The last time Solomon had seen her, the woman in her early fifties with dark hair and a sprinkling of wrinkles around the eyes, had been teary and pale, terrified that she was about to be executed. He remembered her asking short, practical questions: Are we safe? Are there more of them coming for me? What can I do?
For just a moment, the eyes of the specialist commander and the ambassador connected, and she gave him the briefest of nods. It was a small act, but one that left Solomon feeling oddly touched.
“Ambassador, a pleasure to finally meet you.” Warden Coates stepped forward, followed by his small team of staffers carrying the crates. “I am Warden Coates, acting Commander of the Outcasts, I hope that there is somewhere that we can speak in private?” he said sternly.
Weren’t you supposed to be more respectful to ambassadors? Solomon thought, wondering how this woman would take to Coates’s abrasive demeanor.
“No need, Warden. I understand why you are here…although I did not request your presence,” she said with a brittle smile, and Solomon had to bite his lip to stop himself from grinning. “You wish to negotiate for more funding on behalf of your Ganymede Training Facility,” she pre-empted him. “Please, send the funding forms into the department, and I will be sure to send in a recommendation.” She nodded, and that appeared to have concluded that.
“I, uh… Of course, Your Excellency.” Coates scowled deeply.
“But please, feel free to stay here at Nuryien for the watch, and you can return at second shift.” She smiled just as icily.
Wow, the ambassador really is made of tough stuff, Solomon thought. She just told the warden that she didn’t have any use for him, and could he please leave!
“With greatest respect, Ambassador, I also must discuss with you the details of the mission that you require my Gold Squad for…” Warden Coates quickly recovered his aplomb, tugging his brilliant white jacket into perfect position as he stood a little straighter in front of the woman.
“Of course,” the Ambassador sighed dramatically. “We’ll be having a dinner in under an hour, you and your men and women are of course invited to attend, where I will fill you in on my requirements of them…”
“No need to invite the squad, ma’am!” Coates said, surprised. “They will take your orders no matter what—”
“I would prefer it if they were there, Warden Coates,” the ambassador cut him off. “I never want to have people guarding me who do not know me, thank you.”
Well, she sure told him! Solomon threw a look at the rest of his squad, to see Malady looking dispassionately forward, as always, but Karamov and Kol had very small smirks on their faces. Jezzy Wen, though, was looking as stoic and flat-mouthed as Malady was.
What is up with her!? Solomon thought in frustration as the ambassador and her two staff turned to leave, and the warden barked at them to follow in formation.
Yeah, I could get used to this—if this was what it really meant to be an Outcast! Solomon thought. Maybe the constant threat of having a seizure and dying wasn’t so bad, if he also got to eat salmon and brie canapes and drink the odd glass of Cava at the same time.
He and the rest of Gold Squad stood awkwardly at the side of a room that was opulent and dripping with finesse. An authentic Persian rug was draped across one wall, as the other held small stands of art or interesting artifacts designed to impress: a Picasso; a Neo-Turner watercolor painting of Jupiter; a small replica model of the Apollo 13 sitting next to the Hubble Mark III telescope.
These were the ambassador’s private rooms on board the Nuryien, one of many such suites that Solomon presumed she and the other Confederacy officials must enjoy as they traveled through human space meeting delegations and settling trade disputes.
The ambassador herself sat at one end of a glass oval table, while Warden Coates sat at the other, and in between them the two tall women with the white skin and auburn hair—who Solomon figured must be some kind of personal assistants to the ambassador—had sat down, after laying the table with platters of food—everything from the canapes that Gold Squad were eating, to plates of sushi, a bhaji and pakora mix, fresh bread rolls, steamed Chinese dumplings…
“How the other half live…” Kol whispered under his breath, earning a chuckle from Solomon. They still wore most of their light tactical suits but had been persuaded, and grudgingly allowed by the warden, to dispense with their shoulder pads, weapons, helmets, and breastplate-harnesses. Chimes of delicate gong and bell music emerged from hidden speakers somewhere, and Solomon wondered how much money the younger him would have made if he had robbed this place.
