by C.S. Stinton
* *
Once she was done outlining the plan, Ramirez sipped the coffee Tycho had brought her, which smelled good and tasted even better after the long night, and looked across the small office as she waited for the objections. They didn’t take long.
‘If this goes wrong, Chief, all we‘ve done is give them a shipment of rifles.’
‘They already have weapons. If they lose this shipment, if they lose Jovak, he says they have other ways. We deny them only one single crate. If this works, we get them all, and can learn of their other sources.’
‘Them.’ This was Harrigan, arms folded across his broad chest. ‘You mean Vincente.’
‘Do you know him?’
‘Seems like he made himself the biggest fish in the pond just as I left it. I wasn’t one for names.’
‘OCMS database has him pegged as former military. He was the Yamato’s Master-at-Arms for five years,’ said Ramirez. ‘Demobbed three years before the war. Slipped past any efforts to be returned to active duty. Since then he’s run up quite an array of arrest warrants, mostly in drug trafficking.’
Tycho’s expression twisted. ‘Awful lot of ex-Fleet showing up in this business.’
‘Pay you a pittance for twenty years, then refuse you a pension and make you a wanted crook if you don’t want twenty years more. You see how dutiful and law-abiding you turn out,’ drawled Harrigan.
‘Except I don’t get paid a pittance,’ Tycho said.
‘You‘re an officer. I‘m just saying, not everyone can afford to chow down on duty for supper.’
‘There are alternatives,’ said Ramirez, ‘which don’t include the drug trade. Or terrorism.’
‘Oh, yeah. Just don’t get too morally outraged at the idea that not everyone who put on the uniform’s an angel.’
Ramirez gave a twist of a smile. ‘I was an MP, Harrigan. We don’t walk with angels. But you‘re right. A war like this is a breeding ground for crime and a breeding ground for disgruntled ex-soldiers, and there’s no point fussing over that matter. Vincente is our man.’
Tycho grunted. ‘Do we think he’s the man?’
‘He’s what’s next. If you can pull it off.’
‘Me, Chief?’
‘This hinges on your expertise most of all.’
A sigh from Tycho. ‘Sure. My part’s easy. They won’t notice a thing. It’s what comes after that worries me.’
‘Worries you?’
‘What happens to Jovak once he’s played his part? Do we stage a raid just the three of us when we‘ve found where Vincente’s taken the guns?’
Ramirez frowned. ‘You know we can’t. What’s your point?’
‘We need the HCPD.’
Of the two of them, she hadn’t expected this from Tycho. She sighed. ‘We do.’
‘They‘re a liability.’ Tycho put down her coffee, expression unusually sombre. ‘Navarro might have a brain but the rest of them are a bunch of cowboys, no offence to our actual cowboy, Harrigan. Frankly I’d trust him beside me in a sticky situation than one of these flat-foots. We already have reason to assume they‘re crooked with the inside leak which gave Ragnarok their comm system.’
‘They‘re what we‘ve got. You‘re making the mistake of assuming I like this any better than you. But if we want to bring down Ragnarok we‘re going to have to put our trust in them.’
Tycho’s face pinched. ‘Look, I know you‘re prone to thinking that anyone in a uniform has a streak of decency in them somewhere, but you saw Beyer, you saw the raid on the Flarestar.’ She gestured around the room. ‘We‘re doing their job for them and they‘ve got us in the ass-end of the building, getting information funnelled in through the one officer who’s smart enough to recognise what he’s got in us. They‘re a liability - didn’t Locke warn you about Beyer?’
‘There’s a good chance Locke also tried to have me killed. I‘m taking his words with a handful of salt.’
‘And what about your own impression of Beyer?’ A tense, pleading note had entered Tycho’s voice. Harrigan was leaning back against the wall, the big man somehow managing to make himself unobtrusive as the two women faced off against one another. ‘You know these people, you hate this kind of cop, you just can’t bring yourself to dismiss them because you don’t have evidence - Christ’s sake, Chief, this isn’t a court of law! Can’t you leave this stupid-ass sense of honour behind on this one?’
A long silence rang out as her words echoed around the tiny metal office. Harrigan continued his act of looking as much a part of the furniture as the cold filing cabinet and the colourless noticeboard, as if rendered in shades of grey.
Ramirez kept her gaze on Tycho until the other woman slumped, looking abashed at her outburst. ‘I‘m not doing this through principle. Give me a little more credit than that, Lieutenant.’ She spoke gently, but Tycho shifted as if taking the use of her rank as the sharpest reproach. ‘This is our way forward. This is where our evidence has led us. All other paths have been trodden before; eyewitness reports, tracing the vehicles used. But now we have done what the HCPD did not, and so we have this lead and this name.’
