by J. L. Curtis
“Go Feeder Three.”
“We’ve got protesters. They’re throwing rocks and bottles. They started moving in right at sunrise.”
“What’s your status?”
“Everybody is under cover. I’ve got Rana and Rai in armor between the Hab and maintenance vans, just in case. Squirting video now.”
“Good. Break. All sites, perimeter check.”
“Feeder One, two- maybe three people. Nothing being thrown. But I don’t see a lot of people moving around either, which is not normal. We’re in soft armor.”
“Feeder Two, Horse here, we have a few rowdies, maybe thirty total. Mostly young. Everybody in soft armor.
There was a pregnant pause as he waited for Feeder Four. After almost a seg, he said, “Feeder Four? Shanni, come in Feeder Four!”
After a half seg, an out of breath Shanni came on, “Base, Feeder Four. Sorry. Had to go get Mr. Beeman through the sonics. He was attacked this morning at the Paradise main link. We’ve got probably forty or more. Working on a good count now. Right now nothing is being thrown, and they’re staying well back. Something took down the primary antenna, we’re on a backup right now.”
“Drone or something else? Squirt the video over the last twelve divs. Matter of fact, everybody squirt their video. If you had anybody on liberty, squirt their video too. I’m going to go see the colonel as soon as he gets in to see if they are getting any intel.”
Shanni chucked, “Unless drones out here bleed yellow and have real feathers, it wasn’t a drone. And the damn black flies loved whatever blood that was.”
“Copied all.”
He pinged Jiri, Grayson, and Boykin’s comps with the message- LOW LEVEL ALERT. SITES HAVE ACTION. While he waited, he started scanning the video from Feeder Four, and finally saw something hit the antenna around 0500. It was too dark to actually make it out, but when he replayed it in the enhanced mode, it looked like two birds. The bigger one chasing another smaller one, with the first one cutting around the antenna, and the second hitting it squarely, and biting through the antenna in one bite. He winced, Don’t know what that was, but I don’t want to meet one. Anything that can bite through a half inch of composite isn’t something to fool with. Better find out just what that was.
Grayson was the first one through the door, still getting into his grays, “What have we got, Captain?”
“Nothing serious, yet. No injuries reported, wait. Check with Feeder Four. Beeman the TBT tech was attacked this morning, check with them on his condition. I need to hit the head.”
“You got it boss.” Grayson flopped down and grabbed the mic as Fargo headed toward the head.
He met Jiri coming down the hall, “Nothing major. Gotta hit the head. Can you grab coffee for everyone?”
Jiri nodded and headed for the mess as he opened the door to the head. When he got back to the office, Jiri had coffee bulbs sitting on a tray, with everyone waiting for his return. He looked at Grayson, who shrugged. “Minor bruises. Little cut on his head. Apparently more pissed than hurt.”
Boykin looked up from her comp, pointing at the screen, “That thing looks like what they call a Condor here. But it’s more like a cross between a Condor and a feathered Velociraptor. Wingspan is about twelve feet, it’s got a lot of teeth, and it’s carnivorous. I’ve seen a couple since I’ve been flying around.”
Jiri shook his head. “Oh hell no. A KEW from orbit works for me.”
Fargo chuckled. “Bad experience I take it.”
Jiri nodded. “Yep, and I don’t even want to talk about it. Took a twelve mil laser to kill the damn thing!”
“Okay, y’all go eat. WO, after you eat could you prep the shuttle, just in case?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Senior…”
“Already got a full go pack aboard, and that’s where my armor is parked. Right next to yours and the WO’s, Captain. I’ll move my go bag aboard as soon as I eat.”
“Jiri?”
“I’ll go. It’s my turn to get out of the office. Besides, you can use your other talents on the Colonel.”
Fargo rolled his eyes, “Okay. This has to be coordinated at some level. I’ll work with the colonel on that. I’ll go hit the mess right quick and come back.” I wonder what, if anything, Nicole has heard. I worry… Stop that. She knows what she’s doing, and Jace would keep me informed.
Jiri smiled. “Food is good. Go ahead, I don’t think anything is going to happen in the next fifteen segs.”
