Exile (Tales of the Acheron Book 3)

by Rick Partlow

  “Get us out of here, Ash,” Sandi said, then began pulling off her helmet and walking towards the cockpit.

  “Where’s my Dad?” Adriana asked plaintively.

  Sandi paused and looked behind her, saw the little girl standing in front of Kan-Ten, hands bunched defiantly into fists. The alien looked down at her, at her liquid green eyes, and then up to her mother, who wore a pleading expression that she wasn’t sure the Tahni recognized.

  “Your father remained to protect you,” he answered, after a moment’s pause. To her, his face looked expressionless, though she knew by now that there were cues to it that she couldn’t reliably pick up. “He wished to make sure that the ship could get you to safety.”

  “Come on, darling,” Stephania said, tugging at the little girl’s shoulder as the whine of the turbines spinning up grew louder. “We need to get strapped in.”

  “Daddy didn’t want to come with us?” Sandi clenched a fist and fought back an old, old pain deep in her chest at Adriana’s words.

  “He has work to do,” the girl’s mother explained softly, securing the straps of one of the fold-down acceleration couches. “But he loves you very much, and I know he’s going to miss you.”

  “He told me,” Kan-Ten spoke again, surprising Sandi and, from the look on her face, Stephania as well. “Your father told me before I left him,” the Tahni expounded, “to tell you that he loved you, and that he was sorry.”

  “I’ll stay back here with them,” Fontenot volunteered, working on getting the mother strapped into a seat.

  Sandi headed for the cockpit and Kan-Ten followed. She wasn’t sure, but she thought he wanted to be away from the girl and her mother.

  “Thank you,” Sandi said quietly as they walked. “There are some things kids shouldn’t have to hear.”

  “None of us may go home again,’ Kan-Ten said, not looking at her, or at anything on the ship around them. “She’ll learn that lesson soon enough.”

  Chapter Two

  Kan-Ten didn’t care for Sylvanus. He knew the others did, that they appreciated the mild weather here, and the comparative sophistication of the capital city, Dolabella, and that it was the most civilized place they could go even out on the Periphery without being arrested. He had to admit that the architecture was pleasant and the dry, temperate climate was a relief from the bitter cold on many of the Pirate World colonies, but he could never be comfortable here.

  He sat on a chair not designed for his body, at a street café that served nothing he could stomach, under street lights that were the wrong frequency for his eyes, in a city almost devoid of any of his people, and he felt an almost constant subsurface tension. Nothing was right here, nothing was familiar and there was nowhere he could fit.

  I should be used to that, he thought. It has been my life for years now.

  He sipped water out of a glass not designed for his mouth and tried not to spill it, and listened to his companions engage in the human custom of “small talk” as they sipped their noxious “coffee” and waited for the other human, the one none of them could stand. That, at least, he had in common with his friends: he, too, did not trust Captain Richard Fox.

  When they saw the man walking their way up the busy street, the conversation died and four sets of eyes turned toward him. He was an average-looking human, not especially tall or particularly short, though all of them seemed short to Kan-Ten. Fox had a certain roundness to his face that still didn’t imply softness, and a quality to his dark eyes that the humans told him looked cruel. He was not in uniform; he never was when he met with them. Instead, he wore a multicolored shirt with patterns that seemed to match the plants he’d seen on some of the human colonies. Fontenot had told him it was a “Hawaiian shirt,” whatever that meant. He assumed Hawaiian was one or another of the human worlds.

  “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” Fox said in his typical, casual manner, pulling out a chair with a scraping of metal on stone, and sitting down opposite them at their outdoor table. “I trust things went well at Barataria Bay.”

  “As if you don’t already know,” Sandi scoffed. “Hell, you probably knew before we did.”

  Fox chuckled softly, then waved for one of the café’s human waiters, ordering his own caffeine-laden drink from the young man and waiting until he was gone before continuing.

  “We should get down to business. Things are not going well for your old friend Jordi Abdullah,” he confided, the corner of his mouth turning up.

