by Eric Thomson
“Did you hear me mention rats?” She tucked the sensor in a pocket and reached for her blaster. “Even those of the talking variety?”
“Fair enough.” Then, in a louder tone, while also reaching for his weapon, he said, “We don’t want trouble, little buddy, and neither do you. We’ll just make our way out of here, okay?”
“Too bad you don’t want trouble because you found it anyway. Getting out will cost you a tax for using our place.”
Decker heard people move on either side of the next intersection, and then behind them. He nudged Talyn, and they placed themselves back to back, Decker facing forward.
“Last chance to let this end peacefully,” he said. “I played with guys like you on Garonne, and they didn’t like the way it ended.”
“Oh yeah?” Their unseen interlocutor said. “I was on Garonne during that shit. They sent us back here in the hold of a cargo ship. If you were one of the fuckers who ruined the good thing I had, my new tax will be your balls, little buddy.”
“I guess he can’t see me,” Decker whispered to his partner.
“And he doesn’t know your balls belong to me,” she replied.
“It ain’t my balls that belong to you, sweet cheeks. Never confuse what I do with what I have. Time to head for the exit.” He raised his voice so the others could hear. “Oh, and when it concerns anything attached to my body, sunshine, molon labe.”
“What the fuck are you talking about, shithead?”
“Another failure of the educational system,” Decker said in a sad voice. “But then, Celeste isn’t known for growing geniuses. It’s Greek, dumbass. It means come and take them.”
The man chortled. “I do believe I will. At ‘em guys.”
Three
Dark figures emerged from passages on either side of them. Their knives gleamed dully in the faint light that seeped through the tenement cluster’s rabbit warren.
“Last chance,” Decker said. “Let us go and no one gets hurt.”
“I admire your determination to avoid leaving a body trail,” Talyn whispered in an urgent tone. “But every minute we spent here is another minute the cops have to find us.”
“In that case, when ready, fire,” he replied, stroking his blaster’s trigger repeatedly, sending bright plasma shots into the cluster of semi-feral welfare rats. Low coughs behind him spoke of Talyn following suit. Seconds later, the corridor rang out with agonized screams and wails, then with the slap of running feet.
“No good on Garonne, even crappier here. Coups de grâce?” Decker asked.
“Only if you’re feeling bloodthirsty, big boy. They won’t be running to the nearest Gendarmerie post, so there’s no point in wasting ammo.”
Stepping over both moaning and eerily silent bodies, Decker and Talyn made their way to the dimly outlined exit unmolested. She stuck her head through the doorway.
“Either they have better camouflage skills than most cops, or we’re clear.”
“I’ll take clear for five hundred creds.”
“So will I. Let’s go.”
The street’s smattering of nightlife was mostly in the form of vagrants clustered around fires or dealers of various noxious substances strolling lazily back and forth, peddling their wares. No one gave two rough looking characters with death in their eyes a second glance. No one dared.
Their inn sat in that gray zone between Angelique’s slums and its barely respectable fringe. It was a hotel that took creds, not names, and gave the Gendarmerie just enough cooperation to stay open but not enough to see its customers spend the night in cells.
Yet even that thin veneer of deniability shattered into a thousand shards when a pair of skimmers, lights flashing, pulled up by the front door. Decker and Talyn, now sharing little resemblance with the wanted fugitives, other than general build, slipped out the back with their compact travel bags.
“They closed in on fleabag central pretty fast, did you notice?” He asked as they walked along the darkened boulevard, seemingly nothing more than lovebirds looking for a secluded spot to scratch an itch. “It could be a coincidence, but since there are four dozen places like it in this area alone, my bullshit detectors are howling like banshees.”
She didn’t answer right away, leading them into a more respectable area of Angelique where cops didn’t take kindly to the barely civilized products of the slums.
