Flashpoint (Hellgate)

by Mel Keegan

  The big Pakrani twisted in his chair to look up and back at Marin. “Not true?”

  Marin glanced at him, and then back at the schematics. “Need to know, van Donne. And you don’t.”

  “Well, shit, I’ll just take that as a ‘yes,’” van Donne said acidly. “But if that mother slips past me – us – here, pulling off a hit when he’s gotten himself a mansion on Earth or Mars will be one helluva lot harder. He’s already surrounded by a goddamn’ army here. Once he gets in among the homeworlds, he’ll have Tactical, military, corporate, government, all protecting him. I’m going to get one shot at this, and then I might as well write it off and learn to live with the fact he fucked me over royally.”

  “We,” Travers corrected, “are going to get one shot.”

  “What’s the story with you and Zwerner?” Marin prompted. “I mean, the full, real version. I know the gossip, and if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s never to trust spacer rink gossip.” He lifted one brow at van Donne. “So Zwerner screwed you. He’s screwed everybody, and he and his homeworlds cronies came damn’ close to destroying most of Omaru.”

  “I know. CL-389,” van Donne sad quietly. “I heard the whole thing. There’s not much I don’t get to know through the Hydralis underground. I used to run the Fleet blockade so often, I had my own stashes in the outer system, among the abandoned smelters. Would it surprise you to know I’ve done business with Alec Tarrant?”

  The supply pipeline from Reece Clyma at Reagan de la Courte to Colonel Alec Tarrant in Hydralis had gone by way of van Donne, and Marin was unimpressed. “If you short changed Tarrant, when this war ends and he can get out of Omaru, I wouldn’t be you.”

  “He doesn’t have a bone to pick with me,” van Donne said tartly. “And as for Boden Zwerner – I don’t think he has a friend left in the Deep Sky. He has goons and whores, but kin and friends?” The blond head shook. “He could buy his way into the homeworlds, probably even Earth itself, but he’s not going to get the chance.” He glanced up at Marin. “So, Dendra Shemiji. I’ve been looking for a way to get to him for months. What do you see that I don’t?”

  It was a good question, and Marin took it seriously. The schematics were heavily annotated with van Donne’s information, and he had also been watching Zwerner for long enough to know his schedule, his movements. Sergei had tried to find access for either a human or a drone, through the loading dock, the servants’ gates, the technicians’ inspection hatches, the air ducts, incoming water pipes and wiring conduits, power couplers, waste water pipes.

  “No joy,” he said as he fed the last forkload of food into his mouth. “Ramon, get me a beer, will you, kid? So, Mister Professional Expert, what’s your plan?”

  Without inflection of tone or expression Marin mused, “I’ll take him tomorrow, if you guys have gotten a lead on the Shanghai prisoners. If you need extra time, tell me how long. I don’t want to pull the plug on Zwerner before you have what you need, because this whole place is going to go so ape, we might have to bust out of here, and we don’t have the resources to get too fancy – or complacent.”

  Every head in the lab had turned to stare at him. Even van Donne was so speechless, the smart remarks died unspoken for a long, elastic minute. At last it was Ramon who said, in that thick Velcastran accent, “You’re shittin’ us, right?”

  “No.” Marin gave the younger man a cool look. “It’s so obvious, it’s slapping you in the face, you’re just not seeing it … you’ve become too used to getting what you need by brute force.” He tapped his temple. “Not sneaky enough by half, kiddo. Neil, I need to go look at a bunch of messages that have been queued since yesterday … do you have a few minutes?”

  The look on Travers’s face made him long for a handy. He would have liked to show Neil the picture of himself, open mouthed and gaping. On Jagreth, they called it ‘catching bugs.’ Vaurien was only chuckling. He had known Mark Sherratt far too long to doubt a syllable Marin had said, and Jazinsky accepted the bald statement without comment.

  “If you need me, I’ll be in our quarters,” Marin said lightly, and stepped out. “Neil?”

  Travers was a pace behind him. Safely out of earshot of van Donne and his partners, he demanded softly, “That was a joke, wasn’t it? You’re just winding the buggers up because they’re funnier that way?”

