“Them, you, Pascoe—we can have you lot anytime we want. But the—”
A flash of light sprang from the direction of downtown Beresford, like lightning in the distance, promptly followed by the sound of a large explosion. Julian peered into the distance, but Eden never took her eyes from the boy. She lifted the flask to her lips for another mouthful of brandy.
Billy had to use the explosives—that means something went wrong. He had to cover an escape, or… “You were saying.”
The blast emboldened Julian. “I doubt that Casca would use a bomb. Something must have gone wrong. Eden, you look pale—better take another drink.”
She fired another shot. This one went between Julian’s legs, just below his crotch.
Eden smirked. “You were saying…”
Fear rippled across his body. “OK, OK, take it easy! Yeah, it’s like all of you thought—the big prize was Casca all along.” He paused, but Eden just stared at him. “Funny,” he said with a little nervous laugh. “Several of our people thought that you were Casca.”
“I am Casca,” she said. “Or to be more precise, I’m half of him. He was never one person. It’s Team Casca—Billy and me.”
“So Van Fossen wasn’t under that blanket that you so hysterically wouldn’t let anyone disturb,” Julian said as Eden confirmed his suspicions by nodding her head slowly.
“What about Carr and Sanchez?” she demanded.
Julian hesitated until he saw her hand fidget around the gun. “They’ll be taken into custody. They’re being tailed. At the right moment, they’ll grab Carr, Sanchez, and your boy Pascoe.”
Eden snickered as she took another drink. “I’m afraid Hanley Pascoe may be smarter than you people give him credit for.”
Julian looked around. He was clearly hoping for Lucky to arrive back on the scene, but Maldonado was nowhere in sight.
Eden Southwell raised the flask once more. “You know, you should have taken a drink when you had the chance—I said you were gonna need it.” Pulling the trigger, she sent a lead bullet ripping through Julian’s heart. His body crumpled to the dock floor. Eden looked around, checking for any witnesses. She strolled over to the young man’s body and pressed her gun to his head, firing once again. Kicking at the body with her feet, Southwell rolled Julian under the railing and off the dock into the river, hearing a satisfying splash as it dropped into the water. There was blood on the dock, but it wasn’t too obvious in the wharf’s dim light.
Placing the pistol back in her jacket and returning to the bench, her thoughts quickly turned to her husband. He has always gotten out of tight spots before. Billy is very good at this—he will be all right. He was more than just her husband and business partner, he was…
“Hey, where did Julian run off to?” said a voice. Eden glanced up at Lucky Maldonado.
“Hi, Lucky,” she smiled and raised her brandy flask. “Why don’t you have a drink? I think you’re gonna need it.”
25: Secrets
Koenig Manor
Esterkeep
Planet Sarissa
“Are you sure about this?” asked the First Consul, flipping through the report one more time.
Karl Gideon ran a hand over the beard he had grown while undercover and shrugged. “Do I have incontrovertible proof? No. But I’m ninety-nine percent sure.”
Darracott swiveled in her chair and placed the datapad on her desk, looking up at Gideon, Colonel Flood, and Bennett Boyer as they sat before her.
“An arkship,” she said one more time in disbelief. “Project Arrow is the construction of an arkship?”
“I shot an arrow into the air,” said Bennett Boyer. As the others looked at him, he elaborated. “‘I shot an arrow into the air, it fell to earth I knew not where.’ It’s from an ancient Earth poem.”
“They’re doing something called clean-bond modules,” Gideon said. “It’s a practice developed many years ago, but only a few of the smaller shipbuilders use it. It’s almost exclusively used to construct intra-system vessels, craft not meant for hyperspace travel. The technique allows production to be cheap and quick, but the ships won’t last. Over time, the stress caused by interstellar travel and repeated translations into and out of hyperspace will tear the ship apart. On the other hand, if you were building something for a one-way trip…”
Boyer spoke up. “Karl, would I be wrong to think that this type of construction would also lend itself to the easy dismantling of the vessels?”