‘They could have missed something,’ muttered Tycho.
‘Maybe. And if nothing comes of this, we’ll look to it. But time is a factor. Tomorrow Jovak is expected to make the delivery. If he doesn’t, Ragnarok will know something has happened and this opportunity is gone forever. Your opinions and reservations are noted,’ she continued, seeing Tycho’s face close down into something more stiff, formal. ‘But this is the path we‘re taking. All I need you to say is whether or not you can do your part.’
Tycho fiddled with her earpiece. ‘These guys might have military gear,’ she said, subdued, ‘but I’d be surprised if they’ll have anything to detect my tracers.’
Ramirez nodded, then looked to the looming, silent form of Harrigan. ‘If you think I need anything of you but your co-operation, Mister Harrigan, you‘re mistaken.’
He shook his head. ‘It’s a good plan,’ he said, his deep voice rumbling about the tension in the room. ‘Ballsy. I like it. HCPD might not be worth a damn, I agree, but I guess that just means we’ll have to take up the slack.’
She tried to not look surprised at his approval, tried to not feel relieved that she had it. With Tycho unenthused by the scheme she didn’t want to be fighting a war on two fronts. But she’d noticed Harrigan’s ‘we‘. Noticed his increasing cooperation as the mission had continued.
And wondered if, despite her denial of Tycho’s accusation, there was a shred of virulent decency in at least one former soldier on Thor.
‘Then it’s decided,’ she said. ‘We move tomorrow night. I’ll talk with Navarro.’
As if triggered by her words, her pad lit up with an icon of the lieutenant’s face, his message scrolling under it. A low, wry chuckle escaped her lips as she read.
‘Good news?’ Tycho winced, looking like an abashed schoolgirl.
‘That depends on your definition of “good”.’ Ramirez tossed the pad down. ‘Navarro got an ID on Wainwright’s rifle. It took him a while because its serial numbers have been filed off. But it’s a 2288 Machenry. Same model Ragnarok are toting, same model Jovak’s delivering. So the good news is that we have a serious link between Ragnarok and Locke. The bad news is that my dinner date is likely a terrorist.’ She couldn’t help but smirk, despite the brush with death of the evening. Her rendezvous with Locke had been for nothing more than professional curiosity and the hope of a lead - but more and more had it spiralled out of control. A cop’s habit to laugh in the face of death reared its head.
Tycho grinned, some of her usual spark coming back into her eyes. ‘So it seems my mother was right, Chief. OCMS is murder for your love life.’
9
The next morning came in silver. Such was the trick of Hardveur; with so much metal for sunlight to glint off, even the palest and greyest of days could shine. It was an illusion, a part of the city’s tradition to cast a myth of beauty over a plain real
ity, but it was still enough to wake Ramirez.
Or, rather, the thin sliver of light that wriggled through her blinds and landed on her face was enough. She rolled over with the covers shielding her head, muttering to the empty room in protest, but it was an ill-fated effort. She was awake and even with as late a night as it had been could never get back to sleep once woken up.
Coffee would be the order of the day.
The traffic outside had quietened at night, but by now it was settled into a dull, constant roar as the working day erupted across the city. It was early enough that people would still be waking up, still be making their way to offices and shops and their normal, mundane lives. Mundane lives unlike that of a Marshal waiting for night to start so her work could begin.
So she was surprised to see she wasn’t the only one awake - for a moment, at least, as she emerged into the living room and jumped when she saw a shape sat before the array of screens. ‘Tych, you scared the hell out of me.’
‘Sorry, Chief. There’s a pot of coffee still hot. Real coffee.’ Tycho was on the sofa, legs curled up under her, diminutive figure dwarfed by the huge Fleet Academy sweater Ramirez knew she’d bought in the largest size for just this purpose.
‘Did you get any sleep?’ Ramirez frowned as she followed the siren-scent of the promised pot.
‘You know me, Chief. Sleep’s for the dead.’
‘And the sleepy.’ Ramirez poured a mug and took a sip. ‘That’s good coffee.’
‘Like you’d know. I could have heated up a pot of engine grease and you’d enjoy it.’ Tycho grimaced. ‘Why’d you take so many shipboard assignments? They have rotten food and you hate flying.’
‘I didn’t always hate flying. And a war happened.’
‘Confederate Marshals got you off ships.’
‘Tau asked for me. And this... is different. You didn’t have to leave Netcrimes Division. Return to field work.’
