by Daniel Gibbs
“Very good, Mr. Vice President.” Sinclair shifted his eyes between them. “A game of chess. I do enjoy the occasion.”
“The key, of course, is getting the right people, ones you can trust to get the mission done quietly,” Spencer said. “Is that clear, Colonel?”
Sinclair smiled. “Mr. President, I do believe I have just the fellow for the job.”
2
Titania Outpost
Hebrides Major—Terran Coalition
2 July 2464
Jackson Adams leaned against the post supporting the awning of the requisition office. Terracotta tiles streamed water as the midmorning rain washed off grime from the previous day’s dust storm. He swiped drops from the corner of his tablet as he read the local news—a dust storm in the forecast for the next two days, downpour on the weekend.
How the settlers put up with the nonsense was beyond him. He was native to a more temperate homeworld. He wondered how old he had been when he’d put on his first parka for protection against extreme cold. Twenty, maybe, when he was halfway through the obligatory four years of military service all Coalition citizens owed.
Jackson shook his head and focused on the news—shipping reports mostly, names of transports, their cargo, owners’ names. So much damage to critical infrastructure still needed repair, even a year after the signing of the treaty. He marveled at the sheer tonnage with a couple dozen ships passing through the system every day, coming and going.
He looked up at an approaching hovercraft’s hum. The two-seater, dull gray with green stripes painted on the flanks, floated to a stop. Rain spattered off a transparent cockpit canopy. A hatch slid open on the passenger side, releasing the grating sounds of sonix music.
The older man behind the controls waved. “Ready, Jack?”
“Always, Vic.” Jackson hopped in and sealed the hatch. “Got the decoder?”
Vic, a squat, barrel-chested man in shipyard clerk’s garb, patted a tiny gray case nestled between the seat cushions. “It’ll work.”
“It’d better. I spent enough on the bribe to set me back a month.”
Vic chuckled as he eased the hovercraft away from the office and into traffic. Hauler trucks and personnel movers vied for lanes, two each way, but as soon as they hit the intersection a kilometer up, they joined the fast lane leading out of Titania Outpost’s downtown toward the sprawl of landing fields and warehouses that formed a semicircle south to east. “Relax. The payment will be ten times that, easily, for each of us.”
“Good to hear. As long as you trust the guy. I keep my scanners peeled.” Jack gazed at cranes lining the highway, each one involved in the assembly of a huge steel skeleton—new manufacturing centers. Hebrides Major was booming, no doubt, and Titania was its hub.
“She’s clean. I mean, she’s not going to backstab us, if that’s what you’re worried about. I’ve been passing classified stuff to her for a while.”
“Classified?” Jackson snorted. “That’s rich. Those shipping manifests might be full of military tech, but they’re hardly top secret.”
“Okay, sure. But that’s why I brought you on board.” Vic shook his head. “You’re jumpy.”
“No. Cautious. I’m allergic to lifetime imprisonment for violating the Official Secrets Act, and I’m not a fan of execution for treason either.”
“The war’s over, Jack. The politicians back on Canaan don’t care about treason crap anymore. Everybody’s got money to make rebuilding—well—buildings and weapons and ships all over the place. So what if we lift data on surplus weapons being shipped out to the border worlds? You’ve seen how many transports jump through here each week. We get paid a fortune to deliver this data, and the people farther up the food chain get even more money when they swipe those weapons.”
“You make it sound so easy. I just better get paid my cut of those sales later on.”
“And that’s why we’ve got Iris! You know how much she’s funneled back to me?” Vic chuckled. He patted the control console. “You think I afforded this hovercraft on a clerk’s salary?”
Jackson grinned in response. “I wondered. She’s moving a lot faster than the typical civilian model.”
“You bet she is.”
Vic guided them off the highway down a side road—really, a dirt path etched into the savannah surrounding Titania. Dirt had become mud, but once the storm subsided and the weather heated up again, it would become hardpacked. Their trip ended at a hulking warehouse marked “Yutai Imports Inc.,” though the paint on the side had flaked off, and gaping holes no doubt admitted local avians along with the rain.
