Peacemaker (The Revelations Cycle Book 6)

by Kevin Ikenberry

  “The Selroth. They could approach through a subterranean aquifer. We have to make sure they don’t.”

  “And you want access to our mines?” Klatk’s antennae waggled from side to side in irritation. “Absolutely not! Our mines are protected by our agreements with the Consortium and are sacred ground! No one is allowed down there besides my teams under any circumstances.”

  Jessica brushed hair out of her face and said, “Even if the Selroth attack down there, Klatk? We are at a significant disadvantage without being able to defend the mines properly.”

  Klatk’s mandibles worked side to side. “I cannot allow just anyone down there, Jessica.”

  “We can’t defend you without knowing what’s there,” Hex said.

  “I understand that, Hex.” Klatk looked at Jessica. “You, though, aren’t just anyone. You are a Peacemaker and bound by your oath to remain impartial. I can send you, Jessica. You can survey what’s there and determine a way for my people to best defend it.”

  Jessica looked at Klatk or a long moment. It wasn’t a perfect answer, and she couldn’t help thinking that sooner or later they’d have to move people underground to defend the mines. Jessica bit her lip for a second and then spoke. “Okay, Klatk. I’d like to go now.”

  “I’ll get you an escort,” Klatk said. She skittered down from the roof and left the two friends alone.

  “What’s she hiding?” Hex asked.

  “Her brood is down there. I’m fairly certain of that. The Altar’s contract with the Consortium stipulates that they mine for precious metals. The list is about two thousand minerals long. I think they’ve either found something not on the list, or they’ve found enough of something that could destabilize the Trade Guild.”

  “Like what?” Hex asked and then blinked. “F11?”

  “Doubtful. F-11 isn’t usually underground like this. It’s probably something else. Defending the tunnels is the right way to think, though; I’m proud of you for realizing that. Determining what she’s hiding from us, no matter how good her intentions are, is another thing entirely.”

  “That’s why they pay you the big bucks, right?” Hex chuckled.

  Jessica shook her head. “I have an injunction on the opposing colonies. We simply don’t have time to waste. I need to check out the tunnels. Set the defense.”

  Hex nodded. “What about the Raknar?”

  “Later,” Jessica said. “I don’t trust anyone in this situation.”

  “Is that paranoia or fact? Klatk seems to like you.”

  Jessica frowned. “It’s not a matter of being liked, Hex. She respects my position, and that’s great, but it doesn’t allow me freedom to be myself. One of her soldiers tried to shoot me after I landed.”

  “Really?” Hex blinked.

  “Klatk killed the soldier and has been close by me ever since, but I’m walking around looking over my shoulder constantly.”

  “What about the mines? You’re not going to be safe down there.”

  “Maybe,” Jessica shrugged. “We have to know what’s down there.”

  “You can’t tell me that, though. Right?”

  Jessica slapped her own forehead comically. “Gods! I forgot all about that.”

  “Forgot about what?”

  She grinned. “Raise your right hand and repeat after me.”

  * * *

  Tara brought down the skiff hauling the final load of CASPers and provisions near the torso of the fallen Raknar. Landing pads down, she thumbed the switch to lower the cargo ramp and consulted the Tri-V screens for the landing checklist. She tapped through the commands quickly, grateful for the concise, clear directions. A few reassuring thumps from the fuselage told her the unloading started without incident. Unloading the last three CASPers and a ton of provisions and fresh water for the unit would be short work for CASPer operators. The skiff powered down, she lingered in the cockpit for a moment looking at the screen menu and the words .

  Tara hesitated to flip off the vehicle’s main power switches. Using the throttle-mounted cursor controls, she keyed the hot start option, keeping the vehicle ready for a quick launch and return to orbit under duress. The quiet, busy colony outside belied what she knew to be going on around them. Through the cockpit windows, she saw Hex make his way down the gentle slope toward the river to unload his CASPer. Tara couldn’t see where he’d deployed her tanks, but that was okay. She trusted him to make the initial emplacement. If he’d erred, she could fix it before any fighting started. Being in the defensive position gave them that option.

