Rogue-ARC

ROGUE-ARC

Michael Z. Williamson

Advance Reader Copy

Unproofed

Baen Books

by Michael Z. Williamson

Freehold

The Weapon

Contact with Chaos

Better to Beg Forgiveness . . .

Do Unto Others . . .

Rogue

The Hero
(with John Ringo)

ROGUE

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2011 by Michael Z. Williamson

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

www.baen.com

ISBN 13: 9781439134627

Cover art by Kurt Miller

First printing, September 2011

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: t/k

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For everyone

who left a piece of their soul

in a foreign land.

INTRODUCTION

It isn’t everyday
a one-and-a-half-year-old walks in and orders lunch.

I mean one-and-a-half Grainne planetary years, of course. That’s two-and-a-half for those of you using Earth standard. Still, it was a surprise.

This curly blonde little munchkin streaked in at a run, heaved herself into an empty booth and sat up straight. She clasped her hands on the table, looked at me from five meters away and clearly said, “Peetzaz.”

She was too adorably cute to refuse. Figuring an adult would be along in a few seconds, I asked, “What kind, lady?”

“Cheez.”

So I dished her a slice of cheez peetza. She accepted it with a huge smile when I brought it over, and said, “Tinks, man.” Mannerly little thing.

I didn’t see an adult. She sat happily, munching it upside down, and making very little mess. She was clean, neatly dressed, obviously no hungrier than any other kid, and had a bottle and towel with her. She finished, put the plate in the trash, came back and scrubbed the table top and seat with a napkin, threw it in the trash, and headed out. She stopped at the door, turned, and loudly said, “Bye-bye!” to one and all.

Startling. It was then I realized she hadn’t paid. Ah, well. She was cute.

She was back the next day. This time she clutched a one cred chit in her hands. She passed it over with a coy smile when I brought her pizza out. She was packing away adult-sized lunch slices, but she wasn’t particulary small, as I said. She had all her teeth, clean. She had clear skin, a bright smile, and was obviously well-cared for except for lunchtime. Very odd.

She paid almost every day, and sometimes appeared midafternoon as well, waving her bottle and saying, “Drink.” I’d ask her if lemonade was okay, and she’d nod her head once firmly and say, “Yes.” Then she discovered “roobeer” and would have nothing else.

Finally, one afternoon, I saw her grab a hand as she ran outside. There was a bag over the arm, typical for dealing with kids. I hurried from behind the counter, but she and her parent were gone by the time I got outside. I wanted to find out what the story was. She was obviously loved, but left alone here and there.

That may mean something else to you than it does me. In the Freehold, it’s not uncommon for kids to run around unsupervised. It used to be perfectly safe, since our crime rate was almost nonexistent. This assumes the kid is old enough to avoid all the nonautomated traffic, which I was sure she was not. After the war, we did have some theft and robbery, and some organized crime, though. Professional childcare is expensive. Friends and neighbors, however, are free. Why did she not have an adult, or older child, or someone?

She began showing up with her bag, too. It was almost as big as she, and even with its low mass, it was cumbersome. She didn’t seem to mind. She brought money every day now, rather than just usually, and one day brought a ten with a note attached that said, “For past meals. Thanks.” Clearly her guardian knew what she was doing. Well enough. She took to hanging out longer, and I began feeding her free again. She would lurk with a pile of napkins, and whenever someone spilled or dropped something, she’d announce, “Uh oh!” and dive on it with napkins, scrubbing the spill and throwing out trash. She also cleared the occasional table and wiped them down. I usually had to redo it, but the effort was worth rewarding. She was too darn cute, and patrons began tipping her. She was obviously the deciding factor between my place and others for some customers.

One day shortly after that I got a surprise. She came running from the dining room to the office, stood in front of me and said, “Shainj!” To illustrate she unpeeled her diaper, and handed me her bag. Well, it wouldn’t hurt me to do it once. “Tinks, man,” she said when I was done, and raced out to wash her hands and wipe more tables.

She was doing okay on tips, too. Her clothes, plain and clean and only about four outfits, began to get nicer and more varied, but not extravagant. I wondered if she did her own shopping, too. Not likely, although if she found the right salesclerk . . .

That afternoon I finally saw her parent. Father, specifically. She ran out, shouting “Bye-bye!” and grabbed his hand. He drew her up into a big hug, and walked off happily talking to her. I recognized him. He was one of the local escorts.

Another note, since your society may be different. Prostitution is not only legal here, it’s a recognized business and highly respected. This, however, was shortly after the war with Earth. The economy was a shambles, and there were far too many volunteers for it to pay well. The restaurant business was good, with traffic recovering and lots of out-systemers, but the sex business was downright saturated. Also, during the war, all the diseases we’d eliminated came back by the shipload. I hoped he was being safe. Especially since most non-Freeholders still regard escorts as trash.

I was getting the picture. He was alone with her. Her mother had probably died during the War. He couldn’t find another job (if he’d ever done anything else—he wasn’t that old), had a local room in the business district near the port, and no neighbors to look after her. He sent her in here, out of the weather and safe and occupied, while he took care of business for whatever few creds he could get. Time was before the War that one couldn’t get an escort for less than Cr250, and that wouldn’t include sex. After the War, twenty-five creds would get anything you wanted some places, and maybe a disease or two as bonuses.

