“It’s best to be prepared for as many contingencies as possible,” said March. He had learned that the hard way on multiple occasions.
“You know what? I’m overreacting,” said Adelaide with a smile. She started the car, and the motor whirred to life, the dashboard lighting up. “I’ve had an unconventional life. A Calaskaran woman my age is usually married with two or three children by now, but not me. So why should my family be surprised if I have an unconventional boyfriend?”
“I certainly see no reason why not,” said March.
“And we should enjoy our day together,” said Adelaide.
“I see no reason why we shouldn’t do that, either,” said March.
###
Later that night March lay in Adelaide’s bed, staring at the darkened ceiling and listening to her gentle breathing next to him.
They had spent the day in Calaskar City proper, and Adelaide had shown the various sights to him – the Royal Palace, the cathedrals, the offices of the various ministries, the monuments and memorials from Calaskar’s two thousand years of history. Then they had come back to her house to watch a movie.
Instead, they had started kissing and ended up in bed together.
There was an old joke in the Royal Calaskaran Navy, how after a shore leave the wives of the enlisted men needed to buy new mattresses because the old ones had gotten worn out from overuse. That seemed to apply to March’s relationship with Adelaide. More often than not, that was the first thing they did when he arrived on Calaskar, possibly because Adelaide knew she might lose him on one of his missions, that he might be killed and would never return.
Maybe she had it backward, March mused. Maybe he would lose her.
The harsh fact was that she had a life on Calaskar, and he didn’t fit very well into that life. Adelaide hated the Final Consciousness enough that she didn’t mind his duty, didn’t mind that he left for weeks at a time carrying out the work of the Silent Order. Yet it was a strain on her. And until this morning, he hadn’t realized how much of a strain it had been on her not to talk about him with her family. She already concealed her work as a Beta Operative from them.
How long could she conceal him from them? That her family was important to her was as obvious as the sun in the sky.
More to the point, how long could March keep doing this?
He gazed at her sleeping face, her features more relaxed than they ever were while she was awake.
Nearly twelve years now he had been an Alpha Operative for the Silent Order, and while that wasn’t the record, it was getting close. Most Alpha Operatives tended to get killed in the first three years of their service. Those who survived usually moved to different jobs after five or six years, or carved out specialized niches for themselves the way that John November had done. March had stayed as an Alpha Operative for so long because he was good at it. He wanted to inflict as much damage and pain on the Final Consciousness as possible.
That had been the entirety of his life, and all that he ever did or thought about.
He looked at Adelaide, at the black hair pooled around her head on the pillow.
Now there was someone else in his life.
Maybe it was time to think about switching to another job.
Not that the Silent Order would have any shortage of work for him to do. Once you were in the Silent Order, you were in the Order for life, and the Order would always have jobs for you. Even if March sold the Tiger tomorrow, moved into Adelaide’s house the day after that, and never left Calaskar again, the Order still would have work for him. Given the constant Machinist efforts at subversion on Calaskar, there was an equally constant need for counterintelligence operatives. If March asked Censor for permission to step back from the role of an Alpha Operative tomorrow, most likely Censor would set him up with an official job in the Ministry of Defense or the Ministry of Security, and then send him quiet tasks that needed to be done every few weeks. March had seen the same thing play out with other Alpha Operatives before.
Was that what he wanted to do?
He didn’t know.
March’s life had never included anything like his relationship with Adelaide. Not in the labor camps of Calixtus, not in his time as an Iron Hand, and not during his years as an Alpha Operative. Some of it was that March had never actually thought he would live this long, that he would have met a violent death years ago.
But could he stop? Was there room for something in his life other than an endless war against the Final Consciousness? A foe that he would never defeat on his own and that would likely not be defeated in his lifetime?
March didn’t know.
But as he looked at Adelaide’s sleeping face, he thought that the time to stop might be soon.
A flicker of light on the nightstand caught his eye.
He turned his head and saw that his phone’s screen had lit up.
Censor, the head of the Silent Order, had just sent him a message.
March stood in silence, the carpet soft beneath his bare feet. He picked up his phone, and since he wasn’t wearing anything, he grabbed a pair of shorts from where he had left them on the floor. March crossed the room and slipped into the upstairs hallway, pleased that he had managed to do so without waking Adelaide.
He pulled on the shorts and walked down the hallway, the photographs of Adelaide’s family watching him from behind glass. Adelaide’s loft had a table, several shelves holding paper books, and numerous comfortable chairs. March dropped into one of the chairs and looked at the message on his phone.
Censor wanted him to call immediately.
March took a deep breath, hit the call button, and lifted the phone to his ear.
“Hello, Captain March,” came the dry voice of the head of the Silent Order.
“Sir,” said March
“I am aware it is four in the morning at your present location,” said Censor, “but it seems you have stumbled into a potentially serious situation. Do you remember your recent visit to Outer Vanguard Station?”
It was a reflection of how many terrible things March had seen that it took him a second to recall the space station filled with withered corpses.
“I do, sir,” said March. “They’ve figured out how those men were killed?”
