by Paul Barrett
Opulence oozed through the lobby. The room ran sixty meters in either direction. Each wall held several paintings surrounded by gold frames. A richly embroidered, multi-hued carpet covered the floor. Woven from fabric that changed color depending on the viewer’s angle, it gave visitors the impression they were circled by their own distinctive color that followed them through the lobby.
The registration desk was a meter-high mahogany wall with carved spirals and gold lining. It did an efficient job of separating the guests from the employees. Hawk looked around at the guests, all dressed in the height of local fashion. Lavender and yellow predominated the lady’s short-sleeved, gauzy dresses and wraps, while the men’s shirts and pants boasted reds and blues in combinations that threatened to give Hawk a headache. His toned-down cyan V-neck shirt and tan frictionless-cloth pants got him a few haughty stares; he didn’t care. As much as Hawk enjoyed having money, he rarely associated with the financial elite. He found many of them too full of their own prosperity to be of much use.
A tall, sturdy man with straight brown hair and a hard-edged face walked directly toward Hawk. He stood out worse than Hawk in this crowd. His black jacket and pants, gray shirt, and polished shoes announced him as a Council office jockey.
Hawk didn’t recognize the man. When he was within five meters, Hawk lowered his hand to a concealed gun. When he was within three, Hawk said, “Close enough. Who are you?”
“Stearns,” the man said, holding out an ID card. “Council, Section T.”
Hawk frowned. Section T was the Anti-Terrorist division. They dealt with the fanatics and radicals that cropped up on every planet. Their primary function was to mediate. Hawk couldn’t think of anyone he knew who would be involved with or investigating terrorists.
“Throw me your ID,” Hawk said. Stearns complied, and Hawk snatched the holder out of the air. A few people glanced at them, but no one interfered.
He examined the ID. It seemed real enough, with all the tell-tale signs and markings in their proper place. “Ship,” he said as the ID transmitted to her through the cameras in his contact lenses.
“It’s authentic,” she said.
“Okay,” Hawk tossed the ID back. “What’s going on?”
“Yonath Maratai’s been kidnapped. The Council wants to talk to you.”
“Lead the way,” Hawk said, keeping calm despite the twist in his gut.
They boarded the elevator.
“Twelfth floor,” Stearns said.
“Twelfth floor,” the elevator replied as the doors closed.
They rode in silence as Hawk’s mind barraged him with frantic questions and provided him with frightening answers. Yonath and Hawk had gone through the same basic training class at Force 13. When Hawk pursued commando training, Yonath opted for Intelligence. “My friend, the mole,” Hawk teased him on the rare occasions when they got together.
Still, Hawk occasionally envied his more sedentary friend. Yonath’s choice allowed him a family and reasonably stable life, two things Hawk had never managed.
Yonath even had Tasha, a bodyguard who doubled as a domestic servant. At a party, a drunk Yonath once said, “I’ve got a beautiful feline who takes care of my family, and you’ve got a scaly lizard who blows things up. Tell me now that Intelligence wasn’t the better choice.”
Hawk had humored his inebriated friend. Despite the occasional wish to settle down, Hawk didn’t regret his choice of career. He might envy the idea of putting down roots, but he had too much of a wanderer’s soul to ever do it.
The elevator stopped; they stepped out. Hawk followed Stearns until they reached a large oak door bearing a gold plate: Conference Room 2. Stearns knocked twice.
“Come in,” a male voice, barely heard through the thick door, said.
Two men stood as Hawk and Stearns walked into the room, richly decorated as the rest of the hotel. Both men appeared to be in their forties, one bald and pale skinned, the other sporting a full crop of iron-gray hair. They wore the same suit style as Stearns.
“Hello, Hawk,” The gray-haired man said, extending a thin, well-manicured hand. “I’m Frederick Tudev. This is my associate Hostada Sivali.” He indicated the other man, who was shorter and had a thin face Hawk immediately associated with a weasel. “Please have a seat. Care for some lunch?” He pointed to several food-laden plates on the table.
