by Neal Jones
Melding one's mind to another's was like entering a maze. There are many doors, many dead ends, several sunlit rooms and dozens of dark corners. Instead of walls, the corridors of one's mind are lined with an endless viewscreen, replaying every moment of one's life, all at the same time. The images blur and run together, faces smearing and coalescing then smearing again. Scenes mesh with other scenes, and the actors within them cross in front of and behind each other in an odd sort of waltz, moving like ghosts of light and shadow. Time also seems to stretch and crawl, moving slowly at one intersection and then racing at another. This is one of the hidden dangers of initiating a meld. If one isn't extremely careful, one can become lost in another's mind completely and be unable to separate in order to successfully end the union. It's very easy to lose one's identity amidst the chaos of the other's thoughts and memories.
But Dreatta was no beginner. She deftly navigated the halls of John's mind, stepping over piles of crumbled wall, paying no attention to the scenes and memories of E'kust's past. That was the true name of the prisoner. Only twice did Kkev have to backtrack from a dead end, and it was only a few minutes after initiating the meld that she found the door that she was looking for, though she had no idea when she began her search what it would look like. That was another trick of this ability. One never knew what one was looking for until one found it. The portal gave easily, and the room beyond was empty. Not even the walls were displaying the typical, endless loop of E'kust's thoughts and memories. In the center of the room was a table and an antique lamp. The light was on, and the beam cast itself upon a book. It was of medium thickness, and Dreatta picked it up immediately. She smiled as she read the first two pages, and she wasn't surprised to see that the remainder of the leaves were blank. She set the book down and walked out of the room.
She hadn't realized she had closed her eyes until she was opening them, as she withdrew her hands and stepped back from the prisoner. She turned to Gabriel and Zar. "His only assignment was to assassinate Ambassador Vorik. Aside from that, he was to observe the situation here and transmit daily reports. That's all he knows."
The commodore grimaced. "Where did he transmit his reports? Who were they addressed to?"
Dreatta shook her head. "All he knew was an interweb address. It's a local one in this sector." She motioned for Zar to hand her his compad and he complied. Kkev typed in the address and gave back the pad. "I'm sorry, gentlemen. I wish I could have found more, but E'kust – which is his name, by the way – was given a specific mission. And yes, he is a field operative for the Talik'Jhor, but he hasn't been with that organization for very long. This assignment is only his third." She paused, thinking for a moment, and then said, "If you wanted, I could conduct a deeper meld. It would take more time, and I would charge another two hundred because of the risk involved. Right now, because his body is weak, his mind is not as strong as it could be. This is the best time to do it. It's possible that there might be something in those other two undercover assignments which might shed some more light on this one."
Gabriel and Zar glanced at one another, and the commodore shook his head. "I'll consider it, but, for now, we're through. Thank you for your time."
"Come with me back to my office," Jerren told Kkev. "I'll get your payment."
As the pair left the cell block, Rosenberg returned, and he immediately began an active bioscan of E'kust. Gabriel watched from a distance, standing near the entrance, scowling. While Kkev's point about the previous two missions might be a valid one, there was also a good possibility that the meld would be a waste of time and money. It made sense that E'kust wouldn't know anything beyond his orders for this assignment. He was just one cog in a massive machine, and, apparently, one of low rank at that. It looked like this victory was going to be an insignificant one after all.
"He appears to be stable, and his condition remains unchanged," Rosenberg remarked.
"You expected otherwise?" Gabriel retorted.
"You never know for sure when a mind meld is performed," The doctor replied calmly. "I've witnessed firsthand what can happen when it goes south."
Gabriel turned and walked out of the block. When he arrived back in the front office, Zar was alone, sitting behind his desk, his terminal active. He glanced up as Gabriel entered.
"Kkev was right. That interweb address is at a junction on the far side of this sector, close to the neutral zone border. It's a sure bet that E'kust transmitted his reports in code on a public channel, probably from one of the kiosks on the promenade. Once the communiqué arrived at that junction, it would have been rerouted to something closer to Jha'Drok space, although finding out exactly where is going to be a bit of a chore. I'll put a team together and send them out to that junction. I'll update you tomorrow if we've found anything, although it could be a few days before we uncover anything of substance. Public comm traffic is a bitch to dig through, but the fact that Kkev was able to get the code from E'kust makes it much easier. At least we know exactly what we're looking for."
Before Gabriel could respond, the doors opened, and a man in a dark suit crossed the threshold. He was accompanied by an EarthCorps officer and two marines.
The officer stepped forward and saluted. "Commodore Gabriel, I'm Captain Phillip Barnes. This is FCI Special Agent Connor. He's here to take the Jha'Drok prisoner into his custody. Krael Zar, please escort the marines to the prisoner's cell. They'll be using a site to site cardon transport."
"Yes, sir."
While Zar led the marines out of the office, Gabriel fixed an expression of controlled anger on Connor. "Who authorized this?"
"Vice Admiral Hazen." Connor was human, or at least he appeared to be, and there was a sharp glint in his green eyes to match the smug expression on his narrow face. "Captain Barnes will show you the communiqué if you'd like. That is, of course, the only record of this incident. You understand how this works."
