Raw Justice

by Martyn J. Pass

  TRIDENT

  RAW JUSTICE

  M A R T Y N J. P A S S

  TIM MASON

  Martyn J. Pass is the author of many bestselling books including ‘Project - 16, ‘The Wolf and the Bear’ and ‘The Unfinished Tale of Sophie Anderson’. He lives in the United Kingdom.

  martynjpass@outlook.com.

  ALSO BY MARTYN J. PASS

  AT THE DAWN OF THE RUINED SUN

  WAITING FOR RED (With Dani Pass)

  SOUL AT WAR

  HAGGART’S DAWN

  THE UNFINISHED TALE OF SOPHIE ANDERSON

  THE TRIDENT SERIES

  TRIDENT: DEAD SIEGE

  TRIDENT: COLD VENGEANCE

  TRIDENT: RAW JUSTICE

  TALES FROM THE BRINK SERIES

  PROJECT - 16

  SHEPHERD

  PROJECT - 17

  THE BRINK

  BEYOND HOPE

  THE WOLF AND THE BEAR

  TRIDENT

  RAW JUSTICE

  M A R T Y N J. P A S S

  TIM MASON

  Copyright © 2020 By Martyn J. Pass

  The right of Martyn J. Pass to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Cover design by Martyn J. Pass

  TRIDENT

  RAW JUSTICE

  Glossary of terms

  HUD: Head-up-display – the screen that is overlaid upon the inside of the operator's helmet. It displays target information, health and armor status, and communication data.

  DZ: The drop zone in any operation involving aerial deployment.

  LZ: The landing zone in any operation involving aerial deployment and refers to the intended landing site for aircraft.

  OVERWATCH: The independent action of a Sniper deployed to a stationary position ‘watching over’ a particular target or structure, ready to engage at his or her own discretion.

  FARGO: The FARGO Company, responsible for the manufacture of high-end combat suits and technology to both Earth military and non-military organizations. Originally founded by former Earth Government Contractors, FARGO led the way in top of the range military equipment such as armor, weapons and fighting vehicles but more recently moved into the commercial sector, developing civilian tech as well.

  ETA: Estimated time of arrival.

  JAG: The Judge Advocate General’s Corps, a branch of the military specializing in military law and justice.

  PRT: Private response team. The name given to companies formed after the Mars War to fill the vacuum left by severe Earth Military downsizing. PRT companies can be hired to deal with domestic armed conflicts but are forbidden to take part in Earth Government military action unless specifically called upon to do so. All PRT companies must be registered and are ranked annually on a public table based on performance and casualty rates.

  RosCO: The leading producer of robotic construction equipment and tools, a subsidiary of CHERICA-AUTO.

  CHERICA-AUTO: One of the earliest manufacturers and suppliers of affordable exo-shells to Earth Government during the Mars War.

  UNITED GALACTIC COMMONWEALTH: The UGC was founded after the first colonists began to leave Earth’s solar system and a unified form of government was needed that allowed fair representation from all parties involved.

  PROTECTORAT: The Protectorat is a Police Force that maintains jurisdiction across all of Earth Gov. space and has the power to act on its behalf in nearly all legal matters, sometimes overruling even local government laws and verdicts.

  AO: Area of Operation.

  DEATH SQUADS: Highly illegal synthetic humanoid units manufactured and made available for hire somewhere within the Commonwealth. Despite efforts to find and destroy the manufacturing base, these artificial 'hit-men’ are rarely seen and are only affordable to the very elite.

  PROLOGUE

  NOCTIS LABYRINTHUS

  16 MONTHS BEFORE THE MARTIAN SURRENDER

  The dropship fell from the sky with little grace but demonstrating an enormous amount of skill on behalf of the pilot. Negotiating the jagged valleys of Mars was no small thing, especially when maintaining a safe distance below the scanner range could make the difference between life and death. Anyone observing the hulking shape might have mistaken it for a damaged vessel, fighting desperately to minimize the impact of an incoming crash. What they would have seen was a sudden pull of the stick, a brief jet of exhaust and a smooth return to a normal flight plan.

  On this occasion, the pilot had been handpicked for just such skill. No rookie could ever have been trusted with a mission of this nature and especially not one who might have gone on to blab about what, or more precisely who was on board. The girl with the purple-streaked hair had come as the first recommendation from the Air Marshal. As General Alexander Bourmont sat watching her from the back, he realized that the choice had been a good one. From the moment he and his bodyguard of Special Forces agents had strapped in, the pilot had said nothing. Taking all her cues from the NavCom which the General altered from where he sat, she never asked a single question or turned around once to view her cargo. Instead she seemed to laser-focus on the displays before her, right up until the moment she settled the craft on the jutting outcrop of stone which Bourmont had chosen specifically for their meeting.

  “We won’t be long,” he said to her as his team disembarked. The dust and the whipping air from the engines made speech almost impossible. “Wait here.”

