by J. S. Wayne
Pete grunted. “Okay. How long before we clear Sol?”
“We will pass beyond the outer orbit of Pluto in approximately three hours. I would suggest you try to get a nap.” Without another word, the XO turned on his heel in an about-face that would put most Devil Dogs to shame and marched away from the airlock. The double doors leading away from the shuttle bay whooshed closed behind him.
With a grumbled oath, Pete followed.
* * *
“Okay, was it one up and two over, or two up and one over?”
Forty-five minutes after Pete had left the shuttle bay, he was well and truly lost. The Fallujah’s corridor-marking system was laid out solely in Arabic, which Silva had never learned to read, not that it would have done him any good anyway. If the Fallujah was going to be a permanent billet, he’d have loaded the schematics and studied them for a half-hour or so before the shuttle raised, but since it wasn’t, he hadn’t bothered. He’d asked a number of enlisted types in Naval black, but all of them seemed surprised even to see a Marine on board. Not a single one of them had a clue (or so they claimed) as to where his assigned quarters were or how he should get there.
A couple of times, he’d thought he heard the squids break into snickering fits as soon as they were around the corner. The last time, he’d considered chasing them down and chewing wholesale ass, but decided there was no profit in pissing off people he’d have to be locked in this tin can with for the best part of two weeks. Instead he ambled around, looking for a corridor that looked like it might be the right one.
If the Fallujah had been a proper frigate or drop ship, Pete would have known more or less exactly where to go. Combat ships were laid out on a common hull design with minor cosmetic differences to allow for their unique battle support roles. The Fallujah, being a diplomatic packet ship, was constructed along entirely different lines intended to grant it superior speed and maneuverability at superluminal velocities without compromising the delicate balance of the Alcubierre-Fermi drive fields.
He should have known better, and his frustration only grew with every step he took.
Finally, he found a commpad on a facing wall near one of the lifts. Consulting the paper, he entered the six-digit call code. The pad gave two sharp pings. A broad-faced, good-natured-looking man with thinning brown hair and hound dog eyes peered out of the screen at him. His Naval black uniform was so crisply pressed Pete could imagine cutting himself on one of the seams.
“Senior Warrant Officer Kozlowski, sir. How can I help you?”
“Warrant, this is Captain Silva.”
“Yes, sir. I can see that.” Neither Kozlowski’s voice nor face gave any indication of anything but the most perfect military neutrality.
“Warrant, do you know where I’m at?”
Kozlowski looked down for a second, and then back up. “If I had to guess, Captain, I’d say you’re lost. You’re one deck down and to the left from where you should be, if you’re looking for your quarters, sir.”
Pete bit back a surly reply and tried his damnedest to keep the sarcasm out of his tone. “Well, if you’re not too busy, Warrant, would you shoot a line and take me in tow?” He thought briefly about asking Kozlowski for those steaks, but decided against it.
“Yes, sir. Will the captain be wanting food in his quarters, sir?”
Solves that problem.
“Very much, Warrant.” He detailed what sounded best to him.
“Very good, sir. Stay right where you are and I’ll be up to collect you in a few moments.”
Without another word, the warrant broke the connection.
Just for contrariness’ sake, Pete moved five feet to the left and two feet backward.
“Collect me,” he muttered. “Collect this, squid.”
Five interminable minutes later, the lift doors whooshed open, revealing Kozlowski in the flesh. He bore a huge plastic tray covered with a clear dome in his Kodiak bear-sized arms. Compared to the hulking warrant officer, the tray looked absolutely tiny.
“Captain Silva, I’m Senior Warrant Kozlowski.” He nodded to the tray. “I’d offer to shake hands, sir, but…”
Pete smiled as graciously as he could manage. “That’s fine, Warrant. If you can just get me where I’m supposed to be, I’d appreciate it.”
The warrant officer grinned. “Glad to, sir. Follow me.”
