Renegade Patriot

by Oscar Andrews

  Brad read the message over his shoulder. “Why not just ask the New Atlantians for that second list? Those are their people, after all.”

  Neffy was irritated at the breach of etiquette but chose not to say anything about it. Instead he just noted Brad’s eagerness to read his messages. “That would be Captain Eryn O’Shea, callsign Xena. She’s not an enemy, but I’m just not sure about New Atlantians right now.”

  Brad understood this kind of thinking. “Trust your gut. So, what’s our move?”

  Neffy pointed upward, toward outer space. “The prototype is still out there somewhere, and I have to recover it. We can’t trust anyone else.”

  I can’t trust you either, he thought, but I’ll string you along for now.

  He knew better than to underestimate Brad, but he was doing it anyway.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Jesus DeMarques was in a rage, looking for anything he could punch his fist through. In the operations room of a starship, there was nothing handy. Not unless he put his fist right through Raj-Henry’s smug little face, that is. “How the fuck did that just happen!?”

  Raj-Henry winced and raised both hands in a placating gesture. DeMarques was pacing angrily back and forth, as frustrated and murderous as a caged tiger. Raj was worried he might do something unpredictable. His boss was usually so calm, so self-assured. On the other hand, when he lost his temper…well, Raj-Henry had seen him do some awful things.

  He decided to emphasize his own lack of responsibility for the mistake. “My lord, it was unexpected. Another strike team was present. We could not have known it!”

  DeMarques stopped, wheeled on Raj-Henry, and stared directly at him with wild, dangerous eyes. Although his hands were clasped behind his back, it really looked as if he might rip his lieutenant’s face off. Raj-Henry wondered if he was actually considering it.

  He swallowed nervously. “It was a black swan!”

  A black swan. Yes. An event so unlikely it could not be predicted, could not be planned for. No one has any personal responsibility for such an event. That argument was a good one, maybe even good enough to calm his boss’s fury. DeMarques was fascinated with concepts like that.

  DeMarques sneered. “Attila’s invasion of the Roman Empire was a black swan. The Drewdonian attack on New Atlantia was a black swan – at least from the perspective of the New Atlantians. This was no black swan. The device is valuable. We’re not the only ones who want it. That’s all perfectly predictable. The fact is, we fucked up!” He started pacing the room again. “I can’t believe this!”

  “It may not have been a true black swan, but how likely was it that anyone else would know of the device? This is a closely-guarded industrial secret!”

  DeMarques gave him a look that implied sheer awe at his stupidity. As if he had never looked at anyone quite that stupid before in a lifetime of dealing with stupid people. “Let me ask you this, Raj-Henry. Do we have agents in the Federation?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “And agents among the New Atlantians?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Then what the fuck would make you think that someone else couldn’t do the same?!”

  He punched a console, finally giving in to the urge to destroy something. It hurt his knuckles and didn’t do much to damage the console – which was for the best.

  DeMarques put his knuckles up against his mouth to ease the sting. “There are no pure secrets, Raj. Except perhaps the secrets in your heart that you tell to no one, and even then you cannot be sure. There are no secrets that are not for sale. Information that is known by one party is valuable to another – that is the very definition of a secret. If we can buy access to it, so can someone else.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Sensing that his master’s rage was ebbing, if only a little, Raj-Henry tried to redirect the conversation. “The device kit was heavy. Very heavy. Not a thing to steal on a sudden impulse. This must have been planned out well in advance.”

  Finally his subordinate was starting to make some sense. “This is true, Raj-Henry. And a good point. Whoever took it would need to know it was there, and they would need to have the capability to move it quickly off-world. That means whoever did this had extensive resources. Probably comparable to our own.”

  DeMarques stopped pacing again, but he didn’t glare crazily at Raj-Henry this time. Instead he leaned both hands against a console and bowed his head in thought. He knew he had to get his rage under control and apply his trained intellect to the situation. Generations upon generations of the DeMarques family had passed down all their knowledge of strategy so he could survive this crisis. So why did he suddenly feel as if he couldn’t remember any of it?

