by Jason Hutt
“Did you make her help you?”
“No…she chose…look, I just can’t leave her behind,” Max said, again searching for something else to talk about. “What were you guys after on that cruise ship anyway? Not like there are treasure chests waiting to be had.”
“There’s always something. Not our focus though,” Optic said, “Gauntlet and Crank are crowd control. Brute and I take over ship’s systems, assess inventories, and release security locks that let some of the other teams grab resources.”
“Seems like there’d be an easier way to stock up,” Max said.
“Ironheart has his bosses, too,” Brute said, “They pay him. He points us in the right direction and pays us.”
“Who pays to attack cruise ships?” Max asked.
They all shrugged. “Don’t know, don’t care. Don’t want to know.”
Gauntlet was leaning back in her chair, watching the exchange. She just stared at Max and he tried not to fidget under her gaze. After Optic’s last answer she leaned forward and grabbed her mug. “You ask a lot of questions, Max.”
“Sorry,” he said, “Just trying to make conversation. I feel a little like I’m walking around with a second head in here. No harm intended.”
“Let’s make sure it stays that way,” she said.
Max nodded and yawned. Before he could claim he was tired and slink back to his bunk, Optic said, “Ya know, if you want, I bet we could actually put a second head on your shoulder, then you’d at least look the way you feel.”
“Thanks,” Max said.
“What he needs is an iron liver,” Brute said, “He drinks like a fish.”
“Intestines,” Crank said, “Then his new name would be Crap Factory.”
“Shitstorm!” Optic yelled.
“You’ve been trying to get somebody to take the name Shitstorm for the last six months.”
“Because it’s funny.”
“You’re an idiot,” Brute said.
They laughed, except for Gauntlet, who sat back in her chair and stared at Max.
***
Maria reached across the table and shook Senator Tamara Garn’s hand. Tamara looked at Maria with a smile on her face. “This’ll be a real coup if you pull this off,” she said.
Maria returned the smile but Tamara’s gaze had wandered off and she stared at the table. The younger woman tended to do this in every conversation since the incident where her husband was removed from the board of the Jamieson corporation.
“We only need five more votes before we send the bill back to committee,” Maria said, “I doubt it’ll impact Graham too much, he’ll kick his spin machine into high gear and find some way to sell this.”
“No doubt, but you’ll have given him a helluva bloody nose. I doubt his supporters will take this lightly.”
“I’m happy to talk with them at the bargaining table. If he hadn’t tried to pull this underhanded end around, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation; we’d be voting.”
“Who else are you courting?” Garn asked as she poured herself a cup of tea.
“I’m meeting with Vesper, Chang, and Soluvyev tomorrow afternoon.”
“Diverse bunch.”
Maria shrugged. “I’d prefer to meet with them individually, but time is running short. Vesper and Chang are fundamentalists. They should be easy to get on board. Soluvyev is an expansionist. Believes we ought to be doing everything we can to continue to push the boundaries of human settlements in the galaxy. He thinks we ought to be doing everything we can to prop up some of the outer colonies.”
“Like Demeter.”
Maria grimaced. “Yes,” she admitted.
“Heard from Cillian?”
“A week ago. He was grousing about the investigators.”
“Any leads on that?”
“Maybe,” Maria said, “They’ve picked up an old woman, disgruntled about the death of her husband. She’s their leading suspect.”
“Think she did it?” Tamara asked as she took a sip of the steaming hot tea.
“I don’t know. Hard to believe.”
“Lots of crazies out there. Desperation does strange things to people’s minds.”
Maria stood and held out her hand. “Thank you, again. You’ll have our support for education reform with your help on this.”
“Happy to be on-board,” she said, “Stay out of trouble.”
“I don’t think that’s an option anymore,” Maria said. She smiled as she left the office and listened to the clicks of her shoes against the marble floor. That was an easy sell in a week full of arduous, tedious negotiations. Her supporters were lining up. She was ready to take anyone in the Republic.
She checked the latest headlines. A report popped up from the Demeter Sector Security investigation; they had arrested the old woman. Maria hurried to her office and launched the news feed. A special report was airing on attempts to clone and revive the blue whale population.
“News on Demeter arrest, please.”
“I’m sorry, there are currently no stories on arrests on Demeter,” her assistant replied.
She typed in a search at her desk, but nothing popped up. She opened the report from Sector Security and read it again.
We have arrested Vida Night, age 73, in the attempted assassination of Senator Maria Cahill. Possible co-conspirator still at-large. Investigation continues.
That was it. Maria closed and re-opened the message, hoping something just needed more time to load. She looked for any attachments and found none. She scrolled through her inbox looking for any more messages from the investigation team. There were none.
She leaned back in her chair when another message appeared, this one from A. Friend.
