by T S Paul
“This is taking too long. Sergeant Carter, we need to get past them to the stairs.”
“Yes, Ma’am. Private Everley, can you toss a flasher over that desk from here?” Dar’s men were crouching behind the reception area couches and tables.
“Yes, sir. I will most certainly try.” The man was new to the unit but was very capable.
“Everley, what is it we say in Spec ops? There is no try! Do it!”
As Dar watched, the defenders fired a burst at them and ducked behind the desk. Everley tossed a couple of flashers over the desk from across the room. There was a cry of surprise then a bright flash. Her men rushed the desk to find one man trying to rub his eyes out, his clothing still smoking from the flash. The other was on his back bleeding out from shrapnel wounds, he too was smoking.
“Everley check the charges on those flashers they may be set too high. The idea is to blind them not set them on fire.” Dar just shook her head at the newbie.
Everley looked at Sergeant Carter questioningly. “They can be adjusted?”
The Sergeant shook his head and told him they would talk after the mission.
“Sergeant, get those men out to Martian EMS. Do not allow them onto the grounds without supervision. Understood?”
“Yes, Ma’am. I understand.” He glanced around him for a moment. “Everley, Boyle? Grab these guys and get them outside like the Lieutenant wants.” The two spec Ops men carried the wounded Marines outside and passed them off to the waiting EMS crew. Checking to make sure the two men were in good hands with Martian security they ran back to the main building.
“Okay, boys by my count there are only about a half dozen Embassy Marines left to worry about. Keep your eyes peeled. Watch for Embassy personnel that may be civilians but they may be armed. Carter, you and Everley stay here and guard the lobby. Stop anyone that tries to sneak out. The snipers will watch the back and assist where needed.” Ignoring the powerless lift, she led her man through the door and down the stairwell.
According to the plans that Wilson provided, there was only one level underneath her feet. This was where she would find her best friend and lover.
Dar and her remaining soldier braced themselves when they heard a shouting followed by a loud shot. A doorway at the end of the hall was open just a bit.
“Marcus! Drag this idiot out of my sight. Use Greg is you have to.” The two large door guards approached the Marine chief. Marcus was still limping. His knee was causing him a great deal of pain. The older man was lying on the floor gasping for breath as he bled out. They grabbed his arms and dragged him over by the wall. They were out of position when Dar and her fighter burst in.
Peeking through the crack in the door, Dar could see Athena hanging from the ceiling over a vat of water. A red-headed man was standing in front of her saying something. Off to the right, two large men were dragging the visibly bleeding Master Chief.
Dar motioned to Boyle, they would burst in together. She would take the two on the right if he got the lone man in the middle. Boyle nodded his confirmation. They checked their weapons and charged!
Chapter 6
“Dad! What do you make of this message from Mars?” Minerva had received an emergency message from the Mars Consulate addressed to both her and her father.
The Colonel had read the message and changed several colors in front of her. His eyes grew wider the more he read. “Minerva… “
“What does that say? Is it Athena? Is she hurt? What is going on?” She loved her father but he could be really frustrating.
Alexander Lee took a deep breath. “When the message arrived Ambassador Phillips arrested Athena and charged her with collusion and forgery. He has her locked in a cell beneath the Embassy.”
“What! What is that idiot thinking?” All Minerva could think is what kind of fools do we have representing us on Mars?
“Arthur Phillips’ family has been our ambassadors for half a century. Even when we joined the Empire they still represented our planet. I can understand his objection to the orders.”
“OK, what is this collusion thing?”
Alexander grimaced. “I can only assume that your sister made contact with your mother’s family on Mars.”
“Why do you say that?” Min had never seen the look that was on her father’s face before.
“I think the message header was a giveaway. It says ‘Alexander You Idiot!’ When I spoke to you girls about Mars, I left a few things out. Amalie Dorr, the Primus of Mars, is your great-grandmother.”
“Wait… Primus, the leader of the Martian government is a relative?”
“Yes. She sort of dislikes me, just a bit.” He seemed a bit shamefaced.
“Why does she not like you? Wait, you said that our family on Mars was unaware of us!”
“Yeah, I sort of lied about that. Your mother kept her informed about all of her children. She’s not happy with me for not telling her of Amelia’s death. She had to send her Consulate spies to find out what happened. I did say I was sorry, but it didn’t matter.”
“Back to Athena, they have her in a cell? Why does the embassy have cells? They aren’t interrogating her are they?”
“Amalie does not know. She only knows what Wilson has told her. Dar’s strike force is still free. Wilson prevented her from reporting in. When this message was written there was a plan in motion to attack the embassy and free her.”
“You did not answer my question. Why the cells?” Min was beginning to see what Athena meant about their father. It was like pulling teeth sometimes to get him to tell the truth.