Tycho’s expression shifted. ‘Tau asked for me,’ she echoed. ‘Besides. I can’t let you run around on your own again, can I. Oh, and I did that full inventory of Jovak’s crate.’
Ramirez sank onto the sofa and accepted the pad off her partner. ‘It wasn’t just rifles?’
‘Four rifles and some assorted equipment. Some of it’s some pretty serious hardware, but we’re not talking a lot. I don’t know, maybe it was a freebie. “Buy four rifles and get some low-light goggles free”.’ Tycho shrugged.
‘All the more reason to make sure this doesn’t end up in their hands. What’s the word on the ultranet?’
‘...you‘re not going to like it.’
She sat up, peering at the screen Tycho was trying to not look at. ‘..."Locke Makes Marshals Investigation Personal"? Is that - did someone take a picture of us at dinner?’
‘I warned you.’
‘I‘m really starting to hate this guy.’
‘He’s smart enough to not say it himself. This isn’t even news, it’s social chatter. But he’s got a huge following, not his employees, just people who are a part of the protest.’ Tycho brought up a new feed of chatter on the right-most screen. ‘He’s really seen as a champion for their voices.’
‘While he’s in bed with terrorists.’ Ramirez glanced at her. ‘Speaking of bed, you should get some sleep.’
‘I‘m fine.’ Tycho rubbed her eyes and reached for the coffee cup on the table only to find it empty. ‘I‘ve got the buzz from last night.’
‘You‘ve got work for tonight.’ Ramirez grabbed her mug, standing and going to the kitchen to get her a refill.
‘You ever known me to put a foot wrong with tech?’
‘Come on.’ The steaming mug was pressed into her weary hands. ‘Talk to me, Tych.’
‘Oh, so this is - we talk, now? I thought we repressed.’
‘We do the job. I need you clear-headed.’ Ramirez realised how that sounded. ‘I don’t want you choking up on something.’
‘It’s just this assignment, honest. I don’t like it, it feels like we‘re at the edge of a rabbit hole and if we fall in, I don’t know where it ends. Hunting lachryma dealers and smugglers is one thing but we‘re talking about a terrorist group who‘ve taken over a planet’s criminal infrastructure and have influence off-world. I got a real bad feeling about this one.’
Ramirez studied her partner’s expression, but there was nothing but earnest frustration in Tycho’s eyes. She fancied she knew when the other woman was lying - or, at least, if Tycho could lie to her, she’d never been caught out. ‘All we need to do is cut off the smuggling. Not uproot the whole organisation.’
‘So why are we still here instead of going after that fence?’
‘We’ll go. But one independent fence isn’t the end of it, and Jovak himself said there are other sources, and how did the weapons get out in the first place? Ragnarok must have their claws into a garrison or factory, and use people like Jovak and Brand to ferry between them. Which means, like you said, Ragnarok goes far deeper than Hardveur. I want the head of the snake.’
‘Groups like this - violent, idealistic groups - aren’t snakes, they‘re hydras. The body won’t die if you cut a head off; it’ll grow two more.’
‘But the head might talk once it’s in your hand.’ Ramirez gave her partner a tight smile. ‘Vincente. That’s who I want. And, if at all possible, Locke. That one’s not just professional, though, I admit.’
‘It’s really bad manners to shoot someone after dinner. I mean, unless you are an atrocious date.’
Ramirez snorted. ‘It wasn’t like that. I think he was just trying to get me on side. Fed me a whole load of stuff about not trusting Beyer.’
‘Now that’s weird. If he’s in with Ragnarok, that would suggest Beyer isn’t.’
‘It doesn’t mean he’s useful. If he’s warning me about a cop I already knew not to rely on, then he gets to look helpful without giving anything away. Or maybe he was luring me to a conversation which seemed useful only to set me up for being shot. Speaking of useful, how was Harrigan last night?’
Tycho looked to the third bedroom door, still shut. ‘He was... useful! I mean, Jovak recognised him, which is why it went wrong, but he slowed the man down. I tell you what, I would not like to meet him down a dark alley on a bad night.’
‘I don’t think Harrigan gets good nights.’
‘No, but - he did the job, Chief. I know you say I want to believe him so I have one less thing to worry about, but he did. I don’t think he likes this Ragnarok business much more than we do. These guys are bad news.’
‘They‘re bad news for him because they squeezed independent smugglers more-or-less out of business. That makes this a personal grudge, not some lingering sense of duty. Nobody with a lingering sense of duty goes AWOL in a time of war.’