"Commodore," Barnes interjected, "I need to know who else on your staff besides you and Zar are aware of the prisoner's presence here."
"Doctor Rosenberg, Major Saveck and Brantar Varis."
Barnes nodded. "Good. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that it should remain that way."
"Yes, of course," Gabriel replied, never taking his gaze away from Connor. There was something about the man that was immediately distasteful, like a malodorous scent from a crime scene which lingers long after the original heinous act has been committed.
Barnes' commlink beeped, and he pressed it. "Go ahead."
"The prisoner is secured, sir."
"Thank you, sergeant." The captain terminated the link and saluted Gabriel. "Good day, commodore."
Gabriel returned to the salute, but only nodded. Connor turned away, a sneer in his eyes at the display of military protocol, and he followed Barnes out of the office. Zar and Rosenberg entered just then, and the doctor's mood was even more sour than earlier.
"Those damn marines didn't even wait for a medical report. I hope that Mister E'kust doesn't die on the way to wherever they're taking him."
"So do I, doctor," Gabriel murmured, still staring at the door through which Barnes and Connor had departed.
( 4 )
Vice Admiral Hazen sighed as he shut off his terminal and reached for his cup of tea. It had cooled considerably in the last hour, and Hazen scowled as he took a sip. He walked to the food processor to return the mug, then sat back down and swiveled his chair so he could look out the viewport behind his desk. Shuttles, repair droids, and personnel transports were coming and going around Freedom-Twelve, moving in a slow, mechanical waltz that always seemed to sooth the admiral's mood. Beyond the traffic, the jeweled starscape glistened and winked, playing silent observer to the grand scene.
Hazen had just received confirmation from Captain Barnes that the Jha'Drok prisoner had been successfully taken into custody. The admiral had spent the last hour poring over the reports from Exxar-One, compiling and sorting all information received thus far regarding the situation out
there. He agreed with Gabriel's final conclusion: the Jha'Drok were definitely up to something, but exactly what was the sixty-four-thousand credit question, and this was where the briar patch became especially thick and thorny. All of Hazen's inquiries to FCI headquarters had been answered with the usual response. When we feel it's necessary for you to know, we'll let you know. Until then, stop calling. It hadn't been those exact words, of course, but that was the gist of it, and while his security clearance was high, it wasn't high enough to warrant his involvement of every detail of the Exxar-One situation. His primary responsibility was to oversee the personnel assignments for his designated sectors, as well as coordinate the daily reports which he received from the flag officers under his command. His position wasn't called a desk job for nothing. Most of his time was spent sifting through, compiling, editing and relaying those daily reports to his liaison officer in CMC. The Exxar-One situation was the most eventful project to cross Hazen's desk in ten years, and he hadn't been lying to Marc when he'd listed how many people were now involved. Hazen had done his damndest to be part of the ad hoc committee which Parliament had established to examine the neutral zone situation, but Vice Admiral Bullock had denied the request, telling Hazen that there was already too many chairs around that particular table. The last that Hazen had heard, Bullock, FCI Senior Director Caine, and the committee had not reached any clear decision as to what to do next.
Hazen had formed enough connections with enough top brass during the course of his career that he was able to eventually get a rundown of what had transpired so far behind the committee's closed door meetings. The debate seemed to center around the lack of information from behind Jha'Drok borders. Apparently, several undercover FCI operatives had suddenly vanished in the last three decades, leading Caine to believe the possibility of a leak within his ranks. Over the last twenty years, his investigation had yielded little or no results, but from the reports of the operatives over the last century, the Jha'Drok did not appear to be up to much of anything, aside from the expansion of their territories through exploration and conquest in the opposite direction of Federation space. Granted, there had been less than two dozen operatives total behind the enemy lines, but their sudden disappearance in the last thirty years was evidence in and of itself that something was up.
Muddying the waters even further was Parliament's extreme reluctance to dive into another galactic war so soon after the last one. The committee members were fully aware of this, yet half of them were pressing for a vote to deploy a handful of fleets into position along the Jha'Drok border, as a show of strength and a warning. The other half were unconvinced that there was enough evidence to warrant such a direct move, one that the Jha'Drok might interpret as an act of aggression. Thus, the meetings were often adjourned with almost no progress having been made.
The damn truth of it all was that everyone involved was stalling. No one – not Parliament, not the president, not the brass at CMC – wanted to be the one who pulled the trigger. They all were hoping that, given enough time, something somewhere would give. The Haal'Chai would attack and destroy Exxar-One. The Jha'Drok would attack the Chrisarii. The Jha'Drok might even attack the Federation. Any one of those options would allow the governing body of the IFP to move forward under the banner of defense. The Jha'Drok or the Chrisarii would be cast as the villains, and the IFP would play the role of the heroic empire which went to war only as a last measure of defense, after all attempts at peaceful negotiations had been met and failed. That first option was particularly appealing to most of the senators and the committee members, because it would give Parliament a perfect excuse to go back to war with the Chrisarii, to finish the job which should have been completed when a stalemate was declared ten years ago. A decade was a relatively short span, even by the galactic standard calendar, but it was enough for IFP's economy and military resource production to recoup at least a third of the losses suffered during the war. It was even rumored that strategists within CMC already had a battle plan drawn up, just in case.
