"Sounds more like the dumb-ass-hiding-under-the-bed strategy.” She looked up. "There’s something else, isn’t there?”
"Read the last report, which explains why I’ve chosen you for this assignment. I’m sorry, Ariane.”
He hardly ever used her first name, and his tone made her apprehensive. She held her breath as she opened the last packet. It expanded to a set of twelve investigations of deaths, all within the last four months. She looked at the list, seeing a previous vice president of CAW, a previous AFCAW chief of staff, and a previous commander of AFCAW. Farther down, she saw her previous wing commander, squadron commander, crew comm officer . . .
"Cipher? Cipher’s gone?” The name "Cara Paulos” smeared and blurred in her sight. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
"Here, take this.” Owen offered a tissue, which she used to wipe her eyes and nose and hide her face. She leaned back into the chair and took a few moments to compose herself.
Damn, Cipher was crew. Granted, she and Cipher hadn’t always seen eye to eye. Not like Brandon. Ariane looked over the list again and breathed a small sigh of relief. Brandon wasn’t on the list.
"The feeds said the vice president died naturally from heart disease, but all these other deaths? This can’t be coincidence,” she said.
"No, it isn’t. CAW suppressed the unnatural causes of these deaths to keep the perpetrators unaware of our investigation. The common root cause was clever sabotage resulting in critical equipment failure. The exception is the catastrophe of Lieutenant Paulos’s airline flight, which took eighty-five souls and left us hardly anything to analyze. We had a difficult time identifying bodies, much less finding a cause. That case is still open.”
"Why didn’t I hear about this?” She glared at Owen.
"Many of these people operated under false identities like yours, so you wouldn’t recognize their names. And for the sake of security, I couldn’t message you because the generational ship controlled all comm into G-145.”
"You were supposed to protect us.” Her teeth clenched as she fought the tears again. Poor Cipher. She’d been the nervous one, the dissenting one, always buried in her codes and comm. She hadn’t deserved this.
"The signing of this final treaty seemed to be the trigger. We were unprepared and our covert oversight doesn’t lend itself to moving rapidly. I couldn’t find people fast enough, once we detected the pattern.”
Owen seemed sincerely moved, perhaps by the loss of useful manpower or by failing an assignment. She looked away. He hadn’t known those people. He hadn’t worked with them. He’d never faced the moral quandaries of operating the most powerful weapons system known to mankind, or seen a comrade crumble under that burden. Owen worked in a world with clear boundaries and no regrets.
"Why just these names?” she asked softly. "More people were, and still are, involved with TD weapons.”
"True. There’s weapons research and development and maintenance and testing and storage—it took me a while to figure out. That list is everyone who generated or processed the release order for Ura-Guinn, with the exception of three people, including yourself.”
"It’s the Terran reprisal squads, isn’t it? They’re out for revenge, like State Prince Parmet. He encouraged them, he’s the one who should die—” Anger rose from within her chest and heated her face.
"Without claiming responsibility on the feeds?” Owen’s voice was cold and slick as ice. "Think about it. How could the Terrans know our classified release process and our chain of command, as it existed in the past—after I personally managed the vault and index replacements? Where would they get the information?”
"You think an insider’s involved?”
He nodded. "Someone combined classified information with AFCAW operational knowledge or experience. I want the traitor who helped these killers, more than I want them.”
She shivered in the ensuing silence, realizing that she’d never before sensed hatred from Owen. Apparently, Owen did have a personal stake in this mission. Now I do need a drink.
She stepped silently to Owen’s makeshift liquor cupboard, a repurposed personal hygiene cabinet. As she poured a glass of the liquor, she glanced at herself in the mirror on the back of the cabinet. Her face was thin from the last drop she’d run, her weight loss due to N-space. Her brown eyes sank into dark hollows and she looked brittle. From what she could see in the mirror, her crew overalls were worn and rumpled, hardly befitting an AFCAW officer. Under her right ear, the edge of her collar was unraveling into tufts of stiff orange fibers. Behind her, she saw Owen standing beside his desk in his perfectly appointed uniform, waiting for her answer.
