes had been borrowed from the quartermaster on the Indefatigable as well: a casual jacket, shirt, and trousers.
At least he’d gotten to keep his boots. They’d lasted from his days in the Illyrican Navy all the way through five years of captivity on Sabaea, and he wasn’t about to give them up now. If the Sabaeans had had their way, the boots would have been tossed on the nearest rubbish heap—just in case they’d contained a secret weapon or been molded from a highly explosive resin—but Eli had decided to put up a fuss. Not for any sinister reason, but because they were comfortable and he’d figured the Sabaeans wouldn’t have much interest in keeping him comfortable. Small victories.
Stepping onto the jetway, he glanced through one of the small portholes that looked out onto the tarmac. For a moment he was fifteen again, peering through the chain-link fences around the spaceport on a blistering summer day, smelling the fuel and baking asphalt while feeling in his chest the rumble of transports and freighters arriving or taking off. The only ships at Raleigh City Spaceport were civilian; Westenfeldt, the main Illyrican military base for the region, was thirty kilometers west and its perimeter was highly defended. If he’d gotten as far as the fence there, he probably would have been disintegrated.
Since the duffle bag was all he had, and all it contained were a few more sets of clothes, he walked straight to the immigration control station.
“Good day, sir,” the young woman behind the desk said as he approached. “May I see your identification card, please?”
Eli was unreasonably proud that his hand didn’t tremble when he handed the papers over. Much as he’d worried about getting through security, it seemed easy enough after the flight itself. He put on a smile, hoping it didn’t look too sickly.
The woman scanned the ID card and inspected her monitor, glancing briefly at Eli’s face for confirmation. He kept the idiot grin fixed in place. I’m Marcus Wellington. I’m Marcus Wellington. I’m Marcus Wellington.
“Welcome home, Mr. Wellington,” she said brightly, handing his card back. Holding his breath, he kept smiling as she continued. “I hope you find everything just as you left it.”
Wish I could say the same. He nodded to her and trucked his gear through the checkpoint.
At the bottom of the ramp, the automatic doors of the terminal slid aside, and the heat rolled over him in a thick, heavy wave. During the day, Caledonia’s capital region was sweltering nearly year round—not something he’d missed, despite his frigid time at Davidson Station. With a sigh, he looked around the barren arrivals terminal.
So, here I am … Now what?
The air whooshed out of Eli like somebody had let go of a balloon. He’d been running at full steam since the shuttle had picked him and Fielding up from Sabaea twenty-four hours earlier. Between the stomach-churning flight and the lack of any alcohol it had all been a bit hazy, but the heat and the dirt had dragged him back to reality. And in that reality, he wasn’t entirely sure what he was supposed to do next.
Not that he’d expected to find a guy in a suit holding a sign with his name on it. During Fielding’s curt briefing on the Indefatigable, he’d only said that he or someone on his team would make contact once Eli was on-world, but neither a time nor a place had been specified. The briefing had also been short on leads to locate Eamon; that, as the operative had reminded Eli, was why he was here after all.
Only where the hell am I supposed to start? What information the Commonwealth had on his brother could only charitably be called “thin.” They’d tried all the usual planetary databases, but even the vaunted efficiency of the Imperium had done little to improve the spotty nature of Caledonian bureaucracy. People frequently slipped through the cracks of the system, whether by accident or by design, and while there had been records of Eamon’s birth and meager public school attendance, the system lost track of him after his juvenile arrests.
As for Meghann, the Commonwealth operatives had promised that Eli would get a chance to see her as soon as he’d located his brother. Fielding and his boss were holding all the cards on this one, which didn’t make the pit in Eli’s stomach any smaller. In his head, he could still hear the message they’d played back, her pleas for him to come home.
Home. He’d been avoiding thinking about it, largely because he’d sworn that he would never go back to that damn shoebox of an apartment. He fancied he could still hear the echo of the door slamming behind him from the last time he’d walked out, his father’s voice—scratched and hoarse from years of work in the mines—shouting that Eli would never cross the threshold as long as Connor Brody drew breath. Well, that much held true.
