“Sergeant Lin? The Ambassador will see you now.”
Phira and Sam stood. Sam realized, now, how these clothes worked. This longcoat and shirt worked just as well over coffee on a street corner as it did in a Federation embassy (a tall building spiraling a massive atrium, sunlit at almost all hours of the day by giant vertical faces of windows running dozens of stories up) on business. Phira, in her navy blue, was just as ready to affably chat up a bodega owner as she was to go eye-to-eye with one of the most powerful officials in the entire city.
The Ambassador was a man with a permanently severe expression on his face and a crown of gray hair wrapped around his temples, above which he was bald with perfect dignity. His hands were folded neatly on his desk (where papers, pen, and phone were also folded neatly) as Sam and Phira filed into the room. The room had a beautiful view down First Street to the left, and to the right it had a command of the atrium and its slow hum of traffic.
“Good morning, Sergeant Lin. I appreciate your promptness in the matter.”
“Morning, Ambassador Stukov. So,” Phira said, taking a seat. Sam remained standing. “Let me introduce you to Corporal Samantha Arif.”
“Corporal,” he said, nodding at Sam’s outstretched hand and pointedly not shaking it. “I hope you are finding New Hope more hospitable than your last stay with the Federation.”
“Go fuck yourself, Ambassador,” Phira spat immediately. Sam felt her eyebrows rise and her heart thump suddenly. The Ambassador had meant to rattle her but failed, but Phira had sure startled her. Phira continued: “we’re meeting at oh-nine-hundred because this is urgent and we both need each other very badly. You will give my people the respect they are owed or so help me God I will take my ball and go home. And you will get to explain to your Foreign Affairs guys why your precious asset bled to death in Galway and you have no fucking idea why.”
The Ambassador’s flat, sunken eyes leveled on Phira. Then Sam. Then Phira. His body did not move. “Your people?”
“She’s Theta Company. No other allegiances, period.”
There was another thick pause.
“Very well. Please sit and be welcome, Corporal Arif.”
“I thought she’d stand,” Phira said, both sweetly and acidly.
“I won’t play games with you and you won’t play games with me, Sergeant. Deal?”
Phira smiled, motioning to Sam to sit. “Deal. So. Daniel Morinae.”
“You reported his death directly to me rather than calling the main ambassadorial office. That was an action with a very clear meaning, although it did have the pleasant side effect of bringing the matter to my attention without it having to bubble up through a few layers of junior officials.”
Phira crossed her arms and legs and leaned back. “We did some digging on his identity, because Sam was nearly convinced that he was Johan Hect. We couldn’t confirm him to be Johan Hect. But we also couldn’t find any real record of employment anywhere in Galway Prefecture. The paystubs he had submitted with his lease application to the apartment complex were for the Volga Enterprises Company, but the managers at VEC couldn’t verify his employment. The VEC is normally pretty meticulous about employment and citizenship. You really ought to get them to help you out with your cover stories.”
“Noted,” Stukov replied dryly.
“So he was your spy. What was he doing in Galway Prefecture, with a beautiful view of Theta HQ?”
“Happenstance.”
“Oh. Yes, I do believe that.”
“You don’t have to, but that’s what it is.”
“You didn’t invite us to your office to stonewall us, though.”
“No, I did not. Permit me a question, first. What was the cause of death?”
“Three gunshot wounds, center mass,” Sam said.
“You suppose it was someone with military or police training,” Stukov surmised from her choice of words.
“Yes, sir. They were good shots and must have been fired quickly before he hit the floor face-down. Nothing else was damaged and there was no obvious sign of struggle.”
Stukov eyed the two of them dispassionately for a moment.
“Makes sense, though. That’s sort of how you’d expect a spy to go,” Phira said.
“Indeed,” Stukov said. “Anyway, lucky you.”
“Why’s that?” Phira said.
“You have been pursuing the Johan Hect matter. Daniel Morinae was Gunter Hect, Johan Hect’s younger brother. They served in the Armed Forces of Salemo together in a combined arms battalion. Johan—alias Kaiser—defected with most of one of the companies. He did not include Gunter in this scheme, but nevertheless Gunter’s superiors became greatly suspicious of him, dead-ending Gunter’s military career immediately. We made contact as soon as we could and came to an arrangement.”
“Which was?” Phira prompted.
“Johan Hect was, immediately following his departure, incommunicado in Resmond. We were able to make contact with Gunter after the defection, after his dismissal, but before he had any contact with Johan. Thus we might be able to suggest to Gunter how he might represent himself to Johan.”
“Aha. Gunter has every reason to be pissed at Johan, but Johan might be fooled into thinking they’re cool. If Johan ever surfaced again, Gunter’s happy to take your money to suck up to him and get him to leak info.”
“Just so.”
“You moved quickly,” Sam pointed out. “So you were already on the case. Why?”
Stukov glowered at her for a moment, thinking. “It seems permissible to me to admit that the Federation is greatly incensed to find that a minor insurgent has appeared operating signature Federation military equipment.”
“So he didn’t get the Neptune from you, then.”
“Of course not.”
“What about the VEC?” Phira asked.
“Not in an official capacity,” Stukov droned. “That would be grounds for an instant revocation of their charter.”
“You would never revoke the VEC charter.”
“No. But heads would roll on the governing board and in the executive suite.”
“Literally?”
“Possibly. But that is beside the point, Sergeant.”
“It’s only beside the point if they didn’t do it.”
“They didn’t do it at a high level,” Stukov said, with a flat shake of his head. “Perhaps a rogue element in the security services. That would be an egg on the face of the board, but not a presumptive death sentence for any of them.”
“But anyway, you have no real idea.”
“We were hoping that the man who was murdered in your jurisdiction would shine some light on the matter.”
“Don’t make me bring up the Sixth Street shitshow from a few years back. Besides, he still could.”
“And how would that be, Sergeant?”
“We figure out who shot him three times in the chest.”
“I am eager to learn if you will have the capacity to tell me.”
“In the fullness of time, Ambassador. You’ve given us one of the clues we need—someone planetside is running a screen for Johan, whacking people who might cause him problems. Someone clever enough to see through an identity forged by the Federation and identify Gunter as a problem.”
