Fatal Blade (Decker's War#3) (32 page)

Faint red lights suddenly appeared, and he slowed down to a walking pace when he realized they led away from the churning waters to a flat piece of ground covered by an overhang dripping with riotous vegetation.

He crept under the drooping ferns with caution and then when the soldier who’d guided him in held his glow sticks up in a diagonal cross, he cut the fans and let the skimmer settle to the ground.

A bead of perspiration ran down the side of his face, skirting his left eye, and he suddenly noticed that he was soaked with sweat.

The sound of a hand knocking on the skimmer’s side reminded Decker that they had to get away fast.  Rebel fire might have made the last two militia cars keep their distance, but they weren’t out of the fight yet and would have picked up his trail again when the rebel ground gunners had melted back into the night.

He unlocked the hatch and stepped out, stretching muscles that had come within a hair’s breadth of cramping up most painfully.

“Zack?”

“Yup.”  Decker’s teeth were a brilliant white in the faint light.  “I never thought I’d say this about an ugly mug like yours, Tran, but you’re a sight for some very sore eyes, even if I can barely see you.”

“You’ve got Kari Takan?”

“Alive and scared out of her wits.  She’s in the rear.”

Kinnear waved at a pair of soldiers who then climbed aboard to retrieve the girl.

“She’s our problem now, buddy.  We’ll take care of her on the march.  Are you set for a long hike yourself?”

“Not particularly.  I had to get dressed in a hurry after I knocked some heads together.”

He briefly related the conditions under which he’d been imprisoned.

“We’ll rustle up something for you at the rendezvous point while we regroup.”

Kinnear was about to turn away when a muffled shout came through the curtain of moss and ferns.

“Bogeys inbound.  They might have spotted the markers before we shut them off.”

“The last of my escort, no doubt,” Decker said.  “They won’t want to face their CO empty-handed so you can count on them trying to kill us with whatever they have left.”

“That’s what I figured,” Kinnear replied with a nod at his patrol sergeant, who began chivvying the troops towards a narrow path that wound its way along the foaming rapids.

“We shot both of our missiles at the Tianjin skimmers the moment we figured they were headed your way, but my machine gunner’s got himself a good position up top.  He’ll keep them away until we’re on the other side of the ridge where they can’t follow us.”

The thumping of large-bore plasma fire reached their ears over the rushing water, and Kinnear grinned at Zack, who responded with raised thumb.  The weapon fired a few more times and then fell silent.  All that remained was the sound of the Yangtze River tumbling down from the highlands as it had for untold millennia before the first humans set foot on Garonne.

***

“Your Rookie Trooper and Kari Takan have been recovered by Kinnear’s patrol,” Verrill said, dropping on the bench beside Talyn.  He looked and sounded worn out.  “They’re unharmed.  We should see them around mid-morning.  The patrol is going to march all night.”

A smile of relief touched her lips, and she reached out to lay a hand on the rebel leader’s arm.

“Thank you.  I know what it might cost to have activated your folks for this, but it had to be done.”

Verrill nodded.

“Agreed.”

“If nothing else,” she continued, “the display of strength and the casualties we inflicted on the militia will give independence supporters heart and make the enemy look and feel weak.  That alone is worth its weight in antimatter.”

He gave her a tight grin.

“From the handbook of counter-insurgency, is it?”  Then before she could answer, he nodded towards her cup of coffee.  “If you haven’t caffeinated yourself into oblivion, might I suggest you grab some shut-eye?  There’s nothing left that won’t wait until daylight.  Maybe thinking about the turmoil your partner’s caused among the enemy will give you sweet dreams.”

She drained her cup and rose.

“One of the useful things Zack’s taught me is to fall asleep anywhere when I had the chance to get a bit of rest.  I think I’ll go exercise that little nugget of wisdom.”

Talyn touched Verrill again and then left him alone in the empty mess hall to contemplate the consequences of the day’s events.