“It can only mean someone tagged us the moment we stepped off the shuttle, if not the moment we stepped onto the orbital station. Charming.” Talyn made a disgusted face. “Let’s hope our new faces will throw off the hunt until our ship goes FTL.”
“Let’s hope they outlast the prowler that just turned the corner.”
He indicated a slow moving Gendarmerie skimmer that had turned onto the avenue behind them. It passed without stopping though Decker was sure their new faces had joined countless others in the Celeste Gendarmerie’s database.
“How about we find a twenty-four-hour diner?” He suggested.
“Thinking with your stomach again?”
“After the complaining you’ve done about me thinking with my other brain, this ought to be a welcome change.”
She snorted.
“It depends on my mood, sweetheart, but I suggest we get to the spaceport sooner rather than later and find our way back into orbit. There’s bound to be a ship with an empty cabin leaving Celeste within the next few hours. At some point, they’ll widen the net, and we can’t afford anyone subjecting our refreshed identities to a biometric scan. Especially if there’s a traitor still floating around. He or she will know by now we slipped the noose.”
“Spaceport food? I guess my stomach can handle overpriced reconstituted crap once in a while, even if I had my heart set on a greasy spoon’s all night breakfast special.”
“Speaking of eating crap.” Talyn nudged her partner in the ribs with a sharp elbow. “I thought your body was supposed to be a temple.”
“Why bother? It has only one worshiper.”
“Sorry, big boy. I don’t do crowd scenes.” They turned the street corner, and she pointed at a garishly lit Angelique Transport Commission sign above a staircase disappearing beneath the sidewalk. “I won’t hold my breath hoping this metro line goes to the spaceport, but it should take us to the one that does.”
At this time of night, the subway station was empty, making them feel conspicuous as they stood on the platform by themselves. Talyn studied the map and grimaced.
“We’ll have to switch lines at the central hub downtown.”
“Where we’ll no doubt find a fully-staffed Gendarmerie office, specialized in tracking fugitives through this excellent public transit system.”
“You are hungry, aren’t you?” She smirked at the Marine. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be such a pessimist.”
An automated, cylindrical pod whooshed out of the darkened tube and came to a smooth halt. It too was devoid of passengers.
“Looks like we’ll be traveling in complete privacy,” Decker said stepping aboard the car. “Want to make out?”
“Hungry and horny. Be still, my beating heart.”
“Mock me all you want,” he replied as darkness swallowed the pod once more. “But having healthy appetites makes for a good life.”
The central hub wasn’t much busier, but the sparse crowd included two patrolling cops who scrutinized everyone with the same suspicious stare. To Decker’s relief, they made no move to intercept them on the way to the spaceport line’s platform.
“So far our new faces are doing the job,” he murmured.
“Let’s hope our luck holds.” She nodded at one of the ubiquitous displays running news segments. Images of them in their earlier incarnations stared out at viewers with malevolent eyes.
“The Celeste Gendarmerie,” an airbrushed female presenter said, “is in pursuit of these two unidentified individuals. They are suspects in the execution-style murder of two men. The Gendarmerie believes they killed several homeless people in a gun battl
e, resisted arrest, used unlawful explosives, and stole Gendarmerie equipment. The fugitives, a man and a woman, are to be considered armed and extremely dangerous. Citizens are to report any sightings at once but should not, under any circumstances, approach them.”
When the presenter segued to the next news item, Decker grunted.
“Manny will have a field day chewing us a new one when this little contretemps makes it to his ears.”
Commander Manfred Yang, responsible for the Special Operations Section’s day-to-day activities, never missed a chance to point out Decker’s flaws as an operative. His opinion that the Marine was a loose cannon in a job requiring the utmost circumspection had become a familiar refrain.
“Bugger Manny,” she replied. “And before you say it, I meant that figuratively. He’ll have other problems to deal with once we’re home. Prominent among them will be figuring out how a mission only we, the boss, and a few others, Manny included, were supposed to know about, was blown.”
