“Is the situation safe enough for you to leave it without an observer?” Robert asked.
“Not really,” Mandela said. “But a Paladin isn’t necessary for a simple matter like overseeing the local planetary elections.” He looked at Robert. “A Knight of the Sphere should be more than sufficient, now that we have one on hand.”
3
Bernhard Island
Kervil, Prefecture II
22 October 3134
The morning of Operation Aftershock dawned fair and bright. The tropical sky arcing overhead was a clear matte blue, the ocean below it was scarcely ruffled by the gentle breeze, and the sunlight glittered over the surface of the water like a layer of golden spangles. Bernhard Island was a dormant volcanic cone, its seaward approach dominated by rugged cliffs above vivid green slopes falling down to a long arc of black-sand beach. From the ocean, Bernhard looked like an unspoiled paradise, the stuff of a hundred tourist brochures.
And all of it was lies.
Bernhard Island was in fact a pirates’ haven, and under ordinary circumstances it would have been cleaned out long ago. Kervil Marine Law Enforcement was a well-armed and thoroughly professional combat force, quite capable of rounding up the typical piracy ring as soon as its criminal activities came to light.
These pirates, however, were not merely local criminals. When KMLE agents tracking half a dozen apparently unrelated cases compared notes, they saw similarities in methods and structure that pointed to the existence of a larger organization. Nor, upon investigation, did all of the stolen cargoes and prisoners’ ransoms stay on-planet; KMLE’s detective work found links to off-world buyers of goods and suppliers of weapons, as well as ties to smuggling rings on Terra and elsewhere. The criminal enterprises that preyed on Kervil’s shipping lanes, they discovered to their dismay, were only the planetary branch of a multiworld organization almost as large in its scope as the pirates of Sadalbari had been in their heyday.
Even worse, after several months of careful investigation and infiltration it became clear to Kervilian intelligence that the nerve center of the greater criminal organization was not located somewhere safely off-world in somebody else’s jurisdiction. The interplanetary pirates had hidden their main administrative-and-support base in the depths of the lava caves of Kervil’s own Bernhard Island.
Today, a task force assembled for the occasion waited just over the horizon from the island. In their current position, the ships of the task force could not be seen by human observers, even on the island’s high ground, and they had maintained radio silence for the past thirty-six hours. Kervil Marine Law Enforcement stood poised to hit Bernhard without warning in overwhelming strength.
The interplanetary scope of the pirates’ endeavors was responsible for the presence among KMLE’s current assets of an Atlas BattleMech piloted by a Paladin of the Sphere. The Atlas took up most of the well deck of Kervil Marine Law Enforcement’s Amphibious Assault Ship Waverley. Operation Aftershock’s other landing craft had been dispersed to her sister ships Ellis and Cuthbert, also taking part in the assault.
The goal of Operation Aftershock was to smash the pirate organization’s nerve center before its members could escape. There would be no advance warning, no chance for the high-level bosses to flee, no time for the incriminating documents to be wiped or shredded. Nothing but the hammer of justice, smashing down—and Paladin Jonah Levin and his Atlas had come to swing it.
The landing ships waiting offshore were specialized craft, their hulls painted pale blue to blend in with the ocean mists of Kervil, each of them carrying many smaller boats. The largest of the ships could ballast down, flooding the vessels’ well decks so that small cargo craft loaded with heavy tracked and wheeled units could float out. The smaller landing ships carried boats hung from davits, each boat large enough to hold a squad of regular or armored infantry.
At the moment, a rainsquall obscured the distant horizon. Just beyond that horizon, on the shores of Bernhard Island, the pirates waited. Jonah Levin was sure that they weren’t asleep; even with radio silence in effect, the approach of the landing force would be putting out too much noise on the electromagnetic spectrum for them to rest easy. No one had accused these freebooters of being anything other than ruthless and effective. That was why an army with both regular and armored infantry, and with wheeled, tracked and hover armor, lay just over their horizon—and that was why Jonah’s Atlas squatted in a specially constructed hold in the Waverley’s belly.