  Humans, Kan-Ten thought not for the first time, made an inordinate number of expressions with their mouths. It was unsettling; mouths were useful for eating and speaking, while meaning was rightly transmitted with hands and stance and the set of one’s shoulders.

  “Grand Terre isn’t that big of a loss for him or La Sombra,” Fontenot said. She tore a section off of the muffin she’d ordered and put it in her mouth with what seemed like amazing delicacy for hands that could rip apart metal. “It’s a setback, but I’ve seen him come back from worse.”

  “This time is different. The other cartels are joining forces against him. The Sung Brothers have recruited what’s left of the Novya Moscva Bratva and the Rif, and they’re working and planning in concert. He can’t beat them all, not with his power base in the Pirate Worlds shrinking.”

  “Good riddance,” Ash Carpenter muttered, hiding his expression behind a coffee mug. Kan-Ten had the sense that the former Fleet pilot still resented the things he’d been forced to do when he’d been trying to help get Sandi out of debt with Jordi Abdullah and his cartel. The young man was still an idealist, and Kan-Ten had no idea how he managed that.

  “He won’t go quiet into that good night,” Sandi warned, putting a hand on Ash’s arm. “If Captain Fox is telling us this, I’d bet it’s because Jordi’s about to try something drastic.”

  “Perceptive as always, Ms. Hollande,” Fox told her. The waiter returned with his order and Kan-Ten hissed impatiently as they had to wait for him to leave once again. “Jordi is running low on ships, on troops, and on money. So, what I’ve heard is, instead of spreading all the resources he still has out on three or four fronts fighting to keep his hold in the Pirate Worlds, he’s going to put it all together to seize a new foothold somewhere the other cartels can’t touch him.”

  “Don’t tell me.” Fontenot’s eyes---the biological one and the cybernetic one both, the latter’s motions slaved to the former---went wide. “That crazy fuck’s going to try to take over a Periphery colony, isn’t he?”

  “What?” Ash blurted, nearly spilling his drink. “That’s fucking impossible!”

  He realized how loud he was being and paused, glancing around self-consciously before continuing at a lower volume. “He’d have the Patrol all over him in days, if not the Fleet! He can’t believe he can get away with that!”

  “Normally, no,” Fox admitted. Then he frowned, a more serious and troubled expression than Kan-Ten remembered seeing on his bland face in the two years they’d known him…and been in his employ. “But things are in a flux right now. I’m not at liberty to go into details, but there’s, well…a sort of political power struggle going on right now between the military and parts of the civilian government.”

  “Shit,” Sandi breathed the word and the hand that had rested lightly on Ash’s arm clamped down with a sudden alarm. “Are we talking a military coup?”

  “Not as such,” Fox dithered. “It’s complicated, and it has to do with things that don’t matter much to people out here in the Periphery, much less the Pirate Worlds, things like the influence of the Corporate Council on the DSI and the Patrol.”

  Kan-Ten didn’t know what the Corporate Council was, but he had heard of the DSI: they were the civilian intelligence agency that was somehow the rival to the military intelligence service Captain Fox worked for. That sort of dynamic made no sense to Kan-Ten, but then he found that humans frequently made no sense.

  “The long and short of it is,” Fox went on, “everyone’s distracted. T
here are things going on you may never even hear of out here, but it’s a great time to act if you want to pull some shit off and have it be a fait accompli by the time anyone in the Commonwealth federal government notices it.” He spread his hands. “And Brigantia is the perfect place to do it.”

  “Brigantia,” Ash tasted the word, eyes narrowing in thought. “I’ve heard the name, but I can’t remember any details.”

  “It’s one of the smallest Periphery colonies, down an orphan Transition Line with no other connections, and no wormhole jumpgate.” Fox had shifted to a tone that Fontenot had told him was something like a human teacher speaking to children; it was one of the reasons the cyborg couldn’t stand talking to him. “It was settled the very first year the Transition Drive was invented, but it doesn’t have much to offer except a habitable ecosphere. During the war, the Tahni,” Fox glanced directly at Kan-Ten, “conquered it almost as an afterthought, mostly because it was so lightly defended.”

