Vertigo: Aurora Rising Book Two

by Jennsen, G. S.

  “Politicians usually do.”

  She spared at sideways glance at Solovy. Distinctive Slavic cheekbones and a strong jaw should have given him a hard, cold appearance, yet somehow his features were warm and welcoming.

  A corner of his mouth curled up, and she jerked her gaze away. “It’s not my place to question my orders, not as of yet. The fact is we need an infiltration team to clear the wall and take out those turrets so a larger force can enter, subdue the leaders and arrest the followers.”

  He nodded firmly. “We can do that.”

  “How many soldiers did you bring?”

  “Enough.”

  “How many, Captain?”

  He rolled his eyes. Entirely too familiar. “Twelve. Counting me.”

  She snorted. “It’s your corpse.”

  He shifted to lean against the table and face her. “If my team goes in and takes out both turrets and the wall, clearing the way for your soldiers, will you have dinner with me?”

  “Excuse me, Captain?”

  “Dinner. With me. Preferably somewhere offering candles and proper Russian vodka, but I’ll understand if Perona doesn’t yet have such finery. Alternatively, a picnic in these picturesque mountains and I’ll bring the vodka.”

  Of all the impertinence! How dare this man swagger into her command center and lounge about on her command table and throw around romantic advances in the middle of a combat situation….

  “Captain, please remove yourself from my table. You’re interfering with the data reaching the screens.”

  He pushed off the table. “Haven’t had any difficulty settling into command, I see.”

  “I do what is required in the circumstances.”

  He regarded her silently for several seconds. There was nowhere for her to go to escape those piercing eyes. “Do you now. You haven’t answered my question.”

  “That’s because your question was inappropriate and I have far more important matters to consider. Like the fact you didn’t bring enough men. I’ll need to loan you several of my experienced officers. Please try to not get them killed.”

  “Keep your men, Major. I brought enough.”

  “I am in com—”

  “Go to dinner with me.”

  She dragged a hand along her jaw; somewhat to her dismay, it came away streaked in blood. Was it hers? She didn’t think so. Llahso’s, then. “Captain, you—”

  “After this mission is complete and while off-duty, don’t worry. I respect the regulations. I have a few days leave left for the year. I’ll stay here an extra day or two. Or three.”

  She glared at him dubiously. “You would give up your leave to stay on this backwater planet and take me to dinner? You only met me five minutes ago.”

  He smiled, and god help her but it was a remarkable sight. “Life is short and you are beautiful. Go to dinner with me. It will give me motivation to make it out of the compound alive.”

  “If it will halt this egregious flirting and allow you to focus on the mission, fine. Now can we please concentrate on devising our plan of attack?”

  “Of course, nastoyatel’.”

  Alone in her office, Miriam sank against the wall and brought a hand to her mouth.

  She had never met anyone like him, before or since. The dashing manner, casual confidence and easy charisma had been evident immediately. The tremendous soul, fierce loyalty and pure heart had revealed themselves later, though not so very much later.

  God how she missed him.

  Then she was laughing, in a way which bore a tinge of the wild, free laugh she had only ever shared in David’s company. He had ignored all her defenses as if they were invisible and forced his way inside with grace, charm and aplomb. Perhaps this Marano character had done the same to Alexis….

  But she didn’t know how to do such a thing. Especially when she was so busy propping up her own barriers.

  35

  PANDORA

  INDEPENDENT COLONY

  * * *

  RICHARD HAD VISITED PANDORA several times in his younger days, but it had been years. Nevertheless, the stark shift in the atmosphere of the devil-won’t-care world from the previous trips was starkly apparent.

  The spaceport bustled not with tourists eager to begin a vacation but with desperate visitors and residents alike eager to depart, yet not knowing where to go. ‘West’ did seem to be the general consensus and transports to Arcadia, Atlantis, Demeter, Earth and Fionava were all marked as sold out for days. Though he’d feel guilty displacing a civilian, he would be able to obtain a seat when the time came.

  His meeting was at a pub not far from the spaceport. He decided to walk.

  During the flight his mind had been too consumed by matters other than his mission and he needed to get his head canted straight. But first he allowed himself one final moment to despair in the revelation which had brought him here, and its aftermath.

  He was not a violent man. He had committed acts of violence of course, in the First Crux War and later as a field agent. He wasn’t proud of many of them…a few he was, if you got him drunk enough.

  Still, his nature was not that of a violent man. As a rule he preferred to resolve tense situations through dialogue, or if dialogue failed through threats he preferred not to be required to fulfill.

  But when Will grabbed his upper arm as he rounded the corner toward the lift, he came within a heartbeat of cold-cocking the man who pretended to be his husband.

  “Give me a chance to explain.”

  A stinging, bleak chill vibrated along his skin, freezing the fire in his chest. Sounds and voices echoed at him through a hollow tunnel. His soul was flayed inside out; he felt brittle, as if the faintest touch would shatter him to pieces on the ground.

  The only thing which held his body together, if not his mind, was the knowledge he had a job to do. His life may lie crumbled in ruins at his feet, but he could save other lives. He could end this war, and perhaps his obituary would acknowledge the contribution he had made in the otherwise farce his life had been.