  Tara unstrapped from the command seat and made her way out of the cockpit and into the skiff’s cargo hold in the space of a few seconds. Hex stepped aboard just as her boots hit the deck.

  “Hey there,” he said and smiled. His attempt at charm made her smile as well, even though she knew he’d misunderstand it. “Any issues?”

  “No.” She put her hands on her hips. “Lucille has the Victory Twelve in a good orbit with defensive measures engaged. I didn’t see my tanks.”

  “They’re providing security. We’ve got them dug in and concealed at the four corners of the colony with rockets and indirect fire behind them. Good fields of fire,” Hex said. “I’m putting the CASPers between them in concealed positions, too. The Altar dig crazy fast, so it’s been easy to get the vehicles in with as little observation time as possible. They’re watching us.”

  “Orbitals or air breathers?”

  “High-altitude drones, I think. We get tracks on v-dar, but can’t see them any other way,” Hex said. “I wish we had air cover.”

  Tara agreed. Timing had worked against them, and she hadn’t been able to secure even one flyer to patrol the sky above them. Velocity detectors on board the CASPers would be their only way of seeing airborne intruders, and they’d have no way of fighting them off if anything up there became hostile and engaged weapons. “We can modify a couple of CASPers and one of the tanks for air defense.”

  Hex nodded. “I was thinking the same thing. Once you get your gear stowed, I’ll show you the layout and brief you on the plan. We’re at 50 percent security right now.”

  Impressed, Tara felt better about what they’d discussed and practiced aboard ship. Fifteen hour days of simulations and training seemed to pay off. Their CASPer operators moved with grace and precision in the 1.08 G environment, and there was a quiet confidence to Hex that hadn’t been there when they’d left Earth. His brain appeared ready for the task at hand. His heart was another matter. “You doing okay?”

  “Better now.” He grinned.

  “Stop it.” She frowned. “We’re here to protect the Peacemaker and get this situation resolved, Hex. You’re a nice guy, but I’m not a rebound and neither is anyone else in our group. Got it?”

  Hex recoiled. “Yeah...okay, I just—”

  Tara stepped closer but did not touch him. “Focus on the mission, Hex. That’s what Maya would want you to do, not sportfuck around.”

  “Sportfuck?” Hex chuckled, but he nodded. The smile on his face slid away exactly as she’d intended. “This isn’t the time or the place.”

  “No, it’s not,” Tara said. His charm and hovering would have led him nowhere, but he didn’t need to know that. Mission accomplished, she changed the subject. “Where’s Jessica?”

  “Preparing to check out the tunnel complex. If there’s a subterranean water source, the Selroth could use it against us. Plus, Jessica thinks the Altar are hiding something down there.” Hex shrugged. “No idea what it is, or if there really is anything down there. Something’s just not right.”

  Tara turned and stared over his shoulder at the defensive weapons erected atop the colony walls. “Wouldn’t it be easier for them to relocate? This colony is all modular. We could move it in a couple of days at most.”

  Hex shook his head. “No, they can’t. They’re slaving power off the Raknar. It’s not much, but it’s more reliable than the power the wind and solar systems can produce because Araf’s weathe
r system is pretty fucked up most of the time.”

  “The Dream World isn’t so dreamy then?” She asked with a smile. Hex returned it, though without the cheesy charm he’d displayed since they left Earth. Maybe she’d gotten through to him after all.

  “Just not these three colonies. It’s a colossal mess, Tara.”

  “Are they going to fight? The Altar, I mean.”

  Hex nodded. “I think so. We won’t really know until the colonies and their mercs hit us.”

  There was a far away look in his eyes, and he kept staring over her head. She turned and looked to the south against the glare of the sun. Dust trails rose along the horizon. “Looks like we won’t have to wait long.” Tara said. She turned around but Hex was already running to his CASPer.

  She tapped her wrist slate and opened a comms channel. “Angels and Demons, stand-to, and lock and load. Enemy mobilizing to the south. Weapons hold. I repeat, weapons hold. If they come into sector, we’ll hit them hard, fast, and keep right on hitting.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter Fourteen

  The report of enemy vehicles on the horizon stopped Jessica in her tracks. She pulled a small earpiece from her thigh pocket and slipped it into her ear. A few taps on her wrist slate, and Hex’s voice came through loud and clear. “Bulldog, we’ve got enemy vehicles on the horizon. They’re moving slowly in this direction. Looks like a patrol or a show of force. Can’t say right now.”

