Flashpoint (Hellgate)

by Mel Keegan

  Kiveris hiccupped. “I had azzezz to ever lill thing. I saw … records an’ all that stuff. CL…whatever, y’know.”

  He was an amiable drunk, Marin decided, garrulous and happy. “And the source, on Earth?”

  “Shee-car-go,” Kiveris sang. “Office on Chicagaroo. No, thazz wrong. In Chicagaroo, good ole Chicagaroonies. Office of big, big polly. Politi…shun.”

  The chair scraped back from the bedside, and Shapiro stood. “Do you remember the name of the politician who authorized the money, George?”

  “Mmmm. Tired. Wan sleep now.”

  “Just the name, George,” Shapiro promised, “and then you can sleep as long as you like.”

  “Mmmm.” Kiveris’s eyelids were already glued shut. “Sen…tor.” His head lolled back on the pillow. “Senator Charleston.”

  “Senator who?” Marin asked, sharply enough to rouse him.

  “Charleston … A. Ruther…” Kiveris shook himself and yawned again. “Ford. Gotta sleep now.”

  “You sleep,” Shapiro told him as he withdrew to the door, and touched his combug to cut into the loop. “Doctor Drury.”

  The Infirmary was shut down, chill and dark, but Eileen Drury was on call. “General Shapiro? The usual?”

  He gave Kiveris an amused look. “The usual.”

  It was a case of mild alcohol poisoning which would make Kiveris ill if it went untreated. Drury would shoot him with blockers and set up an IV to rehydrate him, and he would sleep it off. In six hours, Kiveris would remember nothing of this scene, and the information he had given for the third time was consistent on all points.

  He was snoring in great ripsaw snorts as the door slid over, and Shapiro stood with hands in the pockets of the blue uniform slacks. “Senator Rutherford.”

  “Surprised?” Marin wondered.

  “Appalled, not surprised.” Shapiro’s brows rose. “I’ll negotiate his ransom, have him shipped to Borushek. His trial will coincide with the announcement of our sovereignty, when Borushek declares itself independent from the Terran Confederation and a senior member of the Nine Worlds Commonwealth.”

  Marin had tried the term on his tongue, and liked it. The nine worlds were Velcastra, Borushek, Omaru and Jagreth out close to the frontier and Hellgate, and then Lushiar, Pakrenne, Ulrand, Lithgow and Mawson, strung out like pearls on a necklace, toward the Middle Heavens. More worlds would apply to join when the Colonial War had been consigned to the history texts, but these nine worlds, all densely populated, highly industrialized, wealthy in people and resources, would always form the heart and soul of a commonwealth riding on trade.

  A chime from the comm preceded a soft announcement from Ingrid, the synchronized clone of Shapiro’s office AI. “Mercury is on approach to Velcastra and will dock in seventy minutes at Joseph Valdez. All personnel debarking with General Shapiro, be advised of the departure of Mercury 101 for Elstrom StarCity at 15:25.”

  Marin flicked a glance at his chrono. The lander was shoving off in seventy minutes, directly from the belly hangar. “Time, General,” he said quietly. “With luck we might never set foot on the Fleet dock facility.”

  “I’d be pleased not to,” Shapiro agreed. “I feel … exposed.”

  The Fleet platform was named for one of the early pioneers into the Deep Sky. It was ostensibly one of Velcastra’s support facilities, but Marin was as content as Shapiro to go no closer to it than a docking boom. Shapiro wanted nothing to do with the regular Fleet crews. Every moment the Mercury spent berthed here was dangerous, if only because Ingrid was expected to interface with the mainframes.

  The threat of an AI spybot being virally transferred was so high, Jazinsky had spent an hour custom-configuring a firewall to keep them out, and installing routines that would make Ingrid appear like a much more rudimentary AI, similar to Richard Vaurien’s Etienne. In fact, Ingrid was more akin to Mark’s own Joss, and a distant cybernetic relation to Lai’a itself.

  “I’ll see you on the lander.” Shapiro was already moving, heading back in the direction of his own quarters. “This is all about dress grays and polished teeth! Round up Travers, and organize your own sidearms.”

