Beyond the Rim (Rebels and Patriots Book 2)

by A. G. Claymore

  “Their motivations make sense from their own, immortal perspective.” Ava smiled, waving at Saoirse who was keeping the security detail on their toes. “They place little value on our lives because of our short spans. They see us as a disposable resource.”

  “And yet,” Paul cut in, “they fail to make the simple leap of logic needed to see how we would place so much value on the short lives we have?”

  She nodded, gesturing to her family. “Especially when it concerns our children’s futures. They simply can’t form effective predictions where we’re concerned.”

  She frowned at a commotion ahead. Two men had stepped out of a side alley, hands held out to their sides to indicate they weren’t armed. Saoirse’s personal security detail was aiming weapons at them as she shouted something at her guards.

  They moved back a few paces, still aiming at the two men.

  Paul had seen the two before and he’d put names to their faces using the personnel records from the 538. “I know who they are,” he said, placing a hand on Ava’s shoulder. “I don’t think they represent any danger to us.”

  Saoirse was looking back at Paul, clearly waiting for him to catch up.

  “Who are they?” Ava asked.

  “They’re two of the Marines that were holding your daughter,” he replied. “I let them live in the hope that they might show up out here.”

  “So I can kill them myself?”

  “Let’s put a pin in that for now,” he replied mildly, “and see what they want to tell us first.”

  “Armstead.” Paul nodded at the first man before turning to the second, a middle-aged man who was listed as a lance corporal in the files of the 538. “Rodrigues, what brings you out here this evening?”

  Both men looked a little disconcerted at being known by name but Rodrigues pulled himself together. “You were a Marine,” he said, “or you wouldn’t have been able to take those suits.”

  Paul nodded. “I was in the 488.” It had been how he’d come to the attention of the powerful Nathaniel family.

  Rodrigues nodded. “You’ve served on your fair share of dirtballs, then.” His head leaned a bit to the left. “You ever see a street vendor making crawler stew?”

  Paul knew what the man was getting at. The crawlers were alive when they went into the warm broth. The temperature was raised so gently they didn’t notice until it was too late and their nervous system shut down.

  “You’re trying to tell me that Seneca and his pals chipped away at the honor of the 538 so gradually that nobody questioned him until it was too late?”

  Rodrigues gave him a half-shrug, half-headshake. “Whatever his role was, we still let it happen, so I suppose I’m wasting everybody’s time even bringing it up.”

  As a matter of fact, Paul agreed. He remained silent, staring at the man. Silence was one of the best interrogation techniques and he used it often.

  Every passing moment grew more awkward and Rodrigues finally broke the silence.

  “It was the Grays that brought us here,” he admitted. “Whatever remained of the 538 was smuggled out of the Gliese system and brought out here.”

  “They were behind the abduction,” Paul said with sudden certainty.

  A nod. “I’m not exactly privy to their plans, but they have some of our boys serving as a security detail for Avery Kirkwood.”

  “Kirkwood?” Ava nearly hissed. “The CEO of Herman-Billingsly?”

  Paul looked at her, the question obvious on his face.

  “They’re trying to position themselves for the next management contract to run Roanoke, which is odd, seeing as it’s still three years until the next election.”

  “Yes,” Thomas cut in, “but it might just explain why there’ve been so many scandals with Clerestory lately. Any buzz they create now will be forgotten by election time, but what if the election date suddenly got moved up?”

  “Those chalky little bastards!” Ava’s face was flushed. “The Grays want to cause a recall and put their own proxy in charge!”

  “What’s more, they’ll do it with your votes,” Paul added. “And folks say the Grays have no sense of humor.”

  “So that’s why they didn’t want me talking in public,” she exclaimed, staring into the darkness between the two men.

  “I take it you prefer Clerestory?”

  “Prefer it?” She looked up at Paul. “I have a large share-position in Clerestory.”

  “Wouldn’t that be a conflict of interest?”

