by Jay Allan
“This meeting was expensive.” Cain’s voice was sharp, clipped. He was frustrated with inaction and anxious about the mission…and he was most definitely not in the mood to waste time with nonsense. “I would like what I requested, and I would like it tomorrow. Just tell me what it will cost.”
“It is not as simple as that, Mr. Daniels.” Charles was a hard book to read, at least from his voice alone. “We must be confident that there will be no ramifications for us.”
Charles knew better than to ask directly why Cain had requested assistance in sneaking 11 people out of the Washbalt Core undetected, but that is essentially what he wanted to know. He assumed it was some type of drug deal, and if so he had no problem. But if Cain was here to assassinate someone or to spy on Alliance Gov, that was another matter. His trepidation had nothing to do with discomfort about murder or loyalty to the Alliance; it was a matter of the investigation that would follow. A routine drug transaction, even one as big as this appeared to be, would draw little attention. But if a well-placed politician was assassinated, the authorities would ransack Washbalt looking for the accomplices.
“My associates and I are only interested in conducting some business and going on our way.” Cain paused, and then he reached back into the buried recesses of his mind. Erik Cain, teenaged gang member, emerged. He knew what to say, how to sound like he was working a drug deal. He knew because he’d done it before.
Charles listened to Cain describe his proposed – and, of course, fictitious – drug transaction in great detail. It took two minutes, maybe three before he was convinced. He decided the mysterious Mr. Daniels’ business was acceptable. “Pardon me, Mr. Daniels,” he said softly, interrupting Cain’s ongoing description. “I believe we will be able to help you. However, tomorrow is out of the question. There is too much preparation required. Several days at least. You will have to be prepared to go on a 1-2 hours’ notice any time within the next week.” He paused, allowing Erik to consider what he had said. “Is this acceptable?”
It was a bit less definite than Cain had been hoping for, but he nodded and then, realizing Charles wasn’t looking at him and couldn’t see his gesture, said, “It is acceptable.”
“The cost will be an additional six platinum bars.” Charles’ voice was unemotional, though he was discussing a small fortune. “Payable in advance.”
Cain was stunned at the cost, but he really didn’t care how much of Vance’s money he spent anyway. “Six bars is acceptable.” His voice became firmer, more serious. “Payable when your people get us out of the city.”
Charles sat quietly for a minute, considering what Cain had said. “You will give our operative three bars immediately and the remaining three when you are outside of the city.” His voice, which had been pleasant and friendly, was darker, more forceful. “That is our final offer.”
Cain was going to argue, but he didn’t have much choice. It could be weeks, even months before Vance’s people could get them weapons through another channel, and even then, Cain wasn’t sure how they would get access to Alliance HQ. If he could get outside and bribe a gang to help him get into the undercity, he had a good chance. Or at least some chance. “Agreed. How will we know when you are ready.”
“A courier will deliver eleven tickets to the American West exhibit at the museum. That will be your signal. Two hours later, you and your associates will be right here. If you are not in this location within two hours and fifteen minutes of receiving the signal, the transaction is cancelled. Understood?”
“Yes.” It was really pissing Cain off dealing with this two-bit huckster, probably just the representative of some corrupt low-level politician. Temper control was never easy for Erik, and he detested politicians with a burning intensity. But he was determined to get Garret out no matter what he had to do. It was unthinkable to allow Alliance Intelligence to gain total control over the navy. He didn’t know the admiral well, but Holm did. And Erik would have marched into hell for Elias Holm. “I understand.”
Chapter 20
Holm’s Ridge
7 kilometers south of Weston City
Columbia - Eta Cassiopeiae II
Jax looked down from the rocky crest of the ridgeline, but he wasn’t seeing the valley in front of him...not really. His mind was far away, not in space but in time, fifteen years earlier when he and Erik Cain were two sergeants desperately defending this very position. He wondered at the odd way things sometimes worked, at the strange sequence of events that brought him back here to this very spot in circumstances even more desperate.
They had saved Columbia back then, beating off a massively superior CAC invasion force in a desperate battle. The casualty list had been enormous that day, and it included the future General Cain, somehow miraculously alive – barely - after finding himself unsheltered too close to a nuclear explosion. Things did indeed work in strange ways. Jax thought he’d lost his friend and comrade that day, but Cain recovered and returned to win glory all across occupied space. And his stay in the hospital gave him more than his health back. In a turn of events so clichéd Jax still teased him about it, Erik had fallen in love with his doctor – feelings she fortunately reciprocated.
They had all come a long way since then, and yet here he was, back in the same place…though its name had changed. Jax couldn’t remember what the Columbians called the ridge then, but after the battle they gratefully renamed it after General – then Colonel – Holm, a tribute that both honored and embarrassed the publicity-shy officer.
They had come a long way from their landing zone too, traveling halfway across Columbia and launching dozens of hit and run attacks against isolated federal positions. The politics of the whole situation were complex and confusing. Was Jax fighting for the same side he did fifteen years before? Surely back then he was battling to protect the people of Columbia…which was what he saw himself doing this time too. But the soldiers he was fighting now carried the very flag he had served under the first time he came here. Jax craved a warrior’s simplicity, with good guys, bad guys, and no headsplitting conflicts about loyalty. But he knew it was not to be.
His forces had done well, tearing up all of the peripheral federal units they could find. They had rallied the populations in the remote areas, adding a small legion of volunteers to their ranks. Hundreds had come forward, but Jax would only take Marine veterans. He didn’t doubt the ability or courage of the others, but his small force depended on speed and discipline; he simply didn’t have the time or resources to integrate amateurs into his ranks.
Now, however, he was sticking his neck out. Getting this close to Weston was dangerous. The federals had been massively reinforced, and the rebellion was in grave danger. In the plain south of Weston was an encampment, larger even than the one that stood there when Columbia was the staging area for General Holm’s 1st Corps. There were three Alliance army divisions on the planet now, outnumbering the rebels at least five to one.
The rebels had fortified Carlisle Island, just 20 kilometers northeast of Weston, and now they had retreated there, too weak to operate on the mainland exposed to the massive federal army. The rebel stronghold was heavily defended, ringed with rocket launchers and other heavy weapons, most of them seized from the militia armory or stolen from the Feds in the early months of the rebellion. The sea surrounding the island was patrolled by a fleet of submersibles, vessels that were normally employed to harvest valuable resources from the ocean but which had now been equipped for war.
But even with their fortifications, he doubted the rebels could hold Carlisle once the federals got organized enough to launch a coordinated attack. Even worse, if Admiral Compton was replaced with an officer willing to follow Cooper’s orders, the rebel stronghold would be nuked into oblivion. There was nothing Jax and his people could do about that; they would have to depend on Compton to hang on. But preventing the Feds from launching the final ground assault was their problem, and it was a tough one.
“Sergeant Sawyer, put together a sc
outing party.” Jax had come to rely on Sawyer over the last couple months. Sawyer had been with the special action teams on Carson’s World, with the group that discovered the alien artifact. He was a veteran sergeant who had more than once turned down the chance to go to the Academy. He liked being closer to the troops, and Jax thought he was the best small unit leader he’d ever seen. “I need to know their weaknesses. We’re going to have to hit them soon and disrupt things before they can launch an attack on Carlisle Island.” He put his hand on Sawyer’s shoulder. “I’m counting on you, Ed.”
“We’ll find something, sir.” Sawyer was a big man, though not as big as Jax…few people were. His light brown hair was closely cropped, and his face was marred by a long, jagged scar. A series of skin regens could have eliminated that, or at least dramatically shrunk it, but Sawyer was never willing to take that much time off duty for what he considered non-essential. “With your permission, I’ll pick a team of three. Any more than that and it’ll just be harder to stay undetected.”
“Whatever you feel is best, sergeant.” Jax was trying not to stare at the scar. He never realized how distracting physical features and facial expressions could be in the field. None of that was an issue in armor. You knew what everyone looked like, of course, after living with them aboard ship for weeks or months. But when you hit dirt, you were buttoned up and so were your comrades. It was somehow easier to focus on the essentials that way, at least for Jax. “I need that report right away. Be cautious, but get back here as soon as you can. No transmissions on the comlink – we don’t want them picking up any chatter.
Sawyer nodded and walked down the hillside to get his crew together. He didn’t salute; Jax had been trying to run his tiny army a bit more casually than that. They were really just a fairly well-equipped guerilla force, and they were all arguably committing treason. Military formality seemed misplaced. Besides, too much saluting in the battle zone just made an officer into sniper bait.
Jax put his scope to his eyes and panned over the valley below. I’ve got to find a weakness, he thought. There has to be a way to disrupt them before they attack Carlisle.
Jill Winton was sitting on the ground, leaning against the plasti-crete base of one of the camp’s large floodlights. She was sitting with her knees pressed up against her chest – it was a little warmer that way. The ground was cold, but not frozen – it didn’t get below freezing very often on Columbia.
The camp had been getting more and more crowded, and that was despite the steady death toll. The federals hadn’t been executing too many, not that she’d seen. But between the short rations, exposure, general abuse, and lack of medical care, there were at least a dozen deaths every day…and sometimes two or three times that many.
Jill had been in the camp from the beginning. She’d come close to getting out the night the rebel army breached the wall, but she couldn’t get through the masses of stampeding inmates. She was lucky not to get trampled to death that night; over 100 people had died in that seething, uncontrolled mass.
She had been distraught, feeling liberation slip through her fingers. Later she realized it might have saved her life. The federal troops attacked the rebels who had breached the walls, overwhelming them and sending the shattered survivors fleeing. Some of the prisoners probably escaped, but she knew a lot of them were cut down. Camp rumors were widespread that a large group tried to surrender, but the Feds shot down anyone they found outside the wall.
After that day she was changed. Her despair evolved and hardened, morphing into rage. She hated the federals for what they had done. She hadn’t been a revolutionary partisan; her dream had been a career as an officer in the Alliance navy. Her sympathies were with those who bristled against federal authority, but not to the point of rebellion. She was young and idealistic, and she thought the two sides could talk, reason with each other, solve their problems peacefully.
But that was then. Jill Winton was different now. Gone was the moderately spoiled only daughter of a doting wealthy father; in her place a cold and angry woman, longing for vengeance against those who had brought death and suffering to her world. She embraced the rebellion now, and she loathed the federals. Her hate extended from the soldiers in the field, whom she regarded as savage bullies, to those at the highest levels of a system so foul and corrupt it could perpetrate such atrocities on its citizens. Now she seethed, anxious for the chance to kill the enemy.
Her hatred burned cold and patient, not uncontrollable like the impetuous fury of fiery rage. She planned and waited. When she started, she was cautious, deliberative. The camp was infested with collaborators and informants. They were mostly normal Columbians, and their actions were driven by hunger or fear. But to Jill they were traitors, vile turncoats who needed to die. She couldn’t hurt the federals, not yet. But the sympathizers in the camp were within her reach.
Her group was small at first, just her and three others she trusted. Their first target was a woman, one who had been giving information to the guards in return for food and special treatment. She was an easy one to condemn – her loose words had gotten at least two prisoners executed.
They did it one night, very late. Their weapons were rocks; they had nothing else. Two of them grabbed her while she was sleeping, holding her tightly as she woke up and tried to escape. One held her mouth, muffling her screams. It was Jill herself, leader of the nascent resistance cell, who struck the blow. The first time felt strange; Jill had never harmed a soul before this. She could feel the jarring as the stone impacted on her victim’s skull. Her arm rose up again, swinging back down. It was the second blow - or the third, she couldn’t recall later - that broke through the skull. After that the impacts were softer, penetrating deeper into tissue. She swung her weapon nine or ten times, though her victim was dead well before she struck the last.
Jill looked down at the woman, probably an office worker from Weston. Her head was disfigured and covered in blood, lifeless eyes still open, staring into the darkness. Jill felt no remorse, no pity. She chose her path, Jill thought, as I now choose mine. She casually tossed the rock aside and slipped away with her cohorts into night.
Arlen Cooper made a face. God damned mud, he thought, as he scraped the sides of his shoes against each other, trying to clean off the gluey wet clay. Cooper usually made his commanders come to his office to discuss strategy, but this time he decided he wanted to review the troops. It sounded like a better idea in his office than it did out here, at the crack of dawn, dodging the muddy puddles and being eaten alive by mosquitoes. He’d been assured they weren’t actually mosquitoes, just a native Columbian creature superficially similar to the terrestrial insect despite enormous genetic differences. Whatever the experts said, they seemed to thrive on his Terran blood, and the bumps they left itched every bit as much as those from any Earthly bloodsucker.
Finally, he had enough strength…finally, he was about to crush this damnable rebellion. He had seethed when Admiral Compton refused his bombardment request, but now he resolved to launch an all-out assault against Carlisle Island. Once he destroyed their base, the rebels would quickly disperse, and he could finish them off. Then he could get off this forsaken rock and go back to Earth and the reward for his success. He wasn’t sure what kind of posting he could get, but he was sure he’d never be a petty ward supervisor again, not after crushing the Columbian rebellion.
Cooper didn’t have a military bone in his body. Soldiers were nothing more than tools he used to achieve his ends. He wanted Compton to bombard Carlisle not because it would save thousands of his own troops, but simply because it was faster and easier. Now his soldiers would have to take the place meter by meter, and they would pay heavily for it. Cooper didn’t really care, and he figured the blood was on Compton’s hands anyway. But it would take longer, and that had him in a foul mood.
The rebel submersibles were a problem; he knew that much. His forces would have to take them out or drive them away; otherwise they’d never even make it to Carlisle. Coop
er didn’t give it much thought; he didn’t really pay attention when the generals were explaining the tactical situation to him. He didn’t care how they did their jobs, just that they did them. He’d been pushing them for weeks to launch the attack, and he was getting sick of their excuses. They kept asking for more time…to stockpile supplies, conduct training, organize their forces.
None of the officers had any real combat experience, and the prospect of so large a battle was intimidating. Cooper was no military expert, but he understood it took a while to prepare a major operation. He also knew his generals were procrastinating. That’s why he was here.
“General Strom, a word please.” Cooper called out to his senior commander. His voice was impatient; it was obvious he was annoyed.
“Yes, Governor?” Strom was a pompous ass though, of course, so was Cooper. Technically, Strom was under the command of the Planetary Governor. But Cooper had been a low level political functionary, whose authority was the result of accepting a posting that no one with better credentials would take. Strom, on the other hand, was from a well-placed political family, and in all likelihood he would take over his father’s cabinet seat one day. His being here was a freak circumstance; he certainly never thought his military career would take him into space. He bristled at taking orders from a jumped up local manager, which is how he viewed Cooper. He followed them anyway, more or less, but he did so grudgingly.
“I would like to discuss specific timing for an assault on the rebel home base.” Cooper didn’t like Strom, and he bristled at the general’s barely disguised condescension. But Strom was what he had, so he dealt with it. He could order the military to undertake whatever operations he chose, but his authority did not extend to internal matters such as officer assignments. He was stuck with Strom.
“Preparations are underway, Governor.” Strom was clearly tired of Cooper’s interference, and his contempt was only very lightly hidden. “I will advise you when I have determined the earliest feasible start date.” Strom turned to walk away. “Now if you will excuse me, Governor, I am having a small dinner this evening for some of my senior officers, and I really must…”