  With fifty minutes to spare, Marin was back in the quarters he and Travers had been assigned on the starboard side, just aft of the senior crew. He leaned on the sky blue tiles, let scalding water ease his muscles, and then slammed the faucet over to cold. The shock snapped him fully awake in an instant. His head cleared, and he was drinking coffee as he padded, naked and streaming, to the armorglass to watch Velcastra coming up fast.

  It was so much like Jagreth – people said, a lot like Earth itself, which was why it was treasured as one of the few real jewels of the Deep Sky. Little wonder, Marin thought, the Confederacy wanted so badly to hang onto it. The air was as oxygen rich as the sky was nitrogen blue; the oceans covered only forty percent of the surface, volcanism was minimal. The climate had been easy to stabilize by the same terraformer fleet that excised a number of hazardous life forms. The world was ready for humans in just under a decade, and almost three centuries later it was the queen of worlds – richer, more populous, more stable and beautiful even than Omaru, Borushek, Jagreth.

  From this distance it was a blue and white glass marble, shining against a backdrop of dense black velvet, but it was growing visibly as the cruiser powered in through the long approach lane, and Marin was just about to buzz Travers before he ran out of time, when Neil appeared.

  Every muscle was still taut and pumped. His skin shone with sweat and body oil, his hair was a careless tousle, and he seemed to have purged the goblins that had troubled him since Borushek. Marin knew what was gnawing at him, and had said nothing. It was just Vidal – the empty place where a good friend ought to have been, the silence where one had come to expect his voice. Scores of people on Velcastra shared the feeling. The memorial would give them closure, but they had not served with Vidal. They had not been there when the Orpheus flew into Hellgate.

  “I know, I’m late.” Travers was stripping to the skin on his way across the stateroom, and a moment later the shower turned back on. “I was busy.”

  “Pumping iron,” Marin observed as he slid open the closet and laid out a pair of Fleet dress uniforms that had never yet been worn. They were silver-gray, elegant, bearing the insignia of majors and the unit crests of Fleet Sector Command. Both were custom tailored for the security service, fitted with the discreet, concealed harness accommodating sidearms.

  “Nothing wrong with pumping iron,” Travers argued amiably with his face under the stream of water. “You like to run. Same thing.”

  The uniform felt odd, and Marin frowned at his reflection in the long dressing mirror. He had left Fleet as a lieutenant and returned as a bogus sergeant, calling morons sir, and toying with Roy Neville for almost too long. The Intrepid was a time and a place, right behind his eyes, so vivid in memory, he could step back onto those decks at any moment.

  He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, took a deep breath, and then looked out at Velcastra again – a disk now, filling the sky as the cruiser came up alongside the Fleet facility, with the sparklets of city lights just visible in the dark side, the shapes and colors of its continents arranged beneath the white foam of clouds.

  The last time he and Travers had been to Velcastra was to meet Robert Chandra Liang, inform him that his son was avenged, and he was in grave danger, with his security perforated and Shapiro’s office fully aware of him, his involvement with the colonial republicans, his Daku politics.

  Joseph Valdez was a five-kilometer torus of girder, gantry and pressurized modules, with facilities to dock up to twenty small ships or a handful the size of a super-carrier. Eight assorted Fleet ships were berthed at the moment, including a tender and three couriers. The sterntubes of all were dark, cold.

  A damp towel landed on the bed, and Marin turned back to watch Travers dress. The silver-gray uniform fit him snugly, a little tight across the shoulders. It made him look physically bigger, Marin
thought, an odd illusion. Then Neil was glaring at his reflection, and his lip curled at the major’s insignia.

  “You know, I never liked officers.”

  “The rank’s honorary.” Marin poured another half cup of coffee.

  “Tell that to Shapiro!” Travers tugged his collar to rights and turned his attention to his boots.

  “Shapiro can believe whatever makes him comfortable,” Marin said acidly. “The truth? You and I can walk, any time we want.” Travers shot a glance at him. “Alshie’nya, when Lai’a deploys into Elarne. We go along, we don’t go along. Mark said, we’ll know where we want to be, when the time comes.”

  “I hope he’s right,” Travers said dryly.

  “That’s what I told him!” Marin drained the cup and went ahead of him to the door. “Ten minutes, loverboy. The lander’s going to be on preflight procedures already.”

  Travers smacked his mouth with an off-center kiss on his way out, and was gone.

