Stepping away from the crowd for a modicum of privacy, he brought up his wrist computer and tapped a command.
“Romanov,” he hailed his chief bodyguard. “How’s your sweep coming?”
“We’re about half-done,” the Marine replied. “Gambon’s people aren’t bad; they were just outnumbered and outgunned.”
“We’re already late,” Damien reminded the other man. “How much longer?”
There was a moment’s pause.
“I can pull my people out now,” Romanov admitted. “We’re pretty sure there’s no serious threats left; the local security should be able to handle any holdouts.”
“But your people are armored against any weapons these idiots have, and Gambon’s people aren’t,” Damien finished the thought for his subordinate. “We’re already late,” he repeated with emphasis. “How much longer?”
“Three hours. Maybe four. It’s a damned big ship.”
That would make him about twelve hours late and easily bump him to the next day’s agenda. Much as Damien wanted to cooperate with the Council, he also couldn’t bring himself to regret putting them on a priority below people’s lives.
“Three will already bump us to tomorrow. Take four,” he instructed. “Then return to Doctor Akintola. We’ll leave as soon as you and Gambon’s people are comfortable the ship is secure.”
“Understood, my lord.”
#
Returning to Akintola, Damien dismissed the agents to help secure the ship and gestured for Samara to follow him. Silently, they made their way to the yacht’s secure conference room, where he sealed the doors behind them and activated the Faraday cage to prevent eavesdropping.
“A bit of overkill, isn’t this?” she asked.
“You asked a question, Inspector,” Damien told her. “Do you really want to know the answer?”
“To ‘Who might have armed a bunch of right-wing lunatics in my star system?’ Yeah,” she replied, her eyes flashing. “If there’s anyone out there arming assholes, that should be in our general briefing.”
“It isn’t,” he said flatly. “And for good reason.”
The mess that the Royal Order of Keepers of Secrets and Oaths had made trying to keep their secrets was making him twitchy about hiding things from everyone at the moment, but there were some things that couldn’t be admitted aloud.
“That’s a major threat, my lord,” she pointed out. “One the system governments need to know about.”
“And one we can’t tell them about,” he replied. “If I fill you in, Inspector, that’s the end of the audition,” he warned. “You’re on my staff and that’s not a role that people usually leave upright.”
“I am both intrigued and irritated, my lord,” she admitted. “But I also have a job to do, and it sounds like the best way to do that job is to back you up. If you’ll have me, I’m in.”
“You may regret that,” he told her. But he understood, too. Very few people with enough skill, loyalty, and sense of duty to be offered a role on a Hand’s staff were inclined to turn it down—any more than those with enough of those things to be offered a Hand tended to turn it down.
“Inshallah,” she told him. “As Allah wills.”
“All right,” he sighed and gestured her to a chair. “Have a seat, Munira,” he told her, intentionally using her first name for the first time. “This won’t take long, but it’s not a pleasant set of revelations.”
She sat, tightening her headscarf in a nervous gesture he hadn’t seen her make before.
“Until about five years ago,” he began, “the main source of weapons for revolutions, terrorists, and assholes throughout the Protectorate was Amber.”
Amber was a recurring nightmare for the Hands, a world founded by libertarians that acknowledged the rules in the Charter…and had very little more in terms of legal structure.
“The guns and vehicles would run through various hands, but they usually came through Amber at some point. If it came from Amber, somebody paid. There were—still are, for that matter—groups on Amber that will give you discounts or arrange special shipments if they agree with your cause, but to get guns from Amber, you need money.”
A set of affairs Damien had been dragged into in a prior life. They’d at least dealt with one of the more ethical gunrunners.
“About five years ago, we started to encounter Legatan gear more and more often,” he continued. “It was never all Legatan. There were always cutouts and middlemen. But more and more, the best of the gear we encountered came from Legatus.
“Then, on Ardennes, I ran into a Legatan agent,” Damien noted. “She was an Augment, a cyborg Mage killer, infiltrated into the resistance there. Given the…unusual situation on Ardennes, I ended up working with her to overthrow the Governor.
“But that was our first real clue that more was going on,” he admitted, to Samara’s disconcerted expression. “We’ve had other hints since. The whole mess between Míngliàng and Sherwood, for example, was being aggravated by a third party who was using freighters as carriers for ex-Legatan gunships.”
He shook his head.
“We dug into those,” he said. “Hard. But the records were clean. They’d been decommissioned and sold off for scrap. The scrapyard records even showed they’d been scrapped, and they were dutifully shocked to discover the ships had ended up somewhere else.”
“You’re telling me one of our system governments is arming rebels and terrorists?” Samara demanded.
“I’m telling you that we believe a secret organization known as the Legatan Military Intelligence Directorate, with the full support of their government, is carrying out a covert war to militarily, economically, and morally weaken the Protectorate, likely as a precursor to outright rebellion,” he told her.
“We have no solid proof. A pile of circumstantial evidence to reach from Earth to the Moon, but without some sort of solid link, we cannot accuse an entire system government of treason on a grand scale.”
