by S. J. Higbee
“Never mind everyone else – I warned you! I told you this wasn’t a job. I said it was a way of life. That when it came right down to it – it ran me, not the other way around. That you would have to understand that fact. And… you agreed…” I ran down, confronted with his battered, muddy face. You didn’t understand what it meant. Why should you? Neither did I when I first shouldered this job three long years ago. And if I’d known then what I know now, I’d have sprinted for the nearest fast shuttle off Restormel, never to return.
“So, you intercepted a call on Elizabeth’s com, relayed from our Monitoring Centre. What did you do, next?” asked George.
“These scum, they’re animals. They outrun a ship, board her, strip out all the cargo and anything else worth stealing – including the life support. Often enough, they torture, rape and murder her crew…” Tomas’s voice cracked, “I couldn’t let that happen. Not to my own family. My own flesh and blood!”
“I understand – it must have been a shock. What did you do?” asked George, smiling as if he cared.
Tomas’s eyes flicked across to me for an instant and he licked his lips.
I felt sick. After grappling with the enormity of what had occurred, I’d hoped Tomas had simply leapt in without understanding exactly what he was doing. But he was also smart. Another reason why I’d fallen for him – I don’t do stupid. That swift sideways glance told me that he’d known he was crossing all sorts of lines in our relationship. And had gone ahead and done it anyway.
Please, don’t let him be a spy.
For someone who didn’t possess a face, Jessica managed to project a contemptuous eye-roll very effectively. Calm down, Lizzy! He’s your typical English male. Someone he cares about is in trouble, so he sees it as his duty to come to their rescue. Simple.
Wishing I had her confidence, I gripped my hands behind my back to stop them shaking.
“I used Lizzy’s passcode to relay a command to all the nearest patrols to relieve the William Shakespeare. There were four of them reasonably close by – four! And not one of them had responded to the hail.” Tomas’s deep voice vibrated with anger, “Don’t know what kind’ve outfit you’re running, here, but that was a shoddy oversight.”
I wanted to howl like a laser-grazed dog. All our painstaking effort. Months of preparation – flushed away by Tomas’s flooding interference!
“In what way did you communicate with them – voice message?” asked George.
Another quick look in my direction, before he answered, “I sent an encrypted message with Lizzy’s passcode.”
I closed my eyes, giddy with fury. No wonder the patrol captains hadn’t questioned the command! He’d actually used an encryption. He must be a spy, after all.
The atmosphere in the room thickened and David’s voice was cold, “And how did you discover the encryption coding?”
Tomas’s chin went up. “Didn’t always slog around muddy courses turning soft-flabbed newbies into soldier material. I was Coms and Tactical Officer on Shooting Star, so I knew my way around the P’s old codings, back in the day. When I went looking for Lizzy’s passcode and found the files on her workstation, there were a mixture of messages. Enough for me to work out the new encryptions.”
George’s look at me was full of reproach and triumph that clearly said, You stupid love-struck girl! I’ll be able to bury you for sure, now receipt or no receipt…
“That must’ve taken hours. You must have discovered the files on my workstation days… weeks… ago and been working out the encryption in secret.” My voice was shaking, “All this time I trusted you, yet you were busy rootling through my files behind my back and learning our working codes.” I paused, trying to regain control. “So, what’s Eddy offering you?”
There’s something off, here— Jessica didn’t get any further as Tomas broke in.
“No! Sweetheart – on my honour – no! I-I wanted a position more suited to being your… I wanted to prove that I was capable of helping you with the responsibility constantly grinding you down. So, I decided to learn the codes. And when the time was right, I’d show you…”
It made horrible sense. And fully lined up with Tomas’s macho pride and growing sense of entitlement. The quarrel we’d patched up last night had erupted a week ago, when Peter’s daughter was taken ill while he was on guard duty. Tomas had given him permission to go straight to the meat-suite without consulting me – or bothering to tell me that he’d changed the duty roster.
