Planetside

by Michael Mammay

  She smiled. “Well I wouldn’t be much of a reporter if I revealed my sources, would I?”

  I decided I liked her. Didn’t trust her. Never would. But that went with the job. “I was actually about to leave.”

  “So early?”

  She asked in a way that left it open for me to explain myself. I didn’t. I had no intention of helping her by confirming something she might suspect.

  “Yeah. Not as young as I used to be.”

  She didn’t drop her smile. “Not like back on Omicron, huh?”

  Omicron Four. I did a tour there twenty-something years ago. She’d done her homework. “No. Not like that.”

  “Mind if I walk with you?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t think it’s worth your time.”

  “It might be worth yours. I know why you’re here. Mallot. And I know you’re not going to confirm that for me. I don’t care. I have information you will want to hear.”

  I smiled. “So you’re going to give me information.” But even though I smelled BS, it was better than nothing. Hell, she might be telling the truth. I couldn’t get a good read. If she did know something though, she wouldn’t give it up for free. So I figured it was time to find out the price. I left the last half of my beer on the counter. “Let’s go.”

  The absence of glaring noise away from the bar left a void, and we walked in silence through the well-lighted passage, our footfalls on the deck drowned by the remains of the thumping beat. Footsteps sounded behind us, running. Hardy. I’d left him in the bar. “Sir!”

  “Yes, you can stay and drink at the K Bar,” I said.

  He shook his head back and forth, then glanced at Plazz. I cut my eyes over to her quickly to see if she’d picked up on it, but she had looked down at the floor.

  “Excuse us for a moment,” I said.

  “Sure. I’ll be right here.” Plazz smiled.

  I walked a few steps away, my hand on Hardy’s shoulder, pulling him in. “What is it?”

  “There was a guy in the bar, sir. He was watching you. He pretended he wasn’t, but he kept glancing over.”

  I clenched my fist, then relaxed it. Santillo not showing up, now this. “Really. What did he look like?”

  “Big guy, military haircut, but dressed in civilian clothes,” said Hardy. “I could point him out again, but he’s gone. He left ten minutes ago.”

  I nodded and breathed out loudly through my nose. “Probably should have followed him, but good work. Do me a favor. Go see what you can find out about Sergeant Santillo, and why she might have missed our meeting. Start at the hospital. Try to be subtle.”

  Hardy held his chin high. “Yes, sir.”

  I rejoined Plazz and she and I started walking. Mac saw us coming and inclined his head slightly, asking me if I found what I came for. I shook my head minutely to tell him no, then gave him a nod to go on ahead and give me some space. He understood, and walked well in front of us. He had a protein shake. No idea where he got that.

  “I’ve always admired how you military folks can communicate like that,” said Plazz. She looked at me as she spoke, observing. Looking for my reactions, I think.

  It impressed me that she picked up on it, but I didn’t let her know that. I wondered what she’d sensed about Hardy, what she might have overheard. “Practice. So you mentioned you know something . . .”

  She smiled again. She knew she had me. “I’d love to get a statement from you.”

  “Sure. Feel free to record it. Ready? Good: Due to the nature of the ongoing investigation, I cannot speak on the matter at this time.”

  “Oh, come on.” She turned one side of her mouth down in a sarcastic frown.

  I shrugged. “Yeah, I know. That’s what we always say. Doesn’t make it less true.”

  “Not even off the record?”

  I laughed. “Come on, I’m not a rookie here.”

  “Worth a shot.”

  “What’s the story?” I asked. “I don’t even see an angle for you at this point.”

  “I don’t know yet.” She looked down, then back at me. “My boss wants something, and right now I don’t have it. If I had to go with something today, it’s you.”

  “Me?”

  “Sure. Decorated veteran sent into the middle of nowhere for an investigation. It’s not much, but I can run stuff from your history.”

  I grimaced. “So a human-interest piece?”

  “Sort of,” she said. “But one that will run near the splash page. Maybe on it. Mallot is news.”

