After expending a moment to consider Frost's tall tale, White emptied the last of her whiskey glass and put it back on the table.
"So I assume the lesson to be learned from this story is one I already know," she stated.
"That depends on what you think the lesson is," said Frost.
"If you want something done right, do it yourself?" White queried.
"More along the lines of the three worst enemies of a soldier are ignorance, indifference and carelessness," Frost corrected her. "All three of which those fuckwits in Recon committed. Funnily enough, after giving them a piece of my mind, the intel reports were always picture perfect from that point onward..."
"So you mentioned you had some memories of this place yourself?" asked the captain.
"Can't say they were as exciting as blowing up shipyards or fighting a hundred power-armoured soldiers," said White. "But I did blow Reggie Bloodbeard away out here."
"What, the pirate lord?" asked Frost.
"Yeah," White confirmed. "Real big bastard, styled himself after eighteenth century pirate kings. Even wore a bloody tricorne and a cybernetic hook hand to complete the 'do. Bloodbeard was the biggest competitor for our own outfit of pirates under the Ghoul, and by far the most powerful in the entirety of Frontier Space. Well, I think it goes without saying that firecrackers in one's beard and a titanium cutlass are hardly a defence against a fourteen point five millimetre bullet designed to fuck up military jeeps..."
"That it ain't."
"I know you're not a stickler for violence, but you should have seen this fat bastard explode..." White stared out the window with a face betraying her profuse amazement at her own recollection. "The moment that shell hit his gut... You ever seen the aftermath of putting a cranberry pie in a microwave without taking off the tin-foil covering? It was kinda like that. Never seen anything like it since. Saw his wife in my scope running off screaming, covered in bits of her husband she never wanted to see! And after their boss ate shit, the rest of the Bloodbeard outfit ran off with her to be hunted down and slaughtered like helpless sheep. The Ghoul added many a scalp to his collection that glorious day..."
Suddenly the sound of a spit-take distracted the two of them, turning their attentions to behind them. A certain teal-haired lady of Germanic descent clutched the same bottle of milk that Frost had used, bearing the kind of horrified look on her face that suggested she might have just swallowed poison.
"Mandelmilch?!" she screeched in her mother tongue. "Möse!"
"Mornin', Mags," Frost almost laughed. "I see you've found the almond milk."
Neither Frost nor White knew much of the German language, but even they could determine that Morgenstern's shocked muttering involved something about poisoned milk, the mothers of dilettantes and barnyard animals.
~
Upon making planetfall, Frost found himself genuinely astounded. Not so much at the city in and of itself, as by the fact that he had actually found a place that was somehow dirtier and more thoroughly wretched than Port Royal. At least back home, they had robots clean the buildings, pave the roads on a fairly regular basis and keep things reasonably tidy. The soot-covered edifices that people dared to refer to as shops and office buildings stood as testaments to the reality that Wayland could not even be bothered to manage that.
Somehow, however, New Seattle retained an idiosyncratic, austere charm to it. None of it was by any measure seedy or dishonest, much unlike District Four back in Port Royal. It was simply the product of efficiency in its rawest, most unadulterated form, the buildings designed to hold people, their homes and their businesses and convey vehicles and pedestrians along its roads – and little else. It reminded Frost of the vast, towering hive cities back on Earth, housing the descendants of millions of refugees from some of the most savage conflicts to scar the Cradle, not least of which were the Water Wars. There was Babel in Syria, Bashnyagrad in Ukraine, Selassie Town in Ethiopia, New Pyongyang in United Korea, to name but a few. Everything was similarly compacted and condensed together out here in the Belt, the only sense of opulence in any measure being the tourist district – that only out of sheer necessity, otherwise there was little reason that Frost could see for visiting this colonial territory.
As she traversed the tight streets of the city, lagging slightly behind the others as she looked around, White was distracted when a hand fell on her right shoulder. The distraction turned to surprise when another pair of hands grabbed and restrained her arms. It soon became apparent that three men, wearing the dark green patrol fatigues of Wayland's own private military contractors, had seized her for whatever sinister purpose, having leapt from an alley nearby.
