by Rick Partlow
“At ease,” Minishimi’s XO barked and the talking ceased.
“We have been tasked to aid Colonel McKay in his investigation of this incident. I will turn the briefing over to him.”
McKay stood, nodding to the Captain, then touched a control on the wall and a star map was projected near the ceiling. “We’re heading here,” he said. “The system doesn’t have an official name, but the Scouts have been calling the habitable there ‘Peboan.’ It means…”
“Winter spirit,” the ground support shuttle flight leader spoke up, her contralto voice clear and piercing. “From the Chippewa myth.”
“Yes,” McKay nodded, raising an eyebrow. “The planet’s a bit on the cold side most of its year. Our surveys have indicated that Peboan is rich in petroleum, fissionables and other resources, as are a couple other habitable worlds in close proximity. We are working on the theory that Antonov doesn’t have enough ships to do extensive space-based mining, so he will choose to get his resources onplanet where possible.
“The only reason for Antonov to attack the outpost is that they had either already spotted his activities or he thought they were about to and wanted to buy some time. So, we probably won’t find him anywhere in the immediate area, but I am hoping we can find a lead as to where he’s going and what he’s up to. We are prepared in case we do run into his forces, however, as you can see by looking around you.” He surveyed their faces, seeing total attention in every one. “I do have to tell you, there is the possibility that we could be out here more than a year, depending on how far the search takes us. I’m sorry you weren’t allowed to send out messages to your loved ones indicating this, but I have direct orders from the president not to let news of this get out until we get confirmation as to whether this is Antonov’s work and what his next move might be.” He paused. “Any questions?”
“What evidence do we have that this is Antonov or his people?” The question came from one of the Marine platoon leaders, a sharp-edged young man with café aux lait skin and dark hair that was little more than stubble on his head. The name Dodd was stenciled on his shirt.
“We found brass rifle casings in the wreckage of the destroyed base, Lieutenant Dodd,” McKay answered. He hit a control and a video of the Marines holding up the brass casings played for them.
“That’s all we got?” asked his platoon sergeant, her puffy, schoolteacher’s face screwed up in a frown. “Ain’t that a little thin, sir?”
“If you can tell me another solution more likely, Gunny Dzvonik,” McKay shrugged, “I’m all ears. We have to postulate an enemy that has star travel independent of the established cargo and passenger runs, that has a motive to attack one of our remote observation posts and loot everything not nailed down and that uses gunpowder weapons firing from brass-cased cartridges marked with Cyrillic writing.”
“Yeah, guess you got a point, sir,” she admitted.
“I have a question,” the shuttle commander raised a finger.
“Yes, Commander…?”
“Villanueva, sir,” she told him. “As I understand it, the Protectorates use some sort of artificial wormhole gateways to travel FTL…so why are you concerned about the planets in the systems around Peboan? Couldn’t they be just as easily jumping somewhere dozens of light years away?”
“They could,” McKay admitted. “But we know they’ve pirated some of our Eysselink drive ships…it’s possible they make use of them. And frankly,” he sighed, “it’s all we got. If we can’t find them this way, we’re basically going to have to sit on our ass until they decide to attack us.”
“Understood, sir,” Villanueva nodded.
“All right, if there’s nothing else…” No one spoke up, so McKay nodded to Captain Minishimi.
“Thank you, Colonel McKay,” she stepped back into the center of the conference room. “All right, ladies and gentlemen…get yourselves and your people squared away for g-sleep.” She grinned tightly. “See you in a month.”
Vinnie hung back as the rest filed out of the room, seeing McKay’s frown.
“What’s wrong, sir?” he asked.