Millions of credits? Billions? He eyed the Picasso…
“The Outer Space Alliance?” The warden frowned as he responded to what the ambassador had just said. “I’m afraid that I am not aware of…”
“Don’t mention it. I don’t expect Ganymede to keep up to date with current affairs.” The ambassador smiled once again in her icy, cat-like way. She’s a sharp operator, Solomon thought. Far sharper than he had thought her to be before. “They only formed this last year—an alliance between the colony worlds to represent their interests against the Confederacy.”
“But…but…they are the Confederacy!” the warden spluttered on his salmon roll. “We are all the Confederacy.”
“Not quite all of us, apparently.” The ambassador took a sip of wine. “But it was bound to happen sooner or later. It is a contingency that the department has been planning for, for some years.”
“You’ve been planning for a seditionist movement?” The warden scowled deeply.
The ambassador smiled wryly. “Ah, well… How long can we claim that the riots on Mars, the sabotage on Luna, the repeated tax hikes on Proxima are the result of seditionists and subversives, Warden?” she asked rhetorically. “Sooner or later, they will start calling themselves a breakaway faction, or a freedom-fighter movement, and then we really do have to deal with them.”
Solomon listened into their conversation as he ate another canape. As far as he saw, the seditionists on Mars did not appear to be anything but fanatics, and dangerous ones, at that.
“So now, the Imprimatur of Mars, Joseph Valance, and the Imprimatur of Proxima, Mariad Rhossily, as well as half a dozen of those asteroid guild people, have formed what they call the Outer Space Alliance, and they have asked for neutral territory to discuss where we go next.”
“Where we go next? The gall of them!” the warden burst out. “Does Marine Corps Command know all of this? I’ll tell the generals, and they are sure to send the Rapid Response Fleet to round them all up and throw them away on charges of treachery!”
The ambassador said nothing for a moment, just played with her dining fork on her china plate, leaving the warden’s comment to hang in the air as if it didn’t deserve a response. Ultimately however, she did respond.
“Yes, I can see why you might think that, Warden. But it is on the advice of the generals of your beloved Marine Corps that I am in fact meeting with them.”
“But…” the warden spluttered once more, and Solomon relished his confusion. The warden was a career military man. He was as fanatical about ‘the Corps’ as Solomon assumed the seditionists were about their independence. Solomon wondered what it meant to the warden to understand that his beloved, patriotic Corps had decided to allow the colonists to talk openly about defying the Confederacy and not just throw them all in jail instead.
“It is the future, Warden Coates. It is a time of changes, and the Confederacy needs to re-evaluate its position,” the ambassador said. “Sheer economics alone dictate that we cannot enforce trade tariffs and taxes as heavily as we would like on colonial goods. As soon as Proxima cracks the Barr-Hawking generator system, then they will build their own jump-ships and can completely bypass Confederacy control…” She shrugged.
“But…but Proxima is sworn to Earth!” The warden’s small mind still tried to clutch onto the foundations of his world. “As is Mars, Trappist Star, the asteroids… Every st
ation and colony and ship is sworn to the Confederacy!”
“A Confederacy which is itself made of numerous power-blocks on Earth alone, Warden. Regional presidents and senators, protectorate districts, special interest zones… And then there is the entire society of the mega-corporations, who are always trying to maneuver for or against whichever Confederate group they like…” the ambassador continued, leaning forward as she seemed to finally warm up to explaining her dilemma to the warden.
“You see, the Confederacy is a band-aid. You should know this. A thin plaster holding together all the rebellious, difficult nations and creeds and beliefs of humanity. It is only the fact that the Confederate machine works and that we can maintain our place with our jump technology and our Marine Corps that has kept the Confederacy from breaking apart a generation ago!” She tapped her fork on her china plate as a rhythm to her words.