Another vehicle waited inside the main door. The cargo truck looked four times as big as the hovercraft. A woman dressed in a violet jumpsuit with a black leather jacket slung over her shoulders sat on an empty container nearby. Two more people—huge men, well muscled and armed with plasma rifles—flanked her.
“That’s a lot of artillery,” Jackson said.
“I said relax. Iris is like you—paranoid.” Vic shut down the engines and opened his hatch.
“I’m cautious, not paranoid.” Jackson stepped out into the cavernous space, the hatch’s closing click echoing far off.
A pair of winged creatures took flight, squawking in panic. Jackson wrinkled his nose. The building stunk of mildew and rotting packing material.
“Victor Malehorn.” Iris had a sharp, insistent voice. “Good to see you in person and not as a holo.”
“Isn’t it?” Vic chuckled, spreading his arms wide. He put on a good show of being laid-back, but Jackson could read the tension coming off him like a warship’s weapons signature at close range. “And you’re a hundred times prettier.”
“I won’t argue with flattery.” Iris gave him a peck on the cheek as a reward but slapped his hand away when Vic tried to encircle her waist in a hug. “Oh. This is the new boy.”
“Jack Aiken.” Vic clapped Jackson on the shoulder. “I picked him up a couple of months ago when he tried to break into the depot’s secure files. I sent you the scans of his handiwork.”
“I hadn’t forgotten. It was impressive. It would have been more impressive had he not been caught.”
Jackson shrugged, hands still in his jacket pockets. Nobody had offered to shake, and he wasn’t about initiate one. “Everybody gets sloppy. You did when you snagged that piece of junk off the street.”
Iris’s musclemen shifted their weapons. They didn’t aim at Jackson, but he spotted the way their arms tensed and fingers crept nearer the triggers. Each gun would be up and sighted on him in an instant if they sensed a threat.
“Cute. I’ll admit I didn’t have time to sear the registry code off the flank, but needs must when you’re in a hurry.” Iris smiled. “I believe we have something for you.”
The taller of the two thugs headed for the side of the truck. He rolled up a door and removed a long, white ceramic container. It clinked as he walked back.
Vic would have dripped drool onto the damp concrete floor if he’d been any more excited. “It’s always nice to see you take the first step toward upholding our deal.”
“I’m not entirely without principles. Now, where’s my present?”
Vic nudged Jackson, who in turn reached up his left sleeve with the thumb and index finger of his right hand. He withdrew the flat, slim memory stick with a flourish, holding it up to the pale glare of the overhead lights. It glittered like a shard of glass, fancier than most utilitarian units.
Its gaudiness and Jackson showing off the memory stick were necessary to keep everyone’s attention focused on his right hand while he eased the last two fingers on his left up under the same cuff. The tiny contact stitched beneath the lining read his partial dermal scan and crosschecked his DNA.
“Confirmed.” The man’s voice piping from the transmitter buried deep behind Jackson’s right ear had a nasal accent, one that had survived centuries through the diaspora from America’s Eastern seaboard to the planet of New Washington. A regular New Yorker, or
was it New Jerseyan? “Phase Three in motion.”
Jackson couldn’t respond. He didn’t have to. He knew the role he was playing. Having a transmitter for secret communications gave him a distinct advantage, especially since the Terran Coalition banned even robotic limbs unless they were for therapeutic purposes. Augmentation was forbidden. Spies bent the rules.
“Please decode the data, Victor.” Iris flicked her fingers toward the taller thug. “Meanwhile, let’s have a glimpse at what you’ve earned.”
Vic took the memory stick from Jackson and plugged it into the decoder. “Coming to your account. It’ll all be there.” The glance he flashed Jackson said, It’d better be.
Jackson winked, his expression one of complete confidence. The data on the stick was legitimate, every byte. It had to be in order to pass the so-called “sniff test.” No sense in scaring off the black-market arms dealer by introducing suspicious data to a deal so rich. He hadn’t counted on just how rich until the thug cracked open the ceramic container. And he’d thought the memory stick looked opulent.
