The Great Game Trilogy

by O. J. Lowe

  “Where you get it?” he asked, hot rage boiling inside him. If he’d had a weapon, Carson would be dead in a heartbeat. As it was, it was taking all his control to avoid jumping over the table and strangling him. Any hint of downplaying his feelings was lost as he leaned back and swallowed. The mission. The mission. There’s a mission and he needed to follow it through.

  “Picked it up on Carcaradis Island,” Carson said. “You seem distressed, Mister Roper. Are you perhaps having second thoughts about what the Mistress is attempting?”

  Nick smiled painfully at him, the simple act of curving his lips an effort. It was a false one, it lacked any sort of warmth or passion.

  “No,” he said. “My heart is as clear. I know the path I must take, and I intend to follow it to the end. I know that more than ever now.”

  “A troubled man,” Wim Carson said after Roper had been escorted away to his new quarters by the Taxeen. He’d been less than impressed with the choice of guards, informing Madam Coppinger on more than one occasion the Taxeen were vastly inferior to the Vedo that their subculture had loosely been inspired by.

  It wasn’t a lie either. He’d always been a student of history; he probably knew more than the two silent men did themselves. The Taxeen had been created some hundred years earlier by a crippled Vedo and although many weren’t Kjarn-sensitive, they could still fight. The kjarnblades had been cast aside in favour of the poisoned knives made from sharpened versions of their own removed finger bones. How fucking primitive, had been his reaction at the time and he hadn’t seen anything since to make him retract it. They were thugs rather than noble warriors. Scum. Expendable. A blight.

  Jerl Taxa, their founder had lost most of his fingers in a duel, he’d fashioned their method of killing by himself. For a time, he had served as the Vedo executioner until his mind had finally gone. Wim shuddered at that thought. It happened with all executioners. Every generation needed one, to cut down the Cavanda should they raise their heads, and ultimately the stress got to them and they were removed by their successor.

  In the case of Jerl Taxa, the successor had failed badly, and Taxa had fled into the night, forsaking the Kjarn forever or so the legend went. It was one he’d heard many times before, one that troubled him. To forsake the Kjarn disgusted him. Anyone who willingly did was nothing in his eyes, they were worse than cowards, they were traitors.

  Madam Coppinger had smiled at his assertions of inferiority and pointed out that she didn’t have Vedo, she had Taxeen and she intended to use them. “Troubled?”

  “Oh yes,” he said. “I sense much anger and sorrow in him.”

  “What about duplicity?”

  Wim hesitated. He couldn’t say for sure. His use of the Kjarn was still tenuous at best, still a fragile thing to grasp and while the raging emotions he’d heard were impossible to fake, he couldn’t say for sure. “I get the impression there is something he’s not telling us,” he said slowly. “But nothing more. I don’t sense any overt duplicity; I didn’t sense a lie in his words. But that doesn’t mean there are untruths there. He might just have supreme control. Some people are harder to read than others.”

  “It’s perhaps better not to take chances though,” she said. “Perhaps he should be questioned more thoroughly.”

  “Of course, I can’t be sure,” Wim said hurriedly. “If you believe he is of value, then perhaps he should not be tossed aside. You have a purpose earmarked for him, I assume.”

  “Better dead and guiltless rather than living and traitorous,” she said. “We shall see.” She reached into her pocket and withdrew the key he had found for her. Wim was still amazed by the phenomenon privately. He’d sensed it, once his abilities had returned, it had all been just a matter of pinpointing it, no easy task but one accomplished. “Either way, we have a trip to make, I assume.”

  “We do,” Wim said. “I will take you to the door, but I can go no further. That way lies madness for those not worthy. It is a path you must walk alone.”

  “If it is a road I can’t traverse alone, then I have no business walking it,” she said with a smile. It had almost as much emotion as the final one Roper had given him. There’d been something about the way he’d acted and spoken that felt wrong, like there was some piece of the puzzle he’d been missing. “Roper gets a reprieve until we return. Maybe then I can pass judgement. For now, I say he shall survive. Head says he’s a risk but it’s one my heart is telling me to take. He can be a strong asset for us.”

