One Jump Ahead-ARC

by Mark L. Van Name

  A pale green line the color of Macken's gate appeared on the display. It arced between us and the fighter.

  "How long until the fighter crosses that line?" I said.

  "Two minutes," Lobo said.

  "How long until the fighter is close enough that you can't stop its missiles?"

  "Two minutes thirty seconds."

  "Slow gradually to quarter speed," I said. "Don't rush it. Hail the fighter. Tell me privately on machine frequency when it crosses that line."

  "Executing," Lobo said.

  Amendos answered more quickly this time, and he made no attempt to hide his annoyance or confusion.

  I didn't wait for him to speak. "I don't want any more people to die," I said.

  "Give me Jasmine Chung," he said, "and no one has to."

  "You're not listening," I said. "I'm giving you a chance to save your life and the lives of any crew on your ship. Turn around, go back to Macken, and you'll walk away."

  "Even if there is a base on Trethen," he said, "and I don't believe there is, it can't stop me. I can destroy you and get away well before we're close enough that anything it could shoot at us could hurt us."

  On the display beside his head, the black dot was still on the other side of the line. I had to buy more time. "Amendos, you kidnapped and held captive a girl whose only sin was to have the wrong father. You tried to bribe me. You tortured me. You shot my friends. Despite all that, I'm sick enough of killing that I'm trying to save your life. Take this offer seriously. It's your last chance."

  "You're the one who's dooming that girl," he said.

  I didn't respond.

  "The fighter is over the line," Lobo said to me, the machine-frequency interruption a jarring noise in my head in the midst of human conversation.

  "Goodbye, Moore," Amendos said at almost the same time. The display vanished as he cut the communication.

  "Can your visual sensors pick up the fighter yet?" I said.

  "Yes, on extreme magnification," Lobo said. A second display opened next to the first. In the center sat a tiny image of the fighter.

  "Time to pray," I said.

  "To what?" Lobo said.

  "Not to anything. Pray simply that things work as they should."

  I climbed out of the couch and stood closer to the new display. "No matter what happens, do not defend us."

  For the second time in a matter of hours I was helpless, bait for an opponent. I didn't like it any better this time than the first.

  "Missiles are away from the fighter," Lobo said. "They'll reach us in less than one minute. I might be able to destroy some—"

  "No!" I said. "Wait."

  The fighter grew bigger in the display as it hurtled toward us. Streaks of exhaust discoloration marked the passage of the missiles as they accelerated at us.

  Almost exactly two seconds after the fighter launched the missiles, the heavens glowed a light greenish white and sheets of light arced across the display. The light sliced through the positions of the missiles and the fighters, and then they were gone, disappeared from the display with no wreckage or other trace that they'd ever existed. The fighters and the missiles simply vanished, the space where they'd been now empty.

  Macken's jump gate had worked as it should, refusing to tolerate any weapons fire within its neutral area by destroying both the missiles and the ship that had launched them. How the gate had destroyed them without leaving any traces remained the mystery it had always been, but that didn't bother me. I don't need to understand something to have faith that it works.

  I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding.

  "The gate," Lobo said.

  "Yes," I said. I laughed, the tension leaving me as my body figured out what my head was still accepting: I had survived. I was alive, and my enemy was not. I knew I should feel bad about Amendos, about having added more deaths to the list of the lives lost since this all started, but I didn't. He was a jerk who'd tortured me, and I'd given him a choice, which was more than he would have given me.

  We'd fought, he'd lost, and I was still standing.

  Nothing could have been sweeter.

  Chapter 31

  The first time I walked by the main Frontier Coalition building on the edge of Bekin's Deal, I might not have noticed it had Barnes not stopped me and taken me inside. This time, though, the squad of Saw soldiers guarding the entrances and patrolling the perimeter clearly stated that this was a very important place. Jasmine seemed unimpressed despite the troops. Since Lobo had released her from the couch, she'd barely spoken, her attitude wavering between scared and petulant. For a while, I found it annoying; then I reminded myself that she was almost certainly new to kidnapping and battle and entitled to cope as best she could. More important, my feelings about her didn't matter. What mattered was finishing the job and making right what I'd messed up earlier.

  A Sergeant Schmidt, who was standing at parade rest at the entrance and scanning the people passing by the building, spotted us before we reached the front door and hustled us inside. Fresh scrapes on her face and a tendency to favor her left arm marked her as someone who'd participated in the earlier action. As we walked into the building's foyer, I remembered where I'd seen her.

  "Sarge," I said, "why'd they let you out from behind the recruiting desk for this one?"