  The Mercury’s lander was a Rand Montenegro in Fleet livery. It seated twelve, including pilot and copilot, but on this flight Shapiro was traveling with an entourage of six. Gillian Perlman was up front, with Judith Fargo in the shotgun seat. Marin might have wondered at this, but Travers had told him just the day before, Fargo was cross-training.

  With lieutenant’s bars on her shoulders, she had begun to take the rank a little more seriously, and she had glimpsed herself as an executive’s pilot after the war, flying for someone like Chandra Liang or Senator Prendergast, earning more money in a week than a conscript earned in a year, and doing precious little for it. Marin had only good memories of the kid – and of Perlman too. He greeted them with a smile as he followed Travers aboard.

  In the left front seat, with the threedee access, Shapiro was already talking to faces Marin recognized. One belonged to Sonja Mei Ming Deuel, the mother of the long-deceased boy, Karl David Liang, who might have been the start of everything for Marin himself.

  The second face framed in Shapiro’s threedee, Marin had not seen in some time. It was Kristyn Bauer – General Bauer, from Fleet Internal Affairs. And she looked, Marin thought, so furious, she was ready to chew barbed wire. He could not hear anything she said, since Shapiro had the threedee on mute, and a bug in his ear.

  Right behind Shapiro, Travers had taken the window seat, and Marin slid in beside him. In the back, Tim Inosanto was reading – something lurid, if the flush on his cheeks and the dilation of his eyes were anything to judge by. Beside him, Kravitz and Choi looked merely bored. Fargo was up front in the copilot’s seat. Between them, the four Bravo Company veterans constituted Shapiro’s bodyguard, while Travers and Marin had been tasked with his security – and Marin did not take the duty lightly. The Montenegro itself was very lightly armed, but enough weapons were stashed aboard to fight a small war.

  It was a long time indeed since Shapiro had trusted his business to a secretary. His AI performed every chore he could not do himself, and Marin often thought, he and Travers knew as much about Harrison Shapiro’s dealings as anyone alive.

  Moments later the Montenegro dropped out of the belly hangar. Perlman sat back, arms crossed, letting Fargo acquire the landing beam, negotiate with Elstrom ATC, and turn the lander’s blunt nose down on approach. Shapiro was speaking in undertones, monosyllable responses, and Marin glanced at Travers, wondering if he had heard, seen, more.

  But Travers only shook his head. “We’re only running security on this. He can have the politics – and he’s welcome to the job. Have you seen the guest list at the memorial? It reads like the celebrity roll call at a state funeral. I didn’t know Mick was so well connected.”

  “And if you had?” Marin was watching the Velcastran atmosphere envelope the lander, blazing and frothing through an Arago re-entry as smooth as silk.

  “I might have cut him some slack,” Travers admitted. “He could be an arrogant sonofabitch at times.”

  “But that came from the fact he was good, and knew he was good.” Marin set his head back against the rest and closed his eyes. “Vidal had a lot to be arrogant about.”

  Travers was silent a moment and then said, as if it surprised him, “You liked him.”

  “He never gave me any reason not to,” Marin said honestly. “We were rivals, and we both admitted it, eye to eye. We both respected the rivalry between us … and he didn’t dispute the choice you made. If it was a contest, I won, and I don’t underestimate the victory.”

  “Rivals,” Travers mused.

  “Over you, idiot,” Marin said fondly without opening his eyes.

  “And you won,” Travers added. “Damnit, I never had two A-list studs fight over me before.”

  “You must have improved with maturity,” Marin said with dry humor that won him a chuckle.

  As he spoke, the Montenegro bottomed out into clear air, the comms came back to life on the low side of the ionization layer, and Elstrom ATC was whispering once more, approach and landing instructions for aircraft inbound to StarCity.

  “I worked there once,” Travers said vaguely, watching the flyspeck of the domed platform come up slowly out of the blue of the distance.

  “Installing a security system for Chandra Liang, I know.” Marin leaned over him to watch StarCity take shape as they drew closer. “I was a guest here, when I took his contract, the time he put me on the Intrepid.”

  “And you’re a guest here again. We both are.” Travers looked away from the view for a moment, and into Marin’s face. “Security-wise, nobody knows Chandra Liang’s place better than I do. I took drones over every square meter of it. I know where his water pipes are patched with duct tape, because the construction crew did half a job on the fly!”

