Assault on Cambriol: The Manhattan Trials

by Jerry Borrowman

  As the ceremony drew to a close, Colonel Kensington at the head table stood as if to leave, but was forced back into his seat when Commodore Park continued, rather than bringing the meeting to an end as expected.

  “If you please, ladies and gentlemen, Prime Minister Larimore has asked for a moment of your time.”

  The Prime Minister both looked and acted his part. His gray hair gave him the distinguished look of age and maturity while his optimistic attitude and outgoing personality produced a youthful appearance that allowed him to relate to citizens of all ages. With more than eleven years of service, he had the opportunity to become the longest-serving Prime Minister in the history of Kalenden. Stepping to the microphone, he spoke in a reassuring voice.

  “The events of the past few days have reminded us that in spite of our best efforts to minimize the risks of life while maximizing the potential for individual achievement, life is fragile. I was one of those who faced the prospect of losing my life when the anchoring cables of the observation platform were severed. Like most of the men and women who shared that event, I was prepared to face the end, grateful that I’d been given the chance of a meaningful life that has included service on your behalf.” Everyone in the hall and the video audience hung on every word. “Still,” he said with a twinkle, “I’m glad that I’m here, taking an active role at this ceremony, instead of being a passive participant at my own funeral.” There was an appreciative laugh.

  “It’s interesting that we don’t often think about the men and women who risk their lives in military service. It’s been easy to overlook their contribution, having lived in relative peace for two hundred years. But, the troubles on Keswick and the events here on Kalenden have brought back remembrance of the risks they assume. I’d like every member of the military to please stand so we can express our appreciation.” The house lights went up as the crowd cheered for the people who were now standing.

  As order returned, the Prime Minister continued. “I now have the honor of representing the Quadrant Council in bestowing special recognition on the crew of the Allegro shuttlecraft, whose unusual creativity and courageous action intervened to save the lives of innocents at great peril to themselves. Accordingly, prior to this banquet and their surprised standing in the competition, the Council passed legislation to recognize the members of the crew, including Chief Engineer Timothy O’Casey, with the Council Medallion of Merit. And for their contribution of designing modifications that made the rescue possible and successful execution of those modifications in extremity, Lieutenants Travis Eaves and Jason Carter will receive the Council Medal of Honor, the highest recognition bestowed by the Congress on active military personnel for risking their lives to save another. Gentlemen, would you please come forward with your Captain and accept these tokens of our appreciation.”

  The crowd erupted and gave a standing ovation even as the crews of the winning three ships carried the men of the Allegro on their shoulders to the platform. Jesik asked the Carter and Eaves families to join him as his men received their commendation.

  For the Prime Minister and members of the Council it was a perfect event giving them the chance to acknowledge their constituents as their own political standing flourished. For Jesik, it was exciting recognition for his crewmembers who, he was convinced, were the best in the fleet. For Travis Eaves’ parents, it was the chance to see their son’s recklessness mature into willing self-sacrifice that was being commended, rather than punished, a wonderful contrast to his teenage years. And for the citizens of the Kalenden System, it was one of those rare moments when people came together in recognition of their good fortune.

  Allegro’s loss at the Manhattan Trials was heralded as the most successful defeat in history.

  14 – The Dangerous Game of Espionage

  Sean Magill never liked drinking. The few times he tried it made him sick and stupid. But to pull this off he had to at least appear to be a bit drunk, so he slipped the bartender 20 CC (Common Currency) to keep his mouth shut about the fact that the apple juice he was drinking wasn’t really hard liquor. The bartender just shrugged and poured the glass below the level of the counter. After a couple of shots Sean said to the fellow next to him, “These Loyalist sympathizers have got it right, you know?” The guy shoved Sean back into an upright position and told him to shut up. But Sean just took another sip and added, “It always works out that the original conspirators end up being worse than the royal family they depose.”

