Rath's Reckoning (The Janus Group #3)

by Piers Platt

  After a few seconds of dangling, they winched him up, and Rath felt strong hands pulling him into the cruiser.

  “Are you okay, Senator Lizelle?” the officer asked.

  “I’ll be all right,” Rath told him, sitting down.

  The man lobbed another harness over to Beauceron, who climbed awkwardly into it, and then half stepped, half fell over the balcony’s railing. The air car was already moving away from the falling airship – it pulled Beauceron to safety, and Rath felt the cruiser gaining altitude, heading back up to the sunny, clear air of the upper atmosphere. The policeman hauled Beauceron in seconds later, and sat him next to Rath. The detective eyed Rath appraisingly, then sighed, shaking his head.

  The police officer slid the outer door shut, then knelt next to Rath.

  “I just need to check you for wounds, sir,” he told Rath.

  “Of course,” Rath said, letting the man inspect him. “Listen, I need to get to the spaceport at once.”

  The cop shook his head. “Sir, we have orders to take you to our station until the threat has been neutralized.”

  Rath grabbed him by the shoulder. “No! I was attacked by Interstellar Police back there. Whether they were really police or not, I have no idea. But until we can figure out what’s going on, you’ll tell no one where I am. Got it?”

  The man frowned. “We already reported that we found you, sir.”

  “Send one more report. Tell them you were hit by the enemy air car, and then shut the radio off. Until we know who we can trust, we have to be cautious.”

  The policeman looked around uncertainly. Beauceron opened his mouth to speak, but Rath put his hand on the detective’s knee and squeezed hard, silencing him.

  “That’s an order, son,” Rath told the uniformed officer. “Now go tell the pilots, and get me to the spaceport.”

  The man relented, and moved forward to talk to the pilots.

  “Must we continue to lie?” Beauceron asked Rath in a whisper. “We could simply turn ourselves in ….”

  “Are you sure we can trust these guys?” Rath asked in reply.

  They landed at the spaceport less than five minutes later. Rath unbuckled his seatbelt as they settled onto the tarmac of a private landing pad, and the police officer slid open the cruiser’s door, hopping out. He helped Rath and Beauceron climb out.

  “Thank you for your help,” Rath told him.

  The man nodded. “Sir, if you’ll just wait a minute, my pilot wants a word.”

  The pilot was already stepping out of his door. He shook hands with Rath. “Senator, I get your concern, but we need to radio in that we have you in a safe location. You gotta understand that our boss is going to kill us if he finds out we let you just wander off into the spaceport without any escort.”

  Rath sighed. “I understand. I never properly thanked you for saving us back there. Thank you, officer.”

  Rath pulled the pilot in toward him, hugging him close. With his free hand, he drew the pilot’s pistol, switching it to Stun by feel. He fired three quick shots, hitting the co-pilot through the open door, then putting a round into the pilot’s side, and finally dropping the third officer.

  Beauceron looked down at their twitching forms and shook his head in dismay. “That hurts, you know.”

  “Trust me,” Rath told him. “I know. Anyway, they’ll be fine in an hour or two.”

  He shifted his face and hair into one of his cover identities, and stripped out of the air car harness and his combat vest. Rath tossed his auto-pistol into the air car, then held his damaged Forge up, peering at it. Lubricant leaked out of several shrapnel holes, dripping onto the tarmac.

  “You brought that with you? I thought it was empty,” Beauceron said.

  “It is. What do you think – can I get it through security?”

  “Leaking like that?” Beauceron shook his head. “No. It’s broken, leave it!”

  Rath frowned. “But I’ve had it forever.” He sighed, then placed the Forge carefully on floor of the air car, and patted it. “I’ll come back, buddy.”

  Beauceron shot him a disbelieving look. “Ready now?”

  “Yeah, let’s go.”

  The two men jogged over to the terminal entrance.

  “Martin, you know that money you had set aside for your retirement?”

  The detective sighed, palming open the doors to the airport. “Yes.”