Which was when I should’ve shown him the door. If I had, we wouldn’t be wading chin-deep in this slurrypit. Except I really, really like him. Like living with him. Maybe even love him. Not that I’ll have a chance to find out, now. No way can I have him anywhere near me after this mess.
“Take him to the cells.” George turned and headed for the door, shepherding me ahead of him.
“What? I’m no spy – on my honour! George, mate… you know! We discussed this.” Tomas’s voice swooped with shocked disbelief, “Lizzy! I know I’ve trodden on your toes, some, but surely… it’s the Shakespeare! You’d have done the same. I give you my word I’ll stay in our quarters until this is sorted out. Until your captains confirm what happened—”
“Right now, if I were you I’d be grateful you’re still upright and breathing. General Norman, God rest his soul, would have had you chewing on your cooked bollocks over this business, whether or not you’d intended to cause such havoc,” snapped David.
“You’re safer down here. Really,” I muttered. Because once word gets out on Restormel, your life won’t be worth a spent airpac. You’re not the only one with friends and family on the Shakespeare… Indeed, a furious part of me wanted to batter that look of injured innocence from his face. If I’m honest, it was probably the fury talking when I added, “That message you sent, it was an encryption already hacked by Eddy’s people, which was why we were using it. It was a trap. So, you informed them that we were in the neighbourhood in sufficient numbers to cause them a major problem.”
Tomas’s eyes widened as colour drained from his face.
Now I’d started, I couldn’t seem to stop. “So they created a diversion. As we speak, Space Station Hawking is overrun by armed gangs, looting everywhere above Basement Level. They’ve taken over Hawking’s defences and used them to force all the merchanters docked there to surrender. Hundreds are injured. Maybe thousands. As yet we don’t know how many are dead.”
“Oh Mother Earth above - no, no, no…” My wish to knock the stiffening out of my lover certainly succeeded. Tomas was now shaking like a wind-snagged rag. “And… William Shakespeare?”
I shook my head, unable to speak.
Instead, David answered, “We knew this was the route the pirates used to herd hapless merchanters to their base, so we planned an ambush to rescue your friends’ ship. But once your message prematurely flushed out all four of our ships, the scumsacs decided to cut their losses and run before we were in position to catch them. The William Shakespeare is now a debris patch, while those responsible are safely tucked up in Erato.”
Watching Tomas slumped in the chair, his voice breaking into falsetto sobs as he wept, was too much. I shoved my cup of coffee at George and stumbled from the room. Surely, the Chief should be able to shrug aside the fact that she’d been entertaining daydreams of becoming the prisoner’s wife and march back up the corridor with dignity?
So it was a solid disappointment to both me and Jessica, when I merely collapsed into Chris’s arms, sobbing like some bot-brained girlie. And although the kind bloke hugged me like a father, murmuring, “It’ll be alright, Chief…” We both knew that this business would never be alright. Ever.
CHAPTER TWO
“Let me, Chief.” Peter all but shoulder-barged me out of the way, as I attempted to step from the shuttle’s gangtube onto Space Station Hawking at one of the few undamaged moorings on Trader Level. Under normal circumstances, I would’ve been irritated that my personal guards insisted on treating me as if I w
ere made of crystaglass, but I was too busy reeling at the extent of the devastation. Of course, I’d seen the dismal litany of regularly updated sit-reps on my optic display during our dash here on the P’s flagship, yet the reality was so much worse.
“Mother Earth above!” I picked my way across the scorched, blast-pocked deck, hemmed in by my guards, whose weapons were blinking on Ready. We jinked sideways to avoid a hole in the flooring, whose torn metal edges were blackened and half melted.
“That damage looks like one of our new dronium cannons,” muttered Chris, adding a curse as he knelt to have a better look.