  Ava laughed. “Only in the Imperium and only if you were too poor to ignore the laws. Here, folks only trust you if you put your money where your mouth is. Owning shares in Clerestory is considered a statement of earnest.”

  She looked at the guards flanking the two Marines. “Keep them here for now.” She looked at Paul and gave him a nod to the other side of the street.

  “Better go to the dock,” he advised her. “These boys’ll have augmented hearing.” He nodded at her raised eyebrows. “Nothing too expensive, just the standard combat gear they take back when you leave. It’s supposed to be like going deaf all of a sudden when you’re demobilized.”

  They turned to head for the dock, Saoirse and Thomas following, but Paul stopped and turned back to the guards. “Stay well clear of these two, at least five meters and keep your fingers near the triggers. These two’ll be on you faster than you can think ‘Oh shit!’, so stay on your toes.”

  He caught the pleased smile on the Marines’ faces as he turned back to catch up with his sister. He did just give them a compliment, after all. He was annoyed to find a small hint of sympathy sneaking in under his guard.

  If someone had ordered Paul to assault a defenseless settlement filled with civilians and children, he would have refused the order. Hell, he would have given serious thought to detaining whoever had given him such an order.

  But what if someone had ordered him to bend a few rules here and there? There was nothing new in that. He did it on a regular basis serving with the Imperial Corps of Inspectors.

  What if that led to bigger rules being bent or broken? What if that led to posing as an insurgent on Irricana? The Imperium was in a constant covert civil war, had been for centuries, and it was hard for a soldier to know illegal orders when he heard them.

  Still, holding a young girl hostage was a pretty hard line to cross without noticing.

  He reached the dock just after Ava and her family. Thomas was pressing an argument on his mother.

  “… and if we do nothing about this, the information loses its value,” he whispered.

  “We can talk normally, Thomas,” Paul assured him. “We’re far enough here.”

  “Tom has a good point,” Ava said. “Stuff like this has a very short shelf life, but what will the Grays do if we out them?”

  “Well, I’m no expert on Roanokan politics,” Paul began, “but I’ve had some dealings with the Grays…”

  “Yeah,” Ava cut him off with a mischievous grin, “grand theft starship.”

  “Several counts, as it turns out,” he replied mildly, “and they have their equivalent of a price on my head. Every Gray knows I’m a priority target, and that’s a key factor in this discussion – they’re meticulous.

  “They sort out every detail, and model the various scenarios until they know the plan inside out. When elements change, they have contingencies already in place to deal with them.” He nodded at Saoirse. “When a key element is compromised, the contingency is usually an exit strategy.”

  Ava frowned. “So, they might be shutting down from their end, but what about Avery Kirkwood? Whether or not he’s even aware of the Gray connection, he’s committed to a trajectory. He might go ahead and throw the dice anyway.”

  Paul nodded. “I imagine he’ll try to force an early election, if he can discredit the Clerestory corporation. If,” he added, “the Grays don’t liquidate him.”

  “Ok.” Ava looked out to the water. “From the Gray standpoint, what’s the probable impact of a full dis
closure? If we go to the media with everything, including their involvement, what sort of response should we expect?”

  Paul took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Like I said, they have a backup plan; even if it may not make a lot of sense, they’ll have one.” He looked at his niece. “Losing control of their hostage – that kicks a smaller backup plan into gear. Probably just a shut-down from their end.

  “Outing Herman-Billingsly as the company behind her abduction – that’ll kick a bigger set of backup plans into action. If they haven’t already decided to kill off their primary Human contacts, this would ensure that they do.”

  “What happens if we reveal the Gray connection?” Saoirse asked.

  Paul spread out his hands, palm upwards. “That’s the real unknown,” he admitted. “Our first two scenarios leave them thinking they’re still in control of the situation. They can be predictable, in their own way, if you leave them in their comfort zone.

  “But exposing their involvement will worry them. They’ll be more likely to take drastic action and we have no idea what else they may have in their bag of tricks. Their reaction will be impossible to predict.”

