Lord Banshee- Fugitive

by Russell O Redman

  He ducked out of the room.

  I looked at Morris, buoyed by his apparent lack of concern. I asked, “What will you do? Have you any plans for this kind of development?”

  He shook his head. “I did not take your warning sufficiently seriously. I expect I will return to the Earth under heavy guard, but it would be so easy to shoot down a shuttle, I would have to be incognito while travelling. Nor do I expect the earth stations to be much better, given their current unrest. For what it is worth, in the last few hours we have developed plenty of plans on how to transfer control of Mars and the Belt to the Imperium, but Singh and I expected to do it in person. It does depend upon what level of firepower they bring with them. We heard about your disaster scenarios.”

  I took a deep breath and suggested, “Have you considered the option of dying and returning as someone else? I mean, of course, to let your phantom presence on the ESK end in a nominal death. In the intelligence services we gather a lot of enemies, so it is a well-practiced process. It would end your tenure as a Very Senior Minister for Extraterrestrial Affairs, but I fear the ministry will be under new management soon whether you return to the Earth or not. Allowing yourself to die officially might still leave you with influence in the Council if your friends know some version of the truth.”

  He sat for a long while, then said, “Skulduggery on a level I have never needed before. I would have to become some kind of ghostly elder statesir, a phantom presence pulling strings while never being seen. In truth, being pretend-dead would be more fun than being dead-dead. I suppose I could get used to living a new persona like you agents do.

  “As I think more about it, I am starting to like that idea. I was not sure what I was going to do after finishing my tenure in ExA. This way I could keep my hand in the game without having to support every boneheaded policy that my predecessors wrote into law. And being a new version of myself might add some spice to the challenge. I have on several occasions used disguises to attend controversial meetings, and even a few assignations that would have been embarrassing to explain to the family. There would be some tricky legalities about money, but I have offices full of lawyers to handle that kind of detail, and I rarely spend much on myself anyways.

  “But the real me would still have to have a face. The Mao does not seem the place to make the required surgical changes, especially not at the outset of a war. Could that be done on the Moon? I suppose Anastasia may need to consider the same option.”

  Looking completely exhausted, Singh arrived at the office, clutching two bulbs of stim-laden beverage. She handed one to Morris without saying a word.

  He swept his hand around the walls, covered with documents, and with a smile that belied the circumstances announced, “Well, Anastasia, you were right and I was wrong, and Douglas anticipated both of us. I think within a few hours we will both be dead and must plan for our afterlife.”

  She blinked at him, uncomprehending and clearly still too sleep-deprived to follow such tortuous logical jumps. “In which of our many disagreements over the last few days have I been demonstrated to be right, and why are we supposed to die?”

  He smiled bleakly. “Those crazy economic reports that made no sense? Com Thieu has arranged for the Admiralty Communications Centre to dig out the embedded secret messages and decrypt them. The war plans for the Imperium are all over the walls. We are to be assassinated, and the best way to prevent that from happening is for our pretend-bodies to die on the ESK. Oh, and you were asleep when the news came, but there is incoming ordinance of some kind that will arrive in less than an hour. The ship is executing evasive actions to ensure that it does not hit us, which is why everything seems wobbly.”

  Singh glowered at the bulb in her hand. “So, I am not just overtired and seasick. It might explain why the fake coffee tastes like stewed piss this morning, or whatever the hell time of day this is.

  “Assassinated, you say. That will make it very difficult to hand control of the ministry over to our successors. You had better wait for Marcus to get here, or you will have to explain everything twice.”

  Thieu was getting nervous again. “Sirs, I am feeling uncomfortable hearing such discussions. It is not my place to listen in on your plans to rearrange the entire Terrestrial Government. Are you sure you would not be better off in more private quarters?”

  I could see Singh give a half-smile, but Thieu, busy at her console, could not.

  Singh responded, “Actually, Com Thieu, you are already under stronger oaths of secrecy than most of the staff who attend us in such meetings. We would not be in this room if we had any concerns about your discretion. You seem very busy. I should probably not ask what you are doing if there are incoming warheads.”

  I added, “Banshee Thieu, you are currently working to heal the Admiralty Communications Centre. Try to ignore us. Your own chore is more urgent.”

  Singh raised her eyebrows and silently mouthed, “Banshee?”

  I nodded but said nothing.

  Over the comm, I asked Evgenia, “What progress with the Admiralty?”

  She replied, “After the first officer was healed, the marines brought in their commander, who had been behaving erratically. He agreed to turn off his comm as an experiment and immediately felt less confused and anxious. It seems he had a private comm channel to a small group of fellow officers, and it was bleeding a new kind of emoji into his mind that made him easily distracted by all the things that he wanted to do, like eating, solving crossword puzzles, or kissing one of his girlfriends. It was very low intensity, so much of the time he would act normally, but every now and then...”

  “He would try to kiss someone inappropriately, or punch them,” I interrupted out loud. Everyone in the room looked around at me, so I apologized for speaking out loud and asked them all to continue with their work, but then sent a query to Raul. “Sorry to interrupt, but do you have any private encrypted comm channels in addition to the normal set?”

