“We do not want to see a perpetuation of the wasteful incompetence of political leaders on Earth. We want to see a new order in Omega 16, one that respects capability and authority.”
“We?” said Julia with a touch of irony. “And who is ‘We’?”
“My associates and I.”
“Who are?”
“That’s none of your business!”
“Well, are these national interests or business interests?”
“That’s none of your fucking business!” screamed Genes.
“Oh, I think it is. We would like to know who we’ll be working for. I mean, business interests we can understand, but national interests would be difficult for a cosmopolitan bunch like us.”
Genes fell into the trap. “Yes, of course it’s business interests,” he said.
Julia switched the phone to mute and turned to Hannah. “It’s the Mafia!” she said, half laughing. She switched the phone back on. “OK, what sort of a deal can we expect from you guys if we cooperate?”
“A deal?! You get to live and work, that’s the deal!”
“Yes, but if we won’t work or we’re all dead, you won’t be able to function, you and your pathological zombies.”
“We know exactly how we will operate, and it’s none of your business!”
“Well, Genes, as things stand I have to tell you that there is no possible deal that I can see, because you are unable to give me any assurance of the survival or welfare of a single member of this crew.”
She switched off the phone. “How much longer do we need?” she asked Hannah.
“Only ten minutes,” Hannah replied. “Keep going.”
Julia waited for three minutes and then redialled.
“Yes?!” snapped Genes.
“Genes, I was thinking. How about you lay down your arms and I guarantee you a safe passage home?”
“You’re out of your fucking mind!” he screamed.
“No, I’m not. We seem to have a bit of a Mexican stand-off here and we could do a deal such that no one would really know what happened. There was a fallout between you and Commander Piccard over some confidential issue. You lost your patience and over-reacted. No big deal after months in space. We got together, resolved the issue, and no hard feelings. Think about it,” said Julia and she cut the phone off again.
As she did so, Chuck came through on her earphone. “We’re ready to go on three of the groups but Genes and his team have doubled back and are headed straight for the defence platform. I need more time to get in position,” he said. Julia glanced at the screen. Chuck was right.
“If he’s headed here, you don’t have more time,” said Julia. “Pull the trigger – that may stop him – if not we’ll fight it out right here.”
“Permission to fire?”
“Permission to fire!”
“Yes, Ma’am!”
The carnage began. As the snipers dropped the leader of each group, from their hidden vantage points, the reaction of the remainder was mindlessly violent rage at any visible human target. It was almost instantaneously obvious that there would be no surrender and the snipers’ orders in this case were to systematically kill their adversaries as fast as possible. Thirteen men were shot in a matter of seconds. Only one survived, and that was Ginger Clark.
“They’re coming for the door!” yelled Jesse.
“Let them have it!” shouted Julia back to him.
“Whoa! It’s a suicide bomber…”
There was a deafening explosion and the supposedly bomb-proof door arched inwards and rolled on to Jesse, crushing his legs. For a moment Genes stood in the entrance, shrouded in smoke, his ubiquitous grin in evidence one more time.
Julia snatched up the sabre that Chuck had left on the table and leapt forward like a cat, her eyes wild with fury. “Kill him!” she yelled, lunging towards Genes with the sabre. There was a sharp crack of gunfire and for a moment the grin seemed to hang in the smoke like that of the Cheshire Cat. Then it vanished and Genes’ body crashed into the room. The three remaining insurgents stood immobile in the scattering smoke, staring at the sword in her hand.
Julia, trembling from head to toe, regained a vestige of her presence of mind. “Stand down,” she said quietly, and sat down.
Hannah was instantly on her feet. There was a huge gash exposing shattered scull fragments along the side of Genes’ head. She felt his neck for a pulse and to her amazement she found one.
“Julia, get me life support for Clayton!” she said, then, “You boys! Help me get this door off this injured man!” and the last three members of the Wayward 19 still on their feet laid down their weapons and meekly obliged.
