Trace blinked. “You think they’re Fleet Intel Operations too? All of them?”
“Not all. Statistically, maybe half? Most of the businessmen I meet aren’t quite that fit and well dressed, like they’ve all had their civvies chosen for them by central casting.” With a skeptical eye at Hiro’s nice suit. Hiro rolled his eyes.
“Well that’s not too surprising,” said Trace. “The LC said himself he’d bet Colonel Khola wasn’t here alone. Obviously Fleet were going to be keeping an eye on his mission. Maybe positioning themselves to intervene violently.” She’d have to boost security again, she thought. Increase the minimum numbers in which marines could patrol, and make extra certain no spacer crew went unaccompanied.
“Here’s the thing,” said Hiro. “Phoenix has been advertising she was coming here for a while. Far too loudly, and for far too long.”
He’d made that complaint before, Trace knew. But the priorities of spies, and the priorities of Phoenix’s commander, were at present two very different things. “Go on,” she said.
“So if you’re going to move a covert force to Joma Station to support Colonel Khola’s mission, you do it before he arrives. Prepare the ground. Khola’s been here for sixteen days, but these guys just arrived.”
“Hmm.” Nothing pleased Trace quite so much as the company of people who knew more about certain specialities than she did. In jobs like this, you never stopped learning, and never stopped encouraging those with specific skills to feel free to do their thing. “So they’re not after us?”
“I don’t think so,” said Hiro, with a faintly excited intensity. “I think someone else. Someone important. These guys have been everywhere. Risky enough to possibly blow their cover, a whole bunch of humans all arriving at once, asking questions.”
“Questions about what?”
“About a man travelling incognito,” said Jokono, also with intensity. “Got here a few days ago, apparently, paying passenger on the freighter Dawn. We talked to a few of the people these guys had been talking to, asked what questions they were asking. A man alone, fleeing from something, possibly with a couple of well-trained bodyguards, and a lot of cash. They were asking moneylenders, there’s a blackmarket in conversion of human currency on Joma Station, though it’s not officially allowed. Apparently there was one very big conversion, in the right time-range.”
Trace’s eyes widened as she realised. “Shit. Supreme Commander Chankow.”
Hiro and Jokono nodded in unison. “If you’re fleeing from Heuron,” said Hiro, “this is the only way to get to Outer Neutral Space. And Outer Neutral Space is about the only place Chankow could come where he might be able to go native and be left alone.”
“Vieno was certainly a very nice, unpopulated planet to disappear for a long time,” Jokono added. “But he arrives in Kazak System, sees Phoenix has just arrived, and Europa too, and gets scared he’ll be spotted. He knows we’ll be watching the outgoing passenger traffic for humans, and Khola’s people certainly will. So either he’s still here, hiding on Joma Station somewhere…”
“Or he’s caught a ride out to one of the moons,” Trace finished. “Insystem ships don’t have to register passenger manifests with station, and even if they did, on a barabo station you’d just buy some gifts and everyone would look the other way.” Wow. “Good work guys. I’m actually impressed.”
“You know,” said Hiro, “I think you’re actually impressed with me more often than you’d like to admit.”
“Now why wouldn’t I like to admit that?” Trace replied. “Keep looking, we need to know what ship he took if he took one, and where it went.”
Hiro gave a little bow. “Yes Major. We’re on it.”
“Station police giving you any trouble?”
Jokono smiled grimly. “Humans shooting humans? They don’t want a bar of it. Just make it go away, they say.” Which in this case, Trace thought, was probably wise of them.
* * *
“Lieutenant Abacha,” Trace said on coms as she descended the elevator from upper rim down to dock level. “Please contact Colonel Khola on Europa and tell him I want to talk. Main berth, call it ten minutes.”
“Aye Major, Europa main berth, ten minutes.”
Staff Sergeant Kono looked at her as they descended, wanting an explanation, but not getting one. He’d know soon enough. “Hiro’s asked a few questions about you,” Kono volunteered. “If you’ve been in any relationships, if you’re straight, that kind of thing.”