  “Aye, sir,” she replied – the only two words she would ever speak to him that day. Then the General was gone, and his team led the way ahead of him into the mouth of an abandoned mine shaft.

  Twenty minutes passed before the Special Forces team reappeared with the General between them. They climbed on board and strapped in. The NavCom laid out the directions for Operation Headquarters and the pilot took the dropship back into the darkening skies above the mining facility of Noctis Labyrinthus and turned for friendly territory.

  A week later and Chief of Staff Robert Wash advised the President of Earth Government to send forces to capture those very same mines – a force of several divisions that had expected their enemy to be very few and very surprised. The Intel had been good; Noctis Labyrinthus was a weak spot in the Martian defenses and would provide such a victory that would propel Wash into the Governor seat of Alaska back on Earth with a view to the Presidency once the war was over. Instead, it became one of the bloodiest defeats in the entire campaign with the loss of nearly all forces in the attack, either through death, capture or missing in action. The Martians had been ready and had funneled all their available reserves into the tightly built mine shafts of the facility. What had once been a footstone to power had become a slippery slope into obscurity. Wash was relieved of his position and vanished behind a desk on the lunar colony to see out the last months of the war.

  What few noticed was the sudden rise to fame of a certain General Alexander Bourmont in the wake of the disaster…

  1

  Alice’s luxury speeder didn’t slow for any of the space lanes between the platform and TRIDENT’s new headquarters in the heart of the business district of Setti, Titan 5’s hub city. I was grateful for that and as the vast sprawling network of commerce and wealth below pulsed with neon and halogen, I began to realize that Angel was in more
trouble than I could ever realize. Taken from us the moment we set foot on the planet on charges of treason, we’d had no time to think and no chance to question the whole thing until it was too late.

  “I don’t care if he’s on a cruise, call him back,” cried Alice into her comms unit. “This isn’t an unpaid parking ticket – this is high treason against one of our staff!”

  My sister was flushed red with anger and yet still managed to maintain some semblance of dignity that came from years of waging war in boardrooms and meeting halls. I, on the other hand, had slipped into silence, settling back in the vast leather seats of the TRIDENT speeder with a third vodka in my hand, ice cubes and all.

  “Treason,” said Mason from the chair next to me. “Like she’s even capable of that.” He scratched the scar tissue that ran down his sternum without realizing that it’d become a new habit of his.

  “She’s not,” I said flatly. “Period.”

  “Baz didn’t seem so sure.”

  “Fuck Baz,” I spat, draining my glass and reaching for another. “I can’t believe he even opened his mouth after what happened. He looked glad.”

  “Is that why you left him behind?”

  “Partly,” I admitted. I added more ice just for something to do. “Also, because Alice is right – wheels have been set in motion and the next one will be to impound the Helios as evidence. They’ll want to turn her inside out if they think there’ll be anything incriminating on board. All our security protocols are revoked on an accusation of treason.”

  “Kind of makes you glad for Argo’s cleansing then.”

  “Kind of makes me think he’s in this somewhere too.”

  “Seriously?” said Mason. I shook my head.

  “Not like that. Maybe he’s stirred up some hornet’s nest and now we’re the ones being bitten. I mean, where could they have dug up a charge of treason for a war that’s been over for years?”

  “You know Earth Gov.,” he grinned. “You owe them something; they’ll come for it eventually – even if you’re dead.”

  “Especially if you’re dead.”

  “True.”

  Alice swiped across her comms unit and sat back with a loud sigh, kicking both of her shoes into the other compartment like an angry child. She suddenly reminded me of her younger self, throwing a tantrum for losing a game.

  “Got one of those for me?” she asked, pointing to my drink. Mason mixed a gin and tonic and passed it to her. “Thanks – you’re a gent. Unlike my brother of course.”

  “He’s only after a pay rise,” I said.

  “He can have it. You both can. But that won’t help Angel, will it?”

  “Tell me what you know so far,” I said. She sighed, took a long pull from the glass and wiped her lips with a napkin.

  “It's treason – all bets are off. Any other crime listed in the Galactic Law and Civil Rights Handbook, circa 1254BC, and we'd have heard about it. Treason though? Nothing. Nada. Zip. The paperwork from the Protectorat is valid. Of course, it would be, and it says nothing. The Earth Gov. Center for civil disputes here in Setti is saying nothing. Our own lawyers are in the dark. It's to be expected, my dear brother.”

  “So, she’s screwed?” said Mason. Alice threw up a hand and shrugged.

  “I couldn't say one way or the other. Treason is a big word. Back in the day, you could be charged with treason for leaving rations behind on Mars for the enemy to use. Treason included information exchange on social media. Treason also covered collusion with known informants even if you didn't realize that Mr. Jones next door to you was a Martian sympathizer. It was a terrible time for freedom even though the irony was that that was exactly what Mars was fighting for in the first place.”

  “So, what now?” I asked.

