by M. D. Cooper
Khela nodded a greeting to George, McCone and Chilters, and then moved closer to Terrance to make room for them to pass, as the medics went to grab packs from the shuttle’s storage area.
“We have the formation material your father requested,” Marta informed Khela, as she rose from where she’d been kneeling next to the cat.
“Yes,” Terrance agreed, indicating the packs the medics now held. “We’d like to deliver it to him as soon as possible. I know how desperate he’s been to get his hands on this, and we have some questions I hope he can answer for us.”
“Yes,” Khela said, her face darkening, “I’m sure you do.” She gestured to one of her men. “Xiao will show you the way to our ground transport.” She glanced down at Beck. “Will you all be coming, or will some remain here?”
“We’ll all join you,” Terrance said, getting a nod of agreement from Logan. “Logan will secure the shuttle and monitor it from a distance. Given how close we are to the camp, no one should be able to breach the craft before Logan is able to stop them.”
Khela hesitated, glancing around her and then over to the AI’s mech frame. She nodded once and then moved to descend the ramp.
Terrance’s eyes followed her departing figure; when he turned back to Beck, he caught Marta looking at him with a knowing expression on her face.
“What?” he asked, and then held up a hand. “Nevermind; not sure I want to know what you’re thinking.”
Marta winked, but then her expression turned solemn as she reached over and patted his forearm. “We’ll do what we can to heal her.” She looked over at her team. “To heal all of them,” she amended, and the rest of the medics nodded in agreement.
The three medics hefted their packs and marched down the ramp, and Terrance raised a brow, glancing down at Beck.
“Any thoughts on how this guy should be transported?”
A wicked smile slid onto the doctor’s lips, and she gave a languid wink.
Terrance sighed as he looked down at the Proxima cat. “I suppose that means I have to carry you around again,” he said, and chuckled as Beck’s ears pricked forward and the cat shot him an eager look.
Leaning down, he gathered the cat up in his arms, taking care not to jostle the injured leg.
“Let’s go meet some resistance fighters, shall we?”
ENEMY OF THE STATE
STELLAR DATE: 09.11.3246 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Offices of Planetary Security
REGION: Ring Galene, Tau Ceti
The contrast between the derelict vibe that had plagued Franklin City, and the clean, well-lit and maintained interior of the planetary services building was striking, both at street level and in the lower levels where he’d been escorted.
As the lift doors slid open, Jason was faced with another incongruity: here, in this bottommost level, nano was clearly in use. He could see it in the powered armor the soldiers guarding the far entrance wore, in the biolocks of the weapons they held, and in the flash of reflected light off the nearest soldier’s optics as she turned a hard stare his way.
After being forced through another decontamination regimen to ensure no nano remained on or within him that could potentially corrupt their headquarters, Jason was escorted into a war room that reminded him of Avon Vale’s bridge.
The first thing he noticed was that the soldiers guarding this level were augmented, unlike the ones who had escorted him here from the spaceport. They eyed him as if they expected him to kamikaze his way into Henrick’s presence any moment.
The comm signal began fading, as if sensors had detected the transmission and were rolling through various frequencies in order to fully jam the signal. Landon’s voice cut off at the same time one of the soldiers standing guard at the door straightened abruptly and shot him a sharp glance.
She raised one arm and beckoned to him with the first two fingers of her hand. As she did so, the soldier standing behind him shoved him roughly between the shoulder blades, encouraging him to move forward. Jason complied.
The doors swung open, and he was treated to the sight of an ornate office, similar to those he had seen in Parliament House back on El Dorado. The woman sitting behind the polished wooden desk disregarded his presence, a power play he knew well from back home. She appeared to be fully engrossed in the study of the plas sheets in front of her.
She sat ignoring him for several minutes, and then finally set the plas sheets down, shoving them to one side as she sat back in her seat and regarded him with a stare.
“So you’re the Proxan from the Avon Vale,” the woman murmured, studying him like she would a pile of excrement she’d inadvertently stepped into.
Jason responded by settling into a sloppy form of parade rest, a smirk playing on his face as he remained silent, waiting her out. Given that Lysander—the AI who was now prime minister of the Alpha Centauri system—had practically raised him, Jason was inured to political games like the one Ann Henrick was playing now. After a long moment fraught with icy disapproval, the woman spoke again, her voice holding an edge of impatience.
“Jason Andrews, I presume?”
Jason’s smirk grew as he changed his stance slightly, affecting an attitude of indolent carelessness. “At your service, ma’am,” he said in his most laid-back, freighter-pilot-for-hire drawl.
