Silent Order: Wraith Hand

by Jonathan Moeller

  “Suppose not,” said Vasquez.

  “Let’s get back to the Tiger, now,” said March. “We have what we need. If we all stay on the ship, the safer we’ll be. I want to depart tomorrow as soon as the Honest Profit leaves the station.”

  “You really intend to ride a supercontainer freighter all the way to the Constantinople system?” said Caird.

  “Maybe,” said March. “Maybe not. It depends on the circumstances. Whatever happens, I want a backup plan. And if we can confuse the Machinists about what we’re doing, we’ll have a better chance.”

  “Good thinking,” said Caird as they headed down the concourse. March looked for a cargo drone or a passenger drone that could ferry them back to Bay 997 and the Tiger. “If we’re going to get back to Calaskar, we…”

  March’s phone started buzzing. He frowned and tapped his earpiece. “This is March.” Was Perry calling? The Marine sergeant would have called Vasquez or Caird if something went wrong.

  “Captain March,” said Vigil. March grimaced. The pseudointelligence would only call if something had gone wrong with the ship…or if Perry or one of the remaining Marines had attempted sabotage.

  “Go ahead,” said March.

  “An unauthenticated message has arrived for you,” said Vigil. “Text only. I have been unable to determine the source, but it did arrive locally from within Monastery Station’s network.”

  “Show me,” said March, drawing out his phone from his pocket.

  The screen came to life. The message was succinct.

  MEET ME AT TANNER’S TAVERN. WE HAVE BUSINESS TO DISCUSS.

  Some instinct made March turn his head.

  Simon Lorre leaned against the entrance to Tanner’s Tavern, hands in his pockets.

  He saw March looking at him and waved, his phone glowing in his hand, and then turned and walked back into the tavern, disappearing into the smoke and the sweeping lasers.

  “Hell,” muttered March.

  “That man in the suit,” said Caird. “Who is he?”

  “You three,” said March, looking at the Marines. “Go on ahead. Commander Caird will be joining you in a moment, and then I will catch up to you.”

  The armored Marines shared a look among themselves, and then looked at Caird.

  “Go ahead,” said Caird. “Be careful.”

  “You too, sir,” said Vasquez. “Marines, let’s go.”

  The armored men walked away, boots clanking against the deck.

  “All right,” said March once they were out of earshot. “His name’s Simon Lorre. He’s a Machinist agent and a clever bastard. The device in my hold? I stole it from him.”

  “That is a complication,” said Caird.

  “I tried to kill him on Rustbelt Station, but he got away clean,” said March. “He’s probably the reason the Covenant flew into an ambush at Tamlin’s World. Either he guessed the Navy’s plan, or someone leaked the plan to him.”

  “Neither possibility is good,” said Caird. “What does he want now?”

  “Most probably, to distract me while his friends do something,” said March. “Go catch up to Vasquez and the others and get to the Tiger. Make sure the reaction chamber gets installed properly.” He glanced at Elizabeth. “I suppose your friend can detect any dark energy leakage.”

  “I most certainly can,” said Elizabeth with cool hauteur.

  “What are you going to do with Lorre?” said Caird.

  March shrugged. “Talk to him. Hopefully distracting him from distracting us. Maybe find out what he’s planning. He’ll be up to something. The whole reason he came out here has to be to get that machine back.”

  “You might be walking into a trap,” said Caird.

  “Yes,” said March. “But there will be limits to what he can do in a public place on Monastery Station. If he tries anything violent, he’ll have both Tanner’s men and the station’s security drones landing on his head. If it does go bad and I don’t return, get the ship back to Calaskaran space and get the device into the hands of the Admiralty.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” said Caird. He looked at the tavern and grimaced. “Good luck.”

  March nodded, turned, and walked back into Tanner’s Tavern.

  The song had changed, the low bass beat rumbling up through his heels and into his metal arm. Most of the crowd had left the main floor. Likely they had made a discreet exit during the confrontation lest the security drones start vaporizing witnesses.

