“Who? How? And what does it mean?”
“Those are damned fine questions because I don’t know the answer to two of them. You Navy Intelligence people are supposed to stop this happening, not fly around the fringes of the Federation playing at pirates with pretty green women. As for Special Missions…” Nuysp shook his head. “I half suspect they’re the ones who’ve sold us out. They’ve always been a handful to rein in, but now they’re acting like a fully independent power.”
Fitz’s mind turned to the SpecMish operative who called himself Bronze. What had he been thinking to bring such a dangerous snake aboard Phantom?
“Listen to me, Fitzwilliam. I know that sixteen years ago, the Navy crapped all over you and left you to rot. I’m sorry for that. I did what I could for you. Not because I believed in you, but because I owed Lantosh a favor. I helped keep you alive.”
“You expect me to be grateful?”
Nuysp looked away. “No. We’re a mess, Fitzwilliam. I love the Legion, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t sacrifice in its name, but frankly it deserves a good hard shake. We need the rot cleared out and new blood installed so that we can remember how to take pride. If that’s ever going to happen, people like me need throwing into the dumpster to clear the way. I accept that. But… damn it! That’s not gonna happen anytime soon, because people like you and me are all that’s available to hold the line.”
Fitz raised an eyebrow at the hoorah Legion phrase.
“I bet you scoff at those words,” said Nuysp. “There are still good people who say them with pride.”
“I don’t care,” Fitz replied. He narrowed his eyes. “I thought you didn’t know what the hell was going on, Admiral.”
“I know exactly what’s going on. What I said was that I didn’t know who had infiltrated us or how. Look, I’m a fleet admiral. My job is to see through the noise from scores of star systems and see the big picture. These blows are coming from so many directions, I thought they were chaotic at first. But the more I see, the more the individual elements form into a pattern. We’re being softened up, man. Prepared for invasion.”
Invaders? The jacks had called the freakish Rho-Torkis zombies invaders. And the Muryani had called them Andromedans.
“The most vital intelligence task in the Federation,” said Nuysp, “is to find out who we’re going to fight in the coming war.”
“The Muryani?” Fitz suggested, fishing for a reaction because he was sure Nuysp already had his suspicions.
Nuysp shrugged convincingly.
“Or perhaps the invaders who depopulated the region in an earlier age?” said Fitz. “Maybe a civil war spearheaded by Cora’s World and the Panhandlers, but if I had the money, I’d lay a hundred thou on the Muryani Expansion finally making their annexation of our civilization.”
“I don’t know, mister, but I do see the signs.”
“Let’s hope you’re wrong.”
“Hope isn’t good enough,” said the admiral. “Look, I’ve had a bellyful of speculation. What I need are facts, and urgently. There’s an auto-shuttle outside my quarters waiting to take you to Beta Hub. Lose yourself there for the rest of the day and meet me at the Cordovan Room in District Metz at 22:00 hours. It’s discrete, and we’ll have plenty of time to discuss how we can help each other.”
Fitz kept his face neutral. A better plan by far was to grab Izza and the gang, and then hightail it out of Tej System. But that wasn’t the deal he’d cut with Kanha Wei, and flying away from JSHC was going to be a whole lot easier with the 4th Fleet commander’s blessing.
“I understand your reluctance,” said Nuysp. “The Legion doesn’t deserve to call itself your family after what we did to you, but that’s the thing about families – no matter how sorely they disappoint, they’re still family. And that’s a good thing because down the line, your family can come good and have your back when you need it most.”
Fitz shook his head. “I have a new family.”
“I know you do. You’re Tavistock Fitzwilliam now. I respect that, but it’s not unusual for people who live a little to wind up with more than one family. Been happening since the dawn of time. You and I are still brothers.”
Fitz flinched at that word. “I’ll be the judge of that.”
Nuysp backed off a little. “Cordovan at 2200 hours,” he said, and stepped out of the privacy shroud.
