The Firestorm Conspiracy (28 page)

“Sir, the raptor is ready to launch.”

Rebeccah closed her eyes and offered a silent prayer before replying. “Proceed.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Helm,” Rebeccah’s soul crumbled as she gave the order, “engage the quantum drive and make the jump to trans-light as soon as the raptor is a thousand meters out.”

“Aye, sir.”

The bridge crew was silent and subdued as they watched the tiny craft grow smaller on the screen.

“Engaging quantum drive now, sir.”

May God have mercy on all our souls.

Konrad gagged and covered his mouth with his sleeve as he walked through the empty corridors of the avian transport.

The place smelled like a charnel house.

The trip from the emergency airlock to the bridge proved to be far more unpleasant than he’d imagined. Everywhere he looked, in cabins, and stacked in the cargo holds, he found avian corpses. They were in varying states of decay; from some being a week or so dead, to others that must have died months ago.

“
Evidence
”
the vicious humans slaughtered a ship full of innocent civilians
, he thought bitterly.

After dry heaving at the door to the second cargo hold, he stopped investigating the ship and headed directly for the bridge.

The short flight from the
Firestorm
to the
Wren
went smoothly. Either the ship’s sensors were truly damaged, or Quarl wasn’t worried about a small craft approaching without permission. Regardless, Konrad had no trouble locating an emergency airlock, landing the raptor inside, and triggering the compression mechanism that granted him access to the ship.

Armed and armored, he followed the path programmed into his HUD. Based on the limited schematics available to the UESF, Konrad was impressed with the accuracy of the map.

He approached the main entrance to the bridge and paused long enough to double check his weapons before triggering the door’s mechanism. The door slid into the wall with an almost silent hiss. Still, the sound startled the ship’s captain, causing him to jump and let out a terrified chirp.

“Don’t move,” Konrad ordered as he stepped onto the bridge.

He pointed his rifle squarely at the avian’s chest as he quickly took in his surroundings. Corpses dressed in the transport company’s uniform slumped over the control panels of every station save the captain’s. Like the rest of the ship, these corpses had seen better days.

He shuddered, imagining sitting alone on the bridge surrounded by rotting bodies.

“Sit down,” he said, gesturing at the captain’s chair with his rifle. He closed in on the terrified avian and leaned against the command console, casually resting the weapon across his body. He let the muzzle drift so the gun pointed at Quarl’s vulnerable gut.

“Who are you?” Quarl asked.

“That doesn’t matter,” Konrad replied. “All you need to know is I’m here to witness your confession.”

“Confession?” Quarl laughed. “What confession?”

“The one you’re about to broadcast on all civilian and military frequencies available to this ship.”

“What am I confessing?”

Konrad laughed. “I don’t care, so long as you say your claims of humans in avian space were a lie and you concocted the whole scheme to make money, find a mate, frame your boss, whatever.”

“Are you kidding? I’ll be imprisoned for life.”

“Your life won’t be long if you don’t,” he replied, shifting his rifle slightly. “If I have to leave here without a confession, I’m going to deposit several hollow point bullets in your abdomen before I go. You won’t die quickly, and you won’t die painlessly, but you will die.” He looked around the room. “Rather fitting, don’t you think?”

“I think you’re bluffing,” said Quarl.

Without taking his eyes off the avian Konrad swung the rifle down and pulled the trigger. Quarl shrieked and fell out of his chair, writhing on the deck.

“That’s just a toe,” Konrad stated. “I’m told a bullet in the stomach is exponentially worse.” He kicked Quarl in the thigh and said, “Get back up here. Now.”

Eyes wide with pain and terror, Quarl slowly climbed back into his chair. He sat with his eyes closed, panting.

“Still think I’m bluffing?” Konrad asked.

“No,” Quarl whispered as he shook his head.

“Good. Let’s get back to the plan then, shall we?”

Konrad listed off the points he expected Quarl to cover in his broadcast, pausing to make sure the avian still focused.

“Do you need me to take care of another toe?” he asked when Quarl closed his eyes again.

The avian sat bolt upright in his chair and squawked, “No.”

