Flashpoint (Hellgate)

by Mel Keegan

  Shapiro’s eyes fairly danced with amusement as he looked at Travers and Marin. “These are the funds I’ve been siphoning off to pay for the industries at Alshie’nya, the Wastrel’s assignments, recruitment of the Freespacer fleet which won the Battle of Ulrand for us, and bought the Shanghai survivors from that Belczak character on Celeste. The same funds are about to buy Senator Rutherford from the government of Ulrand. Well, now. How very poetic. Embezzlement, was it?” He actually chuckled. “I suppose it was. But Fleet doesn’t know the half of it – not yet – and by the time they do, it’ll be too late.” He gave Hume a curious look. “Do you have any inkling of what’s going on here, Captain? Or do you also imagine I embezzled a cool half trillion credits and am headed out into Freespace to live like a king for the rest of my days?”

  “My gods, there’s an idea,” Travers said softly. Shapiro shot him a glance as full of amusement as reproach, and Travers ducked his head. “Sorry. But you have to admit, it has a certain appeal.”

  “It does,” Shapiro agreed. “Well, Captain?”

  Hume had hung on every word. “You’re the puppetmaster behind the insurrection,” he said bluntly. “It’s you, goddamn it.”

  “It’s me, goddamn it,” Shapiro confessed. “And as for you, Captain Hume, you can have your biocyber limb, and a degree of comfort on this vessel. A word of caution. You’re chipped. The AI will know where you are, every second, and if you set foot in a place you’re not suppose to – the engine deck, the Ops room – you’ll wake up an hour later with the biocyber leg uninstalled, and your hoverchair tethered to a bulkhead in quarters with a great deal less comfort. These are my terms, and they’re not negotiable.”

  “Then I guess I better accept,” Hume said tersely. “I’m a prisoner of war.”

  “One of hundreds,” Marin informed him. “The rest are on Ulrand, the survivors of the battle who were picked up by the Ulrish militia rather than the Freespacers who fought the battle.”

  “Freespacers?” Hume’s eyes narrowed. “We had intel. A drone courier made it through, fast. The Shanghai was pulverized. Freespacers didn’t do that.”

  “No.” Shapiro touched his combug. “They didn’t. Did your intel describe the ship that did?”

  But Hume made negative noises. “The intel was patchy. All Fleet knows is, something very big and very nasty dropped in out of nowhere and suddenly the Shanghai was a carcass surrounded by carrion eaters in a feeding frenzy.”

  “All right. For the moment that’s all you need to know. You can see the rest on a CNS documentary when it’s all over.” Shapiro turned his attention to the loop “Doctor Drury, you can have your patient back. And he can have his prosthesis.”

  Her voice was a whisper in Marin’s ear. “I’ll send the orderlies to prep him for the installation. Any special treatment, General?”

  “No. Have him transferred to private quarters after the leg has been fitted. Thank you, Doctor.” He gestured toward Kim. “Assign a surveillance drone to be his shadow. And as for you, Captain Hume, be aware of the chip, and think twice about your conduct aboard this ship.”

  “General.” Hume saluted crisply, but it was an insult – full-blood homeworlder to colonial, loyal Confederate office to republican traitor.

  For a moment Shapiro studied the man darkly, and then left the medlab without comment. It was Jon Kim who grumbled, “Shouldn’t you be having him keelhauled or something?”

  “We took his leg off above the knee,” Shapiro said acidly. “I think a radical amputation should suffice. See to the drone, Jon. He’s chipped, his fangs are pulled, but I don’t care for him.”

  Nor did Marin. “If you don’t need us for a couple of hours, we’ll take the opportunity to go down to Sark.”

  “By all means.” Shapiro gestured toward the hangars.

  “Can we bring you anything from the city?” Travers offered as they stepped away toward the lifts.

  For a moment Shapiro hesitated, and then shook his head slowly. “Nothing. But thank you, Neil.”

  The lift car was a few moments arriving – long enough for Marin to catch a single glimpse of Jon Kim in the curve of Shapiro’s good arm while they waited in the passage for the orderlies to take charge of Carson Hume. Then the doors closed over and Travers said quietly,

  “You called Mark?”

