“Seems like the ball-busting goes both ways.” Straker pursed his lips and glanced sidelong at Loco. “Hoo boy, buddy. You got it bad. Listen, Miss Jilani—”
“Captain Jilani.”
Straker sighed, but seemed to regroup. “Why are we bickering? How about we start this conversation over?”
It was Jilani’s turn to take a deep breath and let it out. “Sorry. I’m used to making my own way these last few years—fighting the universe alone. I don’t always know how to act around good people anymore.”
“Don’t worry about it. What’s the job? Raiding some crimorg, like you talked about before?”
“First let me ask you, how much do you like the Breakers’ current situation?”
“It’s okay for now.”
“Parked on an alien planet where a war could break out at any time? Constant vigilance to guard against a nuclear missile strike? Building facilities you’ll eventually have to abandon?”
“We have a deal with the Salamanders. As long as this cold war remains, we have a home. But I’m open to suggestions.”
Jilani drummed her fingers on her own arm, as if to emphasize waiting. “You’re in a lose-lose situation, General. There’s nowhere to go but down. If war breaks out, you’ll be fighting just to hold what you have. If the Salamanders pay you to fight for them again, you’ll lose more people—and the Rhinos will be tougher next time, knowing your capabilities.”
“Or maybe the two sides will make peace,” Loco said.
Straker stroked his jaw, musing. “If there’s peace, we might be the rock in their shoe—an irritant in a delicate situation. A constant reminder that it took aliens to solve their problems. The Salamanders might be okay with it, but it seems like these Rhinos are proud and touchy.”
“Right,” Jilani said. “So, for the Breakers, nowhere to go but down. You’re investing in renovations on a rented property, General Straker. You need a real home. One you own.”
“So what do you have in mind?”
Jilani licked her full lips. Loco thought it was nervousness rather than flirting. “You seem like a real straight shooter, Straker, so I’m going to go against all my experience here and lay my cards on the table. I hope I can trust you.”
“You can trust him,” Loco said suddenly—knowing it instinctively. Derek was no fun, but as for trust… nobody was as reliable and trustworthy as Derek Straker. “Completely,” he finished—nodding.
That’s one reason I’ve followed him all these years, Loco thought. Boring, confining sometimes, but where else is a guy going to find a better friend? He makes me better—like a polar star. I don’t have to follow it, but I always know where it stands in the sky.
“Okay. I’ll roll the dice with you, Straker,” Jilani said. “Here’s the deal. I want your help to crush some Class A scum—and to reclaim my home.”
“Your home? I thought you said you were from Seconda Venezia? That’s a former Hundred Worlds planet. In the Republic now.”
“That’s where I was born, not my real home. When I was six years old, fifty thousand deluded seekers headed out into space on crappy old transports—my family included. They were trying to create a new place, free from the old sins. The idea was to make a new brotherhood of man and all that, update the dogma, maybe bring God to the ignorant aliens. Fools—but at least it worked, for a while. They stumbled on a place… They called it Utopia. They had seven years of peace. Very Biblical, huh? Then the Korveni found us.”
“Korveni?”
“It’s what they call themselves, after the dominant race in the group, the Korven. Bandits, crimorg, pirates, gangsters, mafia, whatever the term, everything run by the Korveni—warrior nomads, ugly humanoids that look kinda like your Hok. There are aliens and true-humans among them too. They enslaved us, put most of the people to work farming Erbaccia. It’s a drug plant. Worse, they take the prettiest girls and boys and sell them.”
“So you escaped.”
Her face blanked, as if to hide deep pain. “Not from Utopia, I didn’t.”
“From…” Loco got it. She must’ve been sold off to some rich pervert and escaped later. “Holy shit…”
Jilani shivered. “It was some unholy shit. I’ve been fighting the Korveni and other crimorgs ever since and any way I can—looking for an opportunity to free Utopia. I knew the Holy Mother would bring someone to me when the time was right. Il Salvatore.”
