"B... but they're not the government," Elena stated. "The army composes neither the executive, legislature, nor the jud... Jew... Judy... Ju-dic-iary. By definition a government makes the law. The army isn't the government, and they certainly have more guns than the entire separation of powers combined."
"It is on Mars," Magda stated.
"Alright, every other country than Mars," countered Elena.
"You can... You cannot fabricate exceptions!" Magda protested, pointing to somewhere behind Elena..
"I just did," Elena spoke with a horseshoe-like grin. "Ball's back in your court."
Magda stole a moment to consider her response. The state of her exceptional inebriation did little to help her cause. After much deliberation...
"Who controls ze military?" she continued the debate.
"The generals," Elena answered.
"And the highest ranking general usually holds the position of Verteidigungsminister – or, vhat the fuck do ze Yanks call it... Ah! Sec... Secretary of Defence – in the government," Magda slurred. "In this instance, Morgenstern's Law of Goat... er, Governance still stands."
"What about countries like Blehh... like Britain, where the Secretary of Defence is just another career politician?" queried Elena.
"By definizion, Morgan Macleod is still soup... Supreme Commandant... Commandeer... Compote... FUCK IT! Arch-general! Becauze the other generals anzwer to him! Morgenstern's Law," she declared.
Just as the pair were about to leave the district for the night, Magda struck another lamppost face first, striking the implement with a light clang. She grabbed hold of it and swung around like a dancer, an expression of great pride on her face.
"I just ... I just revolutionized political and military science! Where the fuck is my book?!"
Mere seconds after demanding her own political treatise, her face turned pale. This was followed with immediate effect by a mass of ochre brown fluid erupting from her mouth onto the pavement, among which was the remnants of a certain bratwurst that she had consumed earlier. Upon smelling the fresh puddle of puke, Magda finally lost her footing and fell backside first onto the pavement with a thud.
"Oh, for the love of God..." Elena groaned as she heaved her heavyset comrade away from the road, wincing at the stench. "How much bloody sausage do you Martians eat?!"
~
Half two in the morning was further metamorphosed into nine o'clock in the morning. Now that they had returned to the OCCS precinct after a night of heavy sleep, Elena and Magda were once again White and Morgenstern, dressed in the paramilitary uniforms that denoted their occupation. For the most part, anyhow.
Tired and, needless to say, hungover, White leaned over a pale, cream-coloured synthwood desk, lit cigarette in hand and bags under her bloodshot eyes. Her head pounding, not least because of Morgenstern's thunderous snoring in the chair next to the desk, her previous attempt to overthrow the brittle taste of sand in her mouth lay in the form of a two thirds-empty cup of coffee. As a result of this endeavour proving to be a miserable failure, the cigarette was attempt number five.
An hour ago she had undertaken a quick inventory check of the precinct's armoury, an endeavour that was hardly aided by the painful migraine. She was currently staring at a procurement form for one hundred M94 Gauss guns by the next quarter of this year, sixty one of which were currently accounted for in the armoury. White recalled how the armies of the United Federation of Earth had been trying to adopt the M224 model for years, so effective and powerful was the heavy battle rifle. Only the US Army's order had so far been successful. They were now replacing the M94s that had served since 2120. Heavier and more powerful, but expensive to maintain and unsuitable for close quarters battle, the twenty year-old coilguns were in the process of being supplied to private security contractors as surplus weapons.
Then suddenly the door swung open, prompting White to jerk her head behind her – a movement that elicited a sharp, vulpine growl of pain. Morgenstern was jolted awake with an effete squeak, struggling to her feet and nearly collapsing as she heaved herself to attention. Her own eyes were in an even worse state than White's.
The interloper turned out to be Ed, now himself reverted to Frost by his white shirt, black trousers and dark blue epaulettes. White believed that the heavily-built Frost actually looked rather silly in his uniform, but kept this to herself.
"Let me guess," he grunted, his attention focused on Morgenstern. "You and White went out to get wankered."
