Birthright: The Complete Trilogy

by Rick Partlow

  We were riding in a modified Ranger cutter---equipped with special, intelligence gathering devices and stealth projectors---right behind the dropships. If everything went according to plan, we'd be inserted simultaneously with the Ranger assault troops, and the confusion of their incursion would camouflage our entry.

  We all realized, of course, that everything never goes according to plan.

  I heard the door to the stall open, but I wasn't startled; I knew it was Kara before I felt her hands running across my back. I turned and she slipped silently into my arms, leaning up into a kiss that I was surprised to give so willingly. I had thought that I had sorted all this out. I'd filed away my relationship with her as a temporary, cathartic thing that I had put behind me with the revelation that Rachel was still alive.

  After all, it hadn't been wrong, not before. I had believed my wife dead, and that belief had negated the vows I had taken. Now, since I knew there was a chance she was alive, everything was back the way it used to be. Wasn't it? Somehow, I couldn't think clearly about it with my tongue down her throat.

  I broke the kiss and looked her in the eye. Soapy, warm water was streaming down from her short, brown hair and dripping off her nose. God, she was so beautiful.

  "This is wrong," I said, swallowing hard.

  "We could all be dead in a few hours," she told me. "If your Rachel's half the woman you've made her out to be, she wouldn't begrudge you a few minutes of happiness."

  I should have argued, should have pushed her away...but all I could do was pull her to me and cover her mouth with mine. I ran my hands down the hard muscles of her back, caressing the smooth tightness of her buttocks. Grasping her by the backs of her thighs, I lifted her onto me, her legs wrapping around my waist as I entered her. A low hiss passed through her teeth and she threw her head back, offering her breasts to the attention of my mouth as we began to build a steady rhythm. All thoughts, all doubts were swept away by our quiet moans and washed clean in the deluge of heat that rained down on us.

  I didn't know how all this would turn out, or what I would think of myself afterward, but at that moment all I knew was that I wanted her. I didn't believe this was love; I'm not sure if I wanted to believe I could love anyone but Rachel. Yet, at the same time, I knew it was something more than just physical passion.

  I needed her, and I could feel that she needed me to be with her. Something about the moment, and the nearness of death, made us both want to cling dearly to life and to each other. We both knew that neither would likely last too long.

  * * *

  I fidgeted in my acceleration couch, trying not to scratch at my collar. It had been a long time since I'd worn Reflex Armor, and the byomer felt odd against my skin. I tried to think about something else, glancing across the command bridge at the others strapped in around me.

  Kara and Cowboy were on my flanks, while Mat and the Special Ops section leader sat just behind the flight crew. Behind us, in a couch specially rigged for him, was the thing that had once been Robert Chang, the man I'd known as Cutter. I hadn't talked to him much since he'd arrived at Inferno; I'd been uncomfortable with him in his previous incarnation, and I was frankly repulsed by him now. Maybe he reminded me too much of myself.

  "One minute to jump, Colonel M’voba," the pilot announced in muted tones. Everyone had been pretty subdued once they came out of stasis. Maybe they were just now realizing how risky this was going to be.

  Mat nodded in reply to the announcement, face impassive. He could have been worrying about his monthly expense reports for all the anxiety he let show. I didn't know Major Parnell, the Special Ops commander, but he wore a worried expression on his business-like face.

  Cowboy was whistling softly---a low, mournful tune that filled the bridge---while he idly twisted one end of his mustache. Secarius was motionless, his monstrous face unreadable, but I could have sworn he seemed positively happy.

  Kara stared at the deactivated viewscreen, as if she were searching in its darkness for the end of this peculiar path upon which she'd been sent.

  All I could think of was the way Rachel's hair fell into her eyes when we made love.

  Reality exploded onto the viewscreen with a flash of polychromatic light and a wrench in my gut, and I immediately knew something was wrong. Proximity alarms were blaring across the bridge before any of us had recovered from our post-jump disorientation, and I caught a brief glimpse of dozens of gleaming obelisks lined up across the forward screens before the viewers and everything else on the bridge went dark.

