Ghost War

by Michael A. Stackpole

  The entrance to the garage was on the south side of the precinct building and I was coming in from the north. I cut along a side street going south, leaving half-meter-deep tracks in the roadbed. Digger handled easily enough that I made both turns without much effort. As I mashed my thumb down on the righthand joystick, the digging claws started their rotation with a loud whine that devolved into a wonderful grinding noise.

  One stroke and the ferrocrete sidewalk came up in chunks that bounced into the street. The claws trenched the roadbed a meter deep with ease and the debris was sufficient to cut off traffic from the east. Nothing was going into or out of that garage.

  The hovertruck pulled up on my left as I brought the digging claws up and stabbed them at the precinct house. I started burrowing in at the southeast corner and cutting west, looking to open up the evidence room and the armory. Once I had the building open, I’d lift Steve and Jiro in, they’d load, and we’d go.

  Unfortunately, that was when things started to go bad.

  The digging claws jammed and froze before I’d done much more than cat-scratch the building’s ferrocrete. I keyed the radio to the tactical frequency I shared with the hovercar. “I have a fault, might have to restart the software.”

  Letitia remained calm. “Claws look clear from outside.”

  “Roger, give me a second here.” I raised the grinding arm and smacked it down on the sidewalk, hoping to unfreeze it. I felt the jolt on up into the cockpit and it did the trick. The digging claws started again, but I wasn’t ready for it. The claws slashed deep through the sidewalk and yanked Digger forward and to the right. They slashed through a water main, sending a geyser into the air, which washed over my ’Mech and shorted out the auxiliary power unit, since it had the lights plugged into it and was exposed.

  “What are you doing, Donelly?”

  “No names, idiot!” I stopped the digging and yanked the blade free. I twisted around to look at the hovertruck just in time to see Falcon angle the corncob up and rake the second-story windows with bullets. They shattered glass and spanged off ferrocrete. I didn’t see him hit anyone, but other windows burst outward and we all started taking fire from within the building.

  And a lot more fire than we should have been taking.

  “Move it! Go, run! This op is busted. They were waiting for us!” I raised the digging arm and used it to shield the hovertruck, but saw Jiro blasted off the back of it. He rolled for a bit, leaking a lot. More bullets chewed up the road near him and his body jerked with impacts.

  Letitia whipped the hovertruck around and jumped the far sidewalk to work around the debris I’d tossed up. As she sped east, two Constabulary vehicles tried to cut her off, but she nosed the truck right between the two of them, sending them spinning off into a couple of boutiques. The hovertruck slew around through a 360, but she got it back under control. Somewhere in there she lost Falcon. I didn’t see a body, but there was a smashed glass window in a china shop where he could have been flung.

  Constabulary vehicles began to close in on me. CDRF officers hung from every running board and out every window, peppering Digger with submachine-gun fire, which the ’Mech didn’t even feel. I stabbed the digging blade down at the geyser and redirected a flood toward the nearest hovercar. The water knocked it askew and I started moving west. A quick cut north would bring me to the ’Mech route and I’d be able to move faster, just because the roadbed wouldn’t give.

  It was really the only escape route I had.

  And Lady Janella Lakewood managed to figure that out.

  Moving in from the west, she brought a Centurion into the intersection. As BattleMechs go, it’s a fine-looking machine. Humanoid in configuration, it has a huge cannon for a right hand, and a missile-launching rack built into the left breast. It sports a laser in the torso and moves fairly quickly. It outmassed my MiningMech, and definitely outgunned it.

  I flicked my radio over to the emergency frequency. “Op Nine was blown, team broken. Get going.”

  I got nothing back from Handy, but I really didn’t expect to. A light began to blink on my console, so I punched it, which flicked me over to a frequency Lakewood was using. “Got something to say?”

  “Had intercepts not told me who you were, the insolence would have. Give it up, Mr. Donelly.”

