Angel of Destruction

by Susan R. Matthews

  Let me help your expert gunnery, promise I’ll max your trajectory.

  The warehouse floor was warmer there than it had been beneath the prior freighter tender.

  But was it because of the cargo load this freighter tender was carrying?

  Or — Hilton asked himself with mounting excitement, strolling past the nose of the next freighter tender to scan the floor beneath the one after that from a distance — was it because there was something really, really heavy in the last freighter tender but one?

  Frowning at his tally screen Hilton started down the pedestrian aisle between freighter tenders, his temperature probe casually aimed at the floor to his left.

  Not the last in line, the first to be suspected, too easily moved in and out.

  Not hidden in the middle of the line like a freighter tender cleared and locked down and waiting to take on cargo. The last but one, the next to last, swarming with Langsarik work crews — forward only, of course — and in the process of clearing its cargo.

  Hilton checked his tally.

  The cargo was under quarantine for release of goods. As good as locked away, secured, no better place to hide a courier, and the weight in the aft cargo compartment of the last freighter tender but one stressed the floor that supported it with a thermal trace that showed orange and yellow on Hilton’s readout.

  It was heavy enough to be holding the battle cannon.

  Hilton walked slowly all the way around the great beast, taking his time to master his emotions. This was it. They had the courier. Now all they had to do was find its crew, and this would all be over.

  They’d be safe.

  “Very good.” Kazmer’s voice was calm, but resonant with the excitement Hilton knew Kazmer was sharing. “Trace. Off-line now.”

  Now that they knew which one it was, the Langsariks could set a watch. Kazmer closed his transmission, careful to minimize any chance of interception. Hilton checked the last freighter tender as he passed under pretext of doing something with his tally screen; light as a feather. As freighter tenders went.

  He didn’t dare lay a tag on record, for fear of discovery. But Kazmer had the fix on his position; and Hilton had Langsarik maintenance crews up on the bare beams of the warehouse ceiling, keeping watch.

  Cold up there. Drafty. Thankless duty, Hilton knew; but they had the enemy now. That knowledge alone was enough to warm a man body and soul, even one on watch far far overhead.

  ###

  It was the end of a long day, and Garol Vogel was walking Walton Agenis home. It was about an hour and a half on foot from Port Charid to the Langsarik settlement; Garol felt the need to get out under the sky, and Walton hadn’t argued.

  They’d been in bed together all day.

  At least that was the story, if anyone asked.

  Once they’d cleared the outskirts of Port Charid and were well on their way toward the new warehouse construction site, Garol spoke.

  “So you managed to obtain a false chop,” Garol said, just to get the story out in the open once and for all. “Somehow. It doesn’t really matter, someone will think of a way. You used the chop to authorize moving freighter tenders into orbit.”

  Hilton’s find out on the warehouse floor that morning had been the final evidence. There was no longer any question about where the battle cannon were being hidden; now it remained only to decide where the battle cannon would be deployed next, and Hilton was in Port Charid with Cousin Stanoczk and Kazmer Daigule running the last of the contingency exercises even now.

  “You hid your raid ship and its battle cannon on a freighter tender out at the new warehouse that the Combine started to build as soon as the Langsariks got here. Perfect timing.”

  Walton walked slowly, shredding the long leaf of a late-flourishing plant in her strong slender fingers. She was clearly in no particular hurry to get back; and if they’d been in bed together all day — Garol thought, almost despite himself — she might be moving a little slowly anyway. Muscular soreness.

  He was ashamed of himself for having such a thought about Walton Agenis. It was ungallant in the extreme to impose on a lady to such an extent. If he ever actually did go to bed with her —

  “Too bad we can’t figure out a way for that to have been part of the plot, all along.” Walton’s comment interrupted Garol’s train of thought, and not a moment too soon. The late-afternoon breeze ruffled her short red hair; it was cool, when the breeze blew, and she was wearing Garol’s old campaign jacket.

