“I set up an ActiveFiber early warning system,” Morrison explained. “It’s crude, but effective. Anyone trying to breach the safehouse would have disturbed the threads sealing the door.”
After a moment, he gave a crisp nod and stepped forward. “We’re good to go.”
The spare apartment was surprisingly large, taking up half the basement. A swift look around suggested to Thad that the two agents spent more time on their spycraft than they did on creature comforts.
Aviva motioned to the back of the building. “Bedrooms and a lav back there, if you need to refresh yourselves or change.”
Nodding her thanks, Ell stepped into the narrow hallway.
Thad was certain it was more about the NCIC agent’s desire to secure the area for herself than her need to use the head.
He stayed in the main room with Jonathan, who bent to release Joule from her confines. The big cat slunk from the crate, eyes wary and head on a swivel as she surveyed her surroundings.
Morrison took in her vest. “Working cat?”
Thad nodded. “Part of the team.”
The agent frowned. “That seems excessive, hauling an animal all the way out here.”
Aviva made a sound of dissent. “Considering where they’re infiltrating, it makes sense. Depending on how well-trained it is, the cat should be able to get away with a lot more than a human could.”
Joule turned glittering green eyes on the woman. {Not an it.}
A look of startlement crossed Aviva’s face.
“Did that thing just talk?” Morrison asked.
Joule’s head whipped around to face the man, eyes narrowing. {Not a thing, either.}
“Holy shit,” he breathed. “He did.”
If a cat could roll its eyes, Joule would be doing so.
{Am a she.}
“Careful,” Jonathan cautioned. “Piss off one of the cats, and you’ll end up using half your credits bailing yourself out.” Crooking a thumb Thad’s way, he added, “He owes her brother at least fifty steaks by now.”
“Thirty,” Thad corrected.
The pilot scoffed. “That’s what you think.” He returned his attention to the agents before him. “Joule’s a result of a classified experiment. First animal to be implanted with a device that allows rudimentary communication.” He carefully avoided any mention of the cat’s chirally-paired twin.
“Huh,” Morrison’s brows rose, but he wisely refrained from commenting any further.
A noise from behind Thad told him Ell had returned. She stepped up next to him, but her gaze was fixed on a pair of transom windows set above the apartment’s door. They were the basement’s only source of natural illumination, bleeding a small shaft of dirty sunlight across the carpeted floor.
“What’s bothering you, cher?”
Her eyes remained focused on the door. “We’re certain that there are no listening devices planted anywhere outside this building that could be directed our way?”
Morrison tried and failed not to look affronted at her questioning of his skills, but it was Aviva who responded to Ell’s query.
“The ActiveFiber that Agent Morrison has deployed around the perimeter of this apartment is seeded with small, noise-canceling devices programmed to emit occasional bursts of conversation. The kind of thing you’d expect to hear from any apartment in this area. If anyone is listening in, they’re hearing about how bad the local brew tastes, or Morrison complaining about his wages being garnished.”
Aviva’s words seemed to convince Ell. She looked thoughtfully at the door before turning to Aviva with a nod. “What’s the plan, then?”
Aviva held a holoprojector in her palm. At Ell’s inquiry, she thumbed it on. “We have an update on the prison. I was able to get my hands on the latest diagram, plus access codes to control the security SIs that monitor those shafts you’ll be using to infiltrate.”
Thad whistled. “How’d you manage that?”
Morrison chuckled. “She has her ways.”
They were interrupted by a flash, followed by a loud clap of thunder, the rumble receding in the distance.
“Heat lightning?” Thad asked.
“No. It’s monsoon season.” She flicked the projector off, tucking it away in her robes. “I’d thought the rains wouldn’t come for another few hours; this moves the timetable up. Get ready, we leave as soon as the rains hit.”
Joule’s ears flattened, followed by Jonathan’s yelped, “What? I thought Eridu had acid rain. Isn’t that going to be dangerous?”
The agent shook her head. “Don’t get me wrong; over time, they’ll eat through even the hardest surface. But a little bit of exposure won’t hurt you. It’s not like the acid rain that, say, a pre-terraformed Venus once had.”
Jonathan’s expression turned contemplative, and he turned away to try to calm the big cat, who was making it clear she did not like this turn of events.
“Why move while it rains?”
Ell’s quiet question earned her a shrug from Aviva.
“Rain in Central Prefecture is rare enough that it’ll serve as a nice distraction. People will be more focused on that than they are anything else.”
Ell hummed thoughtfully and Aviva cocked her head as another rumble hit. Nodding to herself, the agent reached for a kit bag and began to load it up.
“Gather your things. We move out in an hour.”
CARROT AND STICK
Shar-Kali Correctional Facility
and Reeducation Center
Aksu Desert
“It is time.”
At Rin Zhou’s words, Raphael turned to face his cellmate. The woman stood with her hand out, the jamming device blinking in her open palm.
“Time?”
“I have told you of my proposition. You have not given me an answer. Now, your time has run out.”
Raphael’s eyes narrowed. “That sounds suspiciously like a threat.”
“I merely state fact. Your people have come for you. Mine are tracking them, monitoring their progress.”