  “There is a Tahni community there,” Kan-Ten said, recalling the name now himself, from reports he’d read. “A large one.”

  “There is. And from what we’ve been able to piece together, they aren’t happy. There have been acts of violence recently, by humans and Tahni, after years of both sides leaving each other alone.” He paused significantly. “Almost as if someone was stirring things up.”

  “Jordi Abdullah is trying to turn the Tahni and the humans against each other,” Kan-Ten presumed, feeling an odd tingling in his neck, a premonition that something bad was about to get much worse.

  “Let’s just say there have been a lot of new faces in the last couple months. And some of them have been Tahni immigrants. There’s been one Tahni male in particular who’s been connected to a separatist faction that’s been instigating for independence from the human colonial government. He’s former Imperial military and he’s already been kicked off the Tahni homeworld by the provisional government; been kicking around Tahni settlements ever since, getting himself into trouble.”

  Fox’s eyes had never left him the whole time he’d been speaking, as if the human knew something that he didn’t, as if he was waiting for a reaction.

  “The male,” Kan-Ten asked slowly. “What is his name?”

  Fox nodded, as if he’d been waiting for the question.

  “Vala-Kel.”

  ***

  The transport driver was a gaunt, skeletal old man with skin the texture of cured leather, and he gave Kan-Ten a long, suspicious look as the Tahni climbed out of the passenger compartment ahead of Fontenot.

  “You got a problem?” Korri Fontenot demanded, never one to shrink from a confrontation. Her glare was challenging and her broad shoulders would seem imposing even to someone who didn’t know they were mostly metal.

  “You keep strange company,” the man muttered in a sour voice that made her think he might have caused trouble about it if he’d been younger or her smaller…or if she hadn’t been very openly carrying a rather large handgun at her hip.

  “That’s my business,” she snapped, tossing a twenty-dollar Tradenote at the man then slamming the door behind her.

  The old truck creaked and shuddered as it rolled away from them, its electric motors humming softly in comparison to the plaintive groans of the worn-out shocks and suspension. Fontenot squinted at the glare of the system’s primary star, Belenus, reflecting off the angry red sandstone that stretched from the spaceport to the edge of Gennich, Brigantia’s largest city. It wasn’t nearly as big or as modern as even Dolabella or other Periphery world capitals, much closer to a Pirate World town in size and scope.

  The planetary Constabulary loomed over everything else on this end of town, an edifice of stone and steel meant to act as a shelter from exterior threats, though it hadn’t done much to deter the Tahni when they’d invaded early in the war. It was undeniably impressive though, a fortress three stories tall and two hundred meters on a side, with walls ten centimeters thick, and from their mission brief, she knew it was also the center of the planetary government, such as it was.

  This place had been bustling and growing, not that long ago. There were four or five half-constructed buildings visible just from this end of town, dinosaur skeletons only half-assembled in this outdoor museum to life a hundred and fifty years ago in the Core worlds. No workers congregated at them, no machines poured buildfoam or locally-made cement, no trucks hauled materials from the spaceport.

  Because there are no materials, she thought with a sense of disgust at the waste.

  “That’s the other half of Jordi’s plan,” Fox had explained to them nearly a week ago on Sylvanus. “Since the system has no wormhole jumpgate, Brigantia gets one hundred percent of its mineral resources from asteroid mining in the outer system. The returns aren’t large enough for the Corporate Council to get involved, but there’s an independent mining consortium that works in conjunction with an import group in Gennich. It’s an efficient, inexpensive system: reusable barges with primitive, cheap fusion pulse drives take loads of nickel-iron to planetary orbit, where it can be brought down by heavy-lift cargo shuttles or used for orbital construction.”

  The Fleet Intelligence officer had paused, cocking an eyebrow. “Well, it used to be cheap and efficient, until the attacks started.”

  “Shit,” Sandi had muttered, as if she’d seen it coming.

