Michael smiled. “No doubt it was all an unfortunate misunderstanding. Cultural differences, I suppose?”
Dennis Okafor’s eyebrows rose. “That is correct.”
“No,” Michael said.
Dennis Okafor’s eyebrows fell. “Oh.”
Frankie leaned toward him. “Your clients attempted to drug us both and then they tried to rape me, and after they realized we weren’t as drugged as they thought we were, they tried to kill us. They spoke as if they have done this before, probably many times. I know of no culture that condones casual assault, rape and murder, and I see no reason we should stand for it. How often have you bailed them out?”
“Never,” Dennis Okafor said. “My firm is local. This is their first time on Cassidy.”
“Hah!”
Dennis Okafor took a deep breath. “I have been authorized to offer you both a rather generous settlement, in return for dropping all the charges.”
Michael glanced at Frankie. She did not look pleased. “I don’t think so,” Frankie said.
Dennis Okafor looked at Michael. “It is a very generous settlement,” he said.
“How much?” Michael asked, “just out of curiosity.”
“One million Imperial credits.” Dennis Okafor’s lips twitched. “To each of you.”
If Michael was a simple merchant captain and Frankie a member of his crew, they would take the money and run. Merchants, after all, are in business to make a profit, and two million Imperial credits was a very generous sum.
Neither of them, however, needed the money, and Michael was very far from a simple merchant. “No,” Michael said.
Dennis Okafor appeared nonplussed. “Really? Miss Holder?”
Frankie sipped her tea and put down the cup. “Hell, no.”
Dennis Okafor sighed. He reached out and pressed the button on the containment shield generator. The shield collapsed and Dennis Okafor rose to his feet. “I’m sorry we couldn’t do business,” he said. “My clients will not be pleased.”
“Then they should have raised their sons not to be rapists,” Frankie said. “Tell them to go fuck themselves.”
Husband Number One, Elias Cowl, leaned over, kissed Twyla Thorenson on the top of her head, plopped himself down at the kitchen table and yawned. Twyla, still in her nightgown, smiled up at him. “Coffee?”
“I’ll get it.” Just then, the autochef pinged. Elias rose up, went over to the kitchen counter and returned with a platter of scrambled eggs and bacon. Elias and her second husband, Jesse, were third cousins and best friends since childhood. They wrote novels together, under the pen-name Eloisa Chase: popular romances featuring noble Dukes and Baronets saved from eternal heartache by the love of various spunky heroines, most of whom were fleeing marriages arranged by their dictatorial families, most often to loathsome older men.
It always amazed Twyla Thorenson how popular this stuff was.
So far, Twyla Thorenson loved this assignment. She commanded the largest, most powerful ship in the Empire, with its own shops, parks and even neighborhoods to explore. Her personal quarters were palatial. On previous base assignments, it had sometimes been possible to have her family stay with her but this was the first time that an assignment aboard a ship had allowed her husbands to come along. It was lucky that neither of them were tied down to a job.
Jesse was still in bed, gently snoring. She smiled at him as she walked past to the fresher. A few minutes later, showered, dressed in her favorite uniform, well fed in body and soul, Twyla left the apartment for her daily briefing with the Commodore.
Michael Glover fascinated her. If you didn’t know better, he appeared indolent, even lazy. He almost always had a smile on his face. He was large and moved slowly but he never tripped or stumbled and once, when the small, beautiful one, Gloriosa, dropped a stylus, Michael Glover snatched it from the air, barely looking, and handed it back.
She had kept her conversation with Admiral Khan and Arcturus confidential. Bradley Dumas perhaps deserved to know, but she had been asked not to speak of it and so she didn’t. Before she left, Arcturus handed her a folder.
“Some additional information,” he had said. “You should find it interesting.”
Michael Glover had been awakened on a small world called Arnett, in a long since abandoned military base. Arnett was a dying world, bathed in radiation from a nearby supernova. Even so, once Naval Intelligence learned of Michael Glover’s story, an expedition had been sent to Arnett. They found nothing, except for a crater where the abandoned base used to be.