“Exactly,” smiled Gideon, pleased that the Chief of Staff was following his thinking. “Once they arrived at their destination, the colonists could disassemble the arkship into hundreds of modules. Housing units, work stations, greenhouses, power plants—you could literally build a small settlement just from the arkship itself.”
“Much like our ancestors did when the Benevolence first arrived on Sarissa,” added Boyer.
Darracott rubbed her temple to clear her mind. “In this day and age, the idea of building an arkship is simply bizarre. We don’t have enough people to populate the worlds we’ve already settled, let alone trying to settle more.”
“Excellency, you said ‘building an arkship,’” noted Colonel Flood, who was blonde once again, having changed her hair back to its natural color. “Zevkov is actually building two arkships.” Flood activated a holo projector, which began displaying images of a spaceship under construction. “Our friends in the Narvan NIS managed to sneak someone with a recorder onto the Arcadius shipyard there. They forwarded these files to Superintendent Preiss.”
Darracott had seen pictures of the legendary arkships in school when she studied the Diaspora. She always marveled at how humans could construct such incredible ships. Even without much of a background to indicate scale, the vessel in the holovideo was unmistakably enormous.
“Its name is Icarus,” Flood added.
The Union leader turned to Gideon. “Have you already seen this?”
“Yes, Flood showed it to me earlier this morning. It all seems to confirm what we learned at Bona Dea.”
Darracott leaned forward and planted both elbows on her desk, resting her chin on top of clasped hands. “Still, why build one arkship, let alone two? Who’s going to be in those ships, and where are they going?”
“You’d have to ask Roman Zevkov,” said Gideon.
“Don’t worry, I intend to,” answered Darracott in a distant manner, as if something else were on her mind. “Those names—Daedalus and Icarus—do they have any significance?”
“I looked up the names in the history database,” Gideon said. “In the mythology of ancient Earth, they were the names of a father and son.” He gazed once again at the holo images from Narva, which were looping in front of them. “Our Daedalus and Icarus appear to be twin sisters.”
Bennett Boyer took up the history lesson. “In ancient Greek mythology, Daedalus and his son Icarus were imprisoned in a tower until Daedalus, who was a craftsman, constructed wings made of feathers and held together by wax. The two of them donned the wings and escaped from the tower by flying away.”
“Clever man,” Gideon chuckled. “Is that what it’s about? Does the richest man in the Union feel he has to escape for some reason?”
“Let’s ask him,” said Darracott, the tone of her voice indicating she had decided on a course of action. “Professor Boyer, contact Superintendent Preiss. Have the SSB bring Roman Zevkov to me. Tell Preiss he can arrest Zevkov and handcuff him for all I care, but I want that man brought to Koenig Manor ASAP.”
The Chief of Staff rose from his chair. “We must tread carefully here, Excellency. With the war about to heat up, I must remind you that Arcadius Industries is the largest space force contractor in the Union. I have a feeling that Fleet Admiral Maxon is about to break quite a few of our warships in the Eupraxa system. We will need Arcadius to help fix them.” Boyer glanced over to Gideon. “No disrespect meant to Gideon Universal.”
Darracott gave a cursory nod. “Point taken. Now, everyone out—I have
work to do.”
As they all headed for the door, Darracott spoke up.
“You stay.”
Gideon stopped to turn around.
“Not you, Karl—I was talking to Flood.”
Gideon continued his retreat and was almost through the door as Darracott called out to him one final time. “And Karl, please shave off that hideous beard!”
Ardith Flood remained, standing before the First Consul.
“Sit back down, Colonel. I hear you’ve made your piece with Karl.”
A small, twisted grin came to Flood’s face as she took a seat. “After a fashion, ma’am. Let’s just say I’m less suspicious of his motives than I used to be.”
“Good. I’d like for you two to get along.”
