“What about the other two of your men? You said they were missing?” he asked.
“Yes sir. They were the field-command for the operation and were at an observation post inside a café across the commons from where the murders happened. They had a clear line of sight on the open area in front of the loop terminal and the gate. According to the woman that owns the place, they abandoned their post about ten minutes before the situation occurred.” The captain shook his head and looked up at the screen. “Personally I think that doesn’t hold water, because one of the men had a wife and three kids. He’s a career operative and one of my best men.”
“I assume you interrogated her?” Paulson asked.
“We did a field biometric on her and she scanned clean. Not even a twitch,” he said. “We went ahead and took her into custody and we’ll do a brain sweep as soon as I can get a legal binder and a med tech in here to run it.”
Lassiter sat back and glared at Gaelsen for several minutes, watching the man wilt with every passing second. “You’re certain your missing men weren’t helping Drake?”
“Without a doubt,” he said. “We know there may have been a third individual working with them. A man of indeterminate age. We have images of him but nothing clear enough to get a good facial recog.”
“You’re sure they’re inside TFC?”
“Yes sir, as far as we know,” Gaelsen said. “I have tag-teams at the other gates with surveil orders and facial scanners. Nobody’s reported a contact. Unfortunately there’s a steady stream of shuttle traffic between Tsiolkovskiy and the Lunar L-2 Shipyard so it’s entirely possible they’ll leave that way.”
“Fine, send me what you have so I can report to Director Tomlinson, then keep eyeballs on the gates until further notice. If she sticks her head out, shoot her and we’ll clean up the mess afterward,” Lassiter said, slapping his hand down on the disconnect.
Tsiolkovskiy Fleet Training Center: Acting FleetCom Headquarters: Luna:
Edison watched Saf and Tana as they sat in the guard shack and waited for a rollalong to come pick them up. It was mildly amusing to see the stress piling onto the medic who realized she was treating the wife of the premier doctor in the Union.
“It’s a simple through and through,” Saffia said. “No arterial bleeding, so it will heal if you just leave it alone.”
“I’m sorry ma’am, but it’s my job,” the med-tech said.
“Yah, and you’re obviously new at it,” she said. “Do you want me to show you how to do it?”
“Saf, be nice,” Tana said, glaring at her while she watched from a slightly less intimate distance.
“Well it fragging hurts,” Saf said. “If she keeps shoving that probe into it I’m likely to get pissy.”
“Get pissy?” The tech paused as she realized what she’d said.
Edison leaned toward the woman and whispered, “Trust me on this. You do not want to see this woman get pissy. Really.”
“Pack the wound with omnithrax and close it up with skinseal,” Tana said turning away to hide her amusement. “She’s just a big baby.”
“Hush you,” Saf said, glaring at the back of her wife’s head.
“Investigator Wentworth, your ride’s here,” the captain of the guard shouted from outside.
“Snap to,” one of the guards barked and everyone jumped up, including the med tech. Carranza Pratte appeared at the door.
“Back to it,” the commandant said, waving a hand dismissively.
The tech bent to resume her work, but before she got into position, Saf had snagged the can of skinseal out of her hand and shot it all over the front of her thigh. “Thank you for your service,” she said, pushing the tech away and wincing as she stood up to spray a layer over the exit wound. “I’m good to go now.”
“Edison, it’s been several years, hasn’t it?” Pratte said as she offered him her hand. She looked over at Tana and Saffia and smiled. “I’m sorry Madam Chancellor but if we’d known earlier you were traveling with the Investigator, we’d have gotten you all in here sooner. We didn’t get word until this morning that you were together.”
“You did?” Edison asked.
“Yes sir. Seems you have a guardian angel,” she said. “The new Investigator General contacted Admiral Quintana this morning and told us to get you inside. He said you’d need some help and I can see he was right.” She looked at Saf’s leg pointedly.
“It’s nice to know Carsten isn’t wasting his resources,” Edison said.
“And it’s good to know who your friends are,” the commandant added. She looked around the inside of the shack, apparently considering something.
“Give us the room,” she said, dismissing the remaining guards and the med tech, who looked happier than she should have as she grabbed her bag and shot toward the door.
When just the four of them remained, she sat down on the edge of the desk. “I don’t know what your particular piece of this is, and I’m sure it is way above my air supply, but we all know that shit is falling in heavy piles right now. I’m betting a civil war is on the horizon.”
“It’s worse than that,” Tana said, quietly.
Pratte glanced at Edison who just shrugged. “Fair enough, but I don’t think I want to consider what might be worse. I know it got messy out there and whatever you did, it got you pegged for active apprehend with prejudice.”
“Apprehend with prejudice?” Tana asked.
“It means don’t apprehend, just kill,” Edison said, feeling the last of his options vanishing.
“In any case, the word went out within minutes of your landing here,” Pratte said. “We watched them roll crates of high-grade gear out to a stack of muscle stationed outside all my gates. The point is, they know you’re in here and it looks like they want you back. In bags.”
“That limits our options,” Saffia said.
