Ruthven, 4102
It had always struck Uzi as ironic, even as he slipped out of the spaceport’s shore leave facility and headed towards the city, that planetary cities were almost always the same, at least in general terms. There would be a section of the city that was populated solely by the rich and influential, a slightly-larger section that belonged to the middle-class and a handful of districts that were increasingly poor and crime-ridden. A decade of relative affluence hadn’t changed Ruthven’s criminal underground at all, Uzi was sure. It had merely driven parts of it underground.
Because humans are still humans, he thought, as he kept walking. And there’s always someone willing to make a fast buck out of someone else’s misery.
He braced himself as he reached the city’s boundaries and slipped into the streets, hoping he’d remain unnoticed. Ruthven had slowly come around to accepting the rebel presence, even though they hadn’t quite agreed to commit themselves to joining the Outsider Federation, but the prospect of running into a half-drunk mob wasn’t one to take lightly. A pair of idiots might recognize him as a rebel and attack, without thinking of the likely consequences. He’d changed into an unmarked shipsuit before leaving, yet — with interstellar traffic sharply reduced — it wouldn’t be hard for someone to deduce how he’d reached the planet. Cyborgs were relatively rare outside the military or the spacer community.
The trick, he reminded himself, was to find someone who could and would carry out his orders, without question. A smuggler would be ideal, but he doubted he would find any in the bars, not when a giant fleet was hovering over the planet. Admiral Garibaldi had a certain reputation along the Rim for being the commanding officer who’d sent a colossal fleet to Hobson’s Choice, years ago, just to clean up the wretched hive of scum and villainy. Smiling inwardly, he slipped into a bar, ordered a beer and settled back to listen to the surrounding crowd of spacers. His implants were very useful at recording their conversation and picking out important keywords. But even so, it took him thirty minutes to locate a possible candidate for his mission.
“Just remember, you have to be sober tomorrow,” a female voice said. “We’re leaving at 0900 sharp!”
Uzi turned, just enough so he could see the speaker. A middle-aged black woman, wearing a merchant captain’s uniform, was lecturing two younger men, both of whom looked to be barely out of their teens. Judging from their shared features, the young men were brothers — or perhaps half-brothers — and probably quite experienced spacers in their own right. Their ship would be a family enterprise, Uzi guessed. There were thousands of family-owned starships plying the shipping lanes between stars. He took a photograph of the captain with his implants, uploaded it to the local processor nodes and searched for a match. Seconds later, one came back. Captain Shanna Rollinson, freighter captain, proud wife of two husbands and mother of nine children. And also, according to a mark in her file, due to depart for New Moscow the following morning.
And nothing to suggest she might be a smuggler, Uzi thought. If I ask her to take a datachip for me, will she take it?
He kept one eye on the captain as he hastily scanned through the other spacers at the bar. It might be better to have two candidates, but who’d be the second? He didn’t have to speak to a captain, he knew, but in his experience freighter captains tended to get pissy if their subordinates accepted private commissions. It would add a complication he didn’t need.
“Now, go get your rocks hauled,” Captain Rollinson ordered. “And report back to the shuttle by 2330!”
“Yes, mother,” the young men said.
Uzi concealed his amusement as they rose and hurried towards the door at the far end of the bar. Spacer bars were all alike; there was drinking downstairs, an entertainment complex on the middle floor and a brothel on the top floor. Ruthven might be more prosperous than worlds where women entered prostitution en masse, but there was probably no shortage of fresh meat for the industry. He wondered, as he rose, if the government was supervising the prostitutes and decided it was highly likely. They wouldn’t be able to tax the brothels otherwise.
“Captain,” he said, approaching Rollinson. “May I take a seat?”
“It’s a free planet,” Rollinson grunted. Her voice suggested she was a native of Earth, although it was rather more likely she’d been born on one of the asteroid colonies. “What can I do for you?”