  “No.” Marin gave him a sultry look over one shoulder. “I’ll take him tomorrow, or at the moment you specify, if a day nosing around Halfway doesn’t get you the intel on the prisoners.”

  They were in the open doorway to their stateroom when Travers’s hand on his arm held him back. “You going to tell me, or do I have to bribe the info out of you?”

  For the first time in what seemed a lifetime, Marin laughed quietly, and the humor was genuine. He beckoned Travers in, and hit the door release. It was closed, locked, when he sat back on the edge of the wide bed, propped himself on both palms, and gave Travers an amused look.

  “You saw the schematics. You can’t sneak in or break in. It’s sealed up tight. Which means Boden Zwerner lives in the dread of assassination – execution! – as well as the expectation of attempts. So, if you can neither sneak nor break in …?”

  Travers’s brows rose. “He has to come out.”

  “Or he has to invite me to come in,” Marin added. “Now, I could probably romance him till he issued the invitation, but I’m not going to. The place is crawling with his goons, as Sergei said. I itemize him, which is simple enough; then I have to itemize twenty more, to get out of there alive.” He shook his head dismissively, and looked Travers over with deep appreciation. “It would get too complicated, messy, hazardous. Therefore, the man will come out tomorrow.”

  “You’re dead certain of that.” Travers was well aware of Marin’s mood. Faint color flushed his cheeks and his eyes had darkened. He came closer, standing between Marin’s widespread knees at the edge of the bed.

  “With a major radiation spill from the power conduits on the level right below, it’ll be his own idea to get up and go,” Marin said cynically. “And before you ask, no, I’m not going to rupture the mains and contaminate half the colony! But I am going to send a drone in there with a hazmat lock-box, and instructions to open it when we’re ready to move; and in about an hour’s time, I’m going to ask Jazinsky to put an AI into the Halfway mainframe.

  “When we’re good and ready, the drone releases just enough radiotoxic garbage to give Zwerner’s sensors the tipoff that it’s the real deal, and Halfway’s own peabrained little AI will raise the alarm. Everyone and his dog will be bugging out. All we have to do is pinpoint Zwerner’s ship, and pick him off as he leaves. I don’t want to have the Wastrel do it – I don’t want anything tying Richard into the event any more closely than he already is. We could arm the Capricorn, but she doesn’t have enough hull armor to make the idea attractive, if there were an alterative. And there is. Sergei already bought into this, which means we can take Zwerner with the Mako, and leave Richard the hell out of the whole deal. Nice, neat, tidy.”

  “Damn,” Travers whispered as he sank to his knees at the bedside and laid both forearms along Marin’s thighs. “Sergei could have done it himself – if he had the brains to think it through. And an AI specialist. And a spare drone or two he could trust. He looked up into Marin’s face. “So when are you going to put him out of his misery, tell him how it’s going down?”

  “Same time as I ask Barb to put an AI into the Halfway mainframe.” Marin stretched under the sheer luxury of Travers’s hands, which had begun to caress him, undress him. He sprawled back over the bed and watched Neil with lazy preoccupation.

  “Now, what pushed your buttons this time?” Travers wondered as he pulled off the soft Tai Chi pants. “Not that I’m complaining, mind you.”

  “Watching Ramon and Byrne flirt,” Marin admitted. “They’re fancy dancing their way around each other and van Donne. And Ramon’s going to get what he’s been wanting, unless I miss my guess.”

 
; “Which got you … interested,” Travers observed, preoccupied with the hot, hard flesh he had discovered. “Just lucky for you, there’s someone to take care of this for you.” And the dark head bowed to the task he had set himself.

  Liquid pleasure engulfed Marin. The alchemy of it transformed his bones into jelly, and his fingers threaded into Travers’s hair, massaging his scalp, finding the erogenous zones. Neil groaned, deep and bass, as his body responded to the ancient skills, and he was only half aware of what Marin was doing. In time he would learn these skills too. The Resalq knew every trick, every act of sensual magic, and the pressure points were not very different in humans, though the response was not at all the same.

  A Resalq lover could court the male or the female nature of his partner – the qualities a human recognized as male and female were both integral to the Resalq. Humans were different, more difficult to woo, more unpredictable. Marin wondered which side of Neil would awaken as he massaged the pressure points around skull, neck, face, slipped his hands down around the big shoulders and began again.

