Lord Banshee Lunatic (Nightmare Wars Book 3)

by Russell Redman

  In the starting scenario, I managed to evade capture until the Moon was authorized to institute an Imperial court using Lunar procedures. I gave an honest and detailed confession and was executed following Martian law. Both events were broadcast live to Mars. This dream was no walk in the park. There was still fifty years of war, with factions locked in desperate battle, weapons manufactured on the Earth, and over a billion dead before a shaky peace took hold. The role of Mars, however, was completely different. After the lies of the Governors had been refuted, the Martian factions began to debate how to ensure that they based their decisions on truth instead of incendiary propaganda. The Martian Council was reconstituted, modelled after the Lunar and Terrestrial Councils. It became the venue for diplomatic efforts to reconcile the belligerent factions. The dream ended as the people of the Belt began to design the first fleets of ships that would carry humanity to the stars, an effort that required all of us working together.

  I asked MacFinn for help in extracting that dream from storage in the field station. We viewed it on the monitor to verify that it was the correct dream, skipping from scene to scene to avoid prolonged exposure to the worst parts. Nasruddin and MacFinn shuddered, turning pale as they watched. They struggled to believe that a half century of bloodthirsty warfare was the most hopeful result I had achieved. I assured them that my other nightmares had been far worse, pointing out that the medics, viewing them on the same monitor, had fallen into suicidal despair.

  I then used the Banshee encryption to send it with my text summary to the Banshees. I included a warning that the emotional content was almost as bad as for any of the others during the first fifty years but improved markedly in the last century of the simulation.

  I decided to stop while I was ahead, spent a couple of hours watching the news feeds and economic reports, and turned in for the night.

  2357-03-24 20:00

  Business Trip

  In principle, it would only take an hour to travel to Commerce, where we would wait until lunch in a secure room deep inside the Commerce offices. We wanted to be there early, in case of trouble en route, so right after breakfast, I donned my light armour and disguise. I was wearing my mask and chose a small distortion of my normal features with blemishes that would not appear on my face for another twenty years in the normal course of aging.

  Nasruddin pushed my wheelchair onto a sealed bus, accompanied by MacFinn and five guards. The bus ride was uneventful but I was feeling an unaccustomed excitement about being out in public again. Vehicular traffic close to Commerce was forbidden in anticipation of a major announcement from the Viceroy, so we exited beside a public bus terminal a short walk from the Commerce building along secure and well-watched routes.

  I was delighted (and reluctantly forced myself back to being the Ghost) by the colour and vibrancy of the terminal. People hurried by, the young ones wearing loincloths in swirling greens, reds and purples, some with white tassels, some with a gold fringe. Their elders were tastefully dressed in a variety of billowy, tight or functional styles, older fashions that were better suited to their adult dignity. Everyone wore body paint in complementary colours, with tartans, paisleys, abstract vines and occasional portraits. Muscles rippled, breasts swayed, and dazzling hairstyles fluttered as the current of people moved past.

  Unfortunately, the effect was spoiled by the tension in their expressions, sometimes growing into fear. I watched people stopping to take a deep breath before entering a corridor off the main road. I had never seen the Moon so afraid. Nor was there much business happening in the stores we passed. A few shoppers were looking at the wares on display, but hardly anyone was carrying purchases as they left. Most seemed in a hurry to get where they were going, out of the public places that were normally filled with happy shoppers.

  Our guards led us forward, flanking me on either side and covering us from behind. They seemed heavy-set for regular security, perhaps just extra muscle development because fat would never be tolerated. They wore casual, workday pants and loose, billowy spidersteel shirts that concealed their body armour. Not fashionable at all, they were obviously hired muscle, deliberately intimidating. Looking closely, I could just see that they all wore masks, skin-tight shells that distorted their appearance and undoubtedly protected against anything lighter than a rifle bullet. MacFinn followed behind, watching as Nasruddin and I moved confidently through the crowd.