“Fascinating,” said Trace.
“I could tell him to shut it down if you wanted?”
Trace repressed a smile. “No crime to be curious, Staff Sergeant.”
“I think he’s a little beyond curious, Major.”
“Fancy that,” said Trace. She knew that Kono, Arime and Rolonde were exchanging quiet glances, daring each other to ask more — she just deigned not to notice. Rolonde in particular, the girl was far too interested in other marines’ private lives. As if marines even had such a thing, among other marines.
“You interested, Major?” asked Arime. Of all of them, he was the only one who could make it playful enough to be harmless. They knew she didn’t mind playful, in the right circumstances.
“He’s pretty cute,” Rolonde added.
“He sure shoots a nice, tight cluster,” Trace admitted.
“So you are interested?”
“I dunno. I was thinking one of those big, friendly kuhsi boys on the dock the other day. The ears really do it for me.”
The elevator slowed toward a stop at dock level. “I think she’s interested,” said Arime. “She just doesn’t want to admit it.”
“You know,” said Trace, “you’re fucking geniuses. All of you.” And followed Kono out the elevator door. Behind her as she passed, she heard a metallic whack as Kono gave Arime a cuff on the shoulder.
Back on the jeep, she directed Spacer Troski back to Europa, the second jeep holding the other half of Command Squad close behind. When she got there, Colonel Khola was waiting at the bottom of the dual ramps, amidst comings and goings from Europa crew and station customs inspectors and other barabo officials who had not-so-mysteriously left Phoenix alone.
Trace jumped off as the jeep came to a halt, and her squad formed a perimeter around her. Khola stood up, apparently unarmed in his spacer jumpsuit, a cap on his otherwise bald head. Trace stopped before him. “Your people try to kill my people again, I’ll blow you away, unarmed or not. Are we understood?”
Another man might have played games, denying there were Fleet men on station at all, pretending not to know what she was talking about. “They’re not my people,” Khola said flatly. “I’m a marine. They’re not. Command structures don’t stretch that far.”
“I don’t care,” said Trace. “You’re the ranking officer, you’re all in the same boat as far as I’m concerned. Tell them if it happens again, I’ll take Fleet’s offer of pardon as a ruse. I’m having this attack documented in full, video of the crime scene, names, bodies, everything. We’ll send that information back to all the Fleet captains who want us pardoned, and you’ll have to explain to them why instead of pardoning us, you tried to kill us instead. And then you’ll be back where you started.”
Khola’s lips twisted a little in distaste. “I’ll tell them. I’m not in command, but I’ll tell them anyway.”
“I know you’re not in command. They’re here to find and kill Supreme Commander Chankow, like you already killed Fleet Admiral Anjo. Looks like he got wind of what was coming and ran before you got him. I’m guessing the spooks tried to kill my guy because he figured who they were after, and they didn’t want Phoenix to know.” A look of wary respect from Khola. “Or we might go looking for Chankow first. A real pickle that would be, huh? If we could show the entire human population what actually happened to the big three commanders? Not that they haven’t already guessed, of course.”
“This is not the behaviour of someone who wants to accept Fleet’s pardon,” Khola
said grimly.
“I’ve still got sixty hours,” Trace retorted. “Phoenix is maximising her position.”
“There is no position. You either accept, or you decline. Myself, I’d find it preferable if you’d decline. That way we could both escape this hypocrisy.”
Trace considered her old mentor for a moment. “You don’t even care about my reasons?”
“I know that you had the very best of reasons,” said Khola. “Personal reasons. The Kulina are beyond personal reasons. What you did was anathema to everything the Kulina have ever been, and the worst insult to everyone who has ever called themselves Kulina.”
Trace frowned. It hurt, but she was used to pain. “Kulina serve humanity. You serve Fleet. Those two are not the same.”
Khola smiled coldly. “Spare me your childish equivalence, humanity would be extinct if not for Fleet. Fleet is the heart and soul of humanity — remove the heart and the body dies.”