  The fellow next to him was irritated enough that he got up and moved away. Sean bit his lip, trying to decide what to do next. But he didn’t have to. He’d picked his tavern wisely—the one where most of the log writers hung out to sympathize with each other how they could never get paid properly for all the work they did—and sure enough, one of the best known slipped into the chair next to him. “I couldn’t help but overhear what you had to say, Commander. Okay if I buy you a drink?” Sean’s eyes widened. He hadn’t counted on his source being both beautiful and willing to buy him a drink—it could all fall apart right here. But his bartender held up both hands, indicating another 10CC was in order, acknowledged Sean’s slight tip of his head authorizing the deal, and took his glass below the counter to fill it again.

  “Thanks! But why would that be of interest to someone like you?” He regretted saying it that way just as soon as the words were out of his mouth because of the implication that beautiful women weren’t interested in politics.

  But she overlooked it and smiled. “I’m just curious how a Kalenden representative could say something like that. Everyone thinks Prime Minister Lansing has you guys in his pocket!”

  Nice, he thought, she challenges me right off the bat. Touché! But he was too smart, even if he had been drunk, to fall quite so easily. “I didn’t say anything about PM Lansing. He’s a good guy and trying to do the right thing.”

  “Then why do you say that the Loyalists have it right?”

  Sean sipped on his glass as if considering how much he could say. Of course he knew exactly what he was going to say, but it had to look impromptu. “I’m just saying that anybody who’s ever studied history knows that rebellions like this sound great in the beginning and almost always start out with good intentions. But once the cool guys get in power they become just like the ones they threw out – except that they don’t feel the same level of responsibility.”

  The lady smiled. “My name’s Janet. And you’re Lieutenant Commander Magill, if I’m not mistaken.”

  Magill looked down at his feet and the crutches leaning against the bar. “That’s pretty brilliant on your part since I’m about the only person on the planet who uses crutches!” He really didn’t like being obnoxious, but he had a role to play in this discussion.

  “I recognized you by your face. I always thought you were kind of cute. But let’s get to the point, if that’s what you want. Tell me more about this history thing and how it ends up being worse after a revolution than before.”

  Magill’s face darkened. “Listen, you’re not going to print any of this are you, because they’d have my butt in a sling in no time and I don’t need that.”

  “We’re just talking—that’s all.”

  “Well, aside from Mr. Lansing, who really is a good guy, what always happens in situations like this is that the rebels kick out a king or queen who’s lost touch with their subjects. The new crowd comes in all bent on reshaping the government to their particular favorite ideal governing system and pretty soon they’re out their killing all the people who disagree with them and blaming others for the failures of the new system. They get into office by promising the moon and the stars and then when they can’t deliver they just get more and more violent. In the end its worse than it was before.”

  “Can you give me examples?”

  Magill struggled to straighten up. “That’s the problem isn’t it – that I have to give the examples. Everybody should know the examples if they’d just study a little history.”

  �
��I was good in math—so maybe you’ll humor me.” Her voice had a seductive quality to it.

  “Think about it—the Czar of Russia sits fat and lazy with his big family in the Winter Palace while his subjects are starving in 1917. So Lenin comes into town promising that the Bolsheviks will fix it all. Sure enough, they kill the Czar and impose Communism and everything is supposed to get better – except for the fact that Lenin and Stalin proceed to murder more than twenty million of their own citizens, starving millions of others in the process. Then it happens in China under Mao Zedong. Then it happens in Cambodia under Pol Pot. Then in the 22nd Century it happens in Africa. And then our ancestors proclaim that their sick of all that and get the hell out of Dodge when space travel becomes viable and we’re supposed to have put all that in the past, except that now your royal family gets murdered and people are hungry. So where does that put us now?”

  “I’ve never understood where that comes from, ‘Get out of Dodge?’”

  Magill shook his head in disgust. “No, you probably wouldn’t because you’d actually have to study history to understand the reference.” He was tempted to add “moron” but thought that would put her off.

