“Of course, sir,” she replied.
“Follow me,” he said and turned on his heel. “I know a shortcut.”
Darius led her down the Hall of Memory and into the turbolift, riding it down to the lower hangar. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Christine watching him, which he wasn’t too surprised about. He had been in deep cover for a long time now, and knew how dicey it could be when establishing face-to-face contact with such an agent. He knew, had the roles been reversed, he’d have been on edge as well.
He knew the legends of agents who had been in deep cover for too long; they oftentimes began to sympathize with the individuals they were supposed to be investigating. They forgot themselves and became the individual they were supposed to only pretend to be. That often led to a break in cover and a dead agent or, worse, a turned one.
“Relax,” he whispered as the turbolift slowed. “Still on the side of the angels.”
He could feel some of the tension in the agent next to him deflate, though she did not visibly relax. He smiled inwardly. She was good, he had to give her that. He understood why Gan had sent her to ensure he got the recall message instead of via comm, though it galled him a little for the chief to believe he may have turned.
The lift stopped and they walked out into a darkened, quiet hangar. Darius looked around until he spotted the Laird’s personal ship in the corner, protected by a privacy shield. The opaque shield blocked unwanted inspection while still letting people know the power and prestige which it represented. It sent a message, one that the owner of the vessel was not a man or woman to be trifled with.
“What are we doing?” Christine asked. Andrew felt the Darius personae slip from him like an old, comfortable robe. He sighed softly. He was going to miss being the aide. He stood a little straighter, held himself as he would naturally, and looked at the privacy shield in a new light.
“We’re going to steal that ship.”
“We’re going to what?” she squeaked.
He waved his hand across the front of the shield and a digital keypad appeared on the glass. He checked his datapad for the stolen code and typed in the eight-digit code as soon as he found it. The shield became transparent as a small door opened to his right. He walked through it and approached the small ship. Realizing he was alone, he stopped. He looked over his shoulder at the other agent.
“You coming?”
Christine nodded and followed him. He entered the exterior hatch and found the cockpit exactly where he expected it to be. He climbed in and began to look over the instruments. He knew the Laird had money, but had never expected him to be able to afford a military-grade Watcher.
He shouldn’t have been surprised, however. He’d seen some of the asinine purchases the Laird had made during his infiltration of the house, including a waterfall in his private bath that could be programmed to spout either regular water or salt water. Money and privilege bought strange excesses, something he doubted he would ever fully understand.
“What are you thinking?” Christine hissed as Andrew secured the hatch once she was aboard. He slid into the pilot’s seat and activated the sensor relay. Next, he began to go through his preflight checks. Her tone grew more urgent. “Agent, what the hell are you doing?”
“Blowing my cover,” Andrew muttered. “Spectacularly.”
“Gan is going to have your head!” she squeaked as she plopped into the copilot’s seat. She strapped in and began to check off instruments as the computer continued to run its preflight check with them. “It was a recall order, not a burned-agent notice.” Andrew looked at her curiously.
“He’ll have your head too,” he reminded her. She looked at him, her expression firm.
“I’ll just say you forced me at gunpoint to help you,” she said, her tone brisk. “We’ll need to refuel at Belleza Sutil, if you’re planning on doing what I think you’re doing.”
“How did you know?”
“Everyone’s talking about a Wraith who commandeered a Navy vessel for some personal vendetta,” Christine scoffed. “That’s why the recall order was sent. You stealing this ship and jetting off to save your brother simply made sense to me.”
“How’d you know my full name?”
“Please. Who do you think built the personnel firewalls Jericho has in place?”
Andrew checked the charts on the digital screen. “Right. Sorry. Looks like some Rift interference around Solomon. We’ll have to alter the route a bit to Kurma, then jump to Ptolemy. Still doable.”
“This is insane,” Christine muttered. “You know they’ll hang him for this.”