  We did not have far to go, heading a short way up the road, turning right into a service corridor, left along a hallway, and right on the road past the civic hospital. Almost there, we entered the secure, T-shaped corridor that separated the hospital on the left from Law Enforcement on the right and Commerce behind those two.

  Halfway along the corridor, we passed a small group of workers that forced us into single file. As we sidled by, one of the men reached out and touched my shoulder, uttering a meaningless phrase as he did. I suddenly had the image of a ridiculous toy gun and almost involuntarily said, “Gotcha!” Sirens started blaring up and down the corridor as my head whipped around to look at the man who had touched me. I realized I was broadcasting whatever I saw and felt as I stared at him and asked, “Excuse me, what did you say?” My field station was undoubtedly recording the encounter and I expected that I was being recorded in numerous other locations as well. The boom of airtight doors slamming shut echoed along the corridor.

  Bless you, Alexander, you never did trust that program and had built in a few safeguards.

  The man who had touched me cursed, “Damn, you murdering rogue!” Then he and all the other workers drew weapons; guns, knives, hypodermics and cylinders jetting vapour. They were dropped in a hail of gunfire, but not before two of their bullets had ricocheted off my body armour. One of their knives was sharp enough to slash through the toughskin of my sleeve, nicking the skin. A hypodermic needle was stuck in my armour but had not penetrated any deeper. The vapours blew past my mask harmlessly.

  Down the corridor, a second group of workers screamed in pain and terror as they dropped to the floor. One of them was bleeding profusely. MacFinn jumped to look at my arm, but I told him to see to the injured worker. I had only a nick and Nasruddin knew how to deal with that. Every marine knew first aid and a tiny nick required nothing more than a quick bandage. MacFinn argued briefly, but gave Nasruddin a strange patch and ran down the corridor.

  Nasruddin mumbled something that sounded like “toxin scan”, then pulled up my sleeve long enough to lay the patch on the nick and pulled the sleeve down again. He stood guard beside me, his head swivelling back and forth along the corridor, up to the ceiling and down to the floor. For the first time, I began to understand how it felt to be a hated VIP guarded by a security team, instead of being one of the team guarding a hated VIP. On Mars, I had always been one of the team.

  I glance down at the handgun he was carrying. It was huge. I knew guns, having chased them all over near-Earth space. This one was TDF, the kind of weapon officers carried into battle. It was illegal anywhere on the Moon outside of the TDF sectors. I was enormously grateful. It had dropped the exterminators like puppets without their strings. The apparent extra weight on the guards and their billowy clothes suddenly made sense.

  I glanced down and saw that all the exterminators had been shot through the legs. Both legs. And the hands that had been carrying their weapons. My people were the best.

  MacFinn called down the corridor, “My emergency response team were waitin in Commerce. They’re just b’yond the door, but they canna open it. Do any of ye ha the code?”

  Nasruddin pushed me towards the door, but not too close in case someone hostile was on the other side. He tried to open the door but failed. He called the guards and one of the injured workers, who also failed. They all reported insufficient authorization.

  Supposedly, my security authorization was very high. Whether it was still in effect was unclear since I was officially several times dead. I drove the wheelchair forward and tried to open the door myself. It swung bac
k into the wall without a moment’s hesitation.

  The team we met was from T&A, a full medical team, plus a contingent of agents from CI. They swarmed down the hall towards the injured workers and the exterminators.

  The exterminators were lying face down. Trussed and bound with splints and bandages. Not moving. Not moving anything. I motored back towards them.

  The lead agent waved me back. “Two dead, Sir. We paralyzed the others before they could trigger their suicide pills. The head agent looks like he may die of a heart attack from terror, so we gave him tranks as well.”

  I motored closer anyways. “Sir, I believe you are being terrified by a stream of hostile emojis on your comm unit. I have two tokens that you can install to block the emojis and escape the terror.”