I’m sure you’ve heard that Vida’s been arrested. While I have no doubt she was involved, at least tangentially, I’m really not sure she was responsible for this. I spoke with her just a few hours before they picked her up. She has a small place and makes some side money by renting out her spare room to boarders. She swears she didn’t print off the weapon. She also swears she had a tenant last week at the time of the shooting, but there’s no record of him. No money transferred to her account for the room. She said that he said he was from Earth, but everyone who passed through customs has been accounted for. If she’s lying, she’s pretty convincing. If she’s telling the truth, I’m not sure what it would take to make a person like that disappear. Regardless, I’m still looking into it. If you have any idea who wants you dead, pass that to Cillian and I’ll get it.
Maria sat back in her chair and stared out the window. Would Hunter really do something this low? Have her shot just to drum up a sympathy vote? She had known plenty of underhanded, slimy, crooked politicians whom she knew would have done something like that, but not Hunter, even given their latest dispute. After a few more minutes of thought, including wondering if it really mattered who did it, Maria stood and walked out of her office and to the lift.
Moments later, her aircar was streaking away from the city and over the lush green forest-covered hills that surrounded the Capitol. After a few minutes of travel, a white monolith became visible on the horizon. Her aircar descended onto the landing pad atop Waverly Prison.
She stepped out of the aircar and stepped onto the glowing yellow line that led from her aircar to the entrance. She stood on the two painted feet on the floor and waited as the security system completed its scan. The system beeped, a light turned green above the door, and the door opened. Maria stepped into the antechamber and stood on another pair of white painted feet.
“Name?”
“Senator Maria Cahill.”
“What is the purpose of your visit?”
“Prisoner visitation.”
“Whom are you meeting?”
“Roger Shaw.”
“Standby.” After a moment, the system beeped, another green light came on, and the inner door opened. “Please follow the white line on the floor to the designated meeting area. The visitation area
is continuously monitored. Your vital signs will be monitored to determine if you require assistance.”
Maria nodded at the preamble and followed the path. Security drones lined the corridor at regular intervals. She saw no other people. The white line led her on a confusing path of left and right turns that she knew was meant to disorient the visitor. By the time she arrived in the visitation room, she had no idea where she was in the building.
Roger Shaw was already sitting at the table, waiting for her. Two ferocious security drones were stationed in the back corners of the room. Roger’s face was covered in unkempt scruff. His hair stood on end in uneven clumps across his head. He kept his gaze locked on the table and didn’t look up as Maria approached.
“Hello, Mr. Shaw.”
He didn’t reply.
“Mr. Shaw?” Maria asked, waiting. She counted to ten in her head.
“What do you want from me?”
“You were picked up for threatening my life. You told me that you would hunt me down. Well, it seems you have a like-minded friend out there. Someone shot me.”
Shaw looked up. “You think I had something to do with that?”
“Did you?”
“No,” he whispered.
“What was that?”
“I said, no. I’m not working with anybody. I don’t know anybody. I just want to see my daughter.” Tears started streaking down his face and he pulled at tufts of hair on his head. “Please, I just want to see my daughter.”
“Who else was she working with? Who else have you talked to? WHO WANTS ME DEAD?” She screamed. The two security drones swiveled toward Shaw and raised armatures that glowed with blue-white tips.
“I…don’t…know,” he said, “I knew my daughter was working with Max. I’ve told your people that. She was trying to help other children. She wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. She would never hurt anyone. Please, let her go. Please…please.”
Maria shook her head. “That’s not going to happen, Mr. Shaw. If you happen to remember anything, please, give me a call. I’ll make arrangements with the Warden to make sure that your call will get through.”
Maria stood and walked from the room, following the glowing white line on the floor. As she walked away, the drones lowered their weapons while Roger stood, shoulders slumped, and followed a yellow line out the other end of the room.
As Maria’s aircar approached the Senate’s rooftop landing pad, she noted the approach of two media aircars paralleling hers. Maria frowned and glanced at her schedule, but saw no media event for that afternoon. She shrugged and tried to clear her mind for the upcoming meeting with the Senator from Jannah. The Muslims, like the Catholics, would be opposed to measures restricting what they viewed as familial rites. She reviewed the cultural briefing prepared by her assistant as the car settled into its spot.
As she walked across the pad she noted that news crews were setting up a row of location shots on the far end of the pad. She checked her schedule again; she must have missed something.
“Is there a media event today?” She asked.
“Nothing scheduled,” her assistant answered via her wrist computer.
“Any anniversaries or other event of note?”
“No, ma’am.”
The lift doors closed. Maria yawned in the silence of the elevator. Her eyelids drooped a bit. Only two more meetings on the schedule and then she could call it a night. When the lift doors opened, she saw the crowd of human and robot reporters gathered around her office. She inhaled deeply, made sure she was standing straight and tall with her shoulders back and chin up, and starting to wade through the sea of humanity to her office.
A male reporter pushed his way to the front of the pack to ask her a question. “Senator Cahill, do you have any comment on the allegations against you?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Maria responded, putting her hands up. She tried to push towards her office door, elbowing her way through the crowd.
“Senator Cahill, how do you respond to the allegations that you misappropriated funds to resolve a personal vendetta?”
“Senator Cahill, any comment on the ethics committee investigation?”
