by Nick Webb
“Here. The passage opens up a bit,” said Rex. He was standing now, and offered a hand to Proctor to help her rise as well. They were now in a dim utility access corridor, lit only by glowing LED strips along the floor, half of which were unpowered.
“Do you know who those people are?” she asked.
“No. I thought you did.”
She shrugged. “No. Lead on. I don’t want to be stuck in this hole when they catch up to us.” She turned back to the marine. “Have you gotten through yet?”
He shook his head. “No, ma’am. My comm set seems to be blocked. They might be interfering with the signal, whoever they are.”
Damn. Whoever this was, their ambush was well executed, coordinated, and had tech support. This was no street gang, or even some GPC thugs. She waved them ahead. “Lead on.”
Rex led them along the corridor, passing several access hatches, and finally, after what must have been three more minutes of walking, he pointed to a nondescript hatch to the left. “This one. It’s our safe house.”
“Our?”
“The local Grangerite Synod.” He tapped a specific pattern on the metal of the hatch, and waited. Moments later, an answering tap came, with a complicated pattern. Rex replied with yet another series of thumps, some quick, some more spaced.
“Is that morse code?” she asked.
Rex raised an eyebrow. “You know it?”
“A little. Learned a little as a kid when I played Fleets and Swarm.” His slight squint told her he had no idea what that was. “A board game you play, and you have to send secret messages to your teammates any way you can. I learned a few things I could tap to my friends.”
“Did it help you win?”
She smiled at the memory, in spite of the urgent danger they were still in. “Every time.”
Rex tapped a final code, which Proctor managed to translate as Victory—she assumed was a password, since the ISS Victory figured heavily into Grangerite mythology. Her history. Either way, the hatch creaked open. “Hurry,” said Rex again, offering a hand to help her through.
The hatch closed with a clang, and firm, metallic thuds confirmed the locks fell into place, finally allowing Proctor to breathe. She’d faced death any number of times at the helm of a starship, staring down a Swarm carrier, or as was often the case, ten Swarm carriers. But facing such visceral, immediate danger as a gunman aiming for your head was an entirely different feeling. A faceless, nameless, inhuman enemy wanting her dead was one thing. It was another entirely to be targeted by another human with a name, face, and actual ideologies, however warped they were.
She found it terrifying.
“Anything yet?” she asked the marine, wishing now she’d remembered his name. It seemed like the least she could do for a young man who was putting his life on the line for hers.
“No, ma’am. All channels still blocked.” He pulled his comm device out of one of his many pockets and fiddled with the screen. “With the kind of interference we’re getting, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve managed to hack into our terminals, Admiral. I don’t see how they could block every channel otherwise.”
She nodded. “Very well. Keep at it.” And, turning to Rex, “Now what? Do you have a way out of here?”
“Of course. Follow us, please.”
She just then noticed the kid standing next to the hatch. Tall, lanky, pimpled. Maybe fifteen or sixteen. Both Rex and the kid went down a narrow hallway leading from the small room the hatch was in, and emerged into a larger room full of boxes and crates, and past that, an even larger one, complete with couches, chairs, a refrigerator and sink, bunk beds lining the walls, and in the center, a small group of waiting people.
At the center of that group, a face. An incredibly charming face. One that was vaguely familiar. He stood up quickly and extended a hand. “Admiral Proctor, it is an incredible honor to meet you, companion of the Hero of Earth. Welcome.”
She accepted the hand and shook. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. …?”
“Curiel.”
The name jogged her memory. That face. She finally placed it. “Secretary General Curiel? Of the GPC?”
He bowed. “The one and only. I’ve been expecting you for several weeks now.”
“Expecting me?” She glanced around the room, half expecting a dozen gunmen to spring out of the closets. What the hell was going on?
“It was prophesied. When the Hero made his final ascension and passed the event horizon, it was foretold that you’d be on the move again, preparing the way for his return. According to observations from the Penumbra Prime observatory, Granger officially passed the event horizon two weeks ago.” Curiel smiled broadly at her. “And here you are.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Irigoyen Sector, San Martin System, San Martin
Galactic People’s Congress safehouse, Ciudad Libertador
Proctor tried not to grimace at the religious mumbo jumbo mingled with tech jargon. She forced a thin smile. “So, you’re a Grangerite? I had no idea the leader of the Galactic People’s Congress was so … uh, pious.”
Secretary General Curiel held both his hands up, as if in a signal of surrender. “I agree, Admiral. This looks and sounds like lunacy. Ten years ago I would have said the same. I don’t blame you for having your doubts—”
She smiled again, this time more genuine. “Doubts doesn’t really quite cover it, Mr. Secretary. More like, one hundred percent absolute surety that you folks are crazier than the local Pastafarian congregation that eagerly awaits the second coming of the flying spaghetti monster. I’m sorry, but I don’t have time to waste on your delusions. Please show me out of here, preferably to a place where people aren’t shooting at me, and where I can get a ride back up to my ship. You know, civilizations to save, planets to protect. The usual.”