At 0800, Fargo stood bouncing on the balls of his feet as he waited for Colonel Zhu to put in an appearance. He’d snapshotted the apparent leaders of each of the protesters, and already sent them to both the colonel and his intel officer. Finally the colonel came down the hallway, a bulb of coffee in his hand. He nodded curtly to Fargo then motioned to his office as he opened the door. “Problems, Captain?”
Fargo nodded. “All sites are being, I guess, protested; there are anywhere from three to forty people depending on the location. At Feeder Three, they are actively throwing things at the personnel, mostly rocks and bottles. No one has been seriously hurt, yet. I wanted to see if you’ve gotten anything from your Intel section?”
Zhu sat slowly, then brought up his holo. Quickly scanning the incoming, he said, “Nothing. It looks like the only thing I’ve gotten is from you.”
“That’s pulls from our surveillance vans. This has to be a coordinated effort. Can we…”
Zhu cut him off, “I’ll go talk to Director Vaughn and see if her officials have seen or heard anything. I don’t want your people out stirring shit up among the natives.”
Fargo bristled, and reached out with his psi sense, He’s worried, no… he’s afraid. Why? What else is going on around here? He risked a little deeper probe and wasn’t happy with what Zhu’s emotions and thoughts revealed. Crap, he’s sure there is a bunch of rebels and he doesn’t know who they are, or where they’re getting their information and support. And the director’s people aren’t letting him have any intel. That’s… not good.
“Keep me in the loop, Fargo. And keep your troops under control.” Zhu got up and motioned Fargo out of the office, as he headed for the door, an angry expression on his normally stoic Asiatic features.
***
Jiri and Fargo spent the next four divs monitoring the feeds and radio traffic between the four sites, but there weren’t any additional actions by the protesters. Suddenly at thirteen, all of the protesters turned and walked away, as if they’d been programmed to only protest for a specific length of time. Daman called in, “Base, Feeder Three, got something interesting. Squirting data now.”
Fargo jerked out of his trance, realizing he’d been watching the vid feeds without even seeing them, per se. “What have you got?”
“Base, finally got a face in that window we picked up as being an overlook. And he’s on a comm unit just about the time the protest stops. Managed to hack the local’s security system, followed him out to the local shuttle port. He got on a shuttle to Capital at fifteen thirty.”
“Daman, did you get a name on him?”
“Negative, didn’t try to hack the database that far. Figured you might be able to do a legal search from your location.”
Fargo nodded to himself, “Makes sense. I’ll see what I can find. Maybe I can get eyes on when the shuttle lands here. Thanks Daman.” He quickly pulled up the vid and looked at the capture Daman had sent, then sent it to the GalPat Intel section with a request for an immediate ID. Pulling up the shuttle schedules, he saw that the shuttle from Canyon would arrive at seventeen. Scanning back through the vid, he saw what Daman was talking about, and smiled grimly, This guy is definitely a player. But I’m guessing he’s reporting to somebody, or taking direction from somebody or bodies.
Jiri came back in, “Want a break?”
Fargo stretched, “Yes. I need to go beard the lion again. He dismissed me this morning, and went stomping off. Hopefully, he’s found something we can use. What do you think about dr
opping the alert with the warrant and Senior?”
“I think so. Looks like they’ve stopped the protesting, and I never did like keeping folks on alert for nothing. It’s not like we can’t call them if we need them.”
“Do it.” Fargo got up, ceding the chair to Jiri and stretched again, “I’m going to hit the head, then the colonel. Want a bulb when I come back?”
Jiri laughed. “No! Any more bulbs of coffee, and I’ll be wired for three days.”
“I think we might need to be.” Fargo hit the head, then went back to the colonel’s office, knocking on the door he asked, “Permission, Colonel?”
“Come in. Why did you send a picture to my Intel section asking for an ID?”
Fargo stopped in front of his desk and reached out, Whoever that was, he’s not happy about the ID. Wonder if he’ll give me the name? “That was a person we observed at Kwamaine, apparently coordinating the protesters. Who was he? He never got off the shuttle here.”
