Ice Red

by Jael Wye

  “Where did you get this information?” Bianca started violently. Volkov had come up behind her, his footsteps silent.

  Hussein seemed completely unperturbed at the SI’s presence. “A friend of mine in the Cloud,” he said in a singsong voice. “A friend of mine in the Cloud told me about Cesare. And told me where you were.”

  “Who exactly is this ‘friend’?” Volkov said.

  Hussein just shrugged a little.

  Mehmet said, “Hussein is right, Bianca. We went to Cesare’s habsuite. We found it in shambles. His personal sec had been shredded. We think his former lawyer, Sam Briggs, gave Victoria his access codes.”

  She clapped her hands over her mouth, choking on horror. Her ears were ringing. Everything you thought you had belongs to me...

  Volkov was working his cuffs. After a few seconds he looked up. “I have confirmation from the Pavonis HabSec that Cesare Chan’s flat has been breached by someone who had access to the general sec codes.” He settled a hard look on Hussein. “I’m going to need to know how you got this data.”

  Bianca barely heard him over the roar in her head. This was her fault. She had left him. Let him follow her. Her fault.

  She whirled on Volkov. “We have to stop it! We have to stop the car!”

  Volkov shook his head sharply, his face a cold mask. “I just received orders from the Directorship. They’ve decided to negotiate with Victoria personally. They’ve taken this case away from me.” His voice was flat. “I can report the kidnapping, but there’s nothing more I can do.”

  “Nothing!” Bianca wanted to grab him by his perfect green uniform and shake him. “You’re just going to stand there and let her take a hostage? What kind of sec are you?”

  He rounded on her suddenly, his lean frame taut with controlled emotion. “She’s holding the whole planet hostage. As long as she has control of the elevator, she has a chokehold on the MBC and the GA. This order for me to stand down came from the highest levels.” He stopped, seeming to draw a forced calm around himself. “You will have to trust in MarSec’s lawyers and negotiators. They won’t allow an innocent civilian to be harmed.”

  “You don’t believe that any more than I do!”

  Volkov didn’t respond, his eyes sliding away from hers. That was answer enough. She was on her own. She spun away from the investigator, thoughts racing. She had to find him, no matter what it took.

  Mehmet and Hussein were watching her in silence. She looked up, and caught Hussein’s clear gaze. He smiled. An innocent, yet knowing smile.

  A sudden, small charge washed over her, an awareness as certain as the sun. She wasn’t alone at all. And she knew what she had to do. In a moment, a plan constructed itself in her mind like a perfect equation. Now she simply had to implement it.

  She drew herself up and turned back to Volkov. “Investigator, I think it’s time to release me from protective custody.”

  “What? No, absolutely not. You have no protection—”

  “I don’t need your protection now. I need your help.”

  “Help to do what? Enact some kind of half-cooked scheme?”

  “All I want is for you to let me and my friends go about our business. It’s a perfectly reasonable request.”

  The SI’s shrewd gaze moved over the two Earthers standing silently behind her, lingering on Hussein’s round face. “Your friends have to answer some questions for me.”

  Bianca had no more time for finesse. She said baldly, “You owe me this much, Investigator. What’s more, you owe Cesare. He trusted you, and you...” You failed him. Her unspoken accusation hung in the air.

  Volkov flinched.

  “Now you’ll have to trust us to do what’s necessary,” she said softly.

  Volkov turned slowly toward the video array. The escaping elevator car was now a tiny spark on the screens, carrying Victoria and her prisoner farther and farther out of his reach.

  After a long moment, he said, “Ay. You and your friends are free to go wherever you choose.” He looked back at her intently. “MarSec won’t interfere in internal StarLine matters. I’ll see to it.”

  “Understood.” Volkov would clear MarSec out of her way. That was the best he could do. She nodded to him once, and turned. “Come on,” she said to the Earthers, and headed for the main entrance.

  Behind her, she thought she heard Volkov murmur, “Good luck.”

  She didn’t pause. She was already putting in a com to Angelo.