“Excellency, I can assure you that—”
Darracott interrupted her. “Relax, that’s not what I wanted to speak to you about. Actually, I wanted to ask you about something else.” She paused, considering how to open the conversation. “Flood, why didn’t you travel with me to Odessa?”
The colonel suddenly looked much less like the leader of the Kaskian Guard and more like a child whose mother had caught her in a lie. “I felt it was best to stay here in Esterkeep so that I could assist the Chief of Staff in your absence.”
Darracott gave her a piercing look. “Flood, I’m a politician. If anyone can recognize bullshit when she sees it, it’s a politician. Try again.”
The fair-haired soldier rose and walked behind the chair, her hands coming to rest on the top of the chair back. “Back home on Odessa… When I was fourteen, I ran away from home—and I mean far away.”
“Where are you from on Odessa?”
“Chasko Prefecture.”
Darracott couldn’t help but make a face. “Chasko? Wow, you really were out in the back country.” Flood looked embarrassed, which wasn’t Darracott’s intention. “So you say you ran far away—to Sarissa?” the First Consul continued.
“No, not at first,” said Flood. “I traveled to several planets, hopping freighters, doing some things I’m not proud of. Funny, survival trumps pride every time—at least it does when you’re scared and hungry. I was young and stupid.”
“Weren’t we all, once. Why did you leave home?”
“Two alcoholic parents who hated my guts simply because I existed. I was an inconvenience—buying me food and clothing ate into their drinking money. I was constantly told how worthless I was, how I never should have come into the world. They never hit me, but they might as well have. Certain words leave deeper wounds than fists ever could.” Flood’s gaze fell to the floor.
“You were speaking of survival,” Darracott said in a soft voice.
“Yes—survival,” the soldier repeated, her eyes rising to meet Darracott’s. “I eventually worked my way to Sarissa and found a place for myself on this world. I decided to join the army, but I wanted to go in as an officer, so I enrolled in the Army College at Benecia.”
“That had to be a lot of work on your part—no one just walks into Benecia and enrolls,” said Darracott. “But getting back to my question—why did you avoid returning to Odessa? Were you afraid you might run into your parents?”
“No, ma’am, both of them are dead.” Flood shifted uncomfortably on her feet, and then sat back down on the edge of the chair, leaning forward earnestly.
“The thing is, ma’am, Flood is not my real name.”
“Whose is it?”
“A nice family on another world who once treated me with kindness, even though they had no reason to. I was afraid that if I went back to Odessa, the truth about me might come out.”
The First Consul’s eyes narrowed, and she tilted her head slightly. “And you think I would care?”
“You might,” Flood shot back. “And the Army certainly would. If they ever find out I lied on my application, and continued to lie through all these years of service, I will be discharged.”
Darracott snorted a small laugh. “If we threw every liar out of the army, we wouldn’t have an army.”
“Try telling them that,” Flood said, ignoring the joke. “In addition, I’m not exactly popular with Central Command right now. If anyone there found out my secret, they could use it against me—and against you.”
The colonel’s point was spoken with conviction, and unfortunately, it was true. Popular as the First Consul remained with the people, politicians always had enemies, and a potential scandal could hurt Darracott. However, it would do more than hurt Flood—it would devastate her.
“From the day Admiral Polanco named you to be Prime Minister, my only goal in life was to be by your side so that I could help you,” continued Flood, blushing slightly. “You were an inspiration to every Odessan, but especially to me. I called in every favor anyone in the military ever owed me. I begged General Hinojosa to be posted where I might meet you, where I might catch your eye. When I was appointed head of your security detail, it was all I ever wanted. Now, however, I’m realizing that I may be more of a liability to you than an asset.”
Renata Darracott rose and walked around her desk. “On your feet, Colonel,” she ordered.
As Ardith Flood stood, the First Consul embraced her. “We all have the family we were born with, and then we have the family we choose for ourselves,” Darracott said as she hugged Flood. “Thank the Many Gods for the latter. You are more than just the commander of the Kaskian Guard, Ardith—as far as I’m concerned, you are my sister.”