  “I’m going to Pandora to meet your boss. If your belongings aren’t out of the house when I return, I will burn them. Do not contact me. Do not attempt to see me. You’ve made a fool of me for fifteen years. Don’t think you can do so for one breath longer.”

  “Richard, please—”

  The anguish in the eyes of the man standing opposite him did not breach his frozen shroud. “Goodbye, Will.”

  He spun—violently—and lurched onto the lift. He didn’t look back.

  Richard leaned against the façade of a theatre and closed his eyes. He corralled all the thoughts, images and sentiments that would paralyze then crush him, and forced them behind a wall in a dark corner of his mind. There they would remain until this was done, after which they were free to do to him as they pleased.

  Then he opened his eyes and continued walking down the street.

  He knew a good bit about Graham Delavasi, as an adversary if not an outright enemy. Former military special forces, he had joined Senecan Intelligence after the First Crux War. Gaining a reputation for pulling no punches and exhibiting a keen eye for artifice and duplicity, he rose quickly within the department despite playing fast and loose with the rules and refusing to respect political niceties. He had been named Director of Intelligence three years earlier.

  His reputation had always struck Richard as indicating the kind of man he might have liked were they not situated on opposite sides of the diplomatic divide. Now it appeared he had his chance to find out.

  The Director had beat him to the pub and claimed a booth in the back corner. Other than those seated at the bar, the establishment wasn’t crowded and no patrons occupied the surrounding tables. Still, a surveillance shielding device sat discreetly on the table.

  He slid in the booth before Delavasi could stand, but the man extended a hand across the table. “Colonel Navick, I’m glad we were able to meet in person. Under the circumstances I’m sure it was as difficult for you to
slip away as it was for me.”

  He accepted the hand but kept his bearing formal. Delavasi did not, adopting a casual slouch in the booth like he was about to toss back a few beers with a buddy.

  “It seems we have ourselves a small alien invasion. Any chance we’re going to be able to stop them?”

  “Well, stopping our own war first would certainly improve the odds.”

  “So it would.” Delavasi grimaced. “You and I are supposed to be the smart ones. Nothing gets past us—not the machinations of politicians and not the schemes of criminals. But my friend, I believe we have been played.”

  Richard wanted to protest. They were not friends, not by a long shot. But if this turned into a pissing contest five minutes in the whole game was lost. “I’ve reviewed the evidence which leaked, and more. Your agent did not perpetrate the EASC Headquarters bombing.”

  “I agree. We’ve been studying the wreckage from the fighters shot down on Palluda. They don’t appear to be Alliance fighters, though they did fire Alliance missiles.”

  “Thirty-two VI-guided short-range missiles from the Southwestern Regional Headquarters on Deucali are unaccounted for. They went missing during a ware upgrade. What about Chris Candela?”

  “Can’t say. My instincts tell me he wasn’t the perpetrator. Unfortunately, the man who could have led me to the perpetrator was murdered a week ago.”

  “I heard a rumor you might’ve acquired a copy of Santiagar’s autopsy report. Nothing useful in it to help on that front?”

  “It’s gone. Stolen in yet another murder, this time of one of the best men in my department.”

  “They’re covering their tracks, cleaning up loose ends.”

  “Yep.” The man seemed to deflate, his shoulders dropping a few centimeters. “My deputy was involved in this conspiracy. She isn’t disposed to talk, but I only removed my head from my ass in regards to the matter yesterday, so I’ll know what she knows before long. Of course, ‘before long’ may not be soon enough.”

  Interesting. An admission of vulnerability. Delavasi was going a fairly long way to get Richard to trust him. “I imagine that’s how Caleb Marano’s Senecan Intelligence file ended up in my inbox.”

  “It did? Fucking Oberti….”

  “If it helps, an as yet unknown but powerful member of the Alliance government is part of it as well.”

  “The one who doctored the Headquarters records?”

  “Worse, the one who ordered them doctored.”

  “We’re facing a clusterfain of epic proportions here, aren’t we?”

  Richard chuckled darkly; the eccentric Senecan curse had not yet penetrated Earth popular culture, though it was starting to pop up and the connotation was clear enough. “We’re going to need proof if we expect to make a go of pulling the politicians down off the ledge.”

  “Agent Marano is in the company of someone I believe is an acquaintance of yours. I don’t suppose you know where they are? I would really like to talk to him something fierce.”

  It shouldn’t be a revelation Delavasi knew he was a friend of the Solovys. He likely knew everything about Richard’s life. The logical, analytical component of his brain reminded him the information was public record, discoverable via a simple exanet search, and thus far it was the only personal card the man had played. He reinforced the wall in his mind.

  “I wish I did. I assume that means you don’t either?”

  “Wish I did.” Delavasi shifted uncomfortably in the booth. “Listen, before we go any further…about Will Sutton—”

  “Director, I am here to do my job and try to save a significant number of lives. Do me the courtesy of not injecting my personal life into this arrangement and I won’t walk out of this pub.”

  “Point made. So where does all this leave us?”