  She rose to her feet. “Gather your things for we depart soon.”

  He couldn’t hold it in. Nick had taken everything into consideration and now he judged it the time to act. He either needed to get to a communications post, or even better the cloaking device controls and disable it. If someone on the ground could see this ship, they’d investigate. Secrecy was Claudia Coppinger’s greatest weapon, blow that secret wide open and she’d be exposed. He exhaled sharply, glanced around his surroundings and sought out something, anything to give him an opening to deal with these two guards. Taxeen were raised to fight with the knife almost from birth, they were lethal with it.

  Not for nothing had he been trained by Unisco. He’d never stepped away from a fight before and he sure as hells wasn’t starting now. Nick grinned, flexed his knuckles as he kept walking. There was a doorway ahead, that looked promising, it was already sliding open as the three of them moved towards it. Both the Taxeen looked bored at their duties, babysitting someone they considered barely a threat. In a way, he enjoyed that, wasn’t often he was underestimated.

  “Hey, guys,” he said, glancing around at them. The one on the right was bigger, his eyes less alert than the one on the left. Neither of them was really anything less than intimidating. The left one had eyes like an overgrown weasel, they skittered across the corridor, seeking out anything and everything. He’d be the faster to react, Nick guessed. If there was going to be anything to do, then it’d need to be done to him first. Of course, it was all a matter of inches and split seconds. Deep breath. “Any chance I can catch a break while I’m here. Bathroom?” He let a pleasantly hopeful look flash across his face, walking backwards all the way to the door. Neither of them responded, other than a slight smirk across the face of the smaller one. He understood, Nick guessed. He just didn’t care. They weren’t going back to the cells now, he’d already guessed, he got the feeling he didn’t want to go where they had in mind for him next.

  “Please?” he said, allowing a pathetic note of pleading to enter his voice as he carefully stepped back through the door, halting on the other side. “Give a fella a break, yeah?”

  If the smaller guy came through first, it’d be better. If the bigger guy came first; Nick’d be in trouble. By the time he had him down, the smaller guy would be all over him.

  Fate smiled for the smaller guy came first, and Nick was already in motion, throwing one of Tod Brumley’s patented love taps towards his face. He’d always thought the name was amusing, a rare piece of wit on Brumley’s part. Land it properly and they’ll be swept off their feet, he’d said with a smirk. It was completely out of the blue; he shouldn’t have seen it coming, even so, he’d very nearly dodged it.

  Nearly. Not nearly enough. The little guy staggered, Nick’s blow bouncing off the side of his skull, it took a snap kick to his side to send him smashing off the frame of the door and out for the count. No time for a breather, he was already at the big guy, knife was already sliding out of his sleeve and into his palm. No time to be gentle either, Nick sprang and delivered a crushing palm straight into his windpipe, all his weight behind it. One free shot, Brumley had always said and he’d made it count. The big guy bellowed like a bull, fell back and hit the ground, scrabbling at his throat. Amidst his frenzied struggles, a wet burbling broke from him as he unwittingly buried his own blade into his chest. His eyes went wide, his struggles slowed but Nick didn’t have time to wait for him to die. Places to be and all that. He was grateful this Taxeen hadn’t lived up to the reputatio
n.

  He'd barely made it more than several feet when the alarms went off and he froze stock still, just for a moment. It sounded like they were echoing through the ship, he cursed his actions. Someone must have seen him act and pushed the button.

  Without a choice, he ran.

  “Yeah, I see it, Director.”

  With Jacques Leclerc and Alvin Noorland behind the controls of the aeroship, they’d made good progress towards the coordinates given to them by John Cyris. In a way really, he’d been more than helpful. David Wilsin just wasn’t sure it was a good thing or not. People were very rarely that helpful unless they had an ulterior motive. Granted Cyris did want to be free of them minus any sort of charges levelled against him. And he did want them to stop harassing him. Having them walk into unnecessarily dangerous situations was not a good way to get that done.