“I’ll think about it.”
OSU SYBUTU
“Back up,” said the officer.
After days spent going through the motions of making Osu repeat his story endlessly, her hooded eyes were suddenly bright with intensity. Beside her, the Kurlei’s head fronds swelled. “Tell me again what this Arunsen said to you in the Littorane hostelry. This Terra Infirma.”
Osu tried not to curse inwardly. It had been boredom that had broken him down in the end. He didn’t trust the officer whose uniform declared her name to be Captain Cartier. Maybe it was paranoia after the drentfest of Rho-Torkis, but something about this setup didn’t smell right.
Consequently, Osu hadn’t mentioned Lord Khallini.
And of the Militia troopers who had been his comrades, he’d volunteered little and the captain had shown no interest in wanting more.
Until the instant he mentioned sorcery.
“Arunsen told me not to discount the possibility of unexplained powers in the vastness of the galaxy. He talked of magicians and sorcery.”
Cartier scoffed. “What do you expect of the Militia? I’ve seen an image of Vetch Arunsen. He typifies his kind. A credulous fool. Ignorant, ill-educated and probably deeply superstitious.”
She glanced at Osu, inviting him to join her mockery of Arunsen. She was right that the big man was an ignorant oaf, but Osu didn’t feel like laughing at him today. Not in this company.
The captain raised an eyebrow. “Did Arunsen give you a specific instance where he witnessed sorcery?”
Osu didn’t hesitate. “Yes.” They would have spotted a lie immediately.
“Describe it.”
“It was at Lose-Viborg. There was an incident there. Some debacle for which Arunsen felt his company was unfairly blamed. He claimed that he had aimed a swing with his military hammer at a man, but his opponent froze him in place using an unexplained force that Arunsen called sorcery.”
“Tell me everything you know about this man with allegedly fantastical powers.”
“I don’t know much. Arunsen said he appeared old and frail. Small too. As tiny as the ancient race of Spacers.”
An awkward silence fell across the table. Cartier and the Kurlei stared expectantly at Osu who volunteered nothing. The harder they stared at Osu, the more his mouth filled with saliva.
What do you already know? he wondered.
“Why do you withhold the name of this wizard?” pressed Cartier angrily.
Osu had to swallow awkwardly. “I thought it unreliable information,” he said. “Arunsen named him Lord Khallini. It wasn’t a name I’d heard before, but half the patrons of the tavern had been offering their own contradictory tales about Khallini earlier that evening. He seems to be a mythical figure.”
“That is for us to decide. You must not filter your account, Sybutu. You tell us everything from this point forward. No filtering.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“You have disappointed me. Now I discover I need to interview Arunsen. If you hadn’t withheld vital information, that would have been easy, but now…”
She regarded Osu for a long while, making him sweat and swallow under her scrutiny. Then she took the Kurlei outside, leaving Osu with the two guards.
Several minutes’ later, she returned without the empathetic alien.
“Arunsen has been convicted of desertion,” she told him. “Despite your efforts to hide it – from yourself too, I suspect – I can tell you feel affection for the man. I can use that, and you can redeem your failure at the same time. You are to retrieve Arunsen and bring him back to me. And you will hurry, because Arunsen is n
o use to me dead.”
IZZA ZAN FEY
The Dyson ring glowed with a power beyond comprehension. Fire danced from its surface as it was pierced by the twin flux tubes that grew out of Tej Prime like psychedelic high-energy aerials.
Who were you?
Izza switched the holo-display from energy view to infrastructure view. The ring structure went dark and the flux tubes extinguished, leaving an ethereal hint of their presence. The holo display began outlining the power stations and distribution conduits, lighting up the ring with myriad pinpricks, an astral belt jeweled with starfire.
The ring was the biggest power generator in the known universe.
It both created the flux tubes and used them to mine the gas giant’s magnetosphere. Not only that, but as the ring was kneaded by the gravitational interplay between the planet and its larger moons, it generated even more power.
