Space Rodeo

by Jenny Schwartz

  The hell flag was a symbol of the Vici’s extremist arm; extreme enough that some considered them terrorists.

  “Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven,” Max murmured the extremists’ stolen mantra.

  “From ‘Paradise Lost’ by John Milton,” Lon said. “Who doubtless would have been horrified that the Satan of his poem became inspiration for ideologues.” He whistled a sigh. “Hugo is correct, however. There is widespread and growing support for the key principle of the Vici, that the strong are wasting their energy pandering to the weak.”

  Thelma sat up straight in challenge. “Who decides who is weak and who is strong?”

  “Who needs who?” Harry drawled. “But sometimes need is not so clear.” As it wasn’t with Reynard, who would have claimed he needed no one, and yet, had modified himself so as to receive a hug.

  “Sometimes we don’t know what we need,” Thelma said. “Or realize what we are receiving. I never liked these discussions at the academy. Philosophy, ideology. I believe in kindness.”

  Max hugged her closer.

  Lon agreed. “A simple but powerful concept.”

  “I want to remain here as sheriff.” Max likewise disliked philosophical debates, and after recounting his discussion with Hugo, what he really wanted was answers to the questions raised. Most importantly, for them all to consider their future. “If I can’t remain as sheriff, I still like life on the frontier.”

  “So do I,” Thelma said instantly. “If you’re thinking that I secretly wish to join some political fight in the core worlds,” she shuddered, “you’re wrong. Hugo’s wrong. If we have to, I’m with you, but it’s not my preference.”

  “That is my position, too,” Lon said.

  Harry stretched, his mech body mimicking a human’s insouciant shrug. “I have responsibilities here. Selfishly, I’d like you to stay. I’m prepared to put a bit of effort into making that happen, if it’s what you want.”

  The AIs seldom emphasized how powerful they were. Max wondered if those supporting the Vici movement had ever entertained the idea that they weren’t the conquerors they called themselves. People existed who were far more powerful.

  When the social order was stable, as it had been for the last few decades in the core worlds, people forgot how easy it was for that order to change; that in a shakeup they could shift from benefiting from the social structure, to finding themselves at the bottom of it. Then, they’d want the kindness Thelma believed in, and not the harsh rule of self-interest.

  In his brutal mech body with his gentle manners, Harry was a living reminder of balancing power with generosity and service.

  Max smiled at him. He didn’t share his emotions easily, other than with Thelma. But sometimes the truth had to be spoken, and heard. “You’re my hero, Harry. I love you.” Thelma’s snuggle turned into a full hug. She approved of his sentiment and shared it. “Thank you.”

  “We’re family,” Harry said. “We stay together.”

  “Oh drat!” Lon’s shocked, exasperated voice shattered the poignant moment. “I cried, and overwatered the garden deck.”

  Chapter 10

  The Navy surprised Thelma by inviting Max and his deputy aboard the carrier to view the mech-mods, as well as to meet the gathered bunyaphi. Perhaps they had intended their invitation of “and your deputy” to mean Carl, but Carl had chosen to remain on the Lonesome. The Navy’s security would instantly identify and record his cyborg status. Still no one objected when Thelma walked in behind Max wearing the tailored utility suit and beret she’d chosen (and retired months ago) as her deputy uniform.

  Since the Star Marine raid of the Xlokk base, the Navy had been busy in a dozen directions. Even with Max sidelined and herself barely on the fringe of events, Thelma had a sense of just how complicated the mission had become for the Navy in juggling competing demands.

  They had contacted the bunyaphi clan leaders as well as the recently created independent bunyaphi Commission for Peace. Its board members couldn’t have anticipated having to react to a case like this, one of severe breaching of Federation law wrapped around a planned attack against two other clans, and with torture of one’s own clan members for added horror. Nonetheless, the board had rallied, and half of it, along with clan representatives, were en route to the Saloon Sector onboard a Navy frigate via the perilous wormhole.

