Coalition Defense Force Boxed Set: First to Fight

by Gibbs, Daniel

  After taking a second drink, he decided he might as well check Caetano's data. He took the disc and inserted it into the computer terminal on his desk. The holovid screen activated, displaying the file on Karla Lupa, including, as expected, her profile picture.

  "Oh damn," Henry swore, examining the picture and the one on the digital reader al-Lahim left behind, thus confirming that Karla Lupa and Miriam Gaon were the same person.

  His headache got worse. Much worse.

  14

  The dim night lights of Sektatsh would’ve been visible through the window of the room rented out to Karla Lupa, had Miri not closed the blinds and curtains on all of them. She preferred her solitude, checking the vidlink channels before going to bed to get some much-desired sleep.

  At first, there was only the gentle nothingness of slumber, but it gave way to the sensation of being somewhere. Miri found herself standing, wrists and ankles shackled, before a group of grim-faced League officers.

  "Put the traitor in," one ordered, and powerful arms grabbed her and dragged her down the ranks of League officers.

  Intense terror gripped her at the realization of what was about to happen, as ahead, the doors beyond led to the blackness of space. That was how the League punished treason, after all: spacing.

  She struggled against the grips on her arms, but they were far too strong. Inhumanly so. She couldn't escape.

  To either side of her, the figures changed. No longer was she flanked by League personnel but people in prisoner outfits, the drab gray jumpsuits of a League resocialization camp. She realized she was clad in one too. Regardless, their hatred and disgust for her were more apparent than what League personnel had shown. Each face was familiar to her, and she knew their hatred was deserved.

  "Stop. Please, just stop," she pleaded, even though Miri knew it would do her no good. "Please…"

  Angry shouts of "traitor!" answered her pleas. Her captors opened the inner airlock door and threw her in.

  She struggled to stand in her chains but could not before the door slid to a close. She pounded on the door with her shackled hands. "Please, don't do this!"

  "It's what you deserve, traitor," a voice of the past said. She turned in the narrow confines of the airlock and faced two figures wearing camp jumpsuits, a man and a woman. Both were in their late twenties or early thirties, in the prime of life, gaunt but determined, just as she remembered them.

  "Chris," she said, her voice thick with guilt. "Annette."

  Their eyes, Chris's brown and Annette's blue, were cold and hostile. Their pale skin was the color of marble, save for rings of angry purple and red around their necks and dried blood trailing from their nostrils and lips. "You betrayed us, Miri," Annette said coldly, her Gascon-accented English from Lowery's New Girande continent. "We trusted you."

  "We could have made it if not for you," Chris said. His accent was Lowerian English, a softer accent of Australian origin. He pointed an accusing finger at Miri, whose heart quivered with guilt at the sight of them, then directed the same finger to the ring around his neck. "It took me sixteen minutes to die!"

  "Twelve! Dangling from the gallows like an animal!"

  "You betrayed us!" Chris spat. "You killed us!"

  "No," Miri said, although it was more of a whimper. She knew, deep down, that they were right. "No. You don't understand, I had to. I had to," she insisted.

  "Why did you betray us?" demanded Annette.

  "For the mission," Miri said. "I'm sorry, but my mission was to be accepted by the League, not to fight the occupation. I had to get into a place to learn their plans, their secrets. I… I had to make them think I was one of them."

  "But you didn't have to betray us," charged Annette.

  "It was the only safe thing to do," Miri insisted. "Whether or not your attempt failed, if they found out I knew and said nothing, they would never let me work anywhere important. I had to make them think I was loyal!"

  Chris shook his head furiously. "You could have said you were ignorant of our plans! We wouldn't have betrayed you!"

  "I couldn't know that! I… I had to be certain." Tears ran down Miri's face. "I had to be trustworthy to them!"

  "How many of us had to die for your precious mission?”

  Miri wept as she tried to count. How many others in the camp had I denounced? How many others afterward had I allowed to suffer, all to keep my place? It was a terrible job, but she'd done it, and so had positioned herself to do considerable damage to the League. That was something to be proud of.

  "You are a traitor to us, to all of the people of Lowery," Chris said.

  "I-I did it to save Lowery, to save us all!"

  "And look how well you did that," he snarled. "With all of the people you've hurt, what gives you the right to live?"

  "I…" On an instinctive level, Miri wanted to live. But the question, Chris's question, was one that had plagued her over and over. She had hurt people to protect her cover.

  "See?" Annette shook her head. "Even you know the truth."

  In one joint motion, the two slammed their fists into a control panel. The outer airlock door opened with a roar as the vacuum of the void sucked the atmosphere from the airlock. The force of the decompression sucked Miri with it. She screamed, but there was little sound to it as the vacuum violently sucked the air from her lungs. Her skin grew cold, and her sight failed as the fluid in her eyes bubbled away.

  She awoke then immediately took her head into her hands and breathed deeply, greedily, as if to reassure her lungs that they were not in a vacuum and they had access to breathable air. In her panic, she checked the room around her. Through the dim lighting, she made out the furnishings of the rented hotel room in the ISU center.

