Hell or Highwater (Hell's Jesters, #5), page 8
“Not long to put a campaign together,” Delmonte pointed out.
“Then I still have time to consider.”
The Senators exchanged another glance. “We had hoped to get your commitment on this trip, Admiral,” Delmonte said.
Greer lifted his glass again, scowled to find only ice cubes. He turned to the kitchenette once more, hastily poured another whiskey—too much, and it burned hard when he pulled on it now. Fighting through a wince, he turned back to face the politicians.
“Not yet,” he said.
“We can’t delay much longer!” Delmonte protested.
“The two of us can begin gathering a war chest for you, Admiral,” Brand said, patting the air to still his companion’s agitation. “But that will require your promise. Our stakeholders won’t donate without it.”
“I still have a war in front of me, gentlemen!”
“And now it’s a war on two fronts,” Brand replied coldly. “One against the Alliance, and one against the Union voters.”
Delonte grimaced. “Christ, Aiden. I wouldn’t put it quite like that!” He met Greer’s gaze. “Look, we know this is hard, Admiral. We know you and Levine have been close. And we know how this will look to him.”
“He’ll see it as a betrayal,” Greer replied. “He’ll see me as running against him.”
Which might as well be true. His name on the ballot might actually weaken Levine’s position further, might dangerously divide the electorate. Out of that, nothing could be said for certain. Greer’s entrance into the election might actually ensure the surrender bloc won—might make everything catastrophically worse.
Delmonte nodded sympathetically. “He very well may.”
“But we can’t allow Cupp and his appeasers to win, the craven bastards,” Brand snarled. He looked back and forth between Greer and Delmonte. “We have to have a contingency.”
“We’ve done the preliminary polling,” Delmonte said. “Admiral, your name registers well with the electorate.”
“What?” Greer sputtered on his drink and glared at them. “That means my name is already out there!”
The Senator waved off the concern. “It was done through intermediaries with the appearance of general research. But, Admiral. Carson. It’s clear you can win.”
“We’re not against Levine,” Brand insisted. “Please, understand that. But nor can we let his vulnerability endanger the project of the Union, the cause for which we’ve sacrificed so much.” He clenched a chubby fist before him. “Freedom, Admiral!”
Greer looked down into his glass, suddenly sickened by the sight of it. He set it on the kitchenette counter and leaned back, folding his arms and pursing his lips. “We’ve got a fight coming,” he said slowly. “It’s as sure as a Tartan sunrise. My mind has to be on that, gentlemen.”
He looked up. “But as soon as that’s settled, you will have my decision.”
HYPERSPACE EMISSIONS haloed from the far side of the Shangri-La system on Tim’s tactical display. He waited, tense in the cockpit of his Hellhound while the computer fully assessed the sensor data. The war book threw up a hologram schematic a moment later, confirming what he already suspected.
“Endurance-class strike carrier,” Jeanie—as Tim had named the AI that co-piloted his starfighter—announced. “Heavily modified, but its grav drive signatures match our recordings from Fury. It’s the Sacramento.”
“Right on time,” Tim said, and couldn’t help a squirm as the tactical flickered with more icons. “Looks like she brought friends.”
“Light escort cruiser,” Jeanie replied. Each icon flashed as she indicated it. “Two destroyer escorts. Standard arrangement for a Union carrier group.” She—It...whatever—paused as more contacts fluttered into the void. “Starfighters launching.”
“Head’s up, First Flight!” Tim called over the squadron channel. “Our guests have arrived for dinner! Let’s give them a warm, Jester welcome!”
“Roger, Leader,” came an all too familiar reply over the communicator.
Tim glanced to starboard, to the Mark IV Hellhound coming up on his wing tip. The maneuver was executed with precision. Tim hated it, hated that she had taken to the starfighter so quickly—barely weeks. Even with their accelerated training program, a crash-course of holographic conditioning, it usually took a couple months to make a Jester. Cory had breezed through it all, simulators, coursework.
Of course, she’d written half of it.
“Recruit Xiang is doing well,” Jeanie opined.
