by RJ Johnson
“Easier said than done,” Sarah warned.
“Maybe, but it’s the best idea I’ve got.”
Emeline pointed towards the street where the Ambassador’s Aerocycle limousine was waiting. “There he is. Now’s the time.”
Meade glanced at Kansas who was still fiddling with the controls, “Are we good?”
“Your dimensions are a bit off, but not so much that anyone would notice… unless they’re looking closely,” Kansas said still fiddling with the controls. “I think I’ve got the majority of the problems locked down – the image won’t flicker and give you away, but, in order to do that, I had to boost the gain, making the timeframe we have that much shorter.”
“How much shorter?”
Kansas glanced at his chronometer on his ArmBar, “If I had to guess? At best, you got maybe, fifteen minutes…”
“Then I’d best not waste any more time with you fools,” Meade said drawing himself up. “You sure I look good enough to pass muster?”
“Better than I’ve ever seen you,” Emeline said chuckling.
“Funny.”
Meade felt naked without his black hat with the braided tail and his duster but he couldn’t risk anyone spotting him as anyone other than his target’s doppelganger until he was safely within the Ambassador’s limo.
He approached the Coalition officer waiting by the Ambassador’s limo, took off his hat and sidled up next to him.
“Hey pal, you got a spare charge I can use?” Meade asked the officer. The Coalition driver looked at Meade suspiciously.
“There are Coalition recharging stations everywhere. You can’t just grab one from there?”
“My secure card got fried somehow,” Meade said apologetically. He held up his ArmBar to show the Coalition man. “See? I don’t’ know what happened, but my ArmBar was working until suddenly it sparked and that was it.”
The Coalition officer grunter and shook his head, “Coalition issue of course… they’re all cheap pieces of shit, and they wonder why the Consortium is kicking our ass,” he sighed. “It’s probably a capacitor problem that blew out your relays. Even if I had a spare charge it wouldn’t do you any good ‘til you fixed that problem.”
“Can you take a look at it?” Meade pleaded, “If I don’t make it back to my post by eversol, my CO will have my ass.”
The Coalition officer sighed, “I’ve got my own duties to attend to…”
“Come on ensign, help me out.”
The officer glanced both ways looking for anyone who might be watching them and back at the restaurant where Meade presumed his charge was still eating, “Fine, but we got to make it quick.”
“Thanks, I really appreciate this,” Meade said apologetically. The officer waved him off and approached holding out his arm for Meade’s ArmBar.
Meade didn’t give him a chance to get any closer. He fired off a stun pulse from his ArmBar that connected directly with the Coalition officer’s chest. The officer made a strangled noise in his throat and his face showed the surprise he must have felt when he realized the blast had come from Meade.
Meade caught the dead weight of the Coalition officer and eased him down slowly onto the hard pack. He put his fingers to his lips and whistled.
Sarah, Emeline and Kansas approached quickly from the shadows and circled around Meade and the downed Coalition ensign.
“Quick, before the Ambassador finishes,” Meade said, struggling to pick up the dead weight.
“Too late,” Emeline said, and she pointed towards the door of the restaurant where Ambassador Corcoran was emerging with her entourage.
“Go!” Meade said. They picked up the officer and began to drag him towards a dark alleyway.
“Wait!” Sarah cried out, “You need to scan his face so that Corcoran doesn’t spot you.”
“Good call,” Meade was embarrassed to say out loud that he hadn’t thought of that. Had Corcoran started asking questions to the strange Coalition officer that suddenly showed up to take her home, his cover wouldn’t last much longer than an ice cream cone in hell.
“Also his ArmBar settings, you still have that program?” Sarah asked as she raised up the man’s face to aim it towards Meade’s ArmBar scanner.
“You done this before or something?” Meade asked.
“Just a matter of being smarter than you, which isn’t exactly difficult,” Sarah said with a grin.
The ArmBar around the Coalition officer buzzed as a message showed up on screen.
