Empire: Assignment Darklanding Book 12

by Scott Moon

  "If you don't start talking, I'm going back to bed," Shaunte said.

  "I know we haven't always gotten along. But you need to trust me when I say this is for your own good…"

  The sound of the phone being moved quickly cut him off. "Hold on, there's something on the roof. I’m going onto the balcony to see if I can get a look at it.”

  "Shaunte?"

  The sound of her moving rapidly with her hand over the phone was all he heard.

  "Shaunte!"

  Nothing.

  Tiberius started to pray, realizing halfway through the memorized words how long it had been since he'd even considered such an action. The moment felt surreal, forcing him to sit down. "Shaunte, please talk to me."

  Her voice came back on the line. She was out of breath and sounded irritated. "I'm not sure what's going on out there, but there's been some weirdness I don't like. I constantly feel like I'm being watched, and I’m actually afraid to go out at night. And let me tell you this, I've never feared going where I want to when I want to. I'm not sure I can do this anymore at Darklanding. It's like I’m going crazy."

  "Listen to me carefully, Shaunte. You shouldn't go out alone. Keep Fry with you or that pig-dog-thing.”

  “Relax, Dad. I’m not twelve anymore.”

  “Call off the deal with Ortega. I have to make this quick. We’re losing the connection. There must be a lot of ships moving into the Wilok System. That always interferes with communications networks. Judy Ortega is dangerous. I have information about her real purpose in Darklanding. Get away from her and stay away from her. I’ll come as soon as I can."

  Shaunte's voice slammed through the speaker. "Don't try to rescue me! Let me do this on my own for once." She ended the call.

  Tiberius stared at the speaker. With a heavy heart, he refilled his whiskey glass and smoked a cigar in a room illuminated only by the night lights of Melborn coming through his window.

  CHAPTER FIVE: Bondsman

  Thaddeus consulted his to-do list, then dropped the data pad into his coat pocket. From life-threatening to mundane, the Sheriff of Darklanding did it all. The devil was in the details.

  He stood at the railhead serving Darklanding and the mines. Crews of men with heavy forklifts stacked equipment and supplies onto huge flatbed railcars. This train was a slow mover going to the mines rather than coming back. It contained all the usual gear, but also several railcars loaded with massive drilling and excavation machinery. The last car on the train held rough timber and metal I-beams that would be used as structural support in the new shafts and tunnels.

  A cluster of supervisors argued about the rising water in Transport Canyon. All but one believed it was not a problem.

  "It doesn't look like a problem, is what you mean to say. We have no way to know if the rail foundations are stable. We can't put a load this heavy on tracks that could be out of alignment. What good does it do to send all this equipment if it never arrives?"

  "We have survey crews en route," another man said.

  "Great. Let's wait until they give us a report. That will only take three or four days.”

  Another of the supervisors, who had been quiet until now, spoke. "This train’s already ten minutes late. It's moving now. On my authority."

  Thaddeus was incredibly glad the conversation was over. He didn't know which side was right, but he had things to do besides referee logistical decisions among SagCon middle-management.

  Now that the decision had been made, they all seemed to be relieved and excited the mines were finally reopening.

  Bored, he compared the efficiency of these men to the Ground Forces Corps of Engineers. Some of the men had served in the military, he thought. Some had gone to graduate schools and leadership seminars. Others were like P. C. Dickles, hardworking men who learned by solving problems.

  As fascinating as the analysis was, he had to return to his real problem. Proletan was still locked down. The savant hitman would be released the moment his transport to the Melborn judicial complex was complete. ShadEcon had allies in high places and hired the best lawyers. The only reason he was still in custody was that Thaddeus had exercised his frontier right to ignore certain procedures.

  It wasn't something he was good at. Going by the book made things easier—keep it simple, stupid, was the way to get things done. But running a one-man show forced him to make his own rules half the time.