Never mind cursing – I wanted to punch the walls and howl with frustration as my optical scanner confirmed that, indeed, dronium traces were splashed around the crisped edges of the blastsite. We’d recently upgraded our ordnance in collaboration with one of our trusted weapons’ suppliers, who’d undertaken to let us have exclusive use of these latest weapons for a year, in exchange for a small fortune. We might as well have flushed our hard-earned creds out of the airlock. And while I loved the notion that the leak was with our suppliers, our Intel suggested we had at least one informer working for Eddy on Restormel. Uncovering exactly who it was had been one of the objectives of Operation Prosper, now blown to the edges of the galaxy by Tomas’s interference.
We headed inward. The high-end shops, designed to part merchanting families from their creds, had been completely trashed. Displays destroyed. Soiled and trampled goods – ranging from topline data cubes to wisp-soft regolith-fibre scarves in delicate shades of grey – spewed out of shattered doors and windows. Bloody splashes and dark crimson pools were spattered amongst the scorch marks and fire suppressant puddles. We continued walking through the smashed wasteland. Until we came to a particular bar.
I entered, followed by my escort. Chairs and tables were smashed. Judging by the clumps of gore and hair coating the ends of a chair leg left on the bar, it had been used as a club.
“Atmosphere is now breathable,” said Chris.
I switched off my breather, though left it in place. Doubtless we’d be moving through other areas where life support wasn’t yet running. Immediately the smell of stale wine, mixed with scorched plastic and backlit by the metallic blare of spilt blood was so overwhelming that my eyes watered and I wasn’t far away from throwing up. The stink of chaos. If I’d spent any time in the field, I’d have become used to this stench. But I hadn’t. Other than a very unsatisfactory LiveAction sortie at the end of my Officer Training, I’d spent my days at Restormel as an adminite.
I swallowed, remembering this place in another lifetime. Wynn and me had come here with Alisha and Alex to plan our escape from Shooting Star. We’d had a drink together, while Alex had worked out how to get us a lift on the William Shakespeare.
We’d sat… here. I’d held hands with Wynn for the very first time, while Alisha had been giggly and flush-cheeked with love for the kind chap who’d rescued her from the grim existence aboard Star. The chap whose atoms were now drifting in space amongst the fragments of his ship. Memories of that intense, bitter-sweet time cascaded through my head, while standing in the burnt carcass which once had been a brightly-lit place full of laughing people.
Don’t you start bawling like some fresh-smacked toddler! You hear me, Lizzy? Jessica crashed into my thoughts. A relief.
Yeah, I’d have to be braindead to miss your yelling. Doubtless she’d pick up my solid gratitude for interrupting my maudlin recollections.
It was pointless to start thinking of Wynn, again. He was gone. Not dead, as I’d originally been told, but so thoroughly warned off, he’d never get back in touch. As for me… I’d considered looking him up over the years, of course I did. Especially after jerking awake with the smell and taste of him still flaring through my head, night after night. Though since Tomas had moved in, those dreams hadn’t bothered me. Wonder if I’ll dream of lovemaking with Tomas, now he’ll never share my bed, again?
I crunched across the carpet of smashed plasglass towards the splintered remains of the door, inwardly cursing my stupid impulse to visit this slice of my past.
…the time will come when you will thank me for what I have just done… That’s what Norman had said after he’d hauled me back to Shooting Star like some stray dog. I had cause to be grateful to him for a whole bunch of reasons, but that gratitude was always blunted, because I hadn’t once – in all the years since that day – ever felt any sort of relief that Wynn and me didn’t manage to escape. There’d always been a small aching spot that wished I was now on Ceres, alongside a beautiful blond-haired man with sea-blue eyes...
“Let’s go,” I said to my guards, who were watching the surrounding smashed-scape with pent attention.
*
My escort guided us to the main cargo-handling dock, now acting as a makeshift morgue.
As soon as the lift door hissed open, I hastily reactivated my breather. Two breaths of the dead-body stench were enough to convince me I didn’t want to sample any more.
A pale-faced man snapped off a salute. “Chief!”
He swung back to the huge space where lines of green-overalled medics were busy processing far too many bodies and drew breath, evidently about to demand everyone stop what they were doing and stand about saluting me.
“No – as you were,” I said hastily. “I’m not here to get in the way, just to see what’s happening.”
