Tilted Axis

by David Ryker

  “I’m going to head up to the rise,” Arza said, striding off. “See if I can’t see anything.”

  Ward pulled out his communicator and checked the coordinates Cootes had sent him against the reading on his screen. He was right there. Except, it didn’t really make a blind bit of difference. The bean would have had to have come directly down — perfectly vertical — to land where they were. If it’d been off, just by a few degrees, it could be anywhere. Tens of kilometers away, maybe. And, that wasn’t even taking into account the fact that the parachutes could have caused drift. And he wasn’t even thinking about retro thrusters. That was a whole other animal to consider. He could try and reach out to Cootes again — see if he could pull sat footage, but that wasn’t how the network functioned. They were pointed out, not in. They tracked things coming toward the planet. Nothing was supposed to get past without tripping the system, so there was no reason for them to look down. If anything did manage to slip through, the Defense Committee’s rangers would be at the crash site in force to pick up whatever had landed. If they knew anything had, that was. Which wasn’t the case here.

  If there was a need for satellite coverage in a specific area on the surface — say if the SB needed eyes in the sky — then the ones up there, flying around, would be called to that spot.

  With the magic eyes so commonplace in the city, tracking the comings and goings of people into shops and the city itself — and with it being so damn tough to get onto the planet in the first place — which was all compounded by the stringent weapon control in effect — there was no real need for as much street-side CCTV or satellite spying as there was on Earth. Nothing Ward could call on to help at least.

  He swore and kicked at a tump of grass. In the background, the cattle lowed and plodded off upstream, away from Ward’s indignant outbursts.

  “Ward!”

  He turned to find Arza waving at him from the hill. He held his hand up and started over.

  “Come on,” she yelled, beckoning him.

  He picked up the pace, jogging the last stretch.

  Arza was facing away by the time he got there, arms folded. “Would you call this a lead?”

  Ward let a thin smile creep over his face. “I’d call it a goddamn miracle. Come on, let’s check it out.”

  They both headed down the hill toward the bike, jumping on with a little more zeal than they’d had a moment earlier.

  About five hundred meters away, in a flat stretch of meadow, the ground had been turned out in a wide circle, like someone had peeled back the grass and punched a hole in the soft earth beneath.

  A bean the size of a decent family sedan was sticking up, white-charred-black with entry fire, sitting at a slight angle. The smoke had cleared, the crash site a few weeks old — but it was definitely the ULOC that Sadler had rode in on. Ward hadn’t ever seen one quite like it, but there was no mistaking what it was.

  Three coffin-lid-sized panels had been blown off, revealing spaces inside where the shooters had been. Ward climbed the rut of earth and walked down into the crate, pulling gloves on. He clambered up and ran his fingers along the bottom of the cylindrical tanks that they’d been in stasis in, trying not to step in the dried blue liquid running down the side. He held them to his nose and sniffed. The scent was familiar and an unanswered question clicked into place. The smell on Sadler’s hair. That strange medical odor he couldn’t place. This was it. Stasis jelly. But it wasn’t just that. There was something else in it. Some other material mixed in.

  “What is it?” Arza asked, standing below him, staring up, eyes squinted in the sunlight.

  Ward rubbed it between his thumb and his forefinger, the texture springy and gelatinous. “I don’t know — stasis jelly mostly. But there’s something else in here — some sort of impact gel, to dampen the stresses of reentry, maybe? U-LOPs aren’t exactly designed for humans to ride in.” He inspected the tank a little more thoroughly. The seams were watertight and a breathing mask hung from the top, designed to cover the whole face. Around the edges, springs and hydraulic joints held the tank to the bean, suspending it there. Ward stepped back and looked at the entire thing, pointing to the edges. “Well, they definitely came in on this thing. They were suspended in the jelly, the tank held up by springs to mitigate the impact of the landing.” He held on to the edge of the tank and pulled his foot up, putting the toe of his boot into the space around the handle they’d used to let themselves out, kicking himself up to the top of it. “Deployed chutes on the way down — then blew them off,” he mused, looking around. “Must have blown away.” He came back down and started looking around the bean. “Compartments under the tanks, here,” he said pointing to another handle on the shell and then grabbing it. He twisted with a hiss, and a sprung drawer levered itself out of the body filled with empty silicone molds. “The rifle, the pistols, ammo, ballistic vests, ration packs — everything they’d need to make the trek.”