The door chime interrupted Hazen's reverie. He turned to face the front of his office, tugging at the waist of his uniform jacket to smooth out the wrinkles. "Come in."
Commodore Fleischman, Freedom-Twelve's commanding officer, entered. "Excuse the interruption, admiral, but I just received an odd communiqué. It was addressed to me, but it was encrypted with one of the older encoding programs. When I ran it through the proper decoder, I discovered a separate message embedded in the first. The original message ordered me to pass this on to you directly." He handed Hazen a compad.
"Thanks, Erik. And, like I said before, you can call me Bill. I promise I won't court martial you for it. You and I are going to be working together for awhile. We might as well get on a first name basis."
Fleischman smiled awkwardly, nodded, and then beat a hasty retreat. Hazen shook his head, wondering how it was that some people worked their way so high in the ranks without mastering some basic social skills. But his expression changed as he applied the decryption program to the message which had been marked for his eyes only. It took only a moment for the computer to do its thing, and Hazen's frown deepened as he read the short paragraph. He erased the message, turned off the lights, and left his office.
( 5 )
Central Park was quiet at this time of night and nearly empty, save for the occasional jogger or the couple walking their dog. The park was fully restored to its former beauty, looking just as it did in the early 21st century before the onset of World War Three. Hazen made regular visits here, but his last afternoon stroll had been more than two months ago. He paused on the stone path, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply. The air was crisp with autumn scents and there was a slight edge to the breeze which wafted through the park, tugging at a coattail here, a few leaves there.
The admiral continued his trek, checking the time display on his commlink to make sure he wasn't late. He had changed into civilian attire, and he felt a little out of place without his uniform or the comfort of his quarters aboard Freedom-Twelve. Yet he understood the need for the secrecy of this meeting, and as he approached the designated rendezvous coordinates he saw that the park bench was empty. Arthur was running late. Hazen smiled to himself as he sat and increased the temperature of his jacket by two degrees. The nanotech fibers which were embedded in the lining of his coat activated, and the admiral shivered as another gust whipped through the park.
"You're always early," a voice remarked from the darkness beyond the cone of light which surrounded the bench.
Hazen didn't need to turn to identify the speaker. "You're always late."
Arthur Whitaker stepped into the amber pool created by the antique streetlamp and sat beside his old friend. "Forgive me, Bill, if I forgo the pleasantries. I realize it's been awhile since we've spoken, and under other circumstances, I would be buying you dinner at King's Pub right now."
Hazen nodded, his smile fading into a somber expression as he looked out into the darkness. "I was surprised to receive your message, especially in such an indirect manner."
Whitaker was looking in the opposite direction as the admiral. He watched a man and woman, arms linked with each other's, pass beneath a streetlamp at the far end of the path and then turn right, disappearing into the shadows. "I have some information which directly pertains to the Exxar-One situation; information which you need."
Hazen turned to his friend, a man whom he'd known for almost fifty years. There was something in Arthur's tone which disturbed the admiral. "About the Jha'Drok?"
Whitaker nodded, giving a small sigh as he faced the admiral. "Caine is lying in his reports to the committee and to CMC. It's true that there was a spy in our central office, and that she was responsible for the disappearance of all the operatives that we had in the Jha'Drok territories. But what Caine has withheld from his reports is that a select few of our operatives had stumbled onto something just before they began to vanish. About forty years ago, the Jha'Drok military and the Imperial Senate
began to suddenly divert civilian resources. Taxes increased, dozens of new factories sprang up all over the Emperium, a national draft was enacted, and the regs were changed to allow the admission of females into the military ranks. Troop movements increased, but exactly where and how they were relocated was a mystery. Same for the home fleets. Something was up, but none of our operatives were in a position to get any real information." Whitaker paused and reached into his breast pocket for a peppermint. He offered one to Hazen but the admiral shook his head.
"And then all of your operatives suddenly disappeared."
Arthur nodded, popping the candy into his mouth and tucking it inside his right cheek. "All the brass at FCI is certain that the Jha'Drok are preparing for an invasion. Any idiot with a high school diploma can read the warning signs and draw the same conclusion."
"But no one's willing to state it for the record," Hazen replied.
"Exactly. Part of the reason is because of the new data which has come in from Exxar-One. If the Jha'Drok really are supplying the Haal'Chai with technology that's based on garidium, and if that technology is as advanced as Commander Garrett's team says it is, then we've got one serious pickle on our hands."
"If the Jha'Drok can outfit a Haal'Chai raider with that kind of technology, imagine a fleet of battle carriers equipped with it."
"Precisely." Arthur began crunching his peppermint. "That's what has Caine scared shitless. He doesn't want to be the one in front of Parliament saying that we're about to go war against an enemy who's got such an advanced edge on us, especially when we have no fucking idea how the hell they obtained that edge. He knows that the blame for this is going to fall square on his doorstep. Two dozen operatives behind enemy lines for more than seventy years, and we're just now learning about this?"