  “How do you feel about a vacation to Anchorpoint?”

  “Sounds thrilling.”

  “Great,” Rath told him, as the doors slid shut behind them. “You’re buying.”

  * * *

  “Mission planning?” Beauceron asked, as they finished their meal in the spaceliner’s small cabin.

  Rath smiled. “You’re getting the hang of it. Yeah, let’s do it.”

  “Inventory is easy,” Beauceron noted sardonically. “We have nothing.”

  “Not true,” Rath said. “I have three broken ribs. I think it’s three, at least.” He fingered his side gingerly, and winced. “But no weapons, no Forge, and no money.”

  “I have some cuts from shrapnel. And some money,” Beauceron said. “Substantially less money than I had before.”

  “Sorry,” Rath told him. “The spacelines gouge you on these last-minute fares. Just be glad we got off Emerist before they put the whole place on security lockdown.”

  “What do we do when we get to Anchorpoint?” Beauceron asked.

  “Depends. We check our messages first, and see what Paisen and Dasi are up to. First priority is to link up with them. Unlike us, they’ll be flying direct, though – that means they’ll be several hours ahead of us. They may have already made contact with Mastic and Blackwell.”

  “If we can’t get in touch with them, we’ll need to try to find the senators ourselves,” Beauceron said.

  “And if the Group gets there first, and kills the senators, we’ll go public with the info we have,” Rath finished.

  “All the evidence is on the Hurasu,” Beauceron pointed out. “Let’s hope the Group is not waiting to intercept our friends.”

  “Let’s hope they’re not waiting to intercept us,” Rath said. “Okay, so the plan is to find Paisen, basically. And if she’s a no show, I gotta think about how we’re going to get in to see the senators.” He took the necklace from his pocket, and passed the multi-colored crystal beads through his fingers idly, while he thought.

  Beauceron watched him for a minute. “You still have that. You should have listed it during inventory,” he kidded Rath.

  Rath looked down at the beads. “Mm. Kind of a good luck charm at this point.” He smiled. “I’m going to be sad to give it away. Will she be able to visit me when I’m in jail?”

  “Able to?” Beauceron asked. “Yes, from time to time.”

  “But will she want to?” Rath finished for the detective. He pocketed the necklace. “Probably not.”

  * * *

  The ship shuddered, and then exited faster-than-light travel. With nothing to pack, Rath and Beauceron were already waiting at one of the spaceliner’s boarding tubes, along with several other business travelers. Rath glanced at Beauceron.

  “They shut off the engines,” Rath said.

  Beauceron frowned. “How can you tell?”

  “I don’t hear them anymore,” Rath answered. One of the businessmen standing nearby shot him a funny look, but Rath ignored it.

  “We’re not docked already, are we?” Beauceron asked.

  “No.”

  A minute later, the captain’s image appeared on a viewscreen on the wall.

  “Ah, ladies and gentleman, I’ve been ordered to stay here, outside of Anchorpoint approach. We may be stuck here for a little while: it seems there’s an emergency situation at Anchorpoint, so they’re holding all traffic for the time being. If you have connecting flights, don’t worry, you won’t miss them – there’s nothing outbound at this time, either. Please make yourselves comfortable, and I’ll keep you updated as … well, as I lear
n more. Thank you for your patience.”

  The captain disappeared, replaced with the spaceline’s logo. A new message notification appeared in Rath’s heads-up display. His eyes unfocused as he skimmed it.

  “What?” Beauceron asked.

  “Let’s go back to the room.”

  In the cabin, Rath connected wirelessly to the viewscreen and projected the message, so that Beauceron could read it, too.

  Got your message – was starting to think you didn’t make it off Emerist. Group beat us here. They got Blackwell, but I interrupted the mission at Mastic’s office and managed to reach her before they killed her, too. Group HQ is on Chennai, in the Surat Khan Tower. We’re taking our usual private transport there now. The Group at least suspects that we’re alive, and they may assume we know the location now, too. So they may be anticipating a move against them, and/or they’re in the process of relocating HQ. Speed is critical – will plan to move against HQ on arrival, with or without you. p.s. - My companion says to tell you she’s relieved you’re alive. Also, that asshole we keep running into is dead.

