Freedom Express (Book 2 of The Humanity Unlimited Saga)

by Terry Mixon

  Not what she’d expected, but she didn’t need to know that kind of thing. “Fine. I’ll accept that as true since you say so. How would this ship move?”

  “What if it can create a curve in space wherever it wants? Above it, say. Then the ship would rise. In effect, it would fall upwards. Increase the curvature and the ship would fall in whatever direction even faster. We believe that is what these drives are designed to do, though we have no idea how they work.”

  That was going to take a while to get her head around. She could use the technology in other ways, she was sure, but they’d actually have to reverse engineer it. That wasn’t going to happen overnight.

  It was time to move on. “You’ve done well. Keep working on it. As we make strides in the language, we’ll keep you in the loop. Pass what you’ve done on to the linguistics people. It might help them to know what the power requirements translated to in reality.”

  He inclined his head. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Kathleen headed to the area where they’d taken the bodies. It looked very much like the morgues one saw on the television shows. And the anthropologist running the show looked like a mortician. Tall, gaunt, and humorless.

  She walked into the area outside the lab and went through the clean room procedures. He’d explained the reason for it quite forcefully. These bodies might have pathogens that could kill billions.

  Kathleen had few scruples, but global extermination was something she’d prefer to avoid. Now, if they could isolate some strains that they could tailor to other uses, that was different. There were whole groups of people on the planet they’d all be better off without.

  Once she was fully suited, she let herself in. The color codes on the arms of the suits told her who was who, so she knew which one was Doctor Damion Cradock. He was standing over the mummified corpse of one of the unfortunates. He’d laid the body out on a stainless steel table and cut it open like in an autopsy. Perhaps the comparison she’d made earlier wasn’t so far off.

  “Doctor Cradock.”

  “Wait.”

  She knew better than to force the issue. It looked as though he was using a pair of tongs to dig around for something.

  “Aha! There you are.”

  He pulled out the pliers. Covered in dried gore was something artificial. A dart?

  “What is that?”

  He half-turned toward her. “Mrs. Bennett. This is the cause of death, unless I miss my guess. All of the bodies had a number of these in their vital organs.”

  She leaned in close and examined the object. “It’s a dart. I can see little fins and a point.”

  “Indeed. I’d call this a flechette. There’s no sign of chemical propellant on the rest, so I’m envisioning a magnetic weapon. Something that gets them moving at high speed without pushing them up the barrel.”

  “I see. What else can you tell me about these people?”

  “Have my reports gone astray? I’ll have a word with my administrative assistant.”

  She’d gotten them, all right. They’d just been difficult to understand. “I’m not a professional in your field, Doctor. I want the rundown of what we know in layman’s terms.”

  He blinked at her. “Ah. Of course. I see my mistake. I should’ve included an executive summary.” He gestured at the man on the table. She knew the body was male because they hadn’t bother to leave the corpse any dignity whatsoever.

  “This is subject three. A male of approximately forty years of age. He was in good health when he died rather abruptly. We recovered three flechettes from his torso already and I’m sure there are half a dozen more in there.”

  Kathleen considered the dead man. “Can you estimate how long ago he died?”

  “Based on carbon dating, I’d wager somewhere in the range of 800 to 1,200 years.”

  She cocked her head. “That’s an unexpectedly wide range, Doctor. I thought carbon dating was a lot more specific.”

  “It usually is, however this man came from space. We don’t know what variances his unusual environment introduced. If he were from Earth, I’d pin his time of death at just over a thousand years. That meshes well with the location of the body, time-wise. For scientific purposes, I’ll leave the uncertainty factor in place until we know more.”

  Kathleen nodded. “And the others?”

  “Another male and a female. The second male was younger. No later than his mid-teens. Possibly a little younger. The woman was in her late thirties. We’ve run genetic testing and the DNA verifies the female is the younger male’s biological mother. This gentleman is the father, so I suspect they were a family unit.”

  “And someone felt the need to execute them. Interesting. I wonder if we’ll ever know the reason they were killed.”

  “Perhaps. I’ve turned their personal effects over to your lab people. The boy had what looks remarkably like a modern cell phone. It might have any number of interesting things hidden inside it.”

  With what the engineering team had discovered, that might actually prove helpful.

  “Excellent work. Tell me, Doctor. Are they completely human?”

  He frowned at her. “Of course they are.”

  “You say that like it was inevitable. They come from a technologically advanced, space faring society. None of them came from Earth, so you’ll forgive me if I wonder whether they aren’t from a different evolution entirely.”

  “Mrs. Bennett, you are a brilliant woman in your field. You’ll have to trust me that there is no possibility whatsoever that these people came from another planet. They are as tied to Mother Earth as we are. Theories of parallel evolution are the ravings of fools.

  “Not only is their DNA exactly what I’d expect for a modern human, but the genetic markers allow me to make a fairly good guess at where these people originated from.”

