Jericho thought for several long, silent moments before finally sighing, “You’re right, Shu…this is an important opportunity and you should be the one to take it. I’ve been unfair in my appraisals of you in the past,” he said, knowing it was true. “I’m sorry for that; I suppose that’s what happens when people become as close as family—“
“You were never my family, Jay,” she said hotly, moving toward him as her visage changed from burning determination to a softer, more intense expression that made her intentions clear, “you were my knight in shining armor—you saved me when no one else would lift a finger on my behalf.” She pressed her body between his legs and placed a hand on each of his thighs, “I’ve never properly thanked you for that, by the way…”
He placed his hands on her arms and gently pushed her away, but she resisted as much as her petite frame would permit. “I told you years ago,” he said as he felt his heartbeat begin to quicken, “that if you were going to work with me, we needed to keep things professional.”
“I was a teenager then,” she said, pressing forward while he continued to keep her at arm’s length, “but I’m a grown-ass woman now, Jay. I think I’ve earned the right to make my own decisions—and mistakes, if that’s what they end up being—haven’t I? Besides, this mission’s got a low survival probability…you wouldn’t deny a girl what might be her last wish, would you?”
He honestly hadn’t thought of her as a ‘grown-ass woman’ until that very moment, but looking into her smoldering eyes—and feeling the warmth of her flesh pressed against his hands—he could no longer deny that was exactly what she had become. When did that happen? he wondered silently.
“I thought you played for the other side?” he said in a last, desperate attempt to recuse himself as he felt his own resolve crumbling in the face of this wholly unexpected situation. She had made it quite clear during their recent mission using innuendo—and more direct verbiage—that she preferred to share her bed with women, and that the last man to touch her had been the one he’d Adjusted nearly a decade earlier.
“I play for my side, Jay,” Shu said, shrugging off his hands and running a hand over his groin to find that his body was fully prepared for what she was asking him to do with her. She made a purring sound just before he reached up for her hair with his right hand and yanked her head back with just enough force to let her know he meant it.
He looked into her eyes for a long moment before his other hand reached up to cup her small, firm breast, causing her to yelp with excitement before she planted a kiss on his lips that was better than any other he’d had in his long life.
He pulled her head back after the kiss, held her gaze briefly and said, “You know I’m not good with commitment.”
She gave him a mischievous grin as she unzipped her jumpsuit, revealing her bare, perky body as she said, “Neither am I.”
For the next six hours, even his broken ribs failed to interrupt them as they did what nature had required of humans since the species’ inception.
And it was more fun than Jericho could remember having in at least a decade.
“Are you sure you can do this?” Jericho asked as Shu put the finishing touches on her vacuum suit.
“I am,” Shu replied confidently, “all you have to do is open the doors and I’ll get onto that freighter. The rest…well, we’ll need a little luck for the rest.”
Jericho nodded. After their raw, primal sexual encounter they had gone over every possible variable that they could consider for the operation she was about to undertake. Her survival rate was 38%, based on the best data available to them, but she had been right: it was worth it.
Whoever was siphoning those rare minerals out of circulation was doing so for a project, or a purpose, which had been underway not long after the Forge Wars had concluded. Stephen Hadden had believed as much, but he had always been cagey when Jericho would try to pin him down on the topic.
And Shu—the little, fiery-eyed girl he had rescued from an abusive home nine years earlier—had somehow cracked the code when even Benton could not. Jericho knew that Shu had several advantages, including Ms. St. Murray’s dedicated efforts using her well-built information gathering network to run down every lead Jericho and Hadden had assembled. But her success still made him realize just how much he had underestimated his feisty operator.
“I’ve got enough air to make it forty hours,” Shu explained, “and the freighter is pressurized, so all I need to do is get to an airlock, crack it open using Afolabi’s codes, and I will be on their atmo. There will be plenty of places to hide once I’m inside, and I have three weeks’ worth of sustenance rations which will be plenty judging by the previous turnaround intervals.”
“Gather whatever intel you can,” Jericho urged as the blast door outside their shuttle slid open just wide enough for Shu to pass through, “and keep your head down. I’d rather have one good lead brought back by a living operator than three good leads sent by a dead one.”
“Yes, sir,” she said with mock seriousness, giving a sarcastic salute before clamping her helmet down on the suit’s collar. A few seconds later, she successfully activated the suit’s life support systems.
“Good to go?” Jericho asked.
“Good to go,” she nodded, and he moved back from the sternward airlock’s inner door.
“Good hunting, Shu,” Jericho said with a nod, which she returned as he cycled the inner door shut.
After she climbed out of their craft, Jericho closed the airlock and made his way to the cockpit.
“Keep an eye on her until she’s on the freighter’s hull,” Jericho instructed as he sat down in the chair opposite Tera St. Murray. “Once she’s touched down, we’re out of here.”
It took Shu nearly three hours to float across the space between the vessels, but they managed to visually track her throughout the slow voyage. Her math skills were superb; she didn’t even need to fire her maneuvering thrusters and touched down almost precisely where they had determined would give her the best possible access to nearby airlocks.
