The Coalition Man

by Alec Saracen

  “So – where are we working from?” Tetaine asked, in the tone of someone who knew full well he wasn't going to like the answer.

  “I don't know,” Zhai admitted. “We're dispatching a courier there with instructions to prepare for our arrival, so we won't be sleeping on the streets, but – I wouldn't hold out hope for anything too upscale. Or long-term. We'll be paying for it, at any rate.”

  “We're renting?” Tetaine let out a deep belly-rumbling laugh. “That's a first.”

  “Sekkanen used up a lot of favours to get me posted to Tor at all,” Zhai said grimly. “The Devvies voted it through, but they're doing their damnedest to sink us before we've even left port.” He looked around at his skeletal staff, aware that he'd slipped into speech mode, and decided to make the best of it. “I'm not going to lie –”

  “Well, that's a lie right there,” Harod said, to quiet chuckles. Zhai glared at him and continued.

  “– this is not going to be a cushy posting.” He started ticking items off on his fingers. “We've got: hardly any money, hardly any manpower, worryingly little intelligence, and not a lot of goodwill. We also have no diplomatic immunity at present, though I suspect that will be more of a problem for me than for you. In short, it's going to be intense, difficult, possibly dangerous, and definitely unpleasant. Much like us.” Tetaine snorted, and Fleischer threw a sarcastic salute across the room. “Listen, I'm thinking the same thing as you. Even with AI modules, six people is not a fucking embassy. We're hamstrung already, so we've got to be creative.”

  “Guerilla diplomacy,” Harod murmured, contemplating a chunk of pineapple speared on his cocktail stick.

  Zhai nodded. “Something like that.” He checked his watch and scowled. “Sam, where the bloody hell is Lho?”

  A hunted look surfaced in Sam's eyes. “She should have arrived by now, so she's somewhere on Megereth Station. That's all I know, boss. You know what she's like.”

  “We could leave her behind,” Harod said.

  Zhai shook his head. “We're not leaving without her.” He glanced through the window to see the cargo bay door slowly sliding shut and the autoloaders hanging idle above the ship. “Besides, the SSA people aren't here yet.”

  As he spoke, Ceq's eyes snapped open and she sat up, eyes fixed on the door. Zhai automatically turned, knowing it was about to open.

  It did. The man who strode through was a very tall, very powerfully built soldier in SSA blue-and-black fatigues and an officer's cap, a compact rifle slung across his torso. He was followed by six faceless military androids, their synthetic shells painted the same colour as his fatigues, which came to a stop when he made a small gesture with his fingers. They all carried both rifles and sidearms, which seemed excessive to Zhai. Nobody had so much fired a gun on Megereth Station since that interminable murder case ten years ago, and the sheer amount of irritation and red tape it produced was cause enough for any would-be killer to think twice.

  The officer approached Zhai and saluted. His face was too small for his head, which was in turn too small for his body. Zhai took an instant dislike to him. He'd never liked soldiers. At least the androids would be better than the full human platoons he'd sometimes been assigned in the past.

  “Ambassador Zhai?”

  “Yes.” How many fat old Qienchuan men with ponytails and beards do you think there are on this station? Zhai thought. Maybe someone's been flash-cloning me.

  “Captain Romo Umbiba of the Special Security Agency, Combat Engineering Division.” Umbiba's voice was gravelly and monotonous. The intended effect was probably military discipline. The actual effect was to make him sound rather pained, as if he'd eaten something that hadn't agreed with him. Despite his Kaderan name, he looked vaguely Dovish. “This is Security Platoon Zeta-Two.”

  Fleischer was on her feet and prowling around the androids before Zhai could respond. “These are VC3s! They've only been in active service for two months!” She knocked on the shell of one of the androids, which moved its narrow block of a head her way. Fleischer's sullen expression had been washed away by gearhead glee.

  Umbiba looked taken aback. “Please, don't–”

  “What are the performance increases like?”

  “Fleischer–” Zhai said.

  “Because the specs looked unreal, we're talking like threat reaction times under fifty milliseconds–”

  “Fleischer!” Zhai snapped. Fleischer, who had been peering into an android's tiny sensor aperture, stepped back, flushing.

  “Sorry, boss. They're just – sorry.”