“My name is Jones, Spacer Christopher Jones,” Uzi lied. If she wanted ID, he had a couple of fakes he’d picked up from the Outsiders. “I need...”
“I don’t have any free billets,” Rollinson said, cutting him off. “I’m sorry for whatever got you dumped here, but I can’t take you away.”
Uzi allowed himself a moment of surprise, then relief. Someone who jumped to the wrong conclusion was often easier to manipulate than someone who reserved judgement, if only because they were too wedded to a particular theory.
“I don’t need passage out of here,” he said. “I need someone to take a datachip to an import office on Astrid. Are you passing through the system?”
He watched her for a long moment, silently gauging her reaction. A physical datachip, as opposed to an electronic packet, would almost certainly be something the sender wanted to keep concealed. And that suggested... what? A spy? Or a trader, trying to take advantage of changes in local prices? Spacers were paid commissions for up-to-date information on such matters, without risking the wrath of an orbiting fleet.
“We are passing through Astrid,” Rollinson said, slowly. “I wasn’t planning to stop.”
“I can make it worth your while,” Uzi said.
He waited, feeling his heart starting to race, as she considered it. Paying wasn’t a problem — he’d made sure to get his hands on unsecured cashchips — but there was a certain reluctance to divert her entire ship to Astrid, even though docking wouldn’t cost more than a hundred credits for a few hours. And she wouldn’t have to go down to the surface. The import-export office was on a station orbiting the planet.
“Two thousand credits,” she said, finally. She held up a hand. “And that’s the only offer you’ll get.”
“One thousand,” Uzi said, ignoring her last remark. A spacer who refused to bargain was a very odd spacer indeed. “And there may be another reward on the far side.”
“Oh,” Rollinson said. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Uzi said. “I cannot go in person, you see.”
He saw the flicker of greed on her face and smiled, inwardly. A message to an import-export office had to be something to do with trade prices... and such data was time-sensitive. She could demand another two thousand credits on Astrid and she’d be paid, too. But she didn’t know that the import-export company was a cover for ONI. The datachip, once scanned, would be immediately forwarded to Earth.
And she gets it all for herself, he thought. There’s no need to share with her crew.
“Very well,” she said. “Where do you want the message to go?”
Uzi gave her the address, then the first chip. “I should warn you that the encryption is unbreakable without the key,” he said. “Trying to access the data without permission will have... unfortunate consequences.”
“I will keep my word,” Rollinson said, stiffly. She might not get into legal trouble if she took his fee and didn’t keep her side of the bargain, but the spacer community would remember, and she’d find it harder to get charters in future. Or she would, if he was a genuine spacer. “And I trust that you’ll keep yours.”
Uzi passed her a pair of cashchips and waited as she checked the balance. The cashchips were almost completely untraceable, despite the best efforts of the Federation’s banking industry. There were too many small banks outside the Core Worlds. Uzi was privately surprised the system hadn’t fallen apart years ago.
“Thank you,” he said, rising. “My friends will be very relieved to get that data.”
And they would, he told himself, as he left the bar. They have to know about Admiral Vincent.
>
Uzi was no stranger to treachery. Betraying insurgent groups that had trusted him was his job, after all. But Admiral Vincent had no motive to betray the Federation, save his own wealth and power. It was disgusting.
And when the Emperor found out, Uzi was sure he’d make the bastard pay.
He wandered down the street, looking for his second target. Another captain was a possibility, but he would have preferred someone lower on the social scale. Like it or not, captains tended to draw a great deal of attention from planetary security forces. Rollinson should be fine, as long as she kept her mouth shut at the right time... he was just passing another bar when the door opened and a middle-aged man was thrown out into the street.
“Come back when you’ve got your stinking paycheck,” the bartender called after him, before slamming the door. “And not before.”
Uzi almost smiled as he wandered over to help the man to his feet. A spacer — the marks on his uniform identified him as a Spacer Second Class — without much hope of rising higher, not given the stench of booze wafting up from his mouth. It was possible he’d been abandoned on Ruthven — it wouldn’t be the first time a spacer was dumped when he proved unable to fit into the crew — but it was equally possible he was having one final bender before returning to his ship.
