Jethro: First to Fight (5 page)

Which was a problem, now there weren't a
lot of profits to go around. He sighed, rubbing his brow. This was all her
doing, Felicia's. The so called speaker's mess. He could lay it all at her
doorstep, after all, it had been her plan, he'd just signed off on her
implementing it. She'd gotten cute with trying to run Irons out of the system,
and now this.

No one had expected it, not even him. He
should have, he'd been warned he didn't have the keys yet. They hadn't counted
on it. Enrique had been kept out of the loop in order to keep him from warning
Irons or one of Irons supporters. When the governor of Anvil had found out he'd
been livid. When Walker had found out why he'd been livid too.

They hadn't expected or planned on Irons
getting the word out. Or in their carefully laid plans falling apart as they
had. Oh they'd gotten the desired result, the admiral had left in shame, but
he'd dumped them in the crapper right along with him. He'd recorded the entire
thing and uploaded and broadcast the entire thing system wide despite their
efforts to muzzle him.

After Destiny had left the hue and cry
had come from the uneducated masses. Even the industrialists had gotten
involved, those who had supported the effort turning their coats. They couldn't
confirm anything, but they could scream right along with the rest of the
pansies, he thought. Traitors, he thought.

Felicia had been hounded into hiding and
out of office, throwing the Pyrax Congress into almost permanent paralyzing
recess . The gridlock had hampered any effort to get anything done, and drawn
the morale of the system down. Throw in all the contracts that had been delayed
or canceled since the admiral and his precious keys were out of their hands and
the economy spiraled back down to just slightly above what it had been before
the admiral's arrival. The gridlock had lasted until she'd been assassinated,
now that she was gone chaos reigned in the congressional chambers.

He wasn't sure how they had done it, how
they had found her. He was fairly certain the navy had been involved, after
all, their flagship Firefly had been reported nearby. He regretted not being
able to tie them to her murder. It aggravated him.

Her death left him in a lurch, for she
had been the true architect of their group, her intellect and resources dwarfed
his own. She'd been one of the reasons he'd been elected, she'd handpicked him
for the job and then sent enough credits his way and tossed him enough cookies
in order to win. She'd even arranged a few accidents and scandals to destroy
his competition too. She'd made him aware of all her machinations when he'd
pulled ahead in the polls. She'd also made it clear to him that if he didn't
play ball with her she and her supporters would yank their support in an
instant and he'd be in free fall, or at worst, dead.

He didn't want that. He resented her
influence and arrogance, but he'd respected her abilities. He'd planned on
finding ways to work around her when needed, but she'd slipped so neatly into
her role and gathered up the reins of power so easily it had been almost
impossible not to go along with the group. She'd kept such a tight rein on him
for so long he'd thought she'd have taken him as a lover to permanently cement
her hold over him. He was relieved that had never happened, he didn't like
being some woman's round bottom boy. He much preferred the top.

He glanced at Tracy, his blonde
secretary mistress. She was stacked, she knew she had good looks and dressed
the part, conservative in public or when he had to deal with people who were
more... sensitive, and slutty in private. Or not at all when the whim struck him.
He smiled slightly.

She had just the right submissive streak
going, she knew her place and didn't try to change it. She didn't rock the boat
with his wife, being deferential to her as well. He was still training Tracy to
do the job right, fear was a powerful motivator, as was just a little taste of
power and ambition. She knew if she didn't toe the line exactly as he wanted
she'd follow his last secretary out the lock. Nagging Nancy had gotten too cute
in her games anyway, and her last trick of getting pregnant in order to
blackmail him had sealed her fate. He didn't need nor want a scandal. Miss
Persephone had been ever the professional, making sure the stupid slut suffered
for a while before she met her fate. He still treasured the video, and watched
it weekly.

His wife however resented Tracy, no
matter how much he'd tried to get her to use the girl too. That was annoying,
Tracy wasn't a lover, she was a relief valve. Someone to get his rocks off
whenever he was in the mood... and his wife wasn't around. She unfortunately
didn't see it that way and was growing ever snippy about it.

