by Steve Perry
“He had an accident.”
She nodded. “Right.”
“Why are you here, Melinne? It’s no coincidence.”
“No, of course it isn’t. Masbülc hired me to talk to you. They want to recruit you to run their corporate military department, starting right now.”
He blinked. He hadn’t expected that. “What?”
“Apparently, your little army has come up against elements of their little armies from time to time, and yours has always won. They figure it is cheaper to have you working for them than losing battles.”
That made sense. When it was cheaper to buy than fight? Buy. “And they thought you were the person to convince me?”
She laughed, and for the smallest moment, he remembered how it had been to make her laugh. It had been the most uncontrived thing about her, her laugh, and it had been infectious. It didn’t make him want to laugh now, but the memory was there. “I told them that I’d be the last person in the galaxy whose advice you would take. Apparently, their shrinks did a profile based on something and decided it was worth a shot. They gave me a lot of money to try.”
He shook his head. “They need to get new shrinks. Is that it? For the money?”
“Mostly, yes. I—we—I never had a chance to say some things. And I was curious. You and I had a short run, but there were some good times.” She shrugged. “How have you been, Cutty?”
“You don’t get to ask, and you don’t get to call me that anymore.”
She nodded, sighed. “He was my son, too. I get up every day and remember it. I was young and stupid, and you cannot know how much I regret it. I would have traded places with Radé in a heartbeat, Rick. He . . .” She stopped, gathering herself.
He was tempted to look down at the screen built into the desktop, to check the stress analyzer whose cams and mikes were recording her image and parsing her voice and microexpression, the sensors that picked up her heartbeat and respiration and blood pressure. He could be fooled by a good liar, and she was good, but he heard the ring of truth there.
“He was so brave. Charged in, fist swinging, to defend me. I—” She sobbed, once. “I am so sorry.” Tears flowed freely down her perfectly sculpted cheeks.
He could see the scene in his mind, as he had a hundred times before. His eight-year-old son, attacking the man hurting his mother. It was all he could do to keep his own tears back.
There was far too much bottled-up anger in him to release. He felt no desire to walk around the desk and comfort her, the woman he had married, with whom he’d had a son. But he also didn’t feel the need to walk around the desk to choke the life from her.
That was something, at least.
It took him a few seconds to find his voice, to keep the emotions from boiling up to overwhelm and drown him. “Tell Masbülc they wasted their money sending you here.”
“I told them that before I got here. I’m meeting the local rep when I leave.”
“Proderic.”
“Yes, that’s his name.”
“I can’t say it’s been good to see you,” he said. “And I don’t think I can ever forgive you. But you don’t need to worry that you’ll open your door someday and find me there ready to shoot you. Go on about your life, whatever it is. We’re done. Whatever your griefs, I won’t be one of them.”
“You’re wrong, Cutty. You’ll always be that, until the day I die.”
After she was gone, Jo slipped back into his office. She tossed his pistol to him, he caught it and reholstered it.
“You heard it,” he said.
“Yep. And she was telling the truth, far as your system and my onboard aug can determine it.”
“Doesn’t change anything.”
“No? You wouldn’t consider working for Masbülc once this op is done?”
“That? Oh, sure. Depend on the money, of course, and if TotalMart wanted to match it for an exclusive. But we don’t switch in the middle of a contract. If they still want us after we kick their asses here? I’ll listen to their offer.”
“You figure that Proderic will get himself a better CO?”
“I would in his place. He didn’t strike me as stupid.”
She grinned at him. “Well, it’s been too easy so far, except for the Vastalimi. Hope the new guy can’t find any more like her.”
She didn’t speak to the other part of this; he appreciated that.
_ _ _ _ _ _
There were a dozen or so Vastalimi on the walk in front of the shops next to the spot where Wink and Kay were about to cross the street. They seemed to be about their own business, but Wink saw a female who appeared to be watching them.
Well, he was a human and unusual around here, but that didn’t seem to him to be why she was looking their way.
She sauntered in their direction.
“Somebody coming to say hello,” he said.
“I see her,” Kay said. “But she’s not a fighter; it won’t be a Challenge.”
“You can tell that?”
“Yes.”
The fem arrived and stopped three meters away. She was a bit taller and thinner than Kay, seemed younger as far as Wink could tell, and she wore nothing save her own fur.
“Should I speak Basic?” she asked in their language.
Kay shrugged. “If you need the practice. He will understand if you speak NorVaz, Govor, or Jezik.”
“Really?”
“If you have a message to deliver, it is only necessary that I understand it. Do you have a name?”
“Call me Glasnifem.”
Kay grinned. “Very well, ‘Messenger.’ Speak.”
“There are people who know things regarding your inquires that would be helpful to you. They are willing to share these things; however, they are concerned that they would be in danger if their identities should be revealed.”
“I understand. Continue.”
“Meetings can be arranged if you agree to terms.”