  Richard suppressed a smirk. It pleased him that the man had backed down so quickly, and was looking to him. He appeared to be in charge.

  He leaned forward against the table. “I didn’t select Pandora solely because of its neutrality and convenient location. I’ve got a lead on a portion of the explosives used in the Headquarters bombing. A rat grew a conscience and told a Pandora detective one of the local criminal groups was scrambling to try to move a stash of HHNC off-world a couple of days before the bombing, and quickly. The detective told an Alliance operative stationed here.”

  “Excellent. You got a name?”

  “Nguyen. Shall we go see what he has to say for himself?”

  The detective, Jere Kulm, took them to the neighborhood Nguyen operated in and quickly located him on the patio of a local dive.

  They surveyed the environs and flow of the crowd until they both felt comfortable no surprises lurked in the corners, then positioned themselves nearby. Minutes later Nguyen departed the restaurant and started down the street.

  Delavasi slid up beside him and slung an arm over his shoulder while Richard crowded him from the other side and quietly grasped his arm at the elbow. “Let’s take a walk.”

  “What the—”

  “It is in your best interest for you to lower your voice, Mr. Nguyen.” He complied but then proceeded to struggle and sag between them.

  Delavasi made a face over Nguyen’s head. “Jesus, do not make us drag you. You look like a goon.”

  They took advantage of the man’s uncertainty to persuade him farther down the street and into a dead-end alleyway, then let him scramble out of their grasp and into the rear wall.

  Short, bulky and sporting a series of pockmarks on his face and a crooked nose, the man plainly had never invested in gene therapy. His manner was ragged and abrasive, suggesting he had grown up on the streets. Presumably intelligent enough to run what Kulm said was a decent-sized group of criminals, he was still not many decisions away from the gutter.

  Nguyen prowled the deepest corner of the alley as if he were some sort of caged predator, recognizing there was no escape but unable to accept his fate. Richard and Delavasi blocked his exit route. In the improbable event he got past them, Kulm waited five meters beyond with a Daemon resting on his thigh as he leaned casually against the wall.

  “Who the fuck are you guys? This some kind of shakedown?”

  “You moved forty kilos of HHNC sixteen days ago. Where did you move it to?”

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Sure you do. You were in a hurry and got sloppy. People noticed.”

  “What good does it do me to tell you squat?”

  Richard gestured to the street. “There’s a war going on out there, with chaos hot on its tail. You’ve probably heard about aliens coming our way? So if you disappear, everybody just figures you cut your losses and ran.”

  “You pretty boys threatening to kill me?”

  “Nope. Merely a nice long stay in an Alliance military prison…” he glanced in Delavasi’s direction “…or a Senecan one. I’ve heard they’re far worse.”

  Delavasi nodded in exaggerated agreement. “Far worse. Except for that one you guys run in Siberia. You still have that one, right?”

  “Oh yeah. The guards have trouble keeping the prisoners from freezing to death, though. Some of them end up gnawing their own fingers off to stop the frostbite from spreading. It’s not pretty.”

  Nguyen’s dark irises darted between the two of them like a junkie catching the scent of his next high. “And if I recall a few things?”

  Delavasi made a show of considering the question. “Depends on how much you recall.”

  “Son of a…word gets out I talked and I’m a corpse by morning. The people I work for do not take kindly to rats.”

  Richard regarded him with casual disdain. “I bet they don’t. If we were to walk you out of this alley and escort you down the street then leave you with a pat on the back and a vocal thanks, it would be a shame if someone misinterpreted what they saw.”

  The man’s eyes widened; he sank down the rear wall and buried his face in his hands. “Earth. They went to Earth. Vancouver. T
hat’s why you’re here, right?”

  Richard hid his relief beneath arms crossing over his chest. He stared at the man, who had shrunk in on himself to become a small, shriveled pile on the ground. “On whose order?”

  Nguyen’s voice shook. “Kigin.”

  Delavasi looked over his shoulder to Kulm, who indicated he had caught the response. “Zelones lieutenant.”

  Richard crouched beside Nguyen and leaned in close. “And?”

  “Kigin talks a tough game but he doesn’t take a shit without the Queen Bitch’s approval.”

  Behind him Delavasi laughed. “I assume you mean Olivia Montegreu.”

  “Who else, man? They say she personally pries the toenails off underlings who displease her, usually after she’s half-fucked them to death.” His entire body quivered. “Do what you gotta, but don’t leave me to that psychopath!”

  Richard stood and turned to Kulm. “Take him in and keep a tight lid on him until I give you the all-clear, then cut him loose. Rough him up a bit before you do so he can hit the street like a badass instead of the pansy he is.”

  “You got it, sir.” The detective yanked Nguyen up, shoved him into the wall and snapped restraining bracelets on him. “Let’s take a trip. Trust me when I tell you it’s for your own good.”

  After Kulm had exited the alley, his prisoner dragging along behind, Richard sank against the rear wall. The adrenaline rush from the encounter wasn’t lasting. “So what now? Shake down this Kigin? We can’t exactly show up on New Babel for a friendly chat with Montegreu. We’d be dead within a minute of stepping off the transport.”