The Service of Mars

by Glynn Stewart

  “What do you want, Colonel?” she finally asked. “I can’t imagine you’re here for conversation.”

  “That’s actually not a bad interpretation of my instructions, actually,” McLain said. He hooked one of the chairs over to him with the back of his ankle and sat on it backward, facing Roslyn with a small smile.

  “The Lord Protector asked me to check in on you and see if there was anything you needed. Or, of course, if you had any questions on the books.”

  He gestured at the pile of books on the floor.

  “It seems you’ve made up part of your mind already.”

  “Just because the Lord Protector wants me to read those books doesn’t mean they’re worth the paper they’re printed on,” she said sweetly. “Tell me, Colonel, which of these books actively calls for genocide?”

  He sighed.

  “None of them, I believe,” he told her. “While I understand your point of view, I don’t think anything that has happened could be called genocide.”

  “If not, then only because you were stopped,” Roslyn replied. “Unless you want to hand me a jump-ship and a free pass out of the system, Colonel, I’m not sure I can help you.”

  “I’d say we don’t have the Jump Mages for that, but you wouldn’t need one,” he said, glancing at her hands.

  Roslyn clenched her fists. The plain fatigues she’d found in the apartment closet fit her well enough, but they didn’t come with the gloves generally preferred by Protectorate Mages. If she turned her hands palm-up, the inlaid silver of her jump runes was clearly visible.

  “I can get you a lot of things to make your stay more comfortable,” McLain told her. “If you have a preference for clothing, food, drinks, et cetera, I can have that delivered or the meals changed. My understanding is that our file shows you have no food allergies or medication requirements, but if we’re missing something, please let me know.”

  “I’m fine,” Roslyn insisted, then paused. “Actually…I want to see Mage-Admiral Alexander.”

  “That’s not on the list of things I can get you,” the Colonel admitted.

  “Then talk to someone who can, maybe someone without a hook on their collar.”

  He laughed and tapped the insignia.

  “If it was a hook, Lieutenant Chambers, I think it would be the other way up. This is a shepherd’s staff, the tool used to guide the flock,” he explained the obvious to her. “It is the personal emblem of the Lord Protector and I am one of the Protector’s Guard, his personal security force.

  “Like the Royal Guard on Mars, we speak with authority beyond our formal rank, but Mage-Admiral Alexander represents the single most dangerous prisoner we have ever taken,” McLain warned her. “I will ask, Lieutenant. It seems a small-enough concession to maintain your comfort, but that decision is out of my hands.”

  “Ask, then,” Roslyn said. “I don’t think there’s anything else you can do for me, Colonel.”

  He rose and bowed.

  “I will do what I can,” he promised. “My task is to remind you that we are your hosts, Lieutenant, but until you accept that you were on the wrong side of this war, there is only so much we can do.”

  “I’m a long way from thinking I am on the wrong side of the war,” Roslyn told him. “And I don’t think I’m going to be on the losing side, either.”

  Despite the hole-digging Roslyn had done, McLain returned several hours later. When he arrived, she was amusing herself by building a tower out of the collection of books the Republicans had given her.

  The knock on the door made her twitch in surprise, and the two-story construct she’d built promptly collapsed onto the table in a clatter.

  “Come in,” she declared loudly. There wasn’t much point denying anyone entrance, and she didn’t really care if they saw her treating the books as toys.

  The Protector’s Guard Colonel stepped through the door with a wry smile, looking at the spread-out pile of books that had been Roslyn’s tower.

  “Am I interrupting something?” he asked.

  “Only testing the structural integrity of these books as construction materials,” she said. “I am unimpressed. Can I help you, Colonel McLain?”

  He produced two sets of manacles from inside his jacket, the cuffs hanging from his hands by their linking chain.

  “I have permission to take you to see Mage-Admiral Alexander,” he told her. “I do have to ask you to submit to full Mage-cuffing for you to leave this room, though. That isn’t optional.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Roslyn admitted. She looked at the manacles and chains in McLain’s grip and swallowed. It was one thing to be trapped in a room that blocked her magic. It was quite another to voluntarily allow herself to be chained with a device that did the same.