“Which are . . . ?”
“No Sena. No one save you and your human should know of this offer. You must be ready to meet with only short notice, and we must be assured of your complete circumspection regarding the matter.”
“I understand. I have questions.”
“I am not the person to ask for answers. I know no more than I have just told you.”
“Very well, then. I will abide by those terms.”
“I will tender your agreement to those concerned. Someone will be in touch.”
The fem nodded at Kay, but not at Wink. She stood there and watched as they crossed the street.
“Well, isn’t that interesting,” Wink said, as they approached the door to the hospital.
“In many ways.”
“It could be just what we need.”
“Yes.”
“And it could be some kind of a diversion. A trap.”
“Yes. But either way, it is a trail to follow.”
“What makes me nervous is the part about nobody’s knowing but you and me.”
“I can understand that.”
“But you agreed to those terms.”
“I did. But you did not.”
He grinned.
“Teeth, Wink Doctor. We are on a public street.”
He tightened his smile to lips only. “So if I told your sister about this, it wouldn’t bother you?”
“Why would it? You are a sentient being with your own will. You did not enter into any agreement with the fem who named herself Messenger. Nor did she ask it of you.”
“They don’t believe I might say something?”
“Unlikely. Most of the Vastalimi we interact with will assume that you somehow belong to me and will do as I tell you.”
“It does seem that way from what I’ve encountered here.”
“P
lease do not take it personally, but humans are not held in particularly high regard here. Had they considered you an equal, they would have asked for your agreement. They did not.”
“I noticed.”
“Which is good. Always better to be underestimated by one’s enemy, is it not?”
“Yep. Now what?”
“Now, we go see my brother.”
FOURTEEN
“So there’s the deal,” Cutter said. “Proderic turned out TotalMart’s offer of a buy-off, and so we are good to go tactical and do something about them.
“We know where they are.” He glanced at Jo, who nodded. The caster she had planted was operational, and it said the cart was still parked at the base they’d uncovered.
Unless Em the Vastalimi had happened across her before she had hidden the bug, in which case it might have been left there on purpose. One had to consider such things.
“So I’m thinking we give them a fat and too-lightly-guarded target and see if they go for it.”
Around the table, the others nodded. That would enable the GCES.
The problem with private militaries was that the rules of engagement had to consider civilian authorities in ways that government-sponsored armies did not. ROE for a brigade going into a declared war were different from a corporate unit of fifty engaged with a similar force on an otherwise peaceful planet. You couldn’t just stomp in and kill them all without pissing off the local police. The GCES—Galactic Corporate Exception Statute—allowed a fair amount of leeway when it came to shooting at each other, but it was always better if you could show necessary self-defense.
We were, just, you know, escorting a convoy from here to there when the other guy’s forces jumped us, and we had no choice.
If you could document that with vids and a photon trail of orders and legal activity, so much the better. If you could show that you were also protecting civilians and locals? Better still.
So if you could lure the other guys into an attack you were set up to deal with? That was the way to go.
“The local military CO is stretched thin, not enough troops, and he’s looking to rise in ranks and leave soon, so as long as we don’t make too much noise or disturb the locals, we probably don’t have to worry about him. We’ll have to disguise troop egress, but we’d do that anyway. So let’s come up with bait. Kick it around, let’s meet again at 1800.”
They broke the meeting. Jo found herself with Gunny and Gramps, trying to lay out traps.
Singh was in the yard. Gunny had developed a fondness for the young man, and she looked at the others. “Can we give the kid a lesson?”
“Sure,” Jo said.
Gramps nodded.
Gunny waved Singh over.
He didn’t walk, he jogged.
Jo grinned, remembering when she’d been that eager to be involved in things.
“Ho, sahs!”
“Singh,” Gunny said. “We have ourselves a little strategic and tactical situation, maybe you might help us out with.”
Jo allowed her grin to linger just a moment more. Singh’s help would be, if anything, minimal, given the wealth of experience among the three of them, but if that’s how Gunny wanted to play it, that was okay.
Gunny said, “We are going to knock Masbülc’s dick into the dirt, but we want them to think it’s their idea.”
Singh nodded. “Yes, sah.”
“How you figure we should go about such a thing?”
Singh considered it. “Some kind of lure into a trap.”
“That’s good,” Gramps said. “What do you reckon would work?”
Singh thought about it some more. “Well, what they are after are those purple vegetables, yes? Either grabbing them or destroying them. So doing it at the source, in transit, or at the destination would be their choices. The source and destination are the most well guarded, so in transit. They have tried that and have been repulsed, but it is still the easiest of the three. Give them a convoy that is somehow vulnerable. What about shipping cargo by water? A barge up a river, a ship via a local sea? Such vessels are more constrained in their movement and easier to target, yes?”
Gunny grinned, like a proud mother at a bright child. “Why, that’s a good idea, Singh.”
Jo played along: “But won’t they suspect a trap?”