  Well, there went his chances of looking like he had a handle on things.

  “Thank you, captain,” he said, and gestured to Ceq, whose eyes had snapped open again moments earlier. Reluctantly, she got up and ambled over. “This is Ceqelin Alarche, my personal chief of security. You will answer to her.”

  Umbiba looked at Ceq with barely disguised contempt. “With respect, Ambassador–” Translation, Zhai thought drily: I don't respect you, Ambassador, “–she is a civilian.”

  “I'm a civilian,” Zhai said sharply. “You follow my orders, correct?”

  “Yes, Ambassador.” More than a shade of reluctance. Umbiba was out of his comfort zone, and Zhai knew it. He could exploit that.

  “Then my orders are to follow Ceq's orders.”

  Umbiba glanced between them again, the cogs turning behind his eyes. “Ambassador, I–”

  “Right, let's play a game,” Zhai said, clapping his hands together. “Rock-paper-scissors. You and her. Go.”

  Umbiba blinked. “I don't understand.”

  Zhai nodded at Ceq. “You. Play rock-paper-scissors with her. Now. That's an order, captain.”

  Ceq held out a hand and smiled like a shark. Umbiba looked at Zhai as if he'd gone mad, but reluctantly raised a fist.

  They played. Ceq won.

  “Again,” Zhai said.

  Ceq won.

  “Again.”

  Ceq won, and kept on winning. After fifteen rounds, Zhai held up a hand. “Enough.”

  Umbiba stared at his losing hand as if it had somehow failed him. “How?”

  “Ceq is V-able, captain,” Zhai said. “She has V-sight, but in an unusual form. Put her in the Void, and she's useless.”

  Ceq nodded. “All I get is a blur and some motion. You'd be better off eyeballing it.”

  “But in realspace,” Zhai went on, “she gets – premonitions, I suppose you'd call them. As I understand it, she gets a moment's warning that something is about to happen, which she can then use to react to it or even prevent it.”

  “I'm banned from a lot of casinos,” Ceq said, grinning. “Hey, think of a sentence, something personal. Not too personal. Say it out loud with a pause before the last word.”

  “Ambassador, this is ridiculous,” Umbiba said almost plaintively. His android lackeys looked on, impassive. Military discipline meant nothing now.

  “No, captain, this is something that will quite possibly save your life,” Zhai said. “Do as she says.”

  “Yes sir,” Umbiba said. And that's the first time you've called me 'sir', Zhai thought. Don't think I don't notice these things, soldier boy. The captain opened his mouth, then shut it again, struggling to think of something. “Um. My favourite food is–”

  “Nagu soup,” Ceq said instantly, then wrinkled her nose. “Ugh. Really?”

  Umbiba frowned. “What's wrong with nagu soup?”

  Before the brewing culinary argument started in earnest, Zhai stepped in.

  “Captain Umbiba, I appreciate that it must be difficult for you to follow Ceq's orders. It's difficult for me too. But three times now, following her orders instantly and without hesitation has saved my life. I trust her completely with my safety. I advise that you do the same, because frankly all our lives are better off in her hands than in our own. I don't know you or your people, and I don't know your capabilities. I know Ceq's. If you want to do your job and keep me safe, then you should listen to her.”

&nb
sp; Umbiba nodded stiffly. “Yes, Ambassador.” He didn't exactly look happy about it, but neither was he plotting mutiny. The military mindset was alien to Zhai, but he was confident he had the measure of Umbiba. The man had a strong enough sense of hierarchy to obey unpalatable orders, and the sense to recognise that Ceq's ability was more useful than anything he could bring to the table. He could work with Captain Romo Umbiba.

  Zhai reached up and clapped him on the shoulder. “Good man. Allow me to introduce my staff. Harod Nouridh-Salter – I suppose you'd call him my vice-ambassador? Deputy?”

  “Dogsbody,” Harod said.

  “No, that's Sam,” Zhai said. “Samaly Oryov, my personal assistant.” Sam gave an awkward little wave. “Ceq you know. Juna Fleischer, in charge of anything which beeps or looks like it might. I'd keep an eye on her around your robots.”

  Umbiba turned to see an oblivious Fleischer peering at an android's finger joints from about an inch away.