27
Chang’s Descent
“Well, Henri, it seems that your contribution to saving Prometheus from the international Mafia was to give me a black eye and bruised ribs,” Arlette was saying as dinner arrived.
“That’s not quite fair,” snorted Julia. “The clandestine routes through the ship that Henri installed were absolutely decisive. We’d have had no chance without them.”
“I concur,” said Hannah, “and now I really understand the value of an independent security organisation. It’s as well that no one knew of their existence.”
Henri winced as he tried to control his knife with his left hand. His right arm was in a sling, made necessary by the one bullet that had actually penetrated his flesh, just above his elbow.
“Oh dear!” said Arlette, her voice dripping with irony. “Did we bang our elbow when we fell over?”
“I think, Commander, that Henri is in a great deal of pain,” said Hannah. “His chest was horribly bruised by the impact of the bullets that were fired into his armoured vest at almost point-blank range.”
Arlette tried to supress a snigger, and it turned into a smile. “I’m so glad to see you around this table, safe and sound,” she said, her eyes glowing with pleasure. “Do we have any loose ends to tie up on this affair?”
“I’m afraid we do,” said Henri in a rather weak voice. “I do not understand why the surveillance of the Wayward 19 was allowed to lapse to the extent it did while we were away on Ceres.”
Arlette was suddenly serious. “Wasn’t that Chang’s responsibility?”
“Most definitely it was,” said Henri, “and now he’s in charge of security on Ceres. Has Marcel been briefed on today’s events yet?”
“Actually no,” said Julia. “They’re all in blissful ignorance about what happened here. Marcel only landed on Ceres about ten minutes ago. They’re still busy with post-flight checks at the moment.”
“Did Genes’ announcement not go out to Ceres then?” asked Hannah.
Julia shook her head. “No, Genes used the emergency system on Prometheus. He had no access to communications with the Orange House because he never had control of the comms centre. But perhaps he did send someone on Lander 2 an earphone message before it lost contact entering the atmosphere of Ceres.”
“Mmm,” said Arlette, “that is just possible in the pre-entry phase.”
“In that case, our leadership on Ceres could be in severe peril,” said Henri grimly.
Arlette tried to reach Marcel by earphone. He did not respond. “Henri, alert your militia leader on the surface!” she shouted.
As she did so, Hannah noticed a wince pass across Arlette’s face. She walked around the table and leant over her. “Could I walk with you back to your quarters, Commander?”
Arlette looked up sharply, and saw quiet concern in Hannah’s face. She nodded and smiled weakly.
They hardly exchanged a word on the short walk to her room, but once inside Hannah produced the basic tools of her trade from her bag and was all business.
“Lie on the bed, please,” she said.
The examination was brief. Hannah sat on the edge of the bed and smiled down at her. “You’re stressed out of your mind,” she said. “Let’s talk about it.”
And then, quite suddenly, the tears came. They came and came, and
Arlette’s body shuddered and shook as she buried her head in a pillow and let out a long wail of pain. She reached out for Hannah’s hand and grasped it, but it was several minutes before she regained her composure.
“Good,” said Hannah. “That was long overdue. Now you can just download all the shit on your mind and we’ll deal with it together.”
“I don’t know where to start,” blurted out Arlette.
“Well, let’s start with fear. There must be loads of it considering what you’ve been through. You are an extraordinary woman, but you’ve been through some terrifying experiences and it’s not possible that you did not feel fear. But you have internalised it and now it’s biting you. Let’s get it out.”
“I just can’t take another traitor!” wailed Arlette. “How can I trust anybody? How can I function without trusting people? First Bertin, then Clayton and now Chang! How could they put these people into my crew? How can I do this job when I’m confronted with deceit and treachery at every turn?”
Hannah was very surprised to hear Henri’s name but she collected herself quickly. “Let’s start at the beginning,” she said, “with Bertin.”