“I aim to show this Outer Space Alliance that the Confederacy of Earth is a very broad church indeed, and that there is room enough for their interests inside it. If I can prove that to them, then they won’t secede.” The ambassador yawned and leaned back in her chair, “And besides, the Marine Corps has already supplied me with five of their best young soldiers.” She nodded at Solomon and the others. “I am sure that when the Imprimaturs see that I have the total confidence of the Marine Corps on my side, they will think twice about leaving us.”
It was a small compliment, one that was intended to butter up Warden Coates, Solomon knew, but it was charming none-the-less. He found himself smiling into his flute of wine, the only time that both he and the warden actually felt the same positive emotion at the same time.
“Mostly, I want this complement of Outcasts to be at my side, looking ready to deal out Marine Corps justice whenever I cough,” the Ambassador moved on. “Obviously, there are always the natural security concerns for someone in my position. I will need bodyguards to secure rooms, neutralize threats, be vigilant against assassination or kidnap…” Her voice wavered on that last word, and Solomon knew that her ordeal of a few months ago must still be fresh in the woman’s mind. “…but on the whole, it is a show of force that I want to portray, and I know that these young men and women are very good operators.”
If only the warden could see that as well, Solomon thought.
“There is one added risk I should mention, however.” The ambassador cleared her throat. “The Outer Space Alliance has demanded that the neutral talks start with a gesture of goodwill on the Confederacy’s part.”
“The arrogance!” Coates muttered across the table.
“Yes, perhaps. But that is what diplomacy is all about: arrogance and gestures. So the talks will take place on Titan, where we will also be orchestrating the release of some twenty-five colonial seditionists to be repatriated to their colonies,” she explained.
Solomon felt the flicker of fear in his gut at the merest mention of that dreadful planetoid. Titan. The place where criminals go to die.
“A prisoner release?” Coates was shaking his head. “Unthinkable…”
“Unavoidable, Warden. As I say, this is the business of diplomacy. Just so long as the Outer Space Alliance continues to pay their taxes and import duties, then my superiors really do not care what they ask for…within reason. But the added threat of the prisoners and the fact that Titan is a prison planet has forced me to consider armed protection.” Another nod in the Outcasts’ direction.
“That will not be a problem for them, will it?” she inquired. “They are trained enough to ensure that they can meet these risks?”
“Oh yes,” the warden said, too quickly for Solomon’s liking. “They are some of the best fighters that I have ever trained in all my years of running Ganymede’s training programs for the Corps,” he said. Solomon wondered if he was talking about them, Gold Squad, or just about the Outcasts in general…
“And besides which…” The warden turned to glare at the Outcasts. “I am sure that it will do them all good to experience what life on Titan is really like.”
Wow, thanks, sir. Solomon managed to keep his face calm as he returned to sipping his drink.
4
A Job to Do
Jezebel Wen was feeling something that she wasn’t used to: fear. It wasn’t like the ex-Yakuza operative hadn’t felt fear before. Such thoughts of dying and pain had been a daily part of her ‘professional’ existence for as long as she could remember, but never before had she felt a dread like the one she was feeling now.
It’s because there’s nothing that I can do about it… she thought as she re-checked and re-packed her kitbag. They had been given the all-clear from Nuryien flight bridge to depart, and she was now supposed to be heading along with the others to the ambassador’s personal transporter—an elegant ‘schooner’ as they called them, large ships made up of one round habitat at the end, connected to a docking bridge and a rotating ring of solar sails over the propulsion rockets. They were almost as large as the larger Marine transporter ships, but they were designed to carry only a fraction of the people—giving the ambassador plenty of space to wine, dine, and run circles around any guests that she had to entertain on behalf of the Confederacy.
Like I care what she’s up to, Jezzy thought irritably. It was one of her many failings, she sighed as she refolded a spare undermesh suit and stuffed it into the kitbag. She had always found it easier to lash out at someone who probably didn’t deserve it when she was stressed.
Which she was. Because he was here.
My handler, she thought with scorn as she zipped and latched the kitbag. She was already late, and the rest of Gold Squad were assembling outside to board the ambassadorial schooner.