“Sir, um...”

“Hmm?” he looked at Nelson. “Sorry,
thinking of something else,” he said, shooting a glance at the secretary's open
front. Trace blushed ever so slightly and squirmed, but made no effort to
button up. She'd had her knuckles rapped the last time she had done that.

“The economic downturn sir...” Nelson
supplied.

“What about it?” he demanded. “There isn't
much we can do about it, not with things the way they are,” he growled.

“There may be a few things we can do to
offset it sir. Tax incentives to the proper parties, perhaps a tax holiday to
investors? A repeal of the tax on the upper income brackets...”

Walker scowled. He knew where that was
going, someone somewhere wanted more change in their pockets. He didn't
disagree with them, but there were enough charities in the system now to use as
tax write offs. And they said there was corruption and graft in government! One
charity ball and a couple eye opening discussions with Nelson had been enough
to convince Walker that all the charities were schemes pure and simple. 90
percent of the charity ball, where it cost over 50,000 credits a plate to
attend had gone to the people organizing the event, not to the charity it had
been arranged for. And the damn thing had to be attended by Walker and his
wife, they had to put in an appearance to rub elbows with the true movers and
shakers in the system. That had been an annoying evening.

“The admiral's apparent survival is good
sir. If he came back, things would turn around again right?” Nelson asked.

“Damn right they would! And once I had
the key's I'd kick him out the nearest airlock!” Walker growled.

Tracy winced and bit her lip but didn't
say anything. Instead she tapped her stylus against her bottom lip lightly.

“If he came back, if, things would be
different,” Walker growled. He turned to Nelson. “Have Miss Persephone and her
team on standby.”

“Sir, a full merc group? We don't know
where the admiral went right?” Nelson asked, looking at Gerald Long, the
senator sitting in a chair nursing a scotch. Long shrugged.

“Just do it. Have a small ship standing
by as well.” Slowly the governor smiled. “You know, the navy has that health
and welfare check up right? Have the ship run through the navy first, let the
navy pay to check the ship over and then the crew can fix it up while they
wait.”

“Yes sir. Funds?”

“Get a line from the Capital colony
budget. Call it something under the table so it won't arouse suspicion if they
ever get an audit going,” Long said.

“They won't audit, they wouldn't dare,”
Walker growled.

Long gave him a long look. “You'd be
surprised what those uppity bastards can do these days. We're holding on by a
thread in both houses you know. I've steered four blue ribbon investigation
panels away from you and our friends, but it's getting tighter. Throw in media
hounds actively trying to pull us down...” he grimaced and shrugged.

Walker scowled. One of the things he
hated the most about the new constitution was the first amendment guaranteeing
free speech. “The damn media,” he growled.

“At least they've gotten part of the
story of Destiny out sir. Before we were still getting second and third hand
rumors from our sources,” Nelson reminded him.

“True,” Long replied with a nod. “They
had quite the adventure. Their return was surprising,” he admitted. He, like
Walker and some of their fellows were unhappy about the adventures the
freighter Destiny had had taking the admiral into exile. They would have much
preferred it all blow over, but now that it was out in the open they had found
out that the navy was indeed investigating the assassination attempts and
sabotage... which made them squirm even more.

Walker had traced the major sources of
sabotage to the speaker's door. When he had found out he'd been infuriated...
and relieved that she'd taken care to cover her tracks so carefully. He'd had
to clean up only one loose end. But he was glad the bitch was dead, she couldn't
blackmail him with the threat of exposure.

“Irons was busy. Agnosta, Briev,
Triang...” Long said, looking at the report on his tablet before he dropped it
back into his lap. “He's definitely cleared the way for the military to go to
Agnosta. What are we going to do about that?” he demanded.

“Cross that bridge when we get there,”
Walker said absently, sitting in his chair.