  Jessica frowned. Seeing the tunnel complex and understanding what the Altar were possibly hiding couldn’t wait. “Can you estimate a time of arrival, if they keep their current pace?”

  “Negative. They’ve appeared to stop and are doing some type of rehearsal.” Hex sounded bored. “We’ll keep watching.”

  “What about the river?” Jessica asked as she climbed a slight hill toward the main cavern entrance. Klatk and another Altar stood on their back legs waiting for her. The new Altar carried a large rucksack brimming with tools. Seven more Altar soldiers waited near the cavern entrance.

  “Quiet. I’ve got two tank crews watching it, and Klatk left an engineer named Plec in charge here. Seems competent enough. He’s mining the Raknar’s legs again, as we speak.”

  Jessica replied, “Copy all. You know the litany, right?”

  “Waiting for you, Bulldog.”

  Jessica laughed. Their banter was straight from old Earth tactical manuals. Leaving a set of instructions without the traditional format didn’t seem fitting. “Right. I’m going into the tunnels and taking eight Altar with me. Klatk will stay here with you. If you’re hit, engage defensively with suppressive fire, and I’ll come back as quickly as I can. If I get hit, be prepared to divert an additional Altar platoon and two CASPers to my location. Acknowledge?”

  “Good copy, Bulldog. We’ll leave a light on for you.”

  The connection terminated, and Jessica set the communication alarm to key her headset from a beacon set she carried in her backpack. Ultra-high frequency radio signals wouldn’t go through solid rock, but with a series of beacons, she’d be able to remain in contact with her defensive forces on the surface. Klatk motioned for her, and Jessica closed the distance quickly.

  “Jessica, this is Bukk. His squad volunteered to take you into the tunnel complex.”

  Jessica’s eyebrows rose a fraction. “Does that mean I can trust him and his men?” The unanswered question was whether or not she could trust Klatk and the Altar at all. Since the early attempt on her life, the colonists scurried away from her, and she’d never been alone with anyone other than Klatk, much less a squad of eight.

  Bukk spoke first. “Peacemaker, you can trust this squad to protect you and fight alongside you, if required.”

  Jessica studied the Altar’s impassive face. His mandibles, the tell-tale sign of anxiety or untruth, were steady. His antennae focused toward her in a measure of respect. She didn’t like the prospect of it, but there was no other way she could see the tunnels. With a deep breath, she looked up at Klatk. “I don’t like this, Klatk. I appreciate Bukk’s words, but beyond yourself I’ve been avoided by your colonists, and my life was threatened by one of your soldiers. I’ve left specific instructions for my team. If I am killed under suspicious circumstances, they are ordered to evacuate this planet immediately.”

  “No harm will come to you, Jessica,” Klatk said. “It is important that you see what the Consortium wishes to take away from us.”

  “If it’s that important, it will need to be defended, Klatk.”

  Klatk hesitated for a split-second, Jessica was certain. “If that comes to pass, yes. We believe the enemy will fight us on the surface.”

  “Is there a way the Selroth could infiltrate the tunnels?”

  Bukk’s antennae wiggled from side-to-side. “No. The underground aquifer is not deep enough to support them and there is not enough space for them to pass through the chokepoints. There are seven they would have to traverse. We’ve mined the last two.”

  “Why not all of them?” Jessica asked.

  Klatk shook her head. “Altar cannot swim, Jessica. In those locations, the water is too deep to allow my soldiers to emplace mines or any other defenses. Are you sure you want to do this now? Perhaps waiting would be best.”

  Jessica turned and looked over her shoulder at the horizon. The GenSha colony lay obscured by dust plumes, but nothing appeared to be moving any further north than before. “No, I need to see it now, before this gets any more out of hand, Klatk.”

  “There are 90 kilometers of tunnels on seven levels, Jessica. It will not be something you can see in one mission.”