The interior shone with jewels—rare stones gathered from a stash the Coalition Defense Force’s intelligence units had been tracking across half the territory. They’d been stolen from a collection at the Royal Museum on Churchill, capital of the United Kingdom of New Britain. To call them a national treasure would be the understatement of the century. And there they were, stuffed into a box less than four meters from Jackson’s boots.
He grinned.
“Hell of a haul, isn’t it?” Vic must have mistaken his expression for triumph in their scheme. He took a step toward the container.
The thug aimed the plasma rifle at his gut. Iris wagged her smile, gaze still fastened on her tablet. “Now, now, no need to let avarice take the controls just yet. I have to be certain what you’ve brought me is worthwhile.”
“Come on, Iris. When have I ever come up short on a deal? You’ve got all the coordinates you’ll need to track down the weapons shipment across half the Coalition-League border.”
“True, but I don’t know him, no matter how much you vouch for his performance.” Iris tipped the tablet toward Jackson. “I will let the data speak for itself.”
Jackson glanced at his wrist communicator. Two minutes, thirty seconds. “Satisfied yet?”
She didn’t answer at first, paging instead through the readouts on her tablet—readouts Jackson knew would show her exactly what she wanted to see. Vic took to tapping his hand on his thigh, right near the pistol Jackson had seen him holster in a concealed pocket. He hoped Vic didn’t try anything stupid. After a couple of months working closely with the corrupt clerk, Jackson had developed a pleasant camaraderie with him. But mostly he needed Vic alive to testify to the clerk’s crimes. He couldn’t prosecute a dead man, after all.
“This will do nicely.” Iris deactivated the tablet. She waved a hand toward the open container. “Feel free to count your reward, gentlemen.”
Jackson joined Vic at the container, kneeling beside him as Vic dug his hands through the pile of gemstones. Jackson touched the transmitter inside his sleeve again. Even if Iris were carrying a device to pick up nearby communications, the bursts sent out by his hidden unit were meant to appear as background bursts, junk waves that leaked off the thousands of other signals prevalent in a modern, space-going society.
But Jackson’s waiting men knew exactly what to look for.
“Containment and extraction in forty seconds,” the curt man told him.
Vic chuckled. He held up a robin-egg-sized sapphire to the light, casting a pale-blue gleam on his face. “What’d I tell you? Ten times over.”
Twenty-five seconds. Jackson shook his head as he ran his fingers over firethysts from Canaan’s deep deserts, the heat from his body igniting reactive crystalline structures beneath the crystals’ smoky surfaces. “I’ll be the first to admit I was wrong for ever doubting you.”
“The rest of your fee will be paid when the items are acquired by our independent contractors.” Iris queued up an orbital transmission with the classified data attached. She tapped the send key. “Happy hunting to all.”
Jackson resisted the urge to grin at her. Gotcha.
The roar of hovercraft engines cut across the hiss of the rain. Iris’s thugs spun around, their rifles raised, but the rattle of precision ballistic weapons fire caused everyone in the warehouse to jump. Both men fell, writhing from the impact of stun rounds that didn’t kill them but left them incapacitated in less-than-comfortable ways.
Iris was out the door in a flash. She fired a compact automatic weapon as she ran, energy pulses lighting up the interior of the building better than any flood lamp. The blasts caught a Marine across his chest armor, dropping him to the floor. One of his compatriots knelt to help him as the armor sizzled where it had been struck.
Vic had his pulse pistol drawn, but Jackson cried out, “Get down!” and shoved him onto his side. Stun rounds cracked through the air overhead. Jackson pulled his own weapon, a modified plasma pistol, and fired into the advancing Marines. Normally, that would be a death sentence for anyone so stupid. But his weapon was modified to emit only the weakest of pulses. Even if he hit someone with the random shots, they would experience nothing worse than the stun rounds that had taken down Iris’s thugs.
A familiar hum sounded outside the warehouse.
“She’s lighting up your pal’s ride. Sparks is standing by on the trigger,” the curt man said.
“Drop the weapons! Drop ’em! Hands where we can see them!” Marines barked overlapping commands as they surrounded Vic and Jackson.