He saw a flash of irritation cross her face, and snorted mentally. Now her expression reminded him of the look his sister would give Tobi when the Proxima cat tracked muddy paws all over her clean floors.
“You were told not to approach the planet,” Henrick’s voice held censure, and Jason cocked an eyebrow, his expression turning blank.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, and the woman seated across from him gave a derisive snort.
“A ship was detected entering Galene atmosphere a few hours ago,” the acting president said, leaning back in her chair. “I would be very surprised indeed if any of those under quarantine down on the planet had the ability to pull off something like that.”
Jason shrugged. “Don’t think I can help you out, there,” he said, sounding careless. “You’d know a lot more about your planet’s capabilities than I would.”
Henrick rose, and Jason saw a door behind her slide open.
“Be that as it may, Mister Andrews, I now find myself questioning your motives toward Ring Galene. As such, I will have to ask you to remain our guest until we can be assured that you pose no threat to the good people of Tau Ceti.”
“Now wait just one minute,” Jason protested, his voice heated. “I’m a citizen of Alpha Centauri and a representative of Enfield Holdings.” He stepped forward, planting both palms on Henrick’s desk, and leaned toward her, anger evident on his face.
His actions caused the two soldiers who had just entered to raise their weapons, targeting him in their sights.
Jason made a show of carefully raising his hands and stepping back, his eyes intent on the woman and not on the polished surface of the desk where he’d just released a passel of reconnaissance nano.
“I was invited here by your people to discuss potential trade opportunities,” he continued in a calmer tone. “If this is how you feel, I’ll just inform the Avon Vale that Galene isn’t interested in establishing trade, and we’ll be on our way. I bet Eione would love to have exclusive access to our tech.”
“We’ll see about that.” She shook her head and gestured to the two soldiers. “These people are here to escort you to our medical laboratory for a brief examination.” She smiled, the expression predatory, as the soldiers rounded the desk and one grabbed him by the arm. “We can’t risk introducing a foreign contaminant into the general p
opulation; you understand. We just need to ensure you are no threat to Ring Galene, and then we can discuss trading for your stasis technology.”
Foreign contaminant. What a load of—
Jason bit off the thought, realizing that she hadn’t said they would discuss ‘trade’ but ‘trading’ for the stasis.
Trading me?
He hesitated, thinking to call her on it, but then decided to orchestrate one last stall tactic as an opportunity to insert more nano into the room. He allowed them to move him into the lift, but before its doors could close, he whirled and slapped a hand out to keep it from closing. While their attention was drawn to that action, he placed his other hand on the lift’s control panel, careful to allow his ring finger to make contact.
“Wait,” he blurted, feigning panic as he ordered the nano to spin a filament deep into the conduit that fed from the panel into their main node. “I need to contact my ship. They’ll wonder what’s going on. At least let me contact them—”
Henrick cut him off with a wag of her finger. “Safety first, Mister Andrews. Don’t worry; our people will contact the Avon Vale for you.”
She nodded to the soldiers, who pulled him forcibly away from the lift doors so they could shut.
Jason barely noticed; his entire focus was on controlling the nanofilaments he’d just spun, directing them to hack into the building’s network. It would take a while, but he thought he’d been able to deposit enough to manage it. It was all he could do for the moment.
He let himself sag back against the lit wall as his mind raced, and he sized up the two soldiers escorting him.
Examination? Like hell. Not going to happen.
* * * * *
The four-member third-shift bridge crew sat around Landon as he pondered the information coming to him from the three teams, balancing it against all the information he was stripping from what news and data feeds still existed in Galene nearspace.
“Sir?” Hailey, the Enfield woman operating comm, called out. “I have an incoming communication from the FSTC.”
“On the holo, please,” he instructed, and Hailey nodded, turning to face the holotank, along with the three other crew as the image of the blockade was replaced by the seal of the Federated States of Tau Ceti.
A moment later, a woman in a severe suit stared out at him from behind a utilitarian desk. She nodded in greeting.
“Avon Vale, we apologize for the lateness of this message, but your own was routed incorrectly on our end. We want to make you aware of some reports that have recently come into our hands regarding Ring Galene and Acting President Henrick.” She shifted, and her lips thinned as she continued. “Please exercise care in your interaction with those currently in power on the ring. It is our understanding that Henrick has enacted practices that extend well beyond martial law. We’ve been told that the government there has begun to absorb privately-held companies, appropriating their technologies and IPs as ‘properties of the state’.”