The Atlas was still attached to the ship’s service power lines, but was otherwise ready to move as soon as Jonah climbed into the cockpit and strapped himself into the pilot’s seat. The Atlas had no jump jets, which meant that Jonah, little as he relished the prospect, would have to wade his ’Mech ashore while every artillery piece on the island poured energy and projectile fire onto him.
The ships drove forward, toward the horizon. Jonah ascended from his ’Mech’s resting place to meet the Waverley’s captain on the ship’s bridge for a final conference before the assault.
“They have to know we’re coming now,” the captain said, “if they aren’t blind rather than just dumb.”
Jonah nodded. “So they must.”
“You wanted the charts?”
“Yes.”
“Here you go, then.”
Jonah looked at the display the captain brought up on his data terminal. “Can you give me a picture of the subsea contours?”
“No problem.” The captain touched a sequence of keys, and the false-color display melted and changed, now showing the water off the coast in gradations of blue and green where it had previously been a solid-colored area.
“How recent is this data?” Jonah asked.
“Some years old. This has been a poorly charted area.”
Jonah pointed at a bar of lighter color that thrust outward from the southern promontory of the shoreline. “Do you see this spit matching data from the task force today?”
“Nothing to contradict it,” the captain said.
“Then put me over the top of it . . . here,” Jonah said, pointing again. “Kick out your boats; I’m going for a stroll.”
“We’re getting illuminated with fire control,” a sensor tech on watch said. “G and H band, ranging and identification.”
“Countermeasures,” the captain said. “Active and passive. Keep them guessing.”
“They have to have figured out by now that something big’s coming,” Jonah said. “They’re going to be hitting us with everything they’ve got.”
“So they will,” the captain said. “At the same time as we’re hitting them with everything that we’ve got. Thanks to you, we have something more.”
“Start line,” the navigator said.
“Very well. Commence launching boats, form up wave circles, guide on me.”
“Commence launching,” the radio talker said. Jonah left Waverley’s bridge crew to their work and headed back to where his ’Mech waited in the dark of the lowest hold, power cables snaking over it. The ’Mech’s support crew—which, in these cramped quarters, was only two men—was standing by.
“Armed and hot,” the head rigger said. “Awaiting your orders.”
“Secure from ship’s power,” Jonah ordered. “I’m mounting up.”
“Secure from ship’s power, aye.”
While the two crewmen labored to disconnect the Atlas from Waverley’s power, Jonah stripped down to his shorts and a thin mesh shirt. As chilly as the humid morning was against his bare skin, he knew the atmosphere inside his ’Mech’s cockpit would be full of the literal heat of battle, where sweat running into a warrior’s eyes could be as deadly as inbound missiles. Without the concealment of his uniform shirt and trousers, the tanned skin of Jonah’s limbs and torso showed the silvery, knotted tracks of myriad old scars.
He climbed the ladder to the cockpit of the Atlas, reviewing the weapons systems as he went. Then he entered the hatch to the cockpit, closed the hatch behind him, strapped
himself into the ’Mech’s command couch, and convinced the ’Mech to recognize him as its commander. He brought the ’Mech up to its full standing height, stretched all its limbs to confirm response and agility, and cycled its weapons and communications console. Then he keyed on the intraship communications link.
“All right. I’m ready.”
4
Hotel Egremont
Woodstock, Prefecture V
22 October 3134
When the DropShip Amphitrite touched down at the DropPort on Woodstock, Gareth Sinclair was the first passenger to disembark. His luggage, which would otherwise have been subject to customs inspection, received its entry stamp without needing to be opened, and Gareth himself was waved to the head of the passenger line.
As a Knight of the Sphere, he was often extended such privileges whether he asked for them or not. He refused them when he could—he already felt guilty enough about the doors opened by his family’s wealth and position, and having more deference shown him did not make him more comfortable.