She didn’t mean to let so much sarcasm seep into her words, but the absurdity, the lunacy of it all threatened to make her grab her marine’s sidearm and start shooting people in the face. But, given how they currently had her at their mercy, she delayed the impulse to violence.
Secretary General Curiel nodded. “Again, I don’t blame you, and I’m sorry we’re meeting under these circumstances. I had hoped that we could eventually sit down and map out a course of peace—”
“Peace? You have your goons shoot up a store and kill my man back there, and you expect to sit down and discuss peace? What kind of deluded piece of shit are you?”
He shook his head. “Those were not my men. Admiral, you may find this hard to believe, but the Galactic People’s Congress is an organization devoted to peace. Yet, as with any large organization dedicated to freedom for all people, it inevitably attracts, well, all kinds. There are several factions in the GPC that are out of my control, and frankly, a little extreme. And worse, several corporations that are pulling some of the strings of a few of those extremist groups.”
Proctor stared him in the eye. “Mr. Secretary, I’ve come for my nephew. That’s all I want. Just tell me who sold him his ship, and why the hell it exploded over Sangre taking fifty thousand people with it.” She almost didn’t want to know the next part, at least, not yet. “And if Danny survived it.”
“I sold him the ship. It was mine. I’m sure your people will eventually confirm that, and track the registry back to a corporation under GPC control.”
She nodded. Finally, some answers. “And the nuke?”
His face tightened. “Also mine.”
“So you confess then? To war crimes? You understand that you likely face the death penalty. Life in prison at the least.”
He shook his head vigorously. “I do not confess to war crimes. It was never our intention to actually use that device. It was only meant as … political leverage.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. Don’t insult me, Mr. Secretary. You don’t steal a thermonuclear device, and launch it at a defenseless colony, and then claim it was all just an innocent mistake and that you really only meant to thump your chest a littl
e bit. Wave your dick around like one of the big boys.”
Curiel’s eyes flashed in anger, but he managed to smile tightly. “I tell you again, I did not order that launch. We meant to store the device in a secure bunker somewhere. Never to be used. Period. The fact of its ownership was meant to solidify support from some of our worlds that had been wavering. They needed to know that we were taking their defense seriously.”
“Whatever.” She blew him off. “Play your political games. Just tell me. If it wasn’t you, then who was it?”
He closed his mouth. It seemed she’d thrown him off guard. “I don’t know.”
“Please,” she scoffed again.
“I’m telling you, I don’t know. It could be the Russian Confederation….”
She waved a dismissing hand. “Unlikely. After the Swarm War they retreated into themselves. They don’t get into galactic politics anymore. They care about their own worlds, and that’s it.”
“Yes, but some of their worlds have rather large populations of GPC loyalists.”
“What, you think they bombed Sangre and tried to make it look like you, so that the rest of the GPC worlds would be scared off from supporting you? Like a false-false-flag operation? Sounds a little absurd. Beyond far-fetched.”
He shrugged. “It’s not like they’ve ever hesitated to engage in such tactics before in their history. But like I said, I don’t know. That’s just a hunch. But I’ll allow that it might be bad hunch.”
“Clearly.” She glared at him, then looked around the room at the others. A collection of men and women, some of whom seemed to be his aides, others she guessed were just there for the spectacle of seeing the Hero’s companion, and several looked like security. Good—at least that might mean they’d be safe from whoever was aiming for her head.
“Admiral Proctor, when I heard you were here, I had to meet you. Not only for the, uh, faith aspect of it all. But for the very reason you have mentioned. Danny Proctor went silent shortly before the Magdalena Issachar plunged down into the atmosphere of Sangre de Cristo. I want to know why as much as you do. I suspect he was intercepted by … someone. Someone who not only wanted that nuke, but someone aboard a ship … with stealth technology.”
“Stealth?”
“Yes. Honest-to-god photon-bending stealth. I know IDF is working on it, and has a few early beta trials running.”
“How did you know that?”
He smiled. “I have my sources. But what I don’t know is who intercepted Danny, or why, or what their motives are. For that, I need your help.”
She rubbed her eyes. The shock of everything that had happened over the last half hour was starting to set in, and she felt a slight shiver, and recognized the signs of her core temperature falling from the shock. “How can I trust you? Tell me why I should trust you. Convince me.”
He swallowed. “I can’t. But if I was going to kill you, I’d have already done it.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her marine go tense. She held up a hand to steady him. “I need more than that. You’re telling me I should trust you because you haven’t killed me? Fuck you.”
He stroked the stubble on his chin. He was not especially tall, but actually quite striking, with a natural charisma that Proctor was not surprised at, given his position. It would take someone of remarkable charisma to convince so many people to devote themselves to such a deluded cause.
“All right. I’ll give you our other nukes.”
She tried not to shiver. “Other nukes? How many do you have?”