“What’s that mean?” Loco asked.
Straker replied before Jilani could, staring hard at her. “A savior. From the Latin salvator.”
“That’s right,” she whispered, suddenly pleading, her eyes brimming. “I’ve been hoping for so long…”
“I always said you had a savior complex, Derek,” Loco said, slapping Straker’s shoulder. “Whattaya say, Liberator? Go kick some ass, rescue some people in need?”
“I like the idea, but I have the Breakers to think about. If it’s even possible, what do we get out of it?”
“Besides whatever loot you take from the Korveni? A home. There’s plenty of room on Utopia, and you can secure the whole system. You can live alongside my people under an open sky, build with them, recruit from them… and you need more civilians, Straker.”
“More?” Loco asked. “We got too many already!”
Straker held up a hand. “No, she’s right, Loco. A military organization needs a lot of civilians to support itself organically. That’s the only way we’ll grow into a self-sustaining society rather than a mere mercenary legion.”
Jilani lifted her chin. “So you’ll do it?”
“I’ll think about it and tell you tomorrow.”
Loco took Jilani’s arm. “That means we’re dismissed. Let’s go get your sidearms out of the armory. Maybe you can show me your ship?”
“Sure.”
Loco held onto Jilani’s arm, and she didn’t shake it loose until they reached the flight deck where her ship—the Cassiel—was clamped in place like a fat falcon with its stubby wings half-spread. There, she entered a code at the entry port under one wing and opened it wide.
“What, no airlock?”
“The first chamber’s the airlock. Loses more air, but faster in and out with more people or cargo. Saved my life once when I dumped atmo on a Balarmo assassin. They’re usually very careful about their air pressure, since they die pretty fast when it drops, but this one didn’t understand my arrangement. I knew I could survive, but she couldn’t.”
“Ballsy.” Inside, Loco saw smart netting holding various small, battered containers in a room well-worn but shipshape. “You’ve had some adventures.”
“Adventures.” She scoffed, pfff. “Someone once said adventures are other people being miserable, far away.”
“I once heard ‘things that almost killed us long ago, related in a bar’,” Loco said.
“That too.”
Beyond were two tiny cabins, the cockpit and a minimal washroom with no shower. The rest of the ship was taken up with a cargo bay. The door doubled as a ramp, and it was low and in the rear. The bay was mostly empty.
“No galley?” he complained.
“I used have a little auto-kitchen module, but I had to dump it trying to outrun the Tarellians. One more thing to replace when I get some money.”
“Money, money, money. We never used to worry about money.”
“Get used to it, Mike. It’s one hell of a lot better to be rich than poor.”
He stepped in close. “Is that what turns you on?”
She took his hand and planted it firmly on her own ass. “You know what turns me on.” She searched his face. “You really like me?”
“I think I’ve been waiting for you all my life.”
Chiara shoved him away in annoyance and turned her back. “God, Mikey, don’t ruin it.”
“What? What’d I say?”
“Nothing. Never mind.”
“Hey, are you...” he began.
“Am I what?” she asked.
“Nothing. Sor
ry. Forget I said anything.”
“Okay, I will.” She walked across the bay to tug at the netting, netting that seemed perfectly fine and snug, still with her back to him. “I got some things to do here. Piss off, will you please?”
“Yeah. Sure, okay.” He turned to go, confused.
“I’ll see you later,” she said, her voice softening.
“Okay…” he said carefully.
“Don’t sweat it. It’s me, not you.”
“Okay. Later then…”
He lingered a moment more to see if she changed her mind again. She didn’t, so he shrugged and made his exit.
Chapter 23
Doctor Mara Straker, aboard the courier Swiftsure, Miskor System
Mara glanced across at Jennie Becker and smiled. Her best friend was the sister she’d never had, with a relationship similar to Derek and Loco, though more equal. Tall and rangy with a touch of Maasai in her blood—so she said, anyway—Jennie was a cop in civilian life, an MP when her military reserve status was activated, earnest though with a dry, laconic sense of humor... the perfect partner on a long trip, and nobody better to have watching her back.