  “And,” Zhai said, before he could move to stop her, “Arren Tetaine, who'll coordinate our intelligence. We're still waiting on Lho Pangleng, and we absolutely cannot leave without her.”

  Umbiba cast an eye across the staff and nodded once. Zhai had a strong feeling that he'd instantly memorised all their names and roles. Not as stupid as you look, he thought, are you, captain?

  Zhai's wrist buzzed three times, and he checked his watch, frowning. Most of his communication went through Sam, and he would only get physical notifications for messages from a select few people.

  It was Sekkanen. Zhai cursed under his breath and opened the message.

  Zhai. Sorry about this. I tried. Good luck. HS

  “Sorry about what?” Zhai muttered to himself. “Twins.”

  Harod looked up. “What's that?”

  “Sekkanen's apologising for something, and I've got no idea what.”

  “Shit. Whatever it is, it must be bad.”

  “Boss,” Ceq said softly, nodding towards the door. Zhai turned just in time to see it slide open once again.

  This time it was a woman with alert blue eyes and blonde hair, cut short but not as short as the SSA troops'. She wore a smartsuit configured into carefully discreet street clothing: dark trousers, a plain grey sweater. The three men and one woman who followed her wore equally nondescript clothing, so bland that Zhai had to actually look at it to remember it.

  His eyes narrowed. He knew what they were.

  “Ambassador Zhai,” the woman said, advancing on him as her troops flowed around the stationary android platoon like water. She extended a hand, and Zhai shook it. Her grip was vicelike, which in Zhai's estimation was one of the clumsiest ways to assert power. You can hold things very tightly, he thought. Remarkable. How mighty you must be. “It seems we've been assigned the same ship.”

  Well, that explained the size of the damn thing. He put on his best cautiously-diplomatic smile: not unfriendly, but edging more towards cold than warm. “I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage. Your presence here is something of a surprise to me.”

  The woman smiled coolly in reply. Hers had an icy sharpness to it. “Peck. SSA.”

  “No title?”

  “Not an official one. Don't concern yourself with us, Ambassador. We're just hitching a ride.” She clicked her fingers, and one of her nameless underlings scurried up and handed her a plastic-bound document, which she passed on to Zhai. Her eyes never left his. “Ordinarily, we would answer to you as the highest-ranking Coalition representative on the mission, but we have special dispensation to operate independently.”

  “Do you indeed?” Zhai said. He made a show of inspecting the SSA-stamped document, as if he had a hope of challenging it. It was futile. The Developists had made sure they had agents of their own going to Tor as well, and there was nothing Zhai could do about it. “Well. Very good... Peck.” He held out the paper. “Good luck on your mission.”

  “And the same to you, Ambassador,” Peck said, taking the document back. “I'm afraid our operations will be secret. Once we land on Tor, you won't hear from us again.”

  Zhai watched Peck's eyes carefully as he spoke. “Of course. I quite understand.”

  “Thank you,” Peck replied. Zhai caught a glimpse of disdain, an unpleasant arrogance oozing around the edge of every word, every tiny motion of her face. “I'm sure we'll get to know each other better on the journey. Until then.” She turned on her heel and led her agents out of the room.

  She hadn't made eye contact with or even acknowledged Umbiba at all.

  “What a–” Harod began, but Zhai held up a hand for silence.

  “Fleischer,” he said. “Make a check.”

  Fleischer pulled up her watch and, standing up, swept her arm back and forth across the room. She glanced at the display and rolled her eyes.

  “Yeah, they laid down a dustnet,” she said. “Basic stuff. Opportunistic. I'll wipe it out.” She pressed a few buttons, and Zhai imagined thousands of dust mote-sized computers bursting into flame as Fleischer's watch sent out a disruption pulse. That was the weakness of dustnets, of course. If you bothered to check for them, they couldn't hide, and they could be completely destroyed by a pulse that wouldn't even register on a watch. They were very much a quick and dirty surveillance tool. The message was clear, though: we are not on your side.

  “We know where we stand, then,” Harod said.

  “It's insulting, is what it is,” Fleischer muttered. “A dustnet. The '40s called, they want their tech back.”

  Captain Umbiba looked from one to the other. “They bugged us?”