“It’s times like these I wish we had access to those wormholes, Vinnie,” McKay said. “I don’t like the idea of spending weeks asleep. God knows what’s going to have happened by the time we wake up…”
* * *
Ariel Shamir didn’t recognize himself in the mirror. The face he was used to was that of a young, clean-shaven, hawk-faced Israeli of European Jewish heritage, with short, black hair, dark brown eyes and a light olive skin. The one that stared back at him now was darker-complexioned, the nose broader and slightly more hooked, the eyelids heavier, the hair thicker and the face adorned with a neatly trimmed full beard. Good thing the cosmetic implants weren’t permanent…there were a few girls back in Tel Aviv that wouldn’t approve of the changes.
He nodded with satisfaction and checked the fit of his uniform---the two-piece, precisely tailored grays of the Colonial Guard rather than the black Fleet Intelligence utilities he was used to. It felt odd wearing a uniform that was cut more like a business suit than a set of fatigues, but that was the CeeGees for you.
Smoothing down his tunic once more, he turned, shouldered his duffle bag, and left the solitude of the empty bathroom to re-enter the buzzing chaos of the Buenos Aires Transportation Hub. Throngs of people moved through the huge complex of buildings, dragging luggage behind them, embarking and disembarking from suborbital transports, boarding subways and maglev trains, renting flitters or being picked up by groundcars or buses. In the center of the giant auditorium that was the hub of the Hub was a huge statue worked from a single piece of granite, twenty meters tall. It was a copy of the city’s iconic Obelisk and the wave of humanity seemed to break upon it, spreading into streams and rivulets to one of the many exits.
He knew exactly where his ride was waiting…he headed out one of the Hub’s north-facing exits, leaving the cool, conditioned air of the building for the broiler of a South American February afternoon. Ari began sweating almost immediately, but ignored it as he took in the view of the city.
Ari had spent a lot of time in Capital City in his career and he had grown used to the Old City that used to be called New York within sight of the New City, the interconnected megalopolis that had been built after the Crisis period after the devastating nuclear exchanges of the Sino-Russian War. But Buenos Aires was different…rather than the old being abandoned as it had been with Capital City, or being razed over and replaced as it had been in Asia, Buenos Aires seemed like a city of the previous millennium had magically been merged with a modern one. Stretching from the western shore of the Rio de la Plata to the Riachuelo, the city was patchy now, with stretches of old architecture---modernized on the inside of course---interspersed with more modern designs in places, and then suddenly whole districts of nothing but newer buildings, usually in areas where the old sections had been destroyed by fire or torn down in one improvement project or another. It wasn’t as energy efficient or convenient as the megalopolises like Capital City, Cleveland ‘Plex, or Nuevo Rio but it had a certain charm to it. Very European in a way, Ari thought.
Letting his gaze fall away from the Paris of the Pampas, Ari scanned across a series of numbered lots on the other side of the road from the terminal until he saw one with a flitter in the colors of the Colonial Guard, with a pilot leaning casually against the hull beside the open ramp. Nodding to himself, he took the foot bridge over the road, striding up to the ducted fan hovercraft as if he owned it. The pilot, a jowly, mid-ranking NCO, quickly came to attention, eyes straight ahead, and saluted.
“I am Captain Mohammed Al-Masri,” Ari snapped, returning the salute perfunctorily. “Why wasn’t there someone inside to carry my bag?”
“My apologies, sir,” the sergeant said, still at attention, his eyes darting to Ari’s scowling face. The NCO spoke English with the accent of a Pacific islander, though to Ari he looked Central American. “I was not informed what flight you were coming
in on, sir, so I thought I should wait here for you.”
“Where I come from, soldiers are not paid to think,” Ari sniffed, throwing his duffle bag at the man. The sergeant caught it, barely, his mouth an “O.” “Load this into the aircraft and get me to where I am going.”
“Yes sir!” the sergeant stuttered, scrambling up the ramp into the aircraft. Ari followed him, concealing a smile. The best thing, he thought, about undercover work, was the ability to act like an asshole with no consequences…
For all else, the sergeant was a competent pilot. Ari had flown in hundreds of the ubiquitous ducted-fan hovercraft that were the transport of choice for most military and government personnel in the Republic, and those flights were often the most dangerous part of his assignments, but this ride was fairly smooth and his rude treatment of the NCO had the benefit of keeping the man from attempting small talk.
