Hold the Line (Chimera Company Book 5)

by Tim C. Taylor

  Zeta-Arcelia

  From across the crowded room, she met his gaze and smiled back.

  Storin considered himself a connoisseur of women’s smiles, and the redhead’s was a delight. There was nothing noncommittal about it. She was awkward, shy, unsure about what she was doing, but she knew what she wanted. All this he saw in her smile.

  It turned her already beautiful face into a picture to melt any heart.

  She laughed nervously and looked away.

  Azhanti, but he deserved a break. He’d been convinced he was losing it today. For someone who championed his ability to control everyone and everything around him, Storin had been on the edge of panic. His life had seemed to be slipping from his grasp.

  Even his boss had noticed, and when you’re first adjutant to the person who was both president of the Federation and first general of the Legion, you paid attention to the boss.

  First General Ansiyka had looked him in the eye and told them to take the rest of the day off. Go blow off steam. Go have a drink in an old haunt.

  So here he was, drinking at Light Force, the bar that had led to many a good memory when he’d first been posted to Zeta-Arcelia.

  And now this redhaired girl had smiled at him, and everything was all right with the galaxy again. She still had a faint upturn to her lips.

  He moved through the crowd to the table where she sat alone.

  Doubt halted his steps. She was much younger than him, and over the last day or so, he seemed to be experiencing a hideously accelerated midlife crisis.

  She waved him on, and his feet found their way to her.

  “I couldn’t help notice you smiling at me,” he told her, keeping a respectful distance between them.

  She blinked gray eyes. “I did do that.” She flicked back her flame of hair, her cheeks reddening to match.

  “So I, ah…” He couldn’t go on. She was a kid, not much more than 20. Then he chuckled when he thought of what he’d gotten up to by her age.

  He cleared his throat and tried again. “Can I get you a drink?”

  She bit her lip gently. She looked a little jumpy. Suddenly, her expression became serious. “That depends. Are you military?”

  He laughed because now he understood what she was.

  One of the first things you learned on a posting to the Federation’s capital was that Zeta-Arcelia was full of rich kids searching for kicks. There was a reason many legionaries fought for a posting here.

  “Yeah, I’m Legion. Legion to the core.”

  Her face lit up. “I knew it.”

  “Good call. So, about that drink?”

  “Yes. But you’ll need to get two.”

  “Oh? You’re thirsty?”

  She licked her lips again. Her nervousness was adorable. “They aren’t both for me.”

  Oh, boy. “So, let me get this straight,” he said. “One for you and one for your friend.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where is he or she?”

  “She’s a she and you are just what we wanted.”

  “Good to know. So you and your girlfriend want to sit around this table and discuss extra-Federation trading arrangements and reform of the tax code. That kind of thing?”

  “No, silly.” She stood and whispered into his ear exactly what she wanted to do with him. She might be nervous, but her appetite was huge. He hadn’t even heard of some of the things she described.

  She giggled. “Do you think I’m bad?”

  “No. I think you’re naughty, but that can be good.”

  A Zhoogene girl appeared out of the crowd and gave him a look of appraisal. “No luck with my hunt, Jinny, but I see you got your claws into something suitable.”

  Since she was sizing him up, he felt free to do the same. She wore an expensive lattice leather jacket over a color-changing diaphanous dress that showed off her long, green legs. She’d dyed her head growth copper and silver, setting off her foliage with fresh red roses. She was class. Expensive class.

  “I appreciate the sloppy puppy dog look,” she told him, “but haven’t you got a job to do?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Drinks. Didn’t Jinny ask you to get us drinks?”

  “Sure. Whatever you want.”

  “That’s right. You’ll wine and dine Jinny and me while you stir us up with tales of your Legion exploits. Then the three of us will go wild and make the kind of memories most people can only dream of.”

  “That’s a plan I can work with.”

  “And it starts with two ice gins with Kanhum shots,” said the redhead, Jinny.