  He had spent the night reading up on the procedure. In the past, he had requested the people he arrested to be transported to pretrial confinement and assumed the courts would do everything else. This time, it was different. There was a very real chance that Proletan would be released the moment he set foot on Melborn and would then be sent back to finish the job.

  Thaddeus wasn't likely to survive a second encounter.

  He also needed to make a statement to ShadEcon. Keeping Proletan out of the game was a strategic decision as much as it was a legal one. They had to know where the line was. Thaddeus had drawn it when he arrested their hired killer.

  Leaving the loading operation, he proceeded to the front gate where Mast and Maximus watched a crowd of workers protesting against ShadEcon. This particular group was calm. They still had jobs, in theory. They didn't interfere with the reconstruction efforts because they wanted to work. Thaddeus sensed their frustration and thought half of them were standing here with their signs because they just didn't know what else to do.

  "How are we doing?"

  Mast bobbed his head. "We're doing muchly fine. These men are very polite compared to the last mob we dealt with."

  "I'm going to speak with Shaunte. Let me know if something changes." Thad went to the Mother Lode, where he found Shaunte in her office working furiously on several legal documents.

  “Knock, knock,” he said as he rapped his knuckles on the door frame and entered.

  She glanced up. “Hello, Thaddeus. Did the excavation equipment get shipped?”

  “Yes, Miss Shaunte. It’s trundling toward the mines now.”

  “Good. We’re making progress. Slow, slow progress, but I’ll take what I can get at this point.”

  Thad watched her return to her work. This was their routine, brief hello and back to work. He didn’t mind. It was nice to sit and watch her for a few minutes. He made coffee, then brought two cups to her desk, sitting on the corner of it as he handed her one.

  “Oh, thanks, Thad.” She took the cup in both hands and smiled at him, clearly unaware of where they had been in their previous conversation. “What can I do for you? Sorry, that sounded like I am answering the phone for a total stranger.”

  “Hello, stranger,” he said with a wink and a sip of his coffee.

  She laughed and looked less stressed.

  “I need to bond out Proletan and keep him with me.”

  “Send him to pretrial services like all the others. We don’t have time to babysit a murderer,” she said.

  “You’re right. I might point out, however, that ShadEcon will get him out on bond with one of their bondsmen the moment he arrives in a jurisdiction they have subverted,” Thad said.

  “And they’ll send him back to try again.” She opened a new set of documents and began speed-reading. A few moments later, she shook her head. It was a small movement that made her even more beautiful despite giving him bad news. “I can override most laws, but you can’t be the sheriff and a bondsman. The law is very clear on that.”

  “I’ll find someone on Darklanding to be his bondsman.”

  “Do it. What else do you have?”

  “That was the main thing for now. I’ll let you get back to work if you promise to see me tonight,” he said.

  “It’s a date.”

  ***

  Thaddeus found Dixie at the Mother Lode. She looked both drunk and distracted, a combination of conditions he’d never seen.

  “I heard Sledge was in town. Can you confirm or deny?” he asked.

  She smiled licentiously. “Why, Sheriff Fry, I can very muc
h confirm the big brute is here and as virile as ever.”

  “Too much information. I need to ask him for a favor.”

  Dixie shrugged. "Then ask him. He's over at your training facility flipping tires over and over and over. I told him he's getting a gut and now he's working out like you."

  "Thanks." Thaddeus left the Mother Lode and went around back to the vacant lot where he had his scavenged exercise gear piled. Michael “Sledge” Hammer, Ground Forces veteran and retired SagCon Special Investigator, had apparently completed his tire-moving routine and decided to beat it with a hammer.

  The man was big, broad-shouldered, thick-waisted and thick-legged, and hairy everyplace but the crown of his head. Everyone knew he had an obsession with Dixie and that she sometimes returned his affections. For the most part, she was content to be chased and he was content to do the chasing.

  "Sledge."

  The giant man tossed the hammer against one of the truck tires and walked toward Thaddeus. "Hope you don't mind."

  Thaddeus motioned toward the tires, ropes, and other heavy objects stacked along one side of the vacant lot. "Mi casa es su casa."