  “Fine,” she ground out. “I don’t have much choice, do I?”

  “You can remain here,” McLain said. “So long as you’re in this apartment, we don’t need to cuff you.”

  “That’s because the apartment might as well be Mage-cuffs. Fine,” she repeated, rising and presenting her hands. “I will do what I must.”

  “Very well.”

  Two more Protector’s Guards, the collar insignia familiar to Roslyn now, entered the room in response to a silent call. Both of them were women, she noted as they took the cuffs from McLain and began to restrain her.

  For a nation willing to embrace mass atrocities, the Republic was being surprisingly respectful.

  The chains attached to the manacles were longer and looser than those used when Roslyn had been a prisoner on the ship, allowing her to move more freely and keep up as McLain and their two escorts guided her through the warren of tunnels and corridors that made up the interior of Styx.

  Roslyn’s sense of direction was good enough to know that she was being led in circles, but with the confusing nature of the interior of a space station, she wasn’t comfortable thinking she could cut time off the roundabout route McLain was taking her.

  When they reached their destination, she was reasonably sure she could find her way to Alexander’s cell and find her way to the shuttle bay—but she could only do either from her cell and via the route they’d shown her.

  Since she was very sure that route was as inefficient as possible, that memorization wasn’t valuable yet—but Roslyn was grimly determined to keep doing it until she had enough of a mental map of the station to perhaps find an efficient way out.

  The entrance to their destination looked much the same as the entrance to her own cell: a security door flanked by Augments from the Protector’s Guard in a hall that otherwise looked like a normal residential accessway.

  One of those Guards—both women again, Roslyn absently noted—stepped forward to stop them as they approached.

  “We have permission for the prisoners to meet,” McLain told her. “You should have the authorization from Solace’s office already.”

  “Let me double-check,” the Guard replied. “Hold your position.”

  McLain was almost certainly senior to the woman, but it seemed the Republic had picked its most determined soldiers to guard the Crown Princess of Mars—it was what Roslyn would have done.

  “Your authorization is confirmed,” the Guard admitted after a moment. “I think this is a terrible idea, Colonel.”

  “Argue it with the Lord Protector,” McLain replied. “It is his plan we follow, after all.”

  “It’s too late for that, it seems,” she said. “Take her in. We’ll be watching.”

  “Of course you will,” McLain agreed. He gestured for Roslyn’s guards to lead her forward as the woman who’d remained next to the door pressed her palm to a reader.

  Roslyn was watching and paying attention to everything. There might be a secondary authorization she couldn’t see, but the main control seemed to be either a palm-print lock or a chip imbedded in the Guard’s hand.

  Either could be worked with given the opportunity.

  The door slid open while she was focused on the lock, and sh
e found herself shuffled forward into an apartment identical to hers. Even with the Mage-cuffs on, she could tell that it was warded in the same way as hers as well.

  That kind of ward was rare enough in the Protectorate, but Roslyn was one of the small group of people who knew the Republic had made an alliance with a rogue Mage of unusually powerful gifts—now that she knew the term, she guessed he’d been a Rune Wright. Presumably, Finley had helped the Lord Protector make these cells—and once assembled, the wards could be maintained by any Mage.

  For all Roslyn knew, the Republic was even using a Prometheus Interface for the recharging. At least theoretically, a Mage trapped in the Interface wasn’t limited to the jump spell.

  Her plotting and analyzing were interrupted when she fully stepped into the room and spotted the woman sitting on the couch. Jane Alexander was awake, which Roslyn hadn’t seen since Sucre, and she rushed to the Admiral’s side as quickly as she could with the manacles.

  “Admiral, Admiral, are you okay?” she demanded.

  Alexander moved her head slowly, her languid change of attention entirely out of character for her, and leveled an almost-entirely unfocused gaze on Roslyn.

