by T J Mott
“That’s it?” she asked.
He nodded. “Yes. I just wish we could call home and see if they’re receiving, but we can’t risk them intercepting our comms.”
She pointed at the box. “But they won’t intercept that?”
“It’s possible, but not likely,” he replied. “It’s operating on a non-standard radio band at a very low bitrate, so it would be hard to find unless you suspected it was already there. The other unit is receive-only so there’s no way they can locate it.”
“I hope you’re right.”
He stood up with a grunt. “Well, let’s get out of here.” He took his bag and the two of them squeezed back through the fence. He straightened the flap of damaged fencing, and from a few steps away it seemed intact unless you looked close enough.
They returned to the car. As he sat down in the driver’s seat, he saw the AFPF patrol car’s lights in the distance. He waited until the lights changed direction, and then started driving away.
They were still on the spaceport property, two hundred meters away from the nearest public road, when they ran into trouble. Thaddeus cursed as soon as he realized it.
“What is it?”
“I’m pretty sure we’ve been spotted,” he answered. He did a quick run-through of the facts in his mind. He and Ria were ARF members, in an ARF-marked car with the running lights switched off, on Avennian spaceport grounds in the middle of the night. There was no legitimate reason for them to be here, especially not with a backpack that carried illegal comm equipment and breaking-and-entering tools.
Behind them, although still far away, the headlights of the lone Ailon Federal Police Force patrol car shined directly at them. And while their car had the lights turned off, it still had reflectors. The police car flashed its lights. Thad briefly considered accelerating, but could a Foundation sedan outrun a patrol car? Probably not, and then they’d be in even more trouble.
Thaddeus grimaced as the patrol car approached. He didn’t have many options. Pulling the car slightly off the road, he brought it to a complete stop. “What are you doing?” Ria asked, sounding afraid and worried. “You’re not actually stopping for them?!”
“Get out,” Thad growled.
“You think we’re going to outrun them on foot?” she said indignantly.
“No,” he replied as he opened his door. He reached in the back and grabbed his backpack, and looked around for a place to hide it. The Zhale Spaceport was on a plain. The terrain was flat. No trees, no bushes or shrubberies, no nearby ditches or culverts. Just kilometers and kilometers of that pale yellow grass that grew everywhere. It was all too short to hide anything in.
He cursed again, and finally decided to stuff his backpack beneath the car’s front bumper. It was a compact passenger car with low clearance, and he had to kick the bag forcefully to get it under.
He stole a glance at the police car. It was gaining rapidly. Thad hoped they’d only seen the reflectors in the distance, and not well enough to tell that the car had been moving. This would only work if he and Ria could convince them they’d been here for a while.
He quickly moved over to the passenger side of the car and sat down in the grass, leaning back against the car’s side panels. He also noticed that he had a fantastic view of the moon as it hung above the horizon.
“What are you doing?” Ria asked, sounding scared and frustrated.
“Just play along,” he replied calmly. “Trust me. Come here and sit down!”
“What?” She sounded panicked.
“Just do it!” he said back in a strong whisper. He turned his head to the right, looking behind their car, and saw that the patrol car was nearly upon them. But Ria still stood over him.
He leaned forward, grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her down. It took her by surprise. She lost her balance, falling into his lap and starting to shriek, but as she landed he clasped a hand over her mouth. “Shh! Relax, and play along!” He slowly pulled his hand away. Her mouth hung open in surprise and worry, and he could see sheer terror in her eyes. But she was silent now, terrified to the point of freezing in place…
And as the police car came to a stop behind theirs, and Thaddeus heard the car door open and shut, he placed his right hand on the back of Ria’s head, gently pulled her in close, and kissed her.
They were still kissing moments later, Ria rigidly and tensely sitting sideways on his lap, both of his arms wrapped around her when the AFPF officer approached them and shined his flashlight right on them. The cop sighed loudly. “Oh come on now, what do you think you are, teenagers?”
Thad loosened his grip on Ria and she pulled back a few centimeters. Her face was still contorted in fear and worry. He momentarily placed a finger against her lips to keep her from speaking, then turned to face the cop. “What?” he said, trying to sound annoyed at being interrupted.
As he was leaning back into the car’s side panels, he felt a vibration through it. Someone had opened one of its doors. So there were at least two cops. And the other one was searching the car. He hoped neither of them would think to look beneath it.
“You’re on spaceport property!” the cop replied gruffly. “You can’t be here!”
Thad pretended to look around in shock, although it was dark and he was blinded by the cop’s flashlight. “A spaceport? Really? Just looks like empty fields to me.”
The cop sighed loudly again. “You Foundation types can really be a pain in the ass, you know that?” In the dark, Thad saw the cop turn his head and look at his partner over the car roof. He turned his attention back to him and Ria after a couple seconds. “Just be glad I’m Ailon police and not Avennian Army. Leave now, don’t ever come back, and I won’t report this.”
Thad grunted. Then, gently pushing Ria aside, he climbed to his feet and offered her his hand. As he pulled her up and opened the passenger door for her, he shot a very irritated glance at the cop.
