No Remorse, page 8
“Nothing’s ever for sure, buddy, but joining the Courier Group is a lot like becoming a Pathfinder. Once you’re in, you stick with it for the rest of your career. The skipper used to be an aviso chief before taking his commission. I figure in a few years, he’ll be commanding an aviso flotilla somewhere as a two-and-a-half striper.”
“With you as Anke’s master and commander.”
“She’ll do me fine, but the Fleet likes to shuffle aviso crews on promotion. It prevents inbreeding and makes sure we pick up enough experience sailing through any part of the Commonwealth — and beyond — on pure instinct. Those big drives on the tiny hull can sometimes muddle your navigation plot. Hyperspace physics, what little we know of them, seem to place restrictions on how skewed you can make your mass to power ratio, and these Hermes class ships are flirting with the outer limits.”
“What happens when you hit those limits?”
Kallani grimaced. “We don’t know, but based on the Courier Group’s loss statistics over the years, it’s nothing good. Avisos that vanish are never heard from again, and we carry the most powerful emergency beacons ever devised.”
“Do a lot of ships vanish? Or is that classified?”
“It’s classified, but we qualify for tier one danger pay. What does that tell you?”
“It tells me I hope your skipper isn’t pushing the performance envelope on our account.”
The chief petty officer’s laugh was chillingly devoid of mirth. “Every aviso sticks to the speed limits imposed by our HQ. A skipper who tries to squeeze more from his drives will be found out and beached.”
“But you’re going to tell me keeping to those limits doesn’t necessarily keep avisos from turning into Flying Dutchmen.”
“There are things in hyperspace we can’t even begin to understand.” Kallani drained her mug. “And on that note, let’s change the subject. You may recall we spacers are a superstitious lot.”
Decker nodded once. “Understood. As a man once said, there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Kallani gave him a strange stare. “Say what?”
“We spooks also spend a lot of time in hyperspace on our way to and from missions. But instead of contemplating life, the universe, and everything else, I read a lot, and I’m cursed with the ability to retain trivia in industrial quantities.”
Talyn slipped onto the bench beside her partner. “Actually, I’m the one suffering under the curse, since he’s always sharing his fund of knowledge with a generosity that quickly turns exhausting. Worse yet, he’s developed a fascination with everything pre-diaspora.”
“Those who do not learn from history...” Decker intoned, one hand raised in a quasi-religious gesture.
Anke’s second in command studied the Marine through narrowed eyes, then nodded. “You know, I can almost believe he’s a changed man, Commander Talyn, though I’m not sure it’s been for the best. Maybe I should think twice about applying for a commission.”
“Did you ever think this might be the real me?” Decker asked with a mock-wounded expression on his face. “You’re the one who said I was a lost soul back aboard Musashi. Perhaps I’ve found myself since then.”
“I also said you still owe me twenty creds. Did you find that money along with your soul and learned to repay debts?”
Decker gave her an ironic grin as he reached into his pocket. “And I can pay you in untraceable chips issued by Naval Intelligence.”
“As long as they buy me a drink in Breidablik.”
**
“Now hear this. Translation to normal space in five minutes, I repeat, translation to normal space in five minutes. That is all.” Lieutenant Perr’s voice drew Decker back to the present from his contemplation of the madness that led to the Great Cleansing shortly before the first sublight cryo ships left an Earth ravaged by migratory strife.
“We’ve arrived at the Eratosthenes subspace array, I presume?” He asked Talyn, stretched out on the upper bunk, eyes closed, thoughts soaring high above the plane of the physical universe.
“The timing is right,” she replied in an absent tone. “Almost to the hour, in fact.”
“Meaning we’re halfway there.”
“Don’t,” she growled.
“Don’t what?”
“I recognize that tone — you’re about to inflict another piece of incomprehensible humor on me.”
“No, but now that you mention it, what rhymes with there?”
“Death. Specifically yours. Which will ensue if you don’t stop talking right now.”