"Elena fuckin' White..." an uncannily familiar Sicilian American voice spoke to her. "I told ya I ever see yer face 'round here again I'd jam a corkscrew into yer fuckin' throat!"
"Monty D'Amico," White recognised her assailant with equal measures of irritation and trepidation. "What a pleasure it is to meet you on this auspicious occasion. Might I ask why you currently have me in an arm-lock?"
"Don' play dumb wit' me, ya little bitch!" D'Amico snarled. "You think I'd forget what you've done around here?! I should kill you right here and now, just like I should'a done when I had the chance!"
"Then how about you stop your waffling and get on with it?!" Elena barked at him.
A shadow looming over the group prompted D'Amico to look up. Blocking the alleyway, standing a head and a half taller than the Sicilian mercenary and twice as broad as both of his comrades, was none other than Captain Frost.
"What seems to be the problem here, lads?" he asked.
"Your ass of a face, that's the problem here!" D'Amico snarled at him. "Beat it!"
"That's not very good manners, you know," Frost announced.
"Look, pal," the mercenary would not budge. "I dunno if you Occator types are always so nosey or you're just fuckin' stupid. I told you ta get lost. This is official business."
"See, in every other circumstance I would, were it not for one small problem," Frost stated. "That woman you're in the process of molesting is mine."
"I don't see your name on her," the mercenary nearest to him laughed. "But you can have what's left of her when we're done with her."
"Wrong answer." Frost grabbed the mercenary by the throat before he could respond and shoved him backward, the back of his head batting against the brick wall with a grunt.
The other lurched into action, failing to account for Frost's hand closing around his fist; the momentum of his own punch helped the captain hurl him into a dumpster with an almighty crash. The first mercenary who Frost had tossed aside drew his combat knife and lunged at him. The captain intercepted the attack with laughable ease, the palm of his exo-assisted hand smashing into the knifeman's scapula. Judging by the gut-wrenching crack and subsequent ear-splitting scream as the knife clattered to the pavement, Frost had most likely shattered the mercenary's shoulder blade, his clavicle and possibly even a rib like glass.
D'Amico, watching his comrades get soundly thrashed in the short fight, pulled out his own knife in panic and held it to White's throat. Frost's response was to draw his Mk.45P handgun with a flick of his wrist, turn off the safety and aim it straight at the mercenary. The pistol's laser sight settled its cerulean gaze square on D'Amico's head.
"I'm a highly trained soldier, you're a couple of paces away from me, and your head's right out in the open," Frost questioned him, sight fixed on his opponent as firm as a limpet. "Do you really want to play the hostage game?"
D'Amico's curt moment of doubt proved his downfall when White used the opportunity to stamp on his right shoe. The prompt loosening of his grip allowed her to bash the back of her head into the bridge of his nose. Another crack meant another bone shattered, forcing the mercenary to drop his knife and reel backward, giving White a window to deliver a vicious spinning kick straight to his face. He stumbled backward and crashed into the ring fence behind him with a clatter before slumping onto the ground.
"You stupid motha'fuckahs!" D'Amico screamed at Frost, trying to stop blood pouring from his destroyed nose in agony and desperation. "I got friends! I got buddies in high places! They'll kill ya! They'll kill both a' ya!"
The captain responded to such a pleasantry by grabbing the mercenary by the collar and lifting him off of his backside. He brought his face so close to his own that their foreheads touched.
"Take a good hard look into my eyes," Frost growled. "Do I look like someone who fucking cares?"
With that, he reared his head back and smashed his forehead into what was left of D'Amico's nose, causing him to howl and writhe with ever greater pain as he was thrown to the floor.
"What is the meaning of this?!" a horrified Bridger came running to the scene and demanded to know. Morgenstern and Wilkins were at her side, rifles in their hands in anticipation of trouble.
"White was attacked by a bunch of thugs," Frost proceeded to explain. "I went to go and get her. That's all there is to it."