It turned out that from the lift, Pete had only been about two hundred meters from his assigned quarters the whole time. Kozlowski trotted down the hall, apparently willing to let the senior officer make conversation or not as he saw fit. Given Pete’s level of irritation, he decided not to try. As the warrant turned a sharp corner, Pete heard a cheerful voice.
“Hey, Mr. Kozlowski! Up for a game tonight?”
“No, thanks,” Kozlowski said. “I lost the last fifty credits I had to you cretins last time we played.”
“Well, it would help if you weren’t such a shit poker player, Mr. Kozlowski.”
Pete rounded the corner and found a fresh-faced Navy kid facing Kozlowski down. Kozlowski looked embarrassed. “There’s an officer on deck, Hudson.”
The kid glanced Pete’s way and stiffened to what passed for attention in the Navy. “Good afternoon, sir,” he barked.
“As you were,” Pete said quickly.
The kid slunk away without another word, nodding to Pete as he passed. Pete eyeballed Kozlowski’s back. “Isn’t playing for money against regs?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir. I never heard anyone say anything about playing for money. If that happened on this ship, I’d have the perpetrators disciplined. Rigidly.” He paused at a blank door and raised an eyebrow at Pete.
Pete smiled. “Uh-huh.”
“Here are your quarters, sir.” Kozlowski waved at the palm scanner by the door. “It’s already keyed to your ’print, sir. Until this ship reaches Dusk, you’re the only one who can enter it.”
His eyebrows shot heavenward. “The only one?”
“As in the only one, Captain. Not even the Skipper can get in here without your say-so.”
The elaborate precautions made Pete a little uneasy. The last time he’d dealt with anything on the order of this cloak-and-dagger affair, a lot of good Marines had died over a few credits’ worth of uranium ore on a backwater planet most of Terra couldn’t locate if they had God Himself pointing the way. His neck prickled at the distinctly uncomfortable memory.
He supposed it always would.
Stepping around Kozlowski, he pressed his palm to the reader. It glowed a cold blue for a moment, then flashed a friendly green. The door slid into the wall, allowing him access to his quarters.
Apparently diplomats live well, he thought enviously. One whole wall of the suite opened out onto an expansive starscape. As he watched, the lower curve of the immense bulge of Jupiter slid by in the upper half of the wall. Tearing his eyes away from the gas giant, he took stock of his surroundings.
The bed was about the size of a California king, covered with a comforter in a busy silver pattern. Directly across from that, a small alcove contained a desk with a built-in reading light and a holo panel. On the left of the desk were two sliding doors that he guessed led into a closet. On the right was another door. He nodded at it and shot Kozlowski a quizzical look.
“The head, Captain.”
“Got it. Always good to know where you’re going to piss,” he said in a feeble attempt at humor.
“Yes, sir.” Kozlowski’s face might as well have belonged to a sculpture. “Where should I put your food?”
Pete looked around and saw a small table near the bed. “It’ll be fine there, Warrant.”
“Sir.” Without ceremony or wasted motion, the beefy man placed the tray on the table.
“Will the Captain be needing anything else, sir?”
He shook his head, then checked himself. “Actually one thing, and then you’re dismissed, Kozlowski. You can tell me what your function is on this mission. There’s no way you
would have been assigned to me just to make sure I get whatever I want to eat.”
Kozlowski’s face went perfectly blank. “They didn’t, sir, but I’m not at liberty to disclose that right now. It should be in your orders. Otherwise, I’ll explain when we arrive at Dusk.”
Pete frowned, but didn’t force the issue. “Okay, Kozlowski. What time’s breakfast?”
“Breakfast is available any time you’d like, Captain. The galley on board sets a pretty good table, if I say so myself.”
“Very well, Kozlowski. Dismissed.”
“Sir.”
For a large man, the warrant officer moved quickly and silently. Pete didn’t even hear the door close as he left.
With a sigh, he moved the small table closer to the desk and commanded it on. Once the display was up and running, he ordered, “Display all known information about planet Dusk.”