  “They walked to Eudaimonia?”

  Ward nodded. “I’d say so — or got someone to pick them up. Either way, they slipped into the city quietly. This would have come through the net far enough away from the city so that no one would see it make the entry. Or at least not many people. And how many would care? It would look like a meteorite coming down in the plains. No big deal.”

  His feet hit the earth and he put his hands on his hips, looking up at the unmarked craft. “This isn’t a standard pod — this was purpose built — probably by the same people who did the rifle.”

  “Any markings on it?”

  Ward shook his head. “No. Totally clean. And I’d guess they were dropped in from an unmarked ship, too.”

  “An unmarked ship moving through space these days dropping off a U-LOP outside the Martian atmosphere? I can’t believe they wouldn’t have been seen, or stopped — hailed by a UMR patrol—”

  “Space is a big place, and for the most part, lawless. There’s a lot of places to fall through the cracks. Even the OCA can’t cover it all. Just between Earth, Mars, and the Gate, the OCA Peacekeepers are spread thin. I mean, it’s pretty well patrolled, but in all honesty, despite the posters and propaganda boasting about a safe and friendly OCA… It’s the goddamn Wild West out there. All they’d need is to do is upload a phony schematic for a ship coming through the Gate, with a concealed compartment, pay off the inspector to confirm it without checking, bean hidden in the belly — that way even if they’re using the drones they do to check shipments coming in, nothing flags up. Then they’re through, probably with Sadler and the two other shooters in stasis. That jelly was likely temp controlled, nutrinized for travel, so the shooters wouldn’t show up on infrared. Then, it’s just a straight shot to Mars… Easy. Would save them trying to sneak the shooters and weapons in separately. This way, it’s all together. Mars is the toughest planet in the Axis to get onto. Everything else? The Gate? Hell, Earth? Security’s not quite as tight.” Ward shrugged. “It’s why it makes me even more certain that this isn’t so much about Chang dying as it as about causing a scene. About making a statement. There’s no other reason they’d choose Eudaimonia.”

  “You sound like you know a lot about this sort of thing.”

  “Smuggling people? I’ve had a few brushes. It’s the way I’d do it — probably Sadler, too. This is all her design, most likely.”

  “Why do you say that?” Arza had started pacing around the bean now, checking out the other side.

  “Because it’s good.”

  “Not that good. We’re here, aren’t we?”

  “You see anyone else around?” Ward said cuttingly — at least more so than he’d meant. He realized he’d taken offense on Sadler’s behalf for that one.

  Arza appeared around the other side and walked around. “So, now what?”

  That was the question.

  Ward walked back up out of the crater and put his hands on his hips. There was nothing else to do now. They could go back and check Gate logs, but there’d be no way to know where it came from
or when, and thousands of ships had come through in the last few weeks, probably. They knew when the bean had come in — down to the minute almost. But there was no way to know if they’d been in the system for days or weeks before that. They’d be swinging in the dark, and that wasn’t Ward’s style.

  “Well?” Arza asked again, walking up to join him.

  He didn’t have an answer for her just then. The bean was totally clean — no markings or anything to say where it came from. If it was a standard module, they would have been able to back-track it, check out the manufacturers and distributors, do some door-to-door work, chase down some leads that way. But it was all one-of-a-kind stuff, and that meant there were no serial numbers, no production and supply chain. As far as it went, this thing might as well have not existed.

  “We wait,” Ward said slowly, exhausting all other options in his head.

  “Wait? For what?” Arza asked.

  He turned to look at her, and as he did his communicator started vibrating.

  He pulled it to his ear. “Tell me something good.”