"That's putting it lightly, boss..." The vile reek of alcohol and morning from Morgenstern's breath was almost sufficient to wilt one's hair.
"What's the occasion?" Frost seemed almost like he was struggling to suppress a laugh.
"I felt like grabbing a post-battle pint," Morgenstern explained herself. "And White decided to come with me. End result: we went to visit the Casino Oceanic, and-"
"A post-battle pint?" Frost burst into laughter, wheezing as he spoke the final word.
Morgenstern struggled out a blink. "Alright, nine post-battle pints..."
"Shared between you and White?" asked Frost.
"No boss," said Morgenstern. "She had eight and a half."
"Where did the other half go?" asked Frost.
"I finished it off after she asked me to," said Morgenstern.
"So you had nine and a half pints..." Frost cut off his smile like a guillotine.
"It was a really long day," Morgenstern explained herself.
"We've talked about this," Frost began to lecture. "There's only three reasons I'm not PT'ing you until you shit buttermilk. The first is it was a tough day yesterday, the second is because I was the one who sent you home, and the third is because I like you."
At such a statement White spluttered on cigarette smoke, before bursting out laughing herself.
"You should feel damn bloody proud of yourself, Mags!" she said. "Very few people get bestowed with such a high honour!"
"Verpiss dich!" Morgenstern growled at her, before turning back to Frost. "But yeah, I'll endeavour to remain sober on future evenings."
"Good," Frost's face became more patriarchal in shape. "Most of the clowns in this outfit only joined to impress the ladies, and consequently will carry on shitting themselves every time they get into a real job. But you're both better than every one of them put together. I'll give the two of you until noon to sleep it off."
The door opened once more, prompting Frost to turn his head behind him. The fourth comer was a man of similar build to the captain. Locks of grey in his short-cut strawberry blond hair denoted his age, as did a pale landscape of scars and wrinkles carving canyons and cliffs across his face. A huge shrapnel wound ran the longitude of his chin, this wound sustained from the last war between Earth and Mars curving his mouth into an everlasting scowl. It would appear that precentor Alexander Kane himself had graced Frost and his two charges with his presence.
"At ease," he introduced himself to the trio; his gentle, quasi-patriarchal voice betrayed his Australasian origin. "Frost, may I speak to you in the office?"
"Of course, precentor," Frost acknowledged him before he turned to: "White, make sure Morgenstern doesn't waddle off. She's technically not supposed to even be here."
"Got it, boss," White affirmed.
With that, Kane made his way out of the office. Frost followed close behind, soon walking alongside his superior officer.
"Is this another commendation?" Frost pitched his first question, still looking forward as he walked.
"Hah, you'd be lucky to get the board to say thanks," Kane laughed. "But no. This is different. It does relate to yesterday's attack, though. Specifically your colleague, Merley."
"So I get to find out who he was fucking in the bloody service tunnels while his men cowered in terror," Frost stated.
"Merley's dead," said Kane with the bluntness of a hammer.
"What, he shot himself in the tunnel?" Frost finally turned his head.
"No," Kane stated. "He was killed
by the Hound."
Frost arched his left eyebrow.
"I'll presume your next question will be something along the lines of 'what was the Hound doing in the tunnels'," Kane guessed. "Most probably with some sort of profanity interspersed within."
"Am I really that predictable?" Frost asked. "Maybe I'll have to shake myself up to keep things interesting."
"You'd sooner wank yourself off with a razor blade," Kane stated with a gentle smirk.
"Damn it, I am predictable," laughed Frost.
The office of precentor Alexander Kane was situated at the far end of the corridor, marked by the same pallid synthwood door as almost every other room in the precinct. The difference could be determined within the interior. As a board member within a major megacorporation, being the head of its private military force, Kane had quite a bit more spending power than the rank and file of the company. Such could be reflected in his dark brown desk, fashioned from a real oak tree from Earth. Other possessions around the room, such as a well-organised filing cabinet, a wall-mounted masters' degree in military science and a bookcase loaded with classical literature, stood as further testament to the status of the office's present owner.