“Yeah, but that was his choice,” Andrew countered. “I know my brother. He wouldn’t do this unless he had a very damn good reason.”
“He’s just an Imperfect, though,” she said. “What’s the big deal? I thought your family would be pleased he was out of the picture and off being a Wraith?”
“He’s my brother,” Andrew simply stated.
Christine rolled her eyes and continued with the preflight checks. After five minutes, she shifted in her seat and looked at the display screen. She frowned and scratched her chin. “You have a code for these locks?”
“Yes,” he answered and looked at the screen. “Well, the Laird does. Did, rather. Which I stole from him. You helped do that, by the way.”
She whistled. “This ship is impressive. Have I mentioned that before? I’m pretty sure I did. I wonder how he managed to get one.”
“One of the many, many questions I’m going to be asking when I come in from the deep and get debriefed by Chief Gan,” Andrew said and powered up the engines. He eased the throttle and the ship rumbled out of the hangar and into the night sky.
“Going black,” Christine said and the ship disappeared from every single scanner and radar. She looked over their sensors before nodding. “We’re scrubbed. Nobody spotted our wake before we left atmo. Time to destination?”
“Uh...three hours to Trono’s gate, another three in transit until we reach the Sutil gate. Translation takes a bit longer, so we’ll reach our destination in three days. Four, tops. Hope you brought food,” Andrew muttered as his eyes tracked the display.
Christine reached over and looked inside the side compartments of the Watcher. She grinned brightly as she discovered the compartments were filled with foodstuffs. She rifled through them until she found something intriguing. She pulled out the small package, opened the lid slightly and sniffed.
“Royster mushrooms,” she confirmed. “Ten thousand dollars for an ounce. He has forty ten-ounce packages of these over here.”
“Damn.”
“It’s good to be a Laird.”
“Anything that has some protein in it? Other than mushrooms, I mean. Something like chicken?” Andrew asked as he punched in a few commands. The computer responded instantly and he frowned. “That’s weird.”
“What’s weird?” she asked as she dug into the compartments some more. “Ooh, dehydrated pork tenderloin and balsamic vinaigrette. I bet that’s tasty.”
“This watcher’s last few jumps have been to fringe planets,” Andrew muttered as he scanned the readings. “Ptolemy, New Israel, and...hey. I recognize this date. This was the day after his father’s funeral. I wonder why the Laird was visiting them so soon after his dad died?”
“Laird’s do crazy things all the time,” Christine reminded him. “Too much money, not enough sense.”
“This is...just odd,” he continued to read. “Only one trip to his home world of Ceres, but over a dozen to Avalon? What’s so special about Avalon he has to keep his visits secret?”
“Maybe he enjoys the skiing there?” she suggested as she tore into the pork tenderloins with gusto. “Mmm, my god. These are fabulous! You’ve got to try these.”
“Save me a pack,” Andrew said as he closed his eyes in thought. “I’m an operative, not an analyst. What does it all mean?”
“It means the Laird is secretive and doesn’t like it when people know where
he’s been,” Christine said through a mouthful of pork. She swallowed quickly and looked at the display for the first time. “Wait. Maybe the question should be who is on Avalon that the Laird wants to keep their meetings a secret?”
“None of the dukes,” Andrew replied instantly. “That’d be redundant, especially since they’re all on Trono del Terra anyway. He wouldn’t meet with any criminal elements in person; he’d send someone like Darius to do it. No, it had to have been someone important enough to hide he was meeting them. Important enough to have a Watcher in his private fleet.”
“Someone important enough to impress them with a Watcher in his possession?” Christine tried. Andrew grunted.
“That’d only be impressive to some little boy...” Andrew’s voice trailed off as a sudden realization hit him. “Oh. Oh, I see now.”
“What?” Christine asked as she finished off the pork tenderloins.
“Do you know who goes to the St. Francis Academy on Avalon?”
“I’m not up on the who’s who list of wealthy kids,” Christine admitted. “Not like any of us could ever afford to go there.”
