by Terry Mixon
The Senator sighed and drained his glass of water. He looked at it with a disappointed face, as if he’d forgot what he’d filled it with, then sighed and refilled it.
“I don’t suppose any report to that effect has made it back to the Director?” he asked.
“What channels would I trust?” Brad replied.
“Do you trust me?” Barnes said. “I’m meeting with Antonio in the morning; I can pass it on to him directly. It’ll add at least one name to his list.”
“How bad is it?” the mercenary turned covert operative asked.
“I don’t know,” Barnes admitted. “Antonio has told me more than he’s told any other sitting Senator, and he hasn’t told me much of anything at all. I know he’s arresting Agents and support staff left and right, but he’s keeping it on the down-low.
“I think he’s worried someone else is moving in the shadows…and the Commonwealth is supposed to only have one covert agency.”
“Damn,” Brad murmured. “That lines up with what I’ve learned.”
“Which was?”
“The Phoenix was in recurring communication with someone on Earth, probably Jessica Andrews. Often enough that even while he was on a shuttle to inspect a covert refueling station, he spoke to her twice.
“We located the relay station and confirmed the name Andrews—and the Phoenix himself told me that we’d find the answer to Falcone’s location aboard Kobayashi Station.”
Barnes was silent. He rose, poured his untouched water into the sink, and produced a bottle of wine from a cupboard. The Senator took only the barest of glances at the dark green bottle before grabbing two fresh glasses and filling them.
“Jessica Andrews is dead,” he finally noted. “She died in a shuttle accident years ago.”
“Not so much. That should have been in Agent Falcone’s data,” Brad told him. “We found footage of her aboard Longbow. She’s been working with the Cadre, which suggests a connection back to Earth.”
The Senator drained the glass of wine he’d just poured, coughing after he swallowed.
“Abuse of fine wine,” he admitted, looking down at the empty glass. “I don’t think you even begin to comprehend the level of problem Jessica Andrews being involved in this entails, Brad.”
“Right now, I know that a friend and colleague is being held prisoner on Earth, where I have no authority, no sanction,” Brad remined the other man. “How much more of a problem can we be facing than something that’s going to require treason on my part to fix?”
“Treason,” Barnes echoed, still staring into his glass. “That’s a good Everdarkened word, isn’t it? Jessica Andrews was an opposition Senator, yes, but she worked with both President Reynolds…and then-Senator Dave Mills.”
Mills. David Mills.
Even Brad knew that name. President David “call me Dave” Mills was the head of the Commonwealth Senate, the leader of the Commonwealth. First among equals of the Senators, his power was relatively limited…but he was still the single most powerful man alive.
“But Reynolds and Mills were on opposite sides of politics, weren’t they?”
“Parties are hardly as solid in the Senate as they were in many past similar organizations,” Barnes reminded him. “The personal relationships between Senators are almost as important as any official political affiliation.” He shrugged. “Left over from our days as the General Assembly, I suppose.
“But Andrews was Reynolds’s go-between with Mills and his bloc. Then she died. Around when the Cadre first started being a real problem.”
“Everdark,” Brad breathed. “You mean…”
“It’s entirely possible that she’s still working for Mills, Brad. Which means we have a problem far beyond needing to rescue Falcone.”
“What do you mean?”
“In thirty-six hours, Mills is scheduled to address the Senate. He’s speaking to the aftermath of the Battle of Ceres and the Cadre actions, and I already had reason to believe he’s going to ask for basically a declaration of war—with all of the additional powers for his office that entails.”
“I don’t even know what that would give him,” Brad admitted.
“A lot. Enough, if he’s ruthless enough, to make himself dictator. Emperor in all but name.”
“He needed a war, so he created the Cadre.” Brad swore again.
“Worse, it’s entirely possible Reynolds created the Cadre,” Barnes told him. “Because Reynolds died six months after he left office—and if I was stepping into another man’s plan to be Emperor, I wouldn’t want to have that man still around, expecting to actually be in charge.”
“We need proof,” Brad said quietly. “We need Falcone—and we need Andrews. Alive—and able to testify.”
Much as he wanted to put the woman responsible for the deaths of so many of his friends out an airlock.
Barnes slammed his wine glass down on the bar, hard enough that the base and stem shattered.
“Everdark,” he swore, but there was no heat to it. “What do you need from me, Brad?”
“There’s a station in Earth orbit that was the relay for the Phoenix’s communication with Andrews,” Brad told him. “It’s linked to somewhere on the surface. I need to identify that location, but if I board that station, I am in so much trouble.”
“If anyone boards that station, we warn them we’re coming,” the Senator replied. “I don’t think I have the resources to track that link, Brad—but I know who does.”
“Senator?”
“Director Harmon. If the Agency can’t track a tightbeam radio connection, even mid–witch hunt, we’ve given them far too much money over the years.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
By the next morning, Brad was starting to go stir-crazy. He hadn’t expected there to be a time limit on his operations on Earth—certainly not one this tight—but Barnes insisted on keeping to the timing of his appointment with Director Harmon.
He didn’t think that Barnes had told the Director he was going to be there, but the squat goblin of a man who wandered into the apartment at exactly oh nine hundred hours GMT didn’t seem surprised to see him at all.
