Mariad and Ochrie, Solomon thought, hoping that he hadn’t been too late.
Ker-THUNK!
Warning! Suit Impact Detected: Helmet Rear.
Armor Plating Efficiency: -20%
The Marine he had hit had hit him with something over the back of the head, and strong enough to damage his helmet, but not enough to stop him.
Solomon spun, raising his leg as he did so to roundhouse kick the Marine behind him. The combined strength of the blow and his heavy metal boots was enough to send the man flying.
BOOM!
Someone was firing at him, but because of the smoke, they missed. Solomon still had the other Marine’s Jackhammer in hand and discharged it, from only a few meters away, into the Marine who had fired it at him. Now there was only one left.
“FREEZE!” Solomon demanded, striding forward to clank the muzzle of his stolen firearm against the man’s helmet. “Now, I don’t know if these fancy helmets of ours can withstand a point-blank shot, but I’m willing to bet that whatever the outcome, you’re going to be in a lot of pain!” Solomon hissed at the remaining Marine, as he heard a groan from behind him.
“Nobody move!” Solomon called out before the other Marine he had kicked could decide to try and help his friend. The smoke from the personal flak system was starting to lower to the floor, revealing the shapes of two dead or unconscious Marines and Solomon with his stolen weapon against the head of another.
“Easy there, Lieutenant…” the second Marine standing on the other side of him was saying, taking a slow step forward. The soldier did not have any guns in his hands—he must have dropped it when Solomon kicked him—but that didn’t mean he was harmless, Solomon knew.
“I said nobody move!” Solomon pulled the trigger back a fraction.
“Okay, okay. You’re the boss…” the Marine standing a little way from him muttered.
“Ambassador? Imprimatur? Are you okay?” Solomon called, not taking his eyes from both Marines.
“Ugh. Yes, I think so…” Ochrie’s voice groaned, as Mariad coughed from the smoke.
“You won’t get far, Cready…” the standing Marine said. Already, alarms were bursting into existence around them.
WAO! WAO! WAAOOO!
“Who are you working for!?” Solomon hissed. “Who put you up to this? Hausman? NeuroTech?”
The Marine sneered at him. “You’re on our territory now, Outcast. We own the Moon. We own Earth, now! You and your traitor Asquew are going to pay!”
“Who do you mean ‘we’!?” The ambassador was striding forward, looking about ready to slap the man, even if he was wearing a full power armor helmet. Before she could, however, there was the sound of shouting from the outer concourse, where Solomon and the others had entered Luna 1. It was more Marines. And when they got there, Solomon knew they wouldn’t like what they saw at all.
My traitor Asquew? Solomon wondered, It didn’t make sense, but there was no time for that now, anyway.
“Ladies, please…” Solomon was stepping back, his Jackhammer still raised as Mariad grabbed one of the fallen Marine’s guns and the sound of pounding feet grew louder.
“We’ll see you next time, Outcast,” the standing Marine was laughing at them, as Solomon and the others turned and fled.
10
Commander-in-Chief
“Why did they call the general a traitor!?” Solomon was panting inside his power armor. Although it was designed to be servo-assisted and as light as just a heavy set of clothes, sprinting through a moon-base habitat, up flights of stairs, and across balconies was still an effort.
Currently, Solomon and his two companions were flattened against the wall of a stairwell, looking out across the adjoining balcony terrace and down to the central plaza of Luna 1 below as it slowly started to fill up with Hausman’s Marines.
And they were all searching for them.
“Never mind that, Lieutenant. Just why on Proxima did they start shooting at us!?” Imprimatur Rhossily was similarly gasping for air.
They had lost their pursuers with the back and forth terrace balcony-hopping that they had done, but it was only a matter of time before they were spotted.
We’re not exactly inconspicuous, are we? Solomon could have groaned when he saw his reflection in the silvered floor of the adjacent lift. He was a Marine wearing full power armor. He might be able to pass as one of Hausman’s Marines, but only to the civilians. The other Marines would see his call-sign on their own suit telemetries the moment he stepped into view.