Decker grunted. “Be that way. What the hell is eating at you, Hera?”
Talyn let loose an exasperated sigh. “The same damn thing that’s been eating at me since we found out Black Sword dug its filthy claws into the Special Operations Division. A deep and abiding need to cleanse the enemy from our midst with overwhelming violence and brutality.”
“I guess killing Yang didn’t do it for you, then?” He asked in a light tone.
“Not funny, Zack.” She fell silent for a few moments. “Some days that need feels almost overwhelming, capable of challenging my self-control and dragging me into the darkness I’ve avoided so far.”
“Uh...” Decker climbed to his feet and stared at her prone shape, “are you saying your inner beast is clamoring to escape?”
She turned her head and faced him with a sad smile. “Something like that. I’m worried the anger that’s been simmering for months will push me into becoming the thing I’ve always feared. You can’t understand the fury I felt at your abduction attempt, at my almost losing you to those vile, subhuman parasites.”
The vehemence in her usually even tone caused Decker to take an involuntary step back. “I think you’ve just given me a glimpse, honey. But I know you can clamp down on the emotions, push the monsters back where they belong. Be the cold, detached intelligence operative and professional assassin who sent me unwittingly into harm’s way without a single shred of remorse.”
“But I don’t want to suppress the emotions I’ve come to feel, or at least think I’ve come to feel and relish thanks to you. Yet I’m afraid the rage is an unavoidable counterpart.”
“Aha!” His worried expression broke into a fond smile. “You do love me. I knew it.”
“As much as I’m capable of loving anyone or anything. By reverting to what I was, we will lose something precious.”
“Better that than you becoming someone more like the enemy.” He reached out to touch her cheek with his fingertips and found an unexpected sheen of moisture. “As a commander of my acquaintance is fond of saying, the universe would be a dull place without you. And if the trade-off is the old Hera who shanghaied me on Parth when I brought Decker’s Demons home from a life of slavery, then so be it. I can deal with her emotion-free self if that means the darkness within stays locked up. I’m not sure I can manage one able to make the Erinyes of ancient myth run away in fear.”
“Now hear this. Translation to normal space in sixty seconds, I repeat, translation to normal space in six zero seconds. That is all.”
“Trust my fellow squids to interrupt a tender moment.” Talyn hoarse voice was tinged with irony. “You’d better sit, Big Boy.”
“How about I join you up there?”
“Once our hosts check for messages and take us back into hyperspace. Now sit.”
“Yes, sir.” Decker dropped back on his bunk with a heartfelt exhalation. Life had been simpler when their existence focused on chasing down the latest Coalition scheme to destabilize the political order. Now? Faced with a network of traitors in the Fleet’s own ranks and a partner losing the fight against her dark, primal urges, Decker wondered whether there could ever be a happy end to this covert war.
The warning klaxon blared out its shrill message moments before the Marine’s universe went sideways while his stomach tried to escape through his nostrils. Seconds later, the intense translation nausea, worse than any he’d experienced in his life, faded away as quickly as it had surged up his throat.
Then, the sudden howl of the battle stations siren reached Decker’s ears. As he sprang to his feet, instincts screaming at him to do something useful, like man the gunnery station, Anke shuddered as if she’d been struck by a gigantic Thor’s hammer.
— TEN —
The whine of overstressed shields reverberated through the aviso’s hull, punctuated by muffled curses from its bridge, whose door still stood open. Decker reached it in three long strides and stuck his head in, trying to divine who attacked them the moment they emerged. Anke shuddered from another direct hit and this time, warning sirens joined the whining shield generators.
“How long before the drives cycle?” Perr asked in a controlled tone.
“We can transition to FTL now if you don’t mind a random jump,” Kallani replied. “Otherwise, I need at least five minutes.”
“The shields won’t last five minutes,” the petty officer manning the tactical systems interjected. “When the second bogey locks on to us, it’ll be goodnight Irene.”