The most magnificent and terrifying thing of all, was that it had been abandoned by another civilization, but left in a state where whoever discovered it could make use of this artifact that they had no further use for. The builders had even left a fleet of maintenance bots that had made continual repairs for a period of time that measured at least a few thousand years but could have been millions. And they had carefully destroyed all traces of their civilization, perhaps so that those who discovered the ring could not piece together who had built it, and where they might have gone.
Where are you now, builders?
The Tej system was devoid of humanoid-habitable planets. It was conceivable that the ring could have been constructed by native gas-giant dwellers, but she felt certain that humanoids like her had come here long ago and made this thing.
And then they had left.
Lynx joined her in the holo-compartment.
If he could hear her thoughts, the droid would chide her for humanoid chauvinism. He would be right to, but the idea that people like her had built this was so profound that she couldn’t believe any other possibility.
“Why did they abandon this wonder?” she asked Lynx. “I want you to speculate.”
“If you insist. Archeologists claim credible evidence of multiple invasions of this region originating from the outer rim of the Perseus Arm. Expecting further assaults, the builders withdrew coreward, leaving this asset to buttress whoever discovered it against future attacks.”
“Which would make the Federation a buffer state. Expendable outer defenses for civilizations toward the galactic core.”
“Correct.”
A buffer zone. Izza rolled the idea around her head. It sounded like a semi-lawless frontier region, and that felt good.
Maybe the Federation was a decent place to operate after all.
But first, she needed her ship back.
“Did you acquire what I asked for?”
“Yes, ma’am. Your emergency credit line speaks loudly in Beta Hub, as does – somewhat to my surprise – your association with your previous employer and my rightful… my previous owner. Equipment, overalls, and fake ID credentials are all there. I was advised that your species is uncommon amongst the maintenance crews, but not so rare that people would stop and stare. Nonetheless, I must advise against this course of action, ma’am. Your skin color is most unfortunate, and your eye pigmentation is positively disastrous.”
Izza laughed. If the little robot had been humanoid, he would have just committed several class III speech crimes, and she would be using pain to point out the error of his ways. But for once the droid was trying to be helpful. “Just tell me where you stashed the gear, Lynx.”
“A storage compartment between Piers 17/12 and 17/13. Your OTCG token will unlock the cabinet.”
She nodded her thanks and turned her attention back to the holo booth display, imagining she was floating in the void, seeing the Dyson ring for herself through her positively disastrous eyes. “You say we don’t appreciate how small we are in the universe, Lynx. You don’t understand. The beauty, the majesty, the implications of this construction that wraps around Tej Prime – I measure the trials in my own life against such immensity and find them trivial in comparison. People built this thing. Someone. Some-when. Nobody knows, but they were people with ambition and persistence, and they made this possible. If they could make that, I can free us from this trap Fitz has flown us into.”
“If you say so, ma’am. I presume your metaphysical commentary is a preamble to an enquiry about my surveillance mission.”
“Just tell me what’s going on, robot.”
“Catkins is unable to fend for himself but is being protected by the other two. Fregg is attempting to ingratiate herself with local petty criminals. Sinofar is already performing well, providing one of the local Guild factions with expert medical care and no questions asked.”
“How extensive is the Guild’s presence in Beta Hub?”
“The Smugglers Guild owns Beta Hub, hull, comms, and air.”
Izza hissed. “Careful. The Guild is a legally protected group and use of that term is a class I speech crime. I could be jailed just for association with you. You will refer to them as the ‘Guild’, or the Outer Torellian Commerce Guild. Not the phrase you just uttered in public. When we get out of here, you’re getting a professional diagnostic scan and maintenance fix. You’re not your proper self, Lynx.”
She brought out the convex metal disc of her Guild token and held it in front of her face. The outer design of black stripes over a red background was common knowledge and easy for anyone to replicate. But the structure inside was unique and coded to her alone. She had no idea what information was held within.