  There had to be a solution out there. There simply had to be. “The problem is this. We can’t deliver the device because we no longer have it, and even if we handed Captain Klingerman over in its place we might not be safe. The Puppet Master could just as easily decide he no longer needs us alive once he has the man who has seen the schematics.”

  Raj-Henry was ready for this. He’d been ready for this ever since DeMarques had chastised him for pushing too hard on the Klingerman issue. “Captain Klingerman is still on the surface. Brad Cramer is down there with him.”

  “So he’s still in play. We haven’t taken him yet but he’s still in play.” DeMarques loved his chess metaphors. But only when he thought them up himself.

  “Just so, my lord. We expected the rebels to have an ambush ready for the Federation team, but their skills turned out to be less than advertised. Captain Klingerman is still free, but Commander Cramer is down there with him. We still have him in check”

  DeMarques frowned in irritation. Raj-Henry had no understanding of chess, so his attempts to curry favor with chess metaphors were especially obnoxious. “He can’t be in check unless he’s the king. And Neffy Klingerman is not the king. At most he’s a bishop. At the least, a knight. Worth something, but not worth everything.”

  But Raj-Henry was still trying to milk the chess metaphors. “And what is Brad Cramer then? A rook?”

  “Brad Cramer is a pawn, but a pawn in position to take Neffy Klingerman. That makes him a rather important pawn, at least at the moment. We need to know what they saw down there, Raj. They might know something we don’t. Something that will pull us out of this quicksand we’ve blundered into.”

  “I agree, my lord.”

  “How wonderful. I can proceed with confidence. Raj-Henry agrees!”

  DeMarques glanced at his holo to check the time. “That tech needs to be on this ship in the next few hours, or else both of us are dead. Unfortunately, I have a call with the Puppet Master scheduled for…now.”

  What should he tell the Puppet Master? As little as possible but nothing false. Lying without lying, like his father taught him. It was the only way. If the Puppet Master found out the truth, DeMarques and Raj-Henry would surely die. If he caught them lying, the consequences could be even worse than death.

  Although DeMarques looked very anxious, he was no longer yelling. Raj-Henry was pleased – or at least less anxious. It made him miserable when his boss was mad at him, and not only because he feared DeMarques might kill him in a fit of rage. He craved approval and admiration, especially from those with wealth and power. When DeMarques was mad at him, it was as if he’d angered God. By helping DeMarques focus on the situation at hand, he was redirecting his boss’s fury away from himself.

  “My lord, have you considered this possibility? The Puppet Master may have arranged the extraction himself. A failsafe plan.”

  That sounded like wishful thinking to DeMarques. Rather desperate wishful thinking. Still, he couldn’t rule it out. The Puppet Master was nothing if not devious, and he could even have taken the device just to test if they would tell him the truth about it. DeMarques shrugged. “We can’t be sure. As you say, it’s possible.”

  He couldn’t put off the call forever because any delay would be taken as a sign that somethi
ng was wrong. And yet he hesitated. His usual confidence was completely lacking. Even if the Puppet Master was not responsible for the other strike team, his resources and connections were mysterious and extensive. If anyone could help them find the prototype and get it back quickly, it was the man they worked for. Was it better just to tell him what had happened?

  No. DeMarques shuddered. They couldn’t risk how he might react.

  Raj-Henry looked disturbed, as if seeing his boss in obvious fear was deeply upsetting to him on a personal level. But he kept on trying. “I have a suggestion, my lord. If I may.”

  Anything was better than nothing right now. As long as it didn’t involve any more wildly misguided chess references. “Alright, Raj-Henry.”

  “We need to send in Delta Team, snatch up Captain Klingerman and any of Hidalgo’s people who are still alive. They know more than anyone else about the device and how it works. If we move immediately, the Puppet Master will never know. When we can question them all without restrictions, the truth will come out. Their answers will determine our best approach.”

  DeMarques thought about it. Zahra Hidalgo was not only his asset, but a member of the New Atlantian rebel group that stole the device in the first place. If he spirited the survivors of her group away from the planet and interrogated them here on his ship, she might be angry with him for mistreating her people. But then again, she would have every reason to be grateful that they were no longer in the hands of Federation interrogators where they could so easily incriminate her.

  “You’re right, Raj-Henry. That’s our best course of action. Give Delta Team the go-ahead and inform Commander Cramer.”

  “Immediately, my lord.”

  Raj-Henry turned to his console and started making holo-calls. DeMarques sat back, wondering how long he could delay his call to the Puppet Master. The situation was dangerous, as dangerous as any he had ever been in. Still, if anyone was capable of coming out ahead in such a situation, he knew it was him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Captain Dunham came out of one of the interrogation rooms and walked over to Brad and Neffy, who were still discussing the situation. The man looked grimly satisfied with the results of his work. “Successful interrogation. Two of the four survivors have cracked.”

  Neffy was impressed with the efficiency of the Federation soldiers. “Your team must be very persuasive, Captain.”

  Dunham accepted the compliment with a curt nod. “They are. But one of them says she’ll only talk to the one in charge. She seems to think that’s you.”

  Neffy wanted to talk to her, but he didn’t want to push the issue of who was in charge too far. That kind of arrogance tended to backfire. “Brad is the ranking officer here.”

  Dunham turned to look for Brad. “Now where did Commander Cramer get off to?”

  Neffy looked around, but Brad seemed to have wandered off somewhere – perhaps to check the message he’d received just before the battle or perhaps just to laugh and joke with the other soldiers. “That’s funny, he was right here. He’s probably just a little buzzed on adrenaline.”

  “Battle high? Sure. It happens. I’m feeling it myself, to tell you the truth.”

  Neffy felt it too – a weird exhilaration at the fact that he wasn’t dead. People had been firing weapons in his direction, and yet here he was. Not everyone had lived to tell the tale of the firefight, but Neffy had. It was hard not to feel a little buzzed about that, though the emotion sat uncomfortably with his distaste for killing.

  He pointed to the door the captain had just come out of. “Is she in there?”

  “The one who wants to talk to you? Yeah. But she’s not the only one. We put the two who agreed to cooperate in the same room, just to make sure we can keep them safe. Look for the one with a bit of fight in her.”

  Neffy was slightly irritated that they hadn’t listened to him about keeping the women separated, but he knew not to push it. There was a limit to how far he could get by giving orders when he had no official authority to do so. He headed for the door, and Dunham called out to the soldier guarding it. “Let Captain Klingerman in to see the prisoners. I’m going to go find Commander Cramer!”

  When he walked in the room, Neffy saw the dark-haired woman he’d questioned earlier. She sat slumped in a corner staring at the floor, too worn-down and beaten to do anything else. She must not be the one Captain Dunham had been talking about.

  The other woman in the room sat straight and tall, obviously trying to maintain a military bearing despite her circumstances. When Neffy looked at her, she returned his gaze with a level expression. He couldn’t be sure what she was thinking behind that mask of stoicism, and no obvious micro-expressions flickered across her face.

  Not for the first time, Neffy wished he had Ally to help him. The thought made his heart ache. Would he ever get the chance to work with her again, or were their partnership and their friendship both over for good? Did Ally really want him dead? He pushed the thought aside and got on with business. He would have to do the interrogation alone.

  The best way to handle a bold attitude was sometimes to match it, mirroring the subject’s behavior. This script was all about establishing rapport – one brave soul to another. Neffy crouched down in front of the detainee with a cheeky smile. “What’s the going rate for technological espionage these days?”

  The prisoner frowned slightly. “I’m not a spy.”

