Ephialtes (Ephialtes Trilogy Book 1) (52 page)

“Are you
Anthony Karjalainen?” said one.

Anthony had a
mouthful of delicious buttered bread and breakfast juices.  He looked at
the officer and continued chewing.  He gestured with his hand that his
mouth was full as he chewed and swallowed.  There was some bean juice on
his chin.

“I am,” he
said.  “What’s this about?”

“Sir, you are
under arrest, please come with us.”

The other
patrons of the café were paying full attention now and the low-level murmur
of their conversations and the chinks of their cutlery had faded.

“What do you
mean, under arrest?  I haven’t done anything.”

“Sir, we have
a warrant for your arrest right here.  Please come with us quietly.”

“Let me see
the warrant,” said Anthony.

The officer
tapped at his comdev.  “It should be on your comdev right now, sir,” he
said.

Anthony took
another wipe with his buttered bread and put it in his mouth before he looked
at his comdev.  He pressed the screen a few times and then read,
chewing.  “This is ridiculous,” he said.  “On whose authority are you
doing this?”

“We’re doing
it in line with the statutes of this planet, sir.  Can you please come
with us?  If you refuse to do so we will take you in by force and add
resisting arrest to the charge sheet.”

Anthony was
rankled now and he figured exactly what was going on.  As far as he was
concerned the terrible despot Charles Venkdt was using his security services to
silence all dissidents in his police state.  It confirmed for him exactly
what he had thought; that Charles Venkdt was an evil power grabber who could
not be trusted.  Having earlier had some doubts about his outburst in the
restaurant he now thought perhaps he had not gone far enough.  Maybe he
should have gone with an armed guard and seized control of the government by
force right then and there.  But it was too late for that now.  He
felt the righteousness of the oppressed.  “May I just finish my
breakfast?” he said, with all the stroppiness he could muster.

The officer
didn’t want to make a scene and thought it was worth losing face a little to
keep Anthony placated.  “Yes, sir,” he said.

The two
officers stood by while Anthony finished his breakfast.

The USAN
garrison building on Mars had plenty of conference rooms.  Maya had booked
one to go over the plans for the rescue.  She had her assistant
commissioners, Matthias Schroeder,
Virgill
van
Velden
and Laura
Khadzhiyev
with
her, as well as Bobby and Kostovich.

“You’re all
familiar with the equipment by now,” said Kostovich, “but if there’s anything
you need to know just ask.  We understand this is going to be a simple
search and rescue operation.  The helmets will give you thermal imaging or
infrared if you need it.  There is no power on that ship but you should be
able to find your way around with no problem whatsoever.  Your coms will
work inside and you’ll be able to talk back to the shuttle, which will relay
your coms back to me.  I’ll be taking data feeds from all of you and
combining them into a real-time model of the ship.  I’ll feed all
that straight back to you, of course, so what any one of you knows the rest of
you will know.  The data will be displayed in a 3-D model available
to you in your HUDs.  Obviously, during the mission you will each be
focusing on your immediate environment.  I will be monitoring the overall
situation so if I feel the need to draw your attention to anything I will do
that.  I will be with Commissioner Foveaux, who will have ultimate control
of the operation.”

“There are no
simple operations,” said Bobby.  “Our biggest problem is going to be
getting them to trust us.  Remember, we are the enemy.  We destroyed
their ship, so there’s no reason they should welcome us with open arms. 
Gaining their trust is at the heart of the mission.  They are going to be
in the dark, cold and frightened when we turn up, and we’ll be suited and
booted, with guns too.  We need them to know that we are coming to save
them rather than finish them off.”

“I have
prepared a drone.  The drone will find them and tell them you’re coming,
but that might not necessarily help.  It’s all a question of trust,” said
Kostovich.

“Okay,” said
Bobby, “how do we get in?”

“There’s an
emergency hatch on
Ephialtes
. 
It’s
standards compliant so we’ll be able to dock onto it.  We may need to blow
the locks, but we have the equipment to do that if necessary.”

“Good. 
And the shuttle is ready to go?”

“It is,” said
Kostovich.  “You’ll launch in approximately four hours.  You’ll need
to be at the port in two.”

Bobby nodded.

“You’re happy
with the personnel you’re taking along with you?” said Foveaux.

“Sure,” said
Bobby, “they’ll do a fine job.  How many survivors are we expecting?”

“Well,” said
Kostovich, “
Ephialtes
itself has a crew of forty, and there are twenty-six
commanders on board - one for each dropship and two
substitutes, one commanding officer and one civilian.  So it should be
sixty-eight.  We’ve no reason to believe there were any fatalities,
though it’s impossible to know what’s gone on up there for the last two days.”

“Why is there
a civilian on board?” said Bobby.

“She’s the
designer,” answered Kostovich.  “She works for Helios and she came along
for the maiden voyage.  There were problems with the other ship so she
came along with this one to see if she could iron them out.”

Bobby had an
inkling in his gut as to what the answer to his next question might be. 
“What’s her name?” he asked.

“Askel Lund,”
replied Kostovich.

Bobby nodded.

“You know
her?”

Bobby thought
carefully before answering.  “I know
of
her,” he said, and left it
at that.

The stockade
at the former USAN garrison was small.  Most of the criminals taken down
by the USAN’s army-police were placed under house arrest, if necessary,
before coming to trial or being repatriated to Earth.  Rarely was anyone
considered dangerous enough to be incarcerated and, where no immediate danger
was posed, allowing suspects to remain amongst the general population made
sense.  The habitable part of Mars was an extremely limited area. 
There was nowhere for anyone to run to.  The only people who were put in
the stockade were either mad, drugged or otherwise dangerous.

Anthony
Karjalainen was not used to the conditions he found in the stockade.  His
cell was small.  There was a bed, a lavatory, a wash basin and a small
desk with a terminal on it.  There were high windows, but in order to see
out of them Anthony had to move the table and stand on it.  The view was
not inspiring.  He could see the parade ground and not much else.

Anthony found
himself in the stockade at the most turbulent point in his life.  His
father had just died, which was extremely difficult for him emotionally, and at
the same time and through that death he had become the CEO of a major
company.  On top of that, he was involved in some interplanetary
diplomatic intrigue, and then to round it all off he had been thrown in jail
for sedition.

Luckily he
had eaten well moments before he came in.  After shouting at the guards
when they left him he lay on the bed and closed his eyes.  In an odd kind
of way, he thought to himself, maybe alone in a prison cell was the best place
for him to be at that particular moment in his life.  He took deep breaths
and tried to focus on his breathing, pushing all thoughts of his father and the
situation he found himself in out of his mind.  Slowly he began to calm
and it became easier to push the thoughts away each time they resurfaced. 
The bed was not uncomfortable and after lying still on it for a few minutes he
had fallen asleep.

He was awoken
by the jangling of keys turning in the lock.  He turned his head to look
and saw Bobby entering.  “Hey, kid,” said Bobby.

Anthony sat
up on the bed and leant back against the wall of his cell.  “What are you
doing here?” he said.

Bobby half
sat on the desk opposite Anthony.  “I just came to check that you’re
okay.  You’re okay, right?” he said.

Anthony
looked at him.  “Not really,” he said.

“Is there
anything I can do?” said Bobby.  “Is there anything you need?”

Anthony
snorted.  “Well, I need to be out of this place.  Can you do anything
about that?”

Bobby shook
his head.  “No, I don’t think I can.  I meant do you need any
stuff?  Clothes, toiletries?  Have you got a lawyer?”

“A
lawyer?  Sure, we’ve got Toni.”

“Okay,” said
Bobby, “I’ll get her to come down here as soon as possible.”

“That’s it
then,” said Anthony, “you’ve done your big brother part, now you can go. 
Get out of here.”

Bobby didn’t
move.  His arms were folded across his chest and he looked at
Anthony.  Anthony was looking downward, fixated on his own predicament and
paying no attention to the rest of the world.

“You haven’t
changed much, have you?” said Bobby.  Anthony didn’t react.  “I mean,
this is exactly how I remember you.  Passive-aggressive, truculent,
feeling hard done by.  You haven’t changed one little bit.”

“And you
have?” said Anthony.  “Travel, experience, the army, war.  You went
away a boy and came back a man, is that it?”

Bobby didn’t
reply.

“I don’t see
you sticking up for the family.  Someone has to.  Dad’s not here
now.  I’m just doing what he wanted.  I guess that never occurred to
you, to stick up for the family or to do right by your father?”

“Well,” said
Bobby, “I’m not one for bearing grudges, but Dad never stood by me.  That
was his choice.  I’m sorry it happened that way, but it did.  I made
my own choices and here I am.  I don’t owe anyone anything, and no one
owes me.  So don’t be blaming any of this on Dad.  You’re in this
cell because of what you did and it was your choice to do it.  Now deal
with it.”

“
‘Deal
with it’,
”
said Anthony.  “That’s your advice, as an older
brother, ‘
Deal with it
’?  You know, it’s too bad you weren’t around
for the last few years.  I could have done with some helpful advice like
that while I was growing up.  Thanks for coming.”

“Don’t feel
sorry for yourself, Anthony.  You’re in a lot of trouble and it’s your own
fault.  I’ll get in touch with Toni, but I doubt there’s much she’ll be
able to do for you.  If you need anything just call me.”

Anthony continued
staring into space as Bobby knocked on the door.  After a few seconds a
guard opened it and let him out.

Lucero had
known that one of her biggest immediate problems was the simple fact that there
was nothing anyone could do.  She had resolved almost immediately to make
sure that there was so much to do that no one would notice that fact.  She
had arranged the survivors into four groups and had variously sent them about
the ship on tasks.  One group was tasked with checking every room and
making sure there were no people injured or unaccounted for, and no apparent
damage.  A second group was tasked with bringing up oxygen tanks from the
store on the hangar deck.  They needed to find rope and other means of
securing the tanks so they did not float about the bridge.  The bridge was
now the absolute heart of the ship.  It was the one area with a window,
and thereby the only place on the ship were there was any light.  The rest
of
Ephialtes
was in darkness.

A third group
was in charge of gathering food.  There were plenty of supplies in the
galley, though nothing could be cooked.  They didn’t have the power and
they couldn’t spare the oxygen to heat anything.  Food gathering was an
important job and again the group was tasked with finding a means of securing
the food safely in the bridge.

All the tasks
had something of a teambuilding exercise about them, except in this case there
was actually a nominal purpose to the exercises beyond the team building. 
Lucero hoped that no one would notice that the task was secondary.

Once they had
secured the food and oxygen there was less to do.  There were no more
expected events on the way.  All that would happen now would be the ship
getting colder and the CO
₂
levels getting higher.  Nothing else
was likely to happen, unless the Martians were to attempt a rescue mission.

Lund
persuaded Lucero this was likely.  “There would be no point in them taking
us out with EMPs if they were just going to leave us here,” she said. 
“They had nukes.  They could have used those on us.  The only purpose
of using the EMPs would be to preserve life.  I’m sure they must be
coming.”

“I don’t
know,” said Lucero.  “Maybe the EMPs were all they had.  They pulled
that fancy stunt with the dual speed missiles; maybe they needed the nukes to
take out our countermeasures and the only thing they had left to use on us was
EMPs.  Maybe they’ve forgotten about us already.  Maybe we’re already
dead as far as they’re concerned.”