“So what do we do now?” Tim asked.
“Nothing. We stick to the plan. In fact, this actually makes things a little easier. I was trying to figure out how we were going to manage to get out into the rest of the ship, if or when somebody decided to snatch the sensitive hardware in the cargo hold. Now they’re liable to take us directly to wherever the missing shipments have been piling up. Or, more probably, we’ll rendezvous with another ship in orbit somewhere obscure. The cargo will get moved to a new ship. And then the Broadbill will be sent off somewhere far away. To confuse the trail.”
“Sounds like we’ll have to be ready to go where the crates go,” Tim said.
“Yup. And that’s going to be very potentially tricky. We might have to go outside again and hope we can jump—ship to ship—without being noticed. Are you prepared for that?”
“Sounds like I might have to be,” Tim said, frowning and running a hand through his curly black hair.
Kal slipped her pistol back into its shoulder holster, and sat on the bunk across from where Tim was slouched in the single fold-up chair that was next to the shelf-like fold-up desk.
“Tell me,” she said, “just what is it about this new armor model that’s so exciting the Ambit League wants a piece of it?”
“Ummm, I’m not sure I can talk about that, you see—“
“Save it, kid, I have need-to-know at this point. I used several different types of armor during the war. It’s not like that’s brand new technology.”
“The Archangel series isn’t just an upgrade to the older armor suits that the CAF’s been using since the war,” Tim said. “We’re talking about an entirely new generation of bio-neural interfacing. You don’t wear the suit. It’s like the suit wears you. Reflexive response times far in advance of anything the CAF or the Ambit League was using in battle when the war was still hot. Plus it employs advanced ceramics, polymers, alloys, and a microcomputer system that learns its owner over time. Until the microcomputer is almost a shallow, duplicate personality. It knows your moves before you know your moves.”
Kal was intrigued. The new armor sounded quite sexy to her combat-experienced sensibilities. She wondered what it would be like to pilot such a suit.
The conventional suits were big, bulky behemoths with loads of firepower, but slow and cumbersome. Not to mention exhausting. The delayed response times on movement meant an average troop became physically tired while fighting against the lag times in joint movement. If what Tim said was true, the Archangel suits truly were next-generation.
“Anyway,” Tim said, “the Ambit League would be stupid to let itself fight that kind of suit without trying to replicate the tech. Trials on some of the Occupied Zone planets have already yielded very good results. Even against entrenched, experienced opposition, the Archangel has a perfect record. No losses. With countless enemy combatants neutralized or destroyed.”
“What about heavy stuff? Tanks and bigger things?”
“The Archangel is meant for speed and agility, not raw firepower. Still, in the hands of an able pilot, it can fight circles around conventional tracked armor. Give an Archangel troop enough time, and she can quickly ventilate a tank like a piece of Swiss cheese.”
Kal nodded her understanding.
“That means each of the Archangel suits is worth a lot of money,” she said.
“You don’t even want to know,” Tim said, smiling sardonically. “Just the pinky finger on one of the Archangel’s gauntlets is worth more than my entire annual salary.”
“Which also means that Tremonton is going to make a killing selling these things to the Conflux Assembly Defense Office.”
“Prices will drop once the suit’s been put through its paces and mainline manufacturing can begin. But yeah, even a single suit’s worth more than a dozen conventional suits put together.”
“And now the Ambit League has them,” Kal said.
“Apparently so. Though they’re going to be hard-pressed to replicate even half of what they find when they pull the Archangel apart. It’s Tremonton’s most advanced design, and it took countless hours to engineer and create it. Using Tremonton’s top facilities on several planets. I don’t think the Ambit League is up to the task of copying the Archangel just yet.”
“Well, that’s another reason I need you: to verify if your guesses are correct, assuming we get to have a look at the final destination for these shipments that keep getting stolen. Gulliver said the League’s been surreptitiously expanding into the unexplored space on the other side of the Occupied Zone, away from the Conflux. If they’re setting up shadow colonies, especially with industry and mining, they might have what it takes to start trying to replicate advanced tech. Or perhaps they simply want to mass-produce a poor man’s version? Numbers will almost always beat quality, if the numbers are large enough.”