She raised the glass with the golden liquor, deeply inhaling its aroma—she didn’t know what it was, nor did she care—and met her own eyes over the brim. An exchange of honesty went through her like a shock. Who was she fooling? Could she pretend to be as composed as Owen, pressed and contained, while she was unraveling inside? She was in worse shape than her coveralls. Self-doubt seized her belly and she lowered the glass. I can’t do this mission.
"Matt suggested I go for addiction reprogramming,” she said conversationally, still facing the hygiene cabinet.
"What for? You don’t drink or use on active duty. You’re always in control.” Owen’s voice was confident. How did he know the extent of her control?
"I have the tendency to—to overdo things. Once in a while. When I relax.”
"After the missions you’ve gone through, don’t you think you deserve to have a drink or two?”
Of course she did. She also knew that Owen had an interest in keeping the status quo; he couldn’t put her welfare ahead of his agenda. "I’m not talking about a couple of drinks,” she began.
"That’s no reason to undergo deep-psyche neural probes. AFCAW could hardly sanction the risk to your cover or to the information in your brain.”
"Could you stop me?” she asked softly.
"Yes.”
The finality in that one word was unmistakable. They both knew neural probes or hypnosis could crack the careful veneer of lies that protected her. Owen’s caution only justified her random path through life. What was at the end of the path? Self-destruction, no doubt, and she didn’t care.
She took a hefty swallow of liquor and let it melt down her throat and into her stomach. Her body relaxed. The alcohol stifled the sound of internal fraying. Her soul might be threadbare, but she could manage. This is what I am. She turned away from the cabinet and faced Owen.
"You said there are three of us left? Brandon, myself, and who else?” She tried to remember how release orders were processed fifteen years ago.
Owen answered as if the previous conversation had never happened. Perhaps it hadn’t.
"The command post controller who processed the release order. He stayed on active duty and he’s now Colonel Erik Icelos, facility commander at Karthage Point. With all the security required to keep the inspection teams safe as well as ignorant, Karthage should be a safe and controlled environment. Besides, you’re forewarned now and you’ve proven your survival skills—you’ll be there to protect him.” He smiled.
"And Brandon?”
"Stubborn as ever. We advised him to move, but he won’t budge from his current location. He’s been uncooperative.” Owen shrugged and annoyance flitted across his face.
Ariane smiled into her glass and took another sip of soothing comfort. She wasn’t supposed to know where Brandon resided, but she had a vague idea.
Under her feet, she felt a faint but familiar trembling. She whirled and placed her hand flat against the back of the hygiene cabinet to feel the vibrations in the bulkheads. The sublight booster engine had started. The crew would soon fire orientation thrusters; the cruiser must have received clearance from Athens Point to disconnect.
"Damn it, Owen, I needed to talk this over with Matt.”
"You’ve accepted your orders. Send him a message, but remember that your destination is classified.”
"I haven’t signed these orders yet. Matt—”
"He can surely get along without you for a couple of months. Besides, I’m not sure this sort of long-term employment is good for you. What if he learned the truth about you?”
"He never will.” She shrugged at the implied, and worthless, threat. Owen wouldn’t leak any hint of her past to Matt or anyone else. He’d spent most of his career obscuring "the mission” and would never sabotage his own handiwork.
"I could make things difficult for Matt and his little prospecting business. I could screw with his leases, question his permit.”
This wasn’t an idle threat. She kept her face impassive. Owen didn’t need any more leverage over her, so why this extra pressure? She locked gazes with him, wondering why he always probed, always tried to get tidbits of personal information. Because what Colonel Owen Edones didn’t understand, he couldn’t control.
This was taking up precious time and Owen wasn’t really offering a choice. She shrugged. Whatever honor she had left wouldn’t permit her to walk away from the chance to find these killers, or to protect Brandon. As always, she’d follow orders. She gulped down her liquor, picked up the slate, and signed her acceptance.