  He'd told them everything, or at least he claimed to. Wilsin wasn’t quite inclined to believe him, even if Arnholt had been very interested to hear it all. He’d taken it straight to the Five Kingdoms Senate, had managed to get approval for a task force to converge with them in record time. Word had it he’d called in every favour he had. They’d be here in hours. Enough time for the team to get in, get Roper and deal with Claudia Coppinger before the airbase was blown straight to the hells. It was a simple plan, maybe that was what worried him. Everyone was here on the ship, barring Arnholt and Okocha. Even Brendan had deigned to come along, sat there in armour and muffler just like everyone else, weapon resting across his lap.

  “Guess Cyris wasn’t selling us a pony on some levels,” Fagan remarked. “How easy is this going to be?”

  “Put it this way,” Derenko said. “Going to make our last mission to Cubla Cezri look pleasant.”

  “Fuck me, it’s huge!” That came from Mel Harper. Wilsin had to agree. It sat like a fat bloated spider amid the clouds, thick chunks of metal resting against fluffy white background with an aura of menace. “It’s going to take most of the fleet to knock that thing out.”

  “Guess we best work fast then,” Brendan said. “I don’t want to be caught on that thing when they start to hammer it.”

  The large size hologram of Arnholt sat in the middle of the floor nodded sagely. “This is not going to be easy by any stretch. We all have our tasks, we all need to perform to the best of our ability. This action has been sanctioned, with great difficulty, I might add, and a task force devoted to it. We are the advance wave, we need to get Roper out and deal with Claudia Coppinger. Our intelligence hints at more personnel than we can deal with, so we’ll be the advance guard in one of their own vehicles before the task force shows up. Hopefully we can use that as a distraction to make our move through the facility. Lethal force. Our sources tell us we can expect a hostile reception. Chief King will lead the force to find Coppinger, Agent Derenko will take his team and search for our missing agent.”

  The projection sighed, looked tired for a moment. Wilsin felt a brief stab of sympathy for Arnholt. Then he remembered he wasn’t the one who was probably about to start getting shot at and the sympathy faded. Both him and Okocha were far, far away from here, well out of danger.

  “You’ve studied the data. Everything we have, everything we could take from John Cyris. It needs to be enough. You’ve all been well trained, known a day like this would come where your lives will be put on the line for the sake of freedom. It is a cost you may have to pay but know that with what you do today, others may live.”

  “Bravo,” Lysa said dryly. “We don’t need an inspirational speech, Director. We know what we got to do.”

  “We just need inspirational music!” Wilsin quipped. “Preferably nothing by Ulysses Forty or Premesoir Dreams.”

  “I like Premesoir Dreams,” Noorland said. “Bit of Rock All Night does it for me.”

  “Really?” Fank Aldiss asked, raising an eyebrow. “That’s your song of choice for banishing pre-mission nerves?”

  “Yeah. We can’t all like Tamara Wise.”

  “Hey, I don’t…”

  “You do, Fank. You claim not to like her, but I’ve seen your playlists.”

  “Hey, she makes me feel things!”

  “She makes a lot of people feel things. With me it’s nausea but hey ho.” Noorland grinned as he said it.

  “I’d hit Tamara Wise,” Wilsin said, glancing around. “Right in every single hole. Am I the only one who’d do that?”

  “Nah,” Lysa said, giving him a thumbs-up. Towards the back of the aeroship, Anne Sullivan had sat pensively, deep in thought, not saying anything so far. She’d only shown up for the briefing, unavailable to interrogate Cyris. She looked like something was troubling her, but for the life of him, Wilsin couldn’t work out what it was. Privately he didn’t care, too busy thinking about Lysa and Tamara Wise. A nice image.

  “Anyway,” Noorland said. “Pilot normally picks the tunes, so on the way back, I’m blasting out Rock All Night all the way home.” He sounded confident, Wilsin noticed, unsure if that was a good thing or not.

  “Damn, almost hope we don’t make it now,” Tod Brumley said. For him, it almost passed as a joke, the silence that followed painful as they approached the ship.