“Senator, we understand a complaint has been filed with the Republic Election Commission. Any comment?”
“No comment,” Maria said as she pushed through, shuffling her feet forward as questions continued to rain down from the gathered crowd. The hallway seemed to stretch and the crowd of reporters grew thicker. She reached her office door and it slammed shut behind her.
“What the hell’s going on?” Maria said as she sat at her desk.
A stately newscaster with platinum blonde hair appeared on the far wall of her office; Maria’s face hovered just above the young man’s shoulder.
“Increase volume,” Maria said.
“…recently come to light. In our investigative report, we’ve uncovered threats and intimidation tactics being used by Senator Cahill in the reckless and wasteful pursuit of one man, Mister Maxime Cabot. While Cabot has long been a suspect in the Nexus Station terrorist attack, authorities have known that he was one of four freighter Captains to have delivered the creatures to the station that initiated the attack. What authorities have never been able to determine is whether Cabot acted of his own volition.
“It is believed that Senator Cahill’s singular goal has been to use her powers to bring in Cabot by any means necessary, not because of his role in the attack, but because of his suspected role in the death of her husband and son. We have uncovered a trail of documents and appropriations that have devoted millions of tax dollars to satisfy the Senator’s personal blood lust.”
The reporter continued and was soon joined by another woman identified as the Capitol Correspondent. Maria didn’t recognize her; she must have been someone new.
“Turn to Republic News Now,” Maria commanded and the video feed switched to another stream.
The ever-staid Henrik Johannson was manning the news desk with a giant ‘This Just In…’ scrolling above his head.
“Republic News Now is proud to bring you this exclusive audio recording of confidential Senate conversation between Senator Cahill and some unknown member of the Republic military.”
“Unknown, my ass,” Maria said. She braced herself as the sound of her voice projected over a very grim-looking Johannson.
The first voice on the recording was male. “I think you’re being a little harsh, Senator.”
“Your son didn’t die that day on Dust, Admiral. Mine did.”
Maria closed her eyes and remembered the night of this discussion. Hunter or Arresh did this, she thought, or both.
“We’ll catch him, Senator.” The words ‘Unknown Republic Military’ flashed on the screen as the male voice spoke. Maria knew it to be Admiral Kersey; she could picture his cowed expression as she bore down on him.
“When you do,” Maria’s voice continued, “Then you will have my support. Bring me Max Cabot and I’ll support whatever you want.”
The recording cut off and Johansson looked at the camera with a well-practiced expression of disapproval.
“Our sources say that the vote being discussed was the upcoming vote on the Family Planning Act. Senator Cahill has been leading a staunch effort to block that vote. One must wonder if her opposition is in any way tied to the fugitive Cabot still being at-large. We’ve brought in retired Sen-”
“News off,” Maria ordered, turning her attention to notifications she had received from the Senate Ethics Committee.
The Senate Ethics Committee has established a special subcommittee to investigate the allegations brought upon Senator Maria Cahill. The investigative subcommittee shall have jurisdiction to determine whether Senator Cahill has violated the Code of Official Conduct or any law, rule, regulation, or other applicable standard of conduct in the performance of her duties or the discharge of her responsibilities, with respect to allegations that she, or persons acting on her behalf, improperly
obtained, allocated, or distributed funds for the purpose of unlawfully detaining and pursuing Republic citizens.
Maria scanned the rest of the notice, her mouth hanging open. She closed the ethics memo and pulled up a notice for another news story.
Cahill Campaign Crumbles; All Hands Abandoning Ship!
Allegations of corruption against Senator Cahill have already caused cracks among Cahill’s campaign team. Already we’ve learned the head of her re-election effort, Yao Tse, quit, taking more than a dozen staffers with him. At this point, wonder who’s going to be willing to dirty their hands and work with her. Will anyone dare to be tainted by the stigma of working for this doomed effort?
The air rushed from her lungs as she continued to read, her anger rising with each paragraph. “Do I have a note from Yao?” She asked.
“Yes,” her assistant replied. The message was displayed on her desktop.
Maria,
I regret to inform you that I’m turning in my resignation, effective immediately. Sorry, I’ve received an offer I can’t pass up.
-Yao
Maria curled her hands into fists as her wrist computer chimed. Maria answered the call.
“Senator Cahill,” she said.
“I warned you, Senator,” Sanjay Arresh said, his tone wistful, “I warned you to back off. You didn’t listen.”
“You son of a bitch,” Maria said. It was all she could think to say. Her cheeks were flush with anger as her hands, balled into fists, trembled with each snapped out word.
“Come now,” he said, “You reap what you sow, Maria.”
“I haven’t done anything that isn’t done in these halls every day of the week.”
“Sounds like your rationalizing your behavior. I wonder how that will play for you.”
“You’ve got nothing on me.”
“It doesn’t matter what I’ve got, only matters what the public believes,” Arresh said. “This’ll be the lead story for the next couple weeks. At best, you could hope it blows over by the time campaign season takes off. You still could make this all go away.”
“I won’t drop my opposition,” Maria said.