“Some of our history is not all happy and light. It was my understanding that the interrogation suite and cells were dismantled after the revolution. Their existence is one of the reasons that Amalie and myself do not get along.”
“If I am to lead our people, I need the truth! Now give it to me! This is what we staged a revolution for! Lies in government are not the way to go.”
“Fine. You want the truth, here it is. This is an agricultural planet, it was founded by the Old Earth UN to be a resource planet instead of a free colony. Our ancestors broke away from the influences of the UN and established our own way in the galaxy. Because the settlers here were intended to be little more than slaves, only agricultural technology and supplies were sent.”
“That can’t be right. I’ve been on some of our earliest ships. We have technology and science. This is a core world for the old League!” Her mind raced to understand what he was saying.
“The first couple of ships belonging to this planet were stolen from their owners. We were one of the few planets that Earth gov tried to enforce UN rules upon. Many of the Canadian and Greek settlers were government agents disguised as colonists. Once they got here, they tried to take over. We stopped them. A few came over to our side and helped to build up the planet. We have been a united people for two centuries.” He shook his head and stared at the floor. “Our early technology was stolen from other worlds. Mars was a bit different. We only made contact with them a century ago. Your great-grandmother was in charge then as she is today. Martian security caught our spies at work at least fifty years ago. Relations between our worlds were tense for many years. The trade mission that I was a part of also brought an apology to her with the promise to destroy the cells. As I said earlier. Those facilities were supposed to have been destroyed.”
“Are we still stealing from other governments?”
“No. We are not supposed to be. That may be another reason that your sister is under arrest. By the God’s! What a mess this is going to be! I need to call Governor Stoner and read the Assembly into what is happening. Keep an eye on things here for me please?”
Min nodded to her father as he left the house. Too many secrets. Athena was right again. She sat at the table staring out the window deep in thought until something touched her leg making her jump. She bent down and scooped up Merlin, Wilson’s cat. The metallic robot cat started to purr and nudge her coffee like a real cat would
. It has been spending too much time with the real cats on the farm. They had been frightened of it, but eventually they just ignored it like the drones in the big barn. Cats are adaptable.
Just another thing that Athena had dropped into her lap. Only a crazy AI would have a pet that he can’t touch. At least it doesn’t poop. She spoke too soon as a port opened in its rear and a collection of circuit boards, wires, sensor parts, and what looked like buckles fell out of the cat. Peering at the electronic parts she recognized several as bug components. Did the cat eat a surveillance unit? But what is the rest of this stuff? Using her teaspoon Minerva poked at the buckles. They were very similar to the ones on her new shoes. Flipping one over she read the name on the back. The ‘cat’ had been watching her and suddenly made itself scarce. Minerva jumped up from the table and ran to her room. Holding the shredded remains of her new thousand credit designer shoes she yelled at the top of her lungs, “Wilson!”
Alexander Lee left his family home in a rush. His driver dropped him and his security detail at the capitol building. The Governor was expecting him. “Alex, what is this all about?”
“Well Governor the ghosts of our past have come home to haunt us. My daughter is under arrest by our ambassador on Mars.” Alexander filled his boss in on what the message had said.
“Roy, I told Minerva the real truth of our spy network. I was under the impression that we dismantled that over thirty years ago.”
The Governor looked shocked. “We did. I gave the orders myself. I guess that Arthur Phillips didn’t do what he was told. Now it all comes back to bite us in the ass! Hindsight, don’t ya know.”
“The big question here is will Amalie use this against us? Some inside our own Government will surely do that very thing.”
“That is true however, we can lay the blame for it at Arthur Phillips feet. That program was discontinued well before we joined the Empire. I did not give the order to revive it. Let’s get the Senator in charge of the intelligence unit in here.” Governor Stoner stepped out of his office and gave the order for Senator Hawg to be brought in. The two men sat discussing the weather, crop schedules, and fishing while they waited.
“Governor what is so damn important that I had to come over here in the middle of the damn night!” The Senator was older and tended to be very vocal about things.
“J D, we called for you because we have a problem.” The two men proceeded to fill the Senator in with what happened. “Have to ask J D. Did you order the spy program brought up to date?”
The older man looked the Governor in the eye and told him, “No. I did not. However, one of my lieutenants brought the subject up a just after the Revolution. I not only told him no, I told him hell no! We sure didn’t need that ball of wax coming back into our lives. Now here it is.”
“Who was this officer of yours?”
“He was new. Came from New Belfast or at least that is what he said. Everything checked out. Someone from the Governor… Damn it to hell!” The older man bowed his head after shaking it. “Sir, it is my fault. If you want my resignation, I will understand.”
“What did you do?”
“I trusted someone. As I was about to say that officer checked out because someone from the Sector Governor’s office cleared him. We have been infiltrated by the Cabal. I have potential Cabal agents searching for the Cabal. The irony does not fail me.”