Much of the file comprised speculation. What was known of Michael Glover’s life and career before he enlisted in the Imperial Marines was a mystery and much of his military career had never been entered into the official records. Presumably, this was deliberate. It seemed likely that two-thousand years ago, some secret file in some secret office had contained the details that were now missing, but if so, those records had long since disappeared. Michael Glover had attained the highest rank possible and then vanished for over two-thousand years.
His recent crew had been gathered during some haphazard odyssey across the Empire and beyond. There seemed neither rhyme nor reason. Richard Norlin had been a dissolute and nearly useless member of the nobility of some second-rate little Empire. Curly Brice and Rosanna Devereaux had been the son and daughter of farmers, with no apparent skills beyond the mundane.
Matthew and Marissa Oliver made sense. They were physically competent, intelligent and came from a culture with a martial tradition. Their parents were important people in their own society and influential beyond it, and now that the world of Illyria had joined the Empire, they were becoming more so.
Captain Thorenson had heard of Illyria. Though the planet had only recently been sending soldiers beyond their own borders, those soldiers were already highly prized.
Frances Holder also seemed a reasonable choice. Trained in both combat and covert operations, she had been working as a security specialist when recruited by Michael Glover.
That left Gloriosa. The Captain winced. Small and unimposing, a former slave whose only training lay in sexual servitude, her contribution to the enterprise would appear…hazy. Unless Michael Glover had taken her as a mistress, but such did not appear to be the case.
Nevertheless, as she read on, Captain Thorenson found herself with a grudging respect for the seemingly useless Gloriosa. Despite her lack of obvious skills, she had proven to be intelligent and resourceful and had in fact, made positive contributions to several ventures. Armor tended to equalize physical abilities. So did initiative and brains.
Gloriosa, the Captain thought, would have made an excellent undercover agent. Then again, an undercover agent should be inconspicuous and Gloriosa was much too beautiful to be inconspicuous.
Captain Thorenson had served on flagships before. By tradition, an Admiral determined the mission and gave overall direction but the Captain ran the ship. Michael Glover, thank goodness, understood how things worked. He told them where to go and what they were going do to do when they got there, but he left the running of the ship to her.
On a more normal ship, parked for days in orbit around a nondescript little world like Cassidy-1, she might have been bored, but not this time. Gehenna was too big and her assignment too new for boredom, and Michael Glover was not your average by-the-book military automaton. Michael Glover had a gleam in his eye and he did things his own way and Twyla Thorenson had always possessed an independent streak. It was, presumably, one of the reasons she had been given this posting.
Twyla Thorenson grinned to herself. So far, things couldn’t be better.
“You win some and you lose some,” Henrik Anson said.
“I think it’s a little too soon to give up,” Michael replied. “Andreas Richter had no doubt that the ships were headed here.”
They were sitting together on the deck of the food shack, dipping small, fried crustaceans into bowls of hot sauce and sipping fruity red wine, while watching happy v
acationers cavort in the waves. The place reminded him a lot of Arcturus’ favorite meeting place back on Dancy.
“Why haven’t we found them, then?”
“No idea,” Michael said.
Anson shrugged. “Also, I don’t agree with wasting our time playing tag with petty criminals.”
“Assault, rape and attempted murder are not petty crimes.”
“They’re a distraction.”
Michael grinned. “They’re an entertaining distraction. Do we have anything better to do?”
Anson didn’t answer. He sipped his wine, sighed and stared out over the water. “No,” he admitted. “Not at the moment.”
“Well, then.”
“Two men with guns have just entered the resort grounds,” Romulus subvocalized.
Though there is such a thing as too much entertainment. Michael sat up straight. “Where are Frankie and the others?”
“Richard Norlin is occupied with his music. Curly and Rosanna are in the dining room. Marissa and Matthew Oliver are playing poker in the casino. Miss Holder is at the pool. Gloriosa is engaged in sex with her new friends, in their suite.”
“Where are these gunmen now?”
“Heading toward you.”
“Then don’t tell the others. No reason to worry them.”
The local authorities took a dim view of unlicensed weaponry. Neither Michael nor Anson carried weapons. The drones, however, did.
“Come on,” Michael said, and rose to his feet.
Anson, oblivious to Michael and Romulus’ internal conversation, looked at him.
Michael grinned. “You can never have too much fun.”
Slowly, Anson grinned back.
Ten minutes later, they were sitting in one of the isolated gazebos, surrounded by tropical trees, flowering vines and colorful, chattering birds. Below them in the pond, a school of golden koi swam lazily back and forth.
They had trudged slowly out of the restaurant, then taken a little walk along the beach before heading into the woods. They wanted their destination to be clear.
“The two gunmen are together,” Romulus reported. “They are following your trail. They should arrive at your present location within two minutes.”
“Pretty soon, now,” Michael said to Anson.
Less than two minutes later, two men appeared along the trail. They stopped when they saw Michael and Anson, who pretended to ignore them. One of them grinned. They both started toward the gazebo.
Twenty small drones flew out of the woods and hovered in front of their faces. Romulus’ voice issued from the lead drone. “Halt, and lay down your weapons.” Ten more drones drifted down from above. “These drones are all armed. If you attempt to aim your weapons, they will kill you.”
One of the gunmen frowned. The other said, “You’re going to have to prove that.”
The lead drone emitted a hum and a beam of red light burst from its front. A branch next to the gunman’s head erupted into sudden flame. “Raise your hands,” Romulus said.
Both gunmen seemed to slump. They raised their hands.
Michael grinned. “So,” he said. “Before we notify the police, let’s have a little talk.”
“I was afraid of something like this,” Captain Jacobs said.
The two gunmen were local. They had kept their mouths shut, probably reasoning that carrying unregistered weapons, while a crime, was not as much of a crime as murder. In the end, there was no actual evidence that they intended either Michael Glover or Henrik Anson any harm.
“Should we have waited until they tried to kill us?” Michael said.
Captain Jacobs gave him a moody look. “We know these men. They’re petty criminals, gunmen for hire. Neither are major players. Next time, it might be different.”
Probably not, Michael thought. “What would you like us to do?”
Captain Jacobs seemed to have difficulty looking Michael in the face. “These three young men,” he said, “Chao, Peters and Jameson: they’re trouble. Perhaps more trouble than we are equipped to deal with, and certainly more trouble than your life is worth.”
“Are you suggesting that the police forces can’t keep these men confined?”
“No.” Captain Jacobs sighed. “I am suggesting that our judiciary is not quite as uncorruptible as we might, in a more perfect world, desire.”
Michael stared at him.
“Their lawyer will no doubt move to have the trial delayed, so that additional evidence can be gathered and produced. How long do you plan on staying here? You claim to be a merchant. A merchant has merchandise to sell. You won’t make much of a profit while the justice system wends its very slow way to a resolution of this case.
“In addition, he has already placed before the court a request to have these men released on bail. There is no reason that it won’t be granted. Once free, they can, and no doubt will, simply vanish.”
Michael drew a deep breath. “I see.”
Captain Jacobs gave him a thin smile. “I’m sure that you do.”
In other words, the fix was in. The three alleged rapists would be released, and there was nothing he could do about it. “Thank you for being frank,” he said. “It helps to keep things in perspective.”
“I’m glad I could be of service,” Captain Jacobs said.
Chapter 5
“What changed your mind?” Dennis Okafor asked.
“Time and perspective,” Michael said. “A million credits is a lot of money.”
Frankie gave Michael a crooked grin. “Two million credits.”
“Indeed,” Dennis Okafor said. He smiled thinly. “Please sign here.”
Chao, Peters and Jameson were released from jail a few minutes later. The two gunmen, having neither the connections nor the resources of their erstwhile clients, were not.
“Keep an eye on them,” Michael said.
“Of course,” Romulus replied.
Chao, Peters and Jameson were stupid young men, but surely not so stupid as to try to get back at Michael and Frankie? Not right away, at any rate. They glowered at them once or twice from across the pool or the casino but they kept their distance. Frankie and Michael ignored them.
Two days later, Romulus subvocalized, “Chao, Peters and Jameson have approached two young women at the pool. Jameson has placed a foreign substance both women’s drinks.”
“Take care of it,” Michael said. “I’m sick of these idiots.”
“Certainly,” Romulus said.
A few minutes later, all five rose to their feet. The men were smiling, the women giggling at nothing in particular. All five walked into the dunes. As soon as they were out of sight of the building, ten marines in armor floated down from above and surrounded them all. Chao, Peters and Jameson stared at the marines.
“You will come with us,” Dustin Nye said.
Twenty minutes later, the two young women were sleeping in their rooms. They would awaken the next morning with a hangover and no memory of what had happened. By then, Chao, Peters and Jameson were sitting in cells aboard Gehenna.
Marion Jones stood upright, squared her shoulders, fixed her eyes straight ahead and staunchly resisted the urge to cry.
“What do you have to say for yourself, Cadet?” Ensign Brianna LeClair almost hissed the question.
What was the word? It began with a “c” and ended with a “t.” Oh, yes…that word…Marion Jones allowed the thought to whisper through her brain and then tamped it back down into the deeper recesses of her subconscious. “I have no excuses, sir,” she said.
“No,” LeClair said. “You don’t.”
The ten cadets were divided into two squadrons each, command of which rotated among the ships’ junior officers. For the next two months, one squadron was under the command of Lieutenant Junior Grade Horatio Forrester and the other under Brianna LeClair. Frankly, in Marion Jones considered opinion, Forrester and LeClair were two peas from the same pod, both entitled, arrogant shitheads. Forrester was not, at the moment, Marion Jones’ p
roblem. LeClair was.
“You have failed your squadron, Cadet, and in failing your squadron, you have failed me.”
Yada, yada, yada…Marion Jones had come in fifth in the latest squadron competition: fifth out of ten, a respectable score, considering that every cadet chosen was at the top of their class at the individual academies. Brianna LeClair’s team had narrowly lost out to Forrester’s team, and Brianna was pissed off. Marion had come in first on the written exam, which consisted of astrophysics, math, navigation, Imperial history and law. She had come in last on the obstacle course, not due to any lack of effort but simply because she was the smallest cadet on the ship. She was fast, coordinated and strong for her size, but so were all the rest of the cadets and the rest of them had more size than Marion Jones.
“Failure is not an option in the Imperial navy, Cadet.” Brianna LeClair was breathing hard. Her face was red. Under other circumstances, Marion Jones might have worried that LeClair would burst a blood vessel in her brain or drop dead from a heart attack. Under the current circumstances, she merely hoped that she would. No such luck, however. “Doing your best and failing is not doing enough. So here is what you’re going to do…”
Henrik Anson was right in that playing games with rapists, while adding a little spice to one’s life and helping to pass the time, did nothing to advance the mission. Enough time had already passed. Some leads pan out, some don’t. This lead was looking more and more like a dead end. “We’ll give it three more days,” Michael said.
Henrik Anson glumly nodded.
The next day, however, Romulus’ voice sounded inside Michael’s head. “A ship has appeared in orbit and is descending towards an island near the equator. The island appears to be deserted.
“Finally,” Michael muttered.
Anson raised an eyebrow. “Something?”
“Maybe. We’ll know soon.”
“Fascinating,” Anson said.
Michael, Anson and the rest clustered around a holotank in Michael and Frankie’s suite. In the tank, they could see a medium sized ship descend toward a tree-covered island. The ship vanished.
The Well of Time Page 4