Raphael stiffened. “So then I was right; you are threatening me.”
“My people are waiting for instructions. I could tell them to sound the alarm, or….” Rin Zhou tilted her head, her eyes as keen as a raptor’s. “You can support our uprising, and help us unseat a truly evil man.”
Raphael stared at her, and then gestured around expansively. “Not sure you’ve noticed, but I’m not in any position to help anyone right now.”
Rin Zhou gave him a look that would have made Raphael’s Marine drill instructor proud. “Your people are on this planet now, and are in contact with special forces troops lurking in the Sargon Straits. Combined with my loyalists, their numbers will suffice.”
“And if I were to turn down your offer?”
The former minister cocked her head, the action reinforcing his impression of a bird of prey.
“Then I will have no choice but to reveal their presence to the Akkadian fleet.”
MONSOON
Central Prefecture
Eridu, Akkadia
Ell stood in the shadows outside the safehouse’s basement entrance, quietly studying the street traffic, while Morrison reset his ActiveFiber warning system.
She was surprised at the press of bodies that crowded the narrow path, even during a downpour such as this. Central Prefecture was a congested place, and she reminded herself that this was another reason why its citizens paid those around them little mind.
The only concession the residents seemed to make for the downpour was the exchange of the traditional cloak for a sturdy oilskin covering. Everywhere she looked, people bustled around her, their heads down, rain dripping from wide-brimmed hats to plop on the pitted pavement.
Ell followed Thad up the stairs to street-level, where they merged with the pedestrian traffic. By unspoken agreement, they closed ranks around Joule, invisible behind a cloak laced with light-bending nano.
Her gaze wandered to the man who strode just ahead of her, eyes cat
ching on the long, dark-hued fingers that secured the duffel he shouldered. She thought, not for the first time, that his hands could belong to an artist.
The hulking Marine would likely snort at the idea before breaking into that rich, deep laugh of his—the kind that came from the core of a person.
The man in front of her made an annoyed sound, dancing around a pedestrian who had stopped abruptly in the middle of the street.
{Heads up, cher.}
The warning sounded just as she, too, was forced to jink sideways to avoid the man. She glanced down at Joule to make sure the detour hadn’t impacted the cat.
As if she’d sensed Ell’s regard, the cat’s mental voice sounded in her head.
{Wet,} Joule complained. {Hate the wet.}
On her overlay, Ell could see the big feline’s shadowed form high-stepping her way around puddles, head hunched beneath the drakeskin hood.
{Our destination’s just up ahead,} Aviva announced, and Ell wondered if Joule had sent the complaint to the agent, as well.
They drew to a stop at a transport platform lined with vehicles and filled with people waiting to board. Aviva motioned them to a queue, just as the first bus pulled away with a wheeze and a groan.
Jonathan made a choked sound. {That’s our ride?}
The kindest word Ell could think of to describe the caravan they joined was ‘rustic’.
Each one had seen better days, that much was obvious. She would have been worried about radiation leakage from the small fission drives if she hadn’t seen for herself that the reactors used were the modular, sealed type often seen in backwater areas such as this. They required no maintenance, were virtually tamper-proof, and had a guaranteed energy output well into the next century.
The units traded performance for safety, however, and only provided enough juice for a conveyance such as this to crawl along. Given the rough terrain, she supposed that made sense.
The track they were following was pitted with deep grooves, carved into the rutted landscape. Vibrations from the drive shaft combined with the vehicle’s lack of suspension to deliver a jarring experience.
{Hardscrabble existence,} Ell murmured.
{Keep your head down,} advised Aviva as she handed over a few strips of pastirma, a local, spiced jerky, to chew on. {But yes, it is. Most are families who fell out of favor with the last premier, or who disagree with the current one’s policies. Some have lived this meager existence for generations.}
Ell sank her teeth into the tough, cured meat and averted her gaze, staring down at the coarse threads of the cloak she wore as she chewed. It looked homespun—an oddity throughout the settled worlds, where highly automated manufactured goods were the norm.
She glanced at Aviva when the woman resumed her narrative.
{It’s not always bleak. Earn their trust, get inside their homes, and you’ll often find the same kind of family dynamics we had as kids growing up. Except for the fact that they’re living under the threat of death every single day.}
{Oh, is that all.} Jonathan’s sardonic words had Ell twisting around to give him a warning look.
{Be careful how you judge.} Aviva’s voice held censure. {Don’t think that normal, everyday life is exclusive to Coalition and Alliance worlds. People here fall in love, marry, raise families, and die, too.}
The agent gestured outward, through windows that had lost their panes many seasons ago. {If I were you, I’d be spending my time on this trip familiarizing myself a bit better with my surroundings instead of criticizing it. Study the savannah, get a feel for what you’re going to be traveling through to get to the prison.}
Ell saw a look of shame cross Jonathan’s face before he ducked his head and turned to look out the open window.
{You’ll have to excuse Aviva,} Morrison said, his tone light. {She’s the best Human Intelligence operative I’ve ever seen, but part of what makes her that way is her ability to connect with the natives. It’s difficult not to sympathize with the people oppressed by this regime.}
Ell nodded her understanding, and did as Aviva suggested.