Now, I don’t know how things work in your society, but here, that created a problem. Morally, I should be helping him, since he was working for the best of reasons—his kid. Morally, someone that proud and determined would be insulted if I offered charity. I scrawled out a note, “I need wait staff,” and sent it with her. The reply was, “Thanks, but I’m self-employed.” I got that picture, too. He’d ask for help if and only if she was in danger of starving. She clearly wasn’t. I’ve never met a better behaved, prettier, more cheerful little kid. And she technically was a street-urchin, too.

So I began to boost her tips a bit, here and there. She learned how to sweep floors, once I cut a broom handle off short enough for her. She was too small to steer a sweeper. She would stack boxes and trays, and showed an amazing aptitude for simple tasks. I had music in to liven things up, and she demanded, “Lowd!” so I raised the volume. She nodded and clapped and danced while she worked, seemingly channeling energy straight from some hidden reactor, and customers threw more money at her. Her idea of dancing involved a huge grin, a waving mop of hair, and jumps straight up and down while waving her arms. She seemed tireless. I had to explain again and again that she wasn’t a relative of mine. She even climbed onto a table at one point and danced until it almost fell over. I insisted she stop, and she looked at me with huge, sad, baby blue eyes and said, “Allright.”

I had to meet this kid’s father. I mean, she was too young to say her own name, too young to be toilet trained, and was politer and better raised than most local eight-year-olds. I had to meet the man who was raising her. I gave her a note that read, “Come by when you can. We need to settle the bill.”

Her father showed up with her that night about nine, which is one div before local midnight, ten divs of 2.7 hours each to our day. He was who I thought he was. About fifteen local years, or twenty-two Earth. Good looking, healthy, well-muscled even for our gravity, and dressed professionally. She ran straight in, yelled, “Hi!” and grabbed her cleaning tools.

“I’m Dan,” he said.

“Dan, I’m Andre,” I nodded. “I’m afraid I’ve never caught your daughter’s name.”

“Chelsea,” he said, using the old spelling.

“She’s an incredible kid. You must be very proud,” I said. There was no need to ask. It showed in his face and body language.

“Yes I am,” he admitted. “I just wish her mother was here to see her.”

“During the War?” I asked.

“Yes,” he agreed.

“May I ask?”

“No,” he said. That was the end of that, then. Considering the nukes, kinetic strikes, vicious nano and bio vectors, random gunfire, gang rapes and assorted mayhem the Earthies inflicted on us in order to “civilize” us, I could make several guesses, none of them pretty. Thank the God and Goddess we kicked them the hell out. Eventually.

“So what do I owe you?” he asked. “In addition to my heartfelt thanks,” he added. “I’m trying to find someone to watch her while I work, but there aren’t many people who live in this area, and I have no transport.”

“Actually, Dan, I owe you. Or her, rather,” I said.

“Thanks, but—”

I rode over his protests, “Dan, you see that?” I pointed to where she was sweeping the corner booth. “She’s putting in two or three divs a week doing grunt labor I don’t want to do. She’s good for business, and pizza and pasta really don’t cost much at my end. I figure I owe her for a month at a half div a day. That’s fifty days times six creds a div. So here’s her one fifty. I’ll pay her weekly from now on. My daughter is available to sit when I’m not open, and she charges three a div. Just make sure Chelsea’s bag is full, and give me some notice, and we’ll take care of things. That’s how it is,” I finished, making sure he couldn’t object.

Not only was it a fair deal to me, it was good karma to take care of those who needed it. We had a lot of rebuilding still to do after the pounding we took, and we wouldn’t do it by being selfish bastards. Besides, this man had to have the biggest balls of anyone I’ve ever met to be surviving here and raising a kid that well. Maybe some of the local help, including my second cook, would learn something from it.

Chelsea, now that I had her name, came running back. “Finisd,” she said.

“Thanks, Chelsea,” I said. “Want some cookies and milk?”

“Yes,” she said, nodding once in her no-hesitation fashion. Dan sat quietly, unable to reply, while I dished up a plate of warm cookies and glasses of cold milk.

When I came back, she was on his lap, babbling away in near-English, and he was talking back to her. Not babytalk, just plain conversation, technical terms replaced with basic words. She clearly understood what he was saying. Well, he was no moron, and her mother had obviously been bright, too. I predicted a good future for her.

I caught sight of him the next day as I was cleaning tables outside. He wandered along the street, taking food samples from each vendor he passed. He stopped at Charlie’s and paid for a hotdog, then loaded it with peppers, relish, sauerkraut, mustard and olives. Got it. Ten samples and a cheap sandwich was nutritious if not filling, and as long as he rotated, no one would complain. Certainly not when he had Chelsea grinning in his arms.

Soon after that, he stopped doing alley business and started doing high-end business calls. That paid better, and was far safer. The rate was still low, and the overhead higher—nice clothes cost, especially after the war. Chelsea took easily to evenings, and even occasionally slept in the farthest back booth until he was done.

It turned out he was renting a closet from someone, not quite a flophouse. I can see why he wouldn’t leave a child there. She was much safer on Commercial Boulevard. He pinched money and scraped.

He had a plan. A few weeks later, he had enough to rent a small space, about eight meters square, and stuck a cot and a broken coordinate mill into it, doing most of the installation by shoving and cursing, with me blocking it as needed to help it walk right. The place was diagonally across the street in a corner of a near abandoned warehouse that someone apparently still owned. We were recovering from the war, but it was slow. There are some things that a small, solvent government does better. Borrowing money to build infrastructure isn’t one of them. We knew that when we started, but we stuck to our principles. The Freehold never spent more than it had from Residence fees, and there were a lot fewer people declaring Residency after the War. It was bad for a time.