Tim looked at Kal, his smile fading.
“Then it really might be a second war?” he asked softly.
“Yes,” Kal said, her eyes unfocusing, “it might.”
Chapter 12
Garth Pitman stomped across the rusty decks of his ship as he made his way down to the engineering section. The buzzing of his subordinates was comforting in his headset’s earpiece. They were executing as commanded: turning the old scow inside out, trying to locate the intruder.
The mischievous mystery guest had eluded capture and killed crew, but Pitman wasn’t necessarily worried. Yet. People had died for the Ambit League before, and people would continue to die for the Ambit League in the future. It was the price they all had to pay if the long war against the Conflux was to succeed. Pitman accepted that. He was even confidant that he, himself, would give his life, should it become necessary, but he always assured himself that he was far too crafty to be caught in such a no-win situation.
He would live to see the Conflux fall.
Taking a lift car down a few decks, Pitman continued to stride confidently. In the eyes of the crew Pitman saw respect, and sometimes fear. That was good. He could use both to different effect, when he needed to. It came with the job. As long as people obeyed his orders, or the orders of Berd, to the letter, that was all he asked.
His headset suddenly squealed and one of Pitman’s junior officers demanded his attention—down in the lower compartments close to the main cargo bay.
Another crewperson had been killed.
Pitman ran: around a corner, down a ladder, through a hatch, and then through a corridor, until he finally arrived at the location of the latest murder.
As he showed up, several of Pitman’s crew were outside a partially opened hatchway, eyes wide and feet shuffling nervously. An old loadmaster named Gimms was there, running a hand over the thin stubble on his head.
“Who was it this time?” Pitman asked.
“Go look for yourself, sir.”
Pitman grimaced, his hackles rising at the tone in Gimms’s voice. But as Pitman watched Gimms and the others, Pitman’s feet began to get cold and his hands began to sweat. Something was seriously wrong.
Pitman unslung his submachine gun and gripped it in his hands for comfort, then brushed past Gimms and went into the cargo compartment.
The area was full of refuse and smelled of corrosion. The doors and walls were rusted badly. Rectangular containers clogged the walkway, but Pitman didn’t have to go very far to discover what the bad news was.
Someone had managed to get one of the ceiling lights working.
Gouts of blood were freshly splattered across one side of a container, where a body lay underneath a draped plastic tarp. Pitman stooped and gingerly peeled the tarp back so that he could see the victim’s face.
Her eyes were open and stared emptily at the ceiling. Her mouth was half open and blood trailed down the corners across her cheeks. The bullet had gone right through her esophagus and lodged in the spine. Instant death.
Pitman’s eyes ogled, and then a quiet rage began to build in him.
Gabriella. She and Garth had been lovers for
some time now, sharing the glories of his bed every night for weeks. Now Pitman’s companion lay lifeless and crumpled on the deck, her drying blood staining the soles of his boots.
Pitman dropped to his knees, fists balled around the grips of his submachine gun—his eyes closed. A low growl uttered from his clenched teeth. Then he stopped, composed himself, and calmly stood up, his mind trying to focus. This was CAF handiwork, he was sure of it. Only the CAF could murder so brutally and efficiently.
Pitman held back the raw anger and sorrow jointly gnawing at his heart. He had to stay composed if he wanted to avenge his lover.
Pitman ran his eyes over her body, checking for missing or damaged equipment.
Gabriella’s headset was gone, but her weapon was not.
Damn.
“Take the body out of here and put it in the cold locker,” Pitman ordered as he exited the compartment. “We’ll take her back with us, and make sure she’s given a soldier’s burial.”
The others saluted and silently went to work, eyes wary of Pitman’s barely concealed rage.