His mind’s eye tried to imagine Colonel Harend’s rage and a tired smile slowly creased his craggy features.  It may have been chaotic at best, but this was the first real defeat they’d inflicted on the colonial government and it felt good.

THIRTY-THREE

Decker tossed a flat rock at the clear mountain tarn, grunting with satisfaction when it skipped five times before sinking.  Two days had passed since his frantic run up the Yangtze River, and Talyn had taken him out on a walk in the woods behind the ruined L’Taung fortress.  They needed a place to speak where none of Verrill’s people could overhear them.

Though alien, the Garonne forest had an eerie beauty that soothed the eye and gave the two operatives a rare moment of peace.  Small creatures skittered in the undergrowth, some poking triangular heads through the tall grass to briefly examine the intruders before deciding they were neither prey nor predator.

A faint scent of herbs, both sweet and savory wafted on the sunny morning air, and there was nothing within sight or earshot to indicate they weren’t the only humans on the planet.

Zack wiped his hands on his trousers and sat on the fallen tree trunk beside his partner who was enjoying the warmth of the sun on her face after days stuck inside the cold rebel lair.

“Did you find anything interesting while I was gone?”  He pulled a coffee bulb from his pack, opened it and took a tentative sip.  “Not bad.  Not the real stuff, but not bad.”

She reached for the bulb and tasted it herself.

“It’s what I was putting down my gullet twenty hours a day during your little jaunt to Iskellian.  It may not taste like much, but it works.”  She handed the bulb back to Decker.

“I haven’t been able to drill down into the more heavily encrypted parts of their database, but what I found proves that there’s a lot of money flowing into the rebellion’s coffers.  A heck of a lot.  More than they could ever raise through contributions from the colonists or even the gaggle of off-world supporters who’ll feed the kitty of any organization trying to stick it to a home world.”

“So they have a couple of rich uncles in the Senate.”  Decker finished his coffee and tucked the empty container back into his pack.

“No uncles are that rich, Zack.  Whoever is funding the independence movement has to be expecting a quid pro quo at some point.”

“Evidently.”  He opened a small package containing pastries freshly baked that morning.  “Croissant?”

“Sure.”  She took the proffered confection and nibbled on one end.  “Very nice.”

“From what I saw of the militia, compared to other shitholes on the rim, they’re not suffering for lack of funds either.  The skimmer I stole was almost brand new, not some clapped out piece sold down the line by the Constabulary after they rode it into the ground.  Ditto for the interrogation gear and the weaponry.  The colonial government has some rich uncles too.”

“They’ve got Celeste funding them, remember?”

“Normal pattern is militias get the hand-me-downs from the guard.  They’re not playing with big brother’s old toys.  I’ll bet if I took stock of their armory, I’d find stuff that goes for top price.  That got me to thinking about why Celeste is so keen to hold on to a place that can support itself but doesn’t produce all that much to earn hard export currency.  It doesn’t seem worth the hassle, especially once the Senate gets off its duff and takes a hard look at Garonne’s development status.”

Decker fell silent, staring at the pond while he slowly chewed.

“You heard that the militia has been running rampant through the Tianjin district for the last day or so?”  He asked after a while.

“Yup.  You embarrassed them and made the buggers look ridiculous so they’re working hard to get fear back into the colonists.”

“That’s going to backfire.  It always backfires.  Harend can’t be much of a strategist if he figures it’ll do them any good in the long run.”

“We all have our blind spots,” Talyn pointed out, “and most people lose their objectivity when they’re made to look foolish.”

“It won’t end well for anyone.”  He shook his head.  “I’m getting that sweet, sweet sensation of déjà vu all over again.  Pour a lot of money into a place where both sides have drawn bloody battle lines, and you
will
get civil war.  Verrill’s generous funding allows him to buy massive amounts of modern weaponry and the militia’s getting new toys.  The math isn’t hard to do, Hera.”