  Public Hangar LS3, Pavonis Mons

  “This is your fault!” Angelo stormed across the hangar toward her, the hitch in his step more pronounced than ever.

  She stood her ground. Mehmet, Hussein and all the other Noctis Earthers were ranged behind her. They had all come to help her, for Cesare’s sake. “I know it’s my fault,” she said steadily. “But you have to help me anyway. This is the only way to get him out of there.”

  Angelo loomed over her, his black eyes boring into hers.

  She held his gaze. “Victoria is going to kill him. MarSec won’t stop her, but I will. It’s the only way. You have to believe me.”

  “Believe you?” he spat out.

  “I believe her Angelo.” Asif’s rough voice sounded behind her. “She saved all of us once before. She can save Cesare.” All of the others nodded and murmured in agreement. Bianca felt a tremor go through her at their show of faith. She struggled to maintain her control.

  Angelo blinked, as surprised at the Earthers as she was. Then his desperate gaze scoured over her. “You’d put yourself on the line, your company on the line, to rescue my brother?”

  “Ay.”

  “Why?”

  Her lips parted to say something about her debt, her responsibility. But that wasn’t the truth, and she owed everyone here the truth. “Because I love him,” she said quietly.

  There was absolute silence from the Earthers. Angelo stared at her hard, his face unreadable as he weighed and tested her words. Finally he said, “Lay it down for me. Exactly what is this plan of yours?”

  She took a steadying breath and told him.

  Elevator Car 001

  Pain roared in his ears and flashed behind his eyelids as he slowly climbed up out of darkness. Bit too much pain to be a hangover. What the feck happened? His brain felt like it was coated in glue. Slowly, he dredged up the memory. Attacked. Two blokes had attacked him in his hab.

  He jerked convulsively, trying to get up. Metal bands cut hard into his wrists and ankles. He had been tied down, spread-eagled on his back.

  There was a low murmur of two blokes talking. “He’s waking up... Start cutting...” A small buzzing noise. Cool air on his arms. Then his chest. They were cutting off his suit. Been going through a lot of c-suits lately, he thought hazily.

  “I wonder what she wants him for,” one of the blokes said.

  Sneering laughter. “What do you think she wants him for?”

  The cutter buzzed lower, down the legs of his suit. Rough hands stripped the fabric off of him. A terrible chill ran over every centimeter of his skin.

  “My, my. He’s a big one, ay?” one of the blokes said. “I wouldn’t mind drilling him myself. The big, strong ones are always so much fun. Breaks ’em real fast.”

  “Maybe she’ll let you have him after she’s done with him.”

  “I hate getting leftovers. What if...”

  “Don’t be an idiot. She’ll want the first turn.”

  A sick rage began pouring through his veins like acid, roiling the fog in his head. There was the tiny bite of an injector high on his arm. He jerked away, but he could already feel the hot rush of new drugs flooding his system. He forced his eyes open. Two dark, blurry figures were standing over him. Earthers, wearing Eris sec uniforms.

  “Up and at ’em, space cowboy,” one of them said
. He raised his cuff. “He’s ready M’Ross.”

  Victoria Ross. That murdering puta had kidnapped him.

  Cesare mustered enough strength to lift his head up slightly and look around. He was in a luxurious habsuite, shackled to a massive bed. At the far end of the room, a viewing blister showed a broad swath of violet sky and a distant sliver of the Martian Surface. Too distant. With a new start of horror, he realized he was on an elevator car. And it was already rising up the cable.

  “What the feck is this!” he said, his voice tearing through his dry throat.

  The Earther goons just slid each other a glance and snickered.

  Cesare’s lips drew back from his teeth in a snarl.

  Suddenly there was the quiet hiss of a door folding open, and the laughter abruptly stopped. Victoria Ross glided into the room, pausing just inside the door so that everyone could admire her. She was dressed in an exquisite gown of glimmering blue spidersilk that molded to her voluptuous body like a second skin. Her golden hair was shining and perfect down her back. Her pale eyes swept over the room, and then locked on him. Cesare could almost feel her gaze sliding over his flesh. Plump lips curved in a small smile.