  “I’ve kind of heard of all those things, but that’s like in the ancient world. It doesn’t happen now!”

  “That’s what they all thought before it happened to them.” He pretended to nurse his drink, then looked up at her and said earnestly, “Listen, I’ve just had a few too many. I don’t want you to repeat any of this. I’m just shooting off my mouth because it gets so frustrating.”

  “But you think that the UCG could turn out worse than the Keswick monarchy…”

  “I didn’t say that—I just said that there’s a reason these Loyalists want things to go back to the way they used to be—that’s all I’m saying.” With that he looked down at his glass and pretended to brood. She got the hint and got up and left.

  * * *

  The next morning proved the validity of his theory that using reporters pretending to promise confidentiality was the easiest way to get a message out, inasmuch as the whole planetoid went crazy over the headline, “Kalenden Envoy Predicts Mass Murder By UCG.”

  “Well, he certainly made it easy for us to disavow him, didn’t he?” said Lansing to Wilkerson, as he read the report.

  “If you read the whole interview you’d see that he never said anything like what the headline suggests. The lady printed the interview exactly as he said it and he went out of his way to compliment you…”

  Lansing held up his hand. “I know—but it’s the headline that’s going to give me headaches for who knows how long.”

  “At least I have a couple of hours before the Esper Links can get word back to Kalenden. Then I’m going to have my ass chewed right off.”

  “Well, it’s been reported that he’s gone into hiding, so it looks like his plan is working.”

  “I hope his plan doesn’t take a long time. This may prove harder to manage than we thought.”

  Wilkerson nodded. He felt so out of his element in all this intrigue and hoped that Magill knew what he was doing. You better know what you’re doing—because I couldn’t stand the thought of…” He forced himself to stop thinking about it and to start working on what he’d say to Colonel Kensington when the call from Kalenden came in. It will come in! At least he could count on that.

  * * *

  Magill was sitting in an easy chair in the small motel room he’d taken the night before when the door came crashing down. He successfully resisted the urge to say, “What kept you,” and instead did his best to act alarmed. Given the roughness with which they put the bag over his head and ripped him into a standing position it wasn’t as hard to act alarmed as he thought it would be.

  “You’re coming with us…” said a rough voice and Magill found himself stumbling forward.

  “I need my crutches!” he shouted, but the men just laughed, put their arms under his armpits, and dragged him out the door and into some kind of vehicle. The fact that it made no noise when it accelerated suggested that it was an anti-gravity land cruiser that floated above the surface. Makes sense if they don’t want to be tracked. Sean did his best not to throw up. He was genuinely frightened, now. Even if his plan were solid, he might never make it out alive.

  * * *

  “Sir, we have a very strange message that just came through.”

  Jesik looked up at Williams with a quizzical look. “So, read it.”

  Williams hesitated. “I’m not sure – maybe you’d like to read it privately, first.”

  Jesik stood up and moved over to the communications console. After reading the message he said quietly, “Mr. Williams, please treat this as confidential for the moment. Would you ask Lieutenant Eaves to meet me in my quarters?”

  “Certainly, Sir.” Even Williams was disturbed enough by the message that he wouldn’t have told anyone else on the crew even if Jesik hadn’t coded it confidential. Not until we hear his side of the story! Fortunately they were in deep space so only cleared communications and news could be shared with the ship’s company. For now Magill’s reputation was safe.

  * * *

  “But you said that these things always turn out badly—that the rebels turn out worse than the kings they depose.”

  “I gave some examples. But that doesn’t mean this has to be the same way.”

  “But it could turn out that way.”

  Magill looked around the room. He was, as he hoped, right square in the middle of the Loyalist uprising command structure. He was being interrogated by some former general in the Keswick Military who had obviously defected, but not yet made that known to the Unified Governing Coalition. And right there next to him was the young man who was supposed to be the rightful heir to the throne of Keswick. But not close enough for him to brush up against him. The way the guards in the room were positioned—rather the way their weapons were positioned—made it impossible for him to make any kind of a move towards the prince without getting blasted.