“It’s from the Ambassador,” Emeline said reading it. “She wants to know where her ride is.”
“Hurry, we don’t have much time, if she gets impatient, she’ll report that poor bastard and all of this will be for naught,” Kansas warned.
They worked together and lifted the man’s body up. Meade aimed his ArmBar at the unconscious body and scanned it. The ArmBar worked and a bright light flashed around Meade’s outline. Suddenly, a picture perfect copy of the unconscious Coalition officer was standing in front of them.
“Get over there,” Sarah said. “We’ll be right behind you recording everything you broadcast from your ArmBar.”
“Out of the frying pan and into the fire,” Meade muttered to himself. He moved towards the waiting limo and got in. He glanced back to see Sarah and Emeline looking at him while Kansas struggled to drag the body back behind some dumpsters.
Here goes nothing. Meade thought to himself. He put the limo in gear and moved to pick up the most dangerous woman on Mars.
Chapter Nineteen
It was a short drive for the limo from where it had been waiting for the Ambassador to finish her dinner. Meade leapt out of the limo and moved hurriedly to the back to open the door for her.
“Where were you?” Corcoran asked. Meade could hardly look at her this close. He was half-afraid that the holoprojection wasn’t working properly, but mostly, he was impressed with how beautiful Ambassador Corcoran was in person.
She didn’t expose a lot of skin or show off her ample assets like so many fashionable Coalition citizens did. Corcoran wore long skirts that flowed along the lines of her body that were as colorful as they were tasteful. The one nod to her sexuality was the plunging neckline which exposed a generous amount of cleavage that no man could go long without staring at. Despite the lack of skin, this was a woman who radiated sexuality - and she knew it too, something Meade imagined, that she often used to her advantage.
“Are you deaf?” Corcoran asked the underlying fury in her voice becoming apparent, “I asked where you were!”
“My apologies ma’am,” Meade said, stuttering. “I was awaiting a recharge for the limousine.”
“What wasn’t it taken care of during my supper?” Corcoran questioned. Meade looked directly in the eyes. If she was going to recognize him and call for the guards to rip his head off, he may as well get it out of the way.
“There was a problem with the… ahh… power supply line through the Melas Valley,” Meade said, hoping his voice didn’t sound like it was shaking too much. Then again, Corcoran could immediately send him off into the wild jungle of deep space if she felt like it. She probably heard more than a few voices shake around her.
Corcoran shook her head, “Laszlo refuses to upgrade his infrastructure. Goddamn these Warlords.”
“Yes ma’am,” Meade wasn’t quite sure what the correct response was here. Corcoran looked back at him.
“It shall not happen again, are we clear?”
“Crystal, ma’am,” Meade said hurriedly.
“Good. Back to my quarters please Henderson. I wish to retire for the night.”
“Very good ma’am,” Meade said. She ducked into the limo and Meade shut the door behind. He breathed out a sigh of relief. He looked over the top of the limo roof to see Sarah, Emeline and Kansas all seated on their Aerocycle waiting to follow him. They gave him the thumbs up that Meade discretely returned.
He moved around the limo and got into the driver’s seat to take off. They flew up
and away from the restaurant and melted into the traffic.
The privacy divider lowered between Meade and the Ambassador. Meade didn’t say anything and only stared straight ahead.
“Henderson, change of plans.”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“There’s a situation developing in the Hebas Chasma that requires my attention. Please bring me to the Enzeli prison.”
“Yes ma’am,” Suddenly, Meade was struck by an incredibly bad feeling. What was going on? Why was she suddenly changing their destination?
“Do you know what Enzeli is Mr. Henderson?”
“It’s a prison camp ma’am,” Meade glanced back at her in the mirror. What was her game?
“It is,” She was staring at him, examining him as if he were some sort of newly discovered species.
Meade tried to ignore her gaze and adjusted the controls so that the limo smoothly banked as they turned onto the thoroughfare that would take them directly to Hebas and Enzeli prison.