  “Roslyn?” she asked, her voice slurred. “It’s…good to see you. Are you… Are you…”

  Whatever Alexander had meant to ask seemed to escape her, and she lowered her head slightly with a sigh.

  “Foggy,” she said softly. “Drugs. Food. Water. All drugged.”

  Roslyn turned an angry glare at McLain.

  “What the hell is this?” she snapped. “This isn’t appropriate treatment for a prisoner of war!”

  “We’re doing the best we can,” he said flatly. “Yes, Mage-Admiral Alexander is a prisoner of war, but she is also a walking weapon of mass destruction. We have some idea of what a Rune Wright like Admiral Alexander is capable of.

  “Unfortunately, it’s impossible to suppress her magic without some level of sedative,” he continued. “Here, unlike aboard the transport that delivered you, we can at least keep her conscious and capable of some self-care, but the security of this facility and the tens of thousands of people aboard it requires her state.”

  He shook his head.

  “I don’t like it, Lieutenant, but it is necessary.”

  “Prick.”

  Only Roslyn was close enough to hear the Admiral’s slowly muttered word, and she forced herself to conceal a grin. Despite the amount of sedatives the Republic was clearly feeding Jane Alexander, she was definitely still in there.

  “You wanted to see her, Lieutenant,” McLain said. “You have. I can permit you to spend a few minutes together, but I must remain with you.”

  Roslyn ignored him, kneeling in front of Alexander and taking the older woman’s hands.

  “Your Highness, have you been hurt?” she asked gently.

  “Don’t think so,” Alexander slurred. “Har’ to say with…this…shit.”

  The Mage-Lieutenant’s heart ached to see her mentor like this, fury burning away the last of her own fear. She wasn’t sure how she was going to do it yet, but she was going to get her boss out of his mess.

  “We have no reason to harm the Mage-Admiral,” the Guard Colonel said behind her. “She is a legitimate POW. We are taking extreme precautions because of the danger level she represents, but we do not want to hurt her.”

  “Just interrogate her?” Roslyn snapped. Her own “interviews” had yet to materialize, though she knew they wouldn’t be held off much longer.

  “Of course,” he confirmed. “We are at war, after all. I am tasked to find the best ways to protect my people, Mage-Lieutenant, just as you and the Admiral were tasked to protect yours.”

  Roslyn squeezed Alexander’s hands hard, hoping the befuddled woman got the silent message: I’m coming for you.

  “You missed the easiest way to protect your people a long damned time ago,” she told McLain. “The Protectorate didn’t want this fucking war. All you ever needed to do was nothing.”

  The apartment cell chilled as she turned to face the Colonel. His smile had slipped, and a momentary snarl marred his face before he regained his composure.

  “The Protectorate was never going to leave us be,” he said. “I think we’re done here, Lieutenant. Time to go home.”

  Home was a dirty word to Roslyn right now. It meant Tau Ceti or her quarters on Durendal, not that forever-cursed cell that blocked her magic.

  She needed to find a way out. She was going to find a way out.

  36

  “Jump complete,” Shvets reported on Rhapsody in Purple’s bridge. They stretched. “We are now on the final jump of the New Berlin–Alignment route.”

  “Milhouse, get me a scan of the area,” Kelly LaMonte ordered. Jumping into an area that should have traffic to it was a risk, but it was a risk that potentially gave her opportunities. “Is anybody home?”

  “Taking a look,” her tactical officer agreed.

  As the scanners worked, Kelly leveled a gaze on the video link to the simulacrum chamber. Xi Wu was leaning against the railing of the platform holding the simulacrum itself, smiling wanly against fatigue in the spy ship’s magical gravity.

  “Go rest, love,” Kelly told Xi Wu. “We want you all ready to go when we jump into Alignment. It might be nice and happy and friendly, but it might not be, and we need to be ready for that.”

  “I know, I know,” the Ship’s Mage replied. “Just waiting on Liara.”