  “Right.” Garol set his mind resolutely to the issue at hand. “Hilton’s got the chop, says he got it from Dalmoss, what Dalmoss will say is predictable. The courier could have been in the warehouse all this time, for all we know.”

  The Langsariks had been scrupulous about observing the letter and intent of the amnesty agreement. No one had gone poking around cargo holds of freighter tenders without leave and authorization. Who knew how long that raid ship had been there? And since the warehouse-construction crews were almost all Langsarik, the setup was compromising by definition. Physical evidence of Langsarik involvement could always be come by later.

  She was listening, and he was getting it all straight in his mind by talking it out. “You get into orbit, you rendezvous with a freighter, you make a raid. Your hired crew escapes, you rejoin your freighter tender, and return to base at Port Charid with no one any the wiser. We have the crew from the Tyrell raid, we can demonstrate how you did it.”

  She tossed the shredded leaf away from her with a gesture of disgust. “Leaving us with only two questions. Who’s behind it. What to do about it.”

  “Cousin Stanoczk says the Angel of Destruction,” Garol reminded her. “He may have that part covered.”

  “He hasn’t come out and said, though. I don’t need any Cousin Stanoczk to tell me who’s behind it, if there is a Dolgorukij plot. It’s Feraltz. It’s almost got to be.”

  Garol considered this in silence for a moment or two, watching the shadows change across the hills far to the south. “Why Feraltz?” Granted that Garol himself had already decided that Feraltz was running a game; he still didn’t understand why. “He’s the one man in Port Charid with most owing.”

  That could be an answer of its own, of course, the ins and outs of gratitude and obligation being what they were.

  Walton sighed. “Dalmoss is clearly part of it, if we believe Hilton about the chop — and I do, needless to say. Feraltz very specifically wanted Hilton as assistant floor manager at the new warehouse construction site, so Feraltz arranged to put Hilton in his very compromised position. But there’s more to it than that. I’d normally not want to say anything about it, but — ”

  There was a vehicle approaching on the track from Port Charid. Walton glanced behind her; Garol put his arm around her shoulder to draw her with him well off the track. Just in case.

  “More to it, you said?”

  She shook her head. “Wait. This one’s coming for us. I’ve seen my nephew drive before.”

  All right.

  The vehicle pulled over ahead of them on the side to the track and skidded to a stop, raising a cloud of dust and gravel. The door on the driver’s side was open before the vehicle stopped moving, and Hilton Shires fell out.

  Did a very creditable tuck and roll, too, scrambling to his feet and starting toward them almost without a break. His momentum carried him flat into Garol where Garol stood waiting, and Garol steadied him with an effort.

  “Results,” Shires said. “Analysis complete. It’s got to be Honan-gung. It’s got to be.”

  Cousin Stanoczk’s people had been working the analysis all day. The documents Shires had picked up in the warehouse after hours the evening before. The historical pattern, available cargo readily converted into untraceable cash, potential body count, everything.

  Garol pushed Shires away, hard enough to stagger him. “I’ll keep company with your aunt if I damn please,” Garol said, loud-voiced and angry. “Who do you think you are?”

  Shires wa
s smart, he picked right up on things. He didn’t try to close the distance, he put one hand on his hip and shook his finger accusingly. “We know the target,” Shires said, low-voiced, as if angry in response. Scowling. Lips drawn thin, body tense and hunched slightly forward, as if about to attack. “What do we do now?”

  Walton stepped between them, and put her hands out to either side in the classic gesture of forcing a separation. “We can’t prove anything on what we have,” she said soothingly. “All the circumstantial evidence and hearsay in the world won’t help us. We need to catch the raiders in the act for a positive identification. You know we do.”

  Dropping her arms, she turned her back to both of them and stared out across the road into the middle distance. Garol folded his arms across his chest. Enraged senior male, challenged by immature younger male stepping outside his boundaries. “I know what you’re suggesting. But I can’t risk the lives of the crew at Honan-gung without a really solid backup. It’s just not acceptable.”