“You’re second gen colonist, is that right Henderson?” The Ambassador’s cool voice was neutral. Meade glanced back at her in the mirror mounted on the dashboard. He fought the rising panic that was threatening to spill over at any minute. He hadn’t planned on Corcoran actually interacting with her driver. Most elites in the Coalition never said a word to those they thought were beneath them.
“Ma’am?” Meade hoped this question by the Ambassador wasn’t the beginning of some long interrogation about his life. He didn’t know anything about the man he was impersonating and if she asked him enough questions, he’d be quickly found out.
“Did you know I grew up on the Homeworld?”
“No Ma’am.”
“It’s true, I did. My parents were dirt poor farmers, barely able to scrape anything out of the soil. Our family had been vintners before the Last War. Do you know what a vintner is Henderson?”
“Making wine ma’am.”
“Indeed,” Corcoran smiled, looking impressed. “Once the bombs dropped, it was nearly useless for my parents to try and raise anything out of the ground. Nothing would grow.”
“The Last War took a lot away from people,” Meade commented.
“It’s true,” Corcoran sighed and ran her finger against the window, tracing a heart in the condensation. “It was a horrible, terrible way to live. We only had a few thousand people in my town, but once civilization began to degrade, people were less than enthusiastic about remaining within the bounds of the law.
“It got bad,” she said as she leaned back and looked out the window at the New Plymouth lights. “It got so bad at points, I’m not sure how my parents were able to keep going. Had it been me, I imagine I would have suffocated my sister and me and put a bullet into my wife’s head before I let my family deal with the kind of constant starvation and despair we were subjected to.”
“That must have been difficult,” Meade decided to play it cool. There was no telling where this was leading.
“You have no idea. We had good moments of course, life can’t always be a constant suck storm of shit,” Corcoran smiled at this. “In fact, there was one memory that I hold especially dear. After the war, my family wasn’t left with much, but we were able to scrounge together enough credits to purchase some livestock. Nothing too extravagant you understand. Some chickens, two pigs and a dairy cow. We were looking for sustainability, something to rebuild with.”
Meade glanced back at her in the mirror and watched her examine her nails.
“Unfortunately, some of the less than desirable elements found out that we had managed to get our hands on a few pieces of livestock. They came for it one night, late in the evening after we had cooked some of the meat.
“My father attempted to drive them off, and he was successful – to a point. Unfortunately, during the attack, my mother was shot, and killed.”
“I’m sorry to hear that ma’am,” Meade said. He was beginning to feel a growing unease in his deepest gut. There was something wrong here.
“You don’t have to apologize. It happened a long time ago. And besides, despite only being six years old at the time, I had the presence of mind to dump a container of fuel we used for our generator on the man and light him on fire. Have you ever smelled burning flesh Mr. Meade?”
Meade’s face went white as he realized Corcoran was playing him.
“Ma’am?”
“I believe you have Mr. Meade. You know exactly what burning flesh smells like. I don’t believe you’ve said anything truer than how the stench of it smells exactly like roasting pig.”
Corcoran leaned forward and Meade could feel the cold steel of her gauss pistol nuzzled up against his chin.
“Take me to the prison Mr. Meade,” she purred in his ear. He glanced out the window and watched as a half-dozen Coalition MPs with their blue and yellow lights flashing on their Aerocycles surround the Ambassador’s limousine. Meade spotted Emeline, Kansas and Sarah peel off on their Aerocycle as his limo was surrounded.
He jerked the wheel to the right and pulled back on the vehicle’s throttle as the powerful engines roared to life. Meade and the Ambassador were pulled back into their seats by the sudden acceleration.
Meade glanced behind him to see the Ambassador’s rolling guards on their Aerocycles begin to give chase. Fortunately, Kansas, Emeline and Sarah didn’t let them catch up. Four well-placed shots connected with the rear engines of their Aerocycles and they spluttered and died. The guards on the struggled with the suddenly unresponsive Aerocycles, and they fell behind, their engines spluttering.