  “Mallot isn’t news. So you make me the story in hopes that I give you something to make you change your mind. That’s dirty.”

  She shrugged slightly, using only one shoulder. “Only a little dirty. They’re going to run something anyway. If I don’t send it, they’ll find someone who does. Or they’ll write it back home.”

  I sighed. “How much control are you going to have if you do send something? They going to let you run what you want?”

  She laughed. “Not a chance.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” I said. Sometimes you could trust reporters. Especially the ones that came out to the field. But you could never trust editors. They’d publish whatever drew eyeballs, even if it meant hanging their own reporters out an airlock.

  She nodded. “Look. I’ll tell you what I know, which isn’t much. But you think about talking to me. Not now, but when you can. When you have something.”

  “I’ll promise you this: If I talk to anyone, it will be you.” I didn’t know what other outlets had folks here. I didn’t care. I didn’t have any intention of talking to anyone, and I could live with the half-truth.

  She looked at me for a moment, maybe trying to judge my sincerity. I should probably have been insulted, but we both had jobs to do. “Deal.” She stuck out her hand and I shook it.

  “Like I said, it’s not much.” She stopped walking, so I stopped too. “Stirling and Elliot had a shouting match over the phone. A long one, and angry. Two, maybe three days after Mallot disappeared.”

  I paused. I didn’t know what it meant, but it did add another wrinkle. “Who told you?”

  She shook her head. “Can’t tell you.”

  “What did they say?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “All I got was that they were yelling. My source only heard one end.”

  “He was sure it was Stirling and Elliot?”

  “He . . . or she . . . was dead sure. Said they argued for five minutes, loudly, but couldn’t give me more than that.”

  “You believe him? Or her?”

  “Enough where I’d print it if I had a story.”

  I nodded. That said a lot. The Times had standards, and if she’d print it, she believed it. “Interesting.”

  “I thought you’d think so.”

  “I really don’t have anything I can give you.” I would have given her a nugget if I had one. Her information was worth it. Another tiny crack I could shine a light into.

  She looked at me for a moment. “I believe you. But I don’t think that will last forever.”

  I shrugged. “I hope not.”

  She tapped her device, and mine vibrated in response. “Call me.”

  I nodded.

  We went separate directions, and I replayed the conversation in my head. It almost made me forget about Santillo and what it meant that she hadn’t shown up. I didn’t know if she’d gotten cold feet or if someone had gotten to her and convinced her not to talk. Hopefully Hardy would find something.

  I reached my room and found Lex waiting outside. “You could have gone in,” I said. Mac stepped through the door while I stopped to talk.

  Alenda’s short hair stuck to her head like she’d been working out. She looked down the hallway and found it empty. “The computer techs are done, sir. Would you like to see them tonight or tomorrow?”

  “Tonight.” Like I’d sleep knowing they had something to say.

  “Yes, sir. I can have them here in fifteen minutes.”
<
br />   Chapter Thirteen

  Parker and Ganos walked in and I ushered them to the couch, trying not to seem too eager. I didn’t want to let them know how desperately I needed their information, because it would only put pressure on them. I needed them calm and detached. Ganos sat with her shoulders tensed, her foot tapping. Alenda leaned against the wall to my right, watching the two techs.

  “So tell me what you know,” I said.

  “Sir . . . we found the break.” Ganos leaned back, a shy smile on her narrow face.

  “And?”

  “It was a pro job, sir,” said Parker, gesturing with his big hands. “Really high-level stuff.”

  “We could barely trace it,” added Ganos. “If we hadn’t known to look, we’d have never found it.”

  I smiled at them. “But you did.”

  “Yes, sir,” they said, simultaneously.

  “And you know who did it . . .”

  Their faces dropped.

  They didn’t know.

  “We know who didn’t do it,” offered Parker.

  I kept my face as even as I could to hide my disappointment. “That’s something. Just tell me what you know.”

  “It came from outside our headquarters, sir,” said Ganos.