“And there’s no way she’ll let any of us forget it,” Tim growled back.
“We need the pilots,” the AI said. “Especially ones who learn as quickly as she has. That is, regrettably, always the way it is. Some learn quickly, some don’t—and don’t last—and some are in a league all their own from the very start.”
“Cory’s definitely in her own league,” Tim snorted. He touched his communicator. “Watkins Three, Recruit One, stay on me. Don’t get twitchy. They’re going to scan us. Let ‘em have a good look. We’re all friends here.”
“Are you sure they know that?” Cory’s voice crackled in his ear bud.
On the tactical, the carrier group’s fighters were accelerating out ahead of the rest of the formation, spreading into an arrowhead—a full squadron. Tim’s single patrol flight looked pitifully few as they nosed out from the second and outermost world of the small star system and moved to intercept.
“Near space combat patrol,” Tim replied. “Standard deployment. Stay frosty, kid.” Despite the words and confident tone, he couldn’t help the dryness in his mouth. He hadn’t seen a scrap since the battles at Fury. None of them had. The sudden hammering of his pulse recalled the nightmare of that terrible siege. Deep breaths did nothing to slow it.
“Well, these are new,” Jeanie announced with a tone that approached humanness for its curiosity—and Tim knew it wasn’t a simulation. The simulacrums that molded to their pilots had long-since passed becoming something far beyond tools.
A schematic popped up beside one of the approaching icons and Tim grunted. “Sure enough. Union’s finally phasing out the Firestorm. Must be one of those Marauders we’ve been hearing about.” He couldn’t help a grudging admiration for its lean lines and bristling weaponry.
“I almost feel like I should be suing someone for copyright infringement,” Cory piped up over the squad channel. “That looks like they put a Hellhound on a diet and then overloaded it with extra baggage.”
“Yeah, it’s cute,” Tim grumbled.
“Take a Hellhound any day of the week.”
“You and me both, kid,” Tim replied. On the tactical, the lead flight of Marauders but on another burst of speed and pulled away while the rest settled into widely-dispersed threesomes, each covering a different potential approach on the starships. Again, standard stuff, but smartly done. “Put a sock in it for a bit,” he told Cory and switched channels to the command frequency. “Jester Command, this is Watkins. Looks like Greer’s little entourage, all right.”
A globular popped up beside the tactical display, showed Red’s stress-shadowed face. “It sure does. You’ve got the rest of your wing on cold standby, in case it’s a ruse?”
“It’s not,” he replied, and glanced at the hologram of the moon of Shangri-La, where the remaining twenty Hellhounds of his command hid on the dark side. “But we’re all ready for the prom, anyway.”
“Always wise to be extra careful with Greer.”
“You don’t need to tell me,” Tim replied. He swallowed back the dryness again, surprised at the slickness of sweat under his synthe-leathers. “Their outriders will be pinging us any time now. Probably safe to bring up the shuttle from the surface.” He shrugged. “We invited him, after all.”
“Which makes this all the crazier,” she replied with a brittle laugh. “All right. Shuttle’s on its way. Stay with it until rendezvous is complete.”
“Not going anywhere.” Tim almost hadn’t finished the response when a blat sounded from the tactical.
“Hostile targeting,” Jeanie noted.
“Everyone, relax,” Tim told his wing mates. “Like I said, just giving us a look.”
A tension-laced minute passed with the icons racing towards one another on the tactical, the targeting alarm continuing its sour note until Tim killed it with a swipe to the hologram. Finally, one of the inbound Marauders pulsed white with a signal. Tim touched it. “This is Jester Patrol One. Who’s that out there tickling us?”
A pause. Then a voice clearly distorted by some sort of scrambling device answered, “This is Slasher Squadron Leader, Jester. Just confirming we’re all friends, here.”
“All friends and all friendly,” Tim replied. “You’ll be seeing our envoy rising into orbit shortly. We’ll accompany them out to your ship.”
“Not a chance, Jester,” the Marauder squad leader replied. “My people will bring them in. You Hellhounds can stay put.”
“That’s not what we agreed to,” Tim started to say.