“We have a theory, a potentially disturbing one,” said Censor. “At first, we thought the crew of Outer Vanguard Station had been killed by an unknown form of radiation that overwhelmed the station’s shielding.”
“But the station’s radiation shielding was still intact, sir,” said March.
“You see the problem with that theory,” said Censor. “The investigations made little headway, and we were going to chalk the deaths up to unknown causes and leave it at that. However, additional information has recently come to light, some of it only just yesterday.”
“What information is that, sir?” said March.
“Deaths like this have happened before.”
“I see,” said March.
“The first case was three months ago in an uninhabited system on the edges of the Falcon Republic’s territory,” said Censor. “The crew of a freighter was found in the same state as the men of Outer Vanguard Station, with their ship completely intact. The second case was six weeks ago, with the crew of a comet ice harvesting ship in the Raetia system. The final incident happened three days ago on the planet of Raetia itself, in Northgate City. The employees of a small accounting firm were found dead, their corpses in exactly the same condition as those aboard the station, the freighter, and the ice harvester.”
March frowned. “An unknown form of cosmic radiation might have caused the deaths on the station and those two ships…but it shouldn’t have affected a habitable planet like Raetia. Or if it did, the death toll would have been in the billions.” His frown deepened as he thought it over. “And you wouldn’t be calling me unless a common link had been found between those deaths.”
“Correct, Captain March,” said Censor. “Have you ever heard of a man named Roge
r Slovell?”
March blinked. He hadn’t expected that. “The video producer?”
“What do you know of him?” said Censor.
March dug into his memory. “He…was a film producer here on Calaskar. Made dramas, that kind of thing. He was always pushing up against the boundaries of what the Ministry of Information censors would allow, and he wanted to include more explicitly sexual content in his videos. Slovell claimed that Calaskaran culture and society stifled artistic freedom, that he was a champion of free speech.” March snorted. “Then it turned out that he had been systematically drugging, molesting, and assaulting his actresses for years, some of whom were underage. The Ministry of Security arrested most of his production company, but Slovell got off-planet before they caught him. He took asylum with the Falcon Republic since the Falcons wanted to annoy the Calaskaran government. Since then Slovell has alternated between presenting himself as a martyr for artistic integrity and producing anti-Calaskaran propaganda.”
“Correct,” said Censor. “He has also become a Machinist agent, and regularly produces pro-Machinist propaganda films, probably because of his personal vendetta against Calaskar. We would like to take him into custody, but he’s under the personal protection of the Falcon Republic.”
“What does someone like Slovell have to do with these deaths?” said March.
“Do you recall the yacht that showed up in Outer Vanguard Station’s sensor logs moments before the deaths?” said Censor.
March had to think back. “Yes, sir.”
“As it happens, the same yacht showed up on the sensor records of both the freighter and the ice harvester,” said Censors. “In both cases, the yacht wasn’t broadcasting its transponder ID, but analysis of the visual records and radiation profile of the yacht prove that it was the same starship.”
“And the yacht is owned by Roger Slovell,” said March.
“Precisely,” said Censor. “As for the accounting firm on Raetia, they were conducting an audit of some of Slovell’s companies.”
“How does a yacht with minimal weaponry kill the crew of a space station?” said March.
“We know how it was done,” said Censor, “but we do not know how Slovell accomplished it, or why. Basically, the crews of the station and those two starships were killed by a focused burst of dark energy radiation.”
March blinked. That didn’t make any sense.
“But the sensors didn’t detect any dark energy radiation,” said March.
“That is because they were not configured to do so,” said Censor. “You see, there is something of a popular misconception about dark energy radiation. Do you recall the battle at Vesper’s World?”
“Yes,” said March. Vividly, in fact.
“And you remember that your ship was unable to detect the dark energy radiation signatures of the Wasp starships until Dr. Taren reconfigured the sensors?”
“That’s right,” said March, remembering.
“The Wasps’ hyperdrive technology employs a different band of dark energy radiation than ours,” said Censor. “Nearly all known human and alien hyperdrives employ what the physicists call alpha-band dark energy radiation, but apparently there are several hundred different bands of dark energy radiation. Most of them are incredibly rare, and nearly all of them are incapable of existing in this universe. Our researchers believe that the men aboard Outer Vanguard Station, those two starships, and that accounting office on Raetia were killed by triple-theta band dark energy radiation. Triple-theta dark energy radiation instantly kills any organic material it touches and causes that desiccation effect you observed.”
March frowned. “I thought anything below gamma-band dark energy radiation couldn’t exist in this universe.”
“That is what the scientists say,” said Censor. “Nevertheless, those men are still dead…and a thorough analysis of the station’s sensor logs turned up trace amounts of triple-theta dark energy radiation. You can see why we are concerned, Captain March. A Machinist sympathizer is connected to a string of mysterious deaths involving dark energy radiation…and thanks to your previous missions, we now know that the hive mind of the Final Consciousness is derived from the technology of the Great Elder Ones, a race that regularly used dark energy at a level we cannot replicate or even comprehend.”
March’s frown deepened. “You think this could be the Pulse weapon we’ve been hearing about for the last few years, sir?”