  Had it not been for the condescension in her voice, I might have just shut Digger down, but I couldn’t. Without replying I cut west. Now, if you’d been reading closely, you’d be wondering why I would go west when there wasn’t a roadway there. It was precisely because there was no roadway there that I chose to go that way. While there wasn’t a road, there was a wide alley used for deliveries and I started charging down it as fast as Digger could go.

  It really must have been quite a sight. The ’Mech’s shoulders scraped sparks from the buildings on both sides. Metal fire escapes screamed as Digger ripped them free, and clotheslines added more fluttering decorations to my ’Mech. In one of those very weird slice-of-life moments, I saw a man in his underwear, the T-shirt creeping up over his belly, watching his Tri-Vid set as I raced past and carried away his wooden balcony.

  He never even batted an eye.

  While the dash into the alley surprised Lakewood, it doomed me. The ’Mech’s holographic display managed to condense 360 degrees into about 160, which showed a narrow alley behind me, and a Centurion turning to stab its autocannon muzzle at my back. Hemmed in as I was by buildings, I could do nothing but watch.

  Light flickered, spent cannon shells arced; then Digger’s left leg jerked. It somersaulted foot over knee further into the alley, bouncing off one building, crushing a Dumpster, then wedging tight. Digger’s next step, which would have been with that leg, jammed the severed knee joint into the ground. It punched through the ferrocrete and stuck fast, slinging the ’Mech around to the right before the whole hip assembly shrieked and popped free.

  That released Digger and let the ’Mech slam back-first into a building. It crumpled, but so did the thin armor on the engines. The impact crushed the engines, causing a minor explosion that kicked Digger up about a meter, then dropped it flat on its back. Sparks flew in the cockpit and equipment shorted. My head smashed back against the command couch and I sat there, stunned.

  Soon enough Constabulary officers appeared on the cockpit canopy and looked down at me. They had guns.

  I had nothing.

  And the day had started with such promise.

  10

  The fox’s cunning avails him little when the tigress unsheathes her claws.

  —The Book of Liao Wisdom

  Overton

  Joppa, Helen

  Prefecture III, Republic of the Sphere

  23 November 3132

  Up to this point I had hopes I could leave one detail out of this narrative, but I really can’t. In order to appear festive and suitable for parade duty, I had worn a clown costume over my cooling vest. Consider it: white, puffy, big cuffs, lots of big, bright polka dots. You can see why I didn’t want to mention it, but since it was the object of much mirth among my captors, omitting it would leave much unexplained.

  Luckily, because I had a neurohelmet, no outrageous wig or makeup was needed—unlike Falcon and Jiro. I didn’t see Falcon come in, but the way folks were coming to the interrogation room from outside, I gathered he’d been captured and was singing like something less raptorish than his name.

  Reis and Lakewood handled my interrogation, and their contrasting costumes almost made my attire seem appropriate. Reis was in full Commander regalia, which was something less ornate than anything worn at Devlin Stone’s final address to the Knights. That’s taken all together, mind you. He had more medals on than the average fish has scales, and they were brighter than a school of fancy guppies.

  Heck, his uniform was more clownish than mine.

  Lakewood, on the other hand, looked stunning. She’d come from the Centurion’s cockpit, and so still had on skintight black leggings that ran from the tops of her knee-high
boots to her bare midriff. She’d shucked her cooling vest, so she only had a bandeau top on. Over that she’d pulled a black silk robe cut to the tops of her hips and tied with a red sash. Her dark hair had been pulled back into a braid tied with a matching red ribbon.

  She’d have been the picture of beauty were it not for the fire in her eyes.

  Both of them, despite their anger, did look better than I did. My clown suit had been ripped open so I could be stripped out of my cooling vest. The constables had shoved my arms back through the sleeves—the left one, anyway. My right hand tore through the shoulder seam, so I had a flaccid arm hanging there. My inability to dress with their help had been taken as a sign of resistance, so I got slapped around a bit and my left eye was beginning to swell shut.

  Reis’ outrage towered. “Did you honestly think your pathetic plan would succeed?”