  “And got the AI,” Marin sighed. “They’re gone. Joss has the whole operation locked down tight, and Mark left a message, but they already bugged out. CNS is running a story about Riga, the ghost town.” He looked up into Travers’s face. “They could be anywhere.”

  “Alshie’nya,” Travers guessed. “We’re headed there soon.”

  “Ulrand first.” Marin pushed away from the wall as the car opened again, into the cold halflight of the hangar. “Senator Rutherford is about to get his day in court, though he doesn’t yet know it. And I’ll be damned if I know what he could say in his own defense How do you rationalize funding a covert op like CL-389?”

  “How much do you want to bet,” Travers growled as they made their way across the corner of the hangar, “he signed the order to itemize Harrison Shapiro not long after he got a departmental memo about how much Fleet funding was vanishing! About the time it started gushing in Richard Vaurien’s direction.”

  It was a good guess, and Marin was ready to believe it. In the Intelligence business, Colonel Grimes would certainly answer to some civilian taskmaster, and Rutherford had already shown his involvement in Fleet, the desire he had for a stranglehold on the Deep Sky. He had been aboard the Shanghai, fully expecting a ringside seat when Ulrand was crushed.

  The Fleet gray Murchison Europa was Shapiro’s personal vehicle. It was as bulletproof and as immaculate as Liang’s Magister, and it had the advantage of being orbital. It was also lightly armed. Marin acknowledged a faint shiver as he slid into the right-side seat, but deliberately dismissed it. The Mercury had come home fast, outrunning any signal from Velcastra. If agents like Hume were assigned to Sark, they would have to believe Shapiro was dead, and no transmission from the Mercury would make them any the wiser.

  Travers had seen the shiver pass through him, and dropped a hand on his arm as Curtis brought the systems alive. The Europa was signaling the AI with its departure data. “We don’t have to do this,” Travers said quietly.

  “I’m just being paranoid.” Marin was annoyed with himself. “There used to be a saying, something about getting right back on the horse that threw you. There’s no way intel from Velcastra got here ahead of us … last chance to pick up our things, Neil. We’re only going to be in orbit long enough for Chandra Liang to tip off the Daku and republicans here, and for Sonja Deuel to empty out the stores. Shapiro’s drone cargo hauler will be docking in a few minutes with everything he wanted from the base, which just leaves personal business, like you and me.”

  As he spoke the Europa lifted, and the bay doors opened in the hangar floor. The face of Borushek was dark below. It was night in Sark, and the city lights illuminated the geography of the coast of the Challenger Gulf. It was a beautiful view, which Travers appreciated for several moments before he said, “Personal business. You and me.”

  “Yeah.” Marin left the Europa to handshake with Sark ATC, and when the navdeck showed green, he turned the nose down. “There’s something else we can do, Neil, while we’re here. We might not get another chance – or not for a long time. And I don’t want to take risks. While we’re here, data can be entered into the Borushek civilian register, and Jagreth has a reciprocal arrangement. They share data.” He turned in the seat as the Europa began to buck a little as it rode the turbulence of the upper atmosphere on its repulsion cushion. “You know what I’m talking about. If we’re going to do it.”

  “We’re going to do it,” Travers said quietly, with a curious kind of resolve. “I’ve been meaning to ask you when.”

  “Whenever we’re in the right place to update the civil register.” Marin studied him in the instrument lights. “It has to be done fro
m Borushek or Jagreth. We’re never here for long enough to make anything special of it, which is a pity.” He gave Travers a sidelong glance. “It’s just data, Neil.”

  “Just data?” Travers took his left hand and held it. “You call this data? I never even thought of handfasting with anyone.”

  “Would it make a difference if we didn’t?” Marin’s grip tightened on the bigger, broader fingers.

  “No. Yes.” Travers smiled faintly. “No. But I want to do it.”

  “When we get back, then.” Marin brought Travers’s hand to his lips, kissed the palm and let it go. “You’re about to be a rich man. There’s an account in Atransa Bank stuffed with Dendra Shemiji dollars. You’ll be co-signatory to it, just in case.”

  “In case something happens to you,” Travers said grimly, and shook his head. “This is not why I’m filing the paperwork with you. It’s nothing to do with your bloody Dendra Shemiji dollars. And as for anything happening to you – it’ll happen to us both, Curtis! We need to name a beneficiary.”