“The bastard!” growled Arlette. “The rotten, sneaky, ruthless, deceitful bastard!” And she told Hannah the whole story. “I was practically in love with him and it was all an act to check me out! Aaah!” She clenched her fists in rage. “And now he’s fucking Julia! Aaah!”
There was a silence. Arlette looked up sheepishly.
“Have you finished?” asked Hannah.
Arlette grinned through her tears.
“Was he a good fuck?” asked Hannah, grinning back.
“Very,” said Arlette, “and he should have stayed that way instead of invading my professional life.”
“Well, Arlette – I think I’ll have to call you Arlette – it sounds as though that one was a draw. You were about to take on one of the most important commands in history and some security freak thought you ought to be checked out. Not surprising in our business, it’s pretty much full-frontal nudity with our private lives, isn’t it? He was your lover and now you’re his commander. Perhaps you should just have it out with him and call it quits. Do you still want him?”
“No.”
“Good. Just remind him who’s boss and move on,” said Hannah. “Now, it was not your fault that Clayton turned out to be a treacherous murderer. The jury is out on just what his motivations were. How do you feel about him personally?”
“I liked him,” said Arlette. “He’s highly creative with a rather attractive roguish charm. What he did was utterly appalling but I rather feel he’s more misguided than evil. What do you think?”
“Well, remember I was with Julia when she negotiated with him,” said Hannah. “She and I are both convinced that he was being manipulated by the Mafia, and, frankly, killing innocent people for the Mafia is evil. But, if that’s the case, his motivation was pure greed and no reflection on you. I wonder if Chang is implicated as well; with the Mafia, I mean?”
“My God, yes, maybe. I think we’ll know soon enough.” Arlette smiled and stood up. “Thank you, Hannah. I feel much better.” They hugged.
“From now on,” said Hannah, “you can dump your stuff on me and we’ll talk it through in complete confidence, OK?”
Arlette smiled. “You’re good at what you do,” she said. “It’s a blessing that you’re here.”
* * *
The first person to exit Lander 2 after its arrival on Ceres was Chang. He greeted the onlookers warmly and asked the doctor to go and check on Marcel, who had apparently passed out in his ergo-couch during entry. He then walked briskly to the security office where Lee Bai, Chuck Connolly’s replacement, greeted him respectfully.
“Take me to the communications centre immediately,” he said, “and bring your weapon. We have some potential security exposure.” Lee Bai complied.
Dispensing with formalities as he entered, he instructed the duty technician to disconnect all communications circuits with Prometheus except the phone in Henri’s office.
“Lee Bai, you will remain here and ensure that my instructions are obeyed,” he said, and walked out to commandeer Henri’s office.
The doctor was baffled by Marcel’s condition. The man was unconscious and totally unresponsive. It appeared that he had been heavily sedated, but by whom and for what purpose was a mystery. He decided to leave him where he was for the time being and then a thought struck him. If Marcel had been sedated by someone, that person was almost certainly one of the passengers on Lander 2. If he left him alone in the lander, Marcel would be an easy target for a second, perhaps lethal, attempt to disable him. He decided he would stay put and keep him under observation.
Now settled into what had been Henri’s office, Chang recalled the message that Genes Clayton had delivered to the crew, while also on an earphone connection with Chang in Lander 2 as it approached entry into the atmosphere of Ceres. With Bertin dead and Piccard a prisoner, they had achieved their objective quite elegantly and, with no real leadership and confronted with Genes’ pathological killers, capitulation would have been bloody but quick. He, Chang, of course would not be implicated in the violence. He would step naturally into the commander’s role, and use Clayton and his hoodlums to do any dirty work that needed doing. He had no need to throw his weight around unnecessarily on Ceres either. He had control of the militia and control of communications, which allowed him to relay appropriate messages via Prometheus back to his Mafia bosses on Earth. He would need to dispose of Marcel Rousseau, of course, but the man was clearly very sick and would unfortunately succumb to some unidentifiable ailment in the near future. He thought briefly about conferring with Genes on progress with mopping-up operations and decided not to get involved for the time being but just to wait for the all-clear. In the meantime he prepared and sent a brief encrypted report to Chan Lu Fat.