  I gave him half a glare. “I do know my rights. I don’t have to answer your questions.”

  The little man backhanded me solidly, snapping my head around so that I looked at Lady Lakewood. The anger in her eyes intensified. Before she could say anything, however, Reis hissed in my ear. “What rights? Because of your action, martial law was declared. You are an enemy combatant and subject to the Uniform Code of Civil Defense Justice.”

  I resisted the desire to jerk my head to the right and bash it into his face. Instead I looked up at her. “What is he talking about?”

  “Local constitutions allow for the exercise of power in the event of a civil defense emergency. This includes the suspension of certain civil rights.” An edge crept into her voice. “I would remind you, however, Commander Reis, that since I apprehended the suspect, he is a Republic prisoner. This interrogation is a courtesy before I take him away.”

  “Republic prisoner? Take me away?”

  A smile slithered on to her lips. “Just because the communications grid is down, Mr. Donelly, don’t imagine we are not able to collect information about you from other worlds. You were lucky that when you left Acamar your trail grew cold. Your luck, however, has run out.”

  I looked at Reis. “You can’t let her take me.”

  The CDRF leader planted his fists on his hips and began strutting. He’d picked out the note of fear in my voice and was on it like a vulture on carrion. “I can’t? Oh, Mr. Donelly, I am powerless to stop her unless”—he let that word hang for a moment longer than he really needed to—“unless you can supply me the name of your boss.”

  I had to think quickly because I was in serious trouble. I didn’t have that much to give him: Mr. Handy and a description. A wig, some contacts, a bottle of insta-tan and a raid on a thrift store for clothes and Handy would be someone else entirely. I could supply some addresses, but those places would be clean or would provide no evidence that would touch Handy.

  Things got trickier than that, of course, with Falcon confessing to everything from lustful thoughts about his third grade teacher on up. He’d been with GGF longer than I had, but I’d been put in charge of our operation. From his point of view—one Reis would quickly come to share—I’d been brought in to purge that cell and then take it over for a strike pinpointed at the Constabulary. While I had been given a position of responsibility, I didn’t have the background information I should have had.

  I was really given little choice in what I could do.

  I looked up at him and nodded eagerly. “He was called Mr. Handy. I don’t know who he was really. I didn’t have a way to get in contact with him. Letitia, she was driving the hovertruck, she was my liaison with him. Classic cell system. All the groups in on the other attacks were from other cells.”

  A feral grin drew the corners of his mouth back like opera curtains. “Other attacks?”

  My stomach clenched. “Yes, yes, there were to be other attacks, while you were at the parade stand.”

  “And what were these other attacks supposed to be?”

  My mind was reeling. “I don’t know. Cell system. I was isolated and insulated.”

  “And you expect me to believe this?” Reis barked harshly. “You’re a fool, Donelly. This is how things went down: you were the GGF’s inside man at ARU. You showed up a month before they did, after all, so you fed them information and they went to war on the company. You intended to do more damage, but I out-foxed you on the mountain. You went underground, arranged for this little outing, never figuring we’d be there waiting for you.”

  “But . . . but . . .” I frowned, which hurt a lot. If Ray and Letitia hadn’t been the inside agent, then who? Jiro? Going out for coffee that day was the only time we were out of sight of each other. It was possible some covert signaling could have been done, but, if so, I missed it. But then Jiro got killed in the raid, and Reis would have been beating on me because Jiro had been one of his people.

  “So, was I the only person in GGF who wasn’t on your payroll?”

  “Maybe. I don’t employ idiots.”

  I shook my head because a lot of things were not making sense. “Mr. Handy exists. Go ask Falcon. At Handy’s request he helped kidnap me from the Akuma Street mission.”

  “We’ll see if that name comes up. So far our sources make you the leader of the group, Donelly.”

  “That’s not right.” I glanced at Lakewood. “Your security people spotted me at that bistro. They had to have seen the man I was with. They have holos of him. He was in the group, too. Find him and he’ll tell you about Handy.”