  "Thanks. Dixie called me a fat slob."

  "Weren’t you the one complaining about having a beer gut?"

  Sledge shrugged. "What's up?"

  "I've got a job for you. You ever been a bondsman?"

  His face became cautious and skeptical. "Yeah, I have all the proper licenses. Part of my special investigator credentials that I maintain. What do you have in mind, Thaddeus Fry?”

  "I need to keep an eye on Proletan. He's locked up, but I don't feel great leaving him without a guard.”

  Sledge held up his hands. "Nope. I don't do guard duty. All I'll do is sit around and eat and get fat. I'm having a hard enough time as it is.”

  "I was hoping you could bond him out and then keep an eye on him. You could use him as a sparring partner," Thaddeus said.

  "Are you trying to get me killed?"

  "Will you do it? I'm running out of options."

  Sledge picked up a towel from one of the piles of shipping counterweights Thaddeus sometimes dragged back and forth across the lot and wiped his face. "Sure. Why the hell not. What can you tell me about him?"

  "He's one of those honor among assassins types. Doesn't respect his employers but still takes the money and does the job," Thaddeus said.

  "Great. He's probably moody and introspective when he’s not slitting people's throats.”

  "That's your problem.”

  "How long are we doing this? His trial might be two years away with the way things are nowadays. I'm not sitting on him that long. You best figure out a solution before then."

  "I will."

  CHAPTER SIX: A Full Time Job

  “Why am I locked up and he’s sitting out there?” Carter asked. “I’m illegally detained for doing my job and the assassin gets to watch vids?”

  “He has a point,” Proletan said, flipping the channel to a low-altitude racing program.

  “First of all, this isn’t my jail. I don’t make the rules. Second of all, Proletan is out on bond. You’re being held prisoner against your boss’s good behavior,” Sledge said. “It’s more of a kidnapping than an actual detention…entirely different set of rules.”

  Carter laughed crazily and paced across his cell. “I can’t believe this. You’re insane. Do you have any idea what Interstellar Enterprises will do to you when they find out about this?”

  Sledge opened drawer after drawer of Thad’s desk. “They’ll have to cut me in half and share me with ShadEcon, I imagine. Assuming the Sagittarian Conglomerate doesn’t come after me next. I didn’t leave on the best terms.”

  Carter stopped and stared at Sledge. “Damn, you’re an ugly brute. What does Dixie see in you?”

  Sledge marched to the prisoner door and hammered one fist on the mute button. “Sticks and stones will break your bones if you keep running your mouth, kid.”

  Carter replied but no sound came through the intercom to match the movement of his mouth.

  “He’s not bad, for a security specialist,” Proletan said. “You are ruining his career. You know that, right?”

  "What do you care?"

  Proletan clicked off the vid screen. "I care about very little. Human behavior interests me. I'm a critical observer, like a scientist.”

  "Who kills people," Sledge said. He understood what the man was saying. A certain level of detachment was necessary to operate in a maelstrom of chaos and violence. He wasn't sure if Proletan had been in war, but it was a good bet. Likely he had transitioned out of a high-speed commando unit into the world of highly-paid mercenaries.

  It was unlikely he would learn the truth about Proletan's background. It didn't matter. The ShadEcon enforcer had always shrouded himself in mystery. What mattered was whether or not Sledge could keep the man from killing his friends.

  Proletan watched him, his expression calm and neutral. With his feet kicked up on a desk and the vid controller in one hand, he looked relaxed.

  Sledge and Proletan were about the same height—large, broad-shouldered men with thick muscles and a look of quickness despite their size. Sledge outweighed him by twenty or thirty pounds, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing. In a foot race, he’d lose. If he had to pin the man to the ground during a fight, he'd have the advantage.

  "You're not going to say anything? I just called you a killer, and not in a good way."

  Proletan dropped his feet to the floor and sat up. He leaned his elbows on his knees and looked earnestly at Sledge. "A warrior must be calm in the face of all things.”