“No, but I would like to see your IDs.”
“Of course,” Tudev said. The two men fished out their ID folders and gave them to Hawk. Ship found them to be as authentic as Stearns’s.
“Do you get this extravagant every time someone’s kidnapped?” he asked, handing back the cards.
“Fortunately, kidnapping of a Force 13 agent is a rare event. We own this hotel. No one else uses this conference room, and we have it swept for bugs every day, so we know it’s safe.”
The two men sat down in the oversized conference chairs while Stearns took a standing position behind them. Hawk sat and poured himself a glass of water.
“So, what’s happened?” he asked, keeping his voice casual.
“Have you ever heard of Unicybertronic Technologies?”
“Of course. Largest cybernetics and robotics corporation in existence. That’s where Yonath was working undercover last time I talked to him.”
“He was still there,” Tudev told him. “For several weeks, UCT executives received threatening calls and postal transmissions from a militant organization called the—” he deferred to Sivali.
“—Tekranese Destruction Force,” Sivali provided. “That name ring a bell?”
Hawk thought about it a moment. “Yeah. Three years ago. Big fuss over Tekran joining the Council. Section T wasn’t having any luck, so they called us in to make sure the TDF leadership wasn’t around to continue blowing up Council buildings and assassinating diplomats. I thought we eradicated them.”
“We damaged them badly,” Tudev continued, “but terrorist groups are like carlim bugs. You chop one into seven parts and you get seven bugs. The TDF is demanding that UCT hand over the plans to a new land-based laser weapons system they have recently completed. They threatened to abduct and torture executives and their families until the company relinquished the plans. According to UCT, security was tightened immediately, with executives placed under constant surveillance. Yonath sent us a message he was coming in. He gave no indication why.”
“Was his cover blown?” Hawk asked.
“We don’t think so,” Sivali answered. “We assume he simply panicked because of the terrorist threats toward families. After all, he was considered a UCT executive. It looks like he may have been right.”
“What do you mean?”
Tudev picked the conversation back up. “After he called in, we sent a sweep team to his house. They found two dead bodies and no sign of the Maratais. Evidence on the bodies linked them with the TDF.”
Hawk stroked his mustache as he nodded. Standard Force 13 procedure. When an agent decided it was time to come in, they often left in a hurry, so sweep teams went in after them to clean up anything significant they may have left behind. “Was Tasha one of the casualties?”
“No,” Tudev said, and Hawk let out his breath.
“The wounds to the bodies indicate she was there for the fight. She’s either hiding or working her way back home.”
“So, do we know where they’ve taken the Maratais?”
“We do,” Tudev told him. “We began monitoring UCT communications right after Yonath’s call. Lights off.” In response to his voice, darkness bathed the room. “This message was transmitted to them yesterday morning. Video, play.”
The near wall lit up. Five seconds passed, and a man wearing dark makeup, a hat, and sunglasses appeared on the wall. If the situation weren’t so serious, Hawk would have laughed.
“My name is Karatel, leader of the Tekranese Destruction Force. We are holding Yonath Maratai and his family hostage. Our demand is simple. We want the plans to the KW-47 Plasma System. We will exp
ect them four days hence at the Candash fortress. You will have a courier deliver them in a hardcopy format at 10:30 p.m. Tekran local time. You will send him in an unarmed shuttle, which will land outside the compound. Both the courier and the pilot will enter unarmed, and we will make the exchange. We will be monitoring them for weapons. If you don’t follow these rules, or if the plans are not here on time, we will start with the little girl. Every two hours after that, we will dispatch another. I suggest you show up on time.”
The image changed to a dimly lit room, where four figures huddled in one corner. It took Hawk, even with his sharp vision, a few moments to recognize the family. There was a large bruise on Dona’s cheek and a bloody rag around Yonath’s arm.
“As you can see,” the voice continued, “they are still alive. The injuries you see occurred during the abduction. They have not been harmed since. With your cooperation, they will remain alive.”