  Everything was quiet for a moment, as the bridge crew did exactly what I was trying to do---tie into the ship's control net---and were just as unsuccessful. The main computer control system was down. That revelation spurred an explosion of sound and activity as the pilot and crew sprang into motion, activating auxiliary systems, one of them springing from her acceleration couch and launching herself out of the command center towards the emergency periscope.

  I looked over at Kara, her face eerily lit by the dull red of the ship's emergency lights, and saw not the fear or surprise I expected, but rather anticipation. I had a sudden, uncanny feeling that this was not at all an unexpected turn of events for her, and I didn't quite know what to make of that.

  Then I caught a glimpse of Cowboy, and a chill ran down my spine. He was smiling.

  "Attention, Commonwealth ships!" A voice blared through the bridge's PA speakers, working despite the lack of power in any of the other systems, and the forward screens lit up with the image of one of the Predecessor aliens we had seen in the NewsNet holo on Murdock's ship. "We are representatives of the Resscharr Imperium," the creature announced in flawless Basic. "You have wrongfully invaded space granted to us by your government. Your vessels have been neutralized, and will be towed by our sentry ships into orbit around our base at the planet you call Petra. There, all military personnel will be held for return to proper government authorities for prosecution.

  "Do not resist and you will not be harmed."

  The screens went dark again, and we all found ourselves staring at the dark space where the alien face had been. I had a vision of Rachel, locked in a room somewhere, waiting for me to come for her. With luck, maybe we'd end up in the same cell.

  A gentle shudder went through the deckplates.

  "We're being towed!" The crewman who'd gone to use the emergency periscope flew through the bridge access tunnel, slamming her shoulder against the bulkhead with a grunt. Her eyes were wide, their whites clearly visible as she steadied herself to keep from spinning end for end in the zero-g. "I don't know how...there's no cable or anything, just a kind of blue glow around us. But those ships---they're pulling us toward them."

  It wasn't a full two minutes before a soft lurch went through the cutter as we docked with the Corporate ship, and I heard the distant, metallic grinding that told me we had matched airlocks.

  "Sir?" Major Parnell turned to Mat with confusion and uncertainty in his expression. "What are your orders?"

  "Just do as they say, for now, Major," Mat instructed him. "Tell your men not to resist." He turned to the pilot. "That goes for your bridge crew as well, Captain."

  "Yes, sir," the man said, trying unsuccessfully to hide his relief at the order.

  I unstrapped from my acceleration couch and moved out through the access hatch, into the corridor, where I could see the main airlock. The minutes seemed to drag by as they matched pressures with us, but my attention was frozen on the bare metal of the lock door---I barely noticed when Kara and the others moved up behind me.

  Then the hatch slowly hissed aside, and a tall, not-quite-human figure strode through with a scrape of magnetic soles. The Predecessor aliens had looked eerily haunting in the holos I had seen, and in Fourcade's memory, in what had amounted to civilian clothes. These things were positively nightmarish in gleaming black battle armor, with oddly-shaped weapons cradled threateningly in their long arms.

  A half a dozen of them clomped through the hatch, spre
ading out up and down the corridor, before a human emerged, looking almost insignificant in his soft, grey-toned body armor. He lacked the magnetic boots of the Resscharr, and had to push against the bulkhead to bring himself in front of us, his right hand filled with a heavy pulse pistol.

  Who's in command here?" The short, battle-helmeted man demanded.

  "I'm Colonel M’voba," Mat spoke up from somewhere over my right shoulder.

  "I want all military personnel through that airlock in three minutes, Colonel," the man told him. "Anyone who tries to hide a weapon will be stunned and put in restraints. Anyone who resists us will be killed where he stands."

  "Major Parnell," M’voba ordered, "carry out those orders immediately."

  "Yes, sir," Parnell acknowledged, still staring at the Resscharr.

  Parnell moved his people and the bridge crew into the Corporate ship quickly and orderly, and followed them through after a quick salute to Mat.