Gunny said, “Actually, we make the barge the decoy. It’s too easy, so they will suspect it’s a trap, and will look around to see what we’ll be covering up. Ah like it.”
Gunny said. “Remember Meko?”
Both Jo and Gramps grinned.
Singh looked blank.
Gunny said, “Meko was a guy we met during a dustup on New Java, a local, worked security at some entertainment arena. He was old—older even than Gramps here. Retired military. He liked to stop into the local pub where old Army guys or SoFs hung out for a beer now and then.”
Singh nodded.
“We got the story from the pubtender one evening after Meko had his one beer and left.
“Meko was quiet, laid-back. Average-looking, not real big. Nobody’d look at him twice in a crowd.
“He was a religious man, Ah don’t remember which one he was into—was he Hindu?”
“He was a Zarathustran,” Gramps said. “They are monodeistic, all about truth and order, as I recall. He always wore a little cap whenever we saw him.”
“Right. Anyway, he spent a fair amount of time going to his temple or church, whatever. One evening after the service, he was walking home, a trio of local thugs who’d been doing strong-arm robberies decided he was a viable target.”
Gunny said, “So they rolled up on him in a cart, hopped out, and gave him the speech, give up your money, or we kick your head in.”
Singh nodded. “I think I see where this is going. This was unwise, yes?”
“Oh, yeah. Meko was retired military, but not just any military, he’d been a blue hat.”
“A Ghost Lancer?”
Gunny grinned real big. “Yep. Ghost Lancer, a hand-to-hand combat instructor, and a veteran of scores of down-and-dirty campaigns. Uniform wasn’t big enough to hold all the medals and ribbons and patches he’d earned. Those kind of guys are tougher than a rhino-hide bag full of granite. You probably couldn’t pick a worse man to fuck with.
“Pubtender said there was a traffic cam or building security cam caught it. Three guys surrounded him, six seconds later, all three of them were on the ground in need of serious medical care. Two of them didn’t last until it got there, and it was wasted on the third, who croaked on the way to the hospital. Meko didn’t have a scratch.”
“And lo, order was restored,” Gramps said. “Amen.”
Singh nodded.
“Gunny’s point here,” Gramps said, “has to do with underestimating an enemy. Sometimes, best way to sell something is to let people sell themselves. If the Masbülc troops think they’ve figured this out on their own, if they believe they caught us hiding something? They’ll be more inclined to go for it.”
“I’m not sure I see the connection with the story of the Ghost Lancer,” Singh offered.
Gunny grinned really big. “Well, our old drinking buddy Meko? That benign look of his was an act. He liked to use his skills—you don’t get into the blue hats unless you are into serious violence. Since good predators can usually tell each other, something in the eyes, the way they stand or move, Meko went out of his way to look like he was prey. He walked a route where he knew there had been previous attacks. He pretended to be foolish, because an attack was what he wanted. A chance to keep the rust off.”
“Ah. Most devious.”
Gunny said, “Taking something at face value, making a snap judgment at first glance can get you into deep shit. Hip shots are faster, but aimed are more accurate.”
“Unless it’s Gunny doing the shooting, in which case it doe
sn’t matter,” Gramps said.
“Was that a compliment, old man?”
“Slip of the tongue. Forget I said it.”
They smiled at each other.
_ _ _ _ _ _
Kay called her sister. “How goes the investigation?”
Leeth said, “We have Sena sifting reports, investigating on the streets. It goes as well as it can, given how little there seems to be to it.”
“Anything of substance?”
“Not yet. Even if there was, I wouldn’t tell you. We don’t need an amateur getting in our way.”
“I am charged by our brother to look into this.”
“From the medical side. I represent the law, and my agents will handle matters criminal.”
Kay waited a beat, then said, “I see. Wink Doctor would have a word with you.”
“Really? Why?”
“I’ll include him in.” She nodded at Wink, who thumbed his own com to life.
“Sena Leeth,” he said. “I have some information you might find interesting.”
He told her about the street meeting. She listened without interrupting until he was finished.
“Well done, Wink Doctor. And compliments to you, Sister, for observing the letter of an agreement, if not the spirit.”
“‘Spirit’ is a nebulous term,” Kay said. “It means different things to different people. Do the Sena enforce the law or the spirit? If an adversary makes a foolish error, it is her concern, not mine.”
“True. You will keep me apprised?”
“That claw rips going and returning.”
There was a long pause. Finally: “We do have some leads, I can tell you that much,” Leeth said. “Skimpy as yet.”
“Such as . . . ?”
“Such as not enough to tell you until we have more. Will you teach the Sena how to follow a scent?”
Kay didn’t speak to that.
“There may be nothing here with this messenger, Kluth. Someone winding your stem just to watch you dance.”
“And maybe not.”
“Let me know if you are contacted by these people.”
“Not I,” Kay said. “Wink Doctor might feel a need to com you again.”