Meade didn’t let up on the acceleration and pushed the enormous limo to its limit.
“What the hell are you doing?” Corcoran screamed from the rear of the limo. “What have you done?”
Meade glanced down at his ArmBar power supply and saw it blinking with a low power icon. He pressed a button, stopping the holoprojection around him and Meade’s true form shimmered back into view.
“Sorry Ambassador, but it’s for your own good.”
“I’m afraid you have no idea what you’ve stumbled into. You think I don’t know your every…”
“’Fraid that’s not possible ma’am,” Meade called back to the Ambassador behind him. “You’re in danger.”
He jerked the wheel to avoid hitting a mole on his Aerocycle returning home from a long day at work. The Ambassador grimaced at being thrown around within her cabin.
“So I noticed Mr. Meade.”
“How the hell do you know who I am?” Meade asked suspiciously.
“I’ve known your every move since you lost that fight, you pathetic little worm,” Corcoran hissed. “I swear to you that if you stop this car right now and let me out…”
“You’ll what?” Meade jerked the wheel to avoid colliding with another oncoming Coalition’s Aerocycle. He pushed the flight control down and dove down into the dark streets of New Plymouth.
“You have no idea what you’ve done.”
“I’m saving your life.”
“Wrong Mr. Meade,” Corcoran smiled as Meade took another right, “every moment you do not return me to my destination is another hundred years I plan on adding to your sentence for inconveniencing me.”
“You’re pretty confident for someone who isn’t in a position to negotiate,” Meade shot back. He cursed as three Coalition Aerocycles rounded the corner and began giving chase after them. The reinforcements began to fly up and over the limo’s roof ramming into it, hoping to force it to the ground.
“I already know the outcome to this,” Corcoran said lazily. She settled back into her seat and strapped back in. “Whatever mewling you plan on doing is incidental.”
Meade ignored her and concentrated on the airspace in front of him. The Coalition MPs had backed off and he grinned, they weren’t gonna risk hurting the Ambassador.
His confidence lasted exactly as long as it took for him to hear a THUMP on the limo’s roof. He could hear scattered pattering of metal on metal as the Coalition d
rones began to disperse all over the limo. His eyes went wide as he watched one drone fall down the windshield and open up its cutting torch to try and get into his cabin. A hole was quickly cut and Meade took out his grandfather’s pistol and put two bullets directly into its central processing unit. The machine sparked, and gave what sounded like a cry as it fell off the windshield.
Meade grinned at his victory. Maybe he’d get out of this after all.
Suddenly, dozens of THUMPS began to land all over the limo. Meade’s eyes went wide as he saw dozens of the Coalition drones tumble down and over the hood in front of him. The drones’ lasers began to glow as they carved into the metal hood in front of them. They clutched the sides of the vehicle as they cut deep into the limo.
Meade twisted the controls, turning them up and over, hoping to shake them loose, but there was no point. They were firmly attached to the Ambassador’s limo and they were carving it up like a deranged chef.
The car’s engine spluttered as the drone’s lasers made quick work of his engines. He twisted and turned through the narrow alleyway and knocked the drone that had attached itself to the rear of the limo off and felt the heat as it exploded next to him.
That is until he rounded a corner and found himself facing a wall of flashing blue and yellow lights. Meade swore as he counted nearly three dozen Coalition MPs on their Aerocycles and at least three times as many drones.
Suddenly a bright flash of light exploded next to him on his right and then everything in the limo ceased to work. The controls on the limo became mushy and they went into a steep dive. Meade threw his arms up and braced for impact.
The limo crashed and dirt flew up into the open windshield splattering Meade with mud dirt and grit.
Suddenly, there were dozens of people standing around him, screaming and yelling til they were hoarse. He felt his arm be nearly jerked out of its shoulder socket as they dragged him out of the wreckage. He cried out in pain and was rewarded with a sharp strike across the face with one of the MPs’ batons.
The light around him became a halo of white, until thankfully, Meade passed out.