Zhu looked up sharply, “Didn’t get off the shuttle?”
“Our people tracked him to the Capital shuttle at fifteen thirty. When it landed here at seventeen thirty, he never got off. The next stop is Archer City.”
“He’s… from a prominent family, very prominent. How confident are you…”
Fargo said earnestly as he gave the colonel a little push with his psi sense, “We think he’s one of the coordinators of the protests. We’d really like to put a marker on him and track him.”
Grudgingly, Zhu said, “Smallwell. Eric Smallwell. His family is one of the original families. They own…a farm or something called the Oasis. It’s west of Archer City. He’s the third generation, they…use a combination of indentured and mechs to farm over ten thousand acres. I don’t know…” Fargo pushed again, “Well, maybe if we don’t advise the director, I guess we could put a marker on him.”
“Thanks, Colonel. Any more information?”
Zhu shrugged. “Not much more than what you heard originally. The company doesn’t want us nosing around, saying they are investigating some rebellious young people. No names, supposedly no idea what they want, yada, yada.”
Fargo mumbled, “Bullshit.” He looked up at the colonel, “So, all the data we provided has gone nowhere?”
“Not that I can tell, Captain. I would suggest you might want to bring your people to a higher level of alert.”
Fargo looked at him, Does he not understand we’ve been there since day one? The only way… “We’ll look at what we can do, Colonel. If there is nothing else?”
“Not at this time. If… if anything else comes in, we will advise you. And in the future, please route all data through my office, don’t send anything directly to my Intel shop.”
Fargo stood, came to attention, and left the office, So, who is covering for who, with what? By us going directly to Intel did we upset his or somebody else’s apple wagon? Dammit, I wish Nicole were here, she’d know the answer and probably how to work around it!
***
Lev stepped into the Hab module and glanced at Shanni, “You ready? I’m hungry. I want to try that Star of India place that Thak found.”
Shanni finished pinning his lapel cam on, making sure it was as discreet as possible, “Sure, we can do that. Although I’m not sure Thak is a good reference. He’ll eat damn near anything.”
Chuckling, Lev answered, “Well, it is Thak. But he said they actually do the food with the right seasonings. And I checked, it’s not off limits, yet.”
“Yet, only because I haven’t talked to Ekavir about it. It should be. It’s not in a part of Paradise that we should be entering at night. Remember what Mr. Beeman told us? Only go for lunch. And he’s a native, and well known.”
Lev shrugged. “Well, we’re the last ones to get liberty, so after we go, maybe you should call him. Everybody else has had their chance at it.”
“Probably. Let’s go before it gets completely dark. At least we’ll only have to walk one way in the dark.”
A couple of divs later, Shanni pushed back from the table, “Wow. That… that was fantastic. Almost like we were back in the enclave. Now I need a gravsled to move my ass back to the Hab!”
Lev laughed. “Oh yes. Very good. Maybe we shouldn’t put this off limits. This would actually be a pretty nice place to have a party before we leave. But we don’t have a gravsled, and I’m not carrying your fat ass.”
Shanni got up with a groan, and they walked slowly to the door, saying “Salam” to the hostess and her husband as the left. They immediately started moving, unconsciously falling into the standard two-man tactical spread, even though they had no weapons beyond their kukris. They hadn’t moved more than a couple of blocks when a gang of men came out of an alley, knives and batons or pipes in their hands. Shanni quickly shifted into the roadway, “Hey guys, we’re not after you. We’re just going back to our Hab.”
Lev quickly hit the emergency call on his wrist comp saying softly, “Need some help, guys. We’re about to get stuck in. Two blocks from Star of India, main drag.” Drawing his kukri, he slid to the left as Shanni ducked an awkward blow from a pipe.
Shanni knocked the pipe away, stepped in close, and hammered a fist the man’s brachial plexus, knocking him out of the fight as he went to his knees. He got an arm up, deflected a baton as he drew his kukri, and then sliced the baton wielder’s tendons just above the wrist, putting him out of the fight. In the roiling fight that followed, Lev managed to get his back to a wall, ducking blows and weaving away from multiple strikes, smiling as the attackers kept getting in their own way. He took out two more of the attackers before one snuck a knife into his ribs as he ducked a baton from his other side. The attacker paid with his life, but Lev knew he was in trouble. “Shanni, I took one. Not good.”
