by Jason Letts
“But you did hijack an arms shipment headed to the front lines,” Hobart said.
“What the Alliance needs is some real adversity, not as a pretense to stripping rights away from people but to provide enough pressure to make the chancellor actually want to act in people’s best interests. You’ve taught me that Yetrue’s only interest is in sheer domination and that he’ll never relent,” Rion said, feeling like he was bleeding some of his soul into his words.
A silent moment passed.
“I should shoot you all dead,” he said. “That’s what my job requires.”
Rion shook his head.
“I think deep down you know that there is something deeply wrong with the Alliance you’re serving and you want us to succeed. Let us do what you and the other commanders can’t, then come together with us when the time is right to roll back the oppression, the corruption, the propaganda. It all needs to be swept away.”
Hobart tilted his head to the side. His eyelids quivered and the hand holding the weapon drifted downward by a few degrees.
“The Marshall Force is no better,” he said.
“I’d say they’re worse,” Lena spoke up, clearing her throat. “We never had any real intention of allowing them to gain power.”
Hobart paused again, and Rion was beginning to worry it was a stalling tactic. Surely more officers would be streaming in behind the commander at any moment to apprehend them. But Hobart lowered his gun down to his side and expelled an agonized groan.
“You should know the chancellor isn’t and has never been aboard this ship. His paranoia has him hidden away in a secret station out in the middle of empty space that no one, and I mean no one, knows the location of. His commands are signals bounced off of different transmitters. I have no doubt it’s heavily armed and reaching it would be impossible.”
Rion licked his lips as he saw what would be the challenge of a lifetime. If he could somehow get to the chancellor, all of the pieces might fall into place. Removing him would give the solar system a breath of fresh air, a chance to wash away the bad rules and the bad practices that all stemmed from the corrupted mind of the one in power.
“Is there anything at all you can tell us?” Rion said.
“He’s human.”
Nodding, Rion wondered whether a thank you was appropriate. After all, the commander of the Alliance’s flagship had just committed a dereliction of duty so serious that his own life would be forfeit if it came to light. But he understood that the correct response would be to successfully carry out their impossible mission and break into the chancellor’s secret compound, assuming they could ever find it.
Turning their back on Hobart, the trio proceeded to their ship. It felt like going home to Rion, who let his fingertips drag against the smooth edges of the hatch as he passed beyond the airlock. That was all the lingering he could allow himself. They had to quickly close the hatch and prepare for launch, not to mention taking care of the other loose ends of their close encounter.
“The Vestige was able to track you with a device they planted against the exterior of the ship,” Rion said.
“I figured that,” Bailor said, shutting his eyes hard. “I’ll block its transmissions before we leave and we can pry it off later. I should’ve known they’d do something like that, but it didn’t hit me until we were caught.”
Bailor looked like he felt bad enough about the situation, and Rion didn’t want to pile onto his woes, but that wasn’t the only thing they had to worry about.
“Hobart also said something about scrambling the channels to the Alliance database. If we still have access, we need to try to download as much data as we can, or figure out how to access the database via a new channel. We need to do something because our only chance of locating the chancellor might be in there somewhere.”
“If every centimeter of this ship was full of RAM, we still wouldn’t be able to store one percent of the Alliance’s data. I’ll see what I can do,” Bailor said.
That left Lena, who helped Rion secure the hatch door before rushing to the cockpit.
“I think we’ve worn out our welcome. Let’s get out of here,” she said, hitting the engines and gaining some distance from the Vestige. Her fingers were on the accelerator when she looked over at Rion. “Any idea where we’re going?”
“Not in the slightest.”
“Straight ahead then.”
CHAPTER 11
The Vestige far in the rearview mirror, Rion wasn’t satisfied that they were in the clear until they’d gotten out of the vicinity of Saturn completely. It would’ve been nice to lie low back on Heath’s floating rock, but even that felt too risky considering they were only a short distance away near Titan.
They had made it halfway to Mars, planning to camp out in space far outside of trafficked areas in order to think in peace, when Bailor slammed the butt of his fist against the console. The unusual outburst got Rion’s attention, and he grew more concerned when Bailor stormed out of the cockpit altogether.
“Where are you going?” Lena asked from her seat.
“I’m going to jump out of the hatch,” Bailor said, making Lena smile.
“What is it?” Rion asked.
Bailor riled himself into such a fit of anger that he couldn’t even speak for a few minutes. His movements were unpredictable, like he was ready to attack anything.
“The Alliance tracker wasn’t the only bug we had on the ship,” he said.
Rion’s eyes widened.
“What?”
“I’ve been running sweeps on our transmissions. Do you want to take a guess who else has been keeping tabs on us? No, I have to just tell you because I can’t deal with either of you figuring things out faster than my glacial pace. The Marshall Force must’ve gotten into the ship while we were talking to Verche, because they were able to tap into our system to monitor us,” he said.
“I’m going to pound the snot out of her,” Lena said.
Rion could sympathize with the anger, but he got up and attempted to cool the situation down.
“Did you plug the leak?” he asked.
“Yes, they’re blocked out and I promise the ship is secure,” Bailor said.
Rion took another look at the console, feeling as responsible for missing this as Bailor was. All of Heath’s brilliance went out the window because they’d let people walk into the ship and tamper with the systems. Still, other than being a big embarrassment it might not have been so bad.
“Look, whatever. It doesn’t matter all that much that they knew we went to Mars and Saturn instead of the front lines. I mean, they could tell that with their own eyes when we didn’t arrive there,” he said, but Bailor wasn’t soothed.
“It’s not just that. They have the ship’s data, like Reznik’s logs, my logs.”
“If they’ve crossed us, that saves us the trouble of crossing them. The only reason we were trying to help the Marshall Force was to create an opening with the Alliance. Once they use up all the weapons from the cargo ship they can go right back to being inept and impotent. If they’ve been steaming because their best hope for victory vanished as quickly as we appeared, we should be the ones laughing at them. After all, we’re closer to our goal than ever before. Getting to the chancellor and cutting the head off this snake makes everything we want possible.”
Bailor continued to grumble, but the anger behind his eyes wouldn’t leave. Rion couldn’t blame him. He’d made stupid mistakes like a blind fool before too, and it had almost cost him the only thing he’d ever had in his life that had been worth anything, his friendships with Bailor and Lena. As long as he had that, he didn’t much care what other people saw.
“I’ve failed in my responsibilities too many times,” Bailor said.
Lena got up and put her hand on his shoulder.
“You remind me of how I felt after I got back from the distribution station. The more we screw up, by the law of averages the more likely we are to get something right,” she said.
&nb
sp; Something to eat gradually got Bailor out of his funk, but what Rion really thought he needed was a new topic of conversation that would put the wheels in his head spinning.
“Is there anything in your books about Chancellor Yetrue you can tell us?”
It worked and Bailor immediately perked up.
“Actually, quite a bit. It’s fascinating really, his rise to power. There’s a lot that’s been written about that period forty years ago when people seemed to have a lot more freedom and initiative. Yetrue was managing the Alliance’s broadcast station when the previous chancellor, a woman by the name of Ewerly, fell ill. It’s still not believed that Yetrue was involved in her illness, and it wasn’t like he manipulated his broadcasts to place unfounded blame, which he could’ve done, but he still managed to discredit rivals and take the chancellorship when someone from the Alliance’s military arm or Earth’s regent would’ve been more likely candidates.
“He was never a public person to begin with, but he receded even more and attempted to use his absence to create a cult of personality and an aura of invincibility. His supporters did the fighting for him, removing rivals from officers and forcing others to retire. Slowly he consolidated power, getting many of the autonomous regents indebted to him for one thing or another, and over time he secured an unshakable grip on the solar system.”
They began scouting out locations they could go to plan their assault on the chancellor’s station and decided on one of the cruise destinations around Jupiter, where the nice scenery might be some relief from the pressure they felt at finding the tiny speck of metal in the limitless universe, but the conversation kept circling back to who the man was.
“So he was a private man who was in charge of the Alliance’s biggest megaphone. While people around him were dying of mysterious illnesses or getting rubbed out, he tried to give the impression he was invincible. And he had a spacious and well-guarded home built on top of their most prestigious ship, but he hasn’t ever been there. Is there anything about him that doesn’t seem completely contradictory?” Rion asked.
Bailor leaned back with a tablet in his hands, flipping his finger across the screen to peruse some of his texts.
“What’s surprising is that he seems to have had a wholesome childhood. Two close parents, a sister who worked as a doctor and died in her late forties, and a stable home accompanied by a good education and plenty of close friends.”
“Now I know why he turned out to be a monster,” Lena said. “He would’ve been better off growing up in a spaceport.”
Rion couldn’t help but laugh.
“The point is he started studying public policy from a young age, so in that sense he’s been on the same path his entire life. He got excellent marks, landed a good position, and was able to rise through the ranks at regular intervals. Sure, if he’d come along sooner or later he wouldn’t have been able to angle for the chancellorship, but even without that he was poised for a distinguished career,” Bailor said, making Rion try to imagine a life like that. For some reason his father didn’t want him to have it.
“Where was his childhood home?”
“It was on Earth somewhere. I can’t recall off the top of my head. Pulling up his bio in the Alliance database would be the quickest way to find out,” Bailor said, but his fingers soon trailed away from the console. “It looks like we have lost our ability to access the database. I was able to pull a little bit of data, but it’s mostly material related to what we’ve already searched for.”
“That’s not going to make finding the chancellor any easier. What are we going to use to pan through space for his station, a flashlight and a rake?” Lena said.
“Cape Town, or Johannesburg. He was from one of those, I think,” Bailor said.
The ship hurtled toward Jupiter, and Rion distractedly got lost in the lights of the cockpit and his thoughts. He was trying to piece together an image of the man they were now chasing.