  Beauceron sat down heavily at the cabin’s desk and sighed. “So all three senators are dead. I can’t condone their actions on the oversight committee … but with no restraints, I shudder to think what the Group will become.”

  “At least 700 is dead: that’s a win for humanity in general.” Rath stopped projecting and pulled up the ship’s travel booking interface on the viewscreen. “There’s a direct flight to Chennai waiting at Anchorpoint now. It’s listed as ‘Delayed,’ but they’re still accepting new passengers. I’m booking it.”

  “No sense staying here. What do you think she means to do?”

  “Paisen?” Rath shrugged. “I don’t know. If it was me, I’d … Christ, I don’t know. I’d scout out the headquarters building, and craft the plan from there.”

  “I’m worried she’ll do something drastic. And in her quest to get her money, she’ll ruin our whole case against the Group.”

  “Martin, earning that payoff was all we thought about for more than ten years,” Rath said. “I get where she’s coming from.”

  “But think how dangerous the Group has become – not just to you, but every citizen of the Federacy. It must be exposed, and dismantled … that’s far more important than two people getting paid. You see that, don’t you?”

  Rath studied Beauceron for a time, then exhaled noisily. “Yeah, I know. And maybe there’s a way to do that. I’m just saying that – given the chance, if I were in Paisen’s shoes – I might take that money and run.”

  22

  The message appeared in Rath’s heads-up display minutes after the ship decelerated out of FTL.

  “I’ve got their location,” he told Beauceron. “Not much else to the message, just instructions to meet up ASAP.”

  He and Beauceron were standing in the ship’s boarding tube again, and both watched the viewscreen apprehensively, but when this captain’s face appeared, he merely welcomed them to Chennai, and informed them that they would be docked at the transfer station soon.

  “Well, that’s a good sign,” Beauceron observed.

  On the shuttle, Rath studied Chennai as they descended toward the planet. The surface was deep red, and reminded him of the sand on Fusoria’s beaches – except Chennai was heavily forested, its trees covered in crimson leaves. A series of rolling, parallel hills stretched into the distance as far as he could see, broken only by the skyline of a city that the map in his neural interface labeled Wayhaven.

  Can’t see it from this angle, but the Surat Khan Tower is in there … somewhere.

  On the ground, Beauceron grumbled again about his dwindling retirement account, but Rath persuaded him to spring for an air taxi, and minutes after leaving the spaceport, the two men climbed out of the taxi and entered a discount hotel near the center of Wayhaven. Rath led Beauceron past the front desk’s automated kiosks, and they rode the elevator up to the twenty-fourth floor. They walked past a maid’s cleaning cart, before finding the room marked 2403. Rath knocked quickly on the door. His enhanced hearing picked up the sounds of someone moving inside, but after nearly two minutes of waiting, the door still had not opened.

  Rath looked at Beauceron. “Something’s wrong.”

  He accessed the web from his neural interface, and searched for a picture of the hotel manager. When he found it, he shifted his face and hair to match the photo, then strode back down the hallway to the cleaning cart. Rath knocked on the door, and the maid looked up from making the bed. Rath zoomed in on her nameplate.

  “Hi, Yuna,” he said. “Recognize me?”

  “Yes, sir,” she responded.

  Rath gestured to Beauceron, behind him in the hall. “This guest lost his keycard, and I figured I’d save him a trip to the lobby – can I borrow your access card for just a minute?”

  “Of course!” She handed it over.

  “Thanks. Be right back,” Rath told her.

  He and Beauceron moved back down the hall, keyed open the door, and then Rath took the key back to the maid. When he returned, Rath found Beauceron inside, bent over Dasi. The young woman was seated on the floor, handcuffed to the leg of the desk. Beauceron pulled a makeshift gag out of her mouth.