“Of course.” He blinked, evidently less than delighted at our appearance. Or maybe in the last stages of exhaustion.
“If you could take the time to show the Chief what’s going on,” growled Chris.
Swaying slightly, he nodded. “Yes… of course. Sorry. It’s been…” Visibly hauling himself together, he started again. “We are keeping the bodies waiting to be processed in one of the lower storage holds, but the temp there isn’t really cold enough. So we’re against the clock. Trying to get these...” He waved his hand at the labouring lines of people. “…logged and examined before decomposition spoils the evidence.”
“Hence the stench.” I realised what had been bothering me. “Tell me, Doctor…” I peered at his badge. “…Everson, why aren’t you wearing a breather? In fact…” I scanned the rows of medics poring over the bodies in front of them. “No one is. Why not?”
Everson’s shrug was resigned. “We put in a request, but were informed that as we’re dealing with the mortalities we’re a lower priority.”
Than whom, I wonder? We have plenty of breathers available. We’d hoped a number of stationsiders had escaped in lifeboats, but no one managed to get that far. I turned to Axil, one of my Procurement team. “I’m sure we brought sufficient with us. Can you check this out and ensure all these people get breathers?”
“S’done! An’ someone’s in for a mega arse-kickin’ leavin’ these folk workin’ without ‘em,” Axil’s angry voice bounced around the large space. “I’ll go an’ put a grenade under some lame-brain’s bum.” And with that, he marched back to the lift.
A number of the medics looked up and grinned, easing the tense atmosphere.
I sighed, wondering if I’d done the right thing siccing Axil onto some harried adminite who was probably existing on too little sleep. “Someone’s day is about to head hellwards.”
“Couldn’t happen to a nicer bod,” muttered Dr Everson. “Please, Chief, allow me to show you exactly what we are doing here.”
We approached the twenty or so medics, busy processing bodies.
“As you can see, the main task is photographing and logging their injuries. We’re also collecting any evidence,” added Dr Everson.
I stared at the pallid body lying on the table. She was far too young and would have been pretty in life. The doctor was… examining her. I averted my gaze to give the poor girl some privacy.
“Many of the corpses were raped, so we’re able to look for DNA,” our guide explained. “A number of the victims have been bitten. About half the perps were chem-stimmed out’ve their skins, j
udging by the readings coming back from hair and blood samples.”
“So when we go down to Basement Level, we should be able to snag some of the murdering scum,” I said, feeling the burn of vengeance.
“Exactly,” agreed Dr Everson.
“Will we be able to log the DNA to compile a list of who escaped from Hawking?”
Dr Everson hesitated. “Some of the evidence is clear, however the readings on a number of the victims are plain nonsensical. Clearly a DNA masker was used by some of the attackers.”
Eddy. That it’ll be his doing.
So far, we’d held off sending any force down to Basement Level, but sufficient reinforcements were at this very minute waiting to swarm onto Hawking from our troop carriers Plentiful and Perseverance, once we’d worked out the best strategy to deploy them without unnecessary loss of life.
Before I attended that meeting, I had an announcement to make. I raised my voice, speaking slowly so that my speech didn’t become an echoing mess, “Firstly, I want to thank you for your hard work and dedication under dire conditions. You, our medical corps, are trained to treat and patch up injuries. Spending hours at a time processing the pile of corpses we discovered here is above and beyond your remit and yet your tireless efforts will allow us to bring to justice a bunch of murderers and rapists who thought it was a good idea to trash this outpost of civilisation.” I paused. “I apologise for the lack of breathers. That situation is being fixed and you will all have a sufficient supply for as long as this job lasts. My word.”
A few cheers echoed around the huge area.
I raised my hand to stop them. “I am also concerned that the bodies waiting to be processed are not sufficiently cold. I’ll be making this a priority so you can all work shorter shifts. What you are doing here is vital, if we are going to reel in these murdering bastards. We also have teams of specialist pathologists on board Predominant, who will be shortly arriving to assist you.”