“We all got our orders, pal,” the distorted voice shot back. “You wanted a meeting. This is how it happens.”
“Fabulous,” Tim sneered and cut the channel.
“Red’s not going to be happy about that,” Jeanie said.
“Not a lot to be happy about.”
In theory, the Jesters had rolled-up under the umbrella of the formal Union military, the First Union Irregulars, as they were called on some quartermaster’s table of organization and equipment. It was by the Union’s orders that the Jesters had mobilized in defense of Fury—and lost nearly two thirds of those that’d gone in. In practice, the Jesters maintained a kind of loose obedience to the rules, so long as they weren’t stretched beyond their willingness. That willingness had gotten stretched pretty damned hard.
For their part, the Union’s patience had probably long run out with the Jesters, especially after they’d taken advantage of the confusion of victory at Fury—and the absence of clear orders—to quietly evacuate.
A ring from the tactical alerted Tim to the shuttle reaching orbit. At the same time, the lead Marauders were killing their thrusters dead-ahead of the Hellhounds, wheeling about on maneuvering fields, and hitting the gravs again to decelerate. As before, it was smartly done, the Union starfighters slowing, letting the Hellhounds overtake them, then pass them. The maneuver happened at velocities that would crumple a spaceframe in atmosphere, but the airlessness and weightlessness of space made it pass with almost balletic grace,
Tim got a good look at what must be Slasher Leader’s fighter as it settled along his right flank, just aft of he and Cory. The garish machete symbol gleamed upon a fuselage that looked like it’d been inspected down to the very hull creases and scrubbed of every dust mite.
“Good freaking grief,” Cory signaled, “they’re practically standing on top us.”
“Take it easy, kid,” Tim replied. “Walk in the park.” He glanced at the Marauder again. “But you’re right. Whoever the hell that is, they’ve got a real burr up their ass.”
KELLY HAD TROUBLE BREATHING. She’d prepared herself, she thought. She’d told herself she was ready. But hearing Tim’s voice in her earbud had struck like an avalanche and the remnants of it felt as though piled atop her, crushing the air from her lungs.
Of course, of all the Jesters, it had to be him leading the patrol that greeted them.
The icon of Slasher Three blinked on the tactical—a private transmission—and Kelly touched it. “Thought I said no chatter.”
“You did,” Himari replied. “Sorry. It’s just, I’ve never been this close to one.”
“A Hellhound?”
“You actually flew one of those? Doesn’t look like all that much.”
Kelly couldn’t help a smile as she looked out the viewscreen at the lead Hellhound, what had to be Tim’s, judging by its position and battered condition. Her smile became a chuckle. The drones and flight crew that kept up that starfighter had a thankless, never-ending task; Tim almost never brought a ship back without damage.
“They’ve got it where it counts,” she told Himari. “You’d be surprised.”
Her gaze lingered on the Hellhound. It was him. She knew it. He was there, right there. It would take almost nothing to reach out. But no—there was no way that wouldn’t be noticed. These Marauders recorded everything and the techs and engineers reviewed the files afterward. A private comm to a Hellhound would never go unnoticed.
And that she was even considering it sent a jolt of rage through her, with herself. Maybe Avery had been right. Maybe she should’ve accepted the transfer.
Because she was remembering every moment with Tim, replaying every word, every fight, every fumbled episode of their coming-together. The workload and tension of flying off the Sacramento, fending off Alliance reconnaissance, welding together a squadron from scratch, all of it had drowned the thoughts. But they fought to the surface, thrashed free now, gasping and flailing and demanding her attention.
“Shuttle’s coming,” Himari signaled.
Kelly shook herself—felt the spatter of a tear loosened down her cheek by the motion. “I see it.” On the tactical display one of the Jesters’ Basilisk-class assault shuttles was accelerating up into their aft quarter.
She wondered who was aboard. Was Jerry flying? Was Cory riding shotgun, as the pair had often done in the old days? Maybe Red with them, too? She missed them, all of them. God, this was a mistake. I should never have allowed myself to be here.