“All right. Open up your communications channels and start chirping.”

“This is shell-cracked,” Quarl whined. “I never should have taken this assignment.”

“I don’t care,” Konrad replied.

“My boss is going to kill me.”

“Depends.”

“Depends on what?” Quarl asked.

“Depends on how you choose to word your confession. Now I may be wrong, but I’m assuming you’ve got some pretty powerful figures funding this charade.”

Quarl nodded.

“You could name names and try to bring them all down with you.”

Quarl’s green markings faded to a jaundiced yellow.

“But I suspect they’ll never see justice, and they’ll ensure you and any other evidence disappear before word of this reaches the law or the media.”

Quarl nodded miserably. “You’re right.”

“That leaves you with the option of taking the full blame yourself and hoping your patrons decide to use their deep pockets to prevent you from being punished for your crime. After all, you could blow the whistle on them if they don’t help you out.”

A hopeful gleam entered Quarl’s eyes. “Or,” he said, “you could confess to an equally wild human plot to start a war and I could remain free of all blame.”

Konrad chuckled. “That’s not going to happen.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m the one with the gun,” he replied.

“You’re not getting out of this alive, you know,” Quarl said. “They’re gone. Your ship took off and left you here.”

He winced and tried to hide his discomfort from the avian. “I know. I made the choice to accept this assignment knowing the outcome.”

“No, you didn’t,” Quarl replied. “You don’t want to die.” Konrad’s grip on the rifle tightened reflexively.

“They’re gone,” Quarl spoke in a soothing, almost hypnotic voice. “They’ll never know what you did or didn’t do here. If I don’t confess, they’ll simply assume the mission went wrong somehow.” He leaned forward slightly. “You don’t have to die.”

“What would happen to me?” he asked.

Quarl smiled. “Well, I’m sure our military intelligence department would want to have several chats with you about the UESF, its strengths, weaknesses, and deployment plans.” He leaned in closer, his chest almost brushing the end of the rifle. “I’m sure we could find you a nice nest somewhere. Someplace quiet where you could live out the rest of your life, free from fear of reprisals from your government.”

He’d be alive, but the price would be…treason. But he’d be alive.

Konrad shook his head. “Make your recording and I’ll think about your offer. We can always delete the message.”

Quarl grinned. “All right.”

Konrad watched as Quarl almost gleefully confessed to masterminding the entire plot. He listened as Quarl explained how he’d collected the bodies of deceased avians from morgues across several systems, and how he’d bribed prison guards to sell him a few prisoners so the human sensors would pick up more than one life form on board. He described in detail how he’d packed the engine coupling with high explosives, and how he’d paid a flight of raptors to use his ship as target practice. Konrad found the whole speech remarkably convincing.

Quarl made no mention of the avians backing his mission. He claimed he acted alone out of bitterness, citing the expropriation of his family’s nesting grounds during the war as his reason.

Quarl leaned back and grinned at Konrad. He reached out a slender hand toward the delete key and said, “So now that you’ve had time to think, how about we get rid of this piece of guano and discuss how we’ll present your case to the military when they arrive.”

Konrad shook his head and pressed the transmit button instead. “I don’t think so.”

“You shell-cracked fuzz-brain!” Quarl screamed. “You just scrambled us both.”

“Think of this as making amends.”

“But you could have lived,” Quarl cried.

“At what cost, avian?” Konrad retorted. “My freedom? The lives of my crew, friends, and family? My soul?” He’d already sold them out once, he wasn’t going to make the same mistake again.

He stood and moved toward the door. “If I were you, I’d clean up your foot before the military arrives. They might wonder how you came by such an interesting wound.”

“What if I tell them the truth?” Quarl glared defiantly at Konrad.

“After what you just broadcast across the quadrant, I doubt they’ll believe anything you say. Besides,” he grinned darkly, “I’ll be long gone, blown to smithereens. Your military won’t find a trace of me to corroborate your story.”

“Why?” Quarl wailed. “Why’d you choose to do this? What about living the rest of your life?”