After he saw Shu successfully touch down, Jericho breathed a short sigh of relief and muttered, “Forty two.”
“Forty two?” St. Murray asked with an arched eyebrow.
“Percent,” he explained, peering out the cockpit’s forward window to see the surface of Philippa several hundred miles below, “she just increased her chances of coming back alive from thirty eight to forty two percent.”
“And what of our chances?” St. Murray asked, making no attempt to hide her amusement at Jericho’s interest in Shu’s fate. The walls of the shuttle’s cabins were so thin that they were far from soundproof—and Jericho, along with everyone else on the craft, had learned a few hours earlier that Shu was something of a screamer.
“Point taken,” Jericho allowed. “Tell our host he can set course for Far Point as soon as he’s ready to depart.”
Being far from a religious man, Jericho nonetheless found himself saying a short, silent prayer to no particular entity on Shu’s behalf as the blast door which hid their shuttle within their host’s freighter slowly slid shut.
Even if they managed to Adjust President Blanco, Jericho knew there was at least one more rung on the ladder which Stephen had called ‘The Chimera Adjustment.’
And it now seemed the Shu was the key to finding where that rung was located—along with whoever was behind the recent chaos engulfing the Chimera Sector.
Chapter XXI: The Second Tribunal
After spending a day helping treat the victims of the attack on the station where Mr. Carter had lived—and died—the Zhuge Liang departed the system. Relief forces had arrived mere hours into the aid effort, but the incoming ships were poorly armed and so they kept their distance from the Hadden warship.
Masozi and every other person aboard the Zhuge Liang knew that the prompt arrival of aid workers meant, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that someone involved in the attack—or at least someone who knew about its possibility
and was intimately aware of the timing, specifically the timing of Masozi’s arrival at the station—had been in a position of power which granted him or her the authority to dispatch those relief vessels long before news of the despicable incident could have possibly reached their home systems.
The fact that several of them sported New Britain flags on their hulls was more than slightly disconcerting, given that New Britain was the home system of Lady Jessica—who stood in judgment at the tribunal.
The Zhuge Liang had departed that system eight days earlier, and was now minutes from dropping out of Phase Space at the edge of the Manticore System.
“Phase Threshold in thirty seconds, Captain,” the Helmswoman reported, just as Masozi finished strapping into the harness attached to the chair in which she sat.
“All hands,” Captain Charles’ voice came over the intercom as he swiveled his chair to face the main viewer, “we’re about to break Phase Space. Condition One is to remain in effect throughout the ship for no less than thirty minutes following our crossing the Phase Threshold; keep sharp, everybody.”
The seconds ticked by until the ship slid from Phase Space with effortless grace, and the many screens scattered throughout the bridge came alive with streaming sensor data.
Taut silence permeated the bridge until the Tactical Officer reported, “No Union warships detected, Captain.”
“Comm.?” the ship’s commander turned to face the ship’s Communication’s Officer expectantly.
Her reply—and Masozi now knew that she was, in fact, female after asking her as much during a previous trip to the bridge—was delayed as her tentacles moved gracefully across her workstation. But she eventually replied, “There is significant comm. chatter, sir, but the Manticore System appears to be clear. The feeds indicate significant civil unrest, however, and will require several hours to sort through.”
“After we stand down from Condition One, you can enlist four officers from the lower decks to assist you,” Charles grunted, turning to face the main screen again. “But until then all hands are to remain at battle stations; I won’t get caught with my pants down.” He turned to Masozi after appraising the information on the main viewer and asked, “Do you have everything you need?”
Masozi nodded, unfastening her harness and standing from the chair. She looked over at Ms. Schmidt, the Zhuge Liang’s—and, possibly, Hadden Enterprises’—chief legal counsel, with whom she and Eve had spent the past several days preparing for the tribunal. “One way or another, this should be over before day’s end.”
“We’re all counting on you,” Captain Charles said with a lone solemn note in his usually severe, commanding voice. “Good luck.”
“She won’t need luck,” Ms. Schmidt snorted, “she has me.”
Masozi pulled the Tyson into the same docking slip she had used during her previous visit to Far Point and activated her monocle, “Are you with me, Eve?.”
“Sure thing, Sis,” Eve replied, her avatar appearing on the monocle’s primary display.
“I can’t believe you actually talk with that…thing,” Schmidt said as she closed a virtual interface containing the crux of the legal defense she had constructed for, among other things, the use of the Zhuge Liang—or other assets—for the Blanco Adjustment should the need arise.
“Ain’t she a sweetheart?” Eve mocked dryly, prompting Masozi to snicker. Masozi was only certain of two things regarding Ms. Schmidt following nearly a week of daily, ten hour sessions with the woman: first, that she was as frigid and harsh as an ice dwarf drifting through interstellar space; and second, that she made holo-drama lawyers look like five year olds when it came to her encyclopedic knowledge of Chimera Sector law.
“Everyone has a part to play here, Ms. Schmidt,” Masozi said as she opened the Tyson’s door, “and Eve’s contributed at least as much as anyone else during the time she’s been part of this.”