  “So SPACECOM.”

  “No, sir. Definitely not SPACECOM. It came from this base.”

  “You’re sure?” I asked.

  “Yes, sir,” they both said.

  I looked at each of them in turn. “So here at Cappa, but not from inside the brigade.”

  “Unless someone from the brigade left our facilities and accessed from somewhere else, sir,” said Ganos.

  “Like a public terminal?” I stood up and took a couple of paces, too agitated to sit.

  “No, sir,” said Parker. “No way. Whoever did this used a military machine to get in. One of ours.”

  “Definitely no way,” Ganos agreed.

  “Sir . . .” Ganos looked at Parker, who nodded. “We think that one of the other commands on base broke in and erased the records.”

  “So either MEDCOM or Spec Ops.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Parker, and Ganos nodded as well.

  I scratched my chin. “I’m going to regret this, but how do you know?”

  They looked at each other, then Ganos spoke. “Sir, whoever broke into the net was on the WAN, but not on the LAN.”

  “Those are networks,” I said.

  “Yes, sir. Local area network and wide area network,” said Parker.

  “And that means . . .”

  “The WAN encompasses the whole base, sir. But each command has its own LAN,” said Ganos.

  I nodded. I mostly understood. “Any hint as to which command it came from?”

  This time Parker took the lead. “Nothing in the computers to give us a hint there, sir. But it’s high-end work.”

  “So you think Spec Ops,” I said.

  “It’s inside their capability, sir,” said Parker. “Not that they’d use it on us, but . . . well, they could.”

  “Okay. Thank you . . . both of you. I can’t tell you how important this has been to my work. If anyone asks you what you found, I want you to tell them that you didn’t find anything.”

  They looked at each other. They did that a lot, like they had some secret communication system.

  “You already told?” I stopped pacing.

  “Not exactly, sir. We didn’t tell anyone what we found. But we were pretty excited. I think people kind of know that we found something,” said Ganos.

  I thought for a few seconds, then nodded. “Yeah. Okay. Well, then people are definitely going to ask. You tell them that I ordered you not to speak of it to anyone. Not even your boss.”

  Parker hesitated before he spoke. “Yes, sir.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Is that going to be a problem? If it’s going to be a problem, tell me now.”

  “It might, sir,” said Ganos. “Lieutenant Colonel Beckenridge . . . that’s our boss . . . he’s a little bit . . .”

  “Controlling,” said Parker.

  “Yes, sir,” said Ganos. “Controlling. Like he wants to know all the information that comes out of our shop.”

  “Okay. I’ll handle Beckenridge. The order stands, though. Don’t say anything to anybody.”

  “Yes, sir,” they said together.

  I let them get out the door and for it to zip shut behind them before I spoke to Alenda. “Are they right about their boss? Will Beckenridge be a problem?”

  Lex drew her lips into a flat line, like she was thinking about her words. “I think that’s fair; yes, sir. He’s a bit of a micromanager.”

  “I’ll need to see him then. Unless you think he’ll take it from you.”

  “I can make him understand, sir,” she said.

  “Okay. But don’t be too soft. Make sure he knows that I will not hesitate to call every communications colonel I know and put the death word out on him.”

  Lex smiled. “Yes, sir. That will work.”

  “Good. And I’m going to need to see Colonel Karikov.” I’d avoided Karikov up to this point, mostly because I knew he’d be difficult. He had a history. A decorated one, for sure, but also a reputation as a guy who did things his own way. And he’d be mildly interested in my mission at best. With Sergeant Santillo’s failure to show pointing toward the hospital, I wasn’t convinced that Special Ops had done the hack, but Parker was right about it being inside their capabilities.

  “I anticipated that, sir. I contacted Spec Ops. Colonel Karikov is planetside.”

  I nodded. “Of course he is. When is he coming back?”

  “I asked that, too, sir. According to his people, never. He stays down there full-time.”