  “I did, a long time ago.” Marin chuckled quietly. “It all goes back to Mark, from whence it came. Good enough?”

  “Good enough,” Travers decided. “You, uh, know how to file the documents, then?”

  In fact, Marin had never even thought of the practical aspect of it. “I have no clue,” he confessed, “but Jon Kim must know. He knows the bureaucratic red tape system inside out.”

  “All right.” Travers settled back with a perplexed expression. “Are we supposed to buy flowers or something?”

  “Do you want flowers?” Marin was vastly amused.

  “I’d rather have ten year old malt whisky,” Travers confessed.

  Marin indulged himself in another chuckled. “Remember the store on the corner on Wisconsin and Firenze? Apricot brandy and sherzake. Ten year old scotch and champagne. Enough of each to last a while. Who knows when we’ll be back?”

  Or if, he thought, but he did not say it.

  The city was as busy as he remembered – nothing changed. Even when the republican government had taken the reins, and when a Nine Worlds Commonwealth banner flew from the masts beside the gates of the Fleet compound, nothing would change. For fifteen minutes the Europa circled in a queue of inbound traffic, waiting for ATC to grant permission to approach the ‘racetrack’ lanes over and around Sark, and then Marin took it in to the air park on the roof of their own building.

  They had spent no more than ten days here, since Shapiro gave them the keycodes, and though Marin liked the apartment, and the view, he knew he could walk away from it without regret. The AI had kicked on the lights and heat while they were still on the air park, but the apartment was cold, with the dankness of rooms that had been unoccupied for months.

  They stood in the middle of the wide living space, between the windows with the view as far as the hills, and the big threedee. Travers turned on the spot, looking for items he wanted. Two duffels were bundled in the bottom of the closet. Marin gathered them up, flattened them out on the foot of a bed that held a few good memories.

  He salvaged the black and charcoal sweater Neil had bought him when they knew they were headed back to Kjorin; the silk scarf with the dragon motif, from the markets in Dominguez; a terracotta figurine, a genuine Resalq antique from the ruins on Saraine, Mark’s gift; a black enamel case of data cubes in which were images and vids, from all those places. A pair of blue-green silk slacks, a jade ring from Sark’s own Chinatown, a bottle of cologne from Earth itself, a pair of gelemerald earrings he had never worn.

  From the doorway, leaning on the jamb, Travers watched, and as Marin zipped the duffel he asked, “That’s everything you want?”

  “There’s a couple of items in the lounge,” Marin admitted, “but the rest of this is just furniture. You?”

  “I grabbed these.” Travers opened his palm to show a handful of cubes, a couple of interactive vids, games, documentaries. “There’s a few shirts and a pair of slacks I want. And I think we left a couple of items in the drawers by the bed.”

  “Yes.” Marin smiled faintly, remembering them. A pot of gel with the heady scent of blue lotus, a pack of ridiculous condoms which Mick Vidal had thought hilarious enough to be worth gift wrapping. “Do you want to take what you want, pack a bag, while I go down to the store? Ten year old malt, brandy and so on –?”

  “Champagne,” Travers added. “You need champagne to celebrate properly, don’t you?” He pushed away from the door, deliberately took the duffel from Marin’s shoulder and dumped him across the bed. The mattress was still bouncing when he joined him there, and Marin was not about to protest.

  ”We’re celebrating?” he asked, doing nothing to help as Neil began to strip him. The air was warm enough by now to only raise a few goosebumps along his arms and thighs.

  “Well, aren’t we?” Travers gestured vaguely. “We’re only back here for long enough to update the civilian registry. It isn’t a big shindig with fifty guests and the two of us looking embarrassed as all hell in white suits, but it’s still handfasting. It’s got to be worth celebrating.” He paused with his own shirt half on, half off. “Mick said once, if I told him when and where, he’d be there and throw rice.” He sighed heavily, and Marin watched him set aside the memories with a deliberate effort.

  He stroked both hands over Travers’s chest and shoulders. “What do you want, Neil? Long and languid, fast and hard?”