  “Fairbright Industries,” Cootes said.

  “Fairbright?” Ward repeated for Arza to hear.

  She turned her bottom lip out and shook her head. She didn’t know them.

  “Fairbright Industries are owned,” Cootes said, “despite their best efforts to appear that they’re not — by the same company that owns Edelweiss Orbital — a conglomerate operating out of Russian-Korea. They’re just a shell, inside a shell, in another shell, but it all tracks back to a corporation called Zenith Reinhardt.”

  “Well, they sound like a bunch of nondescript assholes,” Ward growled.

  “I’ve been digging into them for the last hour. Turns out they own a little bit of everything, from agriculture to colonial mining, defense contracting to big pharma. There’s not a pie in the OCA they’re not two knuckles deep in.”

  “That’s a pleasant image.”

  “Ain’t it just. Looks like they acquired Edelweiss Orbital last year, or at least a big enough portion of it to really effect change. They’ve been pumping money into it since then, upgrading the software and hardware as they go — clever bastards — to cover their tracks. There’ve been some glitches over the last few months chalked up to compatibility issues from old and new systems not playing too nicely together. Checking it against the UMR Defense Committee’s logs, I can see that the first few glitches were investigated in case something hinky was going on, but the last few haven’t been. Edelweiss released a statement to them saying that they were working out the bugs, but that their backup systems were robust enough to not have the orbital security compromised — and they’re right. No one would be able to detect a drop and act fast enough to get through the net—”

  “Unless they knew ahead of time and were already on course for the hole they knew would appear for them. Goddamnit.”

  “Exactly. This isn’t a spur of the moment thing — there’s some serious corporate planning going on here. I’m going to keep digging into Zenith and see what I can find. They’re making a real effort to cover their tracks where they can, but now that I know what I’m looking for, I’ll see what I can find out.” Cootes took a breath and waited for a second. “You want me to loop the SB in on this? Don’t know how long it’s going to be before they start looking at U-LOPs themselves. From then on, it’s a matter of time until they come across Zenith. Question is whether your partner there is going to screw the pooch.”

  Ward growled to himself, weighing it up. Arza watched expectantly from his right. “How would you do it?” Ward asked.

  “AIA and the SB work collaboratively these days. The United Nations and the UMR are on a fully sharing-is-caring mission. I could drop this info to the agency back home, let them parcel it up with some bogus leads and send it across to the UMR, let them sift through it. They find Zenith linked to Edelweiss, and bingo-bango-bongo they’re all caught up. I mean, they’ll still have your head for going off the reservation, but at least this way if you get yourself killed, the investigation can carry on.”

  “Mm.” Ward was thinking. Arza was silent, staring at him intensely, trying to read his sphinx-like features.

  After a few seconds, Cootes sighed and then spoke. “I think it’s starting to look like time, Miller.”

  “Not yet.”

  “We need to start thinking about getting you out of there. The SB don’t like having two lone guns out there running around — especially not one who’s former AIA. And hell, once Arza — Ferlish, I mean — your sidekick’s dear old dad — gets wind that his prized daughter’s thrown in with you? Hell, they’re going to launch an Axis-wide manhunt.” He swore under his breath and muttered something about Ward putting him into an early grave. “Keeping you in the SB is good for business, but if I lose you to something this stupid — Chiswick will have my balls in a vise. No, we need to pull you out, let you disappear, and then play dumb with the UMR. You know how this works. You may not be any use on Eudaimonia anymore, but the AIA can still use you, and they’ll want to.”

  “I’m not done here, Cootes.”

  “You are, Miller. I’m not doing this for you—”

  “No, you’re doing it for yourself. To cover your own ass,” Ward spat.

  “I’m doing it to preserve the very delicate relationship that exists between the UN and UMR — which you seem intent on single-handedly blowing up.” Cootes was mad now, the contempt dripping from his words.

  “We’re finally on to something here, Cootes, and you want me to back off?”

  “I want to keep you alive, Miller. That’s all I’m ever trying to do.”