  The Navy hadn’t waited. Other bunyaphi were nearer at hand, and the decision had been made that bunyaphi firsthand accounts were required immediately to confirm the shocking allegations that were set to rock the Boldire Sector. Consequently, the two other bunyaphi ships in the Saloon Sector had been contacted and had responded with full speed to a rendezvous point with the carrier holding the bunyaphi-fused mech-mods.

  The Lonesome had also been invited.

  The officers and crew of the Ripping Claw hadn’t been invited, but were present as prisoners.

  Keening cries rose shrilly from among the two innocent bunyaphi crews. The Biting Teeth and Swooping Hawk’s officers contained their exclamations of horror, but their wings clamped as tightly to their backs as their traumatized crews’.

  Thelma shared their distress.

  The row of mech-mods was heartbreaking. Whatever Keele had promised the Su clan, he hadn’t been able to deliver on it. The people fused with the hardware were raving.

  A Navy doctor stepped forward. She told the assembled audience that in her assessment, and having consulted remotely with experts, neither the electro-magnetic pulses used to temporarily disable the mech-mods, nor their later sedation, was responsible for the bunyaphi drivers’ mania. Even in ideal circumstances—the woman grimaced—the drivers would barely have made it, sane, through the wormhole and home.

  Maybe that had been the idea. Berserkers had been human weapons of war eons ago on Earth. These were the newest bunyaphi shock troops.

  Looking at the people lost to psychosis, surely no one could find the idea tolerable?

  Thelma swallowed hard. It didn’t help to remember that these people had volunteered for their fate. Each one of them represented a personal tragedy for themselves, their families and their friends. If they hadn’t been stopped, the tragedy would have been societal. Devastation wreaked on civic morality.

  “You found this?” The captain of the Biting Teeth was a stocky individual, shorter than most of his crew, his wings painted crimson and gold. His narrow lips barely parted for speech. That might have been typical or tension.

  Max stood at parade rest. “I did.”

  “You are President Smith’s son and of Hwicce clan.” The Swooping Hawk’s captain was taller than his counterpart; also less able to hide his distress. His eyelids flickered. “There are Hwicce labels on the mech-mods, whether for truth or misdirection. You could have hidden this.”

  “No.” Max’s stark response, without explanation or justification, didn’t echo in the space so filled with people. But the impact of his answer did.

  The bunyaphi of the Ates and Toprak clans extended their wings and bowed their heads. “Honor.”

  Those from the Ripping Claw, secured at a slight distance, turned their heads aside momentarily.

  Thelma guessed it to be a gesture of shame from the Su clan.

  Back straight, Max bowed briefly. He glanced at the naval contingent.

  No one spoke.

  Max breathed in deeply, and exhaled, accepting this burden in addition to the others he carried. “This—madness—is the endpoint of your feud. Look well. This is where your raving and hatred brings you. Bunyaphi have a reputation for honor that the Su clan trashed.” A muttering swell of noise unhappily endorsed his statement. “But how you respond will seal the wider Federation’s view of the bunyaphi.”

  “What do you mean?” The captain of the Swooping Hawk, presumably one of the senior Toprak clan members, had regained his composure during the exchange of respect. His gaze was steady on Max, his eyelids folded open.

  “Take them home, these damaged ones of the Su clan,�
�� Max said. “Show compassion. Lend members of your two crews to run the Ripping Claw. Have the Su clan face justice in Boldire. Keep to the mediated path to peace. The mech-mods make for graphic media footage. When that is released, the bunyaphi can be either monsters or people who deal honorably with monsters to protect peace.”

  “Why should we care what others think of us?” A Toprak officer shouted the question, but a few Ates people nodded agreement.

  Thelma fielded that question. It was a civilian issue. “Because when you look to the future you want your grandchildren to have options. To be able to explore the Federation and be respected. Even here in the Saloon Sector, so close to Boldire via the wormhole. If you establish a colony here, your grandchildren will want to be equal with all others, not shamed by their ancestors.”

  “A compelling argument.” The Biting Teeth’s captain flared his wings in a show of crimson and gold.