"Matt and I are business associates, nothing more. I’ll need time to prepare, sir. Do I have quarters?” She began her premission dissociation, changing her internal references. Owen was her commanding officer. She felt the change, almost like sliding into an invisible uniform. From Edones’s face, he saw it also; he’d once remarked that she had a switch that flipped her into "military mode.”
"Take hold. This is first warning for low-g maneuver,” a deep drawling voice announced over the ship’s nodes.
Colonel Edones smiled. "Better hurry, Major. Quartermaster’s on deck two, port section sigma.”
"Yes, sir.” She saluted and left, but as she hurried toward supply for uniforms, quarters, toiletries, and other comforts, Ariane couldn’t get Cipher’s face out of her head.
Poor Cipher.
Ari had been six months away from pinning on captain’s rank when Cipher was assigned to their crew, replacing a lieutenant who was transferred to Hellas Daughter. Naga was Cipher’s first assignment out of sublieutenant preparation, and she received decent ratings in Naga technical training before coming to the Sixteenth Naga Strike Squadron. At first, Cipher was intimidated by her two other crew members, who had five, six, or in Brandon’s case, even more years of experience, but she soon loosened up.
Ari remembered the day Cipher had come back from her first leave.
Ari pulled her head out of her locker and jumped. "Cipher! You’re back. How was Pelagos?”
Cipher had entered the locker room silently. "It was okay.” Cipher shrugged. "Pelagos isn’t a prime planet, so I saw the sights within the first few days. They have good salons, though.”
"I can see that.” Cipher’s hair was now bright orange. Personally, Ari didn’t understand Cipher’s urge to change her appearance on a moment’s notice.
"Any news?”
"You’ve only been gone for five days. We’re still holding steady after we took back New Damascus.” Ari shook her curls and ran her fingers through her drying hair.
"No, I mean any rumor of Naga deployment.”
"TD weapons are a threat that’ll never be used, hopefully.” Ari closed her locker and, as always, wryly grimaced at the tag that read K. ARGYRIS. Her family and friends called her Ari after her middle name, Ahrilan, and now her comrades did the same. Karen Argyris was a name she only saw on nametags and paperwork.
She turned to see Cipher, looking distressed and sullen, sitting on the bench, staring at the shampoo in her hands. Clearly, there was something else on her mind.
"Ari, I talked to Alex.” Cipher’s dark eyes settled on her, with meaning in them, as if she should understand that cryptic hint.
"Who? Alex Stavvos? You mean the squadron gossip, with the big mouth—always flapping.”
Cipher didn’t smile. "He said he saw you coming out of Brandon’s room during early shift, after the STRAT-EVAL party at the club. He said you looked. . . .” She didn’t continue.
Uh-oh. Ari took a deep breath. Is it too much to ask, Gaia, to let this slide by? She looked around the locker room; luckily, the showers and lockers were deserted. She sat down, straddling the bench and facing Cipher. "We made a mistake.”
"You’re not going to deny it.” Cipher turned and Ari looked down at the bench, not wanting to meet her eyes.
"No. Like I said—”
"What’s going to happen now? You guys can’t have a relationship and still be on crew together.” Cipher’s voice cracked.
"There’s no relationship.” Ari tried to keep her voice steady. She wasn’t sure how she really felt about Brandon, but they’d made their decision already, for the good of the crew and their careers. Their relationship had been over almost before it began and they hoped the squadron commander would never hear of it. Depending upon how the squadron commander viewed their indiscretion, he could charge both of them with fraternization. At the very least, he’d break up the crew.
"So you guys had a one-night stand.” Cipher looked shocked.
"That’s a quaint way of putting it, but it’s better than getting involved, isn’t it?” Ari was confused. Since Brandon wrote both their evaluations, she expected Cipher to be relieved. "Otherwise everyone, including you, would suspect favoritism. We’d have to break up the crew.”
"You shouldn’t stay on crew after you slept together.”
"Mistakes happen,” Ari said calmly. People get drunk and make mistakes—especially me. "This is wartime and we make a good crew—just look at our ratings—and we shouldn’t break up a good thing.”