“It would be much better to have this sorted before the fullness of time permits Mr. Hect to choose his target and make his landing, Sergeant.”
“Yeah, yeah. You got anything else for me?”
Stukov gazed out the huge single-paned window, onto First Street. “No, Sergeant Lin. My people are pursuing this matter as well, but in my long years of experience I have found that it is wise to embrace multilateral efforts. I wish you the best of luck and skill in this matter.”
The moment the doors pressed shut on the elevator, Sam said, “you didn’t have to do that.”
Phira, still facing forward, smiled. “But I did do it.”
“But you don’t have to.”
“You’re welcome.”
“But don’t! It’s not necessary!”
“Don’t worry so much about it. The thing to know about the Ambassador is that he’s not a diplomat, really.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“He’s the Ambassador, which means he’s nominally here as the representative of the Eridani Federation to the government and people of New Hope. But the government of New Hope is a small fry. Nobody cares what they think of the Federation.” The doors opened on the atrium; Sam and Phira stepped out and made their way toward the Second Street entrance, their boots counting off a pleasing dop dop dop on the marble floor.
“Practically, he’s here as the chief of the Eridani Federation’s employees and agents operating in New Hope,” Phira continued. “Not so much a diplomat. More of a manager. A boss man.”
“Okay. So you’re saying he’s not really a fancy-dinners-and-cocktails ambassador, so you’re not going to waste pretty words on him?”
“Ha! I like that way of putting it. Yeah. We don’t need to dance and have tea with him. But also, he understands people and loyalty. That’s his real job. It’s best if I talk in that language to him.”
No other allegiances, period. “Is ‘go fuck yourself’ the language of loyalty?”
“You know it.”
They walked past the main reception desk, and then were hurled the floor with a crash.
Sam scrambled to her feet out of reflex, beginning to process what had happened. Her ears were ringing—it had been an earth-shaking bang, followed by flying glass and shards of tile. It had come from somewhere to their left, in a set of offices separated from the main atrium by a glass wall, and the force of the blast had knocked her to the ground. Her face stung from shards of glass, but the rest of her body was intact.
Phira was pushing to her feet, too. Fire alarms were ringing, and the sprinklers were dousing them in stale water. “Shit,” she said, strained through her short breath. “We’d better get to the door before something falls on us.”
Sam moved to comply but froze. Her hand went to her hip… shit, no handgun. She had left it at home knowing she’d be coming to an embassy.
“Sam, no,” Phira said. “Let’s go.”
Sam was staring at the ruin of the offices. It looked like several floors had caved in above and below, creating an undifferentiated mass of bent structural steel, cubicle dividers, and tile.
The followup. Where was the fucking followup?
“Not to the front entrance,” Sam said, casting around. Bystanders were clearing the atrium in a terror. “Someone could be expecting us there.” Gunners? More bombs? Electrical sabotage?
Phira looked like she was going to say something, then bit it back. “I’m going to come back as a ghost and haunt your ass if this building falls on us.”
“It won’t,” Sam said, realizing (absurdly, even through rushing adrenaline) that it was poor banter. “Here,” she said, gesturing at the reception desk. It was large oval-shaped counter with a tall wood-paneled partition standing lengthwise in the middle, forming two desks, one facing each of the First and Second Street entrances.
“We can hold here a few,” Sam said. “Let the Feds clear things out.” She whipped her head back and forth, from entrances to balconies to windows. Another shoe was going to fall…
“Right,” Phira said, vaulting the counter behind the west desk. Sam ducked behind the east desk.
Sam felt her heart thrashing against her ribs as she watched the building entrances. Every second that crept by, underneath the cascading water and bleating alarms, seemed to stretch tighter, like elastic that would snap into violent motion at any moment. Then, a team of a dozen black-clad, face-shielded troopers came crunching through the glass remains of the east facade, weapons at high ready as they fanned out. The Feds. Right?
Sam slowly raised her hands and stood. A few of the troopers exchanged hand signs, and three of them approached her. Their weapons weren’t exactly trained on her, but they were worryingly close to it.
“What are you doing here?” one shouted above the alarm. What are you doing? Sam thought to herself; we’re going to die any minute now.
“Getting wet,” Phira whined from the other side of the divider. Sam was pretty sure the trooper couldn’t hear that, fortunately. “Decided to stay put for safety,” she said.
“You need to evacuate,” he replied, motioning with his weapon. “Go!”
And just in that moment, Sam saw the other shoe falling.
“GET DOWN,” she shouted. In a flash, she grabbed the likeliest nearest weapon, an elongated shard of marble off the counter in front of her, and she hurled it like a javelin over the trooper’s head. Then she ducked, and prayed desperately that these Feds were professionals.
“MARK, UP,” one of them shouted, all battle bravado. Roaring gunfire filled the atrium. “CLEAR,” another shouted, and then Sam was being hauled up from her hiding place and thrown out onto the cold, wet marble floor, a knee on her spine.
She was able to get her left cheek on the ground as she was being restrained so she could look over and see the grenade-carrying drone she had decapitated with her marble spear.
Captain Roche rapped his fingers on his desk as he studied Sam and Phira.
Finally, he said, “At ease. Have a seat.”
Sam and Phira took their seats.
“Good news and bad news,” he said. “Which would you like first?”
“Chronological order,” Sam said.
Theo laughed. “Alright. The good news is that Ambassador Stukov has extended to you his thanks for, quote, ‘remaining alert to the situation and materially aiding in the security efforts of the Federation Marine Sentinels.’”
“Thank Sam for that,” Phira said.
“The bad news is that he added, ‘you may rest assured, however, that Federation personnel take security and secrecy very seriously even in times of crisis.’”
“He thinks we wanted to take advantage of the chaos to spy on him,” Phira said.
“Blame me for that,” Sam said.
Theo shrugged. “Next time, get out of there.”
“But…”
“I know. You’re the kind of soldier who runs toward danger instead of away from it. You thought there would be a followup and that taking it head-on might defeat it. I understand that. This isn’t a reprimand. But you have a mission you need to stay alive for, and I need you to evaluate carefully whether running toward a particular danger furthers that mission.”
“Yes, sir,” Sam said, at the same time as Phira was laughing: “evaluate! Sir, the building was on fire.”
“Noted, Sergeant. It’s tough to keep a cool head, but I have a feeling Sam will be good at it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now, something you might find interesting. The Federation thinks they already have their man.”
“Stukov told you? Really?” Phira asked.
“Oh, no, he didn’t.” Roche said, leaving it at that. “Anyway, they got him by triangulating the drone signal. That’s something the Feds are really damn good at—signals intel. The Marine Sentinels came down on the asshole like a sack of bricks.”
“You gonna tell us who?”
“We don’t have a name. But apparently the guy is from Salemo.”
“That can’t be right,” Sam said suddenly.
“Why’s that? Our source with the Feds is good,” Theo said, brow knitting and hands clasping over his desk.
“There’s no way it could be Salemo, right? They have a depleted militia with not a lot of operating experience. Where’d they get a guy who knows how to do a one-two shock bombing like that?”
“Their intelligence services could have a lot of expertise,” Theo proposed.
“No,” Sam said, thinking. “I don’t think so. They haven’t been able to pin down anything on Kaiser. If they had these slick operators all along, where have they been?”
“And besides, wouldn’t it be dumb to try to court an intervention by the Federation?” Phira added.
Theo nodded. “Point taken. I’ll raise the idea with our analysts. Our source said what they said, though.”
By the time he had finished his sentence, Sam had finished thinking.
“Sir, it has to be the Dominion, hasn’t it?”
Theo and Phira stared at her in silence.
“They’re the other actor in New Hope. The outside actor. With commando experience, and commandos we’ve seen on the ground. And they do just this kind of shock bombing tactic.”
“An initial strike to cause casualties, and a followup to exploit chaos and ensure high-value targets are hit,” Phira said. “Not gonna work well against everyone, but a nasty tool to have in the kit.”
“Exactly,” Sam said. “This looks like a Knights of Aquila commando op. And they certainly aren’t afraid to make a stir. What’s the Federation going to do, invade them? Blockade them? The Feds were plenty able to draw blood in the Indus North War, but they had no hope of taking the fight to the Dominion’s home turf. So the knights can get up to a lot of nasty business before it’ll cost them anything, except for the guys who get caught.”
“So why’s it a Salemo guy the Feds brought in?” Theo asked.
“They’re cooperating with the Dominion—we have evidence of that, too: the way I got sold up. It fits!”
“It fits,” Phira said, a shrug in her tone.
“So what was their goal?”
“Disrupt the intelligence office. They think the Feds are onto them about something.”
Phira’s eyes widened the barest span. “About Kaiser.”
“About Kaiser,” Sam exclaimed, picking up the thread. “The Dominion were the ones who got a hold of that Neptune, somehow, and they gave it to Kaiser,” Sam said. “They’re trying to start a proxy war on Volga. The Feds are on their trail, and…”
“Shhhhhh,” Theo said. “This is all very exciting, but it is a lot of conjecture, and it’s a sensitive thing to be yelling about.”
“Sorry, sir,” Sam said, sitting back down.
“Forgiven. I’m not convinced, but you have something. We need to chase it down.”
Sam was thinking faster than the conversation now. “Easy. All we have to do is get to one of those commandos. They must be communicating with Kaiser. We just need to get a hold of their hardware, or their encryption secrets. And I think I know how…”
Theo sighed. “You’re not going to suggest…”
“Of course I am. I’ll be the bait.”
“You have to admit, it is a better idea,” Phira said, turning the corner onto Greene Street.
Sam, keeping pace, sighed. “If you say so.”
“No, really. Theo is right that just because we can run directly at the threat doesn’t mean we should.”
“If you say so! I meant that. I just…” Sam huffed. “I just don’t like waiting.”
“Which is why we’re here,” Phira said.
“What? I thought… huh.”
“Yeah. I’m not actually sure it’s a good idea to follow up on the Golden Moon thing. But it’s a better idea than launching for that damn Neptune right away.”
They reached the Golden Moon. From outside on Greene Street, it was little more than a blacked-out swinging glass door set in a blank gray wall, set apart from the other buildings on the street, which was already completely devoid of traffic and had been for several hours. The door was ajar, and a droning, radio-distorted voice issued from the crack. Sam and Phira stared at it, agreeing, wordlessly, that something was off.
Sam pulled the door open, right hand on her handgun.
The dark little place was dominated by the three rows of slots and related video gambling kiosks running down the length of the single room, glowing garishly at each other. The bar at the far end hosted a few other gambling consoles and a few bare spots for patrons to pull up stools and drink at.
The would-be patrons, fourteen of them, were sprawled, unmoving, in the gutters between the slots, before the bar, behind the bar, and by the door. The air smelled thickly of blood-iron, brass casings, and dry sulfur.
Phira sighed. “Shit.”
Sam finished checking the corners. It was nice at least that there were basically just the four, and behind the bar. “Shit,” she echoed. “Half of them were armed, too.”
It certainly wasn’t the first time Sam had seen dead bodies. But had she ever seen an aftermath quite like this? Terrible violence had been wrought here. The once-musty carpet was now completely soaked in human blood; gory wounds showed on every body, every body a man who was alive just a few hours ago. Nobody had stopped to clean up or claim the bodies. They had shown up, murdered more than a dozen men, and left. It seemed to Sam a sort of remorseless, spasmodic evil that was alien even to a soldier.
Phira had donned and tapped her recording glasses and was surveying with a flashlight. “Okay,” she said, taking a breath and seeming to regret it. “Those are rifle wounds. Well, rifle-caliber anyway.”
“Yeah, but… whoever came in, shot the place up, and left.”
“You don’t think they’re here on the floor?” Phira asked, searching faces and bodies.
“Probably not. These all look like Home Guard guys.”
“Who says it couldn’t be blue-on-blue?”
There was silence between the two of them. Then, finally, they noticed the radio.