  “Modern as in from our time-frame?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “Modern as in the last 150,000 years or so. Physically, humans have been pretty much as you see us since then. These subjects came from somewhere in central Europe. I’d wager the northern part of Italy. With access to a large genetics database, I could probably find people related to them today.”

  That was somewhat unsettling. Yet, the location tied into the papers they’d recovered. “How did they get into space?”

  “Therein lies the mystery. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll see if I can’t do my part to figure it out.”

  “One more thing,” she said. “Have you found any pathogens we should be concerned about?”

  Cradock shook his head. “As near as I can determine, they don’t have anything that isn’t common on Earth today. We’re only maintaining these suits out of an abundance of caution. I’m fairly sure we’re safe from any superbugs.”

  “Thank you, Doctor. Keep me informed. With executive summaries.”

  “Of course.” He turned back to his work as though she’d vanished.

  She took her time with the decontamination procedures. The basic information they were getting confused her. Who were these people, and why were they no longer in evidence? Better yet, who had given them this technology and why?

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Ambassador Chen is here, Mister Secretary.”

  Queen looked up from his computer screen. “Send him in.”

  He rose from behind his desk and came out to meet the man who spoke for China. Chen was large for an Asian man, in Queen’s experience. He topped out more than halfway between six and seven feet. He also lifted weights. A lot of them.

  The man’s massive build hid a keen mind, though. Queen knew he’d fooled others, to their chagrin. He wouldn’t be one of them.

  “Thanks for coming to see me on such short notice, Mister Ambassador. Can I get you anything? My chef is quite good.”

  “Thank you, no, Mister Secretary.” His voice came out as a deep rumble, but his English was almost perfect. “Your message sounded quite urgent.”

  “It is. Please have a seat and I’ll get right to th
e point.”

  Queen resumed his seat behind his desk. “As you probably already guessed, we need to speak of Clayton Rogers.”

  Chen nodded. “I suspected as much. I believe my government has already made itself clear, though. We recognize his election as president of Nauru and he is a head of state. The United Nations has also certified the election as free and fair. A term you Americans believe you invented and a yardstick you use to beat everyone else with.”

  “Hardly free or fair,” Queen said. “He paid each and every man, woman, and child on that island a bribe to elect him to a position that no longer has any kind of term limits. A choice they will regret, I assure you.”

  The other man made a show of considering that. “I see. And that’s different from American democracy in that your party provides expensive programs to lure many voters to support you. That also seems like bribery to me. No offense, of course. Just making a comparison.”

  “We both know there are no similarities there. We help the poor. We give them a hand so they can one day support themselves. Rogers literally handed them a stack of cash.”

  “I’ve often wondered if that would be more effective here in the US,” Chen mused. “The numbers I’ve seen indicate that if you took the money meant for the poor and just gave it to them, it would be in the range of hundreds of thousands of dollars per person per year. And it would eliminate the inefficient bureaucracy Americans complain about so often. Is that not what you call a win-win situation?”

  Queen reigned in his temper. “We’re getting off course. Before I start reminding you how terrible your own bureaucracy is, allow me to get back on point. The United States is unwilling to stand by and see this international criminal use diplomatic immunity to escape the punishment for his crimes.”

  Chen’s eyes widened slightly. “International criminal? Have you brought charges in the international court? I believe only the United States wants to see the man punished.”

  “Don’t play word games with me. After all, he fooled you, too. Have you been following his progress?”

  “His spacecraft?” Chen’s expression soured. “Yes. He reached Mars last night. They have already landed a small craft and claimed the planet for themselves. Now that, I grant you, is a violation of international treaties.”

  “He did what?”

  Chen smiled. “You obviously haven’t seen the video they beamed back to Earth. It’s quite illuminating.”

  Queen tamped down his rage. The bastards! The unmitigated gall of these people.

  “Just another example of their character. In any case, these people have not only violated that one treaty. We have evidence they took weapons of mass destruction into space. They stopped at an extinct comet and destroyed it with a nuclear weapon.”

  He slid a data stick across the desk. “We expect you’ll want to verify everything on that, but the data should allow you to identify the comet. You can confirm that it is gone now. Blown to bits.”

  Chen took the stick and slid it into his jacket. “Those are troubling charges. If true, they will bear thinking about.”

  “It’s also come to our attention that he smuggled a nuclear reactor into orbit in contravention of international treaty. I have no doubt the ongoing investigation will reveal other crimes.

  “The bottom line is that it is the position of my government that the original sale of the ISS2 space station to his company was part of a fraudulent scheme to defraud the American taxpayer of billions of dollars. We will reclaim possession of our property.”

  Chen smiled. “So, you intend to take ownership of that vessel? An interesting ploy, but you do not control the international courts. A ruling in America means spit when levied against another country. Unless, of course, you can seize the property in America.”