  Shires had both hands on his hips, now, but he’d straightened up a bit. Younger male, not ready to back down, but feeling obviously intimidated and looking for a face-saving escape route. “But we have no direct incontrovertible evidence. We’ve got to give the enemy the opportunity to betray himself, in order to convince the Bench.”

  Shires and his aunt were right.

  Yet Garol couldn’t see a way around it. Garol unfolded his arms and reached for Walton, drawing her by the elbow to stand by his side. Senior male making his position absolutely clear, but softening marginally on aggressive response to challenge from younger male.

  “Not an option, Shires; I’m not risking lives on an ego thing. If we had police. A dockworkers’ association. Reservists. Anything. But we don’t.” He couldn’t call on the Port Authority for support. The Port Authority was dependent on the local mercantile authority for its enforcers. That meant Factor Madlev’s people, Combine people.

  The enemy would be tipped off, or worse — the enemy would have advance intelligence and would be able to forestall them, or even subvert the very people Garol might need to back him up. No. Hopeless.

  Now Walton Agenis tucked herself very confidentially against him and raised her head to look up into his face. Female offers conciliatory gesture to reconcile senior male and younger male.

  “You’ve got Langsariks,” she said.

  What?

  What was that supposed to mean, “you’ve got Langsariks”? He already knew that he had responsibility for the Langsariks here at Port Charid, he’d brought them here, he’d negotiated the amnesty agreement, he’d promised them fair play. He hadn’t told the truth. It wasn’t for lack of goodwill on his part, but the Langsariks were not going to get fair play after all. The Langsariks were going to suffer for someone else’s crime. There was nothing that Garol Vogel could see that he could do about it.

  “It wasn’t supposed to end this way, Flag Captain.” He couldn’t sidestep the issue. He owed it to Walton Agenis to tell her the truth, no matter how it would diminish him in her eyes. It was the only thing he had to offer by way of atonement for his role in the disaster that was almost upon the Langsariks. “Maybe we’ll get a break. We could get lucky. But we’ve got to start preparing your people for the worst.”

  For all her submissive body language, Walton wasn’t backing down a bit. “No, Bench specialist, we’ve got to start preparing for an ambush. They brought the raiders out as boxed cargo at Tyrell, Daigule said.” The night before, during the marathon information-sharing session they’d held in Garol’s bedroom, in fact. “We can use the same approach at Honan-gung.”

  All right, all right.

  All right.

  Garol caught her meaning, now. A seductive concept. But it would never work.

  “I like it in theory,” Garol said, and kissed the top of Walton’s head on impulse — just to put the play forward, of course, for the benefit of whoever might be watching. “Don’t get me wrong.”

  There was such a solid emotional satisfaction behind the proposal, and if the Langsariks couldn’t pull it off, nobody could — or nobody within nine days’ transit time of the Shawl of Rikavie, at any rate. But it wouldn’t work. The Langsariks were prohibited any travel off Port Charid without strict supervision for a start, and forbidden to arm themselves without qualification — not even for self-defense.

  Why wouldn’t it work?

  It was true what he’d just told himself: if the Langsariks couldn’t do it, nobody could.

  And Langsariks had pulled off more outrageous stunts still in their recent past, in their politely glossed-over but solidly successful careers as commerce raiders who had evaded the best efforts of the Fleet to pin them down and punish them for years.

  “I’ve learned a lot about cargo-management systems, Specialist Vogel. I can make it work.” Shires stepped forward with his shoulders rounded, his hands held out in front of him entreatingly. Subordinate male yields, solicits forgiveness. “Nobody needs to know that we’ve got troops on board. We can stay clear of the station monitors until we’re needed.”

  Garol’s head was spinning; he shook it several times, to try to clear his thoughts. Senior male stands on his dignity, holds out for more abject apology in presence of female.