Director Antonio Harmon was, frankly, ugly. He was short and broad-shouldered with a clear pot belly and unusually large ears and nose. The red tinge to his nose suggested a long-standing drinking habit, and he walked with a cane, his left leg clearly not working quite right.
“Commodore Madrid, it’s a pleasure to put a face to the name,” Harmon told him, offering his free hand.
Brad shook Harmon’s hand carefully, somewhat concerned about the man’s clear frailty. There was a glint in the Director’s eyes, however, that suggested that underestimating this man was a dangerous game.
“I didn’t think we’d told you I’d be here,” Brad said delicately.
“Please, Commodore, if I can’t keep track of the man who shows up in Earth orbit with a destroyer, the good Senator and his friends have given me far too much money over the years!”
The echo from Barnes’s words the previous night suggested that this was a phrase one of them used a lot.
“Commodore Madrid came to me last night,” Barnes told the Director. “He believes we’ve found Agent Falcone, but he needs help.”
“You found Kate?” Harmon asked sharply. “Where is she? What do you need?”
He winced.
“I’m afraid I can’t get you much in terms of resources. Normally, this would be the heart of our power, but today, I don’t know who I can trust.”
“I brought two platoons of my troops,” Brad told the Director. “I can handle extraction. What I don’t have is an exact location…or the authority to operate here.”
“What do you have?” Harmon demanded. “We’ll worry about authority later. We’re the Agency; we ask forgiveness, not permission.”
“The Phoenix was communicating with Jessica Andrews on Earth via a relay station we’ve identified,” Brad laid out rapidly. “We’ve located the station, but the Fl
eet is keeping a close eye on my ship, so I can’t board it without drawing a lot of attention.”
“Don’t need to,” Harmon replied. “Give me the details; we’ll find the original source.”
Brad passed over a datachip that the Director plugged into his wrist-comp. He tapped a rapid email and fired it off.
“There are still people I trust completely,” he told Brad. “We’ll find out what we can as quickly as we can.”
“The prison is almost certainly on Earth,” Brad admitted.
“I know. Which means I fucked up royally,” Harmon agreed. “I got the spiel on Andrews from Falcone before she went MIA.”
“And you’ve done nothing?” Brad asked.
“Hardly. We may not have been able to officially move against TMF, not without the Senate authorizing it, but believe me, they haven’t finished a ship since you intercepted those cruisers. Such an unfortunate series of accidents, delays, and material shortages.”
Which meant, probably, that the Cadre at least had no new reinforcements.
“Andrews is almost certainly still working for Mills,” Barnes said quietly.
Harmon was quiet for the longest stretch of time since he’d arrived.
“Damn, I didn’t put that together,” he finally said. “And His Eminence is pushing for war powers, isn’t he?”
“What do we do?” Brad asked.
“I find that base,” Harmon told him. “You kick in its doors and find our people. I cover for you with the police and the Fleet, and we drag all of our evidence in front of the Senate…and impeach that thrice-accursed madman.”
“Control, this is Ghost-Eleven, we are continuing patrol, entering sector seventeen-kappa.”
Harmon straightened up in his chair as the radio message played. Despite the seeming normality of the transmission, there was a reason it was being covertly relayed into Barnes’s living room.
“That’s the sector your station is in,” he told Brad. “Ghost-Eleven is a Blackbird Six flying a regular recon operation in low orbit. Technically, she’s USAF, but an old friend is doing us a favor.”
“USAF?” Brad asked. The acronym seemed…familiar, but he couldn’t place it.
“United States Air Force,” Harmon replied with a shake of his head, then glanced over at Barnes. “This is what you keep talking about, isn’t it? Entire generations raised off of Earth, to whom the politics of our teeming billions are completely irrelevant?”
“The Commodore isn’t a perfect example,” Barnes demurred. “Outside of his quite particular skill sets, he’s rather uneducated by just about any standard.”
Brad opened his mouth to object, then closed it. The Senator was hardly wrong. Brad could very nearly build a spaceship from scratch, could command a surface action or a space action with similar ease, and knew spacecraft like the back of his hand. His education aboard a Belt freighter, however, had been very focused.
And, well, he was only vaguely sure what the United States was at best.
“Ghost-Eleven, this is ground control,” a new voice echoed in the room. “We have you off course and entering a no-fly zone.”
There was a long pause.
“Control, please repeat. Who the hell is issuing us no-fly orders?” the pilot grumped. “I show us as on course, regardless. Check your instruments.”
“That’s strange,” Harmon said. “Ghost-Eleven has it right—nobody should be issuing no-fly orders to that unit.”
“Ghost-Eleven, check your instruments,” the ground control replied. “I have you almost eight degrees off course and well into a zone marked as no-fly on your charts. Correct your course immediately.”
Seconds ticked by, and Brad watched the icon of the surveillance spaceplane continue to dive into the space they were watching.
“Control, this is Ghost-Eleven. I repeat, our system checks out and we are on course,” the pilot finally said. “Even if I wasn’t, I don’t show any no-fly zones on my charts. This is goddamned Ghost Squadron.”