“Nine. We stole ten, and with the loss of the one over Sangre, I’m starting to doubt their security, and the wisdom of even having them. As a show of good faith, I’ll give them to you. All of them. But what I want in exchange is, well, trust, for one. And cooperation—we need to figure out who is behind Sangre. Otherwise, both your goals and mine will … go unrealized.”
“You don’t know what my goals are.”
“I do.” He stared at her, and for the first time, his smile was genuine. “You’re the companion of the Hero. Your goal is the same as mine. To save humanity. Our means are different of course, as are—I suspect—our definitions of the word save, but I don’t doubt your goal, nor should you doubt mine.”
He paused, pointing upward toward the ceiling, as if to indicate an unseen enemy out in the deep of space. “But if we don’t figure out who is working against both of us, then humanity falls.”
She slowly nodded. It was a distraction, of course. She was in this to save her nephew, and for extra credit, to save Earth. Getting involved in galactic politics? She was done with that.
“Fine. Nine nukes for my cooperation in the investigation.”
“Excellent,” he said with a broad smile, which faltered slightly. “Except, I should clarify. I can give you eight nukes now, and the ninth to come soon.”
Dammit. She knew there was a catch.
“When?”
He sighed. It sounded like defeat. “When we can figure out who stole it.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Irigoyen Sector, San Martin System, San Martin
Shuttle Fenway
“You’re not actually thinking about outrunning them, are you?”
It was giving Zivic the creeps looking at Batak speak at him through the uncanny-valley face mask. He couldn’t believe that they had actually thought it would be a good idea to go out in public like that.
“Of course I am. Hold on.”
The shuttle lurched, and he could see her simultaneously grab her seat and her mouth as they shot straight down into the lower atmosphere, accelerated, steepening the angle of descent to a full-on dive, before leveling out just a few hundred meters above the ocean in a gut-churning arc.
Even though her face prosthetic was white, he could tell that even without it the blood would be gone from her face. “Never … do … that … again,” she managed to say through gritted teeth.
The comm buzzed to life. “Unidentified shuttle, you are advised to follow us to a landing site immediately, or we will take you down.”
Dammit. “Sorry, I thought we could get out from under their sensors by skirting the water.” He glanced at his sensors. “But look, we already lost six of them. There’s only one following us now. The rest went off back to the city.”
“Why would they—”
“Hold on,” he repeated, interrupting her question. Knowing he was about to get another stream of profanity-laden protests from her, he pushed the accelerator downward, and the distance between them and the ocean dropped to nothing.
“ETHAN!”
The collision was not as rough as he would have expected, and he credited the impact mode of the inertial cancelers with half of the luck, and his last-second deceleration with the rest. Still, if it weren’t for their restraints, they’d both be smeared on the front viewport. As it was, he could tell that his shoulders would not come away from this without deep bruising.
They were underwater. When the maelstrom of bubbles subsided, he could just make out rods of blue sunlight shimmering down at them from the surface about a dozen meters up.
“What … the hell … are you doing!” she yelled through gritted teeth.
“We tried to fool them your way, with makeup. Now we’re fooling them my way.”
“BY DYING?” she yelled again.
“They’re going to think that we died in the crash, yes. By the time they get a recovery ship out here, we’ll be long gone.”
She couldn’t seem to stop swearing under her breath. “And in the meantime, what do we do about the whole not dying thing?”
“Working on it….” He glanced at the instrument panel. Structural integrity was holding—ship hulls were designed to keep exactly one atmosphere of pressure in, not two atmospheres of pressure out. But the hull plates were holding, as were the seams between hull and viewport, and the feedthroughs for the sensor packages and propulsions units.
“Those propulsion units are never going to st
art up again,” she said, as if reading his mind.
“I beg to differ. At the last second I shut them off and closed the exhaust panels. Our stabilizing thrusters are shot, of course, but main propulsion? No problemo.”
He held his breath, waiting for the sensors to give him the all-clear. Their reach was severely attenuated by the shielding from the salt water above them, which acted like a huge grounding plate.
As if in answer, several white streaks shot through the water right across the view out the window. A second later, the comm crackled. “Unidentified shuttle, you will surface, and proceed to the coordinates I’m beaming you, or else I’ll open fire. Be advised: this time, I won’t miss.”
He hung his head into a palm. They’d lost—they were caught. There was no escaping this time. “Fine. Bastards.” He initiated the main engines with a flip of a finger, and released the containment panels that kept the water out. The shuttle lurched forward, and shot out of the water with what must have been an amazing splash for anyone lucky enough to have seen it, he supposed.
“Unidentified shuttle—”
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch, I’m coming.”
A pause on the other side of the comm as the pilot of the fighter considered his words. “You will accompany me up into the atmosphere. Any deviation from our course will result in several dozen red hot rounds coming up your ass. Got it?”
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were propositioning me, Lieutenant.”
The pilot didn’t sound amused. Batak glared at Zivic. Her eyes said don’t piss off the guy with the big guns pointed at us.
“Unidentified shuttle—”
Zivic rolled his eyes. “Got it, Lieutenant. We’re following you up. Any particular destination in mind?”