“I chose this mission rather than face the possibility of imprisonment by my own people. Do you honestly think I’d choose imprisonment among aliens instead?”

“You’re a criminal? Why didn’t you say so?” Quarl said desperately. “We could have reached an accord. I’m sure we could--”

“Goodbye, avian.” Konrad turned on his heel and walked back the way he came.

Quarl’s high-pitched wail of frustration followed him through the empty corridors.

Konrad shivered as his mind played tricks on him in the cold cockpit. His oxygen supply was almost gone, and the sluggish fog descending over his brain made his reactions slower than normal. It wasn’t until the first raptor fired on him that he realized he wasn’t hallucinating.

“Damn,” he swore as black smoke poured into the cockpit, pooling around his legs.

The craft shuddered as a second raptor peppered the hull with weapons fire. A direct hit on the starboard quantum drive sent the ship spiraling out of control. Konrad hit his head on the steering column, almost losing consciousness.

Engine coolant vented into space, and the coppery taste of blood stung the back of his throat as he tried to bring his own weapons systems online.

He should have activated the self-destruct hours ago, but a desperate need to prolong his life kept his finger away from the button. He’d gambled on no one finding him.

He’d gambled and lost.

The story of my life
, he thought wryly.

The shriek of metal against metal reverberated through his flyer as he bounced along the hull of a raptor that came in too close. The lack of oxygen affected his spatial judgment as well as his reaction times. A cold fog of indifference settled over him.

The staccato thud of gunfire piercing the hull no longer caused his pulse to jump in response. A strange calm settled over him as he brought his mortally wounded craft around for one last sweep. A fighter to the end, Konrad refused to surrender or trigger the auto-destruct while he still had an ounce of fight left.

Three against one. He figured that made the odds about equal. Outmanned and outgunned, Konrad ignored the furthest raptors and focused his system monitors on the nearest target. The avian craft hung, seemingly suspended in space, as he locked his forward weapons on its engines. Fingers steady despite the frigid cold seeping into the cabin, he pressed the trigger.

Through the tunnel of his fading vision, Konrad smiled in satisfaction as his shots found their mark. He coughed on the thick, cloying air as his prey shifted from a sleek metal fighting machine into a writhing flower of orange and purple flame and then into nothing.

The two remaining raptors dove in for the kill. He moved his numb fingers toward the destruct button. He needed to wait until the raptors were close enough to be damaged by the impact of the explosion. His vision darkened until he was looking through a black tunnel at his wavering finger and the deadly button behind it.

His craft shook so violently from weapons fire he could barely remain in his seat. Rationalizing the two ships would come in close for the final strafe, he waited, blind, hands blue.

The proximity alarm changed pitch. There! He firmly pressed the button under his hand.

I’ll see you buzzards in hell
, he thought as his world exploded into white heat and blackness.

Nate fussed with the wording of his report; not because he was dissatisfied, but because completing the document meant he needed to submit the damn thing. John’s death in an ambush proved the veracity of the warning. Without any evidence to the contrary, Nate felt compelled to advise the senior government and military officials to prepare for an attack.

A large portion of his report speculated on the nature of the possible forms the attack might take. He’d devoted a lot of time and energy into preparing recommendations for defensive strategies, despite knowing the UESF would run its own in-depth analysis, and appended a recommendation to suspend all diplomatic talks with the avians.

“Jenkins,” Nate called toward the outer office.

“Sir?” Jenkins appeared in the door.

“Are you sure you can’t find anything else for me to be doing?” Nate asked, as he lamented the poor timing of a cleared schedule.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Jenkins replied. “I’ve tried to reschedule any number of your upcoming meetings, and the Human Resources Department won’t accept annual personnel reviews done a scant three months after the last set.”

Nate sighed, “I was afraid you’d say that.”

“Sir?”

“I needed an excuse to delay completing a project for another day or so,” Nate explained. “However, it seems that fate is conspiring against me, and I will have to sign off on the report and move on.”

“Well, sir, I know it’s not yet noon and God knows you never leave work early,” Jenkins spoke quickly, “but if you were feeling unwell and had to go home, your current project would have to wait another day.”