Rogue-ARC (4 page)

I didn’t want to remember any of it, but I don’t have a choice. Even if I didn’t have a near eidetic memory, it was the kind of thing one never forgets.

The reason I was alive? My daughter. An accident borne and born of a huge error on my part. I was still alive because she was innocent and needed the best protection possible. As she got older, the old self-hatred got to me more and more.

That’s why I’d changed my name, I realized. Ken Chinran never came back from Earth. He died with the rest.

Now he had to be reborn.

Perhaps he could end with an honorable death.

CHAPTER 2

The next morning,
I forced myself awake. I’d slept a tortured sleep, with undefined bad dreams and twitches at every sound. Some things mark you for life. I’m marked enough by Earth that I have to have city noise to be comfortable, and my hindbrain panics when it stops. Of course, some noises sound like threats.

I ate a couple of bites of cheese, didn’t bother showering as I was going to be getting filthy in dust. Hard work with the machines makes me feel good, and I had enough contracts.

Andre always wondered about my low profile. I lived simply, owned the building through a combination of scavenged military funds left from Earth, savings and lots of long days. I didn’t need a lot of income, and didn’t need to expand. That kept me out of sight and safe. I lived upstairs, worked downstairs, and kept everything Spartan and simple.

I walked quietly downstairs, though Chel had long since left for school. It was habit. I’m only noisy when I decide to be, and was very soft footed even before training.

Naumann’s card was still on the desk. It read “Alan David” with no last name, and had a contact code. I sent him a brief note with a fake name and appointment time for 30 segs. I wanted him to have to rush.

Out in the shop, I powered up a pantographic coordinate mill and gave it a pattern to work from. I watched it cut and twist and shave, following whatever pattern its AI found to cover the entire surface of the model as efficiently as possible.

While I meditated to crumbling chips and peeling shreds, a woman walked in. Decent looking in the angular style, dressed in business casual—white tights and sleeveless turquoise tunic with a coat draped. She had dark collar-length hair with a chestnut tinge restrained with a band, sharp shoulders and oval hips. She was lighter-skinned than typical, faintly olive rather than tanned or dark. Pert. Cute. Small. She might mass 65 kilos and wasn’t over 165 cm. She had a bearing that told me at once who she was. That and a doccase.

“I’m Dan Lockhart. Can I help you?” I asked.

“I’m Cynthia Charles. I’m looking for a Kenneth Puvalis,” she said, giving the name I’d provided. Yes, she was my assistant. I should have been happy. I wasn’t. Naumann had set me up with a woman who was no doubt competent, would blend in most places, and was very pretty. It was that last part that made me suspicious. Why pretty? Luck of the draw, or did he have plans to hold her over me? And even after all these years I wasn’t keen on attractive woman as assistants. Call it a psychological issue.

Actually, that’s exactly what it was. She had poise, exuded confidence and competence, and that was why she was here. My own nerves were the problem, not anything or anyone else. Still, I coded the door for “OPERATING” and turned back to her.

“That’s me,” I admitted. “And you are?”

“Sergeant Instructor Silver McLaren. I suppose I’m reporting for duty.” She handed over the case. I didn’t waste time checking it. It would have the cash I asked for.

“Good,” I said. “I never want to hear that name or rank again. Did our employer brief you?”

“Painfully,” she admitted. “It doesn’t sound like a fun gig.” She looked me over. I could tell she wasn’t very enthusiastic, and my terseness wasn’t helping her. That wasn’t my problem right now.

“It never is,” I said. “Did you volunteer? Or were you persuaded?”

She thought about that for a moment. “I did volunteer, but I suppose he was persuasive. Good for career, interesting experience, all that.”

“So decide right now if you’re a real volunteer. There’s no turning back.” Oh, shit, I hated this. It was dàjá vu of forming Team Seven. Come with me, kid, it’ll be a hoot! Trust me. Big rewards if you survive.

“Oh, I’ll do it,” she said. “That’s why I enl . . . signed up. This is just different from what I expected.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “Get used to strange things quickly. Did he tell you I’m not real keen on the mission?”

“He sort of intimated that, yes. And told me of your background,” she added.

“Yes?” I prompted. There was a question hanging.

