The Lazarus Particle (34 page)

“No joke, folks,” Dell put in, staving off the inevitable quips about measuring and comparing. “Ohana?”

Ohana stepped forward. “So, how many of you here have flown for Morgenthau-Hale?” She raised her hand by way of example. It proved a lonely count for her. “Okay, precisely my point. These engines are based on top of the line proprietary ultralight ceramic technology. You all saw how I smoked Dell in that mock dogfight. No offense, Dell.”

“None taken.”

“Right, so don’t kid yourselves: out of everyone here, only Dell, myself, and Rishi and his team have any experience with this level of engine tech. From here on out, you are all starting over. You are all officially greenhorns again. Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the members of Gold Wing answered with surprising enthusiasm.

“And it’s not just the engines,” Rishi added. “Everything about this bird outperforms everything you have ever flown. Sensors and targeting are more precise, maneuverability is more delicate, chaff is more effective, and the firepower, oh, don’t even get me started on this beauty’s firepower.”

Dell took over. “Three times as much ammunition, half a dozen torpedos per, even two capital killers ready to be deployed at a moment’s notice. That’s my rig. All purpose. Switch out the capital killers and you get another six torpedos, or go half a dozen torpedos and enough ammo to take on an enemy wing singlehandedly. For bombing runs, strip out the ammo and the tow package and you’ve got enough ordnance to take on a small moon. The entire thing is completely modular. If you can make the quantities work with the weight capacity, it’s doable.”

“Bottom line, all,” Rishi beamed as he patted the Banshee’s nose, “the Coalition is soon to be the premier player in galactic tech.”

“Welcome to a whole new playing field, gang.”

The hangar was literally buzzing with excitement by the time they finished giving the Banshee her introduction.

“So, Dell?” one of his wingmen asked. “How long till we each get to call one of these beautiful birds our own?”

Commander Harm marched in from the neighboring hangar, already fully suited but for the helmet he held at his side. “Just as soon as you stop chewing air and gear up, son. Flight school is back in session.”

34 • TIER ONE

Back aboard Hondo’s ship, the combined brain trusts of Orth’s wayward defense fleet had gathered to discuss the precariousness of their situation.

“Let’s talk about Mr. Wilkes. What do we know about him?”

“Major Wilkes,” Ensign Pruitt corrected.

“Major Wilkes?” Hondo blurted. “Since when?”

“Well, recently, I should think,” Commander Stannick murmured.

Pruitt pressed on obliviously. “Intelligence suggests Fenton Wilkes and party were patriated, whereupon he was granted the rank of major and placed in charge of some sort of cutting-edge Coalition research and development program. Details are sketchy on that part, but it suggests what we all feared: he either reacquired or never lost access to the research he absconded with, and is now using it to further ingratiate himself with the Coalition.”

Hondo furrowed his brow thoughtfully. “How could he have never lost access to it when your people never found anything on him?”

“It’s entirely possible it was within him. He may have chipped himself. That would be the easiest way, but also the most easily detectable. It’s also possible, for example, to digitally encode terabytes worth of data onto a pair of otherwise perfectly ordinary contact lenses. There are methods of tattooing the flesh that are only visible under certain light spectrums. Perhaps he has an eidetic memory. However the method, the point is he now has both the means
and
support to continue his research unabated.”

“Do we know anything more about the nature of said research?”

“We do not.” Stannick glowered, his nostrils flaring. “Maybe if that fool Carsten hadn’t been so eager to torture the truth out of him on first sight, you could have scanned him and—”

“Enough. I’ll not have the dead spoken ill of at my table,” he said, taking note of Hondo and adding for his benefit, “however temporary.” Truth be told, however, Orth and Stannick were in agreement. The man’s cancerous malice had been his undoing. Now Fenton was freer than ever, and—ha!—an officer of the Coalition of Free Planetary Republics, to boot. There was a lesson in there somewhere for men like Carsten.

Of course, men like were Carsten were generally too dead to absorb the meaning once it finally revealed itself.

“Sir?”

“Yes, Ensign Pruitt?”

“I believe there is one option you and your advisors have failed to consider.”

“And that is?”

“I understand the Admiralty appoints one specialized override agent per command, sir. I believe they are known as ‘Tier One.’”

Hondo was the first to laugh, but not the last. “Tier One? More like Tier None. Kid, c’mon. You really think the Admiralty has some super secret internal agent planted within every command reporting back to them? That’s all just warmed-over scuttlebutt; a corporate legend. The sort of thing officers say to each other over too many drinks on shore leave and pretend not to remember the next day. I mean, it’s so—”

“—Implausible,” Commander Orth provided with a knowing nod.

“Exactly!” Hondo agreed, misinterpreting the meaning behind Orth’s nod.

Orth steepled his fingers before him, turning to address Ensign Pruitt directly. “Show me.”

“Sir.” Lifting his chin just so, as if speaking to the ceiling, Pruitt said, “OverCom, initiate and recognize Creator.”

The moment passed in silence. The slightest hint of a smirk was beginning to play on Hondo’s thick lips when from above came the acknowledgement Pruitt was waiting for.

“Override: Command Interrupt Protocol initiated. Greetings, Ensign Daniel Pruitt. How may I serve you?”

“Address me by my true title, OverCom.”

“Very well. Greetings, Special Envoy Daniel Pruitt, Tier One of the Admiralty Internal Envoy Service. How may I further serve you?”

“Hold.”

“Holding.”

The silence that followed seemed almost to stretch indefinitely. Hondo’s nascent smirk had completely deflated into slack-jawed embarrassment.

“Let us be clear on one point, Special Envoy Pruitt,” Commander Orth finally said. “I will not bow and scrape to you and your Admiralty masters. Nor will I surrender my command.”

“Neither would be expected of you, sir. My reports to the Admiralty have been nothing but glowing. I remain under your command by virtue of your rank. Special envoy status does not supersede the chain of command.”

“He’s lied to you countless times before, sir,” Hondo retorted. No doubt he was attempting to recover some of the considerable face he had just lost. “How do you know he isn’t lying now?”

“He has not lied, nor does he need to now. He could grind your ship to a halt at a whim, if my understanding of the tech at his command is correct.”

“Sir,” Pruitt said, nodding once. “Shall I demonstrate?”

“Not necessary.” Orth sized up Pruitt coolly. “What assistance are you able to provide us, Special Envoy?”

“OverCom?”

“Yes, Special Envoy Pruitt?”

“Access the confidential research files of one Fenton James Wilkes and his team. You’ll more than likely find them in the deepest and most classified levels of the corporate servers.”

It took several seconds for the soothingly programmed voice to respond.

“The files you requested are not only highly classified but also heavily encrypted. To access them would be in violation of—”

“Access them on my authority. You should find it all in order."

“Very well. It will take approximately six hours to decrypt and temporarily declassify the files. Shall I proceed, Special Envoy Pruitt?”

“Proceed.”

“You may enter.”

“Commander,” Pruitt said, assuming a formal stance. “If I may explain, sir.”

Orth lifted his hand. “You need not explain yourself, Special Envoy.”

“Sