by Dietmar Wehr
“Mistress Fontaine, may I present to you ex-lieutenant Hoch Racheengel,” said Alpha male with considerably more respect than when he had talked to Hoch.
“Yes, you may, Franz. Welcome to my office, Lieutenant. What an interesting name you have. If I’m not mistaken, your name is German and translates as High Avenging Angel. How wonderfully appropriate under the circumstances. I take it you’ve been told that I want you to find my grand-daughter’s killers?”
“That’s correct, Mistress Fontaine,” said Hoch.
Fontaine turned around and pointed at the wall behind her desk. It instantly lit up to show a photo of a naked woman lying on a metal floor with both hands tied behind her back. She was facing away from the camera, and Hoch could see that the back of her head was bloody. There was also obvious bruising on the arms and legs, especially the inner thighs. It was a disturbing image. He resisted the urge to look away. When Fontaine turned back to look at him, her eyes were no longer as friendly as they had been.
“This is what they did to my grand-daughter, Lieutenant. I want you to take a good look. The image will change in a few seconds to show different angles. Her face is unrecognizable from the bruising and blood, but I made sure of the body’s identity with DNA analysis. I want the animals that did this found and brought to justice. If you can find them or even just tell me who Space Force should be looking for, your monetary reward will be considerable.” She paused to gauge his reaction. He tried to keep his face expressionless. “I have been given to understand that you were convicted of theft by a Space Force court-martial. I’d be interested to hear your side of that story, Lieutenant.”
Hoch repeated the version that Alpha had given him. He thought he saw her nod very slightly.
“Clearly you were in a difficult position. If you had turned in the admiral’s nephew, the admiral might have exerted a negative influence on your career. Tell me, Lieutenant, during your time in Space Force, did you ever have the opportunity to catch any pirates?”
“A ship I was serving on did stop and arrest a ship of suspected pirates. I believe that they were eventually convicted.”
Her expression softened a bit. “Franz, what did you tell the Lieutenant with regards to compensation?”
Alpha told her what he had told Hoch.
“Oh, I think we can do better than that. While you’re hunting those animals, you’ll earn three times your military salary. If you can generate any trading profits, you’ll keep those too, and if you find useful information that leads to the killers, you’ll have a choice between a guaranteed lifetime employment as a starfreighter pilot or officer, or a very large lump sum bonus. Once you begin the mission, I’ll expect regular reports on where you go, how you conduct your search and what you find. Franz will give you the practical details of how to do that. Can I assume that you find these terms satisfactory, Lieutenant?”
“Quite satisfactory, Mistress Fontaine,” said Hoch carefully.
“Very good. In that case, I believe we are finished our business here today.” She turned around and walked back to her desk. Alpha and his buddy turned and motioned for him to follow them. Just as Hoch was turning to do so, the image on the wall changed to another angle that was also closer, and something caught his attention. There was a tattoo of an angel with outstretched wings on the dead woman’s right hand, the same image he’d last seen on Sara’s hand.
Without even thinking about what he was about to do, he said, “Was your grand-daughter’s name Sara?”
Fontaine stopped, turned and gave Hoch a puzzled stare. “Yes, it was. How did you know that, Lieutenant?”
Hoch hesitated. He knew what he wanted to say and do, but a tiny voice in the back of his mind was telling him to make up some excuse and let it go. He told the voice to shut up.
“May I speak with you in private, Mistress Fontaine?” He saw in the transparent wall a reflection of the surprised reactions of Alpha and buddy. Fontaine’s gaze shifted from him to her two subordinates.
“Well, well. It’s been a long time since a man has asked to be alone with me. I see that my assistants disapprove of the idea. Therefore, I’ll allow it. You two may wait for the Lieutenant down below.”
As the elevator doors slid shut behind the two assistants, Fontaine said, “Now then, please tell me how you knew my grand-daughter’s first name.”
“I met your grand-daughter a few weeks ago on the Thule Station. She had just arrived and found me trying to sleep in the access ramp. I was stranded and completely broke to the point where I had to beg for a few station credits to buy food.” He saw her eyes open wide, but she said nothing. “She took pity on me, gave me a hot meal, then invited me to stay on her ship in a spare cabin so I could have a hot shower and a few hours sleep on a comfortable bed. When I got up, she gave me breakfast and a paid flight voucher for passage back to Earth. I asked her why she was willing to do so much for a stranger. She said it felt like the right thing to do, and then she said that maybe some day I might be in a position to do something for her. I left her ship feeling that I owed her a debt. Now I can repay that debt. Until I recognized the tattoo on her right hand, I thought of this project as just a temporary job that might lead to a more permanent one. But it’s no longer just business. It’s now very personal, and because it’s personal, I feel compelled to be honest with you. I lied about my conviction for theft. I told you that story because Franz told me to tell it that way. The truth is that I was the one who stole the items in question. I did it in a moment of weakness that I’ve regretted ever since.”
Fontaine walked slowly up to the transparent wall. “I’m impressed that you took the risk of confessing that to me, Mr. Racheengel. Under the circumstances, your sudden honesty does you credit. I consider myself to be a very good judge of character. When you gave me that first account of the theft, I was sceptical, but I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt. Your confession and what you have just told me about Sara and how you feel about the project all have the ring of truth to them. I felt the anger in your voice when you said this was now a personal vendetta, and I’m very glad to hear it. I have confidence in you. Good bye, Mr. Racheengel and good hunting.”
Hoch nodded to her and started walking to the elevator. When he was almost there, he heard her say, “Before you leave, I have one more question to ask you, Mr. Racheengel. When you find those animals, if an opportunity to balance the scales of justice with your own hand presents itself, will you take it?”
“In a heartbeat, Mistress Fontaine,” said Hoch without any hesitation.
“Then you truly are my High Avenging Angel. If I was 40 years younger…” She sighed. “When you see Franz, tell him that I wish to see him immediately.” When she turned away, he knew that they were done talking and left.
When the elevator arrived at the ground floor, he found Franz and his partner waiting for him.
“What the hell was that all about?” asked Franz. “Did you fuck this all up?”
“I told her that I had met her grand-daughter before and that I now had a personal interest in finding her killers,” said Hoch casually.
“Oh, Elvis H. Christ! Didn’t you understand what we told you about the fallout if you succeed?”
Hoch nodded. “Since Mistress Fontaine obviously doesn’t care about blowback, why should I? By the way, she wants to see you again, right now.”
Franz snorted. “Oh, she does, does she? We obviously made a mistake in picking you, Racheengel. Let’s see how she feels about you when I tell her that you really did steal that stuff.”
Hoch smiled and shrugged. “Go ahead. I’ve already told her the truth and that you told me to lie. Your buddy and I will wait here.” Hoch watched Franz’s expression carefully. It had lost its confident sneer, but there were no signs of fear, unlike the expression on his buddy’s face.
“Yeah, both of you wait here.”
When Franz was gone, his buddy shook his head and spoke in a low, sad voice. “You shouldn’t have done that. You have
no idea of the shit that’s going to fall on your head. This is way bigger than you think. Even Franz and I don’t know the whole picture, but we know enough to let sleeping dogs lie.”
Franz was back about eight minutes later. His anger was gone, replaced by a quiet confidence that was both surprising and a bit unnerving. Evidently Mistress Fontaine had not put the fear of God into him for trying to deceive her. He strode over to where Hoch and buddy were standing, looked his friend in the eye for a split second, took a deep breath and then looked at Hoch.
“Okay. You’ve gone all in, and now we’ll see how well you play your hand. It’ll take a week, maybe ten days, to get your ship ready. Do you have enough credit left to last that long?” Hoch nodded. “Good. Normally I’d say stay low and don’t get into trouble, but in this case, I think I’d actually prefer that you did get into some trouble. Anyway, we’ll contact you when the ship’s ready. Now if you don’t mind, my friend and I have a lot to do, so kindly fuck off.”
Hoch stayed low and stayed out of trouble. He also did some some research into URS and the Fontaine family, as much as was publicly available at any rate. The family had humble origins, and Mistress Fontaine’s father had managed to accumulate a surprising amount of wealth in a relatively short period of time. He had either been very lucky or had a lot of help. Hoch knew enough about the transformation of human society from the oligopolistic capitalist scramble of the early 21st century to the highly organized cartel of monopolies run by a very small group of families to wonder what friends and enemies the Fontaine family might have now.
Nine days later Franz contacted him and told him to show up at a certain gate, at a certain time at the local spaceport. As he heard the connection break, he looked down at the new tattoo on his right hand. It was the same angel with outstretched wings that Sara had had on her own hand, but with one difference. His angel’s head was a human skull. It was time to start the hunt.
Chapter Two:
Franz and buddy were waiting impatiently for him at the designated spaceport gate. The three of them got into a small, open vehicle of the kind that spaceport personnel used to get around. Buddy drove the vehicle over to one of a dozen large hangars. Franz led the way inside, to where there was an ordinary-looking Gazelle-class starfreighter. Hoch had seen the same kind of relatively small starfreighter many times before. Its overall shape was that of a wedge with stubby wings for atmospheric flight. From the dull finish of the hull, he could tell that this particular ship had seen a lot of light-years. The rational part of his mind chided him for thinking that Mistress Fontaine and URS would let him play with a brand new ship, but it was still a bit disappointing.
As the three of them walked toward the open hatch, Franz said, “See anything out of the ordinary for this type, Racheengel?”
Hoch took a closer look. “I don’t remember ever seeing those bulges underneath.”
Franz nodded. “Yup. That’s because the standard civilian version of this class doesn’t have those bulges. URS has a shipbuilding division, and it builds both civilian and military starships. A while back, Space Force asked all the aerospace companies to build a prototype for an armed starfreighter that Space Force could use to ferry supplies and personnel to bases, one that would be able to defend itself from pirates or other threats. That project got cancelled for budgetary reasons but not before URS had modified this Gazelle-class ship. The bulge up there is a retractable turret that holds a rapid-fire railgun. It can fire armor-piercing kinetic-energy or explosive shells. These bulges down here carry two medium range, anti-ship missiles.” He laughed when he saw Hoch’s expression of surprise. “You’re reacting the same way I did when Mistress Fontaine told me to arm this baby. The original plan was to just have the railgun for self-defence, which by the way is legal. URS had a special permit to put missiles on this ship when it was a prototype. But civilian ships aren’t supposed to have offensive weapons like those missiles. I’m not sure how legal this ship is now, so I’d suggest you don’t go around bragging about having them. In addition to the weapons, this ship also has military grade radar and ECM gear that your ordinary starfreighter wouldn’t have. The maneuvering engines have been upgraded too. This beast will outrun anything of the same size. It’ll even give a Space Force light cruiser a run for its money. Of course, you don’t want to get into a shooting match with Space Force ships, because this ship doesn’t have any armor worth the name. It does, however, have some beefed-up structural integrity in order to handle the higher acceleration stresses. Let’s go inside, and I’ll show you a couple of things that Mistress Fontaine specifically ordered me to share with you.”
As they stepped into the ship, Hoch was surprised by how narrow the corridors were. They eventually came to what he surmised was the cargo hold due to the fact that there was cargo in it.
“Mistress Fontaine apparently wants you to have every opportunity to actually make some trading profits while you snoop around out there, so you’ll start with this cargo hold full of various kinds of equipment, consumables and specialty items that might be in demand on the outer colonies and stations you’ll be visiting. That’s one thing, but there’s also this.” He stepped over to a section of the wall and pointed to a 10 cm by 10 cm square section that was a slightly different color from the rest of the wall. “Put you hand on that, Racheengel.”
Hoch did so and a larger section of the wall underneath popped open. Hoch looked inside and said a silent ‘wow’. “How much is that?” he asked.
“There’s half a million credits worth of gold in there. As you probably know, every colony and most orbiting stations have their own currency, but they’ll all accept gold. Once again, I wouldn’t go around letting everyone know how much gold your ship is carrying. That’s why it’s in a secret cargo space. It also makes a good hiding space for smuggled goods. Whether you do that or not is your business, though I don’t think Mistress Fontaine would be too happy if the ship were confiscated for carrying contraband. So now you know what she told me to show you. I’m assuming that you know how to pilot one of these ships, right?”
Hoch nodded. He’d been trained to pilot military starships; civilian ships were child’s play by comparison.
“Good. In that case there’s just one detail left to take care of.” He held his hand out and buddy handed him a gold-colored data tablet. “You need to acknowledge that you’re taking possession of this ship and are responsible for bringing it back when you’re done. Put your hand on the tablet. It’ll scan your fingerprints and also take a sample of your DNA.” Hoch did so. He hardly felt the sample being taken. When the device beeped, Franz nodded and pulled it away. “Okay. You’re now the Captain of this ship. This hangar has been rented for another 24 hours, but you can pilot the ship whenever you’re ready.” He paused and gave Hoch a serious look. “I’m not going to say ‘good luck’, although if you’re stupid enough to really try to find those killers, you’re going to need all the luck you can get. If you get into trouble, don’t expect any help from me or my friend here. As far as we’re concerned, you’re on your own.” He turned to buddy and said, “Let’s go.”
Hoch followed them to the hatch to make sure that they left the ship, then closed it and made his way to the pilot’s quarters, which were in the upper level of the ship. He wasn’t expecting a lot, nor did he find it, however while his quarters weren’t big, they were comfortable. Something had been left there for him. There was a metal container lying on the bed with a flat white object on top. He picked it up and realized with a shock that it was an envelope made from real paper! He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen real paper used to convey information. He carefully opened the envelope, remembering how he had gotten a nasty paper cut when opening a similar envelope as a kid. Inside was a note that appeared to be handwritten.
My High Avenging Angel,
I have reason to believe that the attack on Sara was not a random act. Even people at my level have enemies, and some of my peers are ruthless enough to eng
age in such actions. Watch your back, and don’t trust anyone. This container holds items that will help you in your quest. The headband contains customized personal electronics. It was built especially for my husband, now long-dead, and it has very special circuitry. Not only is it not available to the average person, even the wealthy and elite would find it all but impossible to acquire. Believe me, if they knew what it could do, there are people who would kill you in a heartbeat to get their hands on it. Try to keep its abilities secret if you can. The armlet should be worn on your left forearm. It contains a miniaturized stun projector. It has a limited power supply but can be hidden under your clothing to make adversaries think that you’re unarmed. Underneath these items, you’ll find a jumpsuit that has been tailored specifically for you, with the left sleeve slightly larger to accommodate the stunner. These are my gifts to you.