  She bit the inside of her lower lip and barely resisted the urge to ball her hands into fists. Anger fought reason and almost won. Jessica looked at her feet for a moment, the dusty pea-sized gravel of Araf left them more of a dusty brown than black. The words formed carefully as she raised her head to look at Klatk and let the emotion drain from her face. “Klatk? It’s time you level with me. What are you hiding down there?”

  “It’s best you see it, Jessica,” Klatk said. “Bukk? Take her to Levels Two and Seven with all possible speed. I do not like the idea of our Peacemaker being below ground if the enemy attacks.”

  “Yes, Klatk,” Bukk said and turned to his soldiers. Even in the chittering, high-pitched Altar language, she heard the familiar orders of a senior officer to his troops, and it made her smile. Her childhood as a mercenary brat pulled her across the country to more than a dozen former military bases. She really only remembered a few. She had scattered memories of little girls and boys she’d known in the home-schooled classes of the mercenary wives, and playgrounds and kickball games in the mid-summer heat and humidity of Georgia or South Carolina. She’d left all that behind when her father went into interstellar shipping instead of hauling mercs on their missions across the galaxy.

  “Jessica?” Klatk’s voice cut through the flash of memory.

  “I’m ready.”

  “That’s not what I was about to ask.” Klatk’s antennae and mandibles quivered, suggesting a chuckle. “Are you certain this is what you want?”

  The question felt like a slap. “It...it goes back to you telling me the truth. What’s down there?”

  “Our brood is on Level Two. We are down to our last chance to have a successful cycle and populate the colony or we’ll have to return home in shame.”

  “And what’s on Level Seven?”

  Klatk leaned closer, and Jessica caught the metallic, dusty scent of the Altar queen in her nose and tried not to flinch. “I do not even want to say it aloud, Jessica. I do not trust this nice, pre-fabricated colony site or its builders.”

  “They built this for you? The Consortium?”

  Klatk nodded. A very human gesture, but on an Altar queen, it looked absurd. “Going into the tunnels will make you their enemy, most assuredly. You will see what they are after and will understand the consequences to your people and many other civilizations.”

  It has to be F11. The
Consortium wants to overthrow the Merchant Guild’s leadership, and what better way to do so than with a massive, unknown quantity of the most desired resource in the galaxy.

  She took a long, deep breath. I wish Klatk would just tell me to my face.

  Jessica nodded. “Okay then.”

  “Be safe. We’ll see you in an hour,” Klatk said.

  Jessica shrugged out of her backpack’s straps and removed a handful of metal tubes that were sharpened on one end like stakes. On the other end, she screwed a two-inch cube receiver and paused before locking it in. The Peacemaker’s standard issue should work, but the whole idea of being deep underground sounded worse with every passing second. Her gut twisted as much as her hands did as she prepared the beacons.

  Finished, she slung her backpack over her shoulders. Beacons gathered in her hands, she walked to the cavern entrance. Bukk and his squad watched her approach. Each cradled a laser rifle and carried a rucksack on their backs. Jessica knelt and pushed the first beacon into the ground.

  “What’s that?”

  Jessica didn’t look up at Bukk. “Secure radio beacon. I need to be able to hear what’s going on up here, just as you do.”

  “We communicate the same way. Just hypersonically.” Bukk said.

  “I know, but that doesn’t do me any good.”

  “We can relay for you.” Bukk’s voice trailed off. His eyes widened in realization. “Peacemaker, I am sorry if we’ve—”

  Jessica stood and pointed down the cavern entrance. “Are we going, Bukk? I really don’t want to waste any more time.”

  Bukk signaled to the point soldier, and they walked into the cavern. Jessica waited until most of them were in front of her before she followed. Bukk crunched along in the gravel behind her. Jessica tried to distract herself from the sense of danger surrounding her by counting her steps with the goal of placing another beacon 200 meters into the tunnel or at the first junction, whichever came first. Away from the entrance, small horizontal lights gave the cavern enough light for her to see. The five-meter wide tunnel was only about three meters high in the center but it felt larger. She tapped her wrist slate and opened a mapping function to scan the walls and record the data. With a swipe, she raised all of the sensors to their maximum settings. Whatever was down here needed to be verified so she could study it back at her quarters.