The little flitter passed over the Rio de la Plata and over the city proper, giving Ari a good look at the full size version of the Obelisk he’d seen in the Hub. The city was a hive of activity, bustling with people and vehicles, including tens of thousands of individual cars, something rarely seen in the more developed nations. Hundreds of thousands of pedestrians coursed through the arteries of the metropolis, looking from the air like a mass of insects swarming over a decaying animal.
Their course took them straight through the heart of the city and past it, into the sprawling, untidy suburbs, another feature not seen in more developed lands. Those too thinned out in minutes and then, in the countryside beyond, in the middle of the rich, grass plains grew a huge complex of buildings, a hodge-podge of different designs, some styled for form, some for function. Kilometer-across domes sat next to the ugly square blocks of barracks, while across a broad grassy field was what could have been a mansion from 19th Century Spain. And in the center of it all was an inverted trapezoid of a building faced with gleaming white marble, surrounded by a huge parade field. At the center of that field was a marble disc set in the ground, thirty meters across and bearing the stylized planetary system and crossed swords of the Colonial Guard. Troops performing drill and ceremony marched through that field in lines of grey, cutting right angles with precision.
The pilot set them down in a field behind the giant white trapezoid, the Headquarters building for the Colonial Guard, then hurried to get unstrapped and carry Captain Al-Masri’s bag out of the flitter before Ari could yell at him again. “Can I take this inside for you, Captain?” he asked. Ari suddenly felt guilty for acting like such a jerk to the man, despite the fact that it was part of his cover.
“No, Sergeant Gutierrez,” Ari took the duffle bag from the NCO and shouldered it---he’d read the man’s name off the tab on the chest of his uniform tunic. “Your service has been satisfactory. It was a…long flight from Yemen.”
“I understand sir,” Gutierrez nodded gratefully, then saluted. “I hope your journey here is a rewarding one.”
“I hope so, too, Sergeant,” Ari said sincerely, returning the salute.
Ari strode quickly into the main entrance to the headquarters building, pausing for a moment at the security checkpoint just inside until his implanted ID chip cleared the scanner and the armed and armored guard there nodded for him to proceed. The place wasn’t that busy in the mid-afternoon, with most of the enlisted and NCOs drilling or training outdoors and most of the officers firmly ensconced in the comfort of their air-conditioned offices.
The interior of the building was just as richly decorated as the exterior, Ari noticed. White tiled walls were inlaid with gold and hung with what he hoped were copies of classic artwork, and doors were made from real wood, incredibly expensive here on Earth as it had to be imported from the interstellar colonies.
At the far end of the entrance corridor was an elevator, almost out of place amongst the classical elegance of the décor, but he wasn’t about to show his disdain for the anachronism by taking the stairs to the top floor. The ambience there was even more ornate than that of the entrance hall, if that was possible. Classical style statuary lined the halls in well-lit alcoves, but Ari ignored it as he approached his destination, instead working on embedding himself deeply into his cover identity. This would not be a good time to screw up.
The office was guarded by a clerk at a desk, who was working with a virtual desktop, dragging files from one inbox to another via a touch-sensitive holographic display. She came to her feet as she saw him approach, noticing the rank on his shoulder.
“You would be Captain Mohammed Al-Masri?” she asked for form’s sake…she’d known who he was since he entered the building.
“I am here to see General Kage,” he said, tossing his duffle bag to the side of her desk.
“Yes, sir, he’ll be right with you. If you would just have a seat here for a moment…” She waved at a chair beside her desk. Ari fought back a sigh. He hated this game. The General was sitting at his desk, watching him via a video feed as he made him wait, sizing up his reaction to the ordeal.