  “Coming right up,” he said and hurried over to the nearest auto waiter with a spring in his step.

  * * *

  He woke to a girl’s scream.

  The girls…

  His head was pounding. What had he been drinking? He opened one eye and saw a Human girl snoring beside him in the bed. He remembered this was Jinny, the girl with the wonderful smile. The Zhoogene was sitting naked on the floor of the hotel room with legs pulled up to protect her modesty. She was pointing an accusing finger at him.

  “No!” she screamed, wide eyes staring at him in terror. “Please don’t hurt me.”

  “Hurt you? Why the hell would I want to…Uggh!” He put a hand to his throbbing head. He would pay a million credits to put something cold against it.

  They were in a hotel room. Did they have ice?

  First the Zhoogene.

  “Don’t worry,” he told her. “No one is gonna hurt you.”

  She whimpered. What had happened here? His gaze drifted to the lens of the camera set up on a tripod at the foot of the bed.

  The girls had filmed him? He didn’t remember that.

  “No! Please, no!”

  “Will you cut that out?” he snapped at the girl. What was with her?

  The door flew open. Uniformed police rushed in.

  One of them, a Human woman, headed for the girls. “It’s all right,” she told them. “You’re safe now.”

  Jinny was now wide awake and getting out of bed. The female officer bundled the redhead in her arms and shepherded her away to the en suite. The Zhoogene girl had covered herself with her dress by now. She shook her head at the policewoman who’d gestured to follow her. The green bitch wanted to stay and watch.

  The other police officers were Human males. The gently strobing red lights on their collar cams indicated they were recording everything. “You don’t know who you’re messing with,” Storin shot at the sergeant, who seemed to be in charge.

  The man appeared unimpressed.

  “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll drop this right now.” Storin winced and put his hand to his tortured head. “I’m being set up, and I’m not some defenseless chump. Do you know who I am?”

  “Of course, Major Storin. You’re the first adjutant of the Legion, aide to President and First General Ansiyka.”

  “Oh, I’m much more than that. I’m connected.”

  “Really? Connected to who?”

  Storin sneered. Sometimes he fantasized about speaking Department 9’s name and watching the fear strike people’s faces.

  “You don’t want to find out,” he said.

  “Funny you should mention being connected, sir. One of those poor girls you assaulted is Iridie Tribuko.”

  “Tribuko? As in Sailey Tribuko?” Storin’s headache worsened. Councilor Tribuko represented Zhooge in the House of Systems.

  “Yes. I doubt your connections can silence the councilor when she learns what you did to her daughter.”

  Storin glanced at the girl they claimed was a Tribuko. She shot him a look of triumph before resuming her mewling.

  His heart shriveled. The setup had been so elaborate, he believed this really was the daughter of the Zhooge councilor. Department 9 could buy him a quick exit and let him disappear into a new identity. This one was beyond repair.

  Who had done this? Who?

  Damn! He had a go bag in his apartment, but it w
as too risky to go there. He’d have to make his escape now.

  “May I get dressed?”

  “No. You’ll stay naked for the moment. Makes you less of a flight risk.”

  Naked it would have to be. With a pounding headache, too, but those were the breaks. There were three officers in the room, and the one in the bathroom. All were armed, but none had a weapon drawn on him. Big mistake.

  Storin edged back the covers, readying to leap out and make his attack.

  The police officers deactivated their collar cams and drew their weapons.

  Hell!

  The door opened. A woman walked in, accompanied by two police officers in light armor with blaster carbines at the low ready. The woman was clearly in charge. She wore a heavy black coat with a high collar and a brimmed hat pulled low.

  “Is this your doing?” he asked her. “You have no idea what you’re getting involved with.”

  She regarded him silently. Something about her manner looked familiar. Then she took off her hat.

  “Lantosh?”

  “Hello, Storin.”

  “You won’t get away with this.” He laughed bitterly, gesturing at the Zhoogene, who’d put on her dress and was watching the proceedings from a chair. “All this was for nothing more than your career advancement? Don’t think for an instant the first general will give you my job once she hears what you’ve done. You’re finished, Lantosh. You don’t realize it yet, but you’re doomed.”