The screen faded to black.
“Lights on,” Tudev said. He turned back to Hawk. “UCT has already said they have no intention of handing the plans over. They feel a system that powerful in the hands of an unstable terrorist group would be devastating.”
Hawk struggled to keep his anger in check at seeing his friends so brutalized. “That’s interesting, since I’m sure they would have no problems selling it to any unstable planetary government with the right amount of cash.”
“I think Corporate ethics are a discussion for another time,” Tudev said.
Hawk nodded, his mouth set in a tight line. “Any idea why they took Yonath?”
“Bad luck on his part, we think,” Sivali said. “It’s kind of ironic.”
“What do you mean?”
“This assignment was supposed to be a vacation. The only thing we had on UCT were some rumors. Yonath was supposed to go in and keep his eyes and ears open. No active prying, just sit back, collect a salary from UCT and us, and take a breather. If anything happened to come up, let us know. It was as safe as any mission could be.”
“So much for that theory,” Hawk said. “You want my team to try an extraction.”
“Yes,” Tudev said. “Since the Maratais are close friends of yours, HQ assumed you would want to be in on the operation.”
“Then HQ assumed correctly.”
Tudev picked up a small chip lying on the table and handed it to Hawk. “This is the mission briefing. It has all the information you need, including the recommended tactics for a successful extraction.”
Hawk picked up the chip and was silent for a moment. He looked at the two men and asked, “How far is it from here to Tekran?”
“Twenty-eight parsecs, give or take an A.U.,” Sivali said.
Hawk stroked his mustache. The ripspace drive in Ship boasted a speed of ten light years per Galactic standard twenty-five hour day, although Gerard always managed to coax a little more out of it when necessary. “Two and a half days. We’ll be cutting it close. I’ll need another agent to act as a courier. They need to be an operator, since all my people will be busy elsewhere, and I’ll need him at the ship no later than 0500 tomorrow morning, bay eighty-four.”
“No problem,” Tudev assured him.
“Very well,” Hawk said. “Is that all?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll see you tomorrow morning at 0500,” Hawk stood, “One other question―Why the break from procedure? Couldn’t you have just relayed this to my ship?”
Tudev spoke. “We’ve had some security problems lately with hacking and intercepted transmissions. And evidently, there’s a leak somewhere within the organization. I think this current situation clearly supports that. Until we can figure out the weak link, direct contact with agents will be standard procedure.”
Hawk pondered for a second. “Fair enough.” He turned and walked out of the room.
A few seconds after the door shut, a panel in the opposite wall slid open, and a man stepped out of the darkness.
“Good work,” Moran said to the two men seated at the table.
“Thank you,” Sivali said. “I look forward to working with your organization in the future.”
“As do I,” Tudev echoed. “This has the potential to be rather profitable.”
“Indeed it does,” Moran said, smiling. “The accounts we set up for the two of you will show the agreed upon payment. Mr. Stearns already has your next assignment.” He looked at Stearnes, who still stood behind the men. “Show them.”
Before the men could turn around, Stearns placed a wide focus needle laser at the back of each of their necks and pulled the triggers. The beams cut through flesh and severed their spines. Without a sound, they slumped to the table.
“It’s a shame,” Moran said with mock sadness, “Council agents used to be so incorruptible. Once someone turns on their employer, you really can never trust them again, can you?” He turned to Stearns. “Any word on that Pralin bitch?”
“Not yet,” Stearns told him. “The blood trail ended at the front door. She hasn’t checked into any of the local hospitals, and she didn’t alert the authorities. No one at the Council has heard anything from her yet. I’d be willing to bet she’s making her way home.”
“Keep on it. I don’t like loose ends.” He stared again at the two dead men. “And get someone up here to clean up this mess. Then find an expendable agent to act as a courier.”
“I don’t understand something,” Stearns said. “I’m going to be within a meter of Hawk. Why don’t I kill him then and be done with it instead of going through all this trouble?”
“Because I assume you’re not suicidal,” Moran said.