"But how can you work together?”
Ari wasn’t sure how to answer this. She could work with Brandon because she could distance herself and take every conversation, every interaction at face value. Cipher worried about what people thought, what people felt, what lay hidden behind every decision, conscious or subconscious.
Instead, she said, "If you ask him, Brandon will talk to you about it. We’d like the whole thing forgotten, because we want to keep the crew intact. Do you want us to be broken up?”
Cipher shook her head, perhaps not willing to accept failings in her two senior crew members.
"We shouldn’t have, well, gotten carried away. I admit that,” Ari said. "But I hope you can forgive us, for the good of the mission.”
"For the mission?” She turned and looked at Ari, outrage twisting her features.
What did Cipher want from her? Ari watched her stand and undress, her arms jerking and pulling at her clothes. The Naga crews weren’t seeing action, but it was wartime, for Gaia’s sake. Was Cipher hoping for a love story or a happy v-play ending? This wasn’t virtual adaptive-fiction play, where the player could influence the story by tweaking parameters. Ari rubbed her temples. Nothing would be the same again. If she could take back her actions several nights ago, she would.
Cipher left a crumpled pile of civilian clothes on the bench in front of Ari. Without another word, she stomped off to the showers.
Ari shook her head. Poor Cipher.
CHAPTER 3
CAW’s military arm (AFCAW) insists Ura-Guinn was targeted through civilian control, but they continue to classify the mission documentation and hide the perpetrators. The only conclusion can be that they’re covering up a freelance military operation. Their militia has violated the Phaistos Protocols [see modern Minoans] and they must be tried as war criminals.
—TerranXL State Prince Isrid Sun Parmet, 2094.341.05.08 UT, indexed by Heraclitus 12 under Conflict Imperative
The "window” in Isrid’s study displayed one of his favorite views: afternoon clouds against the red horizon of Mars, viewed from the northeastern edge of Valles Marineris. He couldn’t have a conventional window because of radiation, and this particular view wasn’t possible from his location, the city of Roma Rossa.
The clouds
building up against the Tharsis Montes volcanoes were a normal result of midnorthern summer and not due to the slight increase of atmospheric pressure. That mere increase in fifty millibars had been frightfully expensive, based upon diverting four comets over a century ago, and Mars still couldn’t come close to sister Terra’s atmosphere.
However, Mars wasn’t going to receive terraforming funds any time soon, based upon the projected Terran Expansion League tax base. Millions of people forced to live in protected habitats on both planets would only support terraforming on, well, Terra, since Yellowstone’s caldera had blown her friendly surface into an ice age. Yellowstone was a costly lesson in souls and biomass and ecosystems and species, as well as pride. Mankind learned that their footprints on Terra could never compare to the internal rages within the planet herself.
Inside his study, safe from climate vagaries and radiation, State Prince Isrid Sun Parmet relaxed after reading the Mobile Temporal Distortion Weapon Treaty for a third time. His back was straight, perpendicular to the seat of his stool. He aligned his feet square with his body and extended his arms on the low desk with his hands slightly curled into mirror images of each other. The lines of the lavish bamboo floor, shipped at great expense from a biome refuge on Terra, ran smoothly perpendicular to his desk. The window to his right balanced a large painting on the opposite wall, painted by a Martian artist and reflecting the muted colors in the study. Isrid breathed deeply and rhythmically while he practiced somaural exercises, methodically tensing and relaxing every voluntarily controlled muscle in his body using a master’s sequence.
The treaty arrived with an attached comment. "SP Parmet, read carefully. Overlord Three expects strategic benefit. SP Hauser.”
Isrid had hoped his exercises would give him insight into the strategic benefit that Overlord Three sought. He was distracted when transparent green-yellow froth crept across the study floor into the edge of his vision, carrying with it the faint scent of pine.
"You ignored the ban,” he said aloud, rising to surface consciousness. The smell of pines receded, as did the colorful splash of his wife’s aura on the floor. "I wasn’t to be disturbed for four hours.”
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