Kane sat down on the leather armchair behind the desk, inviting Frost to take a seat in front of it. Frost chose to remain stood after closing the door.
"What I tell you now is not to become public knowledge," Kane stared Frost in the eye. "In fact, the only reason I'm telling you it is because I was instructed to do so by someone higher up."
"The board?" Frost queried.
"Even higher," said Kane. "William Merley was a high-level plant in the OCCS working for the Federal Intelligence Agency. Specifically, he was assigned by Diana Sparrow herself to oversee the transfer of one component of a powerful cyberweapon from the Belt to Earth. At least he was, until the Hound attacked and captured the data key containing the component."
"Why the fuck wasn't anyone else told that some spooks were hiding cyberweapons in the Belt?" Frost grumbled.
"Because if the Martians were to learn that Ardent Red was powerful enough to knock out their entire defence grid in one single sweep, they'd be sending a much bigger force out to the Belt than just the Iron Knights," Kane announced. "And bear in mind that we don't have the protection of the League to keep Ceres safe, only the trade deals we have with the Federation, who themselves are unlikely to involve INTO in this matter."
"Well clearly they do know about the damn weapon, otherwise why the hell does Sokolova want the bloody thing?!" Frost growled.
"You can thank a certain Maximilian Strasser for keeping the Commonwealth's hawks in their cages," said Kane.
"What, the weapons mogul?" asked Frost.
"I believe you have some experience in covert operations," Kane stated. "Indeed, from what I've heard, your past performance has been nothing short of exemplary."
"So Diana Sparrow wants me to go across the Belt looking for parts of some cyberweapon before Sokolova's mutt gets his paws on them, because her goons couldn't keep them damn well safe?" Frost queried. "She wants me to save the solar system?"
"That's pretty much the gist of it," shrugged Kane.
"For fuck's sake, she sounds so much like my former boss..." Frost sighed into his palm.
"Probably because she's working with your former boss," Kane pulled a slight smile.
"Where will I meet up with her?" asked Frost.
"Right here, after you've acquired all of the data keys and dealt with the Hound," said Kane. "Your first stop will be New Seattle, Hygiea. There you'll meet with the FIA operative there, enter the vault, recover the key and bring it back to Ceres. I've notified the board of this mission's importance, and they're sending Miss Bridger with you and your team."
"I'm guessing the operation will be disguised as a business trip for the sake of discretion, and officially I'll be Bridger's bodyguard."
"You guess correctly, Frost."
Frost's expression betrayed his utter displeasure. "And here I was thinking I get a break from all this bollocks by coming to Ceres..."
"I'm no more pleased about the matter than you are, but that's the price the Belt pays for neutrality," Kane saw the captain's disgruntlement and spoke. "The heliopolitical shitfight that plagues Core Space might have next to no relevance to us puny Belters, but it spills over into the Belt nevertheless. And in exchange for taking a side, the sharks allow us fish to go about our day without being crushed into pulp. You're in a far better place than you realise, Frost."
"You're such an inspiring leader, Kane," Frost grumbled. "You should be the CEO. You'd certainly inspire the confidence of our shareholders."
Kane huffed in amusement at Frost's sarcasm. "We're not so different, you and I – a couple of realists in an ocean that's been filled to the brim with idealists."
"If my team and I go chasing after the Hound of Sokolova, you'd better make sure there aren't any arse-clowns in purple masks going after my son."
"You have my word that no harm will come to Jason," Kane promised. "He'll be safe under our watch."
"Yeah, just like the city hall was..." Frost reminded.
"It won't be the OCCS watching over him," said Kane. "I understand that Sparrow has sent a detachment of elite operatives to stand by and hunt down any stragglers and double agents that the Hound left behind after yesterday."
Frost paused to consider the offer put before him. In most places, corporate security was deeply unreliable, seeing as how they only worked for a profit and were seldom better than the common street thugs that frequented their ranks in exchange for being let off the hook. Incompetent in the face of a real challenge too, if yesterday's events were any form of measurement. Yet while he was going now by past experience, he recalled Sparrow's brutal, ruthless meticulousness back in his heyday that so characterised her everyday dealings. Whatever Sparrow wanted, she usually got – up to and including the safety of his son.