“We do not know,” said Censor. “Which brings us to your mission, Captain March. You will escort one of the Order’s experts in dark energy radiation to Raetia, the capital world of the Falcon Republic. Once you reach Raetia, you will go to Northgate City and investigate Slovell’s activities and uncover his link to these deaths. Locate the means used to kill the men of Outer Vanguard Station, and if it is within your power, shut it down or capture it.”
March let out a long breath. “Getting to Raetia will be tricky. The Falcon Republic doesn’t permit Calaskaran privateers within their space. I will have to leave the Tiger at Alexandria Station and take a starliner the rest of the way.”
“Yes,” said Censor. “We have appropriate documentation and cover identities prepared for you and the dark energy expert.”
March grimaced. He didn’t like that. Starliners were well and good, but there was a degree of safety and freedom of action in bringing his own ship. But there was no way around it. The Falcon Republic permitted starliners and normal freighter traffic in their space, but there was no way they would allow a Calaskaran privateering ship into their territory, and certainly not anywhere near their capital planet. For that matter, the Falcon Republic had the firepower to back up its wishes.
Another thought occurred to him.
“The dark energy expert,” said March. “Who is he?”
“You’ve worked with her before,” said Censor. “Dr. Cassandra Yerzhov, formerly of the University of Oradrea, now part of the Royal University of Calaskar, a Beta Operative of our order, and one of the chief members of the Exorcism Project.”
March let out a long breath. He knew Dr. Yerzhov quite well. Escaping from mortal danger multiple times was an excellent way to get to know who someone really was.
“I don’t think Dr. Yerzhov is a good choice for this mission, sir,” said March.
“May I ask why not?”
“I have the highest respect for her,” said March, “but she’s not a field operative. She doesn’t have the training or the skills for this kind of mission. Raetia is an extremely dangerous place for the unprepared. For that matter, as part of the Exorcism Project, she knows a tremendous amount of highly sensitive classified information. If she’s captured, it could be disastrous.”
“I agree,” said Censor. “Which is why we are sending you with her to keep her safe, Captain March. The unfortunate truth is that we do not have many dark energy experts we can trust with an operation of this delicacy. And if the Machinists are indeed working on a weapon employing dark energy radiation, we must know more as soon as possible. Dr. Yerzhov will accompany you to Raetia with the newest version of her Eclipse detection device.”
“I thought the Eclipse was designed as a quantum entanglement detector,” said March.
“Dr. Yerzhov and the other researchers at the Exorcism Project have considerably improved the device’s capabilities,” said Censor. “Dark energy radiation detection, as you know, is difficult within a planetary gravity well. The Eclipse shall help overcome that difficulty. Dr. Yerzhov will await you at the Tilehouse Bar on Alexandria Station in two days. She will have your necessary documents and tickets, and from there you will take a berth on a starliner to Raetia. Return when you have a better knowledge of Slovell’s activities, but do not remain on Raetia for more than three weeks.”
“Who is the head of the Silent Order branch in Raetia?” said March. “I will need to coordinate.”
“Her name is Elizabeth Winter,” said Censor, “and she is a lawyer specializing in intellectual property law.” Marc
h grimaced at that. “She is also the Sigma Operative in charge of our branch in Northgate City on Raetia, and the one who brought the murder of the accounting firm to our attention.”
“I’m surprised Falcon Intelligence hasn’t shut her down,” said March.
“Falcon Intelligence knows all about her,” said Censor. “We have an…arrangement with the intelligence sections of the Falcon military. In certain areas, we let each other go about our business quietly, and in others, we cooperate. Preventing Machinist subversion and propaganda is an area of mutual concern. The Falcon military holds the Final Consciousness in disdain for a variety of reasons, but the regular population of Raetia is quite sympathetic to Machinist propaganda. Slovell’s activities have put him under the eye of Falcon Intelligence before.”
“So one faction of the Falcon government thinks it’s useful to employ Slovell as a weapon against the Kingdom of Calaskar,” said March, “and another thinks that he might be a problem and wants him gone?”
“An admirable summary of the situation,” said Censor. “Do you have any questions?”
March had several. This assignment sounded like it was going to be a complicated one, and the complicated ones were always bad.
“Should Slovell be killed?” said March.
There was a pause.
“Only if necessary,” said Censor, “only if irrefutable proof of his guilt is found, and only if it can be done in a way that cannot be traced back to us. Having a Calaskaran agent assassinate someone under the protection of the Falcon Republic might cause another war.”
“Yes, sir,” said March. “I’ll get it done.”
“Good, Captain March,” said Censor. “I look forward to hearing your report in another three weeks.”
The call ended.
March gazed at his phone for a moment, then sighed and set it on the arm of the chair.
He knew in his bones that this assignment was going to be a bad one.
For one, he wouldn’t have access to the Tiger, which would impose all kinds of limitations. For another, while Cassandra Yerzhov was a genius in her field, she wasn’t a field operative, and March did not think Censor should have sent her on this mission. Especially given how dangerous a place like Raetia was for the unprepared. For that matter, Roger Slovell would be a celebrity on Raetia. Getting close to him would be difficult.
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