  "Good luck, Major," Mat called out before he disappeared into the airlock, followed by all but two of the guards.

  Mat slowly turned and faced Cowboy.

  "What are you planning on doing with us?" he asked matter-of-factly. I don't know why, but the impact of his words didn't immediately register with me; perhaps I was too wrapped up in my own troubles.

  "Just what the alien fellah' said," Cowboy drawled, seeming totally relaxed. "The ordinary military personnel, including the Special Ops squad from this ship, will go back to the custody of the Patrol, where they'll face courtmartial. And, of course," he grinned with self-satisfaction, "a holo of all this will go to the Press as evidence of the disloyalty of the top military officers, who will be arrested immediately and replaced with appointees from President Jameson."

  "And what about us?" Mat waved a hand at Kara, Secarius and me.

  Then it hit me. It wasn't so much the realization that Cowboy had betrayed us---I'd never completely trusted him anyway. No, what smashed me between the eyes was the realization that Mat, and possibly Kara as well, had known about this before-hand, and had stepped right into this trap with their eyes open.

  "You folks are a special case," Cowboy answered. "We can't just let y'all go flyin' away free, knowin' what you know, but Mr. Damiani's not one to waste potential resources. He wants to offer y'all a deal." Mat just nodded.

  A heat rose in my chest that burned through my limbs like acid, till my whole body was filled with a flaming hatred, a hatred far beyond the cold rage of the Machine. I wanted to scream, throw myself across the corridor and rip Cowboy's throat out, then take on the aliens. One thing stopped me: Secarius hadn't said a word or moved a muscle. If anyone was going to react violently to this---if there was anyone among us with truly nothing to lose---it was him. If he was keeping himself under control, there had to be a good reason.

  I caught Kara's attention. Her eyes were bright, and she was licking her lower lip in a motion I'd come to know as one of excitement.

  "Take it easy," she said. "Everything will be all right."

  "Yeah, Cal," Cowboy assured me, in a tone surprisingly free of mockery, "your wife is fine, and you're about to see her. You probably won't believe this, but I'm doing all I can for you and Mat."

  "I feel better now," I rasped, my throat tight with rage.

  Ignoring me, he turned to the human commander of the alien troops.

  "You can take your guards back on your ship," he told the man. "Tow us into orbit, then cut us loose---I'll be taking her down myself."

  "Are you sure, sir?" The man eyed us suspiciously.

  "I can take care of myself, Mister," Cowboy snapped. "Tell Monsieur Damiani that I'll be bringing them directly to the research complex."

  "Yes, sir!" The man went rigid. He turned and pushed himself through the airlock, taking the two remaining guards with him.

  "Just how much did you get out of that base, Cowboy?" I asked him, realizing with a sick feeling that those landing pads I'd seen hadn't been empty at all.

  "Not as much as we would have if y'all hadn't blown it up," he chuckled.

  "You were there," Kara declared. "You killed that researcher so we couldn't question him."

  "Had to," he shrugged. "Couldn't let you find out about Petra or our little science project. 'Course you found out anyway, but that was a bit beyond my reach."

  He nudged himself back onto the bridge, strapping himself into the pilot's position, and the rest of us followed. We'd just taken our seats before the Corporate ship got under weigh with us in tow, the slight acceleration pressing us back into our couches.

  "So Deke was telling the truth," I mumbled. "And we chased him away like he was a traitor."

  "Don't feel too bad about it." Cowboy advised me. "He's out of all this now, and if he's smart, he'll run as far as he can. I'd hate to have to kill him."

  "How did you keep finding us?" I had to know.

  "You weren't too hard to figure out. It figured to me that you'd either go to Murdock or Deke for help, and I had teams out watching for both. When you went to Deke, I knew you weren't ready to bring it all to the brass, so I thought you'd be heading back to the Predecessor base. From there, the mole I had at Fleet Intell let me know where you'd be meeting Mat."

  "Why did you have me attacked," Mat wanted to know, "and then save me from your own people?"

  "He saved you?" I gaped at M’voba. "How long have you known that?"