Landon saw Hailey exchange a worried look with the man at the scan console, as the FSTC woman leaned in toward the holorecorder. Clasping her hands before her, Landon saw clear concern in the woman’s eyes as she continued.
“I understand the company that founded your journey—Enfield Holdings—is in possession of a novel new stasis tech. Please make the corporation aware of this threat and tell them we advise they proceed with caution, if they intend to engage in business dealings with Ring Galene.” A grimace passed briefly across the woman’s face as she added, “Many of the local companies here on Eione have found their businesses seized by Ring Galene, their credit accounts frozen, and their property confiscated.”
The FSTC representative hesitated, and her concern seemed to turn into something deeper.
Disquiet, Landon thought. Unease, maybe.
Glancing off to one side and then back again, she toggled something on her desk, and her image shrank into a corner of the holo, to be replaced by a dossier of another.
“In addition, we’ve received some disturbing news suggesting that Acting President Henrick has charged this person, a scientist by the name of deSangro, with coming up with solutions for the nanophage using all means at her disposal.” The woman’s face in the lower corner appeared pinched, as if the news were especially unpalatable. “If our sources are to be believed, deSangro has violated interstellar humanitarian law, as well as the Phobos Accords. She has experimented on humans and AIs—both infected and uninfected.”
The woman’s gaze pierced through the holo, and Landon found himself gripped by it, his mind seized by the potential atrocities the deSangro woman might commit.
“If Henrick gets her hands on any of your people, she might use them as collateral to get what she wants from Enfield.” The woman pursed her lips, and then reluctantly concluded, “And if she thinks someone outside the Tau Ceti system might be worth studying, that individual might find him or herself in deSangro’s hands—and that would be most unfortunate.”
The FSTC representative apologized once more for the tardiness of this warning, but Landon hardly heard her draw her transmission to a close as his mind raced through possible doomsday scenarios.
“Status of our comm connections?” he demanded of the comm officer.
“Five by five with Eidolon and Mirage,” Hailey said. “However, I have been unable to reestablish a connection with Jason since Henrick’s office jammed it. Wait— There’s a message coming in from Henrick’s office,” she interrupted herself sharply, and Landon felt the console beneath his frame’s hand give as his grip left an indentation in it.
The woman’s next words had him shooting engineering an urgent missive to drop everything in order to expedite the weapons deployment.
“They just announced they’re holding Jason in custody as a possible enemy of the state.”
* * * * *
<…holding Jason hostage.>
Landon’s update came over the Sable Wind’s combat net as the AI relayed the FSTC’s warning, and Calista exchanged grim glances with Jonesy at the words.
Shannon’s avatar shot the Weapon Born a sharp look, silver eyes narrowing.
“You can bet on that one,” Calista muttered.
She was already in motion, stripping out of her flight suit as she reached for the latch to Sable Wind’s weapons locker.
Calista breathed a silent ‘thank you’ to the Weapon Born as Jonesy nodded.
“Sir, yes sir,” he said, “let me get the captain started, and I’ll be right over.”
Having backup is always preferable to going it alone—despite Jason’s tendency to do otherwise, she thought sardonically.
She moved a bit to give Jonesy room, and the engineer reached past her to pull down a sealed container. When she sent him a questioning look, he popped it open and handed her a pair of stretchy black bands that reminded her of the nano wristbands she wore to keep sweat off her weapons when she practiced Kai-Eskrima. She fingered them and then pushed her hands through them, settling them just above her wrists.
“Like this?” she asked, and Jonesy nodded. “Okay, I’ll bite. What are they?”
Jonesy grinned and opened his mouth to explain, but Shannon beat him to it.
“Here’s a pair for Jason,” Jonesy said, handing her another set.
She tucked them inside a compartment embedded in the powered armor awaiting her on the rack, before turning and backing into it.
“Tell him Q sent it,” he called
over his shoulder as he sealed his flight suit and headed to the airlock to retrieve Tobias.
Calista shot him a puzzled look, but didn’t waste time pressing him for an explanation.
Calista paused, looking sharply down at where Mirage was mag-clamped to the belly of Sable Wind, as if she could see through the deck and into the ship. “Tobias, what are you thinking?”
Landon’s response came a moment later.
“Then we can use those spires’ lifts to gain access,” Calista said, nodding in approval.
Calista looked at the spire Landon had highlighted on the drawing. As she studied it, the AI traced a line from it to the pin denoting Jason’s location.
Landon continued.