“But it sounds like we know what they’re up to,” she objected.
“We think we know,” he replied. “And the only way we can be sure is to basically occupy Legatus and rip their government files apart. How well do you think that will go over with the rest of the Core Worlds?”
Damien didn’t necessarily disagree with his new staff member. The Hands were pretty damned certain that Legatus was behind the Protectorate’s recent troubles, and any of them would have happily taken a fleet to Legatus to find out the truth.
The problem was that it would take a fleet, and without the rest of the system governments buying into the mission, that level of force and intrusion could easily end up causing more damage to Mars’s moral and actual authority than the continued nibbling around the edges did.
“It would go poorly,” she admitted. “And most of them have real fleets of their own, don’t they?”
“Most of those ships don’t have amplifiers, but if they stay at long-enough range, they don’t need them,” Damien agreed. “If we come down on Legatus the way we want to without some kind of evidence, we could destroy the Protectorate ourselves.”
Samara suddenly looked very tired.
“That…sucks, sir. So, you think Legatus armed the BLF?”
“It’s definitely a possibility,” he agreed. “Acquiring and arming a small fleet of sublight ships is well within the resources we’ve seen them use before. If anything, it’s on the small end—though given that they did it in Sol, right under our noses, that’s not entirely surprising.”
She shook her head.
“So, what do we do?”
“For now? Nothing,” he admitted. “The BLF is the Navy and Sol Security’s problem. We pass on everything we’ve learned here and head to Ceres to talk to the Council.
“But”—he raised a warning finger—“we keep in the loop on their investigation, and if there is even a hint of Legatan involvement, we come down like a ton of bricks. Any chance of getting that solid link is worth its weight in go
ld for us now.”
#
Chapter 16
This time, as Doctor Akintola approached Council Station, Damien studied the defenses with a critical eye. The assumption had always been that anywhere in Sol was safe, that any threat to Earth or anything else would end up facing the Martian Squadron’s battleships long before it could endanger anyone.
Now, however, he had evidence that perhaps humanity’s home system wasn’t as safe as they’d thought. The obsolete defense platforms orbiting the Council of the Protectorate’s home concerned him. They were old, the youngest well over twice his own age, with nothing except station-keeping drives and a primarily laser-based armament.
The ships he’d run off of Callisto wouldn’t be a threat to much and shouldn’t be a threat to even those obsolete platforms, but he couldn’t help but worry. There were ways, after all, that even those crude ships could knock out most of those defenses from a distance.
“I suppose trying to convince the Council to allow the Navy to position a destroyer or three at the Station is unlikely to go very far,” he said to Christoffsen as he piloted the ship in.
“Not a chance,” his advisor agreed. “Especially not right now. I’m not sure even any of the Councilors are a hundred percent sure how this whole mess is going to shake out, but having a royal warship hovering over the station threatens their independence in a way they won’t permit.”
“Wonderful.”
Damien shook his head and opened up a channel to the station.
“Council Station Control, this is Hand Montgomery aboard Doctor Akintola,” he announced. “We are inbound for docking for a requested meeting with the Council.”
“Doctor Akintola, this is Council Station Control. We had you on the list for yesterday.”
“We were delayed due to the duties of my office,” Damien explained shortly. The Council members should have seen at least a precis report of the incident by now. They knew where he’d been.
“I’m afraid docking at the station is restricted, sir, I’ll need to confirm if your authorization is still valid.”
Damien hit a mute button and looked over at Christoffsen.
“They’re playing games?” he asked.
“Yes. And it’s your move. They’ll let us aboard eventually, but…”
“But we’re still playing games as to who is in charge.”
“Exactly,” the Professor agreed.
Damien sighed. “You’re the expert, Professor,” he admitted. “Are we weaker if we play along or play hardball?”
“You’ll convince different Councilors of different things,” Christoffsen replied. “I suspect it’s a wash either way, but…I don’t think giving in to their authority is likely help our long-term case.”
“I was hoping you’d say that,” Damien said with a grim smile, then removed the mute key.
“Council Station Control, I appear to have to repeat myself,” he said slowly. “This is Damien Montgomery, Hand of the Mage-King of Mars. We will be docking with Council Station.”
“I…I can’t allow that, sir,” the controller told him. “You do not have authorization to dock!”
“I just gave myself authorization to dock. I remind you that Council Station is a Protectorate facility and you answer to me before you answer to the Council,” Damien said firmly. “Again, we will be docking, our ETA is just over two minutes. Please let me know which docking port to use.”
There was a long silence on the other end of the channel. There was no time for the controller to go to a superior. No time for him to do anything but either concede to the powerful official on the comm or, most likely, end his career.
“Docking port nine, my lord,” he finally replied.
“Thank you,” Damien said. “And Control?”
“Yes, my lord?” the man said hesitantly.
“If you get in shit for this, contact me. This isn’t your damned fight.”
