by Jenn Lyons
was killed. I can understand that. I do sympathize. But you got further than anyone before you ever has, and no one—no one—survives a straight-up hand-to-hand fight with a High Guard. What with that and your known expert knowledge of hyperspace technology, well, people might draw the conclusion that if anyone could have fixed a shuttle to jump by remote it would be you. One does hear rumors about you and your toys: I understand that fancy AI of yours can jump that test shuttle you took with you when you left Janus without you being anywhere near.”
“She wouldn’t. She didn’t.”
“I know. That suicide run used a Navy ship, piloted by one Lieutenant Jessie Malloy. We were monitoring when we lost contact with him, although we still have no idea why he suddenly decided to turn mad bomber on us.”
I kept my face very carefully blank. “I see. No wonder you don’t want Petrov making any wild accusations.”
“I think you can understand where Sarcodinay might decide you must be the one responsible. Maybe it won’t be accurate, but it will fit all the facts.”
“So what can they do? Throw another Black Flag on me? I’m already marked for death, Colonel.”
He shook his head sadly. “Ah now, that’s just it. We’re playing a game right now: Make believe. The League is going to make believe that what happened here was an accident, even though we both know that it’s harder to jump a Janus drive ship 300 meters than it is clear over on the far side of the galaxy. The Sarcodinay are probably going to make believe that too. And if that was all there was, it could be one of those nice fictions that peace is so often built on. But it doesn’t end here. You know it and I know it. This engine’s just starting to warm up; when it really gets going, playtime will be over. You’re going to need friends.”
“Friends like you, I suppose?” I stood up slowly. “Friends like Szabo?”
He rubbed the end of his nose. “You should stay out of it. You’re on vacation. So go on vacation. Make yourself hard to find. We don’t want to risk the treaty. We also don’t want to risk losing you. When all this is over, come back. There’ll be a nice fat hyperdrive contract waiting for you.”
I smiled, unhappy and taut. “Conditional on me keeping my nose out of this case, or any of Szabo Ernak’s business?”
Colonel Belisle shook his head. “No, no. Not at all. Conditional on you still being alive, that’s all.”
NINE.Kaimer
When I made my way back to the loading bay, I saw that Tal-Campbell was indeed lurking by my ship, if by “lurking” I meant being obviously uncomfortable in zero gee and trying far too hard not to float into walls, cargo loaders or passers-by. An attractive colony girl was leaving the area, sighing to herself and shaking her head. I suspected she was why Campbell’s current complexion was roughly the same shade as a red apple.
He hadn’t seen me yet. I stared at him, wondering what my chances were of sneaking on board the Aegis and jumping out of the station before he ever saw me. I was in no mood to explain myself to anyone from MOJ, and Campbell would want answers. Maybe he even deserved them, but I didn’t much care. I wasn’t in a good place.
I decided there was no help for it, and let myself float in his direction. “Hello Tal. Change your mind about arresting me?”
He whirled at the sound of my voice. That sent him spinning, and he frantically grabbed at handholds to keep still. “I—uhh...”
“Let me guess, she was hoping you might be willing to make a small donation to the gene pool?” I’d wager money that girl had the honor of being the first man or woman in Campbell’s entire life to proposition him openly, without it being a favor for kind deal on a reduced sentence. I understand that the MOJ kids field a lot of play from people with nothing to lose; one of the perks of the job if you don’t mind looking over your own shoulder for Internal Affairs.
His strawberry color turned to cherry until I wondered if I was going to run out of fruit metaphors. “That’s none of your business!”
I jerked my thumb back in the woman’s direction. “She’s likely from Liberty. That colony was only founded with two thousand people. Enough for a stable gene pool with careful monitoring, but the Liberty girls like to spice up the mix whenever they can.”
Campbell swallowed uncomfortably as he stared after the young woman. To tell the truth, he was one of those few men who could wear a vacuum suit without looking like a bloated fish the seagulls hadn’t gotten around to eating yet. I could understand why she had singled him out. I followed his stare. Behind her were a number of other people prepping ships or inspecting them for damage. One of them pulled himself down to look at a nexus port, but not before I saw it was Kovacs the Undertaker.