"Alright, I'm in," he spoke at last. "Where do I meet up with Bridger?"
"Terminal Seven-A at the spaceport, Seventeen Twenty sharp," Kane informed him with a smile. "I wish you and your crack squad the best of luck in your hunt."
"If you were anything like me as you said, you'd know that the only luck there is, is what we make for ourselves," said Frost.
"Good to see you're always on the ball," Kane laughed.
Frost merely grunted in response. "If I wasn't, I'd have been killed years before I came here."
~
"Danica Bridger..." grumbled White as she slumped into the hovercar's passenger seat. "Why did it have to be Danica fucking Bridger?"
"I don't know either, but those are our orders," Frost answered her, focusing on the road as he navigated the hovering machine through heavy morning traffic.
Despite the lack of axles or gears in a hovercar, the steering wheel and pedals remained present entirely for the sake of ergonomics. Apart from the obvious lack of contact with the road, hovercars – or at least this model – possessed only two noticeable differences from wheeled ones. These were the absence of a clutch, and the presence of a switch to change vertical level if the driver needed to float over such obstacles as a traffic jam.
"Forgive me, but what did Bridger do to piss you both off?" Wilkins, the mercenary that had helped Frost assault the city hall yesterday sat upright behind him. Morgenstern was riding shotgun.
"You don't need forgiveness for asking a question."
A young, black haired and green-eyed dilettante, Wilkins had joined the OCCS for one of the reasons why Frost hated the majority of his colleagues – to impress his peers. The boy couldn't help but wonder, therefore, what had persuaded Frost to bring him along for such a sensitive mission as this one. Perhaps he could ask about his motives when they boarded the ship.
"Bridger represents everything that sucks about this company and corporate culture on a more general basis. Every penny she's made in her life has been by abusing people she thinks are beneath her. Never picke
d up a hammer, a screwdriver, a spatula or a gun throughout her entire existence. And this is without mentioning she'd sell her own husband into slavery to pirates if it meant saving her own skin. A multi-millionaire by no other trade than simply knowing the right people and being in the right place at the right time. Which is apparently enough to make sure you live life in the lap of luxury."
"You remember that debate we had last night, White?" Morgenstern turned back to face her comrade.
"Eh? What about it?"
"Remember what I said about Morgenstern's Law of Governance?"
"I thought it was Morgenstern's Law of Goat..." White laughed.
"No!" Morgenstern grunted with indignation. "That power is based upon whoever has the most guns or the biggest guns!"
"Power's based on whoever has the most guns...?" Frost shook his head with disbelief. "Who told you that shite?"
"Uh, my own experience of the world we live in," Morgenstern responded.
"Or rather a profound lack thereof," Frost grumbled, rolling his eyes. "Any nonce with a hand can hold a gun, but that alone doesn't make him powerful. When you're behind the trigger and can take lives at will, it's easy to forget about money, words, brains and even consequence. That last one's the only thing that makes a real difference between the powerful and the powerless. If there aren't any consequences for crossing you, you haven't really got a lot of power, have you?"
"Unless you have a gun, of course," Morgenstern reminded. "Then the consequence for crossing you is death, surely."
"But what about countries that don't have the death penalty?" Frost sprouted a grin. "How do you think they're governed?"
"The consequence for open rebellion is you get shot, isn't it?" Morgenstern was suddenly unsure of herself.
"Not in a democracy it's not!" Frost stated with a half-laugh. "The worst possible consequence for open rebellion in a democracy is the government doesn't get voted out in the next election. That's why it's called a democracy; it literally means people power."
"Consensus, Miss Morgenstern," he proceeded to explain his viewpoint. "THAT is the backbone of any kind of power, not just political power. Whether consent from the wider population in a democracy, or consent from the ruling party in a dictatorship, no man – no matter how big his guns are, or how many guns he has – can rule without it.
Ardent Red Page 5