Today, however, he was willing to accept the advantage. He was on business for The Republic of the Sphere, he had a message to deliver, and the sender would not want him to dawdle.
The information desk in Woodstock’s DropPort concourse had an actual person on duty behind the counter, in addition to the usual data screens, input terminals and racks of brightly colored folding brochures. Gareth approved. He had wrestled with enough planetary communications directories and computerized mapping services to know that what seemed intuitively obvious to the locals often appeared far less so to off-worlders. Interrogating a live human being was not as fast and efficient as implementing a properly functioning data search, but Gareth had found people to be a lot easier to work with when things went wrong.
The woman at the desk looked up at his approach, and her eyes brightened. He wasn’t surprised. The working uniform of a Knight of the Sphere wasn’t as dazzling as the full-dress regalia, but the rank it proclaimed was nevertheless capable of impressing spectators. He knew the attendant wasn’t glowing because of his face; it was too thin, too long, too raw-boned to make pleasant young ladies smile at his approach.
“May I help you?” the desk clerk asked.
“Yes,” he said. “I need to know where the mercenary contract talks are being held.”
The clerk’s expression cooled markedly. The topic of mercenaries, it seemed, was not a popular one on Woodstock at the moment.
Gareth was not surprised. Some years earlier, when the Steel Wolves under Kal Radick had first begun to exhibit signs of military adventurism, the citizens of Woodstock had grown nervous. Their uneasiness prompted them to hire elements of the Eridani Light Horse mercenary unit as a planetary garrison. As matters fell out afterward, the Steel Wolves—first under Radick himself and later under Anastasia Kerensky—turned their attention elsewhere, and the contract between the government of Woodstock and the Eridani Light Horse expired without any combat having taken place on-planet.
The good people of Woodstock, far from being relieved, felt that they had promised to spend a great deal of money to no purpose. They attempted to renegotiate the terms of the contract to a lower payoff, on the grounds that the mercenaries hadn’t done any actual work. When the mercenaries objected and brought the matter before the Mercenary Review and Bonding Commission for adjudication, the local government countered by accusing the Commission of institutional bias and denying that its decisions were binding without the consent of both parties.
The mercenaries had objected again, vehemently this time, and with what the government of Woodstock chose to regard as threats of violence. It had taken direct intervention on the part of Exarch Damien Redburn, and the promise of a Paladin, no less, to handle negotiations, before the mercenaries’ tempers would cool.
The clerk said, “The talks are at the Hotel Egremont.”
“Neutral ground?”
“I really couldn’t tell you,” the clerk said distantly. “Do you need a map?”
“Yes, please.” Attempting to pinpoint the location of the hotel by wandering about and asking possibly hostile strangers for directions would not be good, Gareth thought, for the dignity of a Knight of the Sphere.
“One moment.” A light flashed within the depths of the info-booth console, and a moment later a sheet of printout flimsy emerged. The clerk picked up the sheet and handed it to him. It was a map of the city, showing the Hotel Egremont marked with a star and the route from the DropPort picked out in red. “Here you go.”
“Thank you.”
After a pause, the clerk added, almost reluctantly, “It’s a long walk. If I were you, I’d take a taxi.”
Gareth followed the clerk’s advice. The last thing he wanted, considering the gravity of the message that he bore, was to show up at the talks looking sweaty and rumpled.
The Hotel Egremont, when he arrived, was full of mercs in uniform. Gareth suspected they had scared away all of the other customers within the first day or so of negotiations. He asked the desk clerk where the contract talks were being held.
“In the Rose Room,” the desk clerk replied. “Off the mezzanine.”
“Thanks,” Gareth said, and headed toward the staircase.
“Hey!” the desk clerk protested. “Those are private negotiations. You can’t just—”
Gareth paused long enough to speak over his shoulder—“I have a personal message for Paladin Heather GioAvanti from Exarch Damien Redburn. I believe that gives me authorization.”—and continued up the stairs.