“… our time is nigh! Promise is eternal, but action! Action will take place on human timelines!”
Sam and Phira stared at it. “Hect?” Sam said. “That’s Hect. Kaiser.”
“The loyal men of Volga are preparing day and night to reclaim the dignity of their world,” Kaiser replied.
“Rambling as usual, I guess,” Phira said. “So… who put this on?”
Sam thought. “The Home Guard guys must’ve been into it. They weren’t starting their own PF. They were trying to join up with the Kaiser’s guys.”
(“I turn your attention now to those who would stand in our way. They will be cast aside, trashed before our strength…”)
“Or maybe the guy who ran through them put his channel on as a message?”
“Idunno, Sergeant… Oh shit. Sergeant,” Sam said, standing over the body at the door. “This one wasn’t shot.”
Phira swung her flashlight and gaze over, then flipped it off and stowed her recording glasses. “Right. We know what that means. Time to go.”
The body they stepped over as they hurried out had been gashed and crushed in a long, hideous line up the abdomen and chest, as if by a long, sharp length of steel, swung with great force.
“Lucky you, Sam, you don’t have to wait much longer,” Roche began, patting a stack of three-ring binders, as Sam and Phira pulled up their chairs. Ash, Olivia, and Sylva were already sitting around the table, as well as another man Sam had only met a few times—an aerospace pilot, Captain Kevin “Tempo” Lun, a thin man with nervous eyes who always seemed to sit with his hands folded primly in his lap. Ash was wearing his black coat but the others were wearing whatever they had thrown on to answer the captain’s call just past midnight. Sam and Phira had received the call on the way back to HQ from the Golden Moon: something was up.
“Sir,” Sam said. “We need to report, badly.”
Roche winced. “This can’t wait? We’ve got a situation in progress.”
“Executive summary, Captain,” Phira said.
“Proceed,” Roche said, having weighed the urgencies and swallowed his frustration admirably.
Phira looked to Sam. “Fourteen dead at the Golden Moon. Must’ve been a man in power armor with a steel-core sword. A knight, sir,” Sam said.
Roche chewed on that for a second. “Why?”
“No idea,” Sam said. “We think the HG guys were trying to line up with Kaiser. We thought the Dominion was aiding and abetting Kaiser. Not sure how it squares up.”
Roche paused again, and then he said, “thank you, Sergeant, Corporal. Tabled for now. I’ve got something urgent for us.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I got a call twenty minutes ago,” Roche began, as he started passing around the binders. We have an undercover agent in a hot zone, and he needs help.”
Sam flipped through the binder. It was full of photographs and maps of the Salemo Royal Palace.
“Kinetic help,” Phira guessed.
“Right. As you are all aware, at about 0930 yesterday there was a bombing at the Eridani Federation Embassy downtown in Beacon. The Federation has not made any formal accusations, but their analysts began blabbing to the media almost immediately about Salemo being behind it, which is the next best thing. At a press conference at 1500, the Princess De Myrre of Salemo announced…”
Sam flipped to a photograph of De Myrre at a podium set against the classic red-and-gold curtain backdrop of a palace media room. An unostentatious silver tiara glittered atop her head under the can lights, and her expression seemed fiery in a careful, practiced way.
“… that she had been framed by the Dread Fist mercenary group at the direction of their command staff.”
All eyes were on Sam. “What?” she said.
“This is where it gets interesting. Nobody in the briefing room noticed, or thought to ask, but De Myrre has a whole company from the Dread Fist on retainer. Our informant noted that they have remained planetside, in her employ.”
“That makes even less sense. Every company trades on its reputation; there’s no way the Colonel would just let her say things about him like that and keep carrying on like nothing’s happening.”
“Oh, Colonel Magnussen is none too pleased. This doesn’t seem to have been his idea.”
“You mean… the company planetside mutinied?”
“Mutinied is one word for it,” Phira mused (“a damn good one,” Sylva added). “I suspect the parties involved might go with ‘electively nationalized.’”
“Let’s go by your theory, Sam, that Salemo and the Dominion are cooperating,” Roche said. “Salemo needs someone to blame, and the someone on hand is the Dread Fist. She accuses the Colonel of duplicity and perhaps dangles some carrots to the captains on the ground…”
“And she kills two birds with one stone,” Sam said. “Well, maybe just the one bird. The Federation will never buy this framing thing, but she gets to peel away some soldiers for her own use, and then… and then what?”
“Start a coup,” Phira said.
“Oh,” Sam said.
“Right,” Roche continued. “So here’s what our informant told us. Shots fired at the palace at about 1800. Command broke down in the security forces and their loyalties split. Dread Fist boots are of course with De Myrre. She’s taken effective control of most of the palace, which gives her a physical stronghold as well as good access to the organs of administration for the kingdom. However, check your map on page three. The building has an annex in the east wing with staff living spaces and a sort of redundant security HQ. The remaining security members loyal to minister Reyna are holed up in there. As is our informant.”
“He picked the wrong team, didn’t he,” Ash said.
“Right. When fighting broke out he did what he could to remain safe. As a result of the decisions he made, he hasn’t been outed, but he’s trapped in the east wing. We don’t know when De Myrre will order that annex cleared, but we’re not going to leave our guy hanging. Page six.”
Sam flipped to page six. At the top, there was a picture of a portly man in an immaculate white dress shirt and a mop of hair that gave the impression that it was tamed only with great effort. His name, listed below the picture, was Jack Carraro.
“We’re going to make an enemy out of De Myrre?” Ash asked.
“You’re not going to tell them you’re Theta Group, are you?”
Ash’s mouth worked noiselessly for a moment then shut.
“We’re not going to leave our guy for dead,” Roche repeated. “Besides, he’s going to make himself useful by exfiltrating a datastore with himself. He’ll have it on a tab on his person. If the Dominion is up to something big, Salemo might have the clues we need to find out what.”
“Okay, Captain,” Phira said. “What’s the op look like?”
Captain Lun, a taciturn man on the ground, was free and frequent with information flow from the flight deck of the Corona-class VTOL, which was apparently named Featherlight.