He probably just wanted to wish me a safe journey, right?
Campbell pulled his gaze back to me with commendable swiftness. “We need to talk.”
“What are we doing now? Mime?”
He smiled. It was hard for him. It looked like it hurt. “In private. It’s important.”
“So is leaving this station without delay.” I pulled myself up a ladder towards the Aegis.
“Are you all right? You look like you just fought a High Guard.”
I used the railing as leverage to turn and stared at him. “Is that supposed to be a cute euphemism for looking like something that died?”
“Supposed to be, yes.”
“As it happens, I look like this because I just fought a High Guard.” I turned around and continued making my way back towards the ship.
I could feel his stare on my back.
“I’m sorry, you what?”
Without turning back to look at him, I added, “I’ll give you a ride back to Terra. We can talk on the way.”
“A High Guard? You fought a High Guard? Where are they?”
“Dead. Here.” I pulled myself up next to him and handed him a small monitor. “I’ll feed you signals. If they ever go outside the green zone, don’t be shy: tell me.”
He didn’t glance at the monitor. “You didn’t kill a High Guard.”
I stopped, started to say something witty and stupid. I closed my mouth again and didn’t respond.
“You didn’t. You couldn’t.”
I shook my head. “No. Someone else did. Saved my life.” I taped the box in his hand. “Console signals. We need to run this check now.”
“What are we doing?” He raised an eyebrow.
“Checking the nexus ports on the hyperdrive.”
“Don’t you have diagnostics for that?” He eyed the ship like it was some dangerous kind of wild animal, maybe a very large, sleeping rhino. He wasn’t sure he wanted to touch the damn thing, let alone saddle her up and go for a ride.
“The odds that a computer diagnostics wouldn’t register a fault with the nexus grid is something like 1 in a 100,000...but ships have pulled those odds, and sometimes the odds have a little help. A pilot always hand-checks their ship’s own grid before making a jump. Always. Screw this up and they’ll never even recover the bodies.”
“But you trust me to help?”
I gave him an angry stare he probably couldn’t see inside his vacuum suit. “You’re riding with me. If you mess up, we both die. And you don’t seem like the suicidal type.” I floated down to the ship, and began check procedures. Campbell was all business and treated the job I’d given him with the seriousness that it deserved. I hadn’t honestly expected to find any tampering with the grid. Naval Intelligence seemed to want me alive, at least for the moment, and Shaniran would likely have felt something like that was beneath him. However, debris from the explosion might have hit something. You never knew.
“How many times have you been off Terra, Campbell?” I asked when we finished up the outside.
“Including this trip?”
“Sure. Why not?”
He tapped his fingers against his suit, as if he were counting to himself. He silently marked off to eight, then said, “That would be once.”
“How’d you do on the trip up?”
“I lived.” T
he tenseness in his voice implied that perhaps he hadn’t wanted to at the time.
“I’ll spare you reentry. We can jump inside atmosphere over a quarantine zone and fly back to FirstCity. Shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”
He blinked in surprise. “That would be very nice of you.”
“That’s me: a bundle of nice. Let’s get the fuck out of here.” I opened the hatch to the ship and strong-armed myself inside. Campbell followed. I cycled the airlock and opened up the second stage to the decontamination room, which ran a quick sweep over both of us before giving the green light. I pulled off my helmet and started working my weight out of the suit. Campbell saw what I was doing, cursed, and turned away.
“Plague,” he muttered. “Why do you keep taking off your clothes every time we meet?”
“Relax, I’m wearing a body suit underneath this. Are you?”
He took off his own helmet and turned back towards me. He’d shaved and washed but the braids were still loose, and now threatened to come undone entirely. “Excuse me?”
“We leave the vacuum suits here. That way if you have tracked in anything the sensors didn’t pick up, it doesn’t contaminate the rest of my ship.” I point at him. “That suit needs to come off.”
“Ah,” he said, and paused. “I’m wearing my arming suit underneath.”
I tried not to smile.
Arming suits were the innermost layer of most powered armor suits, from Sarcodinay knights’ armor to Ministry MEP Suits. One didn’t ‘wear’ anything under am arming suit, and they were