Starbase Human (38 page)

Gāo’s lips thinned, pulling on that mustache and making his face look puffy.

“Attacking the Alliance makes no sense from any corporation’s perspective,” he said. “The corporations, in particular, benefit from the Alliance’s existence. It enables the corporations to do business in places that normally would be closed to them. And we both know that corporations are about profit, not about politics.”

“Unless politics interfere with profit,” she said.

“But the Moon’s governments were too loose for that,” Gāo said. “They were only just uniting.”

He shook his head.

“I need your help,” she said. “I do not think on these large political scales.”

She was astonished at how easily the lie came, even to her old friend.

“I would like to know about long-standing dissident groups, organizations that have been a thorn in your side and in the side of the Alliance for generations. I would also like to know about opposition groups that have existed for more than a century.”

She kept her voice calm. Gāo watched her, a slight frown on his face.

“I would also like to know if you are seeing positive chatter about the Moon attacks—groups that believe them good,” she said.

He didn’t appear to be listening closely. He was still thinking of something.

“Odgerel,” he said, “you realize that attacks on this scale cost a fortune. There would be a financial trail.”

“Yes,” she said.

“I could see which organizations have the largest coffers,” he said.

“That would help,” she said. “Although we could pull in our forensic accounting division, if you would only point us in the right direction.”

Gāo shook his head slightly.

“I don’t like this, Odgerel,” he said, and she felt a stab of worry. He didn’t like that she had contacted him? Had he seen through her efforts to get the agencies to help her, outside the system?

“If,” he said, “this is an organized campaign, from a group inside the Alliance bent on destroying the Alliance—”

She straightened her back as subtly as she could. Something in his tone told her to brace herself.

“—then we don’t have much time. Because they have put a long-standing plan into action, and that means—if they’re thinkers, which you believe they are—they will continue on this plan until it succeeds. They will have contingencies. They will know what’s coming next. And we do not.”

She nodded, relieved she had gone to Gāo after all.

“That’s my concern,” she said.

“Finding them, in the vastness that is the Alliance, will take time,” he said. “If you’re correct, we do not have time.”

“Unless,” she said, knowing she had to be delicate here, “we use
all
of our resources. Together.”

He smiled at her. “You have already thought this through, my friend.”

She smiled in return. “Some of it. But most of it, I have no clue how to implement.”

“So you came to me,” he said, “not for friendship, but for my military mind.”

She inclined her head sideways. “I came to you for friendship,” she said, “
and
your military mind. We need to work together, all of the divisions of the Alliance.”

He let out a small sigh. “I don’t know if that’s ever been done.”

“And,” she said, because she didn’t know either, “we have to investigate without tipping off the attackers. If they’re part of a long-standing organization, they might have spies of their own inside the Alliance.”

He nodded. “I’ll see what I can come up with.”

Odgerel clasped her hands together and bowed slightly. “Thank you, my old friend.”

He let out a small sigh. “Let us hope we’re wrong, Odgerel.”

“Yes,” she said, and signed off. Then she let out a sigh of her own.

She did not believe they were wrong at all.

FIFTY-TWO

SOMEHOW LUC DESHIN
had found seven cargo ships within spitting distance of Hétique. The man was a damn miracle worker. One of the ships had even arrived before Otto Koos’s cruiser.

Koos had brought the cruiser and a team of fifty. It wouldn’t be enough to cover the grounds he saw before him on imagery, but those were all the team members he could trust to think first and shoot later. The shoot-first group had stayed behind on this mission, and Koos knew he would miss them.

Deshin had left a lot to Koos’s discretion. Deshin had deliberately not told Koos if there was an acceptable percentage of survivors from this little mission—not among Koos’s team, but among the children they were going to kidnap.

Koos didn’t expect to kill any of them, but given the numbers he was seeing—nearly five hundred, counting the adult handlers, he expected to leave a good three-quarters behind.

Deshin would probably sell the kids when he got his hands on them, so Koos made the call among his own people: babies and toddlers first, under-fives second, and under-tens third. The rest? Bonus.

He’d been monitoring the space around Hétique. Dozens of ships that he didn’t recognize were already showing up. Deshin had told him to expect a good hundred vessels within twelve hours. That had been six hours ago.

And those hundred vessels, Deshin had said, didn’t count the ships that Koos would find in orbit around Hétique, with their teams already on the ground.

Deshin figured at least four of his colleagues would send teams to steal from the facility before the attack, and judging from what Koos saw, that number was probably an understatement.

The only good thing was that the other teams had gone in dark. They had sent shuttles to Hétique City’s private space port and used landing strips that were designed for quick, secret trips by those wealthy enough to afford clones.

Koos had brought ten shuttles so small they could land anywhere. The problem usually was that they often destroyed ground cover.

Here, it wouldn’t matter. The ground cover would be bombed to hell and gone within the next 48 hours. Whatever damage he did would be minimal compared to the damage the attack ships would do when they arrived.

Koos was landing with the first crew. If this were an ordinary mission, that would be a terrible choice. The commander should never lead from the front.

But he had a feeling this mission wouldn’t work out, and he wanted to make the on-the-ground call, not someone else. He wanted to tell Deshin personally that they couldn’t get anyone out, and why.

Deshin had ordered the mission to happen at night, which had delayed the landings two hours. Normally, Koos would have found a way to surreptitiously evacuate the facility, but he didn’t have time to do any of that.