“You’re all right now,” he said, keeping one arm supporting the spacer before he could collapse. “Run out of cash?”
“Bastards won’t give me an advance on my pay,” the spacer said. His thick accent suggested he came from somewhere along the Rim. “Need more beer before we go.”
“Oh?” Uzi said. The spacer was so drunk he couldn’t think clearly, although he was definitely used to drinking his beer. “Where are you going?”
“Captain wants us to head to Riley before all hell breaks loose and we can’t get through the point,” the spacer slurred. “Fucking war getting in the way of our fucking profits.”
“Soldier boys just want to make everyone else unhappy,” Uzi agreed. He helped his newfound friend down the road towards a late-night cafe. A handful of people sat inside, drinking coffee and trying not to look miserable. “When are you going?”
“Two days,” the spacer managed to say, after a long period of thought that would have been comical if it hadn’t been annoying. “Got to leave before the grand offensive.”
Uzi smirked as he ordered two steaming mugs of coffee. The rebels would be unhappy to know that word of the planned offensive had already slipped out — although, to be fair, it didn’t take a genius to realize that the fleet couldn’t stay at Ruthven forever. Someone had probably gone to a bar, got drunk and bragged to an interested audience. He made a mental note not to mention it to the rebels, just to see who spilled the beans first, then watched as the spacer drank his coffee. As he’d expected, the warm liquid helped him sober up.
“There’s nothing at Riley for us,” he said, finally. “But the captain thinks we can go there.”
“I’m sure he has something in mind,” Uzi said. He checked his internal datanodes, just to be sure. Riley was a strongly conservative world, dedicated to one of the many religions that had established off-world colonies during the first expansion into space. No booze, no drugs, no casual sex... it sounded hellish. “Are you going to stop at Tara Prime along the way?”
“Probably,” the spacer said. “You want to come with us?”
Uzi considered it, very briefly. He’d smuggled himself onboard warships before, back when he’d been serving as a mercenary. It wasn’t hard, provided one took the right precautions... but it would take him away from his duty at the very time he needed to stay close to Senator Chang and General Stuart. The risk of being recognized by Admiral Garibaldi — and he’d done what he could to minimize the likelihood — was a small price to pay.
“No,” he said. “But I do have an offer for you.”
He produced a trio of cashchips from his pocket and dropped them on the table. “Yours, if you’ll do one thing for me,” he said. “Take a chip of mine to an office on Tara Prime.”
The spacer picked up the first cashchip and stared at it, lovingly. “You are really prepared to pay me a thousand credits?”
“There’ll be more at the far end,” Uzi said. He had a feeling the office’s staff might have something else in mind, but it hardly mattered. The message would reach its destination and that was all he cared about. “And don’t show it to anyone else, or you’ll have to split the bonus.”
“You don’t have to tell me that,” the spacer sneered. “I’ve been on starships for years, you young bastard.”
Uzi shrugged. The spacer might be drunk as a lord, but he retained enough of his wits to understand the cost of opening his mouth at the wrong time. He wouldn’t want to share his unexpected windfall with anyone else, certainly not a commanding officer he disliked. Uzi suspected he wasn’t long for the universe, anyway, but again it didn’t matter. What was one life against the entire Federation?
“That’s good,” he said. He passed over the second datachip and a note of the address. A drunk — one who’d learned to function while drunk — shouldn’t have any real problems finding the office and reporting in. “Thank you.”
“Thank you,” the spacer said. “You want to go find a girl and have some fun?”
“No, thank you,” Uzi said. “I have to get back to my ship. The captain’s a right asshole.”
“As long as he doesn’t kick you out the airlock, he’s a damn good man,” the spacer assured him, taking a final gulp of coffee. “Mine threw me out the airlock naked, but I was too drunk to notice, and eventually they reeled me back indoors.”