Nothing to be done about it. He sat, forced himself to wait a few minutes before he began checking the newsfeed on his ‘link. What would Mohammed Al-Masri be interested in? He brought up the financial reports, checking the investments into which his backstopped “family” had sunk their money and were swiftly losing it. After he gave them a cursory viewing, as one might that knew the figures and didn’t want to dwell on them, he switched to auditing the Senate hearings on the biomech legislation. He gave those more attention, not least because he wanted to actually be up on the latest in case General Kage brought up the topic.
“Captain,” the clerk said finally, “the General will see you now.”
Ari pocketed his ‘link and sprang to his feet, marching up to the thick, wooden double doors to General Kage’s office and knocking twice confidently but not sharply.
“Come in,” Kage’s hard-edged voice invited him.
Ari had never met the commanding general of the Colonial Guard before, but he knew everything that Fleet Intell knew about him, plus the personal observations of Colonel McKay and Major Stark. He knew that the man sitting before him in the neatly pressed grey CeeGee uniform was not your typical Guard officer, given his rank because his parents had high social or political position in their home country. Kage was the son of moderately successful Peruvian ranchers and had joined the Guard to see the stars. He’d demonstrated a ruthless competence that was rare among CeeGee officers in Ari’s experience…well, the competent part was, anyway. Ari did not intend to underestimate him.
“Captain Mohammed Al-Masri reporting for duty, General, sir!” Ari said, saluting smartly as he entered the office, letting the door swing shut behind him.
“At ease, Captain,” Kage returned the salute. He looked Ari over as the younger man stood before him, hands clasped behind his back. “So, Captain Al-Masri, you come highly recommended. Your record in the Fleet Marine Corps was exemplary…until you were court-martialed and discharged for abusing a captured insurgent. Care to share your side of the story?”
Ari made his face appear to be fighting back a sneer of disdain. “There is no side to this story, General,” he replied. “My platoon had dropped on the city of Cape Verde on El Dorado. There was a city-wide riot going on, looting, burning…savages,” he spat the word. “It was the local arm of the Chaos Front…those damned anarchist bastards wanted nothing more than to bring down the colonial government. They had no thought of establishing their own; they just wanted to bring every bit of order and civilization crashing down. The violence overwhelmed the local police and Colonial Guard armory so when the Montgomery arrived insystem for the scheduled patrol, the two platoons she carried were called in to help put down the riots.
“On the third day, we had managed to capture one of the group’s chief planners. We…myself and my platoon sergeant…were interrogating him, trying to find the location of their weapons stores, the other leaders…” He shook his head. “The man was a fanatic. He wouldn’t cooperate an
d things were getting worse. I did what I had to do. My actions saved lives.”
The story was a good one, Ari thought. Probably because it was true: it just hadn’t happened to him.
“The court-martial disagreed,” Kage said with a thin smile. “You were given the choice of a reduction in rank and a reprimand on your record or a discharge from the Corps. You chose discharge. Why?”
“I have to admit, General,” Ari answered, feigning thoughtfulness, “I am not without ambition. A letter of reprimand and a demotion would have kept me from advancing past Captain. My career would have been frozen. But more, I did not want to stay with a military that was not willing to do what was necessary to defeat our enemies.”
“So you believe the Colonial Guard is willing, then?”
“General, I have worked with CeeGee…your pardon, sir, with Colonial Guard troops several times. I have always been impressed with their zeal for doing what was necessary to keep order in the colonies. Aggressiveness has never been the problem with the Guard units I have known.”
“And what, in your estimation, is the problem, Captain?” Kage cocked an eyebrow and Ari debated retreating for the moment…but no. Better to risk it.
“With all respect, sir, the problem has always been lack of tactical training and experience in the junior officers.”
“And you believe this to be so because of the nature of our junior officer recruitment system,” Kage surmised.
“Sir, it has been well known for many years that Guard commissions are handed out as political favors to the sons and daughters of well-connected families in the South and Eastblocs. Those that have the capacity to learn and grow eventually become good officers, but those that do not wind up getting their men killed unnecessarily…and giving us a bad name.”