  “You fight wars on the ground and in space with guns and zappy lasers, I fight in the courts. This is my thing so you’re going to have to play this particular game my way if you want to see Angel alive again.”

  “Okay,” I agreed. “So, what do Mason and I do then?”

  “For now, nothing. I mean that! Don’t even think about some crazy escape plan to rescue the damsel in distress from the evil witch’s castle.”

  “Why would we?”

  “I know you, Carter. Your first port of call was probably an all-out assault on where ever it was that they were keeping her, and I have no doubt whatsoever that you’d have managed it too.”

  “But?”

  “But you’d have doomed her to a life in exile and TRIDENT INC. would have been shut down. You know this.”

  I nodded and grinned.

  “Can’t blame me for thinking about it,” I said.

  “I don’t.” She smiled and finished her drink. Mason reached for the glass, but she shook her head. “Thanks, but I need to keep a clear head. It’s going to be a long night for all of us.”

  “And what about our ship?” I asked.

  “Which one? The Helios will be impounded. Aleksei has warned us of that, which means that he already has the paperwork on his desk as we speak. The sale of the Aurelius shouldn’t be affected because the transaction was already underway before she docked. We have many friends and many favors outstanding which I plan to call in especially now we’ve got a hefty wad of credits coming our way and the prestige of bringing home a valuable relic.”

  “All this for Angel?” asked Mason.

  “Especially for Angel,” she said, turning pale as she spoke. “She was my choice and I hired her without your consent. I feel she’s my responsibility.”

  “She’s our responsibility,” said Mason. She smiled and handed him the glass this time.

  “Maybe I will have that second drink after all.”

  The new headquarters of TRIDENT INC. on Titan 5 was a modest tower block built from sleek looking stone the color of obsidian and it shimmered as the rain ran down its sides in great sheets. The speeder landed on the roof in Alice’s personal parking zone and a weather shield was already in place before the doors even opened.

  Walking beside us, Alice led the way to the elevator and, once inside, pushed the thumbprint reader for her own office level.

  “Nice,” said Mason.

  “It’s not,” she smirked. “We bought it with the view to struggling financially for the next few years. When the prize money was agreed upon, I put it up for auction and picked out something more appropriate.”

  “You don’t hang around,” I said.

  “Hanging around doesn’t get you the top spot on the PRT Gold Standard lists, little brother.”

  “Capturing ancient vessels does though,” I laughed.

  “That it does, and TRIDENT INC. thank you both for that. You don't realize yet the impact that money is going to have on the business, on those who work for us and even for yourselves.”

  “Right now, I’d prefer to have Angel here reaping those rewards too,” I said. Alice nodded.

  “You're right,” she said. “I can’t switch off from the job. Sorry. There’s just so much to do and at least paying for it all is no longer a burden.”

  We stepped out onto a luxury-carpeted hallway decorated with lavish but tasteful art arranged on the walls and on plinths all the way to her office. Most depicted great military leaders or images taken from decisive victories like the fall of Mars Prime or the burning of the Acheron during the Battle of Mars. There was even a painting of Admiral Argo, the hero of the same battle who also happened to be Captain Argo’s father.

  Mason stopped by the scorched data-map of one Colonel Edmond Aposa, framed in gold, and leaned closer to see the minute detail.

  “A gift,” said Alice without stopping. “From his daughter who fought in the same battle.”

  “Olympus Mons,” he said.

  “The very same.”

  “Seems like a strong Martian theme,” I said. “Were we involved in any other wars?”

  “Many, but our customers want to be reminded of victory, of a time when Earth Gov. fought back from the brink. You know the
spiel.”

  “No point letting the truth get in the way of a good story,” I said.

  “This way,” said Alice and we followed her through two enormous glass doors which parted at a wave of her hand. Then we were inside the beating heart of the company and we found it to be decorated in cats.

  “Seriously?” I cried, taking in the feline obsession. “How is this professional?”

  “I can’t help it, I love them!” she laughed. “Aren’t they cute?”

  “They’re hideous!” I said and Mason’s face agreed but he didn’t say it aloud. “How did you end up with so much crap?”

  “Gifts from happy customers. It started years ago when I put up a couple of pictures of them on Ajax. It spiraled from there. Have a seat.”

  “I don’t think I want to,” I said. “It feels creepy.”

  Her desk, an ornately carved thing from some distant planet, was crawling with the ceramic monsters, all looking directly at me and grinning. Mason and I took the big leather seats in front of them and she sat in her own chair.

  “Try to look past the cats and let’s get some work done, okay? It’s going to be a long night as it is. We should order food.”

  “Now I’m listening,” said Mason.

  Alice called up for supper from the diner across the street and it was delivered to her office less than twenty minutes later. I dragged a coffee table towards us and laid out the food, piling up a plateful while we caught up on some trivial news. Then, when we’d begun to eat, Alice looked at us both and pressed a button on her desk.