‘Except you and I both know it’s never that simple.’
Ramirez looked at her partner. ‘Drink your coffee and get some sleep, Tych.’
‘Because that’s the sensible way round to do it -’
‘After all these years of immunity build-up it’ll take more than another cup of coffee to make a dent in you. But I mean it. I need you sharp tonight.’
‘I‘m as sharp as -’
‘Do you need me to make that an order?’
Ramirez’s smirk made it clear she was joking, but Tycho got to her feet anyway. ‘You know,’ she said, draining her cup, ‘it’s normally a lot more fun when I get ordered to bed.’
Then she left, grumbling all the way, and Ramirez chuckled as the bedroom door closed. She reached for the control-pad for the network of pads and screens, reducing the flow of information to just the one, manageable feed, and thumbed her way past the morning news.
Stock exchange fluctuations. Two ‘experts‘ arguing about Ragnarok and the legitimacy of its views. Theorising on the purpose and outcome of Graham Locke’s public event with Mayor Kelvin in a few days. Recent clashing of Fleet forces around Hel with a Null Frankenstein - the nickname given to the ships cobbled together, as mo
st were, from the carcasses of other vessels, usually the Fleet’s own.
This feed she left up, the news from an Odin-based network which appeared to have military sources who were both halfway informed and halfway professional. The real information about what had happened and how it had gone was in what was left unsaid - at least, unsaid to anyone who’d not fought the Null themselves. It was in the key phrases. "A Null boarding action was repelled by quick action from the crew resulting in a minimal loss of life."
What had happened, she suspected, was that the Null had boarded a section of the ship the crew was capable of venting without losing every deck and had done so. Even at the expense of the poor souls trapped in those sections.
Though if the Null were that close to them, being vented into space was doing them a favour.
A door creaked open from her right. ‘What’s the ship?’
‘The Hektor. Johan Koenig’s ship.’
‘I don’t know him,’ Harrigan grunted as he slouched onto the sofa.
‘Good man. I served with his old XO on the Exupery. The senior staff were invited to his table for breakfast, morning before the Battle of Perun.’
‘Breakfast -’ Harrigan gave a bark of laughter. ‘I tell you what a fancy breakfast is in the Marine Corps the morning before a battle: dried rats.’
‘The Exupery and the Hektor were both six hours away from Perun and nothing was going to get us there quicker. So we had a spot of breakfast before we killed the enemy. Smoked salmon. They’d resupplied at Jarilo.’ She was being provocative and knew it. Caring was the hard part.
Instead, Harrigan said, ‘Did you know the crew?’
‘Hektor’s a big ship. She’s got a crew of fifty.’ Ramirez paused for a heartbeat, reflecting on how times had changed for a crew of fifty to be considered large in the Confederate Fleet. ‘I only met the senior staff. And that was... Christ, how many years ago was Perun?’
‘Four?’ Harrigan’s brow furrowed. ‘You served on a lot of ships? I thought you were a flatfoot.’
‘I was, until the war. Then I asked for a transfer. To the Exupery, then the Fearless.’
‘I don’t know the Fearless.’
‘She’s one of the new corvettes.’ Warfare against an enemy who turned your dead against you had forced the Confederate Fleet to change its ways. No more were the huge battleships with their hundreds of crew the powerhouses they’d once been as they became notoriously susceptible to boarding action. Just one Null could turn the entire ship into a war-zone.
Automation had become the answer. The fears of technology failing and leaving a ship dead in space had been overridden by the fear of a crew failing and becoming the enemy. Some ships, like the Hektor, had been gutted to need only a quarter of their original crew, operations handled by internal networking and automated systems.
As the attrition of war continued, more and more ships were not simply refitted but scrapped and used to build newer, smaller vessels which were easier for a handful of crew to operate. These corvettes, such as the Fearless, had soon become the backbone of the fleet, crewed by numbers sometimes as low as half a dozen but rarely more than twenty, and through automated systems bore the firepower of a ship that once needed two or three times that.
Sophistication had brought its downsides - system failures could cripple a whole ship and kill the crew - but not only did the fewer spacers on board mean fewer future Null soldiers, but the complicated technology made it harder for the enemy to scavenge Confederate Fleet ships and convert them to their own Frankensteins.
But it hadn’t made it impossible. And the corvettes had a way of becoming lonely, lonely like the floating cities of battleships never did. Cabin fever set in fast in a high-stress situation with the same few faces day in, day out.
‘What’d you do before the war, then?’ Harrigan grunted, breaking through her reflection. ‘Garrison MP? Making sure naughty Marines didn’t break curfew and come back drunk?’