  The Navy commander who seemed to be assigned as liaison with the Interstellar Sheriff Service—or more pragmatically, as liaison to the President’s son—escorted Thelma and Max up a couple of decks and winding through a maze of passages to the officers’ wardroom, making conversation as they walked. “We invited your superior officer, Chief Agnes Kanu, to stand witness with you. She refused our offer of a Navy courier ride here. Said that the mech-mods are all Sheriff Smith’s. She was right.”

  The commander regarded Max levelly. “You handled the occasion brilliantly. Thank you. Both of you.” His gaze flicked to include Thelma, but returned to Max. “You gave the bunyaphi a path forward. Frankly, some of our cultural experts feared that the bunyaphi of the other two clans might lash out, shamed and scared by the actions of the Su clan.”

  Max merely nodded acknowledgement.

  Thelma tried to keep her own expression neutral. The commander’s news was sadly unsurprising. Chief Kanu was in a snit with Max. She’d criticized him heavily for going to the Navy for help with the Xlokk base and mech-mods. In her view, he should have shared the suspected existence of a base on Xlokk with her, and her alone, and waited for her decision on how to proceed.

  Keeping his superior out of the loop initially had gone against chain of command principles, but since Max hadn’t known who in the Interstellar Sheriff Service might leak the information, even inadvertently, he’d made the operational decision to act. He’d accepted that there would be blowback, and there was.

  But not from the Navy.

  Message delivered, the commander guided conversation to the non-contentious topic of the Space Rodeo and the latest dives. Once their party reached the officers’ wardroom, they suffered through bitter coffee and bland conversation.

  After a few minutes Max had mercy on them all. He drained his coffee cup, having ignored the raisin cookies. “I understand that I’m on the sidelines now, Tomas. I’m happy with that. I have my own duties, a sheriff territory to look after. You don’t have to bore us into departing without asking questions about the investigation.”

  A quick grin from the commander indicated that Max had read the situation correctly. However, the commander had his orders and Navy discipline, plus an audience of lieutenants and the ever-present surveillance system on a warship, so he couldn’t verbally acknowledge Max’s good-humored accusation. But he got close. “Leaving so soon?” he asked as Thelma followed Max’s lead and rose.

  “Busy, busy,” she murmured.

  One of the lieutenants disguised laughter with a cough. The move would have worked for a human, but this lieutenant was a mauveinne. They didn’t usually cough. The result was a whinnying sound that cracked everyone’s composure. The lieutenant in question relaxed into genuine laughter. “Sorry, sir. Allergies.”

  The corners of the commander’s mouth twitched.

  Out here on the frontier, it was essential to be on good terms with the Navy. And while the Navy might be sidelining Max from the investigation, and were themselves being nudged aside by Galactic Justice, the respect being shown to Max, including the invitation to stand witness with the bunyaphi to the mech-mod victims, demonstrated the Navy’s belief in him. That demonstration of trust wasn’t solely for Max, either. It was a message to Galactic Justice and others.

  Standing witness to the ravaged reality of mech-mods complete with drivers had been traumatizing. Max felt the cost of it in his soul. He also saw how closely Thelma held herself. As they entered the Lonesome and the hatch to the lock tunnel shut behind them, he clasped her hand, bent, and put his forehead to hers.

  “That’s why mech-mods are banned,” she muttered. She tilted her head up and kissed him.

  A shiver ran through him, remaking him; reaffirming life and hope. Love.

  The lock tunnel to the carrier had been docked at the public deck. That meant they were in Carl’s space. They had an audience.

  Max wanted to take Thelma up to their cabin and lose the universe a while in loving her. He recognized the same need in her, the familiar softness and urgency of her desire.

  “Sorry to intrude.” Carl’s voice was absolutely dead, all emotion stripped from it.

  With one hand curved around Thelma’s face, thumb stroking the tenderness of her throat, Max glanced at the cyborg.

  “A message from Captain Sargus,” Carl said. “He requests a meeting ASAP, outside the Navy’s perimeter.” The arena of the Space Rodeo. “He sent coordinates. The location is four hours away.”

  Max frowned. “Sargus wants to meet in person?”