  Lorre sat at a table near the stairs to the balcony, his back to the wall, in exactly the position he needed to watch both the entrance and the stairs and the doors to the kitchen at the same time. A half-finished cup of coffee was on the table before him, and his dark eyes turned to March.

  He sat across from the Machinist agent and waited. Lorre’s suit was expensive and well-cut, and he almost certainly had a pistol in a shoulder holster beneath his coat. It didn’t go with his scarred, rough features, but that would hardly stand out in a place like Monastery Station. Lorre’s eyes flicked over him, no doubt sizing him up as well.

  At last Lorre reached into his coat. March’s metal hand curled into a fist, ready to flip the table over if Lorre drew a weapon.

  But Lorre only produced a small cardboard carton. “Cigarette?”

  March looked at the cigarettes, and then at Lorre.

  Lorre sighed. “It’s not poisoned. It’s not full of tracking devices or nanotech or anything like that.”

  “Will it explode?” said March.

  “Let’s find out,” said Lorre. He produced a lighter, lit a cigarette, lifted it to his mouth, and took a long draw. “Guess not. Just as well, since I’m sitting across from you.”

  March reached into the carton and drew out a cigarette. Lorre lit it for him, and March lifted it to his mouth. He didn’t smoke often. Even with the Machinist nanotech in his system, cigarettes did too much damage to his respiratory system. Nevertheless, he enjoyed the sensation of smoke in his lungs and the focus the nicotine brought to his mind.

  “If it’s not going to explode,” said March, “then what’s the point?”

  Lorre shrugged. “I’m going to have to kill you someday. Possibly very soon. Might as well be neighborly.”

  “What, right now?” said March.

  “Of course not,” said Lorre. “We’re smoking. Killing you right now would be uncivilized.”

  They sat in silence. March took another draw from the cigarette, the smoke blowing out his nose.

  “Unhealthy things, aren’t they?” said Lorre. “I really should give them up.”

  “It doesn’t matter since I’m going to kill you,” said March.

  Lorre raised his eyebrows. “Threats, Captain March?”

  March shrugged. “You said you’re going to kill me. When that day comes, I’ll kill you first. So, you might as well have a second cigarette.”

  Lorre gave a quiet laugh. “I like that. I like that very much. You’ve caused me a lot of trouble, you know.”

  “Have I?” said March.

  “Back at Antioch Station,” said Lorre. “I knew the Silent Order would send someone to meddle with the Vindex situation. I should have killed you there, but I didn’t want to take the risk, and I couldn’t find any reliable local help. But if I had known how much trouble you would be…yeah, I’d have taken the risk and pushed you out an airlock.”

  “Well,” said March. “If it helps, I’ve thought the same thing about you.”

  Lorre smirked and blew out a cloud of smoke. “Why, thank you. That’s very kind. But you have been one big damned headache for me, Captain March.”

  March decided to take a stab in the dark. “Not as big a headache as Thomas Vindex, I would bet.”

  Lorre sighed and shook his head. “He was a problem, yes. The man was an obnoxious shit. The new recruits are always the worst. Especially rich brats like him. He grew up lording it over his servants, and he expected to start lording it over the Final Consciousness since we were smart enough to appreciate
how brilliant he was and daddy never did.” He snorted. “But daddy was right about Thomas, wasn’t he? The boy was an idiot. It was a pity we couldn’t recruit his sister. She might have been naïve, but you can grow out of that, and she had both a spine and a brain. Frankly, I’m relieved she shot Thomas. Saved me the trouble.” He grinned. “Did you see the funeral?”

  “I didn’t,” said March. “I’ve been busy getting shot at.”

  “Ah, pity,” said Lorre. “The official line is that we kidnapped Thomas, Roanna went to rescue him, and Thomas died nobly and heroically defending his sister during the escape attempt. It all sounds so very Calaskaran.” He sneered on the last word. “Poor Lady Roanna, giving the eulogy for her brother. She looked so solemn and so very tragically pretty at the podium. Out of curiosity, did you ever sleep with her?”

  “No,” said March, keeping his irritation from his voice. Roanna had offered, though. Sometimes March thought he had been an idiot for refusing her.