“That is, as they say, true enough,” Schmidt allowed coolly, but it was clear there was more that she wished to say on the matter.
Thankfully, the venerable lawyer held her tongue as they made their way to the security checkpoint at the end of the deceptively dingy, corroded corridor. The guards checked their identification and let them through much more quickly than the last time Masozi had visited the exclusive station. They boarded the lift, and the doors closed behind them as it began its journey toward the promenade level.
“It’s this way,” Masozi said after they emerged from the lift onto the pristine, polished and perfectly-lit promenade—which was considerably more populated than the last time she had visited.
Previously she had seen only a few dozen people en route to collecting Shu and arriving at the tribunal. But this time she saw no fewer than a hundred people as soon as she stepped out of the lift.
“Rats from a sinking ship,” Masozi muttered sourly, “the Sector erupts into civil war and these fat cats run to the nearest safe house.”
“That would be the entire point of securing lodging and legal residence here,” Schmidt said dismissively. “Like it or not, Ms. Blanco, the captains of industry mean more to society, individually, than even a handful of their workers do. It is no accident of birth which brought these people the necessary wealth to secure sanctuary here at Far Point. Even people like them,” she gestured to a trio of essentially naked people of indeterminate gender, “who inherited their family’s shipping conglomerate, have displayed shrewd business skills resulting in a twenty one percent increase in that conglomerate’s market share since the untimely deaths of their parents.”
Masozi was surprised that Schmidt seemed to actually recognize the people she had indicated, so she decided to test the woman’s knowledge along the way as she pointed to a short, fat man moving around on a mono-track personal conveyance which probably cost more than Masozi had earned in her entire life. “What about him?”
“Reginald Hasbro?” Schmidt scoffed. “That man knows more about the intricacies of tax law than anyone; he got his start at Fusi-Corp as an in-house bookkeeper. After satisfying his first—and only—thirty year service contract, he struck out on his own and became the highest-paid private accountant in the Sector. I imagine he is one of only three or four residents of Far Point who did not pay for his residence with funds that were earned by steering a corporation, or monies which had been successfully embezzled from public funds.”
“Did Stephen Hadden use him?” Masozi asked, finding her sensibilities offended by the notion that any of these people were more valuable to society, on an ethical level, than the people whose labors fueled their extravagant lifestyles.
“Of course,” Schmidt said as though to suggest otherwise would be absurd, “but only rarely, and only when dealing with overly contentious auditors. Reginald has a greater competitive streak than most CEO’s. It’s…unwise to bring frivolous charges against him or against those he chooses to represent. He is one of the only accountants with a perfect record when going head-to-head against government auditors.”
Masozi was impressed in spite of her base revulsion of white collar society. “And her?” Masozi asked, tilting her chin toward an elderly woman who wore a strange scarf-like garment which, somehow, covered every inch of her body save her face.
“Alessia Falcone,” Schmidt said sourly as the other woman’s eyes and Schmidt’s briefly met. The scarf-wearing woman’s features twisted into the faintest trace of a smirk as she walked past, “I’d rather not talk about her.”
“Which means I’m not going to stop asking until you tell me,” Masozi pressed when they had reached the halfway point of their trip. She found that the nervous butterflies in her stomach were subsiding the more she spoke with the ice-cold, prickly Schmidt, so she decided to continue doing so. The coming tribunal could very well end up being the last meeting of any kind which Masozi attended, and that reality was far from lost on her as they walked through Far Point’s promenade.
“Fine,” Schmidt said stiffly, her eyes fixed forward as they conti
nued walking, “Mrs. Falcone was lead counsel in a labor rights dispute brought against Hadden Enterprises forty years ago in the Kirin System. She…” Schmidt’s face scrunched up bitterly, “she used her victory in that case to launch a successful political career which saw her sit on the Governor’s bench of Kirin Prime for twenty seven years.”
“And let me guess,” Masozi said dryly, “you were Hadden’s lead legal counsel for that dispute?”
The older woman’s silence spoke volumes, and Masozi’s inquisitive mind quickly ran through the probable scenarios.
“But Hadden saw something in you,” the former Investigator mused, “and gave you a promotion in spite of your failure.”
“Your powers of deduction are uninspired…but, in this case, accurate,” Schmidt said icily as Edgar Barragan’s improbable taco stand came into view ahead. “I suggest you let that particular matter rest.”
“So you know everyone here?” Masozi asked as they passed a gaggle of what looked like teenagers—teenagers with entirely too many cybernetic implants on their craniums—who appeared to be playing some sort of VR war game evidenced by their postures and chatter.
“Not everyone,” Schmidt admitted, “but I’m familiar with the vast majority of the people in the Sector who could afford residence here.”
“And they know you, I presume,” Masozi stated, rather than asked.
“Naturally,” Schmidt agreed, pointing to a nearby door leading to a residential complex, “I have a five-by-five-by-eight room in that complex.”
Sic Semper Tyrannis: The Chimera Adjustment, Book Two (Imperium Cicernus 5) Page 31