  With time to calm from the feeling that she'd been spaced, Miri lay back down. Her hand slipped under her pillow and felt the hard surface of her pulse pistol, which she drew her fingers away from, reassured. Her heart still pounded from the nightmare while old guilt and the blame that she always struggled with filled her.

  Christopher Tobay and Annette Zens, those poor souls. Poor, brave souls. They'd been clever, finding the weaknesses in the League's security at the socialization camp, and quietly built up the means for a mass escape. If they'd succeeded, they would have formed the backbone of a viable resistance movement.

  Their main mistake had been bringing her into the plan.

  It would always haunt her. If she'd said nothing, if she'd let their plan go off and merely refused to leave, maybe that would have been enough to keep her in the League's good graces. At the time, the risk seemed too high. The camp's overseer, Director Bendtsen, was not a trusting woman, her subordinates barely more so, and given the punishing work details Miri worked with Chris and Annette, she would’ve quickly fallen under suspicion that she couldn't afford. When she'd weighed the benefit to her mission for betraying them, well, the mission was everything.

  She still remembered the warm spring day when the League executed the two. They went to the noose bravely, urging the people of Lowery to resist the occupation until an infuriated Director Bendtsen ordered them dropped.

  By design, their necks did not snap, and they died slow, painful, terrible deaths, in full view of Miri and all of the others. "For those who defy Society, punishment can never be too harsh," Bendtsen informed the assembled. It had the desired effect, as no further escapes were planned.

  They were only the first denouncements Miri made until she was declared properly socialized, putting her on the track to accomplish her mission. They were also the most painful and had the harshest consequences.

  In the darkness of her room, Miri's guilt, fully resuscitated by the nightmare, kept her awake. She kept thinking about Chris and Annette and about the dreams they'd had, cruelly ended by the League. They’d been brave. Torment filled her soul at the thought that she'd been wrong to betray them, regardless of the outcome to her mission.

  It would have been easy to say that their deaths were not in vain and that
by doing what she did, Miri guaranteed Lowery's eventual liberation. It would have been a comfort to tell them that their people were free because of what happened and hear them speak and forgive her due to that outcome.

  But that wasn't going to happen. All Miri had was the certain knowledge that she'd enabled the terrible deaths of two brave, good people, and she would carry the burden of that knowledge for the rest of her days.

  * * *

  Miri Gaon would have had another reason to not sleep, had she known about the call going on just a block or so away in one of the other Alien Quarter residences.

  Allan Kepper was not a big man, but he was probably the most terrifying one most people came across. The vacant look in his sky-blue eyes made him seem lifeless or, perhaps more accurately, soulless. There was rarely a trace of emotion on his face.

  The same was not true of what was within him. If emotion rarely showed on his face, it was because Kepper had trained himself to keep his expression blank, lest he warn those around him of the burning urges within, which he kept in check until he could fulfill them. And when he did, the removal of his self-repression drove him to acts even he was surprised by.

  That he was a sociopath was undeniable. Some might instead have used the term psychopath. Sadist, he accepted, though only his victims ever saw that side of him. He was, after all, a cautious person.

  He sat in front of his vidlink, the call being routed through numerous proxy sites, as always. On the other end of the call was Commander Chantavit Li of the Bureau of State and Social Safety, External Security Service, the agency responsible for foreign intelligence and operations in the League of Sol. Li was of mixed Indian and Chinese descent, with darker East Asian skin, while Kepper's was more of a swarthy light tone. When he spoke English, it was with a light Anglo-American accent. "You're paying an awful lot for one spacer."

  "I'm paying for her condition," Li said. As always, he spoke as if he was inherently superior to Kepper, and the expression on his face matched. He looked like an overtaxed teacher explaining something to a particularly stupid or unruly child.

  Kepper sometimes considered how entertaining it would be to wipe that look off Li's face, but his caution restrained him. The League paid well for his services, better than most, and he was starting to run short of funds again. Besides, having to keep killing the agents they sent to murder him would get tiresome. "Simple grab and bag, your people pick her up?"

  "Yes. She must be intact. We need to debrief her and ensure she is capable of facing a proper punishment for her crimes against Society."

  "Right." Kepper didn't roll his eyes. Society, to him, was overrated. "All right, money's good. Got an image?"

  Li tapped something off-screen. Kepper's digital reader confirmed he was receiving a file. He checked it. The image of a woman with pale bronze skin appeared. She looked Semitic, and her name made him guess she was Hebrew. "Huh. Another deserter?"

  "Worse. It's why we're not paying for termination but capture. She has a lot to answer for, Kepper."

  "Right." Kepper smiled wryly. "Well, you're the employer. I'll get to work."

  "See that you do, before she slips away. Li out."

  Li's image disappeared. Kepper used his digital reader to transfer the file to the holoviewer, giving him a better look at his quarry. She was an older woman at the beginning of middle age, he would have guessed, no older than forty-five. She wouldn't necessarily have stood out. But given the file, she was likely going to show up at the ISU center, if she hadn't already. He would start hunting her there.

  He idly wondered how much of a screamer she was, but he shut that thought down with practiced efficiency. It was a grab and bag, not a grab and cut, so no time for urges.

  As always, the job came first.