  His face did not twitch, the result of the paralysis drug, but his eyes flicked towards me and away, the pupils dilated.

  I tried again. “Sir, I have no reason to kill you and no desire either. You have not harmed me. We just want to talk.”

  I turned to the guard next to me. “Can you shield his head with something like an opaque helmet that would block comm signals?”

  Ze replied, “Perhaps. The easiest way would be to move into one of the storage rooms along the side of the corridor.”

  “No,” I said, “they still have comm units built into the doors and comm-controllable devices inside. I have been warned that there is a route for this kind of attack through the device control system.”

  “Alright,” ze said, “Let us try this.” Ze reached into a bag attached to the back of my wheelchair and pulled out a light model of an opaque helmet. “We were warned it might be useful, although I think Surgeon MacFinn had you in mind.”

  Ze fitted the opaque helmet over the terrified man’s head. The relief was immediate. His pupils shrank and he passed out within minutes from the trank.

  One of the CI agents came over. “Sir, you should get out of this corridor. There may be more... MY GOD! Look at those wounds! What kind of guns are you carrying? Are those TDF assault weapons!? No, wait, you look familiar. Have I seen you before?”

  Nasruddin came over, looking angry. “Silence, fool. We must get out of this corridor immediately. Then I will decide which questions you may ask. You are in far above your pay grade.”

  We motored down the corridor again, the CI agent, MacFinn, Nasruddin and two of my security people who made no effort to conceal the heavy handguns they carried. The CI agents and a couple of their doctors hustled the injured workers and their companions quickly into the back of Commerce. We followed a short way behind but entered by a different door. When the door slid shut, the sudden silence was as shocking as the sirens had been when they started. I was getting flashbacks to attacks I had led on Mars so long ago.

  We entered a small room and closed an airtight door. There was the brief sound of a pump pulling air from a shell around the room. There was a small latrine facility on the back wall, which Nasruddin and MacFinn used. I had no need, being attached to the urinary and rectal catheters on the field station. I looked around and smiled, at home for the first time in weeks, even if it was as featureless and dull as everywhere else I had been.

  I looked carefully at the agent and smiled even more widely before I remembered who I was and what I was doing. I recognized her from half a dozen visits to this facility in the last two years. She had been a junior agent fresh out of training the first time we met and was evidently still a bit impulsive. I dug through my memory and retrieved a name and performance report: Yuka Mahon, competent, diligent, and accurate, but neither sufficiently ambitious nor sufficiently cautious to earn the promotions she otherwise deserved.

  Before anyone else could speak, I did a quick scan for bugs from my wheelchair, pointing at three stuck on the walls and floor. Nasruddin removed them and started his own scan, finding five more. Belatedly, the CI agent joined the search and found one more before Nasruddin finished the area. He locked them all in a small box that incinerated them. “All CI plants,” he said, “and harmless under other circumstances.”

  Before anyone else could pick up the conversation, I started, “Agent, let me fill you in on a bit of background that I fear you will not find easily in the records. At the time of the Counterstrike, there was a plan to kill every human being on Mars in vengeance for the two hundred million who died on the Earth in the Incursion. That plan was foiled so that only military targets were hit but the Counterstrike still killed one-third of the Martian population. Within the former Extraterrestrial Affairs, there is a group I call the Exterminators who believe that the original plan was best. They agitate constantly to restart the war, to complete the extermination. Almost certainly, Viceroy Wolong is attempting to kill everyone who ever worked for ExA because the Martian people have learned about the Exterminators. I met them under such unfortunate circumstances that now they dislike me intensely.

  “The assassin today was one of their agents. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to keep that man alive. He is the only one of their agents I know of who has been captured alive. You need to report this to your superiors as quickly as possible. None of the assassin’s team can be allowed to escape. They are skillful and have access to resources few of us are aware exist. Some of those resources are surely provided by CI and they will use them against you.”

  She had turned pale as I spoke, suddenly aware of how far above her pay grade this case really was.

