“Obelus?” Ell asked. “Isn’t that….” She wrinkled her forehead in concentration.
The word seemed familiar to him too, yet elusive. Something he might’ve heard in school, years ago.
That was confirmed by Garza’s next words.
“Obelus is a mathematical term. The name for the symbol representing division.”
“An apt word, wouldn’t you say?” Rin Zhou turned a knowing look on Garza.
He nodded. “Obelus is the code name for Dent’s plans to control every leader in every government in the settled worlds.”
“And that’s why you support this.” Thad stared at the prime minister.
“She invoked the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine. We have an obligation to assist.”
Thad could hear the gravity in Garza’s voice, the weight of duty falling heavy on the man.
“What’s Dent’s end game?” he asked, though he suspected he already knew.
Enlai scoffed. “Nothing short of total space supremacy, across all the settled worlds.”
Silence descended after Rin Zhou’s statement.
Thad looked at Garza; the proof was right in front of them, and yet, how could they trust the woman who had nearly loosed a viral weapon that would have killed millions?
“And you support this?” Thad asked Garza one last time.
He saw the reservation in the man’s eyes, and yet he nodded.
“She’s not done,” the prime minister told them. “There’s more.”
Thad turned to Rin Zhou.
“It is this ‘more’ that will convince you of our sincerity,” she assured him. “Not only has he targeted the known worlds, but he has also targeted his own. Everyone in a position of power within the Akkadian Empire is scheduled to be chirally cloned and enslaved. The only person in on this plan is the same man he’s tasked to carry out his orders.”
Thad exchanged a look with Jonathan and Ell. He had a funny feeling he knew the answer to this next question, too, and yet he had to ask.
“And that person would be?”
“Clint Janus.”
DECISION TIME
Task Force Blue HQ
Humbolt Base
It took the Navy and NSA half an hour to establish a secured channel between Humbolt base and Akkadia that they felt wouldn’t be traceable. That gave Duncan’s people time to set up a series of cutout nodes on their end, too, ensuring the enemy would have no way to pinpoint or trace the communication.
But then, finally, Thad’s face appeared in the tank .He was flanked by Ell and Jonathan.
“Sir.” Thad nodded, and then panned the holorecorder so that Duncan could see Raphael Garza.
Beside him stood Rin Zhou. Beside her, Che Josza.
In the shadows, Cutter could just make out a figure that looked vaguely familiar. When she turned her head, and he caught sight of the beads in her hair, he knew.
The assassin.
“Director Cutter,” Rin Zhou began in her flat, accented voice. “As I’ve already told your prime minister, I am invoking the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine. I officially request your intervention.”
As she laid out Dent’s plans, Duncan could see why Garza felt the Alliance should agree to it.
“This is a weighty decision, sir,” he told the prime minister. “I don’t have the authority to commit to it on my own. Give me two hours.”
Che Jozsa spoke up for the first time. “That is about all we can afford you, Director Cutter. I have arranged for Minister Enlai and your prime minister to be released from their cells under the pretext of an interrogation. Two hours from now, we need to have seized control of this prison.”
Duncan nodded. “Understood.”
The holotank fell dark.
“I think it’s clear to everyone here that Dent is up to no good.” Duncan glanced around the table. “Do we believe Rin Zhou that Dent’s plans extend even to enslaving his own people? Harper, you’ve studied that woman. What do you think?”
Her brows drew together. After a moment, she stated, “The former minister’s actions are consistent with the strong nationalistic loyalty she exhibited during her tenure as minister of state security.”
“Then you believe her,” Gabe stated.
Harper nodded. “I do. I think she’s just as disgusted by Dent as we are.”
“Yes, but can we trust her?” Cutter pressed.
The analyst grimaced. “Now, that is a more difficult question to answer. What she’s proposing is ambitious. No Akkadian has ever asked for an outside source to assist them.”
She chewed on her lower lip, expression pensive. “Here’s the thing… historically, coups have been internal. You could say they’ve been used as proof that the person who succeeds is strong enough to both defend the position and lead the people. Strength is a very important quality to Akkadian culture, its significance is deeply ingrained in the people.”
It was a long lecture from the analyst, but it was her job to put things into perspective for Duncan, to help him make informed decisions.
What Harper had just done was remind him that he couldn’t judge the Akkadians by the Alliance’s own meter stick.
“She’s playing the old ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend,’ card,” said Major Reid, her voice dry.
“She is.” Cutter nodded. “But if we’re going to exchange trite phrases, we might consider, ‘Hold your friends close but hold your enemies closer.’”
He pushed away from the table, his eye on the chrono displayed on his overlay. “Looks like I’m about to crash the governor-general’s lunch.”
* * *
Governor-General Laura Castro had insisted that there be one place in her home where she could retreat without agents hovering protectively over her. That place was in a small breakfast nook just off the mansion’s expansive kitchens.
It was here that Duncan was now led.
Even though Castro had won the battle and there were no live agents within the room, two security SIs still watched over her. These, Duncan could deal with.