The cop shook his head and glared menacingly at Thad and Ria. “Now get out of here and find a better place for your trysts.” He then turned around to return to his patrol car. As the flashlight beam left Thad’s face, he saw that for the moment both cops had their backs turned to him. Quickly stepping around to the front of the car, he reached beneath it and yanked out his backpack, rapidly tossing it in the back seat before either cop could turn around again. Then he took his place in the driver’s seat, his heart pounding loudly inside his chest.
He paused for a few seconds to let the adrenaline dissipate a bit, and then turned the headlights on and began driving. “That was way too close,” he finally said.
“Yeah,” Ria agreed, her voice just a frightened whisper.
He stole a glance at her as he drove, and saw how pale her face was. And she was trembling. “Hey, it’s over. We got away. Mission accomplished.”
She nodded nervously. He took his right hand off the wheel and offered it to her, and after a moment she took it. “You know,” he said with a light chuckle, “I’m really glad you came along, and that it wasn’t Chet like we originally planned. That would have been pretty awkward.”
She laughed, and he saw some of the fear and tension leave her face. She gave his hand a squeeze. “I’m sorry, Chad. I…I can’t believe how afraid I was. I didn’t know what to do, and I almost panicked. I froze.”
“You’re new to covert ops. You were terrified. Rightfully so.”
“You’re a very quick thinker when things go wrong,” she said. She laughed again. “But I can’t believe they actually fell for that.”
Thad nodded slightly. “We were really lucky. If they’d noticed us even a minute earlier, they’d have realized we were driving around the spaceport.”
He gave her hand a gentle squeeze and returned it to the steering wheel. After a few minutes, he could tell she’d regained control over her fear. “Hey, Chad?” she said, her voice suddenly sounding playful. She reached over and rested a hand on his forearm. “I liked the way you handled that. Maybe we should get caught by the poli
ce more often.”
He smiled and continued on the long drive back to Orent.
***
It was an uncharacteristically warm night on Ailon. Thaddeus sat outside in the yellowish grass with his knees drawn up to his chin and his ARF-issued jacket unzipped. A mild breeze blew across his face as he looked out to the small pond in front of him, watching as it created a pattern of gentle ripples which traveled slowly across the water, distorting the reflection of the moon.
The image before him seemed so peaceful, so serene, and he wished for something like this back on Headquarters. His asteroid was a sterile, dead rock hidden in deep space, dark and barren and lifeless. He wondered how difficult—or how safe—it would be to relocate his Organization’s main facility to a terraformed planet somewhere. One with air, and life.
The rest of the Foundation campus was behind him. The pond was so tranquil that it seemed out of place here, because behind him were the warehouses where he’d spent nearly three months secretly training the Foundation’s men and women to fight a war. And it was nearly time to begin the war and destroy that tranquility.
He then heard light footsteps behind him. The soft sounds of rustling grass grew closer and then stopped just behind him. “You’d think this is a good hiding place,” said Ria. “But everyone at the Foundation thinks that. So it really isn’t.”
He smiled without moving. “Were you looking for me? Or are you here to hide, too?”
“I wasn’t looking for you. But since you’re here…” He heard more rustling as she settled down on the grass behind him. A moment later, he felt her hands on the back of his neck and shoulders. “You’re really tense.”
“I have a lot on my mind,” he said as she massaged the muscles between his neck and shoulders. And a lot of guilt. He’d had nothing to drink since leaving Headquarters, nothing to mask the myriad memories and feelings and nightmares that constantly assaulted him from within. Alcohol could risk his cover identity. Although, he realized, nobody really believed his cover story as a shuttle mechanic anymore.
“You’re still not going to talk about it, are you?” She still occasionally tried to get him to open up about his past, but he couldn’t. Not yet anyway. But with the way they felt about each other, and the respect he’d garnered while trying to turn a rag-tag bunch of relief workers into a secret guerrilla army, he wondered if that could someday change.
He shook his head. Maybe it would be best if he just silently slipped away once it was all over. And yet, as he concentrated on Ria’s hands on his shoulders and neck, he felt that wouldn’t be fair to her. Could he really leave without telling her the truth first?
“Chad, I don’t know where you come from, but what you’re doing here is very noble. The Rebels are upbeat. Everyone is looking forward to a free and independent Ailon and for the first time since the war we have hope again.”
“There’s still another war to fight first,” he reminded her. “A lot can go wrong.”
“But this time we have you. You’re clearly a very experienced mercenary.” Her arms wrapped around him from behind. She clasped her hands together over his chest, and he felt her chin come to a rest on his left shoulder. “You fall into leadership so easily,” she said softly, speaking directly into his ear. “You quickly put a lot of pieces in place here. Wherever you came from, you must have been very high up there.”
He frowned and tensed up even more. “Something like that.”
“Sorry, Chad. I know you don’t like it when I probe. But you’re a mystery. It’s hard not to.” He tilted his head to the left. His ear rested against her cheek, and he felt her smile. “Whoever you were, and whatever you did before, none of that matters to me. What matters is who you are now.”
You say that now, but would that change if you knew who I am? What I once did to Ailon?