Most of the Jesters thought she was dead. That was the lie they’d all concocted, in the rush to get the rogue AI off Fury and avoid it revealing that the prisoner of war they’d taken was her own brother. The Alliance’s Council Guard thugs had unleashed an assault of terror weapons and terror tactics—mini-nukes, shooting prisoners. No one had been in a reasonable mood. Kelly had had every reason to fear the Jesters would just kill Jerold, too, in their anguish and rage. To get him out had required a convincing cover story.
But Tim had known. He knew she was still alive.
Till now, she hadn’t known the reverse.
“Slasher Leader,” his voice crackled in her earbud, sounding tired and irritable. “Shuttle’s all yours, since we’re all being so paranoid.”
Kelly snorted. Same old Tim. On the tactical, the Basilisk was sliding up into position amongst the two flights of starfighters. She made sure the voice distortion effect she’d enabled was still on and touched the comm. “Roger that, Jester pilot. We’ll take it from here. Hold your position at extreme weapons range from the main group.”
“Glad we’re all friends, here,” he quipped in response.
She chuckled and killed the mic.
“Nice guy,” Himari commented from their fighter-to-fighter link.
You have no idea, Kelly almost said out loud.
UNION MARINES HAD GREETED their arrival in the shuttle bay of the carrier and led them the whole way through the ship, hardly speaking a word. The corridors had been cleared ahead of them, though Jerry had heard the echo of activity down side passages. It was obvious this was all hush-hush as hell.
They’d been deposited in a briefing room of some sort, deep in the vessel, and the doors had been left sealed. Josie had checked, had sworn in disgust upon confirming it. They hadn’t been disarmed, though.
Still, felt like being taken prisoner.
Josie paced. It was a side of her Jerry hadn’t seen, yet, a simmering frustration that bordered on mania. She clearly despised confinement. Not surprising. An athletic, powerful woman, as the leader of the Raiders she was accustomed to action, to moving fast and hard. Jerry smiled a little, recalling how fast and hard she could move.
But those thoughts withered as he sat at the table beside Tina, the only one of the three of them who seemed at ease. They’d kept her wrists bound, but she managed to settle in at the chair and cross her legs, make the whole thing seem maddeningly nonchalant. She looked a little better, bruises fading, regular food adding something to the bones. But the eyes still disturbed, simmering with a weird, frantic light.
“Maybe you could stop that?” she suggested to Josie.
The other woman ceased her prowl to glare at her. “Maybe I don’t take orders from you.”
Tina grinned. “Oh, I like her, Dad.” She turned to him. “She’s with you?”
“Shut up and don’t worry about it, kid.”
Chuckling, Tina leaned back in the chair, shook her head. “She is. Nice for you. I’m glad. You’ve been alone too long.”
Jerry shot Josie a look before she could comment, could see the flare in her blue eyes. “Not really any of your business,” he told his daughter.
She shrugged. “Makes things complicated, is all.”
Josie turned away, muttering something. Jerry ground his teeth and forced himself to just smile and shake his head. “What’s one more complication in all of this?”
The fragile smile on Tina’s lips faded away. “Too true.”
The door to the room cracked with a hydraulic hiss and a pair of marines stepped in, blastpistols holstered and clad in only fatigues, but hulking and clearly in no mood for trouble. They settled to either side as a third man followed them. Jerry swallowed once as he recognized the four stars on the epaulettes of his blue-grey uniform. He’d seen the man before, at a distance.
Greer.
For his part, the Admiral stiffened as his eyes came to rest upon Tina. A smile flinched across his face before an obvious effort squelched it. A flutter remained in his eyes, though. He folded his arms before him.
“I didn’t believe it,” he said to her. “Even though it was in the Jester communique. But I had to see it for myself, first. And here you are.” He sighed. “Succubus.”
“Carson,” she replied, stretching where she sat, almost as though climbing out of a bed.
Out of his bed, Jerry recognized with a scalding wave of paternal rage. Looking at Greer, at his barely-concealed reaction to her, he knew it was true. Damn, girl, what twisted webs you’ve woven.