  “Right, then,” Ava said forcefully, “we’ll expose the Human side of the conspiracy and leave the Grays in the shadow, for now. I’m not inclined to waste ammunition, especially if it’s perishable. Saying nothing will negate the value of everything we’ve learned.

  “Outing Herman-Billingsly will protect Clerestory, as well as lending credence to any later accusations we might want to level at them for colluding with the Grays.” She shrugged. “The Gray angle will lose much of its effect with time, but we should be able to preserve some of its punch by getting the first shot in now.”

  “I doubt they’d come after your daughter again,” Paul added. “Once their role in the original abduction is exposed, they’d be crazy to make a second attempt.”

  She looked at Paul. “Good work, Justice Grimm. Now let’s get up to the house and organize a statement with the news aggregators.”

  She led them back, first to collect the two Marines and then to her house. “Edward,” she greeted her servant politely, “please book me a media slot for one centi-day from now.”

  The older man’s eyes twinkled. “Councillor Klum is finally returning to the news cycle? I should buy stock in the central net server farm before I place the spot!”

  “You really should,” she told him earnestly. “This is going to be a pretty big blip. You might even retire, if you buy into the aggregators themselves. You could retire early!”

  He grinned. “This job is all the retirement I need, but I won’t say no to easy credits!” With that, he turned and disappeared through a door behind the stairs.

  She turned to the two Marines. “You just stand there and keep your mouths shut. We’ll sort you out later.”

  Edward came back out, followed by a small swarm of camera droids. “The aggregators are already knocking holes in their schedules.” He waved at the cameras. “Shall we begin?”

  “Let’s go!” Ava stepped out to stand slightly in front of the rest of the group. “Good evening, Roanoke,” she began, “by the time you see this, I’ll have left the surface, but I felt I should explain my recent absence both from public life and from leading my fleet.

  “Several weeks ago, my daughter was kidnapped. I was given clear orders to stay out of the public eye by people connected to Herman-Billingsly.

  “It might interest you to know that recent stories presenting Clerestory in a bad light have coincided with their competitor applying pressure to keep me quiet. It becomes even more interesting when you think about the election-style media spots that Herman-Billingsly has been purchasing, even though the next election should be years away.

  “As always, I’m not going to over explain the situation. I leave it to you to do the thinking for yourself. When you give up thinking, your freedom will be the next thing to go.

  “That’s all I have to say, folks. I’m late for work.”

  She walked forward until Edward gave her a nod. “The swarm is off,” he told her as the cameras flew back through the door behind the stairs. “I’ll do the usual edits and have it ready for distribution.”

  She turned back to the Marines. “Now, what about you two?”

  Rodrigues looked at Armstead, then back to her. “We’re no angels, but we are tired of doing dirty work for folks who want to keep their hands clean. We figured we’d tell you what we know and go look for work, if you let us live.”

  “Yeah,” Ava replied, drawing the word out. “About that – I was told you’d kill my daughter, if I didn’t follow instructions.”

  Both men’s eyes grew wide. “Kill her?” Armstead blurted. “That bastard said we’d just hold on to her for a while and we’d turn her loose!”

  Rodrigues put a calming hand on the man’s shoulder. “Look, if we were supposed to kill her,” he said, swinging his gaze back to Ava, “then this is the first we’re hearing about it.”

  “Easy enough to say,” Ava replied coldly, “but how do I know it’s true?”

  “Saoirse…” Paul pointed at Rodrigues. “What’s his name?”

  “George,” she replied, frowning at him, “why?”

  It was a good start, but how much did George Rodrigues share with her? “Does he have kids?”

  “Uh, well, yeah. He has a daughter who’s in her twenties. He figures he’ll never see her again, now he’s been dragged out here.”

  “So he says,” Ava pointed out.

  “No.” Paul shook his head. “It’s true. When I was on my way to Irricana, I downloaded every scrap of data I could get my hands on. He has a twenty-six-year-old daughter.

  “Saoirse, how long were you a prisoner before you knew that?”

  “A couple of days, why?”