 “Everything was looking up until
that damn bitch ran Irons out of the system. Now we're screwed. Back to where
we started.”

“Not quite sir, but close. The navy is a
bright spot.”

Gerald snorted. “One of our few ones.
Any luck with getting them sorted out?” he asked. He was one of the senators
who not only supported Walker, he also had started to fill the power vacuum the
others had left after the speaker had died. He was a mediocre conspirator, with
enough brains to work things out, and just enough of a trust thing going to
keep with the group. He didn't go off half cocked like some did, trying to
assassinate Irons after he'd left.

Walker grimaced. “No, that's still a
thorn in my side.”

“One that needs to be dealt with.”

“I hate to say it, but we need Irons
back. He may have been an idealistic pain in the ass but he got the job done.”
Entirely true, Walker thought. Irons had worked miracles when he'd been here.
After the admiral had left Walker had watched the media attention of his
leaving. He'd even watched the Knox special, the one on the admiral's
anniversary of his exile. He'd thought at first he'd watch it to gloat, but in
the end it had opened his eyes to what Irons had done... and what he'd planned
to achieve. After that segment had aired he'd taken another hit in the polls
and he'd gotten a bit of flack from it for weeks.

The way things were going he was
perilously close to a recall election, or so his publicist kept telling him. He
wasn't so sure, but he knew he had to figure something out, something soon.

“Right, I know. But He was...”

“Are they still planning on that asinine
base in Agnosta?”

“Yes. Don't remind me,” the governor
replied, rubbing his brow and closing his eyes. A base in Agnosta would put the
navy out of his control. Then again it wasn't like they were under his control
right now were they?

“Are they going to jump? To move to
Agnosta? Leave us high and dry?”

“I doubt it, some of those ships are
still in pieces. Others can't be rebuilt or finished due to lack of parts.
They're in the same boat we are.”

“Just better off.”

“In some ways yes. But we still hold the
moral high ground here.”

“Do we? Sometimes I'm not so sure. We're
polling dead even now, and every time they respond to a crisis they get an
uptick. Our friends in the media are eroding it, but they still have a bit of a
better outlook each time. And our negative publicity is starting to generate a
backlash.”

“Oh. Ouch.”

“Yeah.”

“We've got to do something...”

...*...*...*...*...

Jethro had a bar session with Hurranna,
Asazi, Gusterson, and the Tauren Ox later that evening. The white liger Sergei
was busy training to be a mortar maggot but would be around shortly, or so he
promised. Letanga, Jethro's leopard cousin was on shift, and the Gunny was off
in another noncom meeting.

Hurranna was her usual smart ass small
self. She was a lynx, they'd known each other in passing when they were growing
up, her, Jethro, Letanga, and Sergei. All four of them were members of the
Anvil cat clan, a local gang on the Anvil station. Now the gang had split up
and reformed, some of its members had gone to work, some had left the system on
Destiny. Many of the combat members had followed in the 4's footsteps and
gotten into the military, all with mixed results.

Asazi was their token human, a
heavyworlder. She'd been a bodyguard and professional fighter before the
admiral had put the call out and reformed the navy and the Marines. Now she was
one of their shooters.

Gusterson was one of two Neodogs on the
squad, but unlike the Neo-Doberman Gunny and the rest of the squad, Gusterson
was a navy medic. The greyhound was good at his job, patching the others up
when they tangled with pirates in Agnosta.

Ox was massive. He barely fit on the bar
stool, Jethro could imagine the thing groaning under the weight. Whoever had
designed the thing should receive a medal. He didn't envy anyone who sat on it
after Ox did though. Ox weighted in at over 900 kilo's. 300 kilos More than
Sergei. And like Sergei, a lot of that weight was muscle. Ox was the last
member of his species in the system, and possibly the last in the known galaxy.
He had every right to be depressed about that, but instead he cheerfully dived
into whatever project was in front of him. Like all Taurens he was a tech
weenie at heart.