“Yeah. But you know who can afford to go there? The kids of every noble in the Dominion, the ridiculously wealthy… and the royal family.”
“The royal...?”
“He was meeting with one of the twins.”
“But that’s...absurd, really. They’re, what, ten? Eleven? Why would a laird of his power want to see them? They’re little boys.”
“Impressionable little boys,” Andrew corrected, remembering something Chief Gan had mentioned months before. “Their security details probably don’t know how to handle the Laird swooping in, befriending their little wards, and offering one of them a ride. It’s not as though the Laird is going to kidnap one of them, or hurt them. So, he’s not a security risk, and it’s allowed.”
“That’s a dangerous presumption,” she said. “Plus, it’s not like they’re unprotected and can go gallivanting around.”
“Tell me about it. I thought the royal security detail was extremely strict about who the royals came into contact with. But it makes sense.”
“With Princess Katherine, probably. The twins? Who knows. This is all supposition still,” she reminded him.
“Right. The Laird could have any reason to go to Avalon repeatedly. But this...this just feels right.” He reached over and activated the comm net. “I’m shooting Chief Gan a brief summary about what I suspect.”
“Checking in with the leader of a clandestine intelligence operation from the Laird’s stolen Watcher?” Christine asked. “Ballsy. I’m impressed.”
“Thank you.” he said as he began to type a brief outline of his suspicions. After a few minutes, he finished his message with a verification passcode guaranteeing authenticity and fired off the message. He leaned back in his seat and waited.
“Incoming message,” Andrew announced as the comm beeped at him. A second later Gan’s voice came over the speakers.
“I’m going to kill you, agent,” Gan’s voice was ragged, the result of a combination of exhaustion and worry. “Any minute now there’s going to be an alert regarding a stolen vessel, and every single law enforcement agent in the system is going to be on your ass.”
“Good afternoon to you too, sir,” Andrew said cheerily. “Right now I’m riding in a Watcher, coasting out to parts unknown and have some time sensitive-data pertaining to the Laird.”
“I’m granting you a stay of execution then,” Gan said. “Gimme.”
“Sir, before I begin, just please stay with me as I try to explain my theory,” he said as he connected the datapad wirelessly to the ship’s comm. “I’m uploading about six terabytes worth of data, so it’s going to take a while for the techs to parse through everything. But I’ve found something far more interesting on this Watcher the Laird owns. The one I, uh, stole.”
“The Laird has a Watcher?” Gan asked.
“Yes sir.”
“Interesting.”
“Oh, that’s not even the best part, Chief,” Andrew said. “Part of my theory involves this ship and, God help me, the fate of the Dominion.”
“That was very dramatic, Agent.”
“I know. I think the Laird is trying to influence the rules of succession and trying to influence the next potential heir to the throne.”
“How would he do that?” Gan asked. “He’s not that damned powerful yet.”
“He has friends, Chief. Powerful friends. And one of those friends is the Justice of the Lord, who is involved when succession is in question. It’s by his authority the line of succession remains intact.”
“Which doesn’t do squat because there is no question at this time,” Gan reminded him. “Crown Princess Katherine is of age and already affirmed. Nothing could change that.”
“There’d be no other reason for the Laird to be wooing one of the twins this desperately then, Chief,” Andrew explained. “If Princess Katherine were out of the way, who would succeed to the throne should something happen?”
“Well, the first born of the twins I suppose,” Gan guessed.
“It was a Caesarian birth, remember? They came out at exactly the same time, because they were so small. Remember the big story about how they were in the Royal Hospital’s intensive care unit for the first six months?”
“Right,” Gan exhaled. “I completely forgot about that.”
“I think the Laird is hoping everyone else did as well,” Andrew said. “I don’t know which twin he’s trying to influence, but he’s using this Watcher to directly influence one of them.”
“Do you have any corroborative evidence?”