"Those aren't thugs, those are corporate security personnel!" Bridger nearly shouted, her frantic gesticulations aimed at White's injured attackers. "How do you think the precentor is going to react if you beat his men senseless?!"
"I got friends..." D'Amico's shrieks of fury had turned to agonised whimpering, as if to compound Bridger's point. "I got guys... They'll fuckin' kill you..."
"When he finds out why I beat them shitless, he will beat them even harder," Frost stated, having remained perfectly calm throughout the entire encounter and subsequent conversation. "It'll be their word against a witness and an officer. Besides, I didn't even beat them that hard. If I had, he wouldn't be blathering." He pointed at D'Amico.
"I'll trust your word, Captain, so long as you don't make a habit of attacking everyone wearing dark green..." said Bridger.
"Only if they attack first," Frost assured. "Now let's keep moving. The precentor will be expecting us."
Behind Frost's back as they walked away though, the executive shot a vicious glare at the mercenaries he had beaten down, her eyes seeming to flash with murderous intent.
"What was all that about?" Frost turned to White with a look of incredulity.
"An old frenemy," explained White. "From Bloodbeard's gang."
"Frenemy?" queried Frost.
"Your friends can change at the snap of a finger when you're alone," White proceeded to elaborate. "Or more accurately, at the flick of a coin. Being an outlaw means questioning every credential. It means making sure that the guns shooting in the same direction as yours don't suddenly turn towards you. And of course, being ready to turn the knife yourself when things are about to go tits-up."
"Sounds like a shit way to live," said Frost.
"Well, that's how life is past the Asteroid Belt," White shrugged. "Your only chance of survival is to get used to it."
"I see. From here onward though, no further conversation about or references to piracy."
"Right." Considering the threat to her life that had transpired just a moment ago, White was in no position to dispute the captain's command.
~
WAYLAND COMPANY
MAIN ADMINISTRATIVE BUILDING
The building directly ahead of the quintet, much like the rest of the city, made no illusions as to what its purpose was. The sign plastered above the front entrance proclaimed that in exact form; the first two letters stencilled in dark green, the remaining three spelled out just beneath in smaller white. Much like the rest of New Seattle, this edifice was a blocky, rather unassuming construction, evoking the image of a prison. High grey walls surrounded the exterior of the compound, topped with barbed wire; two heavily armed, power armoured soldiers stood watch at both the gate and the front entrance, and at least two more squadrons' worth of unarmoured troops patrolled the inside of the compound. The modular, dourly brutal construct was most likely prefabricated elsewhere, transported in flat-packs to the city from its factory of origin and subsequently assembled on-site, so Frost deduced.
"Halt!" The mercenary's challenge rumbled through the microphone on his helmet. "State your identities and purpose!"
"We're here to meet with the governor," Bridger announced, visibly unnerved by the armoured giant standing even taller and broader than Frost did. "I am Danica Bridger, envoy for the Occator Conglomerate. These four are my bodyguards, some of the finest-trained soldiers in the Belt."
As Bridger handed her ID to the guard, the other one began to jiggle in strange fashion, so Frost noticed. It was then he realised that the mercenary was laughing, the noise itself inaudible for the armour's internal microphone having been switched off.
"This checks out," the first guard nodded. "Welcome to New Seattle, Miss Bridger!"
Upon gaining entry to the building, one of the Wayland soldiers even opening the door for the quintet, they learned that the interior was just as humble as the architecture of the building itself. The floor of the reception was fashioned from cheaply-produced cream-coloured synthwood, along with most of the doors. The light floor made for a neat contrast with the dull grey metal walls – Frost recognised them as manufactured from riveted plates of Martian steel, just as abundant and easy to procure as the synthwood for the floor.