Decker’s eyes turned to the threat display and the moment its contents registered, he swore. “Those are Avalon mercenary ships — disguised, perhaps, but I’ve fought the bastards before and can recognize them. They’re after Commander Talyn and me. And now they’ve opened fire, they can’t afford to let us escape so we might accuse their employer of attempted piracy.”
“It proves there are still traitors in our midst,” Talyn murmured in Decker’s ear as she came up behind him and peered over his shoulder at the display. “Someone who knew we would stop at the Eratosthenes array on our way to Scandia and warned the Coalition so it could set a trap by trusting the Courier Group’s well-known navigational expertise to pinpoint where we’d drop out of FTL.”
The aviso shook off another direct hit from the guns of what Decker knew to be a well-armed mercenary sloop, capable of lobbing anti-ship missiles at will. So far the captain of the nearest attacker was sticking to direct fire, hoping for an inexpensive kill. But Anke boasted stronger shields than he likely expected, meaning it was a matter of minutes, perhaps even seconds, before he switched tactics. And with a pair of small caliber, four-barrel calliopes as its sole ordnance, a brace of missiles was more than the aviso could absorb.
“I recommend risking a random jump, Mister Perr,” Decker said. “Those sloops will have our number momentarily. We may be able to outrun them FTL, but their missiles will find us as long as we stay sublight.”
“Random jumps on drives that aren’t fully cycled present a much greater peril for avisos than normal starships, Major.”
“And you don’t want to become a Flying Dutchman. Neither do I. But we’ll be space debris by the time your oversized pushers are re-tuned.”
“The lead sloop just fired missiles. Impact in thirty seconds,” the tactical petty officer announced. “Based on my sensor readings, if they strike, our shields will suffer a catastrophic collapse, leaving us open to a disabling salvo from their guns.”
“Damn.” Perr slapped his console, and the jump klaxon’s mournful bleats echoed through Anke. “Hang on to your stomachs, folks.”
Decker braced himself in the open doorway as Talyn wrapped her arms around his chest. “So much for picking up the mail.”
Then, their universe went sideways for the second time in a matter of minutes. When the translation sickness faded away, Lieutenant Gallus Perr, master and commander of the aviso Anke turned his command chair aft and stared at the two intelligence operatives.
“What the actual fuck happened back there, Commander Talyn?” He asked in a tone pregnant with rapidly growing anger now that the immediate peril was behind them. “Unidentified ships ambushing a Fleet courier? Within sight of a naval subspace array? I’ve never heard of the like.”
“Hardly unidentified. If Major Decker says they’re Avalon Corporation mercenary sloops, then take his word for it. Among his many skills is that of starship gunnery, and as he mentioned, he’s fought Avalon units before. Why ambush Anke? They’re after the two of us. We’re not just Naval Intelligence field operatives, we’ve also become high-value targets in recent times. Someone in the opposition’s pay found out about our trip to Scandia, figured you’d drop out of FTL at the Eratosthenes array, and set up an ambush.”
Perr scowled at her. “We picked you up openly at your training facility, Commander. Perhaps that was a mistake.”
“Our leaving in the dead of night from a hidden strip wouldn’t have made a difference,” Decker replied. “They’ve known for a while we’d eventually make our way to Scandia. That gave them plenty of time to pre-position a few of their ships. Finding out we’d be conveyed by the Naval Courier Group sealed the deal even before you landed at Camp X. Once the powers that be ordered our transport aboard an aviso, the buggers sent a pair of sloops to the array.”
“Perhaps.” Perr sounded wholly unconvinced. “But answer me this. You keep referring to an opposition, an enemy who wants you dead. Are the Shrehari pissing about in our backyard after staying quiet for longer than I’ve been alive?”
Talyn shook her head. “The people we’re fighting are human. Many of them work within the Commonwealth or planetary governments, military and police forces, including the Fleet.”
Perr, Chief Kallani, and the tactical petty officer stared at her as if she’d grown a second head.