His mother and Meghann had been the only ones to say goodbye; he could still remember his sister clinging tightly to him, trying not to cry. His mother had slipped him a sandwich she’d made him for the trip: ham and cheese, his favorite.
But all of that had paled beside Eamon’s reaction. At least his father had said something. By that point Eamon had been spending a lot more time with the guys his own age; they worked in the mines by day, then at night it was off across town to get up to who knew what mischief. His rhetoric had gotten increasingly fiery as well, constantly harping on about the “unlawful occupation” of their world and “oppression of the masses.” Eli had been surprised his brother had managed not to spit every time he’d mentioned the Illyricans.
So when Eli had told him he was going to the academy, he’d expected an outburst. A rant. Perhaps even a knock-down, drag-out fight. He’d braced himself for the worst. But in the end Eamon hadn’t said a word—just looked right through him, like he didn’t even know him, then turned around and walked away. When he thought about it, Eli realized that he couldn’t even remember the last words his brother had said to him.
Eli shook his head, feeling a weight descend in his stomach. He was going to have to go home; it was the only lead he had.
And even that wasn’t particularly solid. His parents had died while he was at the academy—a skimmer accident—and in one of her subsequent messages Meghann had told him that Eamon wanted to find the two of them a new place to live. Eli assumed his brother had followed through on that at some point during the last five years. Still, somebody from the old neighborhood might remember Eamon or know where he lived. With any luck, Eli and, hopefully, Meghann, would be off this dirtball in no time.
Hoisting his bag, he joined the queue climbing aboard the transpo bus to the city.
It was about a twenty-minute trip from the spaceport into Raleigh City proper. The dirt-caked windows of the transpo bus didn’t offer a very good view. Some might laugh and say that there wasn’t much to see anyway, but Eli disagreed: dirt-covered though they might be, he’d always felt the hills and scrublands of Caledonia had held a kind of austere, desolate beauty. At least, the parts that had remained unspoiled by people’s attempts to strip mine them for every bit of their worth. He’d been born on Caledonia’s rocky plains and they remained the most wide open space he’d ever lived; after all those years of cramped quarters on spaceships and military bases he could feel the tug of freedom stronger tha
n ever. It was the same wide openness that had drawn him to spaceflight—but without the whole, you know, gut-wrenching fear.
The transpo bus’s speed began to decrease as they hit the city’s outer limits. The yellowish light that filtered through the windows started to flicker into shadows as they passed between taller, manmade structures. Everything closed in around them and that feeling of openness was replaced once again by pressure pushing in from every side.
Eli held onto the cool metal bar atop the seat in front of him as the bus bounced through the cramped city streets. After another few minutes, the vehicle shuddered to a stop and an automated voice announced that they had arrived at the city transit hub. Eli retrieved his bag and stepped down into the terminal.
It was late afternoon in Raleigh City, about four o’clock. The sun—or what you could see of it through the haze—was sinking on the horizon, and over the next couple hours the streets would bustle with those on their way home from work. For now, though, the city was eerily quiet.
Eli’s eyes were drawn upward to the glowing names and logos of the most prominent Illyrican and Caledonian firms splashed across their high-rises: Thane Systems, Forth Technologies, the Imperial Bank and Trust, Galway Corporation. The skyline had changed shape, acquired a few new buildings, like an old friend with a new haircut. He ran his fingers through his own hair again, much as he could given its shortness, and gave a rueful snort. We’ve all changed, I guess.
Craning his neck even further skyward, Eli caught the familiar brightly glowing points in the sky, even in the late afternoon light: not stars, but the orbital ship-building facilities that drove so much of Caledonia’s life and work. Since the occupation, Caledonia had become the primary ship construction and refitting outpost for the Illyrican military, though it still produced many of the galaxy’s commercial ships as well.
In spite of himself, he found a smile crossing his face. Stars had been hard to come by once the Brody family had moved to the city. So the planet’s two moons—erratic Aran, whose orbit regularly took it far from Caledonia, and the closer, larger Skye—and those shipyards had made up the constellations of his youth. My old friends. At least some things didn’t change.