  The hot, wet heaven of Neil’s mouth left him; his skin prickled in reaction, and he took a quick breath as Travers moved up over him. He was not surprised to find his spine folded, his legs draped artlessly across Neil’s shoulders. He smelt the sweet scent of the lube they used, felt its coolness on Neil’s long fingers as they slipped into him. He looked up into Travers’s intent face as he positioned himself, one knee on the bed, one foot braced on the deck. And then the sudden fullness, heat and intense pleasure banished every thought from Marin’s mind.

  With fingers like talons in Travers’s shoulders, he held on – unable to move much, and not needing to. Neil was as strong as he had ever been, or stronger. Since Omaru they had both spent countless hours in the gym, and while the hard physical work only made Marin more slender as it turned his sinews to steel hawsers, it packed dense, heavy muscle onto Neil’s body. He was strong enough to have been daunting, if Curtis had not known him for so long.

  But he had never been wary of Travers, nor reluctant to arouse him. The weeks of impotence and sickness after Omaru were just a bad memory now, which Marin chose not to recall. Instead, he focused on the big, robust body in his arms, filled with the vitality of a magnificent young animal, driven by the healthy lust Marin had invited, and tempered by love.

  Growling with effort and desire, Neil drove him hard, and at last Marin let his head fall back, closed his eyes, barely breathing as he concentrated on every sensation. He knew to the instant when Neil was about to come, and he needed only a few touches of his own hand to trigger his own coming.

  They were tangled on the bed, a long time later, when the comm chimed. Without even opening his eyes Marin said,

  “This better be good.”

  It was Vaurien. “Did I interrupt something?”

  “No,” Marin admitted. “We’re done … what is it, Richard?”

  “The other half of this job.” Vaurien paused. “We need to pay a visit to J Deck.”

  The reference meant nothing to Marin for a moment, and then he remembered the schematics. J was the bottom deck, the very bottom of Halfway’s docking rink, where the Krait and the Mako were berthed. “Tell Sergei to bring his ship up to one of the topside docks. As it happens, we can use the Mako.”

  “I’ll tell him,” Vaurien agreed, “but Fernie Wang is happy as a pig in shit down there. He’s not going to move the Krait.”

  In the vicinity of Marin’s right shoulder, Travers groaned. “We have a use for Fernando Wang? In the name of God, what?”

  Vaurien chuckled. “It’s like this. Sergei knows another guy on Wang’s crew, some deadhead, name of Talantov. Turns out this Talantov spends his downtime skulling in a den on J, some dive called Gemini that’s going to make Flamenco Rosado look like a class act. Talantov’s been talking to Ramon about this dealer he knows from Gemini … give you three guesses what the lowlife deals in.”

  “Live cargo. Labor for the Freespace colonies,” Travers breathed.

  “Got it in one,” Vaurien affirmed. “Etienne’s monitoring comm in and out of Halfway, and it’s a dumb idea to say a syllable on the air, encrypted or not. I want to track down this Talantov personally, use him to get hold of the dealer … and then it ought to come down to money or blood. He either sells the intel or you can beat it out of him.”

  “Me?” Travers demanded. “Why does it always come down to me, when you want rough stuff –”

  “How do you know I was talking to you?” Vaurien asked sweetly. “If it came to extracting information at the edge of a razor, I’d have to guess Dendra Shemiji would know how it works.”

  Marin sat up with a deep yawn. “Nothing so crude, Richard – but I take your point. With any luck the intel will be on the table with a pricetag attached.” He stretched every joint, every sinew, and looked down at the long, muscular sprawl of Travers’s body. “When do you want us there?”

  “Soon,” Vaurien mused. “I want to nail the data fast, before any part of the status quo can change. Which also gives you your shot at Zwerner tomorrow. You said you can use the Mako?”

  “And a favor from Barb.” Marin got his feet under him with another yawn, and threw open the closet. “We’ll be right there, Richard.”

  Not quite on a whim, he lifted out the kevlex vest, and without a word, dropped it on over his head before he dressed.