Chapter 13
It took almost two weeks for the Broadbill to reach her intended destination. During which time neither Kal nor Tim dared leave their cabin, for fear of being spotted. Though the people who’d hijacked the ship had no reason to believe anyone else might be onboard, it paid to be cautious. So they each went out exactly once: to look for meal packs.
Not precisely gourmet, the meal packs were easily had in any emergency locker, in case the Broadbill were disabled or stranded between star systems, with the crew unable to travel freely between compartments. Starvation was a real possibility if rescue was still light-years away, and your radio signals only traveled as far as the nearest spacelane beacon.
During that time, Kal and Tim did the best they could to be comfortable. Which wasn’t easy, given the tight quarters. Including a micro-toilet that was barely big enough for Kal to use—making it almost impossible for Tim.
They traded stories about initial entry training in the CAF. Things which had stayed the same. Things which were different. Between the time when Kal had joined, and Tim had joined—to fulfill his obligation under contract to Tremonton.
They also talked a lot about the Archangel suits. Plusses. Minuses. Things Tim had noticed when piloting the suits in a laboratory setting. So that Kal felt like she was familiar enough to try operating an Archangel in a pinch. If it came down to it.
“They key thing is,” Tim said one morning while they pushed fruity-nutty breakfast bars into their mouths, “the Archangel wasn’t designed to plod. It was designed to soar. Where older suits thud along like the Frankenstein monster, the Archangel glides. Most pilots who are used to conventional armor have to go through a teething period, where they re-train themselves to the advanced, hyper-responsive servos and motors in the Archangel’s design. So in the unlikely event you’re ever putting one of these things on, don’t get gung-ho. You’re liable to put an arm through a wall or accidentally hurl yourself into the ceiling, or across the room. Go very gently. Almost as if you don’t want to move. The Archangel will do the moving for you.”
“It must be a lot of fun,” Kal said.
“What?” Tim asked.
“Getting to play with Tremonton’s latest toy.”
“It’s a good job,” he said. “And I certainly get paid well.”
They munched their meals for a quiet moment.
“Got anyone back home worth spending the money on?” Kal asked.
Tim cleared his throat and took a drink of water from a cup on the rim of the cabin’s tiny sink.
“Not really,” he admitted.
“No lady friend has caught your eye?”
“No.”
“A shame. You seem like the nice sort.”
“My ex-girlfriend said I was too nice.”
“Was she young?”
“Yes. Younger than me, at least.”
“Young girls don’t appreciate nice. A woman with experience might. Don’t be afraid to date older gals.”
“Is that a proposition?” Tim said with a raised eyebrow and a grin.
Kal slugged him in the left shoulder as hard as she could.
He almost fell over laughing, then grimaced and rubbed the spot where a fresh bruise was no doubt forming.
“Sorry,” Kal said. “Sometimes I don’t know my own strength.”
“No shit,” Tim said.
Suddenly, the feeling of gravity began to vanish.
“Uh oh,” Kal said. “I think maybe we’ve arrived.”
“What now?” Tim asked.
“Head back the way we came in. Suit up. Take a look outside and see what happens next.”
Kal and Tim never made it that far.
Chapter 14
Arbai watched her former husband as he stared intently at the gangway hatch. The receiving ship had been waiting for them as soon as the Broadbill had entered orbit, following a gradual downthrust through the outer portion of this uncharted star system. They were well beyond the boundaries of either the Occupied Zone or the Conflux, and the greenish blue-and-white world beneath them was uncharted as well.
A virgin paradise.
Or a tropical death trap.
A lot depended on whether the fauna down below had evolved to the point of having sharp teeth, and thought off-world visitors might be tasty.
Perhaps when the job was done, and after enough time had elapsed, Arbai and Yangis could come back here? Have a little fun on the beach? Nothing romantic, per se, because sex with Yangis had never been like that. But relaxing fun, just the same. Lord knew they’d have enough money to take a break from their cares for a while.