  “Cesare Chan. Welcome back to the elevator.” She tilted her chin at her sec. “Out,” she said.

  The sec blokes quickly filed out of the room. The door hissed shut behind them.

  There was silence for a moment as she eyed him. He bit the inside of his cheek until blood welled between his teeth to keep from roaring curses at her. That wouldn’t help him now. Think. Find a way out of this.

  Finally, she said, “How do you like the accommodations?” She gestured around at the room’s lavish furnishings. “I had this car especially redone for my guests. Or guest, rather. It appears my party has been postponed, so right now you are my only guest.”

  He forced his jaw to unclench. “The accommodations are a little constraining,” he said, jerking his fists against the binders.

  She laughed and paced a few steps across her expensive carpet to stand at the foot of the bed. Slowly, she reached out and ran one long finger over the binders shackling his left leg. “It’s all your own fault, you know. Had you shown a little better judgment, you would have been spared all this unpleasantness. But you threw in your lot with that cockroach, Bianca.” She spat out the name with enough venom to burn a hole through the air. “For that alone, you need to be punished. And I suddenly have a lot of free time on my hands to teach you your lesson.”

  “All right, I see the error of my ways. Can I go now?”

  She tilted her blond head. “Oh, no. There are several other reasons I want you with me.”

  “This isn’t about Woods, is it? Because you ought to be thanking me for doing your dirty work for you and dusting that fecker.”

  “Actually, no, I don’t thank you for that. You deprived me of the pleasure of shredding Javier myself. But that’s just a minor complaint. The major problem is that you interfered with my plans. And you tried to have me arrested. I take exception to that.”

  She knew about Volkov’s trap. She had a mole in MarSec, he realized. Of course she did. He had been a fool to trust those zazhong. And Bianca was at their mercy.

  Wild fear sliced through him. Had they handed Bianca over to this cracked huli too? Victoria had said he was her only guest, but she could be lying. He didn’t dare probe further. Couldn’t give her anything to use against Bianca.

  “So you get your revenge,” he said through his teeth. “What else do you want with me? Is it RedIce?”

  She arched a golden brow, saying nothing.

  “Why? Why in the Sol do you want my company so fecking bad?”

  She sniffed. “I don’t particularly care about your little mining operation. What I want is the key to Eldorado.”

  He was at a loss. “Eldorado... Is that supposed to be some kind of poetical shite? Sorry, but you don’t strike me as the type.”

  Her perfectly shaped lips curved slightly. “It’s not poetry, Cesare. It’s an asteroid. Two-point-nine kilometers in diameter. Assayed at point-six percent platinum.”

  Cesare made a sound of derision. “That’s cracked. That would be more platinum—”

  “More platinum than has ever been mined on Earth and Mars combined. More platinum than was thought to exist in the entire Sol. You appreciate why I have to have it. I simply can’t have the Earthers bypassing Mars for the asteroids to get their resources. Especially with the Earth elevator about to go up. My elevator must remain the prime source of Earth’s metals, or half my good work will be wasted. It’s not enough for me to dictate to the Martians. I want it all. Earth, the Belt and everything beyond.” Her eyes glowed with maniacal light. “But for now, I want that asteroid.”

  He stared at her for a moment. “All right, say this mad fancy actually exists. What does it have to do with me?”

  “Your mother found it.”

  Cesare was stunned silent.

  Victoria went on, “Her company partnered with some associates of mine in their latest prospecting expedition. Shortly after they started to dig in, about a year ago, there was some sort of falling out among the crew. There was a blast, and the asteroid and the miners were lost.”

  “Lost,” he choked. If she was telling the truth, his mother and Leo—

  Her sharp little teeth flashed in a smile. “Before your family died,” she said with soft relish, “They sent out an encryption recording the last known coordinates of the asteroid. I tracked that encryption to a RedIce host. So you see, you have the location of the greatest treasure trove ever known hidden somewhere in your chambers in the DataCloud. That is why I want RedIce, Cesare Chan.”