  She smiled. "Top told me what was up, and I could hardly let him go it alone." Her tone changed as she dropped her voice and shook her head. "Not that I ended up doing him much good." She obviously shared at least the same affection for Gustafson that all the troops I'd seen had shown, though I thought I detected more than collegial concern and respect in her voice.

  "If anyone's to blame," I said, "I am. He was saving me when he was shot. How's he doing?"

  Schmidt rode with us in an elevator to the top floor of the building. "He'll recover fully," she said, "though he's in hospital right now and will spend some time in rehab."

  "Other people were hurt rescuing me?" Jasmine said.

  Anger welled in me, and I wanted to scream at her that of course people were hurt, men and women always paid a price to save the innocents, but I stayed under control. I could try to make her understand, but to what end? I let it go.

  Schmidt stopped, stared hard at Jasmine, shook her head, and turned to face me. "As for fault, Gunny, from what he told me, if anyone's to blame, he is. He didn't watch the entrance points, and he knows better. Besides, we both know that if you want to play, you always pay, one way or another."

  "Yeah," I said. "Thanks for helping."

  She smiled as she motioned us forward again and down a hallway to the right. "It's my job."

  We came to a pair of old-fashioned wooden doors built expressly to impress, each composed of large, weighty panels with small carved trees running around their perimeters.

  "This is as far as I go," she said. As she knocked, she leaned closer to me and whispered, "Stick it to that Kelco jerk." She snapped a quick salute and headed down the hall before I could return it.

  A Saw corporal I didn't recognize opened the door and stood aside to let us in. The room offered the best the Frontier Coalition could manage on Macken: rich wooden walls decorated here and there with active-display panels showing scenes of sections of the planet from various altitudes, a large wooden conference table, and various supporting pieces of furniture I didn't take the time to identify.

  Instead, I focused my full attention on Slake, who was leaning back in a chair on the opposite side of the table and giving the room his best bored look. His expression didn't change when he saw me, but when Jasmine entered Slake sat up and transformed from bored to business in the space of a heartbeat. Earl, who sat next to Slake, smiled and pushed a little back from the table when he noticed me. Jasmine hid behind me when she spotted Slake.

  Vaccaro, who naturally occupied the head chair in an FC conference room, turned to me and said, "Thank you for joining us, Mr. Moore."

  Chung had his back to me but turned quickly when he h
eard my name. His face fought a losing battle with anger and frustration until Jasmine stepped out from behind me, and then he scrambled out of his chair and ran to her. She met him halfway. As they hugged, they murmured to one another. I couldn't understand what they said, nor did I want to.

  After almost a minute, he leaned back from his daughter, still holding her, and looked at me with wet eyes. "Thank you," he said.

  I nodded at the Saw soldier and Earl. "They did most of the work," I said, "they and Alissa Lim's team. I just drew the visible assignment."

  He nodded and said, "Thank you all. I cannot tell you—"

  Vaccaro interrupted him. "Mr. Moore, where did you find Jasmine Chung?"

  "In Kelco's local headquarters," I said, "which is also Mr. Slake's residence."

  "And you have witnesses?"

  "Multiple," I said, "and I'm sure some Kelco employees could be persuaded to testify about her kidnapping. Not all the Kelco employees involved, however, are available." I turned to face Slake. "Ryan Amendos, the Kelco security chief who last spoke to me about Jasmine and who tried to negotiate her return to Kelco's custody, is dead. So are all the members of his crew on the fighter that was docked next to Slake's house." I realized I was enjoying this and felt guilty for a moment—but I didn't stop. "Oh, and that ship is also gone."

  Fury tightened Slake's face and widened his eyes. He stayed totally focused on me and didn't notice Chung circling the table toward him.

  "You killed these people?" Vaccaro said.

  "No," I said. "The jump gate everyone is so excited about destroyed the ship and everyone aboard it. Amendos showed the poor judgment to ignore my warning and fire missiles too close to the gate."

  Chung, who was now on the other side of the table, ran screaming at Slake. "You kidnapped my daughter! I'll—"

  Moving with the same quiet speed I remembered, Earl appeared between Chung and Slake, grabbed Chung, spun him, and clamped an arm around his head and over his mouth, muffling his screams.

  "What I'm sure Mr. Chung was about to explain," Earl said, "is that this unassailable evidence of criminal activity on the part of Kelco has the potential to lead to enormously expensive and time-consuming legal actions, during which all corporate activity on Macken would necessarily have to cease." Earl sat Chung back in his chair and stood beside the still-livid father, his hand on the man's shoulder. "I believe Mr. Chung was also going to suggest that instead of all of us wasting resources on such actions, we instead agree that Xychek and Kelco will evenly split the commercial rights to Macken and its new aperture, with the Frontier Coalition also owning a small piece and acting as a mutually agreed-upon dissent arbiter ad infinitum." Earl looked at Chung. "Did I get that right, Mr. Chung?"

  "Daddy," Jasmine Chung said, "you're not going to let this man—"

  "Jasmine," her father said, his voice cracking with the effort of resuming his corporate persona, a persona I was now sure his daughter had never understood existed, "Colonel Earl's men will help you to a room where a doctor will examine you and help you rest."

  "Daddy!" she yelled.

  "Jasmine," he said, "I'll see you shortly."

  The corporal led her out of the room.

  "We already have a contract," Slake said, "and I see no reason to renegotiate it."

  "Sure you do," Vaccaro said. She looked at Earl. "Turn off all recordings." When Earl nodded, she turned back to Slake and said, "We settle this right now, and you deal with your bosses however you want, or I will make it my personal mission to tie up Macken for the next fifty years and ruin your career. You know I'll do it, and you know I'll win in the end."

  Slake sat completely still for several seconds, glaring at me.

  I smiled in return. None of this seemed like enough of a punishment for what he'd done, but I knew that the ramifications of this loss for his company would hit him over and over for weeks, maybe years, to come. His corporate life would never be the same. If I wasn't willing to kill, I had to learn to accept these alternative punishments.

  Slake faced Vaccaro and smiled slightly. "I believe I'm the only one here," he said, sounding as if he were choking on each word, "who doesn't already possess the details of the new arrangement. Please outline them for me."

  As Vaccaro explained, Chung came over to me and stuck out his hand. We shook. "Thank you again," he said. "I don't meet a lot of men who keep their word. I'll keep mine: You'll get paid."

  "You're welcome," I said, though his last words stung. They were reasonable, and they told part of the truth, but they weren't enough of the truth. They didn't speak at all to the heart of why I'd done this, and the difference mattered incredibly, at least to me.

  I left before I wasted my breath by explaining or wasted my opportunity by hitting him.

  Chapter 32

  I spent the rest of that day and all night sleeping in my rental beach house. I hadn't expected to ever see the place again, so staying there a final night brought me a soothing sense of closure. With all of this over, I was finally able to relax—though I kept Lobo in low orbit monitoring the house and ready to alert me at the first sign of trouble. I had no way to be a hundred percent sure I was safe as long as I remained on Macken and Slake was here, too.

  The next morning, I walked on the beach, admired the ocean a last time, packed a small carry bag, and took the house's shuttle to the government center. The Saw guard on duty directed me to Earl, who in keeping with his nature occupied a small office as far away from the bureaucrats as he could manage. To my surprise, Lim was there with him, the two of them talking congenially over a desktop display. Earl wore his usual working blues. Lim generally appeared back on duty, her Law uniform crisp and her boots polished, but her hair was down. The only sign of her injury was a slight hitch in her movement as she turned when I knocked.

  "I'm heading out," I said, "but I wanted to thank you both before I left."

  "Don't thank me," Lim said. "I got paid more than we'd ever planned, we saw some real action, we did a little good, and I gained a contract in the bargain."

  I raised an eyebrow in question. Lim looked at Earl.

  "As part of the three-way agreement for commercial and aperture development rights on Macken," he said, "the FC will maintain a small monitoring force here. Putting a team of that size in a remote location doesn't fit Command's business model, so the Saw is subcontracting the assignment to Alissa's team."

  "Yeah," Lim said, "Tristan and I are working together again. Not what I expected, but I think it'll be fine. I'll stay on-site for a while to make sure everything is shipshape." She laughed lightly, her voice as charming as her looks when she wasn't in battle or under stress. "Living one jump apart should be just about right for the two of us."

  Earl smiled but wisely said nothing in response.

  "How's your shoulder?" I said.

  "No serious damage," she said. "A small price to pay."

  I shook hands with Lim, then put out my hand to Earl. "Thank you, Colonel."

  We shook. He held on an extra few seconds as he said, "Of course. As Alissa said, we did something worth doing, and we'll all profit. And, as you said you would, you saved the girl. Well done."

  From anyone else I would have found the comment patronizing, but not from Earl. He said it sincerely and, I suspected, with a real understanding of what it meant to me. I felt good to hear him say it.

  He paused as he stared intently at me. "I'm pretty sure I'm wasting time by asking this, but it won't take much time: Any chance you'd be interested in joining us again?"