“I’ve seen evidence of it, Chief,” Christine confirmed. “Well, it’s circumstantial evidence, but fairly convincing.”
“You hijacked her into this as well?”
“She volunteered,” Andrew said.
“He forced me at gunpoint,” Christine said at the same time. Andrew gave her a dirty look. She shrugged. “What? I told you that was what I was going to say to him when he asked.”
“Well, however you got roped into this, I’m glad for your impartial view,” Gan interrupted before the two could begin to argue further. “What else do you have, Agent?”
“He calls one of the twins ‘Falcon’, and the other ‘Hawk’, and that he isn’t the only one who is trying to influence things in the order of succession,” Andrew continued, ignoring the dirty look from Christine. He dredged through his memories to piece together parts of the puzzle he had previously missed. “When you tasked me to infiltrate the McCarroll clan, I thought I was dealing with another bunch of ambitious lords looking for more money and power. And initially, I was right. It was easy to keep my cover and watch what they did. The elder Laird, before his death, had started to entrust me with the running of minor household details. Christophe has continued this practice, albeit to a more limited degree. For one, I no longer had the run of the Laird’s house. I was restricted to the East and North wings, like the rest of the hired help.”
“You’re starting to babble, Andrew,” Gan said. “If you’re running out of the system, we only have a limited time before the relay lag time becomes too much for a simple conversation.”
“Sorry, sir. The point is, the elder McCarroll just wanted power. Christophe, I believe, wants to bring down the Emperor Himself.”
“What? That’s...well, that’s insane!” Gan sputtered. “What do you base this on?”
“The fact he believes the Emperor has become corrupted by His power,” Andrew replied. “I think – and I hope to God I am wrong – the Laird believes the power of the Emperor lays in His Wraiths and His will. Destroy one, and the other flounders. Since the Emperor’s will is indomitable, the next best way is to decimate His own personal army. Then, with a weakened personal army, the Laird becomes convinced a coup d’état is the only way to restrict the power of the Emperor forever. I believe he thinks he can control whoever succeeds the throne, whether it be Princess
Katherine or one of the twins. And from the sounds of it, Princess Katherine is going to be out of the picture somehow.”
After a few minutes of silence, long enough that Andrew had begun to think the connection had been lost, Chief Gan spoke again. “If he could control Princess Katherine...no, she’s pretty set in her ways, and the Emperor watches her closely and nobody gets close to her without His approval, her being the first in line for succession and all that. The twins, though...one of them could be suborned. They’re out of the limelight, for the most part. They’re young, impressionable...yeah, okay, I can see that. But for a change in succession to occur...ah, now I see where you’re going with this. You think the Justice of the Lord can declare Katherine’s succession is faulty somehow. Possible, possible. I’ll do a little more digging to see what arcane law they might try to pull, but I can’t think of anything off the top of my head that would work for the Laird. Listen, this stays between us three. Nobody, and I mean nobody, outside of our little group hears of this, for now. I need proof before I can fully back this theory of yours.”
“And if I get it?” Andrew asked.
“Then the Laird gets on the Black List. As does his co-conspirators.”
“Got it.” Andrew was looking forward to that day.
“Christine, keep him out of trouble,” Gan ordered. “Tear apart that programming in his datapad and whatever else you can find in that watcher. Look for some sort of collaborative evidence supporting his theory. Do not, repeat, do not come back to Trono del Terra. Find somewhere to hide, one of the fringe worlds would be ideal for the time being. Get me the data, you two. I’m going to shake a few assets I have on-planet and find out more. Gan out.”
“So how powerful is the Laird, anyway?” Christine asked.
“Fairly powerful, I guess,” he answered.
“Ah.”
After a minute of silence, Andrew asked “Why?”
“Because of that,” she said as she tapped the sensor display. Andrew looked at the numbers.
“Is that a task force?” he asked.
“I think so,” she answered.
Wraithkin (The Kin Wars Saga Book 1) Page 25