  “Really? Who’s gonna finish me off? Hmm? Surely not Department 9.”

  He froze. He was sure even his heart had stopped beating.

  His cover was completely blown. How in Orion’s name did an old-school nobody like Apinya Lantosh know about Department 9? Who was she really?

  “I still have the ear of the first general,” Storin warned. He glared at the first group of police, who’d kept to the back of the room while they allowed Lantosh to do her thing. “President Ansiyka is a professional colleague.”

  “The president and first general has known for some time that you’re a plant,” Lantosh said. “She hasn’t yet figured out who’s pulling your strings. I could tell her, of course, but I know Department 9 prefers to cling to the shadows. This business will be simpler if I have your cooperation.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want your resignation. Here and now, directly to the first general. Then I want your job.”

  “What do we get in return?”

  She ripped back his covers, her two police officers advancing on him with carbines aimed at his heart. “You, Storin, keep your life—if you cooperate.”

  They made him kneel at the foot of the bed and record his resignation into the camera. He didn’t say why he had to quit. He didn’t need to. Lantosh would fill in the details.

  “Oh, and one more thing I want you to know,” Lantosh said. “The drugs we’ve been feeding you didn’t just leave you confused and suggestible, they also made sure any urges you might have felt toward our young women agents have remained unsatisfied. I’d show you the recording, but I think these officers want to talk with you first.”

  Lantosh and the two with the carbines stepped back into a corner of the room.

  The first team switched their recorders back on and advanced on him. Two had their pistols out. One had handcuffs.

  * * *

  Deroh Ren Kay

  “Lantosh did what?”

  “The salient detail I want you to consider, Ren Kay, is that she ran an operation right under your nose.”

  The encrypted comm channel conveyed the chief’s crisp disappointment with punishing fidelity. This was a blame game Ren Key wouldn’t win.

  “Although…” the chief began in a marginally warmer tone, “you weren’t the only one who failed to realize she was a problem. I want to know who Lantosh works for. If I put a gun to your head and asked you for a lead, could you supply one?”

  Ren Kay swallowed hard. He wasn’t sure how metaphorical that question had been. “Only one so far,” he said. “I encountered Fitzwilliam during Operation Blue Chamber on Eiylah-Bremah. Lantosh was nearby on the same planet. It’s possible Fitzwilliam’s primary mission was to free Lantosh. I’ll look into it straight away.”

  “No. You’ll supply details to your most trusted subordinate and let them show their mettle. I have a more important task for you. Khallini’s finally accepted our enticements. You’re to proceed to JSHC in the Tej Sector and deal with the matter.”

  “Yes, Chief. I won’t let you down.”

  * * * * *

  Part 3: The Ibson Declaration

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Claudio Zanitch

  Ghost Shark, Jump Space

  Zanitch emptied the last bottle of Caledonian Blue into their crystal tumblers. He vaguely wondered why he and Darant were sitting on the galley carpet, backs up against the real-wood cabinets, rather than sitting at the table in the adjoining mess room. Darant had said the plush carpet laid in the galley was the greatest expression of luxury he’d ever experienced. However, Zanitch suspected the real answer lay deeper inside the man. Beneath his brash exterior, Yat Darant was desperately lonely.

  They raised glasses and exchanged drinking salutations from their homeworlds. Zanitch took a deep sniff of the peaty aroma, closed his eyes, and sipped. He concentrated on his taste receptors firing as he swirled the expensive whiskey around his mouth.

  “It’s good to finish the last bottle with someone who appreciates it,” he told Darant.

  “Sometimes, to appreciate the good stuff, you have to drink the bad. Did I ever tell you about the ass rot we drank inside a hole in the ground on Eiylah-Bremah?”

  “You mean, the same story that explains why your best friend is an alcoholic goat?”