For the first time since he had been awarded the privilege of wearing the expensive Marine Corps power armor suit, Solomon cursed the fact that he had it on.
“General Asquew said…” Solomon breathed, keeping his eye on a trio of Marines moving across the plaza floor. The main and central atrium of Luna 1 would have been a marvel, Solomon realized, were it not for the imminent threat of getting shot. It had as its centerpiece a tall fountain throwing glittering water some twenty feet into the air, which Solomon was grateful for at least, as it meant the noise of the spraying water hid their whispers and movements somewhat.
The different terraces of Luna 1 spread around the fountain in a circle, with their balcony levels displaying offices and restaurants, embassy buildings and more. It was a pleasing, bright, and airy sort of a place, and the sort that Solomon might have liked to spend time in…again, if he wasn’t being shot at.
But he had other things to think about. The conspiracy.
“Asquew said that there had to be a conspiracy at the heart of the Confederacy. Someone who helped NeuroTech and Taranis to supply Mars with weapons. To start the war by attacking both of you, Ambassador and Imprimatur, on Titan.” Solomon filled them in.
“Taranis? Aren’t they a biotech firm?” The ambassador frowned. The imprimatur had never heard of them.
“Yeah, Asquew thinks that Taranis was working with NeuroTech. That they might have some of the Ru’at’s message,” Solomon confirmed, holding up a warning hand as the trio of Hausman’s guards looked in their direction as Solomon and the others ducked back.
Solomon breathed. He counted to three, and then he counted to ten. No shouts and no blaze of gunfire, so they might be alright.
Might be.
“Someone tried to start a war between the colonies and the Confederacy, and two mega-corporations have been using alien technology for years,” the imprimatur whispered. “Got it. Now I’m on the same page…”
But why did that guard call Asquew a traitor!? Solomon couldn’t get the question out of his head. It didn’t make any sense. A traitor to what? The Confederacy? But Asquew was out there fighting for it! And she was doing everything she could to unmask a conspiracy, not start one!
“Psst…” Solomon startled as his suit picked up a whisper. It was coming from neither of the two women with him, but the stairwell above them—
—where there was a young boy’s face looking between the stairwell bannisters at them. He was pale, the sort of pale that you get from living most of your life without Earth-filtered sunlight. The boy couldn’t have been older than twelve or thirteen, with short black hair and wide, almost ghoulish eyes.
“Go away, kid” Solomon whispered back as the trio of Marines started to walk slowly towards their stairwell.
“Pssst!” the boy said again, this time reaching one moonlit-pale hand through the gaps between the bannisters to beckoning them up.
“He wants us to follow him,” the imprimatur said.
“It could be a trap!” Ambassador Ochrie warned.
“Children might play tricks, but they do not lay ambushes,” the imprimatur said, already moving up the stairwell to the next landing and the young man above.
“Rhossily! Come back!” Solomon was hissing at her, but she was already gone. “Dammit!” Solomon nodded for the ambassador to follow him as they moved as silently as they could up the stairwell.
“What does he want?” Solomon whispered as they got to the next landing, t
o see that the boy had once again run on ahead of them to the landing above, again beckoning them through the railings.
“He wants us to follow him,” the Imprimatur of Proxima said, eagerly taking the challenge as she jogged up the stairs after the boy.
“You don’t say.” Solomon kept his grip on his Jackhammer loose and casual, ready to use on the guards beneath them at the first sign of trouble.
The boy paused at the next landing, and when Solomon and the ambassador joined Rhossily there, they saw the boy look warily though the plate glass, and then hit the release button for the door to open with a near-silent hum, revealing a narrow avenue.
Still not speaking, the boy waved them on behind him as he passed a set of double garage doors on one side, and then a smaller metal door with a tiny awning over the other, and a small brass plaque bearing the legend, Poulanous Bistro! Everyone Welcome!
The boy knocked on the door several times, and it was opened by a large man wearing a cook’s apron, with thick waves of wiry black hair held back in a bun. The scent of cooking meat, coffee, cloves, and cinnamon washed out of the bistro to greet them.