  "I knew I hadn't killed that DSI cadreman," Mat told me. "And there's only three kinds of people that can kill a cadreman one-on-one without a gun: another cadreman, a Tahni cyborg, and a Glory Boy."

  "Believe it or not," Cowboy informed him, "I had nothing to do with the attempt on your life, Mat. The DSI has a sanction out on you." He turned to Kara and I. "And on both of you. I was heading out to follow you two when I got an alert from the station security system that there was an attack on Mat." Damn...he'd even penetrated that security system. I really should have tried bribing those guys.

  "After I took out the fellah that was on you, Mat," Cowboy went on, "I figured I'd make the best of it and try to use the confusion to insert myself into your confidences. I needed to know exactly when and where you'd be attacking if I was going to make sure I stopped you without having to kill the bunch of ya'."

  "If you're so concerned about us," I interjected, "then why are you sticking with the Corporates on this? You sacrificed as much to defend the Commonwealth as any of the rest of us."

  "Cal, ol' buddy," he informed me quietly, "I've been working for the Corporate Council since before I entered the Service Academy."

  "What?" Mat exclaimed, finally seeming surprised by something.

  "I'd heard of people like you," said Secarius, speaking for the first time. "The DSI," he addressed the rest of us, "had a closer relationship to the Council than the rest of the military, so we were privy to more of the rumors that floated around during the war.

  "I'd heard that the Council had recruited some young men and women to enter the Academy and serve as information sources. The Council was concerned that the military would discover some new technologies or resources and the government would try to squeeze the corporations out of it after the war."

  "But they couldn't have known you'd be on the Thatcher," Mat insisted.

  "That made things a mite complicated," he admitted. "It was hard to get a hold of the established contacts---you know how close they watched us when we were off-duty. But during the invasion of Tahn-Skyiiah, I talked to a DSI agent who was another of the moles, and they gave me a new deal based on my position." He smiled broadly, hesitating for effect. "For the last six years, I've been the Chief of Security for the Corporate Executive Board."

  Chapter Fifteen

  Petra drifted by our viewscreens, a craggy landscape, pitted by countless meteor impacts and coated with a thin layer of ice that gleamed in the light of the faraway primary. West piloted wordlessly through the thin atmosphere, caught up in the stunned silence that had fallen upon us all with his revelation and las
ted through the hours it had taken us to reach the planet.

  I gave no thought to trying to take over the ship---I was sure they were keeping us under observation, and they'd already demonstrated the ability to disable our systems from a distance. No, if there was to be any resistance, it would have to come once we landed and I had an idea of where Rachel was.

  I kept finding myself staring at Mat. He had suspected Cowboy, yet he had allowed us to fall into this trap. If he had something planned, it was incomprehensible to me...unless it was a suicide attack.

  Yeah, I realized, that might make more sense. He and General Murdock could have figured that the Corporates would have us outgunned, and planned on being captured and trying to take out this Damiani guy. Of course, it would be damned impolite of them not to inform the rest of us about it.

  If that was the case, I would have to consider going along with the Corporates if they offered me the chance. As much as the thought repelled me, I owed it to Rachel to do everything I could to keep her alive.

  I could feel the cutter decelerating as we approached the impact-cut lines of a huge lake, framed by the sheer cliffs of the crater. Glassy waves lapped gently at the frozen shore, blown by a soft breeze, and in the middle of it all was an island of dull metal.

  "There she is," Cowboy commented softly. "Home sweet home."

  As he brought us in lower, feeding power to the belly thrusters, I got a better look at the base. It was a framework of duralloy girders floating on broad pontoons, supporting a massive, heavily-armored habitat dome at least five hundred meters across. Next to the dome was an open landing platform, empty but for a pair of small, atmospheric flyers.

  This, I assumed, was only the operational headquarters of the Corporate outpost here. As big as the dome was, there wasn't room in it for a fusion torch or reactor of the size needed for a true research facility. I knew they had an orbital complex, and I guessed there was probably an underground facility as well.