  “We’ve got a customer,” Milhouse snapped. “Big-ass bird, fifteen megatons. Beacon makes her Gentle Rains of Summer. She’s a long way out in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Does the beacon have any details on cargo or contract?” Kelly asked. The ship name sounded familiar, but she couldn’t place it. Hopefully, the Captain was feeling patriotic…or bribable. She could work with either.

  “Lists them as under contract to Starward Shipping in the New Berlin System,” Milhouse told her. “MISS files say Starward Shipping has a near-monopoly on shipping to Alignment, one of those sweetheart deals we really should do more about.”

  “But she’s big enough for us to hide in the shadow of,” Kelly replied. For a moment, she considered just doing that—her crew might be able to match their jump to make sure they emerged in the shadow of Gentle Rains of Summer’s jump flare even if all they had was the destination and the timing.

  It would be much easier to do it with the freighter’s cooperation and a full set of their jump calculations.

  “Time lag?” she asked.

  “Thirty light-seconds, sir,” Milhouse replied. “Andrew Michaels is listed as the skipper of record.”

  “Thank you. We’ll transmit a recording, then,” Kelly said. A few careful commands brought up the recorder. She checked herself in the image, tugging the braid of her newly ocean-green hair to one side and making sure her not-quite-civilian shipsuit looked more military than usual.

  “Captain Andrew Michaels of Gentle Rains of Summer, this is Captain Kelly LaMonte aboard Indigo Melody,” she greeted the merchant skipper. “While I understand that this is a bit of an odd request, I need an hour of your time to discuss a critical, potentially financially lucrative-for-you matter.

  “I suggest our ships accelerate toward rendezvous and you and I speak in person.”

  She checked the message and hoped her body language and shipsuit sent the right image. She could insert a uniform into the recording, but that would be too obvious. Kelly was hoping to catch this Michaels’s attention without outright admitting on a recording that she worked for the Protectorate.

  A minute passed in silence as Rhapsody accelerated toward the civilian ship. She was going to feel very silly if the big ship jumped without her.

  “Transmission incoming,” Milhouse reported.

  Kelly had the file opened, scanned for viruses, and playing before her tactical officer had finished speaking. Every day the war dragged on was another day people like Mage-Admiral Alexander were ending up dead.

 
; She was rapidly running out of patience.

  “Captain LaMonte, I received your invitation with some…interest, let’s say,” the gray-haired man in the recording told her with a twinkle in his eye. “I’m always interested in financially lucrative opportunities.

  “I’ve instructed my navigator to begin a rendezvous course for your ship, though I calculate we will be some hours before we are close enough to meet. May I invite you aboard Gentle Rains of Summer for dinner, Captain?”

  Kelly smiled. It appeared her entire message had been received and understood.

  “Mike,” she pinged her husband on the communicator. “Get one of the shuttles rigged up to look all civilian and then see if you can find yourself a nice suit.

  “I’ll let Xi know in a bit, but it looks like we’re going out for dinner.”

  And if bringing her spouses meant she brought a pilot, one who’d trained as a hand-to-hand expert with the best teachers the Martian Interstellar Security Service could find, and a fully trained combat Mage with her as potential bodyguards, well, wasn’t that a coincidence?

  As they exited the shuttle, Kelly took a deep breath of Gentle Rains of Summer’s shipboard air. She’d been an engineer before she’d been a spy and a starship captain, and one of the things she’d learned was that the air of a ship told you a lot of things about it.

  There was just a hint of must in Gentle Rains’s air, enough to make the ship’s age obvious—but only a hint. Someone was spending a lot of time and energy babying the old vents to keep them clean.

  The shuttle bay gave off a similar impression. Her glance at the freighter’s file had told her that Gentle Rains of Summer was forty-eight years old. By the standards of the container ships that traveled the Protectorate’s spaceways, that was about middle-aged, but it was old enough that care needed to be taken.

  The shuttle bay showed every year of its age, but it was impeccably clean as Captain Michaels strode across the bay to shake her hand, two of his officers in tow…one of whom Kelly knew.