Uzi resisted — barely — the urge to snort. Unless the spacer was a cyborg, and there were none of the tell-tale signs, he wouldn’t survive more than a few minutes in space without protective gear. It sounded more like a drink-fueled hallucination than anything else; he knew, all too well, that some captains could be absolute monsters, but throwing crewmen out the airlock tended to lead to mutiny. Unless the rest of the crew hated the victim...
“You must have been very cold,” he said, dryly.
“I’ve had worse,” the spacer assured him. “And now I need to take a leak and then go find a girl.”
Uzi watched him stumble towards the toilets, crashing into a pair of empty seats on the way, then paid the waitress and headed for the door. The spacer would be fine, probably; he wouldn’t be fool enough to tell anyone about the cashchips or the datachip. And if he spent the next two days getting drunker, his memories would be unreliable anyway.
And now there are two chips on their way out to my superiors, he thought, as he walked through the door and down to the road. One of them will make it home.
He pushed the thought aside as he made his way up the road. A handful of drunken men were walking past on the other side, singing a song Uzi vaguely remembered as having been top of the charts ten years ago, before Admiral Justinian had kicked off the civil wars, but it was depressingly clear they didn’t know half the words or how to sing. Behind them, a set of women followed, almost certainly prostitutes plying their trade. A couple of spacers would probably wake up tomorrow in hotel rooms and discover, to their horror, that they’d been left with the bill. No one would give much of a damn if they complained.
A hand caught his arm and yanked him into an alleyway. “Give me all your money,” a voice hissed, “or I’ll cut you.”
Uzi almost laughed. The would-be mugger would be in deep shit if the planetary police laid hands on him. Charging thirsty spacers twice the going rate for beer, prostitutes, and whatever else caught their fancy was one thing, but openly mugging spacers was quite another. It would discourage other spacers from visiting, which would cut into the system’s tax revenue...
“Don’t be a fucking idiot,” he said. He yanked the knife out of the man’s hand, snapped it in two with augmented strength, and dropped the pieces in the gutter. “Go home and sleep it off.”
The mugger stared at him, then
turned and fled. Uzi hesitated — for the sake of his own safety, he really should make sure the man was in no condition to talk — then let him go, rather than burying half the blade in his back. Maybe it was a mistake, but the mugger didn’t deserve to die.
And besides, he told himself, as he returned to the road, he may yet cause problems for the rebels.
Interlude Two
From: The Chaos Years (5023)
It had finally begun to happen.
In one sense, of course, Admiral Justinian was the first true Federation Navy officer to rebel against his rightful superiors. In another, Admiral Drake not only rebelled, but succeeded in putting himself into power. But both men believed passionately in the idea of the Federation, even if it was a Federation with themselves at the head.
Admiral Vincent — and many other admirals in the waning years — was more concerned with his own power and glory. He was willing to sell the remainder of the Federation to the Outsiders, if they agreed to leave him in control of his sector. There was no bid for supreme power, no attempt to take control of the entire Federation... his goals were strictly limited, even selfish. His rule might be better for his sector, but not for the rest of the galaxy.
But, even as the final cataclysm began to build, Emperor Marius had yet to run out of tricks.
Chapter Twenty-Three
It says something about Admiral Vincent that he underestimated the cunning of Emperor Marius, and overestimated the power of his own hand.
—The Federation Navy in Retrospect, 4199
Earth, 4102
The tiny apartment stank.
Rupert McGillivray, no longer a Grand Senator, sat on the bed as he fiddled with the terminal, trying to access the datanet. He’d spent quite a bit of time outside his mansion — his parents had often reprimanded him for leaving their community and wandering through the nearby cities — but he’d been younger at the time, young and healthy. Now, in his second century, his old bones ached and groaned whenever he lay on the bed. He didn’t want to think about what it might have been used for before he’d rented the apartment.
The Barbarian Bride (The Decline and Fall of the Galactic Empire Book 3) Page 22