  * * *

  Chantavit Li was no sooner done with Kepper than he got the automated message from his contact. He read the text on his secured reader, its light the only illumination in his living quarters in the League embassy in Gamavilla.

  Subject has secured crew to find the target. Will bring target here. Will message when target is on planet.

  Li shook his head. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised at his ally's willingness to show initiative, regardless of his expressly given instructions. It was, indeed, quite difficult to get government officials to behave. But he would not risk the capture of Miri Gaon to whatever bumbling thugs his ally sent. She was too smart for that, too capable. No, Kepper would do. He was a vicious beast, but he was a controlled one at least.

  The entire thing made Li feel sick, and it reminded him of why he hated this work. He detested being involved with the Lusitanians, the Galters, the Hestians, and every other anti-Social planet in the whole blasted region. They were all fractious people in need of the unity of Society, and he looked forward to when they would be saved from their own base impulses.

  Li was, like many in his line of work, a true believer. He believed in the collective mission of Society, to bring peace and order and prosperity to humanity and other sapient species through the enlightenment of Society. He believed in ending the calamitous effects of crass, selfish individualism and ensuring that all had a place in the grand unified tapestry he'd grown up within. While Miri Gaon's capture, debriefing, and death would not necessarily bring forward the day of victory, at least not by itself, it would serve as a further deterrent toward those who would defy Society.

  After all, individual beings were little more than scared, foolish animals seeking base desires or empty superstitions to stave off the terror of mortality. Li, on the other hand, knew he was going to die one day, but he felt no fear about that. Society was what mattered.

  Society was immortal where individuals were not.

  Li returned to his other duties with that thought. Admiral Hartford's plan was nearly ready, and he would have to play his role to bring it to fruition and ensure the success of Society.

  15

  Henry waited until their first jump before he called everyone together. Cera and Yanik would be observing from the bridge while everyone else joined him in the galley. He broke the news to an audience of frowning faces.

  Tia's frown was the worst. "Just what have you gotten us into, Jim?" she asked.

  "I don't know yet," Henry answered. "This whole situation is a complete—"

  "A complete clusterf—cockup, if you ask me," Felix said. "Christ, Jim, how could you make a deal with that fascist?"

  "Because she had us by the balls," Henry replied frankly. "You and Jules were going to be arrested as enemies of the state. She threatened the others too." He glanced at Tia. "Especially you. She talked about handing you over to the Hestian government."

  Tia paled and swallowed nervously.

  "I suppose Brigitte and I would be handed over to the League as well," Oskar said quietly, knowing that would have meant death for him and possibly her. "I understand why you've done this, sir."

  "But we might get made by the League anyway," Brigitte said. "You're telling me this spacer we're after is some former Coalition superspy they're hunting?"

  "Something like that," Henry said. "And from what I've seen of Ms. Karla Lupa's record, it looks like she might be a legend. The kind a retired spy would use."

  "This just keeps getting better and better," Felix said.

  "If we help someone they have a KC order on, doesn't that mean the League might declare us enemies too?" Piper asked.

  "Distinctly possible," Henry said.

  "Then,” she paused, “we'll never be safe." Piper glanced around at the others. "They'll never let us go. We'll have their agents after us everywhere."

  "Jim, this is a bad job," Tia said. "I can feel it. If we go through with this, we're going to suffer for it."

  "If we don't, my brother gets thrown in a hole and probably shot," Felix pointed out. He glared at Tia.

  Tia glared back. "Your brother should wise up and get out of Lusitania, then. And if he wants to be a religious martyr so bad, well, let him. I didn't
sign up to die for your religion!"

  "At least my brother's got a real cause, one that makes lives better." Felix's voice grew heated. "The only cause you ever fought for was dictatorship!"

  "Dictatorship?" Tia's cheeks reddened. She rose to her feet, her eyes full of anger. "You want dictatorship? Just look at what the corps do to my people! Including some of your precious 'freedom-loving' capitalists in the Coalition. We were fighting to free ourselves from oppression!"

  Felix got on his feet too. "You’d end up oppressing yourselves anyway! You Socialists always form dictatorships—you can't help it! You always want to tell people how to—"

  A loud whistle interrupted Felix. Henry pulled his fingers from his lips and bellowed, "Both of you, sit down and shut up!"

  Still glaring fiercely at each other, they obeyed.

  While they returned to their seats, Henry looked over his assembled crew. He could imagine the look on Cera's face, as well, the worry and concern she would have. Once it was clear he had their full attention again, he said, "When we get to Sektatsh, you can choose to leave. I'll pay for your liner ticket and give you full references."

  "But you won't let us come back," Piper noted.

  "No." Henry shook his head. "I need people who trust me, who'll stick through these jobs, thick and thin. You want to run, that's fine, but that means you don't trust me, and I can't have a crew that doesn't."

  There were glances around the galley. Some were uncomfortable. They'd been together for a long while and had gotten used to each other, even faced danger together. But what Henry was proposing was something else. Facing pirates and the like was one thing. Drawing the attention of the galaxy's most powerful totalitarian state, one with a reputation for developing vicious grudges and an army of devoted fanatics willing to act on them, was another.