“You’re good for now,” the commandant said, “but as tight as our security is, we still have to let a lot of people in and out on a daily basis. All it takes is one slip. I think that even with the upgrades we’ve done, we should get you out to Lunar L-2. Their security is a lot tighter, being on the other side of a sixty-five kiloklick moat.”
“That was what we were hoping for anyway,” Tana said.
“Then we agree that we need to have you on the next shuttle,” Pratte said. “If your potato’s this hot, it’s just a matter of time before the New Order starts thinking about tactical operations to get you. When that time comes, we’ll be making some ugly decisions for sure.”
“You think they’ll do that?” Edison asked.
“Absolutely,” she said. “If they want you bad enough. Assuming the former DevCartel fleet is backing the new god-king, their ships could play hell with our rights of free passage in Zone One. That could put a serious squeeze on us, depending on how they play it. If war is really coming, this could easily be the flash point to kick it off.”
“They have to know that,” Tana said, shaking her head in disbelief. “They won’t risk it just to take us down.”
“It depends on what you did that lit this hate-fire under them,” the commandant said. “From where I sit, I think that risk threshold has already been crossed.”
Office of the Executive Director: Galileo Station:
Director Tomlinson sat with his feet up on the edge of the table in his sitting area while his autobot cleared the last of the dishes from his midmeal. He hated eating alone, but life in the ivory tower left him with few choices for friendship where he wasn’t always on his guard. Even those with whom he could relax always seemed to be angling to get something, usually a piece of the power structure.
There was always Odysseus for company, but he’d much prefer talking to a recycler unit than his omniscient overlord most of the time. When his personal comline chirped, he tapped into his thinpad and sent the link to his wallscreen.
“Yes Paulson what is it?” he said as the man’s face materialized in front of him. He could see that somethin
g had chiseled deeper lines into his expression than usual.
“I’m sorry to interrupt your lunch, but I need to update you on the situation with Tana Drake,” he said.
“I was just finished,” he said, pulling his feet down and leaning forward. “From your face it isn’t good.”
He shook his head. “We located her several hours ago and as you’d suspected she was in Freeport East. Unfortunately, she and her wife eluded custody and are now inside Tsiolkovskiy FleetCom Center.”
Derek closed his eyes and let his head drop forward. “What happened?”
“Apparently her wife is a lot more dangerous than we expected,” he said. “She killed several security operatives and—”
“Saffia Drake? She’s barely more than a child.”
“Regardless, that child killed four men and possibly two more, but they’re still looking for the other bodies so they don’t know for sure. What was reported to me is she did it with her bare hands, despite being wounded.”
Derek snorted in disbelief. “They had to have someone helping them. I’ve met Saf. She’s a brainless sextoy on legs.”
“There was a man with them, but he doesn’t seem to have been involved in the murders,” Paulson said.
“Who is he?”
“We don’t know for sure, the only image we have of the incident was a body optic from the security unit that wounded her. In the background Drake is visible walking with this unidentified man. They’ve tried to enhance the image, but there isn’t enough there to get a facial recognition on him.”
“If she’s in TFC, we should be able to order her held,” Derek said. “They might not like it, but I don’t think they’re ready to escalate things over her arrest.”
“This is unlikely,” Odysseus said through his link. “FleetCom security forces left the TFC gate post and provided cover as Drake and her companions entered Tsiolkovskiy Center.”
“How do you know?” Derek asked out loud in reply to Odysseus.
Paulson shot him a quizzical look at the non-sequitur.
“I have been able to gain access to an unsecured optic in a private mercantile near where the two missing men were posted,” Odysseus said, once again through the link. “Although the entrance to the TFC is at extreme range and partially obscured, it picked up at least twelve FleetCom guards mobilizing to occupy the lawn between the gate and the loop terminal.”
“Nevermind,” Derek said, ignoring the unspoken expression on Lassiter’s face. “FleetCom covered her escape so they’ve obviously got a stake in this.”
“That’s not a surprise,” Paulson said, cocking his head to the side in curiosity.
“It is not,” Odysseus said, answering Lassiter’s question in private. “However, Captain Gaelsen has not realized this optic was in a position to cover the front of the café where his missing men were stationed. After analyzing the archived images, I have determined that the proprietor of the Colorado Café has made a false statement when she claims the men abandoned their post,” it said.
“The missing men didn’t abandon their post,” Derek said.
“That’s what the commander said,” Lassiter said. “But I don’t think I mentioned that to you.”
Tomlinson shook his head and held up a finger while he listened to Odysseus. “One male entered the café at 0902, and Dr. Drake entered with her wife at 0905 hours. Saffia Drake exited the shop at 0914, with Tana Drake and a male companion departing at 0916.”
Can we identify the third person? he asked.
An image appeared in his mind and he blinked in surprise. It was like the dream of Carmen Ambrose’ death, real and vivid. He suddenly felt like he was standing inside a display window looking across the concourse in Freeport East. He watched the image play out and in the back of his mind he could feel the time signature of the optic. At 0902 a man in a gray hooded coverall hurried toward the front of the Colorado Café.
“Are you alright?” Paulson asked.