She had seen him the moment she left Ganymede. The short and wiry Asia-Pacific Partnership man who was also the Marine Corps staffer, who had managed to get signed up to the warden’s logistic staff, somehow.
He’s come to make sure that I get the job done, she thought. That I kill Solomon Cready and spare my father.
But that was never the way that it worked, was it? She straightened up, adjusted the harness of her light tactical suit, and looked at her reflection in the mirror of the small room that they had been given to freshen up in before leaving.
She saw a lithe young woman looking back at her in her mid-twenties, looking good for all of the terrible things that she had been through in her life. Jezzy fixed a stray strand of her dark hair back into her braid. “You can do this,” she whispered to her reflection, who did not appear convinced.
Her reflection seemed to be telling her silently that she should know better. That as soon as you give in to Yakuza demands, then it never ends, does it? I should know, after all. She could kill Cready somehow, and her father would be safe for a while, but then what? Then Boss Mihashi would want something else to get done on Ganymede, and evidence of her father’s danger would once again be brought to her, but maybe next time, it would be one of her father’s fingers, or an ear…
“No, you can’t give in. You have to shut down the situation, at once.” She tried to think like her old self—what the Yakuza in her would have done.
But that was a long time ago now, almost a year, and she was finding it harder and harder to be dispassionate and cold about these matters.
But it’s still my father! Her reflection wavered a little opposite her, shook by extreme emotion. Could she brazen it out? Could she call the Boss’s bluff?
But the Yakuza never bluff, her reflection knew. That was the key to their strength. They were unforgiving, they were cruel, and they were always exact.
What do I do!? Jezzy could have screamed at the other Jezzy in the mirror, but the other Jezzy just returned her look of confusion and misery back at her. She didn’t have any answers either.
“With any luck, that guy will be returning to Ganymede with the warden…” She breathed through her nose, trying to see a way out of her predicament. This away mission would buy her some time to think what to do. She might even be able to come up wi
th a plan—
But in the next moment, it seemed that someone else already had a plan all of their own.
WHA-BOOOOM!
“Cover the ambassador!” Jezzy heard Solomon’s voice ringing out over the hiss of spitting wires and escaping gas.
Escaping gas. Not oxygen, please no, don’t let the platform be ruptured… Jezzy thought as she staggered through the door, which wouldn’t open properly and had got stuck halfway.
On the other side, their balcony was in chaos. The railing was buckled and bent, and below it, in the main thoroughfare of Nuryien, the combat specialist saw a scene of devastation. Doors had been buckled, shopfronts had been smashed, and the wide, usually well-lit room was now covered in detritus and alternating between red emergency lighting and darkness. She heard sobbing from somewhere and realized that there were people down there in the wreckage. What had happened?
“Wen! You okay?” Solomon emerged from the smoke, similarly not wearing all of his light tactical and his face smeared with soot and ash. “You’re on point, with me. We’re going to get the ambassador to her schooner and get her airborne. Clear?”
Jezzy nodded. “Aye... Weapons?”
Solomon had already half-turned back to the smoke, covering his nose and mouth as he mumbled, “No time. They should already be on board. We’ll just have to get creative if…”
Phbap! Phbap! Sparks exploded beside Solomon and Jezzy’s heads, and they dropped to the floor instinctively.
Those weren’t sparks, Jezzy thought. They were bullets. “Permission to get creative, sir?” she said.
“By all means!” Solomon was already combat-crawling back under the smoke to the next door, similarly stuck, where he started kicking it and forcing it open.
It must be where the ambassador was preparing to depart, Jezzy thought. Someone is trying to kill the ambassador. All previous thoughts of her own worries vanished as the cold, calculating mindset of the executioner took over Jezebel Wen’s mind. She was pinned down on a balcony as shooters—at least two—were down in the main thoroughfare. They were the ones who had probably planted the bomb, hoping to kill the ambassador?
Outcast Marines series Boxed Set Page 29