“You know the alo have Fleet Command by the balls?” A flicker in Khola’s eyes. “You know the alo speak with deepynine accents? Their languages are related, on the foundational level.”
Khola considered her for a moment. “I’ve been at a very high level of Fleet Command for a very long time. My rank is only an 0-6, but that does not describe my influence in Fleet.”
“Guidance Council,” said Trace. “I know.”
Khola nodded. “In that role, I’ve learned quite a lot about our alien allies. More than you, I’m sure.”
“I wouldn’t be,” Trace said evenly.
“And the one thing that I’ve concluded above all else is that in this part of the galaxy, that we call The Spiral, we can either be pure and moral, or we can stay alive. We can’t do both.”
“I’m not talking about morality,” Trace retorted, jabbing an armoured finger at his chest. “I’m talking about strategy. We have a very good expert aboard who swears that the alo are a knife at humanity’s heart. You think I’m only worried about the moral dimension of that alliance?” She wasn’t entirely sure when she’d started arguing in Romki’s favour. Lately, with Erik, she’d been doing the opposite.
“I think you’re entirely worried about the moral dimension,” Khola said grimly. “Of everything. You forget, I know you. I know all my students, the best ones in particular. I make a point of knowing their motivations. And you, Ms Thakur, have always been driven by a concern for personal justice.”
“I am Kulina,” Trace growled, her eyes hard. “My only concern has always been the fate of humanity.”
“I know your father beat you. I know your mother drank and gambled. I know your eldest brother took dangerous work as a mining technician to escape the home, and it killed him. I know you sought a similar escape to the Kulina. Perhaps you believed in the concept, but mostly you valued the meditations on karma and selflessness as a way out, a way to stop thinking on the matters that bothered you.
“The Kulina are a crutch for you. A bandage on your personal wounds. And ever since, your career has been marked by attachments to powerful men, to replace the father you never had. Me. Captain Pantillo. And now Erik Debogande. Men who stand for something more, men whom you secretly believe can give you something you’ve always lacked. Emotional security. It’s always been about you, Trace. You think you believe in the Kulina teachings of selflessness, but you’ve been lying to yourself.”
“Hey,” Trace said coldly. “If you’re going to try and kill me, make sure you know who you’re killing. Don’t tell yourself this cheap back-alley psychoanalysis bullshit to make yourself feel better. Face it like a man. An assassin who kids himself that all his assignments are evil is a coward, unable to face the truth of his actions.”
“I don’t think you’re evil, Trace. I think you’re one of the best people I’ve known.” Trace stared at him, forcing herself not to flinch. “But those good qualities have made you forget what we are, and what oath you swore. And the Kulina are bigger than any of us. You accused me of not knowing the difference between service to Fleet, and service to humanity. Well you don’t know the difference between service to good, and service to necessity. Kulina abandon their attachments because they blind us to necessity. That’s the whole point of being Kulina. You forgot… or rather, you never learned it to begin with. And so we find ourselves here. I love you like a daughter, but I am Kulina, and I know there are things in the universe far greater than one man’s love.”
Trace tried hard to keep the tremble from her voice. “Your Fleet murdered a man who did more for the human cause in the Triumvirate War than all Kulina combined. That man was a warrior, but he was driven by love — the love for humanity, and the love of his crew.
“You used to tell us about orders, and how bad orders should be questioned and not just followed over a cliff. Kulina are about results, and you can’t get results following bad orders or bad commanders. Well Captain Pantillo got results, and Fleet fought him all the way. You prefer Fleet’s judgement? If Fleet had put Pantillo in charge we’d have won the damn war thirty years ago.”
“You exaggerate. Your personal attachment proves my point.”
“No. It proves that I’m the only one of us interested in siding with the best. To survive in this galaxy, we’ll need the best. But you prefer Fleet, because Fleet’s all you know. Fleet’s mediocre. That makes Fleet as much a danger to humanity as a help. Fleet crushes its best. As you’d like to crush me.”