They’d met during Mara’s weapons qualification—Becker was a firearms instructor—and they’d clicked. Mara liked having a friend who was neither medical, nor a brainiac. Brainiacs got tiresome after a while. Most were borderline autistic, or had elements of obsessive-compulsive disorder unavoidably coded into their genes—good qualities in a research scientist or engineer or programmer, perhaps, but not so good outside the workspace.
“In-transit in three... two... one...” Mara said as the Swiftsure dropped into normal space at the edge of the Miskor system. She immediately began broadcasting friendly hails asking to speak with whichever sub-Queen had the responsibility for external security and alien contact.
“Now it gets real,” Jennie murmured. She checked the needlers in her boot and under her arm, and the blaster pistol in her holster—as if that would help them against a Nest Ship and its drones.
Speaking of Nest Ships... The main screen populated with sensor data and immediately showed one of the giant spheroid vessels approaching, about half an hour out. It hadn’t spewed its complement of ten thousand fighter-drones, each crewed by a worker-ant or warrior-wasp—only a few scouts.
The comm pinged with an incoming vidlink. The picture that sprang to life on a side screen was that of a bright golden, mantis-like Queen, her triangular head and wide-set eyes giving her a quizzical, calculating expression—if expression was an accurate word. Exoskeleton color on Opter Queens deepened from bright gold eventually to a deep, burnished shiny umber, and age corresponded roughly to status. Thus, this one wasn’t terribly high up the food chain—but she was independent, with her own Nest Ship. In human military terms, she was a colonel, or ship captain—not a junior officer, but not an admiral either.
“Nonviolent greetings,” the speaker said in the synthetic voice of a translator device. “I am Dreynel, sovereign of the Sixth Miskor Edge. Who are you, and what is your business here?”
During the long weeks of travel Mara had thought over her approach. With the Miskor politically dominant these last five years, the Opters were at peace with the Republic, but they still weren’t what one might call friendly. There’d been too many deaths on both sides. Besides, Steel had whipped up lingering anti-alien sentiment in order to ram through new laws—giving his secret police of D Division more power.
That didn’t make for the best diplomatic relations.
She wondered how the Opters felt about humans nowadays... and she figured she was about to find out. “I am Mara Straker, brood-sister to Derek Straker, and I’m here to trade.”
“You are brood-sister to she called the Liberator?”
“The Liberator is male, but yes, I’m his brood-sister.”
“Of course, I’d briefly forgotten. Males may also command in your society. Yet you are wise to be female.”
Mara exchanged amused glances with Jennie. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“What is it you wish to trade?”
“Information and research assistance. I need to speak to the Queen with the most superior skills in biotechnology.”
“That might be possible—if I were pleased.”
“Pleased? How?” Mara asked.
“I also have information.”
“And you want some of mine.”
“It would be a fair exchange, of course, with mutual negotiation.”
Mara reminded herself the Opters were nothing like the Salamanders. They’d happily lie through their mandibles if it suited their purposes—rather like humans. Yet the Miskor weren’t inherently inimical. This Queen appeared to be intent on extracting a toll, a “finder’s fee” to let Mara pass and direct her to someone who could help her.
So be it.
“I’m willing to negotiate,” Mara said. “What do you want?”
“What do you have?”
“This could take a while,” Jennie muttered. She pulled a bottle of Aquavit from beneath the console and took a swig.
Mara reached across and took a swig too, mostly to be companionable, possibly to project to the Opter her casual attitude toward these negotiations, depending on how astute the Queen was about human body language. When negotiating, it never paid to show the other side you cared too much. “I’m a medical doctor and a biologist, so most of my specific knowledge falls within those realms.”
“Our biological knowledge is already advanced.”