He popped the cover off the tray and was rewarded with a faceful of fragrant steam from the two large T-bone steaks, just cooked enough to be able to say they had been, the mashed potatoes covered in Cheddar cheese and sour cream, green beans, and two large dinner rolls. In one corner a thick tube rode, clipped to the tray. He picked it up and twisted the top. It immediately frosted and came away from the body. Tipping the cylinder up produced a stream of reddish-brown liquid that flowed into the chilled tumbler. He took a small sip, then a more robust one.
“Fresh-brewed iced tea. Well, I’ll be damned.” He chuckled.
“Your information is ready,” came a pleasant, soft feminine voice from behind him.
He jerked slightly and turned as fast as he dared without slopping tea all over the floor. The holoscreen bore the same information in a flowing, liquid script.
“Your information is ready,” the holo said again.
“Display,” he commanded, seating himself. As he located knife, fork, and napkin, the screen filled with information on Dusk.
“Readout,” he added, cutting into a tender, juicy piece of prime Terran ribeye, listening intently as the computer read out pertinent information about Dusk’s location, history, and important laws.
When the cool, feminine voice completed the readout, Pete murmured, “Hmm. Display off.”
As the holoscreen’s glow faded from the room, he pushed the demolished tray away and withdrew the small envelope. Breaking the seal with his thumbnail, he peered inside, then turned the envelope upside down so the contents tumbled into his palm.
A small strip of red plas emblazoned with black lettering and two tiny silver eagles glinted up at him.
The eagles, ancient symbols of a colonel’s rank, jarred him, even though he’d been expecting them.
The red plas strip, on the other hand, scared the hell out of him. Only orders that were so confidential the bearer would be required to commit suicide if necessary to keep them secure were marked that way.
What the fuck have I gotten myself into now?
Resignedly, he fed the strip into the holoscreen’s data slot.
Chapter Five
Merrick guided the ’car into the docking facility on manual control. Despite the half a bottle of Merlot he’d drunk with Olivia, his hands were sure and steady on the controls as he nosed the ’car toward his slot and brought it down. The landing was so precise and light that Olivia had to do a double-take to verify they had in fact stopped.
“I had a wonderful time, Merrick,” Olivia said, leaning over to press a kiss to his cheek. He still tasted of sea salt, and she smiled as she realized that she would forevermore associate that flavor with Merrick turning her senses inside out on the beach. She shivered deliciously, wondering how soon they could return for an encore performance.
“I did too, sweetheart,” he assured her. His hazel eyes danced in the dim light of the control panel. “I wish we could do that every day.”
She laughed. “You’re insatiable.”
“Only for you.” He winked.
The canopy slid open and locked back, allowing her to exit. She was so lost in admiring the view of Merrick’s tight buttocks as he swung out of his seat that it took her a moment to realize she was being hailed.
“-- via! Oh, God, Olivia!”
She turned to see Hui Sin Ling hurrying toward the ’car, her face so white she looked like she’d just been doused with flour. “Ling! What’s wrong?”
“It’s… it’s Ambassador Trelawney!” Ling skidded to a stop less than a handspan away. “I think he’s… he’s…”
Her eyes overflowed with tears. Reflexively, Olivia put her arms around the other woman.
“He’s what, Ling?” The bottom dropped out of Olivia’s stomach.
Ling twined herself around Olivia like a limpet, her sobs so powerful they set Olivia’s teeth rocking. Olivia could only make out the word “dead” through the other woman’s wails.
“Dead? Ambassador Trelawney’s dead? How do you know?”
Ling only sobbed all the harder, any attempt at speech blocked by her jerky inhalations and warbling cries.
Over Ling’s shoulder, Olivia speared Merrick with a glance. “Go check on the Ambassador. I’ll stay here and try to calm Ling down.”
Merrick didn’t ask any questions. His chiseled jaw tightened, but he only turned and loped away toward the corridor that led to the DDC lift to the top of the Aerie.
Once Merrick was safely away, Olivia guided Ling to the floor. Despite the fact Ling probably outmassed Olivia by thirty kilos, she followed Olivia’s guidance without protest or question. Olivia held her close and stroked her silky hair until the woman’s sobs faded to mild hiccups, and then asked again.
“What makes you think he’s dead?”
Ling met her eyes with her own fiery onyx stare. “I went to his quarters,” she said slowly, as if weighing each word before allowing it past her lips, “to drop off some data that had come in about the new Terran envoy and his staff. When I hailed him and got no answer, I went into his room.” She squeezed her eyes tightly shut for a moment as if warding off a sight too horrible for human imagination to encompass. “I found him on the floor, the sheets of the bed rumpled. There was… Olivia, there was so much blood…”
Tears streaked her face all over again as a fresh torrent of hysteria swept her. Olivia shushed and comforted her as best she could, while her mind raced like a lake-rat caught in a box.
Trelawney had been alive only three hours earlier. Anyone else who had left the Aerie would most likely be clear. The navigational systems on Merrick’s ’car would clearly show where he had been and for how long, and the security surveillance in the docking area would show him and Olivia getting into the car and leaving. They were in the clear if Ling was right. But that raised another, more frightening question.
Who had killed the Ambassador? More importantly, who would take his place in the negotiations with Terra?
She felt her mouth tightening. There was no way this could have been a coincidence. Someone wanted the senior, most experienced interplanetary diplomat Dusk could muster out of the way. But what could have been so urgent about the negotiations that the killer decided the only way to sideline Trelawney effectively was to murder him?
Her stomach dropped even lower as she added up the facts over and over again. They all added up to a most unpleasant sum.
Someone in the DDC, or closely connected to or working with the DDC, had assassinated Ambassador Trelawney.
While Ling sobbed into her shoulder, Olivia’s mind raced. She played and replayed the scene in the DDC chambers earlier that day, trying to pinpoint the source of her sudden unease. Someone had said something that hinted this might happen during the explosion of fury that followed her pronouncement that Terra could only want to make magickstone a weapon, but she couldn’t quite tease it out from the firestorm of yelling and cursing that had surrounded it. Even if she could, it was equally likely that her recollection was faulty and she hadn’t really heard what she thought she had.
But then, she couldn’t be sure she’d heard anythi
ng at all. It was entirely possible she was working herself up over nothing.
She looked up as Merrick rushed back into the docking area. His usually cheerful face was frozen into an expression as grim as a newly minted corpse.
“Ling was right,” he snarled, running a hand through his hair in agitated anger. “The Ambassador is dead.”
* * *
Two hours later, the DDC reconvened for a… Olivia wasn’t entirely sure what to call it. It wasn’t properly a wake, although a distinct funereal pall coated the room like a coat of oil, muting the whispers and occasional sobs of the assembled diplomats. It couldn’t have been called a council of war, despite the angry faces that shone out here and there among the mourning and the confusion. It certainly wasn’t a celebration; not a single person recounted a humorous story about Trelawney or attempted to assay even the weakest joke.
Galacia City Security had blocked off the entire corridor leading to Trelawney’s quarters. No one was permitted in or out of the zone while the security officers cataloged the scene and interviewed anyone who might have seen or heard anything at all amiss. This effectively left about a tenth of the DDC temporarily homeless. Some speculated in hushed tones about where they were to sleep tonight, while others muttered angrily about the inconvenience. Still others considered the future pensively or wolfishly, wondering who would assume Trelawney’s leading spot on the DDC and how the diplomatic policies of Dusk might change as a consequence.
Drinks appeared, guided along on antigrav carts by liveried servicepeople: with alcohol for those who fancied a nip, sparkling water or fruit juice for those who did not. Olivia noted without a shred of surprise that the whiskey, vodka, and wine went far faster than the non-alcoholic beverages. She picked up a pair of glasses containing fruit juice and passed one to Merrick.
Dr. Granger spoke from behind her. “May I have a word, Olivia?”
She turned to see Granger looking as solemn and severe as his friendly face could manage. “Of course.” She glanced at Merrick.