In the two years she had known her, Darracott hadn’t seen much emotion from Flood—the woman always ran on an even keel. Now, however, the colonel was fighting back tears as she tried to remain composed.
“Thank you, ma’am. I feel the same,” she said, clearing her throat and brushing at her eyes.
“Most people don’t call their sisters ‘ma’am,’” winked Darracott.
Flood smiled. “Most people’s sisters aren’t the leader of a starhold.”
“That’s where you have the advantage,” said Darracott. “I’m sure if we get very creative, we can fix your official records so that if anyone ever looked they would see that you have always been Ardith Flood.”
The colonel’s eyes widened. “I would be very grateful. It would be a huge burden lifted from my mind. But…”
“But?”
Flood hesitated. “You haven’t even asked my real name.”
“No need. That person doesn’t exist anymore. Now, don’t you have duties to attend to, Ardith Flood?”
The colonel snapped to attention and gave a crisp salute before turning for the door. Just before she left the room, she turned back to Darracott.
“Ma’am—the Zevkov arkships. I had a horrible thought about them during our meeting with the Professor and Mr. Gideon.”
“What about them?”
“What if the arkships are meant for us?” Flood said in an uneasy voice. “What if Zevkov is plotting a coup, but he doesn’t want mass executions. Arkships set on automatic pilot to some distant planet would be a very effective way to exile your opponents.”
That was something Darracott hadn’t considered—something so frightening she didn’t want to think about it at all.
“Flood,” said the First Consul softly. “Stay close to me the next few weeks,”
“Always, ma’am,” said the colonel with a slight nod.
* * * *
“I don’t think there will be any problem,” said Bennett Boyer. Darracott and her Chief of Staff were having a cocktail in the Ryouta Room before dinner. “A few tweaks to the official records here and there should do it. I have a good contact in the Registry Bureau, so this can be taken care of nice and quietly.”
“I don’t think she will mind that I spoke with you,” said the First Consul, sipping on a martini. “She looks to you as a father figure, you know.”
“Ha! More like a grandfather figure,” he joked. “And so, what else do you need?”
“What do you mean?”
He clasped his hands toge
ther, and his mouth bent into a mild smile. “The way you’ve been fidgeting for the last few minutes tells me you have something serious on your mind. Let’s hear it.”
“Serious, huh? More serious than budget problems, Roman Zevkov, and, oh yes, our little interplanetary war?”
The older man made a dismissive gesture with his right hand. “Those things, I know you can handle. It’s always been the personal problems that throw you off your game.”
“And how do you know all of this?” she asked, setting her empty glass down.
“Well, I have known you a long time—about twenty years now, as a teacher and political advisor.”
“And as a friend,” she smiled. “Don’t forget the most important thing.”
“And as a friend,” he agreed. “So, as your friend—what is the problem and how can I help?”
Darracott leaned back and placed her right arm across the top of the sofa. “It’s about Flood, and it’s actually not so much a problem as a request—something that goes beyond just fixing her name. She can’t be in on it, or at least not yet.”
“And Karl?”
“No, this is just between you and me for right now,” she said. “I need you to make a quick trip off-world.”
26: Comrades
Beresford
Planet Gerrha
The taxi ride from Eden Southwell’s apartment to the spaceport was quiet, with hardly a word being exchanged between the two OMI operatives. Carr was deep in thought, not only considering how to proceed with Hanley Pascoe but also reviewing the events of the last hour. Sanchez had learned from experience not to break his concentration when he had ‘that look’ on his face.
“Am I just being more paranoid than usual, or did everything feel a bit off in Eden’s apartment?” she finally asked as they walked through the Beresford Spaceport terminal.
“You know as well as I do that in this business, you can never be too paranoid,” Carr said. “I’m just glad I didn’t look under that blanket at Billy Van Fossen’s body.”
The Rampant Storm Page 21