  But Travers only shrugged. “I don’t know. It feels weird, if I tell you the truth. Being here, last time, not knowing where we’re headed, or if we’ll be back. Handfasting.” He looked down at Marin and mocked himself with a smile. “Why don’t you chuck me on the bed and do me? I’ll let all that Dendra Shemiji experience of yours take charge.”

  The experiences Marin had garnered over more than a decade working with Mark did not seem to afford him any advantage at all, but he knew what Travers meant. It felt as if a door were closing behind them as they passed by like ghosts. A prickle rushed across his skin, and he reached up, took Travers by one arm and hooked his ankle around Neil’s calf.

  The pivot point was calculated, and he hit the bed chuckling. Bigger than Marin, heavier, stronger, he capitulated with one mocking swipe at Curtis with a pillow, before he tugged the same pillow under his head and subsided on the mattress with a sultry expression. Dark blue eyes challenged Marin to do his worst – or his best.

  They had made love here too seldom for there to be much sentiment in the place, but Marin was keenly aware of the time. He lavished on Neil a lot of the Resalq secrets he had learned across the years, ways of manipulating a man’s nerves through pressure points which differed only slightly between the two species. Beneath him, Travers was pliant, supple, hungry for him, and for the potentials he was only now discovering in himself. Marin thought he could spend half a lifetime exploring his own sensuality through the lens of Neil Travers, and if he had been waiting for this – the time, the person, the opportunity – he knew they had arrived.

  He rocked deeply into Travers, delighting in the heat and strength of him. His hands clenched into Neil’s wide shoulders, leaving transient marks there as Travers arched and turned his head to kiss, wanting it all now. Marin could have stopped him again, made it go on, but a bass moan rumbled through him, he felt it vibrate through Travers’s back over the heavy beat of his heart, which was fast now, as urgency overtook him. So Curtis let him go, urged him on, caught him up and hunted with him for a coming that chased every vestige of thought from his mind.

  Minutes later, Travers’s voice was rich with amusement. “Save the best till last.”

  “You mean, the last time in, or on, this bed?” Marin sat up with an effort and stretched his spine and shoulders. “You don’t think we’ll be back?”

  “Here? No.” Travers was sprawled cross-wise over the bed, and did not yet move. “From here we’re on the Mercury, with a transfer to either the Carellan or Lai’a, and if we make it back –”

  “It’s not health
y to say ‘if’.” Marin swung his legs off the bed and headed for the bathroom. “Whatever we do, you go into it believing we can win, or we don’t go at all.”

  “All right.” Travers sat up, propped on both palms on the bronze quilt. “If the Resalq find a virgin new world to colonize, Mark will have an army of constructor drones build him a replica of the house on Saraine, and I’d be happy to call that home. Or if we shipped out with Lai’a, when we get back, my vote goes to blowing straight through. Clipper tickets for either Darwin’s or Jagreth. And which we chose depends on what happens between now and then.”

  The Zunshu and the DeepSky Fleet could still wreak havoc on Jagreth. Marin had acknowledged this, and the offer of a home on Darwin’s World was welcome. “I’ve been thinking,” he mused as he washed quickly and lobbed a hot, wet cloth into Travers’s lap. “When we update the civil register, I want to get into my accounts with Atransa and transfer a good wedge of capital. Get it off Jagreth.”

  “Where to?” Travers washed sketchily and threw the cloth back into the bathroom. “The money won’t be much safer on Borushek.”

  “We can get it invested,” Marin mused. “Atransa has a property division. We can put most of it into real estate – on Darwin’s, where it’ll be safe. It’ll also give us a foothold there, when we get back.” He lifted both brows at Travers as he sorted slacks from boots.

  “You’re asking me?” Travers wondered. “It’s your money.”

  “And as soon as the civil register is updated, you’ll have an equal interest in it.” Marin pulled on the black slacks and sat on the foot of the bed to put on his boots. “You’ll want to know your inheritance is safe.”

  Travers made a face. “Better ask Mark what he wants done with it, then, because if you buy it in a firefight or a crash, it’s a safe bet I’ll be right beside you, and the whole account reverts to him.” He pulled his shirt over his head and ran both hands through his hair, standing it on end. “He owns property everywhere. A little more on Darwin’s wouldn’t hurt – so long as your weird Jagrethean law would let him inherit, him not being a resident or family, of course.”