  “Last time I checked you weren’t out here jumping in front of any bullets for me.”

  “Cut the attitude, Miller. Petty sniping doesn’t suit you.”

  Ward took a breath and settled himself, letting the burst of anger flow away. “All I’m saying is that we’ve finally got a lead here, but if Zenith are as clever as you say, they’re going to be burning everything that links them to this. Even if it takes the SB a day or two to catch up, it’ll probably already be too late. We need to keep on this if we’ve got any hope of nailing these guys before they disappear. Give it forty-eight hours, and there’ll be no trace that Zenith ever had anything to do with Fairbright. And then any links made to them are just conjecture. No court orders for search warrants, no reason to investigate — at least not without incriminating me, and—”

  “All right, all right,” Cootes sighed. “Jesus, Ward, you’re like a dog with a bone. Fine. But we still need to get you off-world. Fairbright Industries have their main production facility on Aeolus. So either way, you’re headed off Mars. But I still don’t like this. We can just put another agent on it—”

  “No,” Ward said firmly.

  “Why not?”

  “Because Sadler chose me for a reason. It has to be me.”

  There was silence on the line for a few seconds. “I’ll make the arrangements and send you the information. And Miller?”

  “Yeah, Cootes?”

  “The girl hear you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Me?”

  “No,” Ward said, nodding at Arza and taking a few steps into the grass. She stayed where she was, studying him.

  “You know what needs to happen.”

  Ward was silent.

  “You’re now officially on exfil notice and it’s time to follow protocol.”

  Ward stayed silent.

  “You hear me, Miller? No loose ends. You know how this works.”

  “She’s fine,” Ward said, knowing he wouldn’t buy it.

  “No one’s fine. That’s why this is protocol.”

  Ward swallowed, gripping the communicator tightly. He turned his back on Arza and spoke quietly. “She won’t talk.”

  “Jesus Christ, don’t tell me you’re going native? Or have you just gone soft in my absence? Put a bullet in her and get your ass to a safe house.”

  “You yourself
said that her father’s going to scour the whole planet for her the second he gets wind of this. You want me to just plug her out here in the plains and leave her body?”

  “Leave it, bury it — whatever your bleeding heart wants. If the SB think that you did it or not, then it doesn’t really matter, because you’re already smeared all up and down Moozana’s shit-list. We’ll make it look like you went totally AWOL — stage a ship hijacking, some reports that you made it off-planet with your dick swinging, your gun out. You know, to make sure it doesn’t get back to us. You’re officially out of the SB, and you did it in the classic Michael Ward Miller style — with lots of fireworks and total disregard for anyone else’s life. You knew bringing her along would get her killed sooner or later. You made that choice at the start, so don’t pretend like I’m the one pulling the trigger — or making you, for that matter.”

  “Eat shit, Cootes.”

  “Love you too, Miller. Details to follow soon. Stay safe, and Miller, hear me when I say this — she’s a loose end. No one can ever be truly trusted, and she knows too much to ever walk away from this. Get it done — that’s an order. I’ll fix a ship to Aeolus for you via The Gate and send you the exfil location. You’ll be gone before they even know it, and by the time we loop them in and they find the pod, you’ll be someone else, and very, very far away.” He hung up without another word and Ward took the communicator in his hands and bent it in his grip until he felt it was about to shatter.

  Arza was suddenly at his shoulder. “Everything okay?”

  He set his jaw and turned to face her, his mind mapping the path from his hand to his pistol. She was wearing a vest. He’d need to do her in the head. He doubted she’d have time to draw or even widen her eyes with realization before she hit the ground. That gave him some comfort. All he could do was nod.

  “Your man give you a lead?”

  Ward nodded again and cleared his throat. It’d been a long time since he’d had to do something like this and he knew that it was like ripping off a Band-Aid. The quicker the better. Just get it over with. “Yeah,” he said solemnly. “Aeolus.” There was no point lying, and if he could get her to look into the distance — or turn away, then he’d put one in the back of her skull. That would be the best, he thought.