“Alexis! What are you doing? You know it’s curfew!” the man who was clearly the boy’s father was saying, grasping the small boy towards him in a fierce bearhug, before he spotted the three strays that his boy had brought home with him.
One of them wore full power armor, and the other two were clearly women of some standing.
WAO! WAO! WAAOO! The stations alarms were still going off, and distantly, they could hear thumps and bangs as doors were knocked.
“Please, sir…” Mariad Rhossily whispered to the man, as Solomon kept on casting worried looks back the way that they had come.
“You guys had better come in,” the father said in a low, urgent tone, holding the door open for them until all three had vanished inside.
The Poulanous Bistro was a small but welcoming restaurant furnished in a Mediterranean style, even with real wood tables and countertops, Solomon saw. Small curtains hung over porthole windows into the corridor beyond, and vining plants had been encouraged to grow up frames by the side of the empty tables.
“I am sorry, my son is always making friends,” the boy’s father said, having picked up Alexis and depositing him on the side of the counter, from where he looked at the newcomers with his large, rounded eyes.
“Thank you.” The imprimatur crossed the space between them, taking the man’s hand with both of her own and holding it earnestly. “You may have saved our lives.”
“Mariad,” the ambassador said in a shocked undertone, and from the look on her face, Solomon could see that she was still unsure over whether to trust this man.
“Oh, it’s alright,” the man surprised them by saying, shaking the imprimatur’s hand and then turning to offer his hand to the other two. “I am Max Poulanous, and this is my café, and you are all very welcome indeed.” Max paused. “I came to settle on Luna some years ago, and I came here for a better life. But what I have seen out of my door today, it makes me wonder,” he said heavily, before shaking his head and his face cracking into a large grin. “But anyway, enough talk of dark tidings. Coffee?”
The ambassador hesitated, but both the imprimatur and Solomon were eager to accept. “We’d be delighted, Max,” Mariad stated, and the man turned to talk to his son in Greek, sending him off to make the coffees.
“The boy should not hear this talk.” the man gestured for them to take seats.
“Are you going to help us?” The ambassador remained standing stiffly in place, until Max gave her a smile, even if it was a sad and tired smile.
“Of course. That is the Luna way. And the Greek way,” he said. “I recognize you from the news reels, Ambassador, I know who you are. And I have not been yelling at my door for Hausman’s thugs to get up here, have I?” he pointed out.
“Hm.” That, if anything, seemed to reassure the ambassador as Ochrie took a seat beside Solomon and Rhossily.
“Hausman’s thugs?” Solomon asked, uncoupling his helmet and setting it on the table in front of him. It felt good to be out of that thing for a moment, he thought. “You mean the Marines?”
“Ah yes, the Marines…” Max’s eyes flickered as he moved over Solomon’s large power armor.
“I’m not General Hausman,” Solomon said quickly, holding up his hands in a placating gesture before very slowly, and very carefully, setting the Jackhammer he had at his belt on the floor at his feet, and straightening up. “I am with the Rapid Response Fleet, under General Asquew.”
“Lieutenant…” the ambassador whispered warningly.
“Really, Ambassador. We are the guests of this man and at the mercy of his good nature,” Mariad said sternly, earning a glare from the ambassador, but also a brief look of shame as she looked at her hands.
“Ah, Asquew…” Max whistled appraisingly. “Then you have a lot of problems, my friend. General Asquew has barely been off the newswires all day.”
“All day? Even after New York?” Ochrie said.
“Ah…” The restaurateur grimaced, “Especially because of New York, I fear.” He stood up to go turn on the large wall screen, for it suddenly to blare with the insignia of the Near-Earth Marine Corps badge and scroll with updates.
“New York attacked by terrorists! All flights to and from the American Confederacy canceled. Heavy chaos over our skies as flights to Shanghai and Mexico are stopped entirely!”