  “Hubert just likes his forage to be whiskey flavored, that’s all. Just a few drops. I can’t give him more because he’s a key part of Chimera Company. Did you know that? He’s Phantom’s mascot. If anything bad ever happened to him, we’d be screwed. So it’s crucial I keep his little goat liver fighting fit.”

  Zanitch nodded vaguely. This wasn’t the moment to point out that the rest of Chimera Company aboard Phantom had been happy to dump their supposed mascot onto the Ghost Shark. So far, Phantom hadn’t appeared cursed by this temptation of the Fates.

  He laughed. “I haven’t yet figured out how, but Hubert’s going into my stories. You all are. And not just the people on Ghost Shark and Phantom. Urdizine was telling me yesterday about Yergin, a sapper who used to make ice sculptures on Rho-Torkis. I think you’d have liked him.”

  They sipped the Caledonian Blue in respectful silence.

  “The one person I don’t understand enough to write about is Enthree.”

  “Ask Sarge or Lily. I think you’re going to have to make it up with Enthree, though. She’s a mystery. Wait, are you serious about writing our stories?”

  “I…” Zanitch was on the cusp of a denial, but when it came to it, he wasn’t sure. “Even if I don’t write your actual story, there’s a deep truth to your characters I want to explore.” He rolled his eyes. “Did I really just utter that clown-grade, pretentious-ass junk? My apologies. Let me try again. I’m interested in people—big personalities, the bigger the better—and you crazy clowns are weird people in exceptionally weird circumstances.”

  “If you write a hatchet job, I’ll know, and I will cut you.”

  “I understand.”

  “That’s not the answer I want.”

  “It’s the only one I’m gonna give.”

  They paused for whiskey.

  “I tell you one thing,” Zanitch said, “the people in my animations are like the ones you see in holo-vids. Hot babes. Dashing men. Exotic aliens.”

  “Hot exotic alien babes?”

  Zanitch laughed. “Always.”

  Darant looked away, lost in thought for a moment. “There’s one thing you can do to make it less likely you’ll wake up one morning with my blaster in your mouth.”

  “I�
��m not promising anything…but go on.”

  “Just for once, I want to get the girl. Every time I think I’ve fallen in love, it turns out the girl’s a police informant, terminally ill, or has her guts scooped out by shrapnel the day after we meet. Just once—even if it’s made-up drent in your bullshit stories—I want to be happy.”

  “I’ll see what I can do, but I’ll tell you this, Darant, tragedy’s more compelling to viewers. Who the hell wants to watch a story about people being happy?”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  Zanitch took a good look at Darant, noting his scars and broken nose. “Your reputation paints you as a hard man, a womanizer, a real bad boy. They whisper you’re a murderer. Is that right?”

  “That is my reputation, and I am a convicted murderer, that much is true. Why the hell else do you think I signed up for the Militia? None of that means I actually murdered anyone.”

  “Well, did you?”

  “Whatever works best for the story.”

  “You do know this is probably all whiskey talk,” Zanitch said, “but if I ever did write the story of Chimera Company, I could play your character in two ways. You can be bad, or you can be sad.”

  “When you put it that way, there isn’t much of a choice. Make me bad. I do have a reputation, after all. Apparently.”

  They chinked glasses and drank the moreish liquor.

  Zanitch sighed. “The others think we’re going to JSHC as the first step to save the galaxy. Sure, we’ll do that, but my primary objective is to restock Ghost Shark’s bar. This liquor rationing is killing me. I mean…” He held up his empty tumbler. “This is fine whiskey, but the others are using it for cocktails. Fucking cocktails! Frakktard turd heathens! I’m not convinced we’re fighting for the right side, here.”

  “Relax. I have a reputation, remember?” Darant pulled a water canteen from his jacket. “I don’t need freakish purple neurons in my head to see the future. When we started picking up you mutant dregs from the dumpster worlds of the Federation, I took precautions.” Darant poured several fingers of whiskey into Claudio’s tumbler.