“Thirty minutes to arrival,” he said, his already reedy voice electrically sifted through the headset. “Weather is good and clear; Featherlight is operating well. No updates from HQ; the standoff is assumed to still be ongoing. Drop will go as planned. Ready, boys and girls?”
It was all so professional, Sam thought, except the last bit, which stuck out like an aileron tweaked all the way out to max deflection at the end of a smooth wing.
“Hell yeah,” Phira said, who herself was always at max deflection. She motioned to the squad to check gear. “Read me?”
“Aye.” “Yes. “Yep.” “Five-by-five.”
“Good good. Stay cool, everyone.”
A few minutes later, the airframe twitched as a weight under one of the wings came away: a drone with a fake transponder. If anyone in Salemo was playing very close attention to their air traffic control, it would not do for them to notice a planned private flight disappear suddenly within a few dozen kilometers of the palace. Lun came back over the channel. “Time to set down; get strapped in.”
Descent passed in a blink, and then Lun slapped the engines into the vertical configuration and put the bird down.
“Door control is yours, Ash,” Lun said.
Ash clambered out from the flight deck into the main bay, handle of a rifle in his right hand. His left darted over to a switch handle. “Squad ready?”
“Ready,” reported Phira.
“Go,” Ash said, as he flipped the switch down.
Sam was the first out the door, followed by Phira, Sylva, and Olivia.
They had set down in a narrow meadow, hidden from view of the palace to the west by a towering mountain and hemmed in on all other sides by a ring of fir trees.
Sam scanned the surroundings, rifle at low ready. She hadn’t been shot, which was always good. That was the plan, wasn’t it?
“All clear,” she said.
“Well, that was the plan, wasn’t it?” Phira said.
“No harm in being vigilant,” Olivia said.
“Of course,” Phira said. “Anyway, we’re good here. Ash and Tempo will keep the bird warm for exfil.”
“Damn. Tempo gets his callsign and Ash doesn’t?” Sam said.
“That’s how it works; they’re radio callsigns. You get them if you’re in charge of your vehicle. If Ash wanted his callsign he should’ve asked us to bring out the Doru.”
“Roche would’ve said no, though.”
“Yeah. Sucks for him. Anyway, we’re off to some hiking.”
Cicadas droned, and the breeze sifted through the trees, and four pairs of boots tromped over the dirt and pine straw as they descended toward the palace. From this angle and distance, the palace seemed gray, wide, squat, and eerily quiet.
As they reached the last good view of the palace before descending to a band of trees level with it, Phira called the halt and pulled out her night-vision binoculars. Her three soldiers milled about, breathing in the cool alpine air.
“Well,” she said at length. “Everyone’s inside or in the trees.”
“Oh,” Sylva said. “So, no more intel, then.”
“It’s always good to try!” Sam said.
“No more intel. Plan A it is,” Phira said.
“All right,” Sam said. “Let’s go.”
While Phira dropped her pack and started setting up her nest at the top of the hill, Sam led Sylva and Olivia down the hill and into the trees. Soon, the rocks and dirt gave way to grass, pine straw, and pleasant, flowering little bushes: the palace was on a huge property, immaculately landscaped and obsessively manicured. Sam could almost forget that she was wearing a suit of steel and EAP.
But the pleasant little bushes were how she knew she should be on alert. “We’re close to the palace. Eyes up,” she said.
They started creeping forward, rifles at ready, until they came to the fence. A pair of bolt cutters and a few minutes of work got them through.
Finally, Sam called the halt. “10 o’clock,” she whispered, kneeling behind a tree. Maybe 80 meters away, a pair of soldiers stood, talking, holding rifles. They were standing watch over the east annex (barely visible in snatches through the trees), maintaining the full investment of the loyalist security forces therein.
Sam couldn’t make out their uniforms.
“Roger,” Olivia replied. She lowered herself down to a prone shooting position. Sylva took a position about 10 meters to their right and did the same.
“Sam to Sergeant Lin,” Sam said. “Off the phone yet?”
“Affirmative, Condor,” came Phira’s tinny reply over her headset. “VIP says the man in charge of the annex is desperate and happy for our help. They’ll be ready.”
“We’ll give you the word,” Sam said.
“Roger.”
“Over and out.”
“Alright,” Sam said. “Weapons free. Olivia?”
“Three… two… one… bang,” Olivia said, squeezing the trigger. Two rifles cracked against the trees and the sky, and the two soldiers went down.
The three of them shot to their feet and started running. In just a few seconds they were passing the bodies of the soldiers they had shot. Sam waved Sylva and Olivia forward and knelt down to have a look.
They were Dread Fist.
Sam’s heart sank. She hesitated a beat. Fuck. Who were they? Who was that under the helmet? Was that Al? Whoever it was, their bloodied mouth and chin were hanging down at a grotesque angle, hardly recognizable as human… not now. Anybody nearby would’ve heard those shots. The longer the three of them took to carry out their mission, the more chance there was that the entire rest of the fighting world would collapse in on them before they could get out.
Sam forced herself to leave the bodies behind and rush after Sylva and Olivia.
It took less than a minute to get to the wall of the palace. It was clad with white granite and framed with ornamental columns, arches, and little windows befitting a palace. Underneath would be concrete, though, which meant that the explosives Sam had to pack were very large indeed.
They picked a window and set up. Olivia held back at the treeline, eyes on the south, and Sylva knelt near Sam, eyes north. Sam unfurled the pack of explosives and piled them up beneath one of the windows: the natural weak point. The window was too small for the VIP to escape through… for now.
“Condor to Lin.” “I hear you, Condor.” “Time to go.” “Roger. You’re green.”
Sam motioned to Sylva and they sprinted back out to the treeline. Then, Sam flipped the little plastic cap on the detonator (breaking it off its hinge with her armor-augmented thumb) and pressed down the little red button.
“Lin to Condo—!”
The air was cleaved by a tremendous, full-throated crack-roar (thankfully, or maybe sadly, muffled by the armored helmet’s ear protection) and stones and masonry dust billowed outward, concealing the orange-red-white flash. In a few seconds, the scattering dust revealed a ragged little hole into an interior hallway.