  He replied after a short delay, “Make it quick. Yes, but no one will be using them now. They are only for use in... Oh, thank you, Brian. It looks like I have been receiving a string of messages on one of them that have no body but an unfamiliar emoji in the header, and that channel is not being filtered. Wang will have to wait for this analysis. I am going to try to copy the existing filter onto all my private channels. What does this emoji do?”

  I explained, “If it is the same as the one troubling some of the Admiral’s guards, it makes the victim easily distracted by things they want to do outside their current duty, like perhaps kissing Begum Thieu.”

  There was another pause, then he replied, “I am sorry again, Sir, but you are right. The messages started while you were asking us why we were being disobedient. I have never done anything so irresponsible before, and it was only pride that made me think it was natural. Oh, God in heaven, how can I explain to Begum that it was all just an emoji attack?”

  He would not if I could help it. “Do not apologize to Begum yet. If we understand the emoji, it only encourages you to do things you want to do already, so the attraction you expressed was real, perhaps more real than you were willing to admit to yourself. Your current distress confirms that assessment. It was just inappropriate at that moment and nearly got you brought up on charges. This is much more subtle than the hateful emojis we encountered before, but equally destructive during a war. With incoming ordinance, the analysis Wang requested is your current duty and putting a proper filter on those channels is another distraction. Just turn them off until this crisis is over. My guess is that this is the work of professionals, not the amateurs anymore. There will be many more emojis, and they too can be considered as ordinance. Get back to work and remind the Cap to disable any private comm channels.”

  Molongo arrived, as bleary as Singh and much grumpier. I explained to all three of them that Evgenia was attempting to heal the demented officers within the AHQ, who were being attacked through their private comm channels. Thieu was trying to bring ACC back t
o working order and had discovered a new kind of emoji that subtly destroys people’s judgement. I asked them whether they had any private channels that were still open. Molongo snorted that of course he did, but the only people who knew about them were himself, his contacts, and the MI comm operator who had set them up for him, at which point he stopped cold.

  I pointed out that anyone who could query the MI database for comm channels would also know, so the original operator might easily be innocent. The cure was the same regardless, close the comm channel until an appropriate filter could be applied.

  The three of them were silent for a while, then sent out a flurry of messages over their filtered and encrypted channels that I assumed were warnings and instructions to the other ministers, to their offices on the Earth and probably to their delegations on the ESK. Molongo and Singh still looked exhausted but were noticeably more alert and less grumpy.

  I felt like a good little Council Banshee, bringing warning and healing. And then my overtired brain remembered my own team, and I sent everyone the same instructions.

  A lurch ran through the ship. It was not like the shaking of a rail gun that we had felt earlier, nor the crack of a high-power laser, but was perhaps a missile rack being deployed briefly. I had spent a little time on warships at the end of the Incursion and had learned to recognize the main weapons systems. Rail guns fling heavy lumps, and the force required to accelerate them is enough to shake the ship. Many people think firing a laser is like turning on a flashlight, but the pod containing the targeting optics must be deployed outside the hull to provide a wide-enough field of fire. The mirrors in the targeting pod are precise and easily damaged, so they are normally kept inside until needed. In active combat they may be deployed continuously, firing as quickly as the laser can be recharged, but most typically the laser pod is pushed out just long enough for the laser to fire before being snatched back, giving a small, sharp kick to the ship. Missiles do not actually push against the ship during launch, except for the wash of the exhaust, but a missile rack is massive and like a laser pod is deployed outside the protection of the weapons bay as briefly as possible before being pulled back in. The resulting sideways push and pull is characteristic of a missile launch and the delay between the push and the pull gives a clue on how many missiles were fired. This was such a quick shudder that only one missile could have been fired, unless the technology had been upgraded since I last checked. I would have to ask Raul. I hoped that we had fired intentionally and not because of a token attack on the weapons control system.

  We all paused and looked at each other. The comm system reported a steady flow of messages, but nothing that I could read. After a moment, everyone returned to what they had been doing.

  Morris began to walk Molongo and Singh through the documents that had been decrypted. They spent a long time on the list of intended assassinations, which regrettably gave few details about how or when the attacks would occur. Some of the delegates under guard on the ESK were targeted and would be sitting ducks if the assassins made their move during the “iron rain”.

  Raul sent a warning to the whole team, “Iron rain looks like iron rods intended to puncture hulls, creating many small leaks. Wear armour and shelter in airtight rooms. MI office is airtight and in the middle of the ship, so is the safest place you can be. Pass warning to delegates.”

  Molongo received the same message and immediately called for the marines to bring up our armour, plus a vacuum suit for Morris if one could be spared.

  We needed to warn the delegates, not just to get into the airtight room on the ESK, but to look to their own security from the assassins. I was doubtful that the ESK StaSec had properly investigated their own ranks, so the only guards I trusted were my former team who had been taken off the Fairy Dust investigation. We needed to send them an urgent message, but I did not want to break my own cover.

  Thieu asked if I could forward to her some of their messages. I could not contact them without breaking cover, but as Com on the Mao she could, and it was none of their business how she had found their names. We composed a very terse warning, urging them to herd the delegates into the airtight room immediately and to guard the door against any others who might demand entry, because we had reason to believe they might include an assassin.