  “Not seriously,” Zhai said. “Just enough to make things clear. They didn't expect to get any actual information from us, not unless they thought I was an absolute idiot. If anything, it was almost a courtesy.”

  “A courtesy?” Umbiba looked like he'd just been told to solve a complex physics problem in his head.

  Zhai sighed. “Captain, if you're going to protect me, I expect you to know whom you'll need to protect me from. The dustnet was the first move in a longer game.”

  “You suspect Peck is a traitor?”

  Grow up, Zhai thought. “No. She may simply want me dead.”

  Umbiba's brow creased. “That's treason!”

  “No, captain, that's politics,” Zhai said. “Though I grant you, there's a fine line between them.” He shook his head. “Twins. Well, that's all we needed. I suppose it was too much to ask for the Devvies to let us do our job in peace.” A thought struck him, and he turned to Umbiba. “Captain, who briefed you on this assignment? And don't tell me it's classified. I can go over your head if I have to.” Even if I'd need a ladder, he thought.

  Umbiba said nothing for a moment. Then, as if physically wrung out him: “Colonel Incez.”

  Zhai breathed a mental sigh of relief. Incez was a committed – almost fanatical – Consolidationist. If Umbiba was selected by Incez, he was trustworthy. That was one worry off the table, at least.

  “Glad to hear it,” Harod said, echoing Zhai's thoughts. “Woman of discerning taste, I've always said that about Incez.”

  Bloody-minded maniac was the phrase Zhai remembered Harod using the last time they'd dealt with her. Incez was thoroughly unpleasant, but, crucially, she was thoroughly unpleasant to the other side. In the Coalition, it was best not to think too hard about your bedfellows.

  “Is everything else ready for departure?” Zhai said to Sam.

  Sam consulted his watch. He spent so much of his time buried in it that his face looked strange to Zhai without the pale glow of the watch's display. “The crew are performing final checks, and our baggage hasn't been moved on board yet. That'll take ten minutes, tops.”

  Zhai watched the stars drift past the open end of the hangar. He wondered if he could see Tor's sun from here. It was unlikely. The Void bore only a passing topographical resemblance to realspace, but even so Tor was almost certainly halfway across the galaxy, hidden somewhere out there in an endless sea of stars.

  The tiredness, sup
pressed for a while by the parade of people coming and going, started to ebb back in. He didn't even know the first thing about the political situation he was being flung into, and he'd still managed to acquire an enemy before they even left port. The excitement at the posting was still there, simmering away, but the worries were piling up by the minute. Once, that would have excited him even more. He'd relished conflict as a younger man, throwing himself into taut political situations with a disruptive energy that was now long faded from his old bones. Sometimes, he found it difficult to believe that his career was truly his. It felt like the work of a different man.

  But, he thought, that's the easy way out, isn't it? To argue you've changed so much that you're no longer the same person. 'I'm innocent, officer, it was a much younger man...'

  “Zhai?” Harod said. Zhai raised his head and realised he'd been standing wordless at the window for too long. Six pairs of eyes were on him.

  They were all so damn young, he thought bitterly. Umbiba was in his thirties, Ceq, Sam, and Fleischer were all in their twenties, and Tetaine was no older than forty. Even Harod was a couple of months younger than him, and somehow he still seemed as chipper as ever. Zhai, meanwhile, felt like some parasite had been secretly siphoning away his life force for decades, leaving him nothing but dregs.

  He sighed, suppressing his resentment, and turned to the legion of youth at his back. “Start loading up the baggage,” he said. “Can't let Peck and her lot get all the best cabins.”

  Harold chuckled. “I think they're all the same.”

  “Well, better safe than sorry.” Zhai clapped his hands together, trying to get himself moving as much as everyone else. What had happened to that coffee? “Come on, people, let's move. The Coalition's not paying us to stand around. We've got a job to do.”

  Umbiba, who was closest to the door, saluted and went to leave the room. When he opened the door, he stepped forward and then immediately hopped back, as if repelled by some invisible forcefield.

  Zhai had a good idea what had stopped him.

  Umbiba stepped aside, glancing back at Zhai, bewildered. The door hissed shut behind an extremely small, extremely old woman with hair the colour and consistency of iron. She glared at Zhai with eyes narrowed to dark slits by age and wrinkles.