Chang got up and walked back to the security office, and there he commandeered Lee Bai’s second in command for a tour of the facility. Henri, meanwhile, was becoming increasingly alarmed about the complete loss of communications with everyone on the ground. Beginning to believe that Lander 2 might have crashed into the base and wiped it out, he called the lander itself. The line was live. He waited. Finally the voice of the doctor came on the line. “Hello? Who’s calling?”
Henri enquired about the success of the landing and how the new arrivals were settling in. Everything was fine as far as the doctor knew, except that Mr Rousseau had apparently taken an overdose of tranquillisers – was he a nervous traveller? No; well his life was not in danger but the doctor would keep him under close observation. He didn’t know anything about a communications problem. Yes, they had power, nothing seemed abnormal.
Henri’s instincts were on high alert. He probed the doctor for an explanation of Marcel’s condition until he finally acknowledged why he had decided to stay in the lander with him.
“Good move,” said Henri. “Please stay with him until he is fully compos mentis, and call me on this phone if you notice anything abnormal or have any concerns.”
Henri sat back and considered the options. Had Chang deliberately allowed the Wayward 19 to regroup? Were Genes and Chang in cahoots?
A call came in to his earphone. It was Shinji Yamamoto. “We just had a message go through Comms Centre to Earth from Orange House” he said.
“Where to?” asked Henri.
“I dunno. It’s encrypted and the address is coded. I just know one thing,” he said. “It was sent by Chang.”
“Got him!” said Henri under his breath. He thought for a moment, then called Lander 2 again. It took the doctor several minutes to climb up to the cockpit and take the call. “Yes?” he said breathlessly.
“Doctor, I have good reasons to believe that Chang may have nefarious intent towards this mission. He may be dangerous and you should not trust him. Can you organise yourself some company in the lander to provide additional protection?”
“Well,”
said the doctor, “I wouldn’t ask one of the militia because they report to Mr Chang, don’t they? But perhaps I could ask the pilot and co-pilot? They have a good reason to be here, and they don’t have much else to do.”
Within ten minutes, Sanam and Arun, her co-pilot, had arrived in the lander with a supply of fresh food and water. After listening carefully to the doctor, they settled into the cockpit to amuse themselves, and began to set up the navigation equipment for gaming. The doctor examined his patient periodically, but saw no change in his condition.
Twenty minutes later Chang appeared at the entrance and climbed up to where the doctor was sitting with his patient. “How’s he doing?” he asked.
“Fine, stable,” said the doctor.
“Good,” said Chang. “You can take a break now. I’ll keep an eye on him and call you if there’s any change.”
“I’d rather not do that,” said the doctor. “In my experience this kind of condition can deteriorate very rapidly…”
“Take a break, Doctor, that’s an order. Lee! Escort the doctor back to the base!”
Lee Bai clattered up the stairs to where the other two were standing. As he reached them, Chang pointed a finger at the doctor, then pointed downwards, and turned away towards the prone form of Marcel in his ergo-couch.
“Come on, Doctor,” said Lee, and put a hand firmly on his shoulder. The doctor turned to protest once more, and as he did so he caught a glimpse of movement higher up the staircase.
“Well, please call me immediately if there is any change,” he said and began to descend the stairs. “And by the way, I have some information I would like to share with you about some of the other crew members down here.”
“What sort of information?” shot back Chang.
“Oh, behavioural,” went on the doctor, moving steadily down the steps.
Chang was staring down at him. “Behavioural?”
“Yes. There are some things you should know since you are in charge down here,” said the doctor.
“Who in particular?”
“I think we need to discuss that in confidence,” said the doctor, “but they are people you will need to be able to rely on. We can catch up later.”
Omnipotence: Book I: Odyssey Page 22