The only possible allusion to luxury of any kind was a virescent green holographic figure standing at the wooden desk, of indeterminable gender or even ethnicity. Artificially intelligent virtual receptionists were a more common sight in larger buildings than this one, with thousands of offices for the staff of an entity as large in scale as a megacorporation, able to check on their status in an instant should the AI need to summon one of the staff members. One might determine with no small level of truth, though, that this particular receptionist covered almost the entire asteroid, considering how much processing power was necessitated by their usual purpose.
"Good morning," Bridger addressed the virtual receptionist as she approached the desk. "We're here to speak with Governor Maxwell Grumman, Wayland Colonial Administration Bureau."
"Tenth floor, room one-zero-zero-six, farthest to the right," the AI built into the desk responded in a flanged tone. "However, I'm afraid you'll have to wait, Miss Bridger, as he is currently occupied."
"Then see to it that he becomes unoccupied," Bridger stated, already on her way to the elevator with Frost and his squadron in tow. "Or we will. And he won't be happy when we do."
The elevator ride to the tenth floor was a brisk one, with neither Bridger nor Frost having any desire to remain in New Seattle for any longer than was necessary. As the doors parted upon arrival and the party of five marched out of the elevator, they noticed that the interior of New Seattle's administration office was just as sparsely decorated as the exterior. The walls were fashioned from a plaster and a modest synthwood skirting board without a single painting in sight. Each door to what was presumably an office was made from a flat board of synthwood with a name-tag declaring the office's owner. To top it off, the entire corridor itself was lit by a succession of cheap-looking strip lights. Clearly the Wayland Company was far more concerned with practicality than any of the buildings used and owned by the Occator Conglomerate; Frost recalled how Port Royal's City Hall interior was illuminated by chandeliers, and every carved wooden wall was furnished with paintings of great visionaries from Thomas Edison to Octavius Sparrow.
At this moment, Frost came to realise that the two companies operated on vastly different premises to each other. Occator's greatest selling point was its grandiose promise of making one's dreams come true and thus designed its entire aesthetic around such proposed magnificence. Wayland, on the other hand, favoured presenting a proverbial iron rice bowl to potential workers and investors. The former could be guaranteed a long lasting, if far from illustrious, career as part of an established megacorporation. Those seeking to do business with the company would do so with the confidence of backing a prominent member of the Independent Systems League, an interplanetary cartel of immense power having adopted the garb of a
sovereign nation. Though the rather underwhelming realisation that Occator was built entirely around its chief executives being a gaggle of fraudsters was far from news to Frost – it only served to cement much of what he already knew of the company and its practices.
Upon reaching the end of the corridor, Frost gestured to White, Morgenstern and Wilkins to stand watch outside. Bridger wasted no time at all, entering the office without as much as a knock, her intent perhaps being a display of power. The gesture invited a cautiously hidden smirk of disdain from Frost who suspected it to be out of pure habit – Bridger held no power here that he was aware of, and if Grumman was so inclined he could have her killed or worse at the snap of a finger.
The office itself was, as to be expected from Wayland's general aesthetic and ethos, one of sparse decoration, only a synthwood desk, bookcase, filing cabinet and holographic computer screen on the floor. The whirr of a ceiling fan filled the room, and it was then that Frost caught sight of the ash tray on the desk. Standing behind the fabric-clad office chair at the other side of the desk was a bald, burly man with trousers and a loosely-buttoned white shirt, looking upon his demesne from the window.
When the governor turned to acknowledge the presence of his visitors, the first feature to which Frost paid attention was a huge scar crossing his right eye, stretching from his forehead to his chin. Whichever medic had worked on the eye itself must have done a shoddy job, because the green cybernetic optic was considerably brighter than the other eye. Alternatively, if he had been a veteran of the Earth-Mars war, this hard-faced individual might have had to make do with what little was on offer, a facet of wounded life that was all too real for many of Frost's former comrades.
"Miss Bridger, Mister Frost, allow me to be the first to welcome you to New Seattle and to Hygiea," governor Grumman introduced himself with a coarse American voice, almost a drill instructor barking out commands, giving a modest handshake for the both of them. "And my condolences to those injured or killed after the Knights attacked your city."
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