Shanni fought his way to Lev’s side, dropping his third attacker. He flipped his knife to the other hand, and hooked his arm under Lev’s armpit, “Gotcha. There are only two left, let’s get across to the next building and…”
As they passed the mouth of the alley, a hooded man stepped silently out and fired needle gun rounds into the backs of both men, before disappearing back into the darkness. The two surviving attackers that could still move ran back toward the rough part of town as four of the Ghorka came charging down the street, rifles up.
***
The dual suns were peeking over Endine’s horizon when Fargo finally was granted permission to remove Shanni and Lev’s bodies. Jiri was doing his best to keep the rest of the company from going on a rampage, while Horse paced back and forth across the mouth of the alley, as he had been doing for most of the night, since Boykin had picked him up from Feeder Two. Thak and the others gently rolled Shanni and Lev into body bags, reverently replacing their bloody kukris in their sheaths without cleaning them.
That had been a totally separate battle with the local law enforcement, who wanted to confiscate the weapons as evidence. It finally took Colonel Zhu stepping in with the director and her personal orders to the locals to allow them to be released back to Fargo. Horse stomped over, “Ekavir, this I have found, there was one camera that shows what we may be able to get processed into a usable vid for facial recognition. These others were nothing but… Trash. I pulled Shanni and Lev’s lapel cameras, and scanned them, they were attacked without warning or talk. But I do not want those to disappear into this mud ball’s law enforcement. Our people need to know they went out fighting.”
Fargo nodded choppily, “Agreed. According to the colonel, all six of these”, motioning to the bodies now lined up on the street, “are indentured employees who’ve escaped from their servitude and disappeared into the nether world that apparently exists here. Yet another thing we weren’t briefed on.”
Thak approached them, “Captain, we are ready.”
Fargo nodded and keyed his comm unit, “WO, we’re coming. Drop the ramp when you see us please.” Turning to Thak and the others as they hoisted the bodies onto their shoulders, he said, “If you will.” He and H
orse stepped out into the street and began the slow march toward the shuttle a block away in the middle of a major intersection. The GalPat troopers snapped to attention and saluted as the small procession passed them on the way to the shuttle.
Once they were lowered gently to the deck of the shuttle, he climbed into the cockpit, “Straight back to the Palace please.”
Boykin nodded silently as a tear rolled down her face, then she faced forward and gently lifted the shuttle into the air on the anti-grav.
Aftermath
Nicole came in to hear Ophelia breathlessly saying, “Apparently they killed two of those off world security guys last night. My uncle says the two of them killed six of the people that attacked them.” She stuffed her bag in her assigned cubby, walked toward the vidscreen, picking up the scheduled menu offerings on the way. She stood looking at the reservations for the night as she heard Ophelia continue, “Apparently they landed a shuttle right in the middle of the main intersection blocking traffic for divs!” I need to talk to Ethan. If those were our folks that got hit… I’m not sure how much good I’m actually doing here. Lots of loose talk, but nothing really odd, or that I could actually point at as… rebellious. Maybe it’s time for me to come in out of the cold and help.
Nicole notice there were two private parties scheduled, one labeled Perez and one labeled 3G. As she was puzzling that out, Raymondo swished into the work area, clapped his hands, and said effeminately, “Girls, girls! We’re going to be so busy tonight! We have two privates and three quarters of the other tables are full. Mr. DuMaurier wants to make sure everybody is on their best behavior tonight, capiche?”
A mumbled round of “Okay, yes,” and groans followed Raymondo’s announcement, as he swished over to Nicole. She glanced down at the menu, noting a number of Italianish dishes, and smiled.
Raymondo stepped up and whispered, “You’re not to work the Perez party, only his estate wines will be served, so there is no reason, according to him, for a sommelier. Apparently Mr. Perez doesn’t like you for some reason, but I need you to work the third generation party and the main room.”