“Why all the money?”  She pulled out her water bottle and washed down the last of the croissant.

“That’s the question, isn’t it?”  He watched a couple of small critters cautiously approach the far side of the pond.  “You’d think if Celeste wanted to hold on to Garonne they’d do something smarter than letting the likes of Rika Kozlev satisfy her perversions on the backs of civilians.”

“Nasty customer?”

“She’s what you might have become if you’d given into the ugly side of your nature.  She crossed the line you didn’t and at high speed too.  I’m usually not that choosy when it comes to playing, but just one glance into her eyes shriveled me up.”

“Coming from you, that says something.”  She smirked at her partner.

“I’ll bet her dungeon is filling up with suspects right now and by the laws of probability, they’ll haul in someone who knows enough to give the militia a thread to pull on.”

“And then things start getting out of hand.”

“That’s the typical pattern when it comes to colonial wars.  They start off small and then some get too big to contain,” he replied.

“When that happens, in come the Marines, up goes the system blockade…”

“And the Fleet gets sucked into a quagmire that distracts it for years and earns it new enemies from among the independence-minded systems.  Shit.”  Decker swore.  “That has to be it.”

They contemplated the shimmering surface of the tarn in silence until Talyn spoke again.

“I can think of another possibility.”

“And what would that be?”

“There’s at least one L’Taung site on Garonne – we’re living in it right now – which means that there are probably a lot more that haven’t been found yet.”

“So someone’s trying to fight a proxy war to secure control over those sites?  Why?”

Talyn picked a blade of grass and rolled it between her slender fingers.

“Seventy-odd years ago, so the top secret, never to be declassified report says, the Fleet set up shop on a L’Taung site in the Arietis system where they found artifacts, some of which apparently were still in working condition.  Imagine if the same exists here on Garonne.  The value to whoever took possession would be incalculable.”

“Bullshit.”  Decker laughed.  “Nothing could stay in working condition after a hundred thousand years.”

“What if the proto-Shrehari developed a form of stasis that did just that?  Most of the scientists who’ve been studying the sites found in the last few decades figure they were more advanced than we or their descendants, the modern Shrehari, are.”

“What happened to the Arietis site?”

“It was destroyed in a reiver attack and abandoned.  As a matter of fact, Admiral Dunmoore was there, according to the report I read.”

“Really?”  He looked at his partner, eyebrows raised.  “And why is the report top secret never to be declassified if we’ve found other remains since then?”

“Politics, what else?”  Talyn stood and stretched.  “There was a movement afoot to overthrow the government because of its mishandling of the war and some senior officers were deeply involved, including the admiral responsible for the Arietis site.”

“Oh.”  He frowned for a moment.  “Say, I forgot to mention this, but I think there’s a site right beside the town of Kaholo, where Kari Takan and I got taken by the militia.”  He went on to describe the overgrown mesa.  “Considering that it’s the only pimple in an otherwise flat area and has a top flat enough to land a starship…”

“So you’re saying my theory has validity.”  She smiled down at him.

“I’m saying it has some merit, but I still can’t see how ancient piles of rock warrant feeding massive amounts of off-world money to both sides of what’ll quickly turn into a nasty war.”  He rose and wiped debris from the seat of his pants.

“So you’re sticking to your theory?”  She teased.

“I prefer to let the big brains in the analysis section figure that one out.  In the meantime, I’m more worried about things spiraling out of control around here.  Once the militia decides that they have to crack down the hardest with the mostest and Verrill’s rebels decide to strike back just as hard, the colonists in the middle are going to die in job lots.”

“No arguments from me.”

“So far, neither side has pushed real hard.  Verrill’s still hoping to put enough pressure on the government to come to a negotiated solution, and Cedeno doesn’t want to risk outside intervention because things went sideways and out of his control.  My gut tells me they’re both about to lose control of their respective forces and then…”

He let is voice drift off before continuing.