She shifted, sliding around to his left, and she sat on the grass next to him. She leaned into his side and he wrapped his arm around her. They sat that way for a long time, silently staring across the water together, neither of them saying much of anything, and once he’d shoved all the thoughts of the upcoming war—and his interference in the previous one—out of his mind and managed to focus only on the present, Thaddeus realized he actually felt somewhat at peace.
“What are you going to do when it’s all over?” she asked. “When the Avennians are gone, and Ailon is free?”
He didn’t know how to answer. He still had an Organization to run, if he wanted. He’d left it in the very capable hands of Commodore Cooper, the head of his intelligence division, but Cooper didn’t share Thad’s mission. The Organization’s first and foremost mission was to find Earth. Much of its mercenary work was just an excuse to trawl the galaxy for Earth rumors, and though Cooper was obedient to him in that, Thad knew the Gray Fleet leader thought it was a waste of time.
Could he leave it all behind? What if he never returned? Maybe he could stay on Ailon, forget his old identity, and finish out life as Chad Messier. He knew Ria would like that. And a large part of him would, too. But he still wasn’t sure if he could throw everything away like that, even for a woman like Ria.
And besides, how long could he keep his identity secret? Deep down he worried that someday Ailon would discover who he was. Would they forgive him for his past, even if he helped them achieve freedom?
Furthermore, what of his Organization without him? The search for Earth would stop, and the group could take on one of many roles depending on who took charge or how it fractured. What if the bombastic pirate Commodore Wilcox took over? The Yellow Fleet commander was so short on morals, Thaddeus worried he’d leave a trail of destruction everywhere he went without Thaddeus reigning him in. Ailon could end up being only one of many worlds nearly destroyed by piracy.
Or what about Cooper? Thad had long known that Cooper wanted to expand the Organization’s operations into the Norma Empire, but he’d kept the Gray Fleet commander from making any serious steps in that direction except for covert intelligence gathering. Even though his Organization was undoubtedly the largest, most powerful empire nobody knew about in the Independent Regions, there was no way they could hold their own against the might of the Empire, even if Norma was crumbling in the aftermath of Emperor Moric’s death. And he knew none of the neighbors would appreciate sudden Imperial interest in the mostly-ignored Independent Regions. They liked their independence, and many of them took pride in the fact that the Empire considered them barbarians. Cooper’s ambitions could threaten the entire region.
No, he thought bitterly as he felt Ria’s warmth beside him, his best choice was to quietly fade away from Ailon when it was all over. Which left only one very difficult decision ahead of him: When the time comes, should he tell Ria? Could she forgive him?
And if she did forgive him, would she consider leaving with him?
“Chad?” she said, suddenly breaking into his thoughts. “Did you hear me?”
“Sorry,” he answered. “Yeah, I heard you. But it’s complicated, and I don’t know how to answer.”
“Why is everything so complicated with you?” she asked. “You can trust me.” He sighed, and felt her stir uneasily beside him. “I’m sorry, Chad. I just want to understand, and I want to help. You can’t stay silent forever.”
“I can’t promise anything. But when everything’s over, I’ll think about it. Until then…can we just not talk about it?”
She pulled away from him and repositioned herself, sitting on her knees in the grass in front of him. Even in the dark, he could see worry in her eyes. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll drop the subject. Under one condition.”
He raised an eyebrow. “And that is…?”
She abruptly smiled and pulled herself towards him, settling herself on his lap and leaning into him. “Hold me for a while. Just like when we were caught at the Zhale Starport.”
“I think that’s an acceptable agreement.” He smiled and wrapped his arms around her, and they sat together in pleasant silence for what seem
ed like hours.
Chapter 19
About 3.5 Years Ago
Within the Caracal’s hangar, Thaddeus sat aboard the Marine assault transport designated Beta-One, an armored shuttle designed to navigate a space battle and board enemy starships. Inside, he was listening to comm traffic as his frigates continued their attack, and it was all over very quickly. The ragtag convoy of Ailonian freighters was relatively unarmed, each one only having a pair of low-power laser turrets that did nothing more than burn off a bit of ablative armor from Thaddeus’s military-spec frigates. In response, the high-powered lasers on his frigates quickly destroyed the convoy’s weapons emplacements and thrusters.
The Marine shuttles exited the frigates’ hangars, closing rapidly on their targets, taking a few inconsequential laser hits as they approached. Beta-One’s pilot expertly matched their target’s velocity and attached the shuttle to a specific point on its hull using an electromagnetic docking system designed for this very purpose. An automated plasma torch activated, burning a ring through the outer hull in short order. Once it shut down, a door on the starboard side of the shuttle opened, and the air hissed for a moment as the shuttle’s atmospheric pressure equalized to the freighter’s.
The two squads of his Marines in shuttle Beta-One quickly entered the freighter. Each soldier wore light-duty armor. Most of them were wielding laser carbines, but two of the Marines in the group were designated for heavy weapons and instead carried powerful laser rifles complete with heavy-duty cooling systems and a fuel cell backback that allowed them to fire nearly continuously, sweeping a constant, deadly beam at their targets.