Birthright: Battle for the Confederation- Crusade Read online

  “Another is a ‘truce’ between us, though in time the effects would be the same as annexation. We would agree to a cease fire, but eventually your military would be downsized as we enter an era of cooperation and peace. It is the same as the first option in all but name, but it would most likely be more palatable to your constituents.”

  “The third is a complete and total effort at conquering and dominating the Confederation, at a time of our choosing. We will not start until we have enough ships massed to guarantee our chosen outcome. The resulting toll in lives, material, and infrastructure to the Confederation bears heavy consideration, because if we determine that the Confederation is not worth saving, there would be no reason to show mercy.”

  Dennix was almost beaten down by her speech, until the very end. Talk of showing mercy had actually driven to the surface what little courage and character he had in reserve. “You talk of mercy, yet you poisoned an entire planet with your DNA virus. You have doomed billions of people to an uncertain death; men, women, and children. How is that showing us mercy?”

  Tana simply smiled. So, the man had a spine after all. “The weapon was used after some manner of debate,” she conceded, knowing only what Tash had told her and not about his unilateral decision to use it. “Based on the reception we received from much of the Confederation, we realized that many did not believe that their genetic fortune was due to us. It was decided that a demonstration was needed to show that without us, you were nothing.”

  “And what of the people of Toral, then?” asked Dennix.

  “There is no ‘what of’, Senator,” Tana said coldly. “The virus is loose; there is nothing that can be done. It will eventually die out on its’ own, and one day the planet will be habitable again. But we have not created an antidote. The demonstration on Toral was not done for bargaining purposes, Senator, it was done to show the level of our ability and resolve.”

  They sat there simply glaring at each other for long enough that Dennix lost track of time. It could have been minutes, maybe only seconds.

  “Senator,” she continued, “I offer you an ‘out’, as your people are fond of saying. Knowledge of this weapon is a powerful motivator. I know your motivation is to lead the Confederation, and perhaps your admission of this weapon’s effects would carry the weight needed to help you push through the plans we’ve discussed.”

  “So we’d have to wait until everyone on Toral dies?” he asked softly.

  “That would be best.”

  More silence. He had divorced years ago, didn’t have any children or close family. Perhaps if any of those statements were different, he’d feel more protective towards his home planet. But if all was lost, what else could he do?

  “In the meantime,” Tana continued, “we do require your help with the Talaran situation.”

  “How’s that?” he recovered a bit and resumed his role as Senator.

  “The Talarans are putting up resistance in select locations. We have monitored their requests for help to your government, as well. You need to leave them be. Do not aid the Talarans; that is one of our terms. We are aware that after capturing Carlor from us you still have not made any arrangements to return it to them. That actually is acceptable to us. If there are other Talaran planets you desire, perhaps we could arrange for that to happen without any loss of life on our sides. In addition, I think you need to add me to your staff as an advisor so I may have access to you at all times.”

  Chapter 8

  Halley was out on a morning recon of the bar area where the meeting would take place that night. It was a sunny and temperate day, with just enough of a breeze to justify a light jacket and thus make carrying a weapon easier. She wasn’t carrying right now, though, since she was jogging and using the workout to cover her recon. Other than the windbreaker, she wore just a simple workout tanktop and running shorts. Her route took her along the fenceline to the Priman spaceport, then a couple blocks over, where she turned to parallel the fence as she ran back to the beginning of her route. She’d noticed a few people doing similar workouts. Some were Priman, some were locals who must work in the area and got in to work early to do their routine. Whatever the motivation, she would use it.

  On the end of her circuit where she reached Gassy Gappo’s and turned around to do it all over, she noticed a few people gathering. It wasn’t a big change, but to someone as observant as her, she took it all in. There were seven or eight people milling around, and they had signs, some old fashioned paper with words written on them, some lightweight monitor boards. They were standing around the base entrance, not far from the bar and not much farther after that than their hotel. As she ran past, she saw alert Priman guards slowly working their way from other areas towards the front gate of the spaceport as well.

  This was potentially a problem. Stirring up civil unrest was not a good way for the locals to go about helping Halley run a covert op, and she wished she could smack the ringleaders of this particular gathering. It was all well and good to run a nonviolent demonstration, just not today, dammit. She considered her pace, then looked at the route ahead of her. She’d be back here in ten minutes, and then she’d have to see what the crowd was like.

  When she returned, it was not good. The crowd had quickly swelled to perhaps a hundred or more. Whether it was a flash mob or a carefully choreographed event she had no idea, but it was getting out of hand. Even from blocks away, she could see the people chanting about making the Primans leave their world, waving their signs, and surging back and forth as people tried to move this way and that. The crowd even began spilling backwards out behind the bar onto the street she was running on, and they began looking around for another way to get back to the frontage road and the action. She heard police sirens and knew things were going to get much worse.