  “So, what do you want me to do? I shot off my mouth in a bar.”

  “Were you sincere in what you said? That’s the whole point!”

  Magill pondered. He actually was sincere. Every single incident he cited was true. Things often worked out unfortunately when an historic ruling family was deposed. It had caused problems in the Middle East on Earth, in Africa, and—well almost everywhere. So he nodded.

  “Then own up to the statement—that’s all we ask. We’ve written a communication that we are going to send out.” The general, whoever he was, added, “We’ve already taken pictures of you here that we intend to attach to the broadcast and we’ll make it sound like you wrote it, whether or not you give us permission, so you might as well read it first.”

  “But how will people know it’s really me and not some doctored picture. You could take a picture of me and a picture of the royal nephew here and put them together electronically.”

  The general creased his brow. “You’re right. We could and everyone would thing that we’d doctored the picture. That’s why you’re going to go stand right next to him with your arm around his shoulder. That’s a pose that’s almost impossible to fake. And then we’ll send our message and before you know it we’ll have people joining us in droves.”

  “No—I didn’t mean that,” stammered Magill, even though that’s exactly what he’d hoped for. As the guards moved close to force him next to the prince he fingered the personal assistant that they had foolishly neglected to check for. A piece of skin is all I need. An exposed piece of skin and two seconds.”

  * * *

  “We’ve got to do something!” Wilkerson couldn’t remember the name of the minister who was shouting. He just knew that the Keswick UCG was going crazy over Magill’s indiscretion and they were shouting at Lansing to find him and haul him up on charges of sedition.

  “We can’t do that, and you know it – he’s a Kalenden!”

  “Then send him back to Kalenden!�
�� someone else shouted.

  Lansing nodded. “Gentlemen, things aren’t always as they seem. My experience tells me that Commander Magill is a reasonable fellow. I’m sure he’s got a good explanation for this.”

  “You’d defend him!” Now the room did erupt in a firestorm and Wilkerson put his hand next to his holster. Dealing with a group of rebels turned government ministers wasn’t exactly the safest thing in the world.

  Just when he thought they’d have to give into the demand to going after Magill he heard the distinctive “ping” that indicated he’d received a high level communication on his assistant. Glancing down to read the message his eyes widened. “Why you little devil—you’ve done it!” He looked up and caught Lansing’s eye. “He’s done it! It just went out over the social network!” Lansing pulled out his own assistant and then pounded the gavel to bring order to the room.

  Wilkerson sat back down astonished. Then he heard the words, “Send in the Cavalry…” inside his head. He didn’t actually hear them, of course, but he might as well have because the thought alarmed him so quickly that he jumped up shouting, “We’ve got to get over there. What’s the fastest way to deploy a SWOT team!” Lansing looked down at the message quickly, realized what Wilkerson was talking about, and jammed a red button on the table. The room lit up like a starship in the night and alarms sounded. The cavalry had been summoned.

  * * *

  In some ways Magill hated what he had done. The young man was undoubtedly innocent and actually believed that he was related to the royal family. It was probably the general who had flattered him into thinking he was special, most likely because of the way he looked. But when Sean had put his arm up around the young man’s shoulder he allowed the assistant to come into contact with the boy’s neck, which set off the automatic protocol that he’d previously programmed. In less than two seconds of contact the assistant scanned a DNA sequence, connected to the web and compared it to all known samples of the deceased royal family, confirmed that there was no relationship, and then transmitted that information with a pre-written message to everyone connected to the social network—in other words everyone on Keswick and all the foreign nationals stationed on the planet. The fact that it also activated the reflective camera in the device, which allowed an electronic image of him standing next to the boy to be constructed from reflected surfaces all around the room, proved to the world that the scan was legitimate, because there was Magill holding it next to the false prince’s neck. The message he’d written was headlined, “Supposed Royal Nephew a Fraud – Proved by DNA Sequence.”