  “We’re going to make it, you know,” Brendan said, breaking the quiet as Noorland and Leclerc guided the aeroship down towards the docking bay, Leclerc bluffing his way through with someone on the other end. Cyris’ details had turned out to be accurate on that front, he’d provided them with authorisation codes and proper procedures, based on what he’d managed to glean from his pilot, the man currently in Unisco custody.

  “This is it though,” Derenko said as the hologram of Arnholt faded away with assurances that the fleet was on its way. “This is how it starts.”

  Chapter Fifteen. Freedom isn’t Free.

  “Just because something sounds too unbelievable to be true doesn’t necessarily mean it is, just that you should reserve your opinion until you can be sure.”

  Ruud Baxter to Sharon Arventino, a long time ago.

  The third day of Summerfall.

  It felt eerily quiet minus the presence of the other Unisco agents on the island. With just him and Okocha remaining, Arnholt settled into his seat and studied the feeds around him. He wanted to know as much of what was happening up in the air as possible, mainly if it was going to blow up in his face or not. He wasn’t going to lie to himself, there’d been moments he’d truly doubted what John Cyris had to say. The man was a proven liar, a cheat and one of the worst criminals ever to hit the five kingdoms, no crime too depraved for him to avoid, except perhaps maybe this. His tales of a woman seeking ascension to godhood might just have been too ridiculous to believe, except it tied in with what they had, did explain a lot of things. Too much had happened for it all to be coincidence. He couldn’t just let it go now. Sometimes you had to take a chance, a big one it turned out. If everything had been proven false, it might have been the end of him as director of Unisco. But the audio confirmation from his team high above had lifted some of the weight from his shoulders, leaving him feeling vindicated. He just needed the mission to be a success now.

  He’d moved wheels within wheels to get everything into place, called in favours and although not quite reached the point of begging, there’d been moments when it had almost approached that. Cyris’ story of a flying airbase, heavily armed and exceptionally dangerous belied belief, he was aware. Hence the need for confirmation before the fleet came in, a delicate balancing act. Cyris had told them the airbase carried several compliments of fighters and enough on-board personnel to cut down any force sent against it. Hence, Arnholt knew the fleet was not only key to blowing the base to smithereens, but to draw as many of the enemy out as possible for his team to do the job.

  Eliminate Claudia Coppinger. Retrieve Nick Roper. Two simple objectives with so much potential for going wrong. He’d struggled with the first, elimination seemed a little harsh for a first step, but orders had come from above. He couldn’t do anything but have them fol
lowed. People who weren’t in the know about Unisco often brought up how their remit seemed to fluctuate wildly from case to case, that those who should be killed were often spared in the line of duty and the reverse. Every mission every agent took part in had its own parameters. A good complement of agents around the world did focus more on the domestic side of things, just as an even smaller complement needed to function as little more than assassins. another balancing act. This mission was no different. Dead was preferable. Of course, if she could be taken alive…

  He dismissed the thought immediately. Deviating from orders would do nobody any favours. They had to just hope that casualties were kept at a minimum. The fleet had been given their conformation to department. They would already be converging on the coordinates and within moments, the two forces would meet.

  “Divines help us all,” he said. Across the room, Okocha fiddling with a control panel, glanced over. “Because only you can judge what we do here today.”

  “Might be a little late for prayer, Director,” Okocha said softly. He’d opened a can of soola and put it down on the desk next to him. Arnholt could smell the peppermint from across the room. “But I guess every little bit helps, right?”

  “I think we’re going to need every little bit of help we can get here to avoid our team being wiped out,” Arnholt said. “I’m not normally a religious man. Today I think I can see the benefits to it.”

  They came flying out of the midmorning sun, most of the advance guard spotting their objective moments before it appeared on their sensor boards. Aboard his flagship, the Wild Stallion, Allied Kingdom Admiral Gary Criffen had a bad feeling about what lay ahead. Yet stood alone in his command post aboard the great dreadnought, he tried not to show it. Whether they be ill-advised or not, he had his orders and he would follow them. The Senate hadn’t scrimped on the task force under his command. They were taking it seriously.