  I continued, “Do any of you have anything more to add? No? Then go now and repeat what I just said to the local CI commander. Have zim lock down all of Commerce until those people have been transferred out of this facility. Tell zim to be very, very certain of the identity and loyalty of the people who come to arrest them.”

  She cycled out of the airlock and ran. Nasruddin closed the door and pumped it out again. He commented, “That was a bit more than she needed to know. Are you trying to get her promoted or killed?”

  Before I could answer, a siren blared inside the room. Nasruddin turned it off and silence reigned again, but I knew that out in the halls every siren was screaming and every door was closing and locking automatically. I hoped I had scared her into a proper caution and maybe set her up for promotion. I did not actually know everything I had claimed, but I was certain that any agent of the Exterminators who had ever been caught was either dead or had been released back into their service without divulging anything.

  I looked at Nasruddin and smiled ruefully. “We are not going to get lunch, are we?” MacFinn glared at me but said nothing. Nasruddin placed a call to warn the poloffs that we were likely to be delayed by an incident in Commerce that prevented us from leaving the building. He rescheduled for the same time tomorrow.

  I asked the two of them to monitor my state and resumed compiling text descriptions of my nightmares. There was not much else to do as we waited to be told when we might leave.

  We did not get lunch, beyond the emergency rations that MacFinn and Nasruddin had had the presence of mind to bring. Well after lunch, we were visited by a Senior Agent from Lunar Law Enforcement, a representative of the Directorate for Security, and a Senior Agent from CI. They took depositions from all of us about the events that had transpired out in the corridor.

  Surgeon MacFinn gave his deposition first, volunteering that it was likely to be the least important. He recounted the events since we had got off the bus, naming each street, corridor and hallway with a confidence that told me he had been through this part of the city many times before, probably en route to the hospital. He gave a detailed description of each member of the attacking party, their clothes, body structure, and mannerisms. He described the attack in careful detail, including the odd code phrase with a passable accuracy. It did not trigger any reaction, but I had not expected that it would even if he had repeated it perfectly. He described in brief, but clinical, detail the injuries sustained by the attackers, as well as the nick that I had received.

  He went on to describe the second wo
rk party, who had been injured when our bullets had ricocheted and struck two of them. The injuries were flesh wounds, but one of the workers had lost a fair amount of blood. They looked spectacular but would heal without scars if they received treatment immediately. Their terror would need therapy if any counsellors could be found in such trying times. This was the Moon, so I was not overly worried.

  Nasruddin spoke next, confirming everything that MacFinn had said, but with more detail about the attacking party, including their weapons. He described in considerable detail how each attacker was subdued and restrained. He then mentioned that no one in either the CI team nor in his own team had been able to open the airtight door in the corridor until I had done so. He described my interaction with the lead attacker, the use of an opaque helmet to block comm unit communications, and the immediate effect that resulted from placing the helmet on the attacker’s head. He finished his description of the attack with the arrival of the CI agent, what she said out in the corridor, his own response, and a summary of what I had said when we arrived in this room.

  He mentioned that he and the other members of my security detail were members of the TDF escorting me to a meeting and emphasized again that I was the only person with sufficient authority to open the airtight door.

  The Senior Agent from CI looked at me warily and asked politely if I would be willing to reveal my security authorization. I complied, but the agent backed away. “I am sorry, but I have no authority to question this man about anything. I suspect that our colleague from the Imperium may be the only one who does. I am not even sure about that. It is no wonder the door opened for him.”

  Curious, I checked the details of my own security authorization. With a considerable effort of will, I managed to keep my reaction to a few blinks. I knew I had been given everything needed to investigate the Fairy Dust incident. When expanded, the authorization became a hierarchical tree of authorities covering different aspects of our work. For example, I was authorized to command any Eng on any ship in the TDF, but I was forbidden to adjust the reactor and drive controls of a TDF warship myself.