“Thanks,” I said. “I’ve taken up enough of your time. I appreciate it. I know you’re busy.”
“No problem at all, sir. I’ll escort you out.”
My mind churned with ideas, but none of them resonated. Yolin’s information on the cameras was nothing more than what I already had Fader looking into at the governor’s. At least they had a lead on the bomber. Once we could question him, we could extrapolate his network, which would give me more leads. Everyone was there. Everyone had at least a small motive. Everyone but the governor and General Oxendine. The attack would look bad for them; the governor because it happened at his residence and Oxendine because she was responsible for overall security. The governor didn’t seem like a useful ally, since he seemed to want to please everybody, and I wasn’t up for pleasing people who wanted me dead. Oxendine . . . she’d probably tell me to butt out and focus on my own mission. Easier said than done when someone tries to kill you. It’s hard not to take that personally.
After Yolin left me, I headed for Ops to find Mac so we could leave. I needed to clear my head and wait for whatever Ganos could find.
“Colonel Butler?” a tall, dark-skinned lieutenant stood at a respectful distance, her uniform pressed to knife-edge creases. I marked her as Oxendine’s aide.
“Brigadier General Oxendine would like to speak with you.”
Shit. The fact that Oxendine was personally aware that I was in her headquarters wasn’t surprising, and it raised my opinion of her unit’s competence. It also meant that I couldn’t avoid her. “I’ll head there now. If you could, Lieutenant, have someone track down Sergeant McCann and have him meet me at her office.”
Oxendine didn’t stand when her administrative assistant showed me into her office. She barely looked up from her monitor. “Have a seat.”
I took one of the two hard-backed chairs in front of her desk. “Your aide said you wanted to see me.”
She looked up and held my gaze for a few seconds. “I did. I told you to run your requests through Ops or to come to me. I’d prefer that you not go directly to the captains in my headquarters.” Her voice was level—not angry, but firm. The woman wanted no bullshit.
“I was—”
“I know what you were doing.” She paused and picked up an unlit cigar off her desk, rolling it in her fingers for a moment. “And it’s totally understandable. Someone tried to blow you up. I’d probably have done the same thing you did.”
“But,” I prompted.
“But that’s not how we’re going to do business. My people have their assignments, and we both know that you roaming around doing your own thing in my headquarters will disrupt that.”
I considered bringing up my mission and how I should be able to expect her support, but she was being cordial, and I didn’t want to change that. Perhaps I was getting wiser in my old age. In theory we’d agreed that I wouldn’t bother her with little stuff, but she and I both knew that didn’t include the type of thing I’d just done, where I’d purposely avoided the correct channels. “Understood.”
“If you don’t want to talk to Ops, talk to my XO. If you can’t get her, come to me.”
Both Ops and her XO would inform Oxendine almost immediately. I liked to play things tight, and I didn’t love the prospect of a general looking over my shoulder all the time. Old habits die hard. But Oxendine didn’t intend this to be a debate, so I gave in without a fight. What I wanted to do was to question her on why they hadn’t traced the camera hack yet, but I discarded the idea. Better to maintain as much of the relationship as I could. “Roger that.”
I was dismissed and left unsure of what to think. It could have gone worse with Oxendine. I was out of line, and she could have made things a lot harder than she did. Maybe it was a warning, or maybe she wanted to make sure I knew that she knew. She didn’t seem like the type who had to show you that she was smarter than you, but I didn’t know her that well yet, so I couldn’t be sure. Either way, I’d need to play it straight with her command, which meant I had to be careful about what I shared with them. At least for a while.
Back at my rooms Mac had his own observations. “Did you notice the people looking at us during the walk back?”
I hadn’t. I’d been preoccupied, trying to figure out if I could have handled it better with Oxendine. “It didn’t occur to me to check. We had a small army with us.”
“It might have been nothing,” he said.
“How many?”
“I noticed three different watchers. Like I said, it really might be nothing. You’re a big deal here, so it could be simple curiosity.”
“It could be.” It probably was, too, but the paranoia bug had bitten me. “Did you see any cameras?”
“I didn’t, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t have them. We can watch the net feeds to see if you show up.”
“I’m sure I will,” I said. “The problem is, the innocent paparazzi provide perfect cover for anyone who has other motives.”
Mac thought about it, as if there might be a solution. “We have to assume that our movements are known.”
“We can use that,” I said.
“How so, sir?” Mac had gotten comfortable enough with me in my new civilian role that he had backed off on the honorific, but he still stuck it in occasionally.
“I don’t know yet. But if people are tracking us, that means they’re reacting to what we’re doing. That’s always better than the other way around. We just have to figure out what we want to show them to get them to react the way we want.”
“So . . . we use ourselves as bait.”
I thought about it. “When you put it that way, it doesn’t sound nearly as good. But yeah. Better to draw them to us when we’re ready than when we’re not.”
The door buzzed, forestalling further conversation. Mac waved me back out of the potential line of fire, drew his pistol, and got up to check on it.
“There are still guards out front, right?” I asked.
“Supposed to be. I’m not taking it for granted.” I wasn’t going to, either. He went to the door and hit a button to activate the video.
A young soldier stared back at him. “Sergeant, there’s a delivery here. He says the colonel is expecting him.”
“We’re not expecting anything,” said Mac.
“Hold on,” I said. I didn’t specifically expect a package, but I’d reached out before I left home and asked her for help. I didn’t know how it would come, and I didn’t want to accidentally turn it away. We had a code. “Let me talk to the delivery person.”
The soldier scrunched his face up in confusion, but he let the man up to the camera. He had brown hair and a full beard. “Delivery for Butler. Package number 55X784CT7.” He had a metal case big enough to fit a human body strapped to a self-powered four-wheel cart.
“Let him in,” I said. The package number matched the preset code.
Mac looked at me as if to ask, Are you sure? and I nodded. Still, he kept his pistol ready and buzzed the door open. The bearded man came in, handed me a tablet to sign, helped Mac wrestle the case off the cart, and left in under a minute.
“What is it?” Mac asked.
“Just a little help from some friends.” I’d made Serata wait four days, back before I left, so that I could ask for this. Hopefully, it would be worth it. I keyed a second code into the first lock, hoping I had it right. It beeped and opened, so I followed with the other two locks. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”
The gear inside was something straight out of a radical survivalist’s wet dream. Three Bikoski rifles—affectionately known as Bitches—with dozens of magazines, explosives, timers, miniature cameras and microphones, med kits—and that was just what I picked out on the first pass.
“Holy shit,” said Mac. “Those are some friends. How did they get this stuff in here?”
It was all I could do to keep from laughing. I’d told them I’d needed some help, but I didn’t expect this much. “I don’t know. Let’s just say that my f
riends are very resourceful.” It seemed like a stretch that someone could smuggle an unopened container into a colony, but I knew better than to question my contacts and their skills. The soldiers outside would have reported the package already, but if anyone wanted to see what was inside, they’d have to ask me.
The case had a programmable biometric lock.
Mac looked at me, questioning.
“What?”
“Who sent this stuff?”
“What do you mean?”
He smirked. “It was the Cappans, wasn’t it?” He waited, apparently read something in my face. “It was! You got a goody box of high-tech death from the fucking Cappans!”
“Keep your voice down,” I said.
“How, sir?”
“Well, you just don’t speak as loud . . .”
Mac gave me a withering look. “Come on, sir. Spill it.”
“We’ve kept in touch. You know, in case we can help each other out.” In truth, it wasn’t precisely the Cappans. It was Sasha and Riku, my Cappan hybrid friends. I held that back from Mac, though. Some things I couldn’t share with even him.
Mac picked up one of the Bitches and started fiddling with the sight, probably adjusting it to his specs. “This is incredible . . . better than the military stuff. Look at the interface on the scope. You can’t buy this kind of thing.”
“Yeah?” It didn’t surprise me, given my experience with my allies.
He set the weapon down and took out a box that held four tiny drones. “You know, we probably could have drawn weapons from the army if we need them.”
“Probably, but then we’d have had to ask. I don’t plan on humping a rifle around on a day-to-day basis, but if we need them, now we have them.”
“I pity anyone who tries to break in here now,” said Mac. “The only thing we’re missing is grenades.”
I pointed. “There are explosive charges with timed and remote fuses. You could use that as a grenade in a pinch.”
I wasn’t quite sure, but I thought I heard a sigh of longing. “What are we going to do with all of this?” Mac asked.
“Well, first things first, see if there are trackers. I’m going to wear one so you can track me wherever I go.” I’d passed the days where I didn’t think I needed security.
“Good call. I don’t plan on letting you out of my sight, but accidents happen. Put it somewhere unobtrusive, in case you get abducted. Maybe a captor won’t find it right away.”
“I could swallow it,” I joked.
Mac considered it. “I’m not sure it would survive your stomach acid. Maybe go in the other end.” He had a great poker face, and I couldn’t tell if he was messing with me or not.
“Pass, thanks.”
Mac laughed. “Look at these drones.”
“Not sure we could get away with flying them inside the dome. I have to believe they’d pick it up,” I said.
“Maybe. But this is state of the art. Damned near invisible. Only one way to find out.”
“We’ll save it for emergencies.”
“Yes, sir.”
I didn’t believe him for a second—he was going to try it the first time I wasn’t looking.
Captain Fader entered and we both turned to look at her.
“Okay . . . you two look guilty. What did you do?”
Mac played it for effect and looked away, refusing to meet her eyes. “Nothing, ma’am.”
I laughed. “We got some equipment.”
Fader walked over and looked in the case. “Holy shit.”
“That seems to be the going sentiment,” I said.
“The army approved this?”
“The army doesn’t know about it. At least they don’t know everything about it.”
She paused, and I imagined her debating her next words carefully. I could almost see the conflict on her face. She was a rule follower, and I was breaking them. “Are we going to tell them?”
“I wasn’t going to make it a priority,” I said.
“Roger, sir.” Her reaction bothered me, mostly because I couldn’t read it. I didn’t know if she’d accepted my decision or simply concluded that I wouldn’t change my mind. I had a feeling it would be in her next report either way. I could live with that. What would her boss, halfway across the galaxy, do about it anyway?
“What did you learn at the governor’s?” I asked.
“Not much,” she said. “I made some contacts. Everybody there seems eager to grab on to whatever they can that might give them an edge. It’s an odd environment. Very . . . political, I guess. They don’t much like the military, so I played the outsider, a little at odds with the unit here. That worked for a time, but Cora Davidson is a problem. I can’t prove it, but I think she got to some people and told them not to talk to me. Luckily, she’s not well loved, so her order had the opposite effect in some cases.”
“That’s good. Keep developing the relationships. See what comes out of them. Anything on the security?”
“It’s a dead end, sir. They don’t monitor it twenty-four seven. My guess is that the guy was enjoying the party.” That echoed what Yolin told me, but I appreciated the corroboration. I trusted Fader, and because of that, now I could trust Yolin more.
“I didn’t get much from the military, either,” I said. “They think it was a remote job, but I got the feeling they were hiding something—or at the least, not sharing everything. We’ll see what Ganos finds.”
“Why would they hold back, sir?”
“I don’t know. I do know this: Whatever the motive of the person who attacked us, they sure did divert our attention. We’ve been totally focused on the bombing and not at all focused on our mission—finding out what happened to Xyla.”
“You don’t think they’re related?” asked Fader.
“I did at first. And I’m still leaning that way, but I think it’s dangerous to let that blind us to other possibilities. A lot of people who don’t even know why I’m here wouldn’t mind seeing me dead—you saw the protest. But even when we get the bomber, we’ll have a tough time tying the two things together unless they confess. Even a confession might not be enough. The bomber could have been hired independent of anything else. They might not know anything. How do you see it?”
Fader thought about it. “My thought up until now was that someone tried to kill you to stop you from investigating the disappearance. But now that you put it that way, I’ve got no reason to think that. I’ll have to watch my biases.”
Good. She got it. The ability to reassess based on someone else’s opinion or information wasn’t as common a skill as one would hope, and Fader seemed to have it. “While we wait for Ganos, it’s time to get back to Xyla.”
“Where do we start?” she asked.
“I think I need to pay a visit to Caliber. It was their mission, and the missing people worked for them. Stroud played the disappearance off as the cost of doing business, but I think maybe that was an act. Even if she truly feels that way, I’m sure someone in her organization doesn’t. You don’t just lose six people without it having an impact. Those people had friends. I want to talk to Mae Eddleston, the woman you found in Xyla’s texts.”
Fader tapped her chin. “Caliber seems unlikely to be behind the bombing, so if nothing else, maybe they’re the enemy of our enemy.”
That made sense, though I knew better than to believe my enemy’s enemy was my friend. More like we were rivals who hadn’t turned to open hostility yet. But if it gave me a chance to move forward, I’d take it.
Chapter Seven
The next morning Mac and my convoy of protectors escorted me to the Eccasis-colony headquarters of Caliber. The building didn’t impress by normal corporate standards, but it stood out in the colony, dwarfing the other businesses around it and looking more expensive to boot. It was a two-story rectangle with a third story in the center of the long side surrounding the main entrance. The faux granite walls were of high-enough quality to seem real. Perhaps they were real—I didn’t know if
Eccasis produced granite or not. Probably not nearby, given the local terrain.
The lobby was smaller than expected—more suited to a medium-priced hotel than a corporation—but the dome had limited space, so even rich corporations avoided waste. I’d had Fader call ahead, so a delegation of three corporate stooges met me before I even made it to the receptionist. I’d have bet a lot of money that at least two of them were lawyers. Instead of suits, they wore what passed for business wear on Eccasis—khaki cargo pants and solid-color long-sleeve shirts rolled up at the cuffs. The woman in the group spruced her combo up with a pair of low heels and a white necklace, but other than that wore the same getup. I resisted the urge to make a joke about them all using the same tailor. Sometimes I don’t get enough credit for my restraint.
“Mr. Butler, it’s good of you to come visit us this morning.” The taller of the two men greeted me. I dubbed him Lawyer One.
“Glad to be here.” I gestured to his two companions. “You really didn’t need to bring the entire boarding party.”
He gave me a fake lawyer smile. “When the man investigating the presumed deaths of six of our employees makes an official visit, it’s a significant event.”
“Presumed?” I asked. If that was their attitude, this was going to go sideways quickly.
“A technicality. They found no bodies, so legally we don’t have verifiable deaths.”
“How does that work with potential payments to the families of the . . . presumed dead?”
“Perhaps we should move to a conference room for this type of discussion?” Lawyer One’s inflection rose as if it were a question. But it was a clear answer to my rather innocuous question: there was no payout yet. As a motive, it was slim, but it did show how Caliber thought about their people.
“Lead the way,” I said.
I left Mac outside the generic conference room, which barely contained the long, medium-cheap table and twelve chairs within. It had glass walls, so he could still see us, and that seemed to satisfy him. For their sakes, I hoped none of the lawyers made a quick move toward me.
Colonyside Page 7