“The senior officer in command, General Hausman, has stepped forward to aid in the recovery effort. ‘We will hunt down the traitors, wherever we find them!’ He has claimed that a secret cabal of Marine Corps officers, close to General Asquew, have elected to attack Earth…”
“Pfagh!” Max clicked off the sound as he turned back to the shocked faces of his guests. “Traitors. Hausman has been talking about traitors ever since it happened. He says that there is a conspiracy in the heart of the Confederate Marine Corps!”
“He might not be wrong about that part,” Solomon murmured, frowning deeply as he slumped forward and put his head in his hands. I have to try to get to the bottom of this. Why is Hausman saying this about Asquew? Why did his soldiers attack us?
“But to think that Asquew had anything to do with the attack on New York is just ridiculous. She is far too busy attacking Mars,” Solomon said.
“Hausman must have the wrong information,” the ambassador said. “If I can get to speak to him, then we can clear this up…”
“I don’t think that is going to help, Ambassador…” Max said as he pointed to the muted screen, where now the repeating newswire had been replaced by a live-feed picture of Hausman, sitting behind a desk and dressed in a pure white and gold ceremonial uniform. Behind him was the flag of the Confederacy in full color. Max gestured for the sound to come on again immediately.
“People of Earth and Luna, these are dark times indeed for the soul of the Confederacy and the fate of humanity! Whilst one of our planet’s greatest cities has been attacked, and the casualties are high, all is not yet lost!
“This is but one tragedy, and human history, if anything, has taught us that we are a species capable of reaching beyond such tragedies. Of turning their sorrow and hard iron lessons of the soul into the steel that we use to build bigger and better empires! To strike down our enemies, wherever they may be!
“But I do have some very grave news to tell you. It appears that only one of those closest to us could have attempted such a foul and complicated act. Someone who believes that there should be no Confederate Council, and no Confederacy, only herself!”
“No!” Solomon could guess where this diatribe was going, and he already didn’t like it as he half-rose from his seat.
“So, it with great sadness and after much deliberation that I have chosen to share this news with you: the perpetrator behind the bombing of New York, the criminal mastermind who would stop at nothing until she has dismantled all that we hold dear, is none other the Brigadier General Asquew,
Commander of the Rapid Response Fleet.”
“Why is he saying that?” the ambassador was saying.
“Can you not tell?” Max, from his stool by the counter muttered grimly.
Solomon rather thought that they all could, but that no one wanted to believe what was about to happen next.
“Asquew’s sin is that of pride, ladies and gentlemen, in believing that she was above her station, and that she could know better than all the rest of us. She believes that SHE will be a better ruler for the Confederacy than any other, and she will use Mars as her base to attack Earth!’
“So, my fellow comrades and friends, I have made a decision. It falls upon me to muster the forces of righteousness and justice against evil. I have placed Earth and Luna under my own protective care, until I have eliminated the threat of General Asquew, whom I now shall strip of all rank and titles, and instead she will henceforth only be known as the traitor Asquew!”
“Oh my god.” The ambassador swept a hand to her mouth.
“Can you see what he is doing?” Max asked as he scowled at the camera. “He’s taking over. He’s just said as much. He’s taking over Earth and the Moon, over the Confederacy.”
“What he’s saying about Asquew isn’t true,” Solomon said fervently. It couldn’t be true, could it?
“Of course not,” Max said with a snort of disgust. “Hausman moved into Luna a few months ago, taking up offices here in the station, and ever since then, we’ve been having problems. I don’t trust him one bit to be telling the truth…”
“Problems?” the ambassador asked.
“People disappearing or getting intimidated by his Marines. Other people I know at Luna docks say that Hausman placed a special ‘securities levy’ on all ships leaving Luna surface.”
“That’s illegal! That’s against Confederacy regulations!” the Ambassador said quickly.
“Well, whether it is legal or not, Hausman did it. He started commandeering storage bubbles here and there all over the Moon, giving the companies that he liked special contracts, and moving his Marines and his equipment in, saying that it was a new positioning of the Near-Earth Fleet,”
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