  “Miyamoto Musashi,” Sledge said, “The Book of Five Rings.”

  Proletan nodded and said nothing.

  "So we've read a lot of the same books and have similar training. The difference between us is right now, you're my prisoner. Sheriff Fry doesn't want to send you back to pretrial confinement on Melborn.”

  "Because I would be released almost immediately and would come back to kill him and all of his friends." He paused. "Not out of vendetta, but because I would be paid to do so."

  "Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner!" He stood up and cracked his knuckles. "So here's how it's going to work. You've been paroled to me. You're my responsibility. If you think you'll take another crack at my friends, you'll have to go through me. And trust me, brother, you never fought anyone like me."

  "I understand."

  "I'll gun you down if I even see you look crosswise at the wrong person," Sledge said.

  "A wise course of action," Proletan said.

  “Where'd you serve?"

  A tired, slightly sad smile crossed Proletan's expression. "I never had the honor. Most people believe I was some sort of shock trooper who decided to get paid. The truth is, I was born and raised to this. No one ever gave me a choice."

  Sledge wasn't sure what to say so he kept his mouth shut.

  Proletan continued in a quiet voice. "We could be friends, I think. So I will give you this warning, don't think you know me or understand me. And most of all, do not think that you can take me in a one-to-one fight. We would both regret the outcome."

  "Thaddeus beat you.”

  "He was lucky. Everyone loses some of the time, even me. I don't resent the outcome. It is what it is. Now I'm paroled to an oversized caveman. It could be worse." He changed the course of the conversation abruptly. "For the record, I was glad to see Fry defeat LeClerc in the low-altitude racing exhibition on Darklanding."

  “LeClerc was a piece of work.”

  Carter slammed his fist on the door of his cell but no sound reached the outside.

  "You're going to have to do something about him," Proletan said.

  "I'm open to suggestions."

  "You have three options: let him go, kill him, or sit here and guard him. It's all very tedious. Is there something around here I could read?"

  Sledge shook his head. "The only thing I've found are some printouts of online law enforcement c
oursework. I'm not sure if Thaddeus has read all of them, but Mast has made colorful notes in the margins.”

  "I'm fluent in Unglok. Could be interesting.”

  Sledge pointed at the desk. "Top drawer on the left."

  Before long, the ShadEcon enforcer was quietly reading in the corner. Sledge went to the cell and pushed the talk button. "Carter, I'm thinking about letting you go.”

  The young security specialist stared at him without responding, clearly not amused with what he expected was another game.

  "I just spent the last half-hour threatening the most deadly assassin in human history to stay away from my friends.”

  "How'd that go?" Carter asked.

  Sledge shrugged.

  "Well, are you going to let me go or not?" His frustration started to show through his professionalism. "You destroyed my credibility with Ortega. I can't admit what happened to me and I can't make anything up to explain where I've been all night."

  "I can probably provide you an alibi. One of Dixie's girls, Leslie Stargazer most likely. She'll tell Ortega she had you handcuffed to a bed. Come to think of it, that's not a bad idea." Sledge hit the mute button and turned away before Carter could respond.

  He felt like a jerk. Carter wasn't a bad guy. He didn't deserve this kind of treatment. At the same time, Sledge didn't take chances with his enemies.

  Dixie came as soon as he called. They’d often rendezvoused at the Cornelius Vandersun Correctional Facility and Rehab Center. Thaddeus rarely set foot in the place unless he had somebody in custody. It was modern, air-conditioned, and had two vacant employee apartments on the second floor.

  His heart skipped a beat when she walked in the front door. "There's my beautiful seductress."

  Dixie batted her eyes. They embraced and kissed until Proletan cleared his throat.

  "Oh, honey, I'm not embarrassed by public displays of affection." She leaned close to Sledge and played with a piece of chest hair sticking out of the top of his shirt. "I see you have a lot of company, which makes me wonder what you need me here for?"