  “They thought it was pirates at first, but they didn’t steal anything.” Fox had shrugged. “Not that there’d be any money in stealing processed nickel-iron. Then they thought it was blackmail; they thought at some point, there would be demands for money to stop the attacks. But that hasn’t happened either.”

  “I don’t get it,” Ash had interrupted, his face twisted into a confused frown. “If it is Jordi behind the attacks on shipping, what is he hoping to accomplish? Can’t they just get minerals from surface mines?”

  “There are no surface mines. They were never built because asteroid mining was cheaper and it was a good setup for everyone involved. And they certainly can’t start any now without either equipment or the raw materials to fabricate it.” Fox had leaned back in his chair, steaming mug held in both of his hands. “As for what he wants to accomplish, that’s easy. He wants to destabilize the planetary government, and denying them key resources is a good start. The system has no armed spaceships other than a couple shuttles out in the belt with jury-rigged mining lasers.” He had nodded towards Ash and Sandi. “That’s where you two come in. The mining consortium has put out a call for armed ships to guard the cargo runs, and particularly Transition Drive ships. You’re going to answer that ad, and while you’re out there, you’re going to end that threat.”

  “All by ourselves?” Sandi had asked, a skeptical tilt to her eyebrow.

  “There can’t be that many of the pirates; Jordi doesn’t have enough money to have hired more than a handful. Use those tactical minds that served you both so well in the war.”

  “And what about us?” Fontenot had wondered. “We’re going to solve the whole Tahni-human kerfuffle, just the two of us?”

  “There isn’t anyone else. There’s no backup, no cavalry to call in if things go wrong. But I think one of you,” Fox had said, looking at Kan-Ten, “may be uniquely suited to handle this situation.”

  And that had been that. There’d been no further explanation coming from either Fox or Kan-Ten, despite several attempts to press her friend for details on the flight out. He’d simply said it was a private matter and he’d tell her more if it proved necessary.

  The streets didn’t seem crowded for mid-day in the late summer. It was a bit on the hot side, but dry for all that, and she’d have expected to see more workers and children and just citizens out on the streets getting a quick lunch. But the only people out were in vehicles, or just in front of businesses, half-heartedly unloading cargo from ancient trucks. No Tahni on this side of town, either.

  “Maybe,” she said to Kan-Ten, “we should have had that guy drive us right to the Tahni neighborhoo
d.”

  “I do not believe he would have been willing,” Kan-Ten pointed out, with what she had to admit was admirable insight into human nature, for an alien.

  She found herself glancing over at her old friend every few seconds, still taken with his clothes. In all the time she’d known him, he’d worn combat fatigues as if he’d lacked anything else. Now, he was dressed in what she knew was traditional garb for a Tahni male: a complex garment somewhat analogous to a tunic and slacks, but composed of multicolored strips of cloth connected together with what looked like spit and good wishes. It was fascinating to watch; it seemed as if it would fall apart at any moment, yet it never did.

  He wasn’t visibly armed; he’d thought it wouldn’t be a good idea since they’d be dealing with a human population already keyed up about the Tahni, and she had to admit that, too, was admirable insight. Seeing the stares and dirty looks he was getting from humans in storefronts or vehicles as they passed by, though, she wondered if it had been a sound tactical decision.

  “Maybe we should rethink our plan,” she said quietly, walking beside Kan-Ten. “I don’t know if you’re going to be welcome in human businesses here.”

  “The mission remains the same,” the Tahni reminded her, eyes fixed straight ahead. “This only works if word spreads that I’m here.”

  Fontenot shrugged and scanned their surroundings. The Constabulary was out of sight and the neighborhood was changing. The mostly-shuttered industrial businesses gave way gradually to the hospitality district, which seemed nearly as hard-hit by the downturn in imports. The largest hotel was boarded up, its holographic projectors stripped off, replaced by a “for lease” sign, its size as small and pitiful as its prospects of finding a buyer. A few small restaurants were still open, though, most with connected bars, and their destination was one of the smallest.