He nodded politely to the security agents posted before the door, then turned to his escort, another pair of agents who had met him at the mansion’s entrance, and held out a hand.
“Thank you, James.” He shook, and then extended his hand again. “Rick, good seeing you again.”
The two men nodded and retreated back to their posts when the lead of the governor-general’s detail stepped forward.
The woman gave him an apologetic smile. “Sorry, Director Cutter, but you know the rules. In order to be allowed in, especially with the An-Yang president in residence right now, we have to give you a Level One scan.”
Duncan returned her smile with a wry one of his own. “Understood. Not my first; won’t be my last. I’m not going to promise to enjoy it, though.”
The man beside her chuckled. “Can’t think of a single person who would.”
The thorough background check was invasive. Such scrutiny was unpleasant, but necessary to ensure he’d not secreted a harmful app or damaging subroutine somewhere on his person or within his wire’s data partition. He’d only had to suffer through it once before, when he’d been recruited from college to join the NSA as its newest junior analyst.
It was every bit as uncomfortable now as he recalled it being many years ago.
That done, the agents opened the door, allowing him access to the room. He thanked them as he crossed the threshold.
The governor-general had risen at the sound of the door opening and stood, smiling a welcome.
Duncan returned it with a smile and small nod of his own before turning and bowing formally to the other person in the room. “President Jiu. Madame Governor-General. Thank you both for letting me join you today.”
Jiu Liam, the Imperial President of the Shang Dynasty of the star nation of An-Yang, took Duncan’s proffered hand with a smile. “Please, call me Liam,” the president offered.
“Thank you, sir,” Duncan murmured, and then
turned to shake Laura Castro’s hand.
Through the physical contact, he initiated a private connection, pushing an NSA-sealed file to her.
She stared at him for a beat, one brow lifted, before accepting it. {And here I thought you had come for the tea.}
Her droll mental tone rolled over him, and his smile widened.
{Really, Director. If you’re going to make a practice of this, I’d advise making a few dry runs to throw people off so they don’t become suspicious.}
He tilted his head, acknowledging her point. {I’ll do that. And I do like your teas.} Aloud, he said, “Thank you for letting me crash your meal. I’d heard Chef Tio was making her famous Midnight Blossom Povitica for dessert.” He clapped his hands and looked around hopefully.
Jiu Liam chuckled. “I take it that’s the sweet, flaky loaf with the little seeds on the top?” He gestured to the platter at the center of the table.
“It is, indeed.” Duncan turned to engage Jiu in a lengthy conversation, comparing Shang and Geminate cuisines, giving Laura Castro a chance to review the file.
He prayed she’d come to the same conclusion he and those leading the special forces had, and support his recommendation.
“Holmes, Watson.”
Duncan paused as the governor-general’s voice cut into their conversation. He turned to see Laura addressing the sensor pickups the SIs used to monitor the room.
“Suspend recording. Sable-Copper-Keyhole,” she spoke the codeword sequence without concern for the two men present.
Protective Services will be inventing another new set of words about now.
The SIs spoke in tandem. {Security token authorization required.}
He and Jiu Liam waited while Castro submitted her token. Once the SIs had confirmed that recording had been suspended, the governor-general turned and pinned him with a stern look.
“This had better be from an unimpeachable source, Duncan.”
His lips thinned. “It is. I’ve seen it myself.”
She sighed. “Liam, it appears we’re about to go to war. Care to join us?”
PART FOUR:
DEPOSED
EXHIBITION RACE
Douglass-Washburn Testing Facility
Beziér Proving Grounds
Duncan Cutter wasn’t used to reading another star nation into an operation, especially not at the expense of his own, but in some ways, that was exactly what was going on here today.
Once the governor-general had shared the information the team on Eridu supplied, and the doctrine that Rin Zhou had invoked, Jiu Liam had needed little persuasion; An-Yang was now fully invested in support of their plan.
Those involved had converged at a secret military testing facility known as the Bezier Proving Grounds. The doors to the hangar they stood inside were open, the runway mere meters away. Attached to the hangar’s backside was a four-story building owned by Douglass-Washburn, the company’s on-site testing facility.
Though the location was the nearest secured site to the fairgrounds, that wasn’t its biggest selling point. That belonged to the Douglass-Washburn mission control room, and the console where Micah Case was seated—the one tied directly into Garza’s starglider.
When the time came, it was from here Micah would commandeer Garza’s ship, and divert it to the Proving Grounds, where a team stood by, ready to hustle the prime minister to safety.
The woman seated beside Micah had been introduced to Duncan as Douglass-Washburn’s chief test pilot. Isobel would be the one to pilot the decoy plane in the aerial shell game that was about to transpire.
Duncan turned to his left, where Sam stood beside Admiral Toland. His niece’s hand rested lightly on a stasis pod that floated between the two women, ready to receive the chiral man, and she and the admiral were flanked by a pair of drakeskin-clad operators. Their lone duty was to protect Sam and her charge, and the only person they reported to was Cutter himself.