“Condor to Lin. Come in.”
“All hell broke loose about two seconds before your breach. West side of the complex lit up, smoke and small arms fire. Nobody coming around to you, though.”
“Shit. Lin, nobody’s coming out through the breach.”
“Damn. Did they panic? They can’t be cut off from the egress already, can they?”
“I’ll recon-in-force.”
“Roger, Condor. I’ll try to get the VIP on the line again. Stay safe. Sylva, Yu, hold positions. Lin out.”
Sam rushed into the smoky haze and into the hall. She swung her rifle up and looked over it: just a hallway with hardwood flooring and a gently arched plaster ceiling. Doors studded both walls for the length, spaced widely: large rooms. The walls were textured with richly dyed hangings and ridiculous gilded metalwork. It ended in a T-junction; the far wall was an elegant, dark wood panel with a display case holding some jeweled treasure.
Gunshots echoed distantly through the halls, thudding through the air and the floor.
Sam crept down the hall. Where the hell could the VIP and his allies be? If they’d been following Phira’s instructions, they’d have been in one of these rooms right here, waiting to escape through the breach…
As she reached the first of the doors on her right, the wood panels and the display case at the end of the hall exploded in a hail of splinters, ejected gemstones, and a flash of steel.
Before Sam’s finer mental processes had attached words and meaning to the target, her reflexes and her limbic system had supplied her body with action. She held back the trigger, emptying an entire magazine in a continuous scream of gunfire, and then she dropped the rifle on its sling and braced for impact.
The Ragnarsson-class battle armor smashed into her with full force, and she tumbled backward with it atop her, crashing halfway through the hardwood floor and cracking several of the joists beneath. Her reflexes fired again, and she rolled to the side.
Ragnarsson-class armor. Dominion armor. Issued exclusively to the Knights of Aquila, and preferred by knight-justicars.
The hulking steel man charged and swung with heedless violence, as though the physical world around him were beneath his notice, not a constraint nor even a passing influence on his movements. Suddenly, Sam realized she was pretty sure she knew what had happened to the Home Guard splinter group back at the Golden Moon. I am charged with the custody of the Compact’s justice, he had said. He had brought his wrath crashing down upon them merely for their one-time acquaintance with Sam—though the fact that they were defectors themselves surely did nothing to stay the knight-justicar’s vengeful hand.
Sam pushed forward, away from the knight-justicar, and then turned to face him as he pulled his steel-core sword out from the joists.
“Condor to Lin,” Sam said, as her foe brought his blade back to ready. “Dominion’s here. One knight in power armor… Lin?”
The line was a dead buzz. The armored foe wagged his finger at Sam.
Sam’s heart rate spiked in rage. The fucking Knights of Aquila. This fucking Knight-Justicar Ilyich again. Charged with the justice on this planet, but still a blowhard shithead who spends half his time gloating and strutting about for the glory of his order. He and all the rest of them: they don’t take their business—war—seriously.
No way she could let one of these assholes kill her.
The steel-core sword, though, was a problem. As much as it seemed like a stupid sop to their knightly egos, the steel-core swords served an important purpose: they were heavy (the steel core), edged with whatever the latest advance was in metallurgy or polymer science, and with an EAP arm at their haft they could defeat power armor much more reliably than an intermediate-caliber rifle. If you were one-on-one against a power armored enemy, you wanted to be 100 meters away from them and pointing an anti-tank weapon at them. But if you were one-on-one against a power armored enemy in a ten meter hallway, you wanted a steel-core sword.
Here Sam was, in a ten meter hallway, And all she had was a intermediate-caliber rifle and a few grenades.
She’d survived worse odds, she thought, as she raised her fists to a high guard.
That was when—of all the galling bullshit—Sir Ilyich flipped up his visor. This time, there was a thin smile on his leathery face.
“Samantha Arif,” he said, while gunfire kept rattling off in the background. “Armored like a gallant! But without a sword. You have escaped justice for long enough. It is time for you to die.”
“Fuck you,” Sam shouted, reaching for her rifle.
He wasn’t an idiot, so he flipped his visor down and charged. Sam wasn’t an idiot, so she didn’t even finish reaching for her rifle before returning to her ready stance.
He rushed in, a wall of steel holding a blade aloft, parting the ceiling plaster as he did so. Sam stepped up and forward, swatting at his armpit as she did to help redirect him as he tried to bring it down on her. There was a crash and a rumble and many cracks as he blew partly through the wall over her left shoulder.
He doesn’t even have to stop doing stupid shit, Sam complained to herself. He doesn’t have to fear any of my weapons.
Any of my weapons.
He pivoted on his back foot and swung horizontally, forcing Sam to jump back through the door… well, halfway through the door and half through the doorframe, bringing it down in another shower of splinters and plaster. She was backing up through a narrow but tall room strewn with furniture: a smoking room, probably adjoining some common area. Sam stumbled backward through a couch before righting herself, then threw it at the knight for all the damn good it would do. He stepped forward and sliced through it in a single clean, kata-like motion.
Sam looked around. Where the hell is the VIP, anyway? There was a kitchen through a doorway to her right, and windows to the outside to her left. Sylva and Yu… shit. If they got tangled up in this fight… Sam bolted for the kitchen, frantically staying out of reach of the deadly sword.
The kitchen was cramped with equipment. Mostly stainless steel—stoves, grills, refrigerators, ovens—all useless against a steel-core sword, sharp as a tiger’s claw and swung with the force of a jackhammer. Here, a hood vent was sheared off, its pieces noisily clattering down onto the grill; there, a dishwasher was rent open, as Sam backpedaled from the approaching Knight of Aquila.
Sam planted her back foot near another grill and aimed a roundhouse kick at his mid-torso. She didn’t know why, she just knew, the thought a lighted buoy bobbing in a sea of adrenaline and fear, she had an opportunity and wanted to shove a steel foot in it.
Crash! the steel suits slammed against each other and the surfaces screamed as her armored instep dragged across his metal chest. His stupid, reckless overhead swing (damn him!) was interrupted, and he careened sideways into a set of metal shelves, spilling shattered ceramic across the kitchen.