There was an ancient saying the humans had carried all the way from Earth: ‘There is no honor amongst thieves’. That was true enough about the Guild. What they possessed in place of honor was a practical working arrangement that minimized unnecessary misunderstandings and maximized opportunities for mutual profit.
Fitz knew that. She couldn’t understand why buried deep inside him he’d rediscovered a loyalty to the Federation. He knew it was corrupt and failing – hell, he’d experienced that first-hand. Over and over.
She laughed bitterly because she’d been genuinely horrified at Lynx’s use of a proscribed term, and yet “Smugglers Guild” was an accurate description used in private by Guild members themselves.
No one cared about mutants, though.
Devil eyes.
Mutie scum.
Kick ’em out!
Bring back the Cull!
You could say whatever you wanted to people born with purple eyes, because they weren’t a protected group. And if you didn’t hurl your abuse with enough enthusiasm, you risked your group losing its legal protections. That’s how messed up the Federation was. The federal government was simply the biggest and most ruthless racket of them all, dividing up its citizens into groups and playing them off against each other.
When she’d flown for Nyluga-Ree, Izza had piloted plenty of senior politicians and aristo-hats that the Guild queen had needed to keep sweet. But they hadn’t been the only source of federal influence. In the shadows of the galaxy, the Federation’s highly paid killers stalked its enemies.
People like Kanha Wei.
“What of her, Lynx?”
He buzzed his casing, though with Lynx acting so strangely of late, she was no longer sure what that meant.
“Kanha Wei sends her compliments to you and says she looks forward to meeting you face-to-face in due course.”
“Good. I have a reply I should like you to convey back to her. My compliments, and if the pus-filled bitch crosses my path, then I will cut her. You got that?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Those precise words?”
“I shall replay a recording of your abusive outburst.”
“Excellent.” She patted Lynx on his smooth dome. “I hope I meet her soon.”
IZZA ZAN FEY
Dressed in the greasy overalls and wide-brimmed cap supplied by Lynx, Izza had slipped into Bay 17/12B wi
thout comment from the bay’s automatic security portal, but with her bands tight around her chest, unsure what state Phantom was in.
Or whether her ship was still there at all.
But there she was. Majestic and gleaming in her docking clamps, Phantom looked sleeker than she had for years.
Izza relaxed her bands and breathed again. Acting uptight wasn’t going to do her cover any good.
Against the bulkhead near the bay door, she noticed worn parts heaped in a large, wheeled hopper awaiting the recycling plant. Packaging for their replacements was in another.
She resisted the urge to whistle as she passed the evidence of an extensive refit.
Fitz had flown them in under the guns of the corvettes and fighters that had escorted them here directly from the base two jumps away at Regina-Ventu. The Legion had allowed him to fly his own ship, but the journey here hadn’t exactly been optional.
After they’d docked, he’d told them to stay cool and be ready for anything. He’d hugged her and marched away with the passengers they’d picked up on Rho-Torkis to meet the soldiers waiting by the ship’s ramp. Fitz’s group hadn’t even left the bay before a Legion Naval team entered Phantom and began ushering its crew away while it underwent mandatory refitting.
That had been three days ago.
As Izza had grown closer to her human husband over the years, she’d developed an inexplicable sense for his level of imminent catastrophe. Despite the lack of information from Fitz – and from their former Legion and Militia passengers – she didn’t sense he was in immediate danger. The Phantom worried her more.
Mandatory refitting… that could mean anything! Installing hidden bombs and trackers, secreting stealthed micro-assassin droids in the hidden compartments, or maybe someone simply wanted the Phantom reliably shipshape so Fitz could fly missions for them.
A proper overhaul had been long overdue, she admitted, walking past an uninstalled Leeson gravity actuator box with carbonized patches on its casing. She’d had no idea it had been so worn.
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