Besides, he figured out that the other teams were keeping the locals engaged.

He’d had no idea until he piloted his own small shuttle over Hétique City. Lights everywhere, and, as he closed in, he saw people running in the streets, screaming, shooting laser rifles at anything that passed overhead.

He had to rise up several meters and turn on his shields to avoid it all.

He flew over the gates to the facility—industrial park, really—and saw that the doors were already open. One lone guard was shooting at people who were running in. Fires burned in the buildings up front, and a lot of black-clad figures showed up on his scanner as a negative image until he switched to infrared.

As Deshin had predicted, none of those black-clad figures were anywhere near the children’s facilities.

Koos landed on the grassy area in front of a playground. The four other small shuttles that came on this part of the mission landed in the widest areas they could find, as close to him as possible.

He grabbed his own laser rifle as he got out of the shuttle, leaving a copilot inside. His partner, Piet Nawotka, slid out the other side, rifle in hand, another along his back. Nawotka also had several smaller, flash-bang weapons, just in case they were needed.

Four other teams of two joined them, and they spread across the courtyard. Koos had decided on the dormitory first. He knew the doors would be barred, with everyone barricaded inside.

In the short few hours he’d had to do research, he’d realized that most of the security in the factory was near the gate and in the buildings with the actual equipment, including the buildings that were currently on fire.

No one expected attacks on the schools and dormitories, so the security here was minimal.

He hoped that the specs were right, but he was prepared for them to be wrong.

The night vision he could access with his chips told him a good dozen people were spread out near the two closest entrances. Which was fine with him, because he wasn’t going in a door.

He was going in the side windows, one floor up from the basement safe room—where he was certain the staff had moved the babies.

FIFTY-THREE

ZAGRANDO ROUNDED
the last corner.

Jarvis waited for him in front of the second cockpit door.

The panel nearest that cockpit was closing now.

Apparently, Jarvis was familiar with the layout of this space yacht.

Jarvis smiled. It seemed like a warm, welcoming smile, but Jarvis had never been warm or welcoming.

He said, “Let me in, Iniko, and then code everything to me. Give me the yacht and the money, and all will be forgiven.”

Zagrando shot him.

Jarvis expected the move and dove to one side.

The only advantage Zagrando had was that Jarvis didn’t want to kill him.

Shots rained through the corridor—not from Jarvis or Zagrando. Someone else was here, and Zagrando did not have the opportunity to get out of the way.

There was no
out of the way
.

More shots. He couldn’t see the shooter, but the air smelled of burnt wall. If Zagrando focused on the second shooter (shooters?), he would open his back to Jarvis. But if Zagrando focused on Jarvis, the shooters might kill him.

Only they, like Jarvis, were under instructions not to kill him.

Zagrando shot at them, shooting higher than they did. He didn’t care if he killed them.

And then a burning pain ran through his left foot. He glanced down—no amount of training prevented that reaction—and saw a laser burn through his left shoe. Son of a bitch.

He’d been hit.

He swore, turned around fast, shot, and managed to kill the man behind him—the dumbass was bent toward him, giving Zagrando a clear head-shot.

A shot hit him in the right foot and Zagrando would have collapsed if he hadn’t braced himself against the curved wall.

This time, he didn’t look at the shooter. He knew that shot had come from Jarvis.

Zagrando blanketed the area near Jarvis with shots, all along the floor and wall, not caring if he damaged the yacht. His eyes ached from the laser light reflections in such close quarters.

No one ever recommended shooting like that. It temporarily blinded everyone.

Zagrando didn’t care. He kept firing until he heard an
oof
and a thud and hoped to hell it was Jarvis.

Zagrando stepped forward and his legs buckled. His feet couldn’t hold him up. The pain was unlike anything he had ever felt before.

For the first time since he started this thing, he wondered—really deep down—if he would survive it. He had always known he would die, always known he would die
badly
given his work, but he hadn’t expected it now.

But no one shot at him anymore. Zagrando’s nanohealers repaired his eyes just enough that he could see shapes.

Jarvis was hunched on the floor near the entrance to the second cockpit.

Zagrando would have to crawl over him to get to it.

Jarvis didn’t move, but Zagrando shot him again anyway for good measure—or maybe for that helpless clone of Zagrando that Jarvis had taken such pleasure in killing all those years ago.

Jarvis was clearly dead, but that didn’t mean Zagrando was in the clear.

In no way could Jarvis have run an op like this on his own. He had backers. He had supporters. And he had someone on his side powerful enough to hide the theft of a Black Fleet replica ship and to allow it to operate inside the Alliance.

Hell, inside Earth’s Solar System.

Another shot careened down the corridor from behind Zagrando. He didn’t dare get hit again. He would probably faint from the pain. Jarvis’s people, whoever they were, would use clearers and nanohealers just to keep Zagrando alive so that they could get the financial information out of him.

He started to crawl, then realized that—weirdly—crawling required the use of toes and ankles, so he fell to his stomach, back to a position he had used in training decades ago, but never since.

He pulled himself along by his arms, moving his hips to gain some traction, and moved a lot faster than he had a moment ago.

He finally reached Jarvis as more shots started. Even if the shooters had equipment that protected their eyes from temporary laser blindness, the equipment wouldn’t be good enough to let them see detail. They’d see a man leaning upright, nothing more.