  “Why not?” said Lorre. “She was a pretty thing. When you joined the Kingdom of Calaskar, did they slice your balls off? It must have taken a lot of surgery to turn you from an Iron Hand into…well, whatever you are now.”

  “Because it would have been a bad idea,” said March, ignoring the taunt. “The operation had enough complications already. Stupid to add another.”

  “Ah.” Lorre smiled. “Very professional. I approve. I see why you caused me so much trouble.”

  They sat in silence, smoking. March finished his cigarette and stubbed it out in the ashtray. Lorre produced another, lit it, and passed it to him. March checked over the cigarette and then lifted it to his mouth.

  “Is that why we’re having this conversation?” said March. “Because we’re both professionals?”

  “In part,” said Lorre. “We’re a lot alike, much as the thought must displease you. I must work with idiots like Thomas Vindex and Carnow. You have to work with fools like that fat pig Heitz and that Marine captain who was following you around like a pet dog.”

  “All right,” said March. “What’s the Pulse?”

  Lorre smiled. “The pulse? It’s been a while since I took any medical training, but I seem to recall that the formal definition of the human pulse is arterial palpation caused by the heartbeat…”

  “No,” said March. “The Pulse. Thomas mentioned it before he died. Seemed to think that it was going to destroy the Kingdom of Calaskar.”

  Lorre sighed. “Thomas talked too much.” He smiled. “Why we trade secrets for secrets? You tell me, say, the identity of Censor, or the names of five other Alpha-level Silent Order Operatives, and I’ll tell you about the Pulse.”

  “You know better,” said March.

  “So do you,” said Lorre.

  “This machine I took from you,” said March. “What does it do?”

  Lorre tapped some ash from the end of his cigarette. “Haven’t figured it out yet?”

  “It’s some sort of mind-control device,” said March. “Something undetectable. If you wire cybernetics into someone’s nervous system or do some kind of brainwashing, it’s obvious. It’s incredibly obvious. A crappy consumer-grade scanner can pick up cybernetics, and brainwashed people act erratically and eventually have breakdowns. But this thing, whatever it is, can do mind control in a way that’s completely undetectable.”

  Lorre shrugged. “If you already know, why are you asking?”

  “Because your side has gone to a lot of trouble to get it back,” said March. “Capital starships don’t come to the Eschaton system for fun.”

  “True,” said Lorre.

  “So it’s important,” said March. “You really don’t want us to have it.”

  “I’ll let you in on a little secret,” said Lorre. “We’re here because the Final Consciousness says so. The leaders of the Final Consciousness…”

  “The Cognarchs,” said March.

  “Yes, you were an Iron Hand,” said Lorre. “You know how the structure of the hive mind works. The Cognarchs have declared that we must retrieve the device, or barring that, destroy it and kill everyone with knowledge of its existence.”

  “Too late,” said March. “The Silent Order already knows about the machine. Killing me and reclaiming the device won’t erase that knowledge.”

  Lorre gave a lazy shrug. “No, but it will turn the machine into an unverified report. The Silent Order and the Royal Calaskaran Navy already have so many concerns. Who will have time to chase down a rumor? Some operative claimed to have found a mind-control machine, but he disappeared before he could ever return to Calaskaran space. Tragic, especially since the heavy cruiser sent to pick up the machine at Tamlin’s World got blasted out of the sky.”

  “Your spies in the Navy told you that,” said March.

  “Oh, they did,” said Lorre. He shrugged again. “Or we made a reasonable guess and decided that Tamlin’s World would be the best possible rendezvous point. One or the other. It would be cheating to tell you which.”

  “Suppose it would,” said March.

  Lorre gestured with his cigarette, the end glowing like a targeting laser in the gloom. “See, you’re a professional. You understand these things like I do. And, like me, I think you know when the time has come to cut a deal.”

  “So what’s your offer?” said March.

  “You’re not getting away with the machine,” said Lorre. “It’s too important. The Final Consciousness won’t let it go, and Overseer Carnow is probably communing with the hive mind right now and getting new orders. Also, you’ve got that Navigator on board, the one responsible for the fiasco at Martel’s World. The Final Consciousness never likes to pass up on a chance for revenge.”