Vic yelped as he was rolled onto his stomach, his arms yanked behind his back. Jackson put up a similar fuss, squirming against his confinement, and made sure he could still reach his left sleeve’s transmitter.
“We got a runner, Sergeant!” a young female corporal shouted.
“Able squad is waiting down the road,” he replied. “They’ve got their orders to take her out if she resists.”
Jackson squeezed the transmitter in three bursts. No need for them to take the shot.
“Trigger confirmed.”
The hovercraft’s running lights receded in the distance, its green stripes catching the suns where they broke through the clouds. A tiny but brilliant pink tinge flashed as the plasma charge cut through the main coupling between the onboard powerplant and the hovercraft’s rotors. They cut out, and since the detonation had been a shaped charge that had also severed the line to the backup battery, the vehicle dropped a meter to the rough-hewn road. Plastic and metal peeled off as it screeched to a halt, smoke pouring from its underside.
A Marine hovercraft banked across the crippled vehicle’s nose, disgorging eight men in light tactical armor. Seconds later, Iris was facedown in the mud, swearing up a storm.
“Jack!” Marines hauled Vic to his feet. “Don’t you say nothing!”
“Me?” Jackson broke free of the Marines holding him in place. That earned him a boot across his shins. He landed on his knees, with a rifle’s muzzle to his spine. He let the pain of the collision register plainly on his face—one thing he didn’t have to fake. “You sold us out! I find you again, I’ll kill you!”
Vic’s expression blanched. The poor guy looked completely out of his head with panic. No doubt he’d daydreamed of another big, easy score without a thought to the consequences of dealing with people who would just as soon turn him over to safeguard themselves. Such were the dealings on the black market. Jackson hoped the lesson would stick, provided the guy cooperated.
“Shut these two up, and separate them!” the sergeant snapped. “I want the whole area locked down, pronto!”
“Yes, Sergeant. You heard him!” The corporal wrestled Vic away as the man blubbered his innocence. CDF corpsmen lifted the stunned thugs onto waiting stretchers as their escorts made sure they were bound, wrists and ankles. Another set of Marines sealed the container of jewels.
As soon as they swept the area clean and
Jackson was the only one left with a handful of Marines, he sighed. “Outstanding work, gentlemen. Mind releasing me?”
“Roger that, Captain.” The sergeant keyed the binders’ release.
“Thanks, Sergeant.” Captain Jackson Adams, CDF Intelligence, ran a hand through his curly blond hair and let out a breath. It would be a relief, actually, to get rid of it and the ocular adhesives. They’d passed muster better than any wig or colored contact lenses, but despite what the techs assured him, the subtle, persistent itch had returned after five weeks. “Mind if I bum a ride, Sergeant?”
The Marine smirked. “Your op, sir, but we’ve got limited seating for cake-eaters.”
“Can’t blame you for that, Marine.” Jackson picked up the container of jewels and the abandoned decoder. He stuffed the latter and the still-inserted data stick into his jacket pocket. “I’ll give you directions if you get lost between here and orbit.”
The sergeant snorted but hustled outside to where the hovercraft assembled.
Jackson waited a moment before activating his wrist comm. “Home, this is Janus. Target secured. Package retrieved.”
“Janus, this is Home. Nicely done, Captain.”
“Tell Sparks I admired his handiwork, even if it’s not as bombastic as usual.”
“I’ll pass that along, sir. Good news on the transmission—SIGINT tracked it to a ship lurking on the far side of the second moon. It’s trying to head out to the Lawrence limit. It looks like a corvette modified for a courier run.”
Iris’s ship. Jackson nodded, even though First Lieutenant Brant Guinto couldn’t see him. “Have local patrols pick it up. Get CSV Yukon on the intercept.”
“Roger, Janus, we’ve got them moving. Oh, and there’s secure flash traffic for you on the VLF from Zeus.”
The news caught Jackson midstep. He let the jewel container rebound off his leg. Colonel Sinclair? He wondered what he’d done to earn direct contact from CSV Oxford. “Confirmed, Home. I’ll be back in a few. Janus out.”