  “Lieutenant Shires. Hilton.” It was so hard to reject, because it was so beautiful. He would enjoy it so much: to capture the raiders in the commission of a crime, to demonstrate the trustworthiness of the Langsariks, to keep the innocent civilians at Honan-gung safe from harm while giving him the data he needed to protect the Langsarik settlement.

  He ached to embrace the idea.

  He could not.

  “It’s been more than a year since any Langsarik has engaged in any action, at least that’s the story I’ve heard. How are we going to keep someone in Port Charid from noticing? If you’re discovered at Honan-gung before the raid, it will be the same as if you had been the raiders all along.”

  Shires was only smiling, his whole face full of such wolfish joy that Garol shuddered to see it. Pure. Brilliant. Savage in its certainty; and beautiful, as any perfect predator was beautiful. “That’s one reason why we’ll need you to come with us, Bench specialist. Legal authority. The apprehension won’t be lawful without duly constituted Bench representation. You’ll have to deputize us to cover for it. Besides, you’ll want to be there.”

  Shires was right.

  About both things.

  “Puts the entire community at risk,” Garol said, to Walton. Senior male solicits option of female; should peace be made with subordinate male? Will his status suffer if he yields too easily? “Are you sure about this, Flag Captain?”

  She nodded with vigorous self-confidence. “It’s my best alternative. And the other alternatives aren’t worth considering.”

  It was not a brilliant idea, necessarily; merely a reasonable one — but the emotional payoff that it offered was almost irresistible.

  “So let’s get on with it. Hilton. Aren’t you supposed to be on shift? Vogel and I will take the vehicle, you walk it off.”

  Female offers face saving extrication to both males, trading temporary inconvenience of walking to work for easy escape of young male from injudiciously invoked confrontation. Garol straightened his shirtfront with an exaggerated glare at Shires and followed Walton Agenis to the for-hire that Shires had brought from Port Charid.

  Garol remembered what it was like to burn with the pure joy of approaching battle, hungry to starving for the chance to take action at last against a despised and cowardly opponent.

  After all these years, did he have the moral courage to resist the temptation and deny Shires his chance to clear his name?

  Or was he going to find himself agreeing to make use of the offered Langsarik resources, just because he’d never been able to forget what it had been like when he’d been twenty?

  ###

  Midnight in Port Charid. The previous night had been absorbed in an ad-hoc strategy session in Garol’
s bedroom; Shires had located the battle cannon — or at least the freighter tender on which the battle cannon were presumed to be — that morning. Cousin Stanoczk and his people had completed the target analysis hours ago, and Garol had seen Walton Agenis safely returned to the Langsarik settlement himself.

  He had everything he needed now, target, location of enemy resources, plan of attack.

  He was almost ready to call it a plan and get going.

  “I agree that the analysis factors all point to Honan-gung,” Jils admitted, closing the portfolio containing the scraps of paper that Shires had picked up on the warehouse floor last night. “What is less obvious is whose target it is.”

  Garol Vogel sat in the small aft cabin of the courier he’d had sent from Anglace to Port Charid on freighter to meet him. Now that his own transport was there, he had less excuse for using that of Cousin Stanoczk, which was a shame in a sense — the Malcontent’s courier was significantly more luxurious than his own, even if the technology standard was not all that different.

  “It’s Langsariks or it’s not.” He knew what she was getting at, but there was no reason to make it easy on her. “Let’s assume for one moment that it’s Langsariks. Why would they tip us off?”

  “Because the Langsarik target isn’t Honan-gung, Garol. Get you all excited about Honan-gung and you leave them time and opportunity to make one last hit somewhere else. Maybe Finiury. There are indications that arms shipments may be going through Finiury, Garol. The Bench is finalizing its case.”

  He knew that. He’d just been thinking about other things. He’d had other problems on his mind.

  Jils continued. “But if there are arms at Finiury and the Langsariks raid, we could have a takeover situation on our hands. You’ve got to let Verlaine set Fleet on alert.”