Aside from Sam, Micah, and a small complement of highly trained mission specialists supplied by Douglass, the only other people involved in the rescue of Garza’s twin were Major Reid’s Unit teams, and the security team from An-Yang.
Duncan looked over at the An-Yang delegation—and Jiu Liam. Few realized it, but the man flying in today’s exhibition race wouldn’t be the star nation’s president; it would be Liam’s body double. A capable pilot, the An-Yang officer had spent the past few hours in close discussion with Micah, ironing out the details of the operation from the air.
A flicker from one of the holoscreens caught Duncan’s attention, and he saw two stargliders taxiing toward the fairgrounds’ runway.
{Ships are rolling,} he heard over his wire.
With nothing else to do but wait for the race to begin, he sidled over to Sam and the admiral. “Tell me again that this will work,” he said in a low voice.
Sam stared back at him, resolute. “It will,” she said in an equally low tone.
After a pause, she added, “The one time Micah coded was when Jonathan crashed in the portable surgi-suite on board Wraith. I had to put Jonathan into stasis to save him, and from the timeline we managed to piece together, that’s when Micah revived.”
“And you’ve tested this between them since?” Duncan pressed.
Sam nodded. “Of course. When one of them is in stasis, the connection to the other is completely cut off. A tau-neu pod engenders total molecular cessation. It’s like… a signal put on pause. The receiving unit will continue to operate and function, given its last set of instructions, until the signal is reinstated.”
“And if something goes wrong, and we’re unable to rescue them both?”
He saw concern crease Sam’s brow.
“That is a little more difficult for us to judge,” she admitted. “But we should be able to stabilize him if we take him out of stasis and he starts to crash. We can keep him there indefinitely until we figure out how to solve the problem.”
She exchanged a guarded look with the admiral, and Toland decided to shoulder the explanation.
Turning to Cutter, she carefully stated, “One theory, sir, is that if one of them is killed and it doesn’t appear the other will survive without his paired partner, then we might be able to force a quantum entanglement connection by replicating the chiral cloning.”
Cutter’s gaze cut from Toland to Sam and back. “You mean… a third Garza?” he said incredulously.
Toland lifted a cautionary hand. “It’s just a working theory. We may be able to figure out a way around it without having to resort to something so drastic. We certainly aren’t going to attempt such a thing without thoroughly researching it first—and without trying to get his permission to do it, if it comes to that.”
Duncan stared back at her doubtfully. “You think you’ll be able to get permission under those conditions?”
“I think we’ve all learned our lessons in that regard,” she said.
Cutter stared back at the admiral as he considered her words.
Before he could respond, his attention was drawn to the main screens when he heard a voice call out, “They’re taking off!”
“Showtime,” he heard the test pilot say under her breath as she gripped the yoke.
The president of An-Yang stepped up beside Duncan with a polite nod. “Best wishes on your success,” he murmured.
Duncan returned the nod with an equally grave one of his own. “Thank you for your help with this.”
The other man inclined his head. “We have a common enemy. You helped us excise the nest in our backyard. It’s only fair we do the same.”
On a third screen, Cutter saw a starglider identical to the one Garza’s clone was seated in idling at the end of the tarmac just outside the building in which they stood.
Once the three laps of the exhibition race were completed, the two competitors would participate in a victory roll that would lead them behind the crown of the Bezier Foothills. For a short while, both ships would be obscured; it was then that Garza’s ship would
be swapped out for the one idling on the runway just outside the Douglass-Washburn hangar.
At that point, the transponder codes would be switched, with Garza’s ship being piloted by Micah. He would guide the ship here and land, while the test pilot, Isobel, joined the president’s body double in a flashy landing back at the fairgrounds.
The timing was critical, but if all went as planned, Garza would be down on the Proving Grounds’ runway and hustled inside the stasis unit before the Akkadian moles back at the fairgrounds discovered the shell game that had transpired.
DROPSHIP
Akkadian home fleet flagship
Port Akkadia
in orbit above eridu
In nearspace above Eridu, Citizen Intelligence Officer Ahura found himself in the uncomfortable position of having to order a fleet admiral around.
The security packet from Che Josza that had provoked such rash behavior had arrived just minutes ago, delivered by a forbidding-looking man whose beaded braids signified an assassin of high rank within the Tèzhǒng. He stood beside Ahura in silent support as the intelligence officer faced off against Admiral Li.
To Ahura’s great surprise, the man was surprisingly easy to convince.
Li turned to stare thoughtfully out at the starscape displayed on his office holoscreen. “This operation,” he began. “Does it have anything to do with the recall of the fleet commanders?”
Ahura hesitated. “It… might. But not in the way you think.”
“Good.”
Li turned decisively and speared Ahura with a knowing look. “Something is going on. What, I don’t know.” He held up a hand. “And I don’t want to know. I’m a simple man, Citizen Agent. Give me a clear enemy to fight, and I’m all in. But this recall for ‘testing’ that the premier’s office ordered the other day….”
Chiral Justice: A Hard Science Fiction Technothriller (The Biogenesis War Book 3) Page 29