‘I was an MP on a Sirius border patrol boat for two years when first out of the Academy,’ said Ramirez calmly, ‘then I was an MP on Gateway.’
Harrigan had been wearing a mocking expression at the patrol boat, but his expression went flat when she mentioned Gateway. Orbiting Pluto, it was the biggest space station in the Confederacy, the front door of the Sol system, a broiling mass of people and travel and trade. Nowhere else in the galaxy was there such a hotpot of society, and not with a straight face could Harrigan call such a beat easy.
‘Is that where you met Tycho?’ he said instead.
‘What makes you think I knew her before the Marshals?’
‘She said so. Also, you laugh at her jokes but not mine.’
‘Her jokes are funny.’
‘And she’s not a criminal?’
‘Innocence lends a certain something to her sense of humour, yes.’ Ramirez fought a grimace. ‘She said you did well last night.’
He smirked. ‘Did that hurt?’
‘What?’
‘Saying something nice.’
She rolled her eyes and stood, going to refill her coffee. She didn’t get him one. ‘But I said it. Your trick will be to take something seriously without hurting yourself.’
‘Now, why would I want to do that?’
‘Because tonight we‘re tracing those rifles to wherever Vincente takes them. HCPD willing, there’ll be a raid. With luck, we could have Ragnarok’s command in cells this time tomorrow.’
‘That sounds like reason to celebrate, not to take things seriously.’ He stood as she came back and took her coffee cup from her. ‘Thanks.’
She’d been holding it gingerly to avoid burning herself, and scowled at him. He ignored her. ‘This could be over soon.’
‘Aren’t you being a little optimistic?’
‘Maybe you should be. By the end of the week you could be working on JAG for a plea and getting yourself sent some minimum-security facility for the shortest time possible.’
Harrigan sat and sipped his coffee. ‘Why would I want that? I like it here.’
‘Isn’t that why you‘re helping us? To get your future in order?’
‘Did it occur to you I might agree that Ragnarok are all kinds of bad news for good folks and want to see them brought down?’
Ramirez opened her mouth to make a sharp comment - then paused, and listened closer to what he’d said. She planted her hands on her hips. ‘Is that the reason?’
He did falter at that, his dangling evasion thwarted. And shrugged. ‘They‘re trouble. Why does it matter to you?’
‘It matters that I understand you. You‘re an asset to this case. Usually.’
‘Are you so blind you think a smuggler can’t dislike violent, murderous terrorists?’
‘It’s not about a smuggler. It’s about you.’ She sat opposite him and leaned forwards. ‘And not everything adds up about you. You seemed shaken, in your cell, by the idea of a group like Ragnarok but claim to know little of the particulars about them. One minute you‘re a joke, a problem, the next - professional.’
He sneered. ‘Call it training kicking in. Can’t shake it.’
‘One moment you‘re giving me hell, the next, helping me land through atmo without vomiting.’
‘There’d have been a mess.’
‘And then you try as much as possible, like right now, to act like someone I can’t rely on when Tycho spoke highly of how you were yesterday.’
‘Tycho’s nice.’
‘Tycho’s smarter than she looks and hard to impress. I put up with her jokes because she earned that, and I trust her. You‘ve earned nothing, Mister Harrigan, and I don’t trust you. You have an angle, and I will know it.’
He looked away, blue eyes locking on the traffic flitting past the windows, making the frame of their building shudder if they came to close. His face was serious for a moment, lines etched into the skin making him look older in the pale morning light - but then he smiled, the lines disappeared, and the mask of the joker was back. ‘You kn
ow what I hate about most cops? About most people in a uniform, actually. They don’t care about the little picture. The little people. Death, guts and glory. Greater good. No matter who gets trampled along the way.’
‘And I‘m not like that?’
‘Did I say that?’ He drained his coffee and stood.
She made a noise of irritation she wasn’t awake enough to control. ‘Are you ever going to give me a straight answer?’
‘Nope.’
‘I‘ve got all day until we need to be somewhere.’
‘I‘m sure you do.’ Harrigan turned to her, his smile going toothy, lopsided, taunting. ‘But I am going to get a shower. So if you want to follow me and continue the interrogation, you can be my guest.’
He didn’t bother waiting for her retort, just sauntered to the bathroom. Ramirez scowled at the door closing behind him, then switched off the feed to Tycho’s screens and stood. Enough of him. She needed to be not in this room, and she needed breakfast.
Maybe this time she’d manage to go out on her own and not be shot at.