And then he sprung to his feet and dove at Sam.
Trained reflexes kicked in. Sam dove to the side herself—through a wall, because when you’re in power armor, walls don’t tend to matter; what matters is going in the best direction to not get skewered. She scrambled to her feet, shrugging plaster and CMU block and shattered metalwork off of her back. This room was… soft wooden furniture and plush rugs, nothing help—
FWOOSH.
A wave of flame rushed over Sam’s back. Her helmet gave a cranky-sounding warning beep for dangerous external temperatures. She stepped aside and turned around—Sir Ilyich was now a black char, running at her out of a gout of yellow-red flame. Gas line—he must have severed the gas line on a grill, and now the building was going to burn down around them. A problem for later.
Sam ducked as he thrust again. She stepped, he tracked, she made it whiff and punched, he slapped it aside with a teeth-rattling crash.
Sam grinned, invisible under the helmet. He was taking her seriously now.
She stepped back out, circling, putting the billowing flames to her right (now a fire alarm was wailing, and the sprinklers were spraying) and the room to her left. Her opponent watched, circled, blade at the ready.
A trick she learned a long time ago, as a cadet—she snapped a foot down and in. A feint; he bought it: she put her weight on the foot and snapped back out, outside of the sweeping defensive slash, and then bounded off her back foot and crashed into him, arms first.
The gambit could have worked better—she didn’t catch him on his backswing, which could have ended up with her pinning him from the outside of his arms, seriously compromising his control of the sword—but she had taken one step toward winning the fight; her left hand on his right wrist, controlling his blade, and her right shoulder trying to box out his left.
But, damn, he was pretty good, when he was taking it goddamn seriously. He tried to hook her right foot, she stepped out to avoid going down (and immediately being run through with the blade; she could envision it so clearly), but that gave up control of his left arm, and he swung the fist across her face hard. Sam twisted with the blow, but it still hurt like hell and she reeled, hanging on to his right wrist. Her life depended on it.
He tried to pivot his body entirely, threatening to pull Sam over his shoulder if she tried to keep a grip on the sword. She jabbed at his chest with her right hand, but it didn’t hurt him enough. He kept going and Sam had to jump and tumble and let go, hitting the ground (falling through a high-backed chair, first) and springing to her feet, then backward out of his range. He had his blade back; they were reset, he was bearing down on her again…
THUD.
Instead of sweeping the sword, the knight tumbled forward, hitting the ground hard on his left hand and his knees. Sam shook her head—some sort of explosion…
She saw it. Through the room’s other entrance, opposite the kitchen, Yu knelt in the doorway, aiming a rifle at the downed knight. She squeezed off a burst of rounds—worth a try, but none of them found any of the joints; each round pinged off of some face in the armor.
Sir Ilyich whipped his head around to face Yu as he worked up to his feet.
Sam felt a wild thrill.
She bounded forward and threw herself, a half ton steel missile, at the knight—at his sword. She landed on his arm.
It made a hideous sound as it broke.
Actual injuries sustained in hand-to-hand power armor combat bear closer resemblance to industrial accidents than to wrestling injuries (these delusional fucking assholes; why do they look for fights like this?). The armor was partially severed and hung limply at his side as he rose unsteadily above Sam, showing the gap where it had broken. What could be seen of his human arm within was a repulsive, crushed gory mass.
Sam seized the sword, swept his legs with it, and then dove on top of him and drove it through his charred-black chest. He lay motionless.
She looked up at the doorway. Yu was gone, having wisely decided not to stick around to find out how the late Sir Ilyich might have retaliated to the grenade she had pelted him with. Sam followed through the doorway, looking left and right, and then remembering.
“Condor to Lin. Come in?”
“This is Lin, I read you.”
Thank God. Sam could not express how good it felt to hear Phira’s voice buzzing over the radio again. It was relief and electric excitement, almost as intense as when Sam had seen her opponent distracted, giving her an opening to steal his sword. So it had been Sir Ilyich who had been jamming the signal with equipment on his armor. With him gone, Sam was free again.
“Dominion is here. One power armor spotted, he’s down. We don’t know where the VIP is.”
“Copy; that matches what Yu just told me. Link back up with them if you can. Continue recon-in-force.”
“Roger. Will do. Con—.”
“Hey. Stay safe, Sam.”
“Roger wilco. Condor out.”
The hike back in the darkness was agonizingly slow. The VIP—Jack, Sam kept having to remind herself, you don’t just call the VIP the VIP—was a bit of a slow hiking partner, but he wasn’t in fighting shape, and anyway he hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep lately and he was coming down off of the adrenaline high of a lifetime. The squad found it in them to forgive him, but it put them all on edge having to tread quietly and peer through the trees as best they could in the slowly growing morning light.
Finally, after hauling Jack up the hills, through the brambles, and over ankle-treacherous scree, they rounded the last corner to the meadow, where the air was filled with the whine of the Featherlight’s engines spinning at idle.
“Took you long enough,” Ash shouted from the top of the loading ramp.
“Shut up, sir” Phira replied automatically, helping Jack up the ramp. “Be a gracious host and make us some tea, will you? A girl could catch the chills out there.”
Ash shrugged and pounded the button to raise the ramp, and then he handed Jack a headset before disappearing up into the flight deck.
“Phew,” Jack began. His voice was gravelly, like a pack-a-day smoker, unmistakable even in the pinched band of the radio. “This thing on?”
“Loud and clear, Jack,” Phira said. “We can talk now, if you’re up for it.”
Jack sighed. “Yeah. When I get to bed I’m going to sleep for the next week, so I ought to tell you now. The tab I gave you has got everything I could weasel out of the palace network. I was in a hurry so it’s a lot of raw data and it’s not well organized. It’s all bucketed by technical data source rather than by any sort of intelligence hierarchy.” (Was that Ash audibly sighing from the flight deck?) “Whoever you have doing analysis should be able to figure it out.”
“Anything juicy?” Phira asked.