Decker saw movement out of the corner of his eyes.
“Uh-oh.”
“What?”
“The cops are headed this way. Perhaps they want a closer look.”
“Watching the newscast could have triggered something.” She checked the nearest status board. “Our train is due in twenty seconds.”
Decker pulled Talyn into a close embrace and kissed her with as much obvious passion as he could, hoping the public display of affection would momentarily throw off the gendarmes. He held her until the distinctive whoosh of an arriving pod reached his ears.
They boarded, and when the train started moving again, he glanced back at the cops. One watched them leave, while the other, eyes averted, spoke with an invisible third party.
“I bet we’ll see friends of theirs at every station on this line,” he said, voice pitched low so the other passengers scattered throughout the pod couldn’t hear.
“Of course. We’re traveling through, or rather beneath the nicer part of Angelique, where a visible police presence reassures the citizenry that riffraff from the riverfront district will behave.”
“Cynic.”
“Try to enjoy the ride, Zack. Once we reach the spaceport, things might turn hectic.”
When their train pulled into the line’s brightly lit terminus, Decker nudged her, then pointed at the window with his chin. “We might be in luck. No cops, just a couple of bored national guard grunts.”
“And how is that lucky?” The doors opened, disgorging them onto the platform along with two dozen others. “They could have deployed the local guard unit because the Gendarmerie’s overly busy.”
“Or it could be a training exercise, or the guard relieved the cops working here so they could join the hunt for two criminal fugitives. But what I meant was when did you last see cops and soldiers play nice? It always takes ten times as long for information to trickle through.”
They emerged in a vast departures hall, but instead of heading for one of the booking terminals, Talyn changed course, aiming them at a sign that advertised rooms by the hour for tired travelers
“Notice there are more soldiers than civilians?” She asked when Decker fell into step beside her.
“Yep.”
“I just felt someone walk over my grave. Call it paranoia if you want, but my gut is screaming at me to activate the last resort. That hot-sheet hotel will give us the privacy we need.”
Decker refrained from grimacing, but he chose not to question her instincts. They had saved his life often enough. However, this would be the first time they used their last resorts. Cover identities carefully built-up by agents themselves, they were unknown even to Naval Intelligence, so that any possible traitors in their own ranks couldn’t sell out operatives on the run. Difficult to create, last resorts were used only when situations turned dire.
She paid for a room with anonymous cred chips and once behind closed doors, pulled out a tiny jammer that would disable any sensors in the vicinity. They worked quickly to remove all vestiges of their current appearance, becoming different people, down to the cut and color of their clothes.
“I think we might have to dispose of the weapons as well,” she said examining herself in the mirror. “With that many soldiers roaming the terminal, they’ll be extra careful at the security checkpoint.”
“Why? Gun ownership is legal here, and it’s not as if they can do ballistic matching with blasters, anyway. I’d rather take the chance they find mine than risk being without it at the moment I most need a weapon. Explaining why I have a gun fetish is easier to survive than trying to dodge incoming fire. Besides,” he picked up his travel bag, “if you’ll recall, this baby has a little hidden inner pocket designed to fool sensors. My blaster should fit.”
Talyn recognized the mulish glint in his eyes and shrugged.
“Okay, big boy. We’ll play it your way, but make damn sure said pocket is properly sealed. If they get the idea there’s something hidden, the fun will begin, especially once they ask themselves why an honest business traveler would be carrying a valise with false compartments.”
Decker examined his partner in silence for a few moments.
“You really are spooked by something, aren’t you? It’s been a long time since you tried teaching me how to suck eggs.”
“Don’t ask for an explanation. Accept that my survival instincts have gone into overdrive like you’ve never seen. The last time I had this feeling, I barely escaped an agonizing and ugly death.”
“Hence the last resort.”
She nodded.