“You want to explain, Commander?” Anke’s commanding officer asked after shaking off his momentary surprise. “We’re just a bunch of regular spacers here, even if we’ve seen more of the galaxy than most.”
“I can’t say much, but in essence, there’s a large, well-connected, well-funded faction both inside and outside various governments seeking to reverse the treaties that ended the Second Migration War. They want to curtail star system independence in favor of centralized control from Earth. Since the Armed Services are sworn to uphold the constitution born of those treaties, we’re more or less in a cold civil war principally fought in the hidden realm of intelligence and special operations.”
“And somehow you and the major are important enough in this cold civil war they’d risk attacking a Fleet starship with mercenaries belonging to one of the largest private military corporations in history, which is in turn owned by one of the largest commercial conglomerates?” An ironic whistle escaped Perr’s lips. “I hope never to make enemies that determined and willing to spend a fortune so they can kill me.”
“Let’s just say we’ve done this faction a considerable amount of harm in the last while, enough to set back their plans by a considerable margin,” Decker said in a conversational tone. “And we are one of the last hotshot operative teams still alive and hitting back after they almost wiped out our organization’s ability to fight.”
“There’s also an element of revenge involved,” Talyn added. “A few of the most powerful leaders in this faction feel the need to avenge themselves personally on us for things we’ve done to them, their families, and interests.”
Perr shook his head. “Don’t misunderstand, Commander, but I’m having a real hard time believing this. I’ve read thrillers with a more plausible plot.”
Decker grinned at him. “Proving once again that truth is often stranger than fiction?”
“Factions within the Commonwealth government killing each other over who gets to control what? That’s pretty damned strange, Major.”
“But surprisingly common throughout human history, no matter the civilization. I can recommend a reading list that’ll make you wonder how humanity ever survived to colonize this part of the galaxy.”
“Thanks, but maybe I should keep my illusions — and sleep better at night.” Perr frowned in thought. “Would I be wrong to think once I’ve dropped you off at Breidablik, these people won’t make another attempt to destroy my ship?”
Talyn nodded. “I’d say it’s a pretty fair assumption.”
“Then I might as well figure out where this unplanned jump is taking us, so I can get back on course to Scandia.”
“How long do you expect to stay on the current heading?”
Perr scratched his chin. “We don’t make a big hyperspace bubble, but it’s energized enough to be traceable by naval-grade sensors for a good distance. If your mercenary friends intend to pursue, I’ll plan on giving us a decent margin before dropping to sublight so we can recalculate our course. Otherwise, we might end up playing Crazy Ivan and jump all over the place to shake them, and I’m not a fan of that maneuver. It’s hard on hyperdrives and human psyches.”
“Psyches?” Decker asked.
“Aviso dreams, Major. One of the many strange things that happen when you push against the outer edge of the power to mass ratio in hyperspace. Repeated emergency jumps make them a lot worse for some people.”
“I didn’t think hyperspace psychosis was a real thing.”
Perr gave him a humorless smile. “It may not be in the regular Fleet, but in the Courier Group... Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to figure out where Anke is headed, so we don’t end up in a worse situation.”
Once back in their cabin, Decker said, “I sense our friend Gallus Perr isn’t thrilled with his passengers just now.”
“We’ve upset his orderly world and placed his command at risk merely by being aboard. I’d say his reaction is normal.”
“And what’s this aviso dream?” He asked as he picked up his reader and dropped back into the lower bunk.
Talyn shrugged. “Who knows? Every part of the Navy has its stories to scare, impress, or amaze outsiders. Considering Courier Group ships spend more time FTL than any other, I suppose they’ve developed quirks of their own.”
“So long as we reach Scandia before the turn of the century,” he grumbled.
**
“Sir,” a man in mud-spattered battle armor raised his hand to attract Decker’s attention, “we’ve finally regained contact with Coulson’s brigade. They’ve destroyed the Government Precinct’s power station, which shut down the jammers plaguing us since we landed.”