  That’s when it all came crashing down, almost literally. In seconds, there were police hovercraft overhead, their powerful repulsor fields filling the air with a deep and penetrating rhythmic thrum. They converged from all four points of the compass, along with dozens of police on the ground in riot gear. By now, she was stuck in the middle of the crowd.

  Abandoning all pretense of being a leisurely jogger, she made her way to the edges of the group, intent on finding a side street to melt away into. She cleared the panicked crowd and saw a wall of police blocking her way. They weren’t going to let her pass. She was not a part of this, but procedure would be to detain everyone who was part of the crowd right away. She’d be cleared quickly enough if she were an innocent citizen, except she had no alias or ID that would pass muster on Anderson. She turned and dove back into the crowd, angry at herself now for wanting to keep gathering information when she should probably have just bugged out. She looked and saw the noose tightening as two of the hovercraft landed and the police started pushing the crowd together on the street behind Gassy Gappo’s.

  Screw radio silence, she thought. She brought her dermal communicator online and thought it active on the local comm frequency that Loren and Web were monitoring. Even if the police noticed an unauthorized high powered comm device now, they would never be able to figure out who it belonged to. “Loren, Web,” she began, talking conversationally and covering her mouth with her hand so as not to draw too much attention. “I’m busted. Got stuck in a flash mob at Gassy Gappo’s. I’m not compromised, but you need to start the meet on time at the bar. Just like we planned, but I’ll be the late arrival with the surprise. Got that? The meet is on, I’ll pull backup, and if I can’t make it I’ll contact you. Mission is a go. Do not try to get me, I’ll be fine. These people have no idea who they’re dealing with.” She shut down her comms and then stood still with her hands up as the police waded into their midst, determined to appear as passive as possible to prove that she had no idea what she had stumbled into.

  Web sat stunned as he listened to the message yet again. They had only missed her call by seconds, and had listened to the message several times to confirm her message. Loren only nodded resolutely and we
nt to review Halley’s notes for the meet, leaving Web to stare at the computer terminal where they had played her message from.

  “Commander,” Web began passionately, “aren’t we going to do something?” He got up and headed over to their equipment bags and pulled out all three SSKs, confirming their charges were at max and magazines of armor piercing rounds were full.

  “What do we do, Web?” Loren countered without taking his eyes off the datapad he was looking at. “Which police station is she at? Do they know she’s not a local? Is she locked up in general holding or a high security cell?” He finally looked at Web, who just stood there, waiting. Loren understood.

  “Look, Web,” Loren said gently as he walked closer to him. “I know this feels wrong, and you feel like we should be out there doing something right now. Sitting here, waiting, you feel powerless, and you want to help. I get that. You might remember the last few weeks as I’ve sat and had to watch Toral get locked up tight while we all wait for people to start dying.” Loren didn’t mean to make it too personal, but if they were comparing who was under more pressure to help a loved one right now, Loren was going to win that hands down.

  “I wouldn’t ever suggest you’ve had it easy,” Web said softly.

  “I know, I probably didn’t need to bring that up. Point is, in this case, things are very different. Halley knows exactly what she’s doing, and if she needs to get out, I am certain that nothing short of an armored squad of troops will stop her. She’s not too proud to call for help if she needs to, either. She’ll meet us tonight, so for now, let’s get our plan straight. I’ll take her spot; you get to be the ornery sidekick…”

  Halley sat in the huge holding area with several dozen other people, and all but one were protesters from the demonstration. There was one other bystander like herself, a young man who had repeatedly told their captors that he was on his way to the base to apply for a civilian job. Might not pass the background check for that one after this little adventure, Halley thought with a chuckle.

  According to the wall chrono, it was early afternoon, and they hadn’t made much progress in processing the detainees. At least it was just the local police and not Priman personnel who were doing the interviews. The officers would come into the cell, remove one person, and take them to sit at a series of desks along the far wall. There were about a dozen interview stations that were running, and from what Halley could see, once completed, most people were sent out the front door. A handful had been cuffed and taken further into the building, but it seemed the police weren’t interested in filling cells tonight. That was good news for her. The problem was that she had no ID that was made for Anderson, so she’d have to use another identity and hope her story was good enough to escape thorough examination.

  She had considered using her nanites to spoof their med scanners into thinking she was a Priman, then giving them a story about her being an undercover Priman agent who was keeping a covert eye on the populace. The only problem with that was if they called her on it instead of panicking and just obeying her stern orders. If she was discovered, then the local Primans would realize Halley had that ability, and she couldn’t risk that. As far as anyone knew, the Primans had no idea the SAR operatives and their nanites could perform some of their more advanced tasks; that ability needed to be kept secret for an long as possible, and Halley wasn’t going to risk that just to make her stay in the local jail easier.

  Finally, it was her turn, and she was escorted (gently enough) by an officer to one of the interview tables and placed in a seat.

  “Good afternoon,” the interviewing officer said in a bored tone without looking up at first. He kept typing away at something on his display, then finally eyed her up.

  “According to our logs, you had no identification on you when you were arrested, is that correct?”