  “If you’re not a spy, then what are you doing here?”

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  Neffy put a hint of sympathy in his voice. “Try me. I assumed you were being paid to steal the device. Is that not the case?”

  Criminals with political motivations didn’t like to think of themselves as mere mercenaries or traitors. If this woman thought of herself as having noble motives, she would try to hold on to that exalted self-image. Her attempts to justify her own actions would tell him everything he needed to know about her motives.

  Her next words surprised him a little. “Are you from the Feds?”

  No attempt to explain her ideology or justify her rebellion. Perhaps this wasn’t about politics after all. “Yes. I’m a Federation Peacekeeper.”

  She made her pitch. “Can you guarantee the protection of the Federation? That’s what I need if I’m going to talk to you.”

  “What do you need to be protected from? Or who?”

  She stared straight ahead, her mask-like face a perfect barrier. Neffy decided she must be the leader here, although she was obviously scared of whoever they were working for. Maybe she was still trying to protect her followers, or at least the few who were still alive.

  Reading her as a person capable of empathy for others, he decided to try a different approach. “I don’t know if you knew this, but you’ve been playing a dangerous game here. If it becomes operational, the device you stole could cause a huge disaster. I don’t think you want that. I wasn’t sent down here to interfere with New Atlantia. I just want to keep something terrible from happening. Who has it now?”

  She bit her lip. “I don’t know who has it now.”

  Neffy waited silently. She was about to spill, and saying something at the wrong moment could spook her into clamming up again.

  She cleared her throat, reluctant to talk but already committed to it. “We were ordered to bring it here. I don’t know why. But then these men appeared. They came in through the access tunnel waving their guns around, and when my people objected the bastards shot them.”

  “What kind of men?”

  “Paramilitary types. That’s all I know. The nametags and insignia on their uniforms were all torn off.”

  “Can you tell me anything else about them? Anything at all? Like what kind of vehicle they had?”

  The woman shrugged. “It was just a car. But it was a custom job, I can tell you that. X-Type, really big. Some kind of nonstandard modifications. And extra armor. They make custom cars like that on Gaia, I do know that much.”

  Not many c
ars had extra armor, although the “nonstandard modifications” could have been a cloaking device. An expensive vehicle, that much was clear. “What happened to Dr. Sacre?”

  “The engineer? He was never at the outpost.”

  He let that go for now, as the engineer was not as important as the device itself. They were making progress. Now to zero in on the heart of the matter. But before he could do that, Neffy needed to establish a personal connection – at least on the most minimal level. “Thank you for your help with this, I really appreciate it. I’m Captain Neffy Klingerman. May I ask your name?”

  “I’m Sergeant Lovisa Corey. Federation Legionnaire, New Atlantia.”

  “Thank you again, Sergeant Corey. Let me ask you this. How did you come to steal tech from Drewdonia?”

  “That’s what I need to talk about. But I’ll need protection. For me, my people, and all our families.”

  “Has someone been threatening your family, Sergeant Corey?”

  The sergeant nodded, but her jaw was tense with suppressed rage. Neffy was surprised. If she can get to whoever she’s working for, she’ll shoot him dead.

  If this woman had been in on a criminal conspiracy, it had gone badly wrong. She obviously had no loyalty to her boss. Could she be telling the truth about being forced to do this? “Don’t expect me to believe that a bunch of New Atlantian Legionnaires are afraid of a few idle threats.”

  “These weren’t idle threats. All of us got the messages, along with pictures of our loved ones. If we wouldn’t comply, they said they’d kill our families. So the order came down to do what we did. Strictly off the books.”

  Whoever was behind this was truly sinister and willing to go to any lengths. Even a person who could never be bribed or blackmailed might still commit treason to protect her family. “You couldn’t trace the messages?”

  “Nobody can trace e-DNA. You know that. Based on all the details they had about our families, we assumed they were on-planet somewhere.”