  “Because a man who knows he might have to kill you doesn’t want to know you and he sure as hell isn’t going to tell you about his own family. Maybe after a few weeks you might have worn him down but two days?”

  Paul shook his head. “This guy was never going to kill you.”

  “Yeah, well I didn’t know that, did I?” Ava’s right hand brushed her hip where her sidearm usually hung. “I spent the last few weeks dreaming about the agony I’d inflict on her captors. It’s a little hard to feel any goodwill for them, regardless of their actual intent.”

  “Still,” Paul replied evenly, “it might be enough to justify their continued existence, which is a good thing, considering how they might be of use to us.”

  He nodded at Rodrigues. “Who’s the he you said gave you your orders?”

  “Colonel Kinsey. The Grays picked him up from a shuttle near the Santa Clara system. He came here on the same ship we did.”

  “Kuàilè de guòchéng!” Paul exclaimed. “Kinsey?” He wrinkled his nose. “Rufus – bagman – Kinsey? I handed that steaming pile of grazer dung over to the Eye myself.” He shook his head. “The jackass must have given his testimony against Seneca in exchange for exile.”

  “Sounds like one of those Gray backup plans you were just talking about,” Ava mused. “They might have told him to try for exile, if he got caught. That way they’d have someone to control the leftover Marines from the 538.”

  Paul nodded. “These guys definitely have value. I’d rather not see them turned loose to melt back into obscurity. We need to keep them close.”

  Ava took a deep breath. “Alright, you two are coming with us. Let’s get moving or I’ll still be here when that message airs and I’ll have lied about already being offworld.”

  Joining Forces

  Julia didn’t think she missed the Imperium, but being on Hatteras Station triggered a flood of childhood memories. As a young girl, she’d been shipped off to a private school on Nari Station. The natives on Ganges had been far more restive back then and Governor Urbica had wanted his only child where she couldn’t be harmed by rebellion.

  She’d loved Nari. It was a place of exuberant be
auty. The planetary capital, by contrast, cowered behind an ugly, constantly-growing seawall. The tallest tower in Bhavnagar only reached halfway up the brooding gray wall.

  She hadn’t realized how much subconscious pressure that wall exerted on those it protected until she’d suddenly found herself free of it. Like most Gangeans, she figured the waters of the Black Pontic would someday grow too high for the seawall and Bhavnagar would be crushed beneath the waves.

  It was probably a question of centuries rather than days and so most Gangeans felt little inclination to change the industrial underpinnings of the looming disaster. It was the Imperium in a nut shell.

  Thousands of worlds, all slowly falling apart at the seams, sped along by an indifferent royal household.

  A family of ducks swam by in front of the railing she was leaning on and she smiled down at them, wishing she had some breadcrumbs. The indigenous Gangean wildlife had never seemed to thrive in the standard Imperial climate of Nari. Somehow, the ducks always seemed to get by.

  She sensed the presence of Paul’s transponder but the smile died on her lips as she also sensed two signals from members of the 538. She took her elbows off the railing and turned, carefully and slowly, to see what was in store.

  Her smile returned in response to Paul’s and it stayed there when she realized Ava and her security detail was approaching with him. “You didn’t say you were bringing reinforcements,” she greeted him casually enough, but she put a hand to her pistol.

  The gesture wasn’t lost on Paul. He let his eyes drop to her right hand before nodding slightly. “Yeah, we know they’re dangerous, but that’s part of the reason we want to keep them close.”

  George Rodrigues, lance corporal and Harald Armstead, PFC, he told her by text link. Two of the men who were holding Saoirse. “This is my niece, Saoirse Klum,” he added aloud, gesturing to her. It’s a long story, he added by text.

  “It’s so good to finally meet you,” Julia embraced the young girl, making it look far more natural than Paul could. “I’m very glad your uncle was able to find you.”

  “So am I,” Saoirse replied. “For professional military, their ideas about cleanliness seem a little lacking.” She gave Rodrigues a haughty look but the man just grinned at the jibe.