  “He will come aboard the Lonesome. Alone.”

  “Lon?” Max asked.

  “Carl shared the coordinates with me. We can be there in three hours. It is further from the Space Rodeo and Xlokk, on the fringe of a hazan field.”

  Thelma straightened. “Spook territory.”

  Carl didn’t respond to the commentary on Covert Ops agents’ habits. They did prefer to lurk in regions where they could vanish among natural or manufactured hazards.

  “All right. I promised to cooperate with Galactic Justice, and the Navy has no further need of us. Lon, set course for the rendezvous. Carl, you can confirm the meeting with Sargus.”

  Carl nodded and disappeared into the converted cell that served as his private room.

  Thelma watched his departure with a conflicted expression, as if she thought they’d been rude to him.

  Before Max had a chance to resent her concern for the cyborg, she headed for the internal hatch leading out of the public lounge.

  “Three hours,” she called back. “At least half of that is mine.”

  He liked her staking her claim to him. He caught up with her outside the hatch and kissed her. When their only audience was Lon, he didn’t have to hold back, but they saved their lovemaking for the privacy of their cabin.

  To be able to give yourself body and soul to your lover was another living joy the bunyaphi mech-mod drivers had sacrificed.

  Wesley Sargus came aboard with a very different attitude to the one he’d displayed in his viewscreen performance.

  Max noted the difference with deep suspicion.

  The man entering the Lonesome and assessing his surroundings—the public lounge—was a dominant, controlled personality and one very sure of his purpose for being here. Not that Sargus shared that purpose initially.

  “Impressive for a prison. In fact, I’d class this as luxurious private quarters for a spaceship. Sheriff Smith, I’ve signed off on your actions to contain Agent Jafarov. If a cyborg had entered my vessel unannounced I’d have treated him less kindly.”

  Carl lounged in his chair at the kitchen table, unresponsive to the attack from the captain he reported to. The one who had, in effect, just disavowed himself of him.

  The Star Marines and their immediate command had each other’s back. If Sargus thought he was currying favor with Max with this attitude, he was wrong.

  As for Thelma, she stayed in her seat. Sargus wouldn’t know it, but that was a powerful statement in itself. With anyone else, she would have crossed to the food dispenser
and coffee pot and offered refreshment. Instead, she’d decided against hospitality.

  Sargus looked unfocusedly across the lounge. “I’m pleased to have the chance to meet you, Lon.”

  “Good afternoon, Captain Sargus.”

  “Wesley.”

  Lon didn’t respond.

  Max did. “You requested a face-to-face meeting.”

  The Covert Ops captain focused on him. The man’s brown eyes faded to a strange amber color at the outer rim of his irises. “I felt an in-person meeting to be a necessary courtesy. I have an apology and a warning to deliver, and a mission to plan.

  “First, the apology. The cyborg was inflicted on you because of intelligence received of a hit ordered on you. He is an expensive asset. Previous to the ambush of the Lonesome that involved Elliot Keel’s ships Covert Ops would have taken no action beyond forwarding a warning of trouble to you, Sheriff Smith. However, the calculations changed after that failed attempt on your life.”

  “On Thelma’s,” Max said.

  Sargus tilted his head. “Perhaps. Either way, attention focused on you. A new assessment of your value and threat to the Federation, living or dead, was reached. It was decided that you were needed alive, and not just to prevent your father’s distraction.”

  The cold pragmatism of Covert Ops failed to shock or even anger Max. He nudged Thelma’s foot. She was angry. He told her silently to stay quiet.

  “It isn’t clear who has ordered the hit on you or why. That is information we require.”

  “Why?”

  Sargus sat a moment, lips sealed.

  Carl pushed back from the table. “Max, I wasn’t told about an actual threat against your life.”

  “Incomplete briefings all around,” Max said.

  Sargus shrugged. “You keep secrets. We keep secrets.”

  Abruptly, Thelma gripped Max’s wrist beneath the table. Her self-control held, probably because she was as aware as Max that Sargus was being deliberately provocative. Observing their reactions would be part of the reason he’d proposed an in-person meeting.