“Well, that was the next thing. The security guys—their chief was a guy everybody called ‘David G,’ he seemed like kind of a douche—had no idea what was going on under their noses. David G did suspect that the Dread Fist guys were trying to take his job, but he didn’t know they’d be happy to kill him to do it. The good news is that they chattered about it all over the network. The Dread Fist guys don’t run a tight info ship. Lots of personal tab usage, lots of stuff going over the palace network that trusted its security certs.”
“Meaning every time one of the goons blabbed you sniffed it up,” Ash said.
Goons, Sam thought. I would’ve been a goon, huh?
“All right there on the tab,” Jack said, pointing at the tiny black plastic square in Phira’s hands.
“You look at any of it?” she said, tucking it into her vest pocket and velcroing it tightly.
“Some. Really because I needed to know that I was collecting the right stuff. I didn’t learn much, mostly shit like David G insisting that they get a catering service and not eat from the cafeteria. But one of the Dread Fist guys, captain rank, kept talking about the Knights of Aquila. And the way he was talking, it was like they were up in orbit.”
“Oh, shit,” Sam and Phira both said.
“But that’s weird, right,” Jack continued. “That would start a war. No way a bunch of Dominion supersoldiers are just hanging out up there right now in orbits managed in cooperation with the Eridani Federation, right?”
“Thanks, Jack,” Phira said. “You get some sleep. Sylva, switch seats with him so he can lay down on these two. I need to make a phone call.”
Minister Zia Reyna looked like a short woman, even on camera, but every inch was stone, from the way her hands clasped in perfect stillness beneath her chin to her level, intense gaze that wavered from the camera for not a single second.
“I cannot say I am pleased by what I am learning,” she said to group huddled around Captain Roche’s desk—himself, with Phira and Sam over his shoulder—”but your professionalism and candor come appreciated nevertheless.”
Roche briefly nodded acknowledgment of the compliment. “Which brings us to the current situation. Our intel agrees with yours about the role of the Dread Fist in De Myrre’s coup attempt. Our additional insight, however, seems to be that it involved the cooperation of two outside parties: the Dominion of the Compact, and the defectors lead by Johan Hect, currently in an orbiting assault lander.”
Minister Reyna paused. “The Dominion? You’re sure?”
“We killed one in our intervention,” Sam said plainly. “Wearing Ragnarsson-class armor from the Dominion and trained in its manual of arms.” Plain seemed wisest with the minister, even though the infighting among the Dominioners complicated the story.
Reyna, unmoving, thought. Finally, she said, “I suppose they want to stir up proxy trouble for the Eridani Federation, and my empty-headed niece has been all too easily manipulated.”
“We believe, now, that they furnished Hect with the Neptune.”
“Yes, yes, and he provides convenient cover for their movements. This is all consistent with my understanding of the situation.”
“Do you have any remaining analysts to assist us with this intelligence? This business has already gotten people killed on our side of town, and we want to get out in front of it. We’ll pay for your help with the data,” Roche said.
“Forget it,” the minister said. “You don’t need my help. You’re angling for a job.”
Roche, to his credit, dropped the pretense immediately. “Will you consider?” He asked.
“I’ve already considered. Consider Theta Group engaged. I want you to apprehend De Myrre. Will you take her alive?”
“If possible,” Roche counter-offered.
“Good. You’ll receive a form contract from my office shortly. Do understand that the compensation will be strictly financial and time-bound; as a policy the Kingdom of Salemo does not privilege third-party armed forces in household employ.”
“We’d never dream of asking,” Roche replied.
“Good. Have a good day, Captain,” the minister said, before terminating the line.
“Well,” Roche said, taking a breath.
“Strong lady. Well put together in a crisis,” Phira observed.
“A little bit lucky, too; that she was on a junket in Agunda when this all happened. Or unlucky for De Myrre, rather, that her hand was forced at an inconvenient time,” Roche added. “At any rate, we’re on the job.”
At that moment, the door to the captain’s office swung open.
“Hey, you’re done with that call, right?” Ash said, poking his head into the room.
“Yes,” Roche replied. “What is it?”
“Jeong down in analysis says there was an SSTO liftoff from Salemo this morning. De Myrre is on it.”
“God damn it,” Roche said.
“Well, look, if you don’t want me to deliver bad news, all you have to do is ask.”
Roche sighed irritably. “No, no. Thanks Lieutenant. Tell Jeong we heard him. Any word on destination?”
“He said he was still working it out.”
“Thanks, Ash,” Roche said, swinging his chair around to face Phira and Sam, who had to back up to avoid being suddenly in his personal space. Ash vanished and the door clapped shut. “All right,” the captain continued. “If Jeong couldn’t make it out off the top of his head, they’re not headed to Lars Bruun or any of the major waypoint satellites. I’m dead certain the SSTO is outbound for the Neptune.”
“That’s bad,” Phira said, automatically.
“Not all that bad,” Sam said, thinking.
Roche paused, his gaze leveled onto Sam. He saw something in her facial expression, and he didn’t seem to like it.
“No, I know what you’re going to say, and—” he began.
“It’s time to use me as the bait,” Sam said.
“Come on. No.”
“Well,” Phira said.
“Not you, too!”
“Captain,” Sam said, “consider it, sir. We can go get De Myrre where she is, or wait for her to make landfall at the venue of her choosing.”
Roche sighed again. “You’re going to take the fight to her? In the teeth of her forces?”
“In their jaw,” Sam replied. “Assault landers are good at assault, not defense. They’re not exactly fortresses. They’re spacecraft.”
“Spacecraft filled with soldiers armed to the teeth,” Roche said. “And even if we had the capability to shoot it down, we want De Myrre alive.”
“Well,” Phira tried again. “Think about it. It’s Johan Hect and his flunky defectors from Salemo. Backed by the Dominion, sure, but how much training and organization could they really have gotten?”
“I can’t believe what I’m hearing. You’re going to plan for them to be idiots?”
“No, sir,” Sam said. “This is a calculation. We can go now and exploit their weaknesses, or we can wait, and risk that our next best chance is against a force on proper war footing. Will you hear the idea?”
“Fine,” Roche said. “Let’s hear it.”