  Mum and Leo... His eyes were blurring. No. It wasn’t true. She was a sadistic lying huli jing. He couldn’t, he would not believe a word that came out of her mouth.

  “Though at this point I’m beginning to wonder if it would be less trouble to simply rip apart your firewalls and take the information without bothering with the company,” she mused. “But that would take some time, and time is limited. There are others in pursuit of Eldorado, you see. And as owner of RedIce, I’ll not only possess the location of Eldorado, I’ll possess legal claim to it.”

  He forced out a noise that sounded like a laugh. “You’re suddenly concerned about legality?”

  “The law can be a useful avenue to power,” she said softly. “It helps reconcile the lesser types to their fate. My friends in the GA, and even on Earth, understand that. They respect procedure and appearance.”

  “They won’t respect you very fecking much when the Assembly Court sticks you in a penal colony in the Belt.”

  “Don’t be stupid. The Assembly would never jeopardize the elevator by trying to arrest me, law or no law,” she said, a cold smile in her voice. “As long as I hold Eris, I hold all the points in this game. I win. And as the Earthers say, to the victor go the spoils. Which brings me to my final reason for inviting you aboard with me today.” Slowly, she ran her cool, dry fingers up the inside of his thigh. Cesare’s skin crawled at the flickering touch. “The journey to Eris can be a tedious trip. I intend to spend a good deal of it sampling that lovely thick rod of yours.” She grasped him between his legs, her gilded nails sharp against his most sensitive skin.

  His muscles locked. A foul taste boiled in his throat. There was no way. No way he could do it. It wasn’t possible for him to make himself drill this huli jing.

  He looked directly into her beautiful, terrible eyes. “Sorry, bird. Sick fecking connies don’t put me in the mood,” he said, revulsion in his voice. Reckless, he lashed out with the only weapon he had. He raked his gaze over her voluptuous body and sneered. “And you’re not Bianca, after all.”

  His round struck true. Her lips peeled back from her teeth, her eyes suddenly blazing with some unholy combination of rage and
lust. Her hand tightened painfully on his flesh. “The meds I gave you will have you begging for me in a few minutes,” she hissed. She let him go and snatched up something from a nearby table. A shock rod. The grip colored pink, he noticed. How cute.

  “Meanwhile, I think I’ll get myself in the mood,” she whispered. The rod flashed in the light as she slashed it across his body.

  Blinding pain seared over him. He arched up off the bed, straining against his binders, locking his jaw on a roar of agony.

  “Ahhh. That’s better,” she crooned. “Now tell me, Cesare, who is the most beautiful one of all?”

  Elevator Cable Platform EA-2

  Bianca locked her helmet to the collar ring on her spacesuit, her fingers moving with a bot’s efficiency. She was curiously calm, almost numb. Her course of action was set. She would do what had to be done.

  Nearby, Asif, Iqbal, Han and Bo were also gearing up, moving stiffly in the thick, jointed shells of their s-suits. Their faces were pale but set inside their helmets. A momentary twinge of worry made it through Bianca’s numbness. None of the Earthers had ever done a spacewalk before. But each one had insisted on playing their part in the rescue, and Bianca was simply too desperate to refuse their help.

  She touched the s-suit on, and the confirmation signal flashed in her face plate. She quickly monitored the data streams from the ship sensors and cable comps. Everything scanned normal. The plan was holding.

  Angelo had brought them into low orbit, his plane on course to rendezvous with the elevator cable in a few minutes. Their goal was the EA-2 service platform, one of several access stations where cars could stop in case of emergency. When Angelo drew his orbital close enough, she and the four Earthers would make the short jump from the orbital lock to the platform, and wait.

  Meanwhile, Angelo, Mehmet, Hussein and Milla would continue on to the next platform up the line, EA-3, where they would use the access codes and fire routes that Bianca had provided to sabotage the alarm system. Victoria’s car would be forced into an emergency stop at EA-2. The Earthers waiting there would begin to break through the car’s secondary boarding lock, drawing the car’s sec to the breach.