“What do you mean?”
“His ship has an outstanding defense system,” Moran answered with a touch of pride. “I helped design it. The second you pulled your weapon and aimed it at Hawk, no less than three Markland anti-personnel lasers would vaporize you where you stood. So, Hawk would still be alive, and I would lose a valuable member of my force. Besides, if I wanted Hawk dead, we could have killed him here. And there are other considerations.”
“Such as?”
Moran smiled. “All in good time. You will know everything. I will tell you this. Before it’s all over, I will see Hawk and Gerard suffer.”
7
Mission Explained
Hawk stepped out of the shuttle and into the spaceport terminal, ignoring his fellow passengers as his mind whirled with plans and strategies. All of them would be dismissed as soon as Gerard took over the planning. Hawk did it to keep from dwelling on the video image of the battered Maratais.
He exited the terminal tube and stepped onto the moving sidewalk that would take him to Ship’s berth. As usual, atonal music wafted through the air. A drone circled him, an unemotional female voice playing from its speakers, “Welcome to Seldon Orbital Port. You are currently undergoing decontamination. Please remain motionless until the process is complete. Thank you. We hope you enjoyed your stay on the planet.”
The drone scanned as it floated ahead of him. Hawk felt a cool mist, a brief flash of heat, and a scent of lemons wash over him. The ritual of decontamination.
“Ship,” Hawk said to the microtransmitter in his collarbone.
“Yes, Captain,” Ship answered in his head.
“Dammit!”
“Well, excu—”
“No Ship, it’s not you. I just stumbled off the end of the sidewalk again.”
“According to my Book of Galactic Regulations and Other Useless Information, the approximate number of people in the known galaxy having the required dexterity to manage a moving sidewalk successfully is 27. You are not among them.”
“The operative word in that speech is ‘useless.’ Get everybody in the wardroom. I have some important news.”
“Aye, Captain.”
“Hawk out.”
“Ship out.”
He wormed his way through the crowded corridor, avoiding the multitude of wandering trinket merchants, and slipped into the white-walled berthing bay that
led to Ship. As he walked up the ramp, the hatch opened.
“Welcome, Captain,” Ship said.
“Glad to be back,” Hawk said. The only advantage to orbital docking was that Ship’s docking door was on the top deck, which meant he didn’t have to deal with the elevator.
Hawk walked to the wardroom, which often served as the crew’s meeting place.
As he opened the door, Wolf, as always, drew his attention first. Wolf sat in his specially designed chair. His broad face stared at a reader while he jotted notes on another screen. He glanced up at Hawk’s entrance. His glittering blue eyes smiled in direct contradiction to the perpetual frown on his face.
“Don’t tell me, let me guess,” Hawk said. “Technical manual and you’ve found a flaw.”
Wolf returned his attention to the reader, his broad face a study in concentration. “I’m working on something.”
Hawk knew that he would get no more from the taciturn Uraxian.
“Welcome back,” Gerard said, his pale skin reflecting the wardroom lights. He sat next to the Go board, holding a small piece of machinery.
Hawk indicated the board. “How’s it coming?”
“Very well. Trey shows a great deal of promise.”
“What’s the score?”
“Four to nothing, but he’s making it harder for me to beat him every time.”
“Is that the same cleaning bot you’ve been working on?” Hawk asked, pointing at the mechanism in Gerard’s hands.
“Yes,” Gerard answered with a sigh. “These bearings refuse to align for optimal performance.”
“So it works,” Hawk said. “It just doesn’t work like you want it to.”
“Something like that.”
“Frozen or rocks,” Laura called from the bar.
“Frozen,” Hawk settled himself in one of the room’s comfortable dark blue chairs. Laura walked in bearing a tall glass of frozen margarita in each hand. She gave one to Hawk.
“Don’t bother sneaking up on me, Ashron. I can hear your tail dragging again.”
“Rats,” Ashron said, walking from behind Hawk’s chair. “Speaking of which, when’s dinner?”