“I know—I’m seeking biological knowledge for myself. How about...” She brought out a data stick from her left breast pocket. She had sticks in most every pocket, each with a specific set of data, each a specific bargaining chip. “How about Republic military information for your border regions? Deployments, assignments, recognition codes?” Mara slotted the data stick into her console and beamcast the summary file to the Nest Ship. “Here’s a sample.”
“You would betray your own military secrets?”
“They aren’t my own anymore,” Mara said. “The Earthan Republic is turning into a one-party dictatorship, and if there’s one thing I know about authoritarian regimes, they inevitably become aggressive. It’s in the nature of those at the top to want more, more, more—and to take it from others. Either that, or they’ll start a war in order to distract the populace from domestic problems and seize even more power. The Sarmok proved that to you—am I right?”
“I cannot fault your reasoning. Perhaps we are more alike than I was led to believe.”
“Politics is politics. You Opters are natural targets of xenophobia for people like Steel. You look like creatures we kill as pests, or which frighten us. This information will strengthen your defenses... and for a Queen whose specialty seems to be security and defense, it will be a feather in your cap.”
“I deduce that idiom refers to an adornment of prestige.”
“You deduce correctly,” Mara said. “I’m sure you can advance your... your career, your status, whatever you call it within your society. We have a saying: information is power.”
“We have a similar saying.”
Dreynel’s forward claws spread to briefly reveal delicate fingerlike appendages curled beneath. These manipulated a geodesic surface, and through the vidlink Mara could see the edge of a screen showing incomprehensible symbols. She waited patiently while the Opter examined the sample she’d sent.
“I agree to the exchange,” Dreynel said at last. “I will guide you to the proper Queen and provide a favorable introduction. In return, you will provide the information this summary outlines.”
“Deal.”
“I am ready to receive the file.”
“I’ll send it when you hold up your end of this bargain,” Mara said.
“If you do not send it...”
“If I don’t, I’ll have shown myself to be untrustworthy. I’ll also be at your mercy. You can always use force against us. However, I’ve ensured that if you d
o, all my data will be wiped.”
“Your precautions are understandable,” Dreynel said. “Now I will take some of my own. Shut down your drives and weapons, and prepare to be taken in tow. If I perceive any threat, I may destroy your ship and your persons at any time. The journey will take approximately ten hours.”
“I understand.” Mara nodded at Jennie, who grudgingly shut down the ship’s small array of weaponry. Then Mara powered down the fusion drives and impellers, leaving only the backup generator for ship’s power.
Short minutes later, two fighter-drones swooped in and clamped the Swiftsure between them.
“I’ll take the first watch,” Mara said.
“Fine. Nap time for Becker. You sure you even need to sit there?”
“I’m too keyed up to sleep. Maybe I can doze in the chair.”
Jennie shrugged. “Suit yourself.” She shut the door and dogged it, meticulous as ever.
* * *
Ten hours and two watch changes later, the displays showed Swiftsure approaching the fourth planet of the Miskor system. It was terraformed, just like each of the eight planets and many of the moons here, for the Opters liked to develop each of their systems to full capacity before expanding to the next. Historically, they created environments and maximized their existing territories rather than spreading and searching for green worlds the way humans usually did.
That was why their empire of a mere fifty to sixty systems had the effective industrial capacity of five hundred typical human systems, making the Opters, if not the equal of the Republic, then at least a rival to be reckoned with. Combine this with the fact that their subordinate creatures—the wasps, the ants, the dog-bees—required few comforts, with little need to waste resources on luxuries, and they definitely punched above their weight.
The towing fighter-drones guided Swiftsure to one of the nine medium-sized moons that orbited Miskor-4 like an engineered necklace of pearls, and down into a geodesic dome, one among thousands blanketing the surface of the planetoid. Its triangular flaps peeled back to let them enter an airlock arrangement, and closed behind them before more opened ahead.
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