The mercenaries had a guard posted outside the Rose Room. The man came from relaxed parade rest to a posture of readiness as Sinclair approached.
“I’m sorry, sir. These are private negotiations.”
“So I’ve been told. And I’m a Knight of the Sphere with an urgent message for the Paladin.”
There was a thoughtful pause. Then the mercenary stepped away from the door. “Proceed.”
The Rose Room, Gareth thought when he entered, must have been named after something besides the flower. The décor inside involved no roses whatsoever, only curtains and carpet and bland, nonrepresentational art in shades of ivory and dusty green.
The tension in the room hit him even before the door closed. The mercenary officers on one side of the long central table glared at the representatives of Woodstock’s planetary government, who, though they were bureaucrats and their opponents were battle-tested warriors, attempted to glare back in turn. All of the porcelain cups waiting in neat rows beside the silver coffee urn on the sideboard remained untouched, as did the trays of breakfast pastries. From the look of things, nobody involved in the conference was willing to break even symbolic bread with the opposition.
Paladin Heather GioAvanti, seated at the head of the table, wore an expression of long-suffering patience. Gareth paused for a moment to look at her. Until now, he had only seen her from a distance, or in pictures. Close up and in person, the Paladin looked much younger than her media image—barely old enough to possess her rank or resume.
Heather GioAvanti had been a mercenary commander herself, and a successful one, before her acts of self-sacrificing heroism during an incursion of the Marik-Stewart Commonwealth into Prefecture VII had prompted the Exarch to make her a Paladin. She was a tall woman, with fair skin, strong bone structure, and a face saved from washed-out pallor by the trick of heredity that had made her brows and lashes several shades darker than her yellow-white hair.
When she turned to look at Gareth as he entered, he saw that she had gray eyes. Their gaze was sharp and penetrating, and he knew that she had probably guessed his errand already. There were not many messages that required a Knight of the Sphere to deliver them in person.
The other men and women at the table weren’t making the same connection, but they were smart enough to know that Gareth’s arrival was important. With all eyes fixed upon him, Gareth strode to the head of the conference table.
“Paladin GioAvanti?”
“I am Gareth Sinclair.” Having named himself, he withdrew a sealed envelope from the inner pocket of his uniform tunic and gave it to the Paladin. “I have an urgent message from the Exarch of The Republic of the Sphere, to be hand-delivered to you personally.”
“Thank you, Lord Gareth.” Heather GioAvanti opened the flap of the envelope and slid out a thick sheet of monogrammed paper. After reading the letter’s few lines of script, she put the paper back inside the envelope and laid it on the tabletop in front of her. Then she looked again at the forces arrayed along either side of the long table.
“All right,” the Paladin said, and her voice had a note in it that—judging from her auditors’ reaction—had not been there before. “I’ve heard both sides of the story now—several times each, at length—and I don’t want to hear them any more. Up until now I’ve been patient, because I was hoping that, given the chance, you’d come around to seeing reason on your own. But I have a letter here calling me to Terra, and so I can’t wait any longer. So listen up, because this is how it’s going to be.
“You people of Woodstock—you’re going to stop trying to weasel out of a perfectly legal and standard contract just because the mercenaries you hired did too good a job of convincing trouble to go somewhere else instead of coming here. Pay them what’s owed to them, and shut up.
“And you”—she glared at the mercenary leaders—“where do you get off even thinking about threatening your employers? I’m assessing you a fine of two hundred thousand stones for actions committed against the civic order, and you’re going to pay it with no grumbling.
“Do you all hear me?”
The question came like the snap of a whip. The silence that followed was broken by mumbled assents from both sides of the table.
“Good,” said Heather GioAvanti. “See that you do what I’ve said. And next time, think twice before you ask for a Paladin to come and render judgment.”
The Scorpion Jar Page 2