“Nothing,” she said.

“You want to know what it’s like to kill billions of people and why I’m still sane afterwards,” I told her. “If we’re going to work together, we need mutual honesty. What you like to eat, how you feel, what type underwear you wear, everything.”

“Okay,” she said. “So what was it like?”

“It was terrifying and revolting beyond words. And I haven’t yet decided if I am sane. What type underwear?”

She looked startled, smiled faintly and said, “Blue Wicklon thong today. Is that a hint as to how personal such questions are?”

“Score one,” I said. “I’m deranged, prone to nightmares and violence, resentful, morose and old inside if not outside. We’re going to track down one of my friends and kill him for the sin of competence in the free market, for killing people who most likely deserved to die. If he finds us first, we die. If we get caught, we get nailed under whatever local laws we have. That could be Mtali or Earth. Mtali would be disgustingly unpleasant for you; they don’t like women. Earth would be lethal; they don’t like Freeholders or our type specifically.” I didn’t say “Special Warfare.” “If you can handle all that, we have a job. If not, say so now.” My face was in a slight snarl from stress, and I left it there. I needed to see how she reacted.

“It’s a job,” she said, though I heard the last word as “mission.” She was handling cover fairly well. “I can handle it.”

“Right,” I said, taking that as intent. I wanted proof, though. And I needed to know how she’d hold up. We could get departure orders tomorrow. Or right now. “Tell me your training and experience.” I still hadn’t asked her to sit down. We were standing between two of the mills, not visible from the door. She let herself stand with her back to the door, though. Not a good sign.

She took a slight breath and said, “I started in Field Improvised Electronics, which I maxed. From there, I took supplementals in Mechanical, Explosives and Demolition, and Cover and Intelligence Assets. I got eighty-five percent on the test for E and D. The rest I maxed. I was teaching Mechanical until I got detached for this. I’ve been to the Operative Support Course and Blazer Field Support Course.”

“Service time? Duty stations?” I prompted.

“Five years, three months. I did a detached tour at the Lab on Gealach, a tour with Second Special Warfare Regiment and a Temp at the Hirohito Embassy.” Her presentation was confident and smooth.

I waited as she matched my stare. The seconds stretched out. She twitched first, that tiny signal that says confidence has cracked.

“And what else?” I asked.

“That’s my career, sir,” she said.

There was just a hint of defensiveness in there, and I went at it with my attitude as a pickaxe.

“So, a bunch of nothing,” I said, sounding disgusted. It wasn’t as bad as that, but she was a bit cocky about a career that included no combat. I had to hit that right now.

“I wouldn’t call it ‘nothing,’ sir,” she said.

“I would,” I said. “Labs, training exercises and diplocrap. Very good prep for undercover stalking. This isn’t a dinner or a clever little gig building a recording device to fit in a corsage.” She started to protest and I continued, “Skip that, let’s see your work. You teach mechanical?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So build me a pistol. Ten millimeter Alesis caliber. Here’s the tools,” I said with a spread-armed wave around the shop.

She looked around, fixed me with her eyes and asked, “Is this a test?”

“Yes,” I said. “My ass depends on how well you do your job.”

“Hmmph,” she said, but turned to the machines. That tunic was cut low, showing off a lot of nicely toned back. “Will standard polymer and metal suffice, or do you want ceramic?”

“Easiest and quickest job you can do that is reliable.”

“All my work is reliable,” she said frostily.

“I’m sure it is,” I said. “It’s not the technical issues that really concern me.”

She was facing my primary prototyping mill, now, nodding in familiarity. She brought up power and started asking it questions. “So what is your concern?” she asked, head turning only slightly over her shoulder and voice raised over the hum of the machine. “You think I’m going to freeze up?”

“Well, you’ve never been shot at before, have you?” I asked.

“Sure, in live-fire exercises,” she said. She sounded proud of it. “I’ve heard a few cracks.”

“Right, but no offensive fire,” I said.

“No. But I’m sure I can deal with it.” I could see the indulgent smirk even with her back to me. It was a nice back, too. Dammit, she didn’t look like Deni, why was she reminding me of her? And she was too cocky, but it was all faÁade. Damned youngster.