“We were set up and then thoroughly betrayed, Zack. Until we’re away from Celeste, whoever did it to us will try everything they can to close the trap. We only escaped because they underestimated your propensity for crazy solutions to hopeless situations.”
He grinned at her.
“As one of my instructors used to say, any problem can be solved with the proper application of high explosives. Cheer up, sweetheart. Bad guys have tried to kill me more often than I can remember. They died instead. Think of me as your good luck charm.”
Talyn reached up and patted him on the cheek, smiling.
“Never change Zack. I don’t know what I’d do without your good-natured yet disturbingly bloodthirsty view of life.”
He wiggled his eyebrows. “Speaking of life...
“And you ruined the moment once again.” She backhanded him on the arm. “Let’s make sure we’re good and ready, and then find a shuttle for the orbital station.”
Ten minutes later, two unexceptional business travelers stood at a booking terminal, trying not to show any visible relief when it accepted their last resort identities. Security barely slowed them, and they reached a dingy waiting area shortly after that.
Decker experienced a surge of fear when he spied a squad of soldiers accompanied by a gendarme come towards them moments before boarding the shuttle. But the cop’s eyes didn’t rest on him or Talyn for more than a second. Then, the group marched by, headed further along the concourse.
“I think we might have achieved a clean break,” he whispered in her ear when the shuttle’s entry port slammed shut.
“Are you forgetting the station’s a closed environment where we won’t have much of a chance to dodge anyone?”
“Keep being this cheerful, my dear and I’ll have to shift my charm initiative into overdrive.”
“Threats won’t help. Now shush and enjoy the moment.”
She settled back in her seat and closed her eyes.
They docked at the orbital station ninety minutes later after a routine flight. Decker felt his tense shoulder muscles relax when they made it to the promenade deck without anyone giving them a second glance. They found another booking terminal and scrolled through the available ships.
“The next departure is in two hours, but it’s headed for the Rim. Not ideal.” Talyn grimaced.
“If we lie low for twelve hours, we can take this one.” He pointed at the screen. “It’s headed
in the right direction. I know you’re in a hurry to leave. But taking a roundabout route that adds two weeks to our travel time means another two weeks of missions going tits-up elsewhere. The boss needs to hear of our joyful experience as soon as possible. We’ll take a room, relax, and have a drink. Maybe eat some food healthy enough for the temple that is my body. Play a little.”
She looked up at him with a wry smile, right eyebrow cocked.
“Let me see, that would be beer, steak and me, hopefully in that order, right?”
He winked.
“Can’t fool you for long, can I? Tell you what, check your gut, and see if it still senses impending doom. If yes, we’ll take the earlier ship.”
Talyn pursed her lips, then, with a shake of the head, she said, “Let’s book the later one and hope they’re still chasing after shadows in Angelique. You’re right. We have to return home and kick the spy catchers into high gear.”
“Beer, steak, and haunch of Hera it is.” He gave her a wolfish smile. “Fortunately, I spy with my little eye a member of the Excelsior chain of orbital hotels, famous for their room service and their spacious beds.”
Four
Captain Ulrich’s expression, never cheerful to begin with, had become grimmer with each passing moment as he listened to Commander Yang debrief Talyn and Decker. They had landed on Caledonia a few hours earlier after an uneventful trip and now wore their usual faces and uniforms.
“I’ve known you for how long now, Hera?” He asked. “Well over twenty years? And I’ve never seen you break out a last resort. That alone worries me because you have some of the best instincts in the business.”
“Except when it comes to partners,” Yang muttered, earning a hard look from his commanding officer.
“There’s no getting around it, sir,” she replied. “We have a serious leak somewhere. The only people who should have known about the mission’s most intimate details are in this room. Yet we walked into a trap. Yes, the informant could have been careless, but there’s no doubt someone targeted us. We were meant to either die in a shootout with the Gendarmerie or end up in custody, charged with murder. And we know how easy it is to terminate someone in jail while making it seem like an inmate on inmate killing.”