Doubtless it was the money that had Yangis so tense.
Meeting strangers to make the exchange of goods was always a high-wire act. You couldn’t trust them to be straight, they couldn’t trust you to be straight, and Arbai had seen several such exchanges go badly before. Which was why everyone was carrying for this particular action. Pistols and submachine guns visible, without being brandished. It was also why she knew Yangis kept a small remote in his spacer’s jacket. It was tied wirelessly to the control computer that operated their cradle ship’s fusion reactor. If Yangis pressed a select sequence of buttons ...
No sense letting potential double-crossers have the last laugh.
The gangway hatch’s indicator light blinked from red, to orange, to yellow, then to green.
Then it unsealed, and half a dozen men floated in.
Unlike Yangis’s crew, these strangers were more or less uniform in appearance. Hair cut to military standard. Faces serious, and eyes alert. The kind of expressions Arbai and Yangis both remembered well, from their time in the CAF. Though these were not CAF. They were the men Arbai and Yangis had been killing right up until Arbai and Yangis both decided that the war was a sham, the Conflux was as bloody culpable as the Ambit League, and that the only side worth choosing was their own side.
An older man with some kind of insignia on his collar stepped forward.
“Berd,” the man said, nodding his head slightly. “Commander of the Goshawk.”
“Yangis Terizian,” Yangis said, returning the slight nod. “You’d better be careful with that rusty bucket you’ve got out there. It’s a miracle it’s even spaceworthy.”
“It suffices,” Berd said, ignoring the jab at his spacer’s pride. “She may not look impressive, but the drives are good and she gets the job done. Besides, she’s just a delivery vehicle. Now, show us the cargo, then we’ll discuss your payment.”
“You read my mind,” Yangis said. He snapped a finger.
A single pallet was floated forward. On it, secured by bungee tethers, were the major pieces of a single suit of Archangel-type armor.
Arbai noticed Berd’s eyes take in the sight of the armor the way other men might take in the sight of a nude woman.
So Berd was a believer, eh? Ambit League to the core.
That would either be ve
ry good, or very bad, depending on what happened next.
“How many of these did you get?” Berd asked Yangis.
“All of them aboard.”
“Which is how many?”
“We’ve not opened every single crate, but there are probably thirty total.”
“Not as many as we’d hoped,” said a younger man behind Berd. Tougher-looking. Also with an insignia on his collar. Berd’s executive officer?
“But enough,” Berd said.
He pushed off from the deck and floated over to the pallet, running his hands along the polished surfaces of the various armor components.
“When the crates have been moved to the Goshawk, you will be compensated,” Berd said to Yangis.
“No,” Yangis said, his businessman’s smile dropping to a frown. “The arrangement I made with your people was, I show you proof of the goods, you pay me for my time, then you can have the units. Not before.”
“The Ambit League is not in the habit of paying for goods which it has not yet taken possession of,” Berd said, his eyes suddenly hardening.
Arbai immediately noticed that some of Berd’s men had pushed their spacer’s jackets open, revealing the gleam of guns in holsters. Yangis’s people had subtly made their own weaponry more visible, too, and Arbai realized that things could get very unfortunate very fast if someone didn’t pour a little oil on the roiled waters.
“I don’t think it has to be an all or nothing proposition,” Arbai said, using her best, most soothing feminine voice. She pushed over to where Berd and Yangis now both floated less than a meter apart, their jaws thrust out at one another.
“A deal is a deal,” Yangis said. “No money, no top-secret armor.”
“Gentlemen,” Arbai said, inserting herself into the tense air between the two men. “Since there appears to be a small misunderstanding about what’s supposed to take place here, why don’t we agree to meet in the middle? We’ll provide the first ten suits, you carry them across, and you provide one third of the payment. Then we provide the next ten suits, you provide the second third, and so on and so forth. That way we get what we want, you can verify that you’re getting what you want, and then we can each go on our separate ways.”
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