  “What’s your point?” said March

  “We’re not letting you out of the system alive,” said Lorre.

  “The Custodian might take exception to you using ship-to-ship weapons in its system,” said March.

  “Certainly,” said Lorre. “But the Final Consciousness will not care so long as the device is retrieved or destroyed.” He tapped the table with his free hand a few times “That’s how serious this is, March. The Final Consciousness does not want you to return to Calaskar with that machine, and it is willing to lose an entire task force to make sure that it doesn’t happen.”

  “That’s a lot of capital starships,” said March. He flicked ash from the end of the cigarette. “Is the machine that valuable?”

  “Basic law of economics,” said Lorre. “A thing is worth whatever you’re willing to pay for it, and the Final Consciousness is willing to sacrifice an entire task force to make sure that machine doesn’t fall into the hands of the Kingdom of Calaskar. But here’s another law of economics. You don’t always get everything you want.”

  “A Machinist quoting laws of economics?” said March. “I thought you lot were going to abolish money and private property. Overseer Carnow might have you shot for thoughts against the Revolution of the Final Consciousness.”

  “Mmm.” Lorre stared into the distance for a moment. “The Overseer is a bit of a zealot. A lot of the fleet Overseers are. Those of us in the covert arm of the Final Consciousness have to be more concerned about results, don’t we? Which is why I’m willing to cut a deal with you.”

  March suspected that they had come to the main point.

  “I’m listening,” said March.

  “Leave the machine,” said Lorre, “and you can depart Monastery Station with the men you rescued from the Covenant. We’ll let you go. Carnow won’t be happy, but she won’t be able to do anything about it. Leave the device with me, and you can go. We’ll both get something we want. I’ll get the device back. You’ll get to return to Calaskar, and you’ll also rescue a few of the crewers from the Covenant. You won’t have the device, but I imagine you’ve scanned it backwards and forwards, and you’ll at least have the scan data for your scientists to chew over.”

  March leaned back in his seat, the cigarette smoldering in his metal fingers. He had absolutely
no doubt that if he surrendered the machine, Lorre or Carnow would make sure that the Tiger was destroyed before it left the Eschaton system.

  “You must really want that machine back,” said March.

  “We’ve come all this way, haven’t we?” said Lorre.

  “Let me guess,” said March. “You’ll be executed if you fail.”

  “Don’t be melodramatic,” said Lorre. “The Final Consciousness doesn’t work that way.”

  March stared at him.

  “At least for the covert arm,” conceded Lorre.

  “It’s the alien device, isn’t it?” said March.

  Lorre only smiled.

  “There’s a piece of alien electronics in the center of the machine,” said March. He finished his cigarette and ground it out in the ashtray. “Thing that looks like a big green beetle. I’d bet that it’s either something the Final Consciousness found someplace and doesn’t know how to duplicate, or it’s too difficult or expensive to manufacture. Maybe it takes some rare metal that’s only found on one asteroid or something. Which means you have to get it back.”

  “Yes,” said Lorre. “One way or another, you’re not leaving the Eschaton system with the device.”

  “All right,” said March. “I’ll talk it over with the others. I’m gambling with their lives, so they’ll have a say.”

  He intended to do no such thing. He knew Caird and Vasquez and the others would refuse to surrender, but there was no reason to tell Lorre that.

  Besides, Lorre likely knew already. Which meant that this meeting was about a delay or a trap or a trick or something else.

  “Okay,” said Lorre. “That’s fair. That’s all we needed to discuss. You’ve got until tomorrow morning to decide. Then Carnow’s going to force the issue.”

  “Fine,” said March. “Thanks for the cigarettes.”

  “Before you go,” said Lorre, “can I ask you a question?”

  March remained motionless. “You want to ask a spy a question?”

  “It’s a personal question,” said Lorre. “My own idle curiosity. Not business.”

  “You already asked if I had slept with Lady Roanna,” said March.