  It was Queen’s turn to smile. “Ah, about that. We intend to invalidate every sale of property he made to your country. Stolen property, you see. Rainforest was obviously complicit in these crimes. And those other purchases you made? I wouldn’t expect them to remain in your hands for very long, if I were you.

  “In fact, I’ve already spoken to the Mexican ambassador about the spaceport. They went in early this morning to take possession on our behalf. I’m shocked you haven’t heard.”

  “You take great liberties with my country,” Chen said, his voice cold. “Large talk from an inferior military power. We will not stand idly by while you steal from us.”

  Queen was in his element now. “Will China go to war to protect one man? You made a bad call. His money is in your banks. Seize it and we can all walk away from this without harm.”

  He knew Rogers had already slipped his cash to other holdings. Well, that wasn’t his problem.

  Chen stood slowly. “The acts you consider will carry grave consequences. We will defend the property of our state and our people with force, if need be. You should consult with your government before you push us to the point of proving the inferiority of the American military. Good day, Mister Secretary.”

  Queen watched him leave with satisfaction. This was all talk. China wouldn’t go to war over Rogers and some property.

  Still, it might be worthwhile to have a talk with the secretary of defense. Moving forces down to Mexico to hold onto the spaceport would make things more certain. And naval units. They had enough of them stuck in port due to budget constraints. Let those people go earn their pay.

  * * * * *

  It took Nathan and his people several hours to be certain they’d escaped cleanly, and more time for him to send the data to his mother, so that put him into evening rush hour by the time all was said and done.

  His primary mission here was a success, so he should be able just to slip out of the country. Under other circumstances, he would. Only he still hadn’t gotten even for the mob trying to kill him.

  They needed to understand that some people were not on their list of targets. By the time he finished with them, they’d certainly get the message.

  His team was just down the street from a business used by the man who’d ordered Nathan’s kidnapping. It was still a busy time of day, so they probably felt secure in there. The search teams the mob had sent out hadn’t had much luck. That had to be frustrating.

  The group was armed and armored for a full frontal assault. In and out. Just a few minutes and they’d be on the road. He’d return to the villa and they’d depart directly from there. He didn’t want to leave his new toy, after all.

  The driver pulled out of traffic and stopped in the loading zone. Two men got out and blocked the flow of pedestrians. They’d taken the time to make up vests that looked like they belonged to law enforcement, so the people backed off.

  When the time came that the real police wanted descriptions, there would be nothing to identify them. Neat and clean, in his opinion.

  The rest of the team hit the front door hard and fast. A portable battering ram reduced it to splinters. They shouted that they were the police in Italian. Poorly accented Italian, to be sure, but that produced the desired effect of giving them the initiative.

  He’d ordered the men to let anyone that seemed harmless to flee, but not if they had any doubts. The customers in the front of the store did the smart thing and dropped to the floor. The mobsters went for guns.

  They were woefully outclassed.

  When his men broke into the back of the store, they used grenades to clear the rooms. An informant had already told them where Luca Russo’s office was. He was there. They’d made sure of that. A message needed ears to hear it.

  His guards died hard, but die they did. He tossed a stun grenade through the shattered door and they rushed in. The mobster was on the floor, but fired on them anyway.

  Thank goodness for body armor. A slug caught Nathan in the chest, but did him no lasting harm. He stomped on the mob boss’ hand, breaking bones and dislodging the weapon.

  “You shouldn’t have targeted me,” Nathan said conversationally. “Tell me you understand or I’ll just kill yo
u now.”

  “I understand,” the man grated. “Get it over with.”

  “Ah, you misunderstand. I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to let you live so my message gets to your bosses. Don’t fuck with me or mine. Ever.”

  He grinned. “But, there is a price for attacking me. You’ll live, but I’m going to hurt you real bad.”

  He shot the man in both kneecaps. And while he was writhing and screaming, he pinned the man’s undamaged hand under his boot and ruined it, too. Now the mobster couldn’t walk or handle things. He sure hoped that the mob had good disability benefits.

  “Time to go,” he said.

  They withdrew the way they’d come, killing a few more men rushing to the scene. He let his men handle that while he tossed white phosphorous grenades into the rooms as they passed. He wondered if the man would get out before the building burned down. Nathan hoped so, but only after some nasty burns.

  The van was waiting for them. He could hear sirens in the distance as they slammed the doors and took off. He’d picked a ubiquitous color for the stolen vehicle. It wouldn’t get a second look.

  It only needed to work until they got to the second vehicle. After all, why change a plan that worked?

  The police flew past them as they cleared the area. The vehicle change went off without a hitch. A phosphorous grenade made sure it was burning merrily by the time they were gone. The fire department here was really getting a workout.

  The trip back to the villa was quiet, but the place was in an uproar when they arrived. His second team was out in force, scouring the grounds.

  “What’s happening?” he asked as they arrived.

  “That bitch got loose,” one of the men said. “She stabbed François in the jewels and got out of the house.”

  The idiots. He’d told them to leave her alone.