Khola smiled coldly. “Such modesty.”
Trace barely blinked. “Try me.”
16
Lieutenant Tyson Dale liked little Vola Station a lot more than its big brother Joma. In orbit around the inner Vola moon, Vola Station had a maximum capacity of only several hundred thousand compared to Joma’s four million plus. But unlike Joma’s empty, echoing caverns, Vola had been completed a long time ago, and thrived with all the crazy activity that one expected from a barabo insystem hub.
Dale ran now on a gym treadmill just off the main rim mall — one of those central canyon-like features barabo station designers liked to slice through their station levels, a mixture of open space, inner-apartment views and markets. The gym was far enough back from the main chaos that the glass windows weren’t crowded with fascinated barabo staring at the humans, and he didn’t feel like an exhibit in a zoo. Though Lance Corporal Kalo and Private Chavez standing guard in full armour might have discouraged some of that. Local barabo security were keeping an eye on the humans too — not so visible inside the gym, but Dale was sure they were there, working out in the loose gym-clothes barabo wore. Vola Station security seemed far more active than on Joma, like the station itself.
His uplink flashed on his vision as he ran, and he blinked it open. “This is Dale,” he said aloud, concentrating to hear beneath the thumping rhythms of barabo music.
“Lieutenant,” came Jokono’s voice. “I see this link is reaching you direct… where is PH-1?” Typically they’d relay all coms from Joma Station through Phoenix first, then PH-1, creating layers of impenetrable encryption. This link was coming from Phoenix to Vola Station direct, making it less secure.
“Lieutenant Karle and the techs are out at the fabricator plant to check out the new merchandise. Half of us stayed behind to maintain security presence on station.”
“So you have… two sections with you?”
“Two sections, eight marines including myself.” Spelling it out, because Jokono was a civvie, and still learning how marines did things. “I pulled myself out of First Section, Gunnery Sergeant Forrest has command of security for Lieutenant Karle on PH-1. Keeping our accommodation block on Vola Station secure has priority. The manufacturing site they’ve gone to inspect is entirely automated, limited threats there.”
“Yes, that’s very wise. All kinds of nasty things can happen to accommodation blocks on stations if no one’s guarding them.” As the former-head of security on a much larger station than this one would know. “You come home from your time away and someone’s either listening to your
private conversations, or about to blow you up, or both.”
It had been expected that Rhea System manufacturers would take at least a hundred hours to fabricate new missiles based on Lieutenant Karle’s blueprints. But one manufacturer had given them a fifty-hour quote on the first batch — something about merchandise that had been intended for someone else… all very sketchy, but the specs had looked good. Not that you could trust that without the personal inspection that Karle had gone to give.
“So what’s up, Joker?”
“Well I was just having a drink with Joma Station security man, very friendly fellow. Doesn’t like all these new human covert security types arriving on his station — he’s much happier with Phoenix crew because at least they wear uniforms. He agreed to keep an eye on them for me, in exchange for a nice bottle or two, and he tells me there’s quite a few suspicious humans on their way to Vola Station. Some are already there, others just arriving.”
“Interesting,” said Dale, barely breathing hard despite his pace. His light weapon hung on the treadmill rail before him, swaying to the rhythm. To his side, the newly promoted Lance Corporal Ricardo ran as well, matching his stride. Beyond her, Privates Halep and Yu worked the weights, and the new guy, Tabo, talked with several friendly barabo by a water cooler between sets. Whatever the security concerns of venturing out on station without armour, marines had to exercise, and pushups on the floor of a hotel room only went so far. “You think they’re looking for something juicy?”
“Very juicy,” Jokono confirmed. Dale had been informed of the ‘Supreme Commander theory’… but of course, they couldn’t talk about it on a less-secure connection. “And it’s quite possible their intel is better than ours. Quite likely, in fact.”
“Thanks for the info,” said Dale. “I’ll keep an eye out.”
“Anything?” Ricardo asked him as he disconnected.
Drysine Legacy (The Spiral Wars Book 2) Page 20