  Halley needed to take the initiative without seeming combative, and had been thinking about how to do this all morning. “That’s correct,” she began. “I was jogging near my hotel when I ran into this mob of people. Next thing I knew, I was being arrested. I’m not a criminal; I don’t have a record at home. Am I in trouble?” Best to load them down with lots of info and questions. If they weren’t used to this sort of thing, she could drag this out and maybe even tell them nothing useful. If they were good, they’d stick to their script and stay in charge.

  “Whether you’re in trouble or not depends on what you were doing there. In addition, we need to verify your ID to see if you’ve done this sort of thing before. What hotel are you staying in? We can retrieve any credentials you have there.”

  Damn, she thought, they were good enough to stay in the driver’s seat. Oh well, Plan B then. “Look, I travel enough to know that I never let anyone into my room without me present. Don’t I need a lawyer or something?”

  “You’re not being charged with anything yet, so you don’t need a lawyer.”

  “Then I’m free to go?” she countered.

  “No, you need to answer our questions first,” the man replied, starting to get flustered, Halley saw. Maybethey weren’t good enough after all.

  “Well, then I need a lawyer,” she replied matter-of-factly. “I don’t know what’s going on out there, but there are obviously some trouble makers present. Since I’m not from around here, that makes me suspicious, doesn’t it? And wouldn’t it be handy if you could just present me to the local population as the source of all those problems and send me away? I’ve seen it done before, you know.”

  “You’re not being charged!” the man raised his voice. “Look, Miss, just start with your name. Maybe we can dig up something through the Galactic Data Net and get the preliminary forms filled out.”

  He looked at her earnestly, and she figured she’d try out an ID she had used before all the way on the other side of the galactic core. Let them try to sort that one out…

  “My name is Callista Kain, from the Morrow system. I work for a data consulting company; we do analysis of everything from market trends to merchandise loss rates.”

  “Why were you here?”

  “Um, I think I just said I work for a data consulting company. Therefore, I was probably consulting somebody about data, wouldn’t you say?” She was starting to feel more confident pushing this interviewer and figured she’d give it a try.

  “Which company?”

  “My confidentiality agreement prohibits me from saying,” she replied.

  The officer groaned. He was worried this could go on all afternoon.

  Loren and Web were as ready as they were ever going to be. It was the supper hour, and they still hadn’t heard from Halley, which was a good thing. At least, according to her message from the morning, no news was good news.

  Loren and Web were both in different parts of the bar, watching each other’s backs and looking for their contact. The Fixer was supposed to appear in just under an hour, and the arrangements he and Halley had hammered out called for Cutter Sarn and Halley (now Loren instead) to meet at a specific table at a certain time to signify everything was all clear.

  At the appointed time, Loren got up and walked to the table where Mr. Sarn sat, apparently engrossed in some sort of sporting event being shown on the large wall displays behind the bar.

  “Mr. Sarn,” Loren said quietly as he took a seat opposite him across the table.

  “You must be mistaken,” Sarn replied matter-of-factly. “I’m here to meet a friend. You’re not as attractive as her, or female, so I think you have the wrong man.”

  “You mean Ms. Malix and the information she has for the Primans? Tell me she said she had associates, please?” Loren said in an exasperated voice.

  “She also made it a point to suggest that I would not have to deal with anyone but her,” Sarn replied uneasily. It was, of course, not unheard of to bring along or send some backup, but he much preferred it when clients were predictable.

  “That was her plan, yes,” Loren conceded. “That was, until the conference call where they tried to pull u
s out this afternoon. She’s tied up on that, and she’s trying to buy us another couple days here. We decided it was best to go through with tonight, since we’re planning on trying to extend our stay so we can offer you more information down the road. Better to make you nervous than skip out on the Primans and come away with nothing, wouldn’t you say?” Damn, Loren thought, I’m actually starting to enjoy this. “Look, I know we haven’t been introduced, but she promised she’d be here eventually, and I trust her when she says that.”

  Cutter Sarn looked at Loren and nodded, resigned to having to deal with this obstacle. As long as the info was good and everyone was happy, he’d be able to tolerate it. He checked the chrono above the bar; forty minutes until the Primans were supposed to arrive. And there were supposed to be two of them, so hopefully they didn’t pull anything odd either.

  Halley considered the time and realized she needed to make her move now. She’d stalled and gone off on tangents so many times her interviewers, which eventually had numbered three, finally gave up and put her back in holding with a dozen others who also had no ID or otherwise had lingering issues but were not likely instigators. That was fine then, but it was time for her to go.

  She had her eye on one officer in particular, a younger one who had a slim build and was about her height. She’d caught him trying to steal a few glances at her, and she realized he was going to be her ticket out of the station.

  She punched the button on the wall by the door that summoned a guard. It took a couple minutes, but finally her target showed up. She’d been waiting for him to go on rotation, and the timing was working out wonderfully. Any guard would have done, of course, but his being there was a nice bonus.