  As we waited tensely for the armour to arrive, Thieu gave a small squeak, then explained, “Nothing bothers Chief Eng Haliru. With all the chaos around us, he just submitted a formal recommendation to award Eng MacDonald a performance bonus. MacDonald is one of our recent recruits, and he just figured out how to control the glue bugs.”

  I sent a brief note of congratulations to Leilani and Raul. I had no doubt that Eng MacDonald had used a manual from one of the corporations involved in the manufacture of glue bugs to make this breakthrough. I also had no doubt that the rogue bugs were harder to control than the manual implied and that Eng MacDonald was going to be very busy refining the approach over the next few days or weeks. Still, if Haliru thought the breakthrough was worth an award, it probably was. He did not seem the type to offer unmerited praise.

  And then the acceleration alarm screamed, and the Mao slammed on the acceleration, almost 2 G. It stayed on for fifteen minutes, with several violent slews that made us all grip whatever support we could reach. There was a bang that rang through the hull and the ship began another rapid slew. From the queasiness in my stomach, I guessed that we had rotated 180 degrees and were now thrusting back the way we had come. Five minutes into the reverse acceleration there was a pair of bangs in quick succession, and a hull breech alarm began to wail.

  Raul sent a brief explanation. “Swarms of rods from the north and south, very dense near our nominal position. We moved to the side, ran north until the first hit, swung around and ran south until the next pair of hits. That kept the bow of the ship with the meteor shield facing the rods. Only one puncture forward of the weapons bays, so no threat for now. Sounds like Eng MacDonald is going to get a live test of his new toys. Then we will patch the rest of the leak with foam and repair the meteor shield. We are waiting for reports from the earth stations.”

  Late and very apologetic, two marines arrived with our armour suits. They had to go all the way back to the reactor stores to find a vacuum suit for Morris. Our suits were further delayed because, as soon as we had passed the second swarm of rods, Cap Wang had dispatched half the marines to the Deng to assist with evacuations and repairs, without even waiting for a formal request for aid. The earth stations had thinner hulls and far more people at risk than the Mao. The original pair of marines were assigned to leave on the first run of the transport, so had to hand the request over to two new people. We thanked them solemnly as they left to join their comrades on the second run.

  If Wang had sent half the marines to the Deng, there were going to be bunch of unhappy marines being woken up early to assume their duties in the middle of a battle. Although the sirens had probably done most of that work already.

  2357-03-06 08:00

  Mao Shi Hongdi

  Morris suddenly demanded to know what was happening on Mars. If the attack on the earth stations was part of a real offensive, there should be simultaneous events on Mars. I brought up the news feeds, but he insisted on changing to an official ExA channel. The light-travel time from Mars to the Earth was ten minutes, so we would be looking at events that had happened just before the iron rain hit.

  The feed showed a meeting room that I recognized as a board room in the Inspectorate Office within the Governor’s Compound, the heart of the Martian Intelligence services. I recognized many of the pictures on the walls, mostly spectacular scenery flanking a large panorama of the archaeological site where the original Martian colony had perished in the twenty first century, after the Final War cut off supplies from the Earth. Gone were the portraits of former governors, their places being taken by people I did not recognize.

  In the foreground sat a single, plain chair in front of a long, low table. Behind the table was a r
ow of chairs, with what appeared to be a throne in the middle. As we watched, a squad of soldiers with unfamiliar uniforms marched in and formed up on the far side of the table behind the row of chairs. An entourage of elaborately dressed men and women followed the soldiers, taking places in front of each chair behind the table. They dropped to their knees, then kowtowed towards the throne in the middle. A sedan chair was brought in, carried by two soldiers in powered armour, and was placed on the low table. The occupant was concealed by a curtain, but evidently left the chair as soon as it stopped. The soldiers picked up the chair again and moved off, revealing a heavy-set man sitting on the throne wearing an extremely gaudy gown of gold with a red dragon winding its way up the front. He wore a black hat with a flat board on top, fringed with black tassels front and back, copied from the ancient images of emperors in Han China. Morris, Singh and I gasped audibly as we each recognized the man.

  An announcer off to the side, speaking in classical Mandarin, ordered all human life to kowtow to their rightful emperor, Shi Hongdi of the dynasty Mao, on pain of death for disobedience. There was a minute of silence, interrupted at our end by the sound of Thieu and Evgenia talking quietly to each other as they negotiated the passage of ACC Com and Eng staff into AHQ. Shi Hongdi then nodded and the announcer permitted everyone to resume their work. The assembled dignitaries on Mars rose and assumed their seats.

  A second squad of soldiers lead in a haggard man in chains, dressed in prison garb. He was forced onto his knees, then kicked onto his belly by a soldier wearing steel-shod boots. With a boot on his back, he grovelled in front of the Emperor, who ignored him. The hidden announcer cried out, “Ghost Follower, confess your crimes!”

  Singh breathed, “Arvind!” I had never met the man but knew that Arvind Kigali was the current governor of Mars. All I knew about him was that he had tried to halt the execution of political dissidents but had been forced to continue executions of violent criminals.