#
Damien and Christoffsen waited on the bridge after docking for someone from the Council to reach out to them. Damien even resisted the urge to try and get his political aide to bet on how long it would take.
The Professor would probably have won. Damien’s guess would have been an hour, but it was barely ten minutes before the computers chimed, informing him he had an incoming high-priority communication.
“This is Hand Montgomery,” Damien greeted the image of the white-uniformed and shaven-headed woman who appeared on his screen. “To whom am I speaking?
“I am Lictor-Constable Cande Lucas,” she told him, her voice flat. “I am in charge of the Lictors of the Council of the Protectorate and of security for this station. Security that you have violated.”
“I was summoned by the Council to appear before them,” Damien told her. “I am required by the Charter to do so, though I am expected to do so as my duties allowed. I saw no reason to delay the meeting while your staff rectified an obvious error.”
“We control docking and access to Council Station very carefully,” Constable Lucas replied. “You were not authorized to dock. You will undock from the station until such time as the Council has approved your arrival here.”
“Lictor-Constable,” Damien said, letting his voice drop and chill as he met the woman’s gaze, “you have no authority over me. None. Your power is only what the Council gives you, and the Council cannot give you power they do not have.
“They have the authority to summon me before them, and I have arrived in response to such a summons. You may inform the Council that I have twenty-four hours I can spare for them, but then I must return to Mars.
“If they cannot see me in that time, I am not certain when I will next be able to make time for them,” he said harshly. “We serve the same masters in the end, Constable Lucas: the people of the Protectorate.
“Don’t make me cause more trouble than I have to.”
“This station’s security is my responsibility,” Lucas snapped.
“And I have no intention of violating it,” Damien told her. “But I am here to speak with the Council. I will not be bullied or ignored. Do I make myself clear, Constable?”
She glared at him a moment longer but then nodded.
“Very well, Lord Montgomery,” she allowed. “I presume the Council Secretariat will be in touch with you shortly to arrange your meeting.”
The channel cut.
“I’m almost starting to feel bad for the flunkies they’re throwing at us,” Damien said.
“Lucas is no flunky and she should know better,” Christoffsen replied. “We’re better off if the Secretariat deals with me.”
“Let me know what you arrange,” the Hand replied. “I wasn’t joking about twenty-four hours either, Professor. Everything going on right now is making my shoulders itch.”
#
“Well?” Damien asked when Christoffsen reentered the bridge an hour or so later.
“Bureaucrats,” the ex-Governor said dryly. “Even with a deadline, a crisis, and a Hand to hammer them with, getting anyone from the Secretariat to consider, gods forbid, rearranging the Council’s schedule is a nightmare.”
“And?”
“We’re up for tomorrow morning at ten AM Olympus Mons Time,” Damien’s aide replied. “About two hours inside your deadline. I’m not necessarily sure Secretary Bernstein believed me that you would actually leave if they didn’t meet with you inside it.”
“Wouldn’t that have been a shock,” the Hand said. “But we’re scheduled in?”
“You’re scheduled in,” Christoffsen noted. “Again, no companions, no representation. This isn’t a trial, though I know it feels like one.”
“This one should be friendlier, I’m hoping?” Damien asked.
“Might have been, before we showed up a day late and somebody clearly decided to set up a pissing match.” The older man shrugged. “The reasons look good for you, but I guarantee someone’s going to spin it against you.”
“And I’ll deal with it. Until someone t
akes it away from me, I have a job to do.”
Damien shook his head.
“If I’ve got time, I’m going to see if Inspector Samara’s team back on Mars has any updates. This whole mess with whoever is killing the Keepers isn’t going away because the Council wants to, as you put it, arrange pissing matches.”
#
The updates weren’t pretty.
Analyst Daniels had managed to identify over forty more people she believed to be potential Keepers…and every one of them was dead.
It was entirely possible that Damien was going to run out of Keepers to find, if he hadn’t already—and sitting half a star system away as he was, there wasn’t anything he could do about it.
Thankfully, however, this was Sol and he wasn’t alone.
“Your Majesty,” he said into the camera as he began recording. “I’ll be attaching the analysis the MIS has carried out at my request to this message, but the key takeaway is this: we have now identified over two hundred individuals that we believe were highly likely to have been members of the Keepers.
“They are all dead. Most murdered. The remainder died in accidents, some more suspicious than others, but all of which I must now question.
“The conclusion was obvious before, but it is inescapable now: someone is hunting down and wiping out the remnants of the Keepers.”
Damien shook his head.
“Charlotte turned on us,” he admitted, “but she was a loyal and competent servant to the Mountain for years before that. The same with Octavian. Your Hands are not men and women to be easily turned, my liege, and I must wonder what secret the Keepers held that led my fellow Hands to believe they had no choice but to betray their oaths so dramatically.”
He sighed.
“And I now fear that someone is attempting to make certain that secret is never exposed. We haven’t run out of clues and links to follow yet, but we’re finding them too late now. Whoever is hunting the Keepers knows who they all are.
Judgment of Mars (Starship's Mage Book 5) Page 12