  “Which is more than Chandra Liang knows.” Marin smiled wryly. “Why do you think Shapiro was so determined to have us along?”

  “It’s also a privilege to be at the memorial,” Travers added.

  He was right. Marin had read the guest list, looking for names which would hint at potential security hazards, but he had seen none. Fleet was represented by Shapiro himself. The last ship on which Vidal served, during his active career, was represented by his last commander, Colonel Alexis Rusch. Beyond them, distant blood relations were arriving by the squadron, and bringing with them people Vidal himself would not even have known.

  The threedee right ahead of them, by Shapiro’s seat, blanked for a moment and when it reilluminated the colors were dim, reds and browns. Marin’s eyes were drawn by the change, and he murmured as he recognized Jon Kim’s face. He gave Travers a nudge with one elbow, but Neil had already seen him.

  “Harry, you’re here!” Kim’s expression was a study in sheer relief. “It’s so good to see you. I saw the preparations for the memorial on CityNet – looks like half the celebrities on the planet are invited, and there’s big-wheels coming in from offworld.”

  “We’re just short of StarCity,” Shapiro told him. “Right after the memorial, two of my security people are coming to get you. Next stop, the Mercury and then Borushek. Home.”

  “Thank gods,” Kim breathed. “It’s not a moment too soon.”

  “They caught up with you?” Shapiro asked sharply.

  “It’s hard to be sure, and too easy to be paranoid,” Kim admitted. “There might be a couple of goons in the pub across the street, and they might know the car I hired. I’m in a motel, the Blue Lagoon in Scott’s Harbor, about a hundred K’s east of Elstrom. It’s a dive, but it’s cheap, quiet, and they didn’t mind about the dogs. Have you ever tried to travel with a couple of dogs?”

  “Not yet,” Shapiro said ruefully, “but I imagine I’ll learn. Listen to me, Jon. Pack, settle your account, and be ready to leave as soon as you see the lander.”

  “How long?” Kim’s face was tight.

  “An hour at least, three at the longest,” Shapiro guessed. “I’ll call you, before my people launch. Give me your phonecode there.”

  Kim rattled off a dozen numbers, and then huffed a sigh, clos
e to the audio pickup. “Jesus, it’s good to see you! You know I’ve missed you.”

  “I could say the same,” Shapiro admitted. “I imagine you have quite a story to tell. You know you’re officially on Ulrand’s most wanted list?”

  “Am I?” Jon Kim made a face. “It’s your perfect illustration of how screwed up things are getting back there. I worked my tail off for them, talked myself blue in the face and ran myself ragged, around the clock for weeks, after El Khouri, and what do I get for it?”

  “Twenty-five years without the option of parole,” Shapiro observed.

  “That long?” Kim was shocked, hoarse.

  “You might have talked it down to ten, if you’d stayed in Marak and let yourself be arrested. Let it go,” Shapiro advised. “Marak law is very insular, very different. A good friend of mine had to literally abduct his son and his son’s partner from Ulrand, before they could vanish into prison for the rest of their lives, on charges that had all the substance of a handful of smoke. You’re out and clear, that’s all that matters. Now, pack, pay the bill, get the dogs on the leash and ready to move. Yes?”

  “Yes,” Kim agreed. He paused, and gave Shapiro a wry, lopsided smile. “I owe you, Harry.”

  “No, you don’t,” Shapiro said easily. “But if you think you do, we can talk about it in couple of hours. Soon, Jon.”

  The line broke, and the threedee reverted to neutral tones of blue and green, and an image of StarCity, which by now was large with proximity. Marin turned in his seat to look at Travers, and Neil nodded, a mute approval of the man. He was young, with fresh good looks, keen intelligence and a profound grasp of the situation in the Deep Sky, possibly because he had become a victim of it.

  The platform filled the viewports now, and Marin had jacked in to monitor ATC comm. “StarCity Control, this is Mercury 101 on final approach. Request clearance to land,” Perlman was saying into the quiet loop while Fargo had her hands full, learning procedure, interface, the nuance of control. Perlman was qualified as an instructor, and Fargo had done five hours in the simulators on the Borushek base. The real thing was very different.