  Lakewood shook her head. “We found the body of a male answering that description early this morning. He had been beaten, but those were old wounds. He’d also been shot in the back of the head.”

  A chill sank into my bones. The last person I’d seen him with had been Handy, which meant Handy had drilled him. If there were no other ops and no other cells, then Handy meant to betray us from the start. He takes Ray away, has him report to CDRF about our raid and say he’s getting more info on other operations, then is killed.

  Reis’ voice became very cold. “There, yes, you’ve established you knew him. You found out he was my man inside the GGF, so you killed him.”

  “But, if he was your man, then you would have reports about Mr. Handy.”

  Lakewood raised a hand to silence Reis. “If you don’t mind, Commander.” She grabbed a handful of my hair and cranked my head back. “It breaks down simply like this. Prior to your joining the group overtly, all of your orders were communicated through Letitia. Mr. Handy is a sobriquet applied to a figure who appeared to give orders but, as nearly as the constable could document, only provided money and equipment. It appears that you have been covertly communicating with the GGF from the ARU facility—we have the communications logs to show access from the numbers. You ran the operation from there, used your materiel supplier, or one of his agents, as your front, and stepped in when the commander here eliminated your base of operations. Your setup was good for as long as it lasted, Mr. Donelly, but it slowly collapsed in on itself.”

  I opened my mouth for a moment, then closed it. I’d been led into a box and just proceeded to close things up behind myself. The circumstantial evidence could make me into the group’s leader, while the physical evidence showed quite a trail of damage that could be laid right at my doorstep. Handy had sacrificed me, which would allow him to disappear. Reis could claim he’d broken the back of GGF, be hailed as a hero, and then Handy would use his other cells to do something else and crush Reis. My cell really had been the bait for a trap but, instead of springing it shut on Reis right then and there, they wanted to let hubris lead him on, then drop him the way Lakewood dropped Digger.

  I glanced down at my gaudy knees. “You didn’t get the hovertruck?”

  “Abandoned, but your people won’t get far.” Reis resumed his swaggering, then waved a hand dismissively. “He’s yours, take him. Get him out of here.”

  “What?” I tried to shoot up out of my chair, but Lakewood got a hand on my shoulder and drove me back down into it. “We had a deal, Reis.”

  “
You didn’t give me any useful information, and you never would.”

  “But you need me. You need a show trial, so you need me.”

  He snorted. “Nonsense. I let Lady Lakewood haul you off and point out that you were a notorious terrorist who had escaped authorities on Acamar, but couldn’t get away from me. I cry loud and long about wanting to have tried you myself, and I vow to get you back here once Acamar is done with you, and I save myself a whole lot of budget problems. Trials are expensive, but media conferences are not.”

  “I’m not going back to Acamar!” I shifted my shoulder from beneath her hand. “I have rights. I demand them. I want an extradition hearing!”

  Reis chuckled. “You’re a Republic prisoner. I have no jurisdiction.”

  “Look, you strutting ape, you’ve overstepped your bounds so many times, you might as well go one more. Hold me here.”

  His eyes bulged and his face got purple. “Oh, I am so tempted, but the Universal Code gives me supreme discretion in such cases. And I decide to deny any request for extradition proceedings. He’s yours, my lady, to do with as you will.”

  “You are most kind, Commander. I shall not forget this.”

  The man smiled broadly. “Please remember me to your superiors.”

  Reis swept from the room and Lakewood’s guards, Jack and Jill, came in through the open doorway. Jack hauled me to my feet and checked the restraints on my wrists. Jill bent and shackled my ankles with a meter of stout chain. Maria’s chainsaw might have gotten through it, but it would have taken more time than normally imagined.

  Lakewood did do me one favor and waited until Reis had called the media together for a briefing before hustling me into the basement garage and into a hovercar. Jill drove. Jack sat beside me with his meaty right hand on the back of my neck. I rode the center of the seat while Lady Lakewood squeezed herself into the corner. I could feel her eyes on me and caught the little shakes of her head.