“Well, that’s the test, isn’t it?” I said. She was still facing away from me. I crouched about twenty centimeters to get a good angle, then drew and fired. I still had one of those punk’s guns from that mixup that had started all this. I’d been carrying it as a curiosity.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! Five shots, unsuppressed, echoing in sharp cracks and tinny pings from all the metal surfaces in the shop. The first was about ten centimeters above her head. The second went past her right ear. After that, I kept them wide in case she dodged. They tore chips out of the upper wall above the stock rack.

Arms flailing, she came up on her toes, caught herself on the horizontal motor arm and staggered back. She whirled, eyes meter wide in horror. “
ARE YOU FUCKING INSANE?” she shouted.

Well, she recovered quickly from shock. Good.

“We’ve already established that,” I answered her, hand low, pistol pointing at the ground. “That’s not the issue. Now you’ve been shot at. Next time, instead of jumping, take cover. Then consider doing something about it. That’s today’s lesson.”

Panting hard, she leaned back on the work table, hands gripping the edge. “You are off the fucking edge!” she said, sounding terrified. “You are a major space case!”

“You’re welcome,” I said. I kept a flat expression. This was the first test of many.

“I cannot work with you like this,” she snapped. Her face was hard, mean. “You are seriously out of it.”

“And how crazy would I be if I wasn’t fucked up after what I’ve done?” I asked rhetorically. There was an embarrassed silence for long seconds. “Go,” I said with a shake of my head. “If you can’t handle me, you can’t handle our target, and you can’t handle the environment we’re going to be in.”

“What?” she said, sounding as if she hadn’t understood me.

“Go,” I repeated. “I’ll have him send me someone else.”

Raising her voice in anger—or was it from temporary hearing loss?—she said, “I am assigned to this task, I will do it.”

“I thought you’d decided I’m a loon?” I asked.

“You are,” she said. “You are totally round the bend. But the job’s got to be done. I will not quit.”

“Want to bet on that?” I asked. “I don’t. It’s my ass, and I’m not trusting it to a quitter.”

She took a deep breath to steady the heaves she’d been having. “I may talk about quitting, but I never do,” she said. “I was last ass in my company the entire way through Basic, but I made it. I didn’t know how to swim and damned near drowned, but I did it. I had to go through survival training twice because I flubbed the orienteering test. I wet my pants and cried in the Black Ops support course, but I stuck it out. We had a blowout my first day on Gealach and three people died, but I stayed there. I rant and bitch, but
I don’t fucking quit
and you can’t make me.” There was palpable defiance and aggression there. If I wanted her to leave, I’d have to pick her up and throw her out physically. And she knew I could do it and didn’t care.

I couldn’t help myself. I grinned. I had the real core of her here, and it was an honest soldier. Everyone gets scared. Being scared isn’t the problem. Letting the fear take control is the problem. “
That
’s what I wanted to hear. Now get that gun made.”

She looked confused for a moment, then acceptance ran across her face. She shook her head and sighed and got to work, but she kept her gaze angled so she could watch me, and shifted as I did so I was never out of sight.

She really did learn fast.

The pistol she finished a div and a half later was ugly, but certainly functional. I’d given her a task I could do myself, so I could grade it. Combat worthy it was. Without proper tempering and finish it might not last 500 rounds before failures became a problem, but that was plenty for a field expedient.

“Good start,” I said. “I need to plan some stuff. Come back at three divs and we’ll pick up then.”

“Yes, sir,” she agreed.

I left her hanging until she grabbed her wrap and pouch and headed out.

Yeah, she’d probably do. Now I had to get in the mindset of her being an expendable asset. I hadn’t had to do that for years.

Shit.

***

She left, probably to get lunch and a drink or a hit of something to unwind from being shot at by deadly lunatic, one each. I checked on the job the CM was handling, watched it feed a piece automatically, caught the one it had just finished, inspected it and left the machine to run.

Then I drew up plans. Training us, easy in concept, it would just take practice and effort. Locating Randall, that would take intel and patience and thinking. Building an initial kit of ID, weapons, accessories for our pursuit, with a lot of holes because of unknowns, that was her job under my direction. Tentative plans for escape and evasion after killing him, largely blank. Well, I had to start somewhere.