  “Thank you!” Dasi took a deep breath. “I was so relieved when Paisen got your message, back on Anchorpoint. We thought for sure you guys had been killed on Emerist. I would hug you, but … I can’t get this handcuff off. You don’t have a key, do you?”

  Beauceron shook his head. “No. Dasi, what happened?”

  “Paisen happened.” Dasi sighed.

  “Where is she?” Rath asked.

  Dasi tugged against the handcuff. “Headquarters. She’s going in.”

  “Right now?” Rath asked.

  “Yeah, she left about twenty minutes ago.”

  “What’s her plan?” Rath asked.

  “She’s going to blackmail them for the money.”

  “By threatening to go public?” Beauceron asked.

  Dasi shook her head. “No. I tried to convince her not to, but she wouldn’t listen. And I couldn’t stop her. She built four ten-pound steel weights in her Forge, and then put them in the high energy prototype on the Hurasu. She’s going down into the sub-basements, to place the weights at each corner of the building’s foundation.”

  “Oh god,” Beauceron said. “Forty pounds’ worth of metal? That will destroy the whole block, not just the tower! She’ll kill thousands of people!”

  Rath held up his hand, motioning the detective to wait. “How’s she getting in?”

  “She’s infiltrating the tower, as a worker in one of the other offices. It’s a big building, with lots of offices, so she’s just posing as someone who works on another floor, not a Group employee.”

  “We need to warn the police, now,” Beauceron said.

  “When everything’s in place,” Dasi continued, “she’s going to put a smaller piece of metal in the lobby, and then leave. We found the front company the Group is operating under. She’ll detonate the lobby piece to get their attention, and then she’s going to call them, and ask for Director Nkosi.”

  “She’s not going to detonate the other pieces,” Rath said. “It’s a bluff.”

  “It’s not,” Dasi told him. “Once she has the funds, she’s going to detonate all of the pieces, and bring the tower down. She said it was the only way to be sure the Group doesn’t come after us anymore.”

  Beauceron gasped. “She knew we’d never go along with this, that’s why she was in a hurry.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket.

  Rath put his hand on Beauceron’s arm. “What are you doing?”

  “Calling Interstellar Police. This has gone too far – it’s past time we called for help.”

  “Maybe we should let her do it,” Rath said, quietly.

  “What?” Dasi asked.

  Beauceron scowled at him. “How can you say that?”

  “It would wipe out the Group. Cut off the head,
dismantle them, just like you said. It would save thousands of lives in the long run.”

  “At the expense of thousands of lives now. No, Rath.”

  “That’s the same logic Lizelle and the senators used,” Dasi pointed out.

  “They’re hunting us all,” Rath told them. “If Paisen doesn’t kill them, we’re probably going to die. All of us – you too, Dasi. Paisen might be our best shot at getting clear of all of this.”

  “They can’t hunt us if we expose them, if we give Interstellar Police everything we know,” Beauceron said. “We have enough evidence now.”

  “We’ve got a good story to sell to the media, sure,” Rath argued. “But barring a confession from the director herself, will any of it hold up in court?”

  Beauceron shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. What matters now is saving those lives. We can worry about the courts later.”

  Beauceron lifted his phone and started dialing. Rath moved quickly, knocking the phone out of his hand, then slipping the detective into a tight choke hold. Dasi gasped in alarm. Beauceron struggled for a minute, beating ineffectually against Rath’s arms, then slumped forward. Rath set him carefully on the floor.

  Dasi eyed Rath with shock. “What are you doing?”

  “What I have to,” Rath told her, his face grim. “He’ll wake up in a few minutes.”

  Rath pulled a datascroll out of his pocket and powered it on. “Is the Hurasu here on Chennai?”

  “Yes,” Dasi said.

  Rath typed on the screen, connecting remotely to the ship’s file archive.

  “Why?” Dasi asked.

  “I’m connecting to the ship’s hard drive, and downloading all of the evidence we collected to this datascroll,” Rath told her.

  “I don’t understand,” Dasi said.