“Don’t get full of yourself, Ghost-Eleven,” the controller responded. “We have equipment discrepancy. I’m ordering you back to the barn for a full refit.
“We’ll also want to check those charts, Ghost-Eleven. There are zones even we don’t violate.”
“Sir, I—”
“That’s not discretionary, Eleven,” the ground control barked. “You are to return to the Cheyenne Mountain Base immediately.”
The controller’s tone was such that Brad started to wonder just how they were planning to cover up shooting down a stealthed spaceplane.
“Understood, Control,” Ghost-Eleven responded. “Adjusting course northwards, targeting CMB for landing procedures.”
A few seconds later, Harmon reached over and turned off the speaker. He was checking his own wrist-comp—and then activated a holographic globe of the Earth.
“So, whoever was on the ground wasn’t filled in on the favor the USAF was doing us,” he said calmly. “And, fascinatingly, was clearly on the verge of trying to shoot down a billion-dollar spaceplane to try and keep the secrets we were after.”
“And?” Senator Barnes asked carefully.
“And they failed.”
A red icon, an old rotational pseudo-gravity platform, appeared “below” Earth on the globe.
“Your relay is in a medium polar orbit, circling the planet every eight hours,” Harmon told them. “Ghost got their tightbeam all right, and flagged the no-fly zone, too.”
A hazy red sphere appeared around the station.
“There aren’t very many ‘security no-fly zones’ on the USAF’s lists,” he continued. “Most of the ones I know of are mine. Finding a new one floating around a decrepit station in a semi-decaying orbit…that’s not good.”
“Did they trace the tightbeam?” Brad asked.
A red line descended from the station.
“I’m guessing there’s at least one more platform, or some hack on the general network,” the Director replied. “I timed the Ghost flight to line up with the position in the orbital cycle of your transmissions from the Phoenix, though, so we got in while they were transmitting directly.”
The line connected to the surface, somewhere in the southernmost continent.
“Antarctica,” Harmon continued. “Still a barren waste few people visit. There are more-hostile places in the system, but they don’t have nice beaches two hours’ flight away.
“With Ghost’s scans, our localization isn’t perfect. The target could be anywhere inside an eight-kilometer circle.”
“I can live with that,” Brad said quietly. “If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I need to go break the law.”
“Be careful, Madrid,” Harmon told him. “I can cover this if we win. If we lose…”
“Then I’m probably already dead. Keep my wife safe.”
The little goblin of a spy director snorted.
“Done. Go save us all, Commodore. I’ll see what I can pull together for backup, but the first wave is on you.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
The briefing room aboard Oath of Vengeance had been designed to handle more than the twenty-nine combat troops the ship carried. It had not, however, been designed to handle double that, which was what Brad was currently squeezing into it.
Fortunately, his troops didn’t seem to mind.
“All right, people,” he greeted them. “A lot of you were wondering why we crammed two combat platoons and their shuttles aboard Oath for this trip. The less polite of you have even wondered aloud why we seem to keep getting involved in Agency affairs.
“Well, the reason for both is simple: Agent Kate Falcone.”
He owed his people honesty. Most of them had probably guessed that he worked for the Agency, and he was willing to let them know that. Outside of his bridge crew, though, he was trying to keep the number of people in the Vikings who knew he was also a spy low.
“Falcone and I go way back, as most of you know, so we’re at the top of her list when s
he needs a combat force that doesn’t get traced back to the Agency. Though, honestly, we’ve done so much work for her, I’m not sure we’re that deniable anymore!”
That got him the chuckle it was meant to.
“You all know that we sent Agent Falcone back to Earth with all of the evidence we dug up on TMF and the rest of the bastards supplying the Cadre. If you were wondering why nothing seemed to come of that, so was I.”
Brad shook his head.
“Agent Falcone was kidnapped. Not by Cadre but by someone working with the Cadre. We have reason to believe we’re looking at a rogue Commonwealth operation, but we have confirmed where Agent Falcone is being held.”
His troops leaned forward eagerly, and he traded a look with Saburo.
“She’s being held in a secret prison buried in the Antarctic ice shelf. On Earth.”
Brad let that hang in the air.
“Now, if any of you have forgotten, Guild mercenaries are explicitly forbidden from carrying out operations in the Earth planetary system,” he reminded them. “What less of you know is that the Agency is theoretically prohibited from operating on Earth’s surface. We’ve got a few legal fig leaves in place, thanks to the Agency, but I’ll be frank:
“The operation I intend to launch is a blatant violation of Commonwealth law. Arguably, it’s treason. Given a lot of people’s view of Earth, it could even be blasphemy. But…I have a friend down there. So, I’m going in. The Colonel’s going in.”
Brad smiled grimly.
“I won’t order any of you to come with me. I won’t pretend I can pull this off without you, but this is a volunteer-only mission.”
“Sure, and anyone who don’t want to volunteer can meet me in the hallway to get your ass kicked!” Corporal Jimenez barked. The black-haired medic who supported Oath’s combat platoon grinned at her fellow troopers.
“It’s the Commodore and it’s Agent Falcone. Anybody not in, troops?”