“As the saying goes, if you make peaceful change impossible then violent change becomes inevitable.”

“Don’t let your nightmares of other times and other planets influence your judgment, Zack.”  She gently touched his arm.

“Those other times and other planets all ended up with piles of innocents bleeding out their last on the farms they’d carved from an alien landscape, not to speak of all those good Marines ending up in body bags because they tried to stop the killing.  If there’s the slightest chance we can help avoid it by short-circuiting the long, deadly spiral into full-out war, then we have to act.”

Talyn shook her head.

“We’re hunter-gatherers, Zack, not knights in powered armor speeding to the rescue.  Our job is to hunt for bad guys and gather intelligence so that the knights can do their jobs.”

“By the time the Senate authorizes Fleet intervention, especially if the rich uncles throwing money at both sides like drunken spacers are political, it’ll be too late.”

“We cannot get involved in this fight without authorization, Chief Warrant Officer Decker.”

“Tell me this, Commander Talyn,” he replied, a sly smile slowly spreading across his square face, “who’s the senior Commonwealth Ground Forces officer on Garonne?”

She stared at him momentarily, then shook her head.

“Oh no.  You don’t get to play barracks lawyer with me, mister.  If you’re the senior ground forces officer, then I’m the senior naval officer for the entire Garonne system and still your superior.”

“So use your initiative, senior naval person.  We’re out of contact with HQ and have a unique opportunity to make sure the mistakes of the past don’t infest this lovely place.”

“If I order you not to, you’re going to do it anyway, right?”  Talyn sighed.  “And one of the first lessons they teach at the Academy is never give an order you know isn’t going to be obeyed.”

“What if I told you I think the Coalition is behind the growing mess here?  Would that be incentive enough?”

She was brought up short by his words and went back through all the intelligence she’d gathered.  After almost a minute, Talyn met her partner’s eyes and nodded.

“Plausible.  What prompted that leap of logic?  Fomenting rebellion on the colony of a planet whose government plays nice with the Coalition, based on all of the intelligence reports I’ve read, is a departure from their usual modus operandi.”

“Cui bono?”  He raised his arms, palms facing upwards and cocked an eyebrow.  “Who, of any group we know, would profit from ensnaring the Fleet in a nasty colonial war on the Rim?  Who would profit from laying the blame for war crimes on the Fleet?  Heck, who would profit from distracting our admirals and generals for a few years?”

“The Shrehari?’  She asked, just for devilment’s sake.  “Some of them are still smarting from the armistice we forced on the Empire seventy years ago.”

“Possible, but my instincts tell me this is homebrewed.  The Shrehari never got a good understanding of how the human brain works, or doesn’t work, as they case may be, and this smells of basic mass psychology.  I’m telling you, it’s our Coalition friends.”

“And distracting the Fleet by setting the Rim on fire gives them room to advance their schemes.”  Talyn nodded.  “Sadly, your theory is probably the right one.”

“It is, and I don’t want to end up serving a human empire controlled by the likes of the late Harmon Amali and his buddies.  For all its imperfections, the Commonwealth is still a damn sight better.  The way to stop them is to stop this war, here and now.”

Talyn glanced at the smooth surface of the pond, wondering how her rough and tumble Marine partner had become a perceptive intelligence officer without her noticing.

“I suppose you have a plan, otherwise proposing to put this planet under your remit as senior ground forces officer rings kind of hollow.”

“But of course.”  The grin widened.  “Decapitation.  Swift, hard and, compared to any other alternative, clean.  I’ve seen how their HQ folks react when things suddenly go to hell.  Lay it on them hard and fast, right in their safe space and they’ll crumble.”

When he finished outlining his idea, Talyn was forced to admit that decapitation had a chance of succeeding.  And if it did, it would bring the Garonne rebellion to a swift end in favor of the independence movement without sucking in a Marine division or two along with a few naval battle groups who’d be better employed keeping the star lanes safe from marauders.