  “We expecting to get shot at?” Travers asked quietly.

  “Maybe.” Marin glanced thoughtfully at him. “Zwerner’s almost killed van Donne twice. He has to know we’re on Halfway … and if van Donne knows I executed Reece Cyma, the news might have reached Zwerner. For all we know, he might also be aware of who got through his security at the Palmeral. It all comes back to me. Us. Dendra Shemiji.”

  “Which makes us targets as surely as van Donne.” Travers reached into the closet and lifted out the larger kevlex vest.

  Pleased he was going to wear it without being argued into it, Marin watched him set the smart seals, so the kevlex-titanium mesh formed up about his torso and abdomen like a close second skin of black armor. Travers regarded his reflection in the long mirror with a cynical expression.

  “What?” Marin wondered.

  “I’ll be glad when this bloody war is history,” Travers said with raw honesty, “and it’s just you and me, and a horse property in some backwoods place nobody every heard of. Time and space to live your life without spending half of it healing up and the other half trying not to get busted up all over again.”

  “We’ll get there,” Marin promised. He took Travers’s smooth face between both palms for a moment, kissed his mouth, and watched the blue eyes smile at him with so much they might never say. “If they didn’t get us at Omaru, the rest should be easy. Still,” he mused as he stepped back to watch Travers finish dressing, “I’d like to get the paperwork organized. Just in case. If you’re going to be my legal heir, so you can inherit under Jagrethean law –”

  “We’ll need to handfast, to make it impossible for the Jagrethean authorities to invalidate the bequest. I know.” Travers shoved his feet into the soft black boots and settled his denims over them. He shrugged into the shoulder holster for the Zamphir and snatched up the jacket he had dropped by the bed almost an hour before. “Talk to Richard and Mark. Set the date.”

  Something inside Curtis Marin gave a curious lurch. “You’re serious?”

  “Of course.” Travers leaned over and pecked his cheek with a kiss. “But I’m not just marrying you for your money. That part of it – the inheritance thing, and this weird Jagrethean colonial law of yours – is all your business. I’m just getting hitched because I found somebody to care about, and I want to be with him.” He paused with a frown. “Like Shapiro, I suppose, stumbling right into Jon Kim by accident. It’s been a long time since his wife was killed. You ever read his file? Vaurien has it. Jazinsky hacked Shapiro’s system a few hours after he jumped us on Saraine!”

  Lauren Russell-Sha
piro had been gone for a long time, and it was no more than blind luck that threw Harrison Shapiro into the company of the Ulrish Environment Minister – the same blind luck that made Jon Kim not only work well with Shapiro, but also find the older man fascinating.

  “By now Kim ought to be getting close to Velcastra, even on a tramp that’s taking the back-loop route,” Marin mused.

  “Better hope he is,” Travers decided. “There’s no way back to Ulrand for him, and the whole Deep Sky is getting dangerous. This one’s Shapiro’s problem, loverboy – and he probably relishes it. You and me? Getting hitched is the least of our worries. It’s only to keep your weird Jagrethean law happy. We’d be together anyway, here, there, Three Rivers, what would it matter?”

  He hit the door release and was out of the stateroom on those words, as if he did not realize the enormity of what he had said. Marin smiled after him, mulling the words over again, liking the sound of them. It was so simple, in Travers’s logic. Someone to care about, to be with. Neil was prepared to accept the feelings between them for what they were, without micro-analyzing them, taking them apart and putting them through some process of scrutinization after which they would never be the same again.

  “Good enough,” he decided as he picked up his jacket.

  “What is?” Travers wondered.

  “I’ll talk to Richard and Mark,” Marin told him. “Set a date.”

  Travers looked back over one shoulder. “Don’t forget to brief me. You might need me to show up on the day.”

  Vaurien was leaning on the bulkhead beside the service elevator, listening to Ramon, who spoke in a bare undertone as if he thought the walls might be audio bugged. Richard gave Travers an exasperated look and raised a hand to stop Ramon.

  “Save it kid. Neil, they’re prepping the Capricorn. We’re going to take it down and dock on J, close enough to Wang’s berth and this club Ramon’s telling me about to scan the whole zone and clear it. I’m done taking chances.”