Derek nodded, watching the video in his mind slow to a crawl as the image enhanced to crystal clarity. He snapped his head to the side trying to shake off the sense of being somewhere other than where his body was.
“The third person is Edison Wentworth,” he said out loud.
“How the frag do you know that?” Lassiter challenged.
“It doesn’t matter, but you need to make sure you have your people looking for him too,” he said as his eyes focused back on the screen.
“I’ll pass the word, but if you’re just playing a hunch you might be making a powerful enemy,” he said.
“Not a hunch,” Derek said. “Have Gaelsen order him brought in too. He has to be the one behind her escape.”
“We should also move to intercept shuttle traffic between Tsiolkovskiy and the L-2 Shipyard,” Odysseus said through the link.
“Stop,” Paulson said. “I got the preliminary report less than an hour ago, and I know I didn’t tell you the commander’s name.”
“We need to order security interceptors to cut off the shuttle lanes to L-2,” the Director said, ignoring Lassiter’s comment. “Get on it.”
“But—”
“If they get to the shipyard, we can’t reach them with anything short of an attack fleet.”
“Wait—”
“Just do it!” he hissed. “With FleetCom protecting them they’re exponentially more dangerous.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
FleetCom Lunar L-2 Shipyard: Lunar Lagrange Two:
The FleetCom shipyard at Lunar Lagrange Two was the largest free-floating structure in Zone One, covering more cubic volume than even the massive Galileo Station.
It was also the only territory that FleetCom exclusively controlled in the inner solar system. That meant nowhere else in Zone One was there a place to build or repair ships that wasn’t directly under Tomlinson’s thumb. This also meant that when things came unzipped, the L-2 Shipyard would be the focus of a lot of attention. So far nothing had kicked the situation into full-on conflict, but as Edison got off the shuttle and looked around, he knew FleetCom considered it was only a matter of time. From what he could see, the effort at fortifying the station was more intense than at TFC.
“Mr. Wentworth, Chancellor and Miss Drake, please come with me.” A tall woman in a one-piece uniform met them at the boarding ramp and gestured toward a shuttlepod docked at the closest port. The clear tube that connected them to their waiting ride was disconcerting to someone that had spent most of the last five decades working inside a tin can with spin-grav, but he refused to let it slow him down.
“Admiral Quintana wanted me to bring you directly to the admin complex,” she said as they settled into their seats and strapped in. She blew the locks and leapt sideways out into the darkness. “I apologize for the lack of pleasantries, but we just got word that a squadron of security interceptors broke from Galileo and are headed toward our shuttle lanes. TFC says that after your arrival there, they’ve had to go to full lockdown and there was a limited exchange of gunfire across from the gate in the Freeport East concourse.”
Edison looked down at his hands folded in his lap. He knew they’d brought the lightning down on Kylla.
Tana reached out and squeezed his hand. “She’s smart. I’m sure she was gone before they got there.”
He nodded, but said nothing. Instead he turned toward the small porthole and watched the spacedocks slip by. He didn’t know what the shipyard normally looked like, but there seemed to be an insane level of activity. Every place there was an edge to the station, swarms of EVApods and fabricators clustered.
“I assume it’s not always this busy?” he asked, without turning.
“We keep a pretty tight schedule,” their pilot said, “but this is special.”
“I can imagine,” Tana said. “When you aren’t flying VIP’s around, I assume you have a different specialty?”
“The piloting’s that bad?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder and shooting them a half smile.
“Not
at all,” Tana said, while Saf looked at her and nodded. She elbowed her wife and frowned. “I noticed you’re not wearing the winged ellipsis of the pilot corp.”
“Normally I’m a materials requisition specialist,” she said. “I work junk reclamation, but since the coup … I mean switch in authority … we’re not getting scrap stock.”
“That will make it tough to maintain the rebellion,” Tana said, only half joking.
“We’re working on an alternative supply chain,” she said. “We’ll do what we have to.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Edison said, shocked that they could even consider the idea. Then he remembered the way his morning started and the fact that he’d been part of six deaths for which he felt almost no remorse.
The shuttlepod flipped end over and slipped through an open bay door, the sudden lights outside glared blindingly bright. The pilot nudged them downward and he could hear mechanical arms cinching them into a landing cradle. Several seconds later they dropped through the floor of the bay and into an airlock.
“If any of you want maglocks, there should be universal ones under your seat,” their pilot said. “It might make it easier for you to get around. The admiral should be waiting, but if not you should head for the Officers’ mess on deck four.”
“You’re not coming with us?” Saf asked.
“No ma’am,” she said. “I’ve got to get back on with stocking the Katana. Even though nobody’s trialed it for service, they’re saying every ship we’ve got might be pressed into duty before this is over. We’ve got orders to make everything that will hold air ready for a fight.”
“Well then, thank you for the ride, Lieutenant,” Tana said, unclipping her belt and floating through the door with Saf a second behind.
Admiral Quintana arrived as they exited the boarding ramp. “Chancellor, Inspector, welcome to the party,” he said, anchoring to the floor and offering his hand. He nodded at Saf and raised an eyebrow as he looked down at her leg. The tear in her thinskin left her wound clearly visible.
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