“J D how could you have been so blind?” Alexander just shook his head. They now had zero way of finding them until they acted.
“Trust is a sacred thing, and I have betrayed yours. Sorry, Roy.”
“Forget about all that. What do we do to fix it? Somehow, we need to know who is on our side.”
Chapter 7
Major Ishii spun in surprise when the door burst open. He reached for his gun but was too late as a black-clad soldier tackled him. Out of the corner of his eye he could see another attacking his two men.
Dar rolled into the room and immediately attacked the two men dragging Chief Kirkland. She punched the man closest to her hard in the kidneys, followed by a left to the head. Greg flew back in surprise and pain as she engaged the second man. Marcus was still holding the fallen Marine as she swung at him. He tried to dodge her swing but was against the wall with nowhere to go. Her right punch glanced off of his shoulder. Dar recovered from the impact and swung back with her left, this time holding a baton. The collapsible steel rod broke the big man’s nose when it struck his face. Crying out in pain Marcus lunged at Dar, knocking her to the floor. He loomed over her. He reached down to grab her as she kicked upward catching him in the groin. As he faltered, she rolled to one side and hit him with her stunner. He collapsed to the floor in a heap. She looked around, Greg was nowhere to be found. Dar checked the body of Chief Kirkland. She was too late; the Marine had bled out and died on the floor.
Dar ran over to Boyle, he was kneeling on top of the struggling man. With her help Boyle was able to immobilize the redheaded man’s arms and cuff him. She looked over at Athena and found her watching the display.
“There is my knight in shining armor!” Athena grinned. Even upside down she looked good to Dar.
“Just hanging around while we do all the work as usual, I see.” Dar had a smirk on her face.
“You know how it is, babe. I let you big strong Marines do all the heavy lifting.”
“Would you like us to get you down from there? Or are you taking a nap like a bat?”
“Please, Dar. Get me down. I have had enough of the Major’s hospitality.”
Dar turned and looked at the squirming man on the floor. “He’s a major?”
“Yeah, Major asshole. Meet Major Shirō Ishii the embassy’s intelligence head and secret Cabal spy.” At the word Cabal, Dar kicked the Major in the ribs.
“Dar! Save it for later. We still need to capture the ambassador unless you have done so already?”
“As far as I know not yet. The rest of my team is either outside or upstairs right now.” Dar cradled me as Boyle cut me down.
“Athena are you OK? Did they… Did they abuse you like last time?” I smiled at my sweetheart, she really did care about me.
“No, I’m fine. Just a little water boarding.” She smiled back at me and looked at me up and down. “What?”
“Just so you know, that outfit? Yellow is not the new Black. We need to find you something less bright to wear.”
“Ha ha. Smartass! We need to interrogate these two! Do we have help?”
“Yes, Amalie sent help, but I kept them off embassy grounds. They are just outside the fence.”
I thought for a moment. No matter what happened next I was the new Ambassador, and I needed to think like one. “Let’s take them upstairs. We can chain them there until Amalie’s personal security and Gaston are available. I don’t trust anyone else.”
Dar looked at me and said, “Agreed.” She grabbed the larger man and Boyle, the Major. They began dragging the two men toward the stairwell.
“What’s wrong with the lift?” I pushed the lift button for up.
“Hon, there is no power…” Just then the lift doors opened.
“Damn that Wilson, sorry I forgot.” She and Boyle loaded the bodies onto the lift. In my head I could hear Wilson chuckling. “Sergeant Carter? Five coming up on the lift.”
The lift doors opened to up to the ground floor. Dar’s two Marines were waiting for us with guns drawn. Seeing it was really us they reached in and dragged the two immobilized men out.
“Status report!”
“Ma’am, the ground floor is still secure. Three embassy Marines tried to sneak out a backdoor but team one took them out. We’ve heard movement upstairs, but no one has attempted to come down, yet.”
“Good. Everley, run out to the gate’s and contact Primus Amalie’s personal representative. He is a short little man named Gaston. Bring him back to us.” Everley ran for the gates. I sat down on one of the few surviving pieces of furniture left in the room.
“Nice job on
the lobby, Dar.” This place needed a refresher, anyway.
“They shot back at us. It happens.”
“Ambassador Lee, did you call for me?” Gaston was in the doorway with a big smile on his face.
“Gaston! Nice to see you. I was wondering if Amalie would do us a favor?”
“For you anything, Amalie’s orders.”
“We have two valuable prisoners so far. The Major admitted to being a member of the Cabal.”
“Did he really? How interesting.”
“What is even more interesting is the questions that he wanted me to answer. He wanted to know what my friend Sam told me. Tell Amalie that I will have Wilson send her the recording. Can you stash these two somewhere safe for us?”