  I snorted. “Great.” With anyone else I wouldn’t believe it, but that fit what I’d read about Karikov. He might have been the one guy in this part of the galaxy with more written about him than me. He’d spent a lot of time on Cappa. It got hard to track where one tour ended and the next started. You could never trust Spec Ops record keeping, anyway.

  “Would you like to talk to someone else in the command?” asked Lex.

  I considered it. “No. I don’t think that would have much utility. I’m going to need to go down to the planet.” I took a little satisfaction in the look of surprise that drew from Alenda.

  She sat without speaking for a moment before she said, “Sir . . . I’ll need to run that by Colonel Stirling. To get approval for the spacecraft.”

  “Run it by whoever you need to. What else am I supposed to do? You heard Parker and Ganos. Someone cracked the system and deleted data. No way did anyone in Spec Ops take on an operation like that without Karikov knowing about it. Karikov is on the planet. That means the investigation is on the planet.”

  “Yes, sir.” Lex hesitated again.

  I let her stew on it for a minute. “What’s on your mind?”

  She thought about it. “I’m good, sir.”

  “Come on, Lex. Clearly you’re not. Spit it out. I can handle honesty.”

  She nodded several times before she spoke. “I don’t think it’s a good idea, sir. Going planetside.”

  I considered it for a moment, met her eyes. She kept her shoulders square, chin level, unflinching. I’d made my decision, but she needed to speak. “Okay. Why not?”

  She thought about it a moment longer, considering her words. “It’s an unnecessary risk, sir. You’re not going to find Mallot. It’s long odds at best. If he was down there, someone would know it. Someone would have reported it. You going to the surface isn’t going to change that, regardless of what else you find.”

  I thought about it for a moment. She had a point. Mallot was gone, and even if I found out why, that wouldn’t change. But I couldn’t let it go. Maybe it would have been different if I thought I had any chance of getting help from MEDCOM, but I expected that to continue to be a closed airlock.

  “It’s not that much of a risk,” I said. “If it’s that dangerous, Stirling will say
no.”

  “You and I both know that’s not true,” said Lex, not pausing to consider her words.

  I smiled in spite of myself. She knew that Stirling was looking out for his own career as well as I did. He couldn’t say no without looking like he was blocking the investigation. And though he didn’t seem the type, it probably crossed his mind that me being killed would clear up a lot of his problems. “Look. If I never stepped on Cappa again, that would make me very happy. I’m sure Karikov knows that, too. But Karikov also knows I’m coming.”

  I read the confusion on Lex’s face, but she’d have to figure it out for herself. Karikov wanted me to come see him. I could feel it. I wasn’t smart enough to decline the invitation.

  “I’ll set it up, sir,” she said, after a moment of silence. “It might take a day or two to arrange.”

  “I’m not in a hurry. Two days is fine. Since I’m going down, I want to visit Mallot’s company, too. I can question the soldiers there before I move out to see Karikov. In the meantime, I want to see everything and anything anybody here has on the area. Intel, satellite shots, current friendly and enemy positions and strengths. Whatever you can get your hands on. I even want to see logistics schedules, too.” No way would I go to the surface blind.

  “Yes, sir. I’ll make it happen.” She sounded a little surer now. Perhaps I sounded more reasonable. Perhaps she had just accepted it.

  “Thanks, Lex.”

  “Just doing my part, sir. Other people will do the bulk of the work.”

  I shook my head. “No, not that. Thanks for having the guts to say what’s on your mind. I value that.” I really did. I still didn’t trust her completely, but I definitely respected her more.

  Stirling called me the next morning and made sure I really wanted to go. He even offered to deny the mission so that I could save face, if I wanted. Smart of him. Always give the other guy a way out. Of course, that would have meant I had brains enough to take it. In truth, I think he wanted me to go, and for a reason that hadn’t dawned on me earlier. His network got hacked, and that had to piss him off at least a little.

  Alenda loaded my system with everything I needed about the planet, and I’d just sat down with her to look at it when Hardy showed up.