“Can you imagine that, a guy with the perfect life and all the opportunity in the solar system whose legacy is to ruin everyone else’s? It’s like he took everything for granted, was completely oblivious to how good he had it, and spent his entire life working to stamp it out. I mean, he wasn’t directly responsible for the manifest form trick that kept Bailor and I on Mars, but it fits in perfectly with the direction he forced society to take.
“Most of the time I’ve spent on this ship has felt to me like trying to reclaim my lost years and everything that was taken away, but I can’t help but wonder if I’d hate the person I became if I had all the things I wanted,” Rion said.
Lena looked at him, and he expected her to crack another joke, but she didn’t say a word and continued to keep her eyes on him, even after he’d noticed her. Silence followed for five or ten breaths before Bailor spoke up.
“Maybe we should start thinking about how to find the chancellor,” he said.
Rion reluctantly broke the gaze he shared with Lena. He wanted to know what she was thinking, if she felt uncomfortable or weirded out because of what he said, but he knew she wouldn’t say a word about it with Bailor around.
“The reason I asked where he was from was because there might be some clues there that would help us. You never know what he might’ve seen around or been exposed to that would inform his decision about where to hide himself,” Rion said.
“I don’t think the Alliance will have much patience for us if we go anywhere near Earth,” Lena said.
“It’s a good point, but we have to try something. The answer’s not going to come by sitting around in here, especially with our database access cut,” Rion said.
“Why don’t we keep going to Jupiter and continue to think it out there, like we planned? There might be something else we haven’t thought of,” Bailor said.
They agreed that taking the time to think before making any hasty moves was the best approach and continued on their way to Jupiter. Rion knew that sometimes he got the ideas he needed when he was thinking about something completely different, and he hoped the planet’s stormy surface would be the perfect catalyst for some brilliance.
A day passed and they were nearly halfway there when the console lit up, indicating an attempt at communication was coming through.
“It looks like someone’s trying to contact us,” Bailor said.
“Maybe it’s Hobart with something else that could help us,” Rion said, ready for information to fall out of the sky if it could guide them.
Bailor opened the channel, and Rion could tell from the very first syllable that his guess was not just incorrect. It had been too optimistic as well.
“My friends,” said Verche with a distinct lack of congeniality. “It pained me that you’ve deviated from the agreement we had about joining our forces at the front lines.”
Listening to the Marshall Force’s leader made Rion’s stomach sink. He could imagine her standing by her luxurious office’s desk and gazing through the large windows with a glass of brandy in her hand. Hearing her go on about her pains was the last thing he needed.
“I told you’d we’d go to Uranus and we did. Not once did I say that we would throw ourselves into the fight. And besides, you lost our trust when you bugged our ship. As far as I’m concerned, our deal is off and we’re not obligated to do anything at all for you.”
Lena made motions with her hands to choke the air above the speaker emitting Verche’s voice.
“I’m sorry to hear you feel that way about it. I really am,” Verche said, though she didn’t sound like it. “If you had nothing to hide it shouldn’t have been an issue, but it turns out you had an awful lot you’ve been hiding from us. I took the liberty of making sure you still felt invested in our deal.”
The three of them squinted at each other in confusion.
“What does that mean?” Rion asked.
There was a pause and some sounds of movement that came through the channel. A man’s voice came on next, one that Rion didn’t recognize, but it was immediately
apparent who did.
“Bailor, is that really you?” he asked.
Bailor donned a look of skepticism that grew into something more genuinely worried.
“It can’t be. That search. Dad?” he muttered.
“Holy moly,” Lena said.
“Is this some kind of trick?” the male voice asked. “I don’t believe for a second that I’m really talking to my son. He’s been long gone.”
Bailor’s eyes reddened, a mixture of sorrow and bloodlust.
“My name is Bailor Pu from 674 Rolling in East Eclipse on Ganymede. Am I to understand that you have possession of my father?”
“Oh, I’m sorry for any confusion,” Verche said, sounding cheery. “Your mother is here too. Why don’t you open up that trap, lady, and say something to the son you abandoned?”
“I’ve missed you and I’m so, so sorry for everything,” a woman’s voice said before Bailor’s father came back on.
“They abducted us from our home in the middle of the night and have been keeping us here. It’s been an outrage. We haven’t been able to talk to anyone until now. Please get help,” he said.
Verche chuckled.
“Mr. Pu has a flair for the dramatic. We escorted them here and have been taking very good care of them. In fact, we’re playing a game of chess as we speak. I’m winning, but he’s putting up a decent fight. They are in need of no help at all. My only hope is that they’ll take this opportunity to urge you to follow through on your word.”
“What about Francis?” Bailor asked.
“You know about your brother? They left him at home alone. There’s food to last him a while, but I can’t imagine what he’s going through waking up one morning to find his parents have been taken from their beds. I mean, he’s only fourteen years old. That’s not to say that what you went through wasn’t even worse at a much younger age, but we haven’t even been able to get word to him that we’re still alive,” Bailor’s mother said.
“You kidnapped my parents and forced my brother to think he’d been abandoned?” Bailor asked Verche.