Grasslands extended as far as the eye could see, except for a faint green blush in the distance where the rainforest began. The rain had stopped half an hour ago, leaving the brownish-green terrain covered in glistening drops of dew.
She saw slow-moving shapes on the horizon. Thad must have spotted them, too.
{What kind of animal life are we going to encounter out here?} she heard him ask.
{Mostly grazing animals,} Morrison replied. {But a few predators. One of the things those terraforming Eridu did correctly was strive to maintain a balance between predator and prey.}
{Otherwise, the herd animals would overrun the ecosystem?} Ell guessed.
He sent a mental nod.
She shot the man a glance. {What’s the size of the predators?}
He smiled, his eyes sliding down to where Joule’s invisible form crouched at Jonathan’s feet.
{Smaller cats, mainly. They’re cunning—much like your Joule, I’d imagine.}
Joule chuffed at that but refrained from commenting.
{They shouldn’t be too much of a problem,} he went on, {especially with your companion along to keep them at bay. They usually avoid humans.}
Jonathan grunted at that, and she caught the faintest whisper, sent privately to herself and Thad.
{Should have brought Pascal with us, too.}
Ell hid a grin behind a bite of jerky, anticipating Thad’s response to Jonathan’s mention of Joule’s chiral twin.
{Hoss, the Navy doesn’t pay me enough to bring that beast along.}
She knew his complaints were empty, and that, if forced, he’d admit he enjoyed his verbal sparring with the feline.
Her gaze landed thoughtfully on Thad.
This situation had brought the big Marine back into her life. She’d thought her career with the teams was behind her, and their paths unlikely to cross. Yet they’d been thrown together repeatedly over the past three years, her new career with the NCIC intersecting with Task Force Blue again and again.
Back when she’d first been with the teams, Ell had refused to admit the attraction she felt for the tall, dark-skinned man sitting in front of her. What else could she do? Fraternization was frowned upon, especially between enlisted and commissioned officers. He’d been a lieutenant, she a sergeant.
Maybe, though, after all this is over….
She turned back to the view out the windows, letting her thoughts drift away.
* * *
Two hours later, the bus rattled to a stop at a platform that was little more than a glorified shack, with a weathered sign creaking in the light breeze. Her wire’s translation chip conveniently interpreted the Aka’a script for her:
Drangiana Zh’abad (town). Administrative Unit, Level Three.
Cheerful, Ell thought. And not terribly inventive.
“This is where we get off,” Aviva said, rising to her feet and shouldering her duffel.
She moved out into the aisle, Thad following immediately after.
“Looks little more than a shantytown,” Ell murmured to Thad under her breath as she stepped up behind him. “Or shanty-zh’abad, I suppose.”
He nodded wordless agreement.
They stepped off onto the hard-baked dirt in front of the ramshackle building, their legs doing that funny thing that happened when the body, used to hours of constant movement, ended up on solid ground once more.
Ell ignored the lingering sensation of pitch and vibration that her nervous system insisted she still experienced, knowing it’d catch up soon enough. Instead, she turned to look in the direction Morrison pointed.
“We have a skimmer stored in a garage two blocks off the next street. It’ll get us to the spot where we’ll stage from. Not the best place to hole up, but it’ll do.”
The villagers who had followed them off the transport faded from view as they dispersed into their respective homes. Morrison motioned for them to split up on
ce more into separate groups, like they had in Central Prefecture.
Ell joined him when he waved her forward, Jonathan falling into step on her other side. Behind them, Thad did much the same, accompanying Aviva. Joule trailed behind.
“We’ll turn left at the next intersection,” Morrison subvocalized. “Aviva’s widening the space between our group and the two of them, just in case. Even though it’s clear to the locals that we’re not from around here, large groups of people tend to make them uneasy.”
His words had Ell’s sniper training reasserting itself—or perhaps it was a little bit of the NCIC agent in her by now, too. After so many years, it was bound to have an impact.
She kept a careful eye on their surroundings, her gaze taking in the meager dwellings, the shuttered windows, a furtive hand twitching a curtain corner aside to peer out at them. All these things combined to inform her that their passage was not going unremarked.
The smells of hot, greasy food and the sour, biting odor of whatever local brew was being served assaulted her nose as they passed by the open door of the next building—obviously the town’s tavern. She kept her head firmly pointed forward, but she flicked her eyes to the establishment’s dingy windows, taking quick mental snapshots of its occupants in brief, one-second glances.
She could see a handful of large forms hunched over a bar, nursing their drinks. Closer to the entrance, three more figures sat at a table, deep in conversation.
Heads turned at their passage, and Ell stiffened, her hand automatically seeking the carbyne-tipped blade she wore in a sheath strapped to the inside of her wrist.
{Don’t worry,} Morrison sent. {They think we’re with a Coalition mining concern, extracting the metals found in Eridu’s outer crust.}
Jonathan jerked his head in surprise. {I thought this planet was terraformed.}
{It is. Or was. I won’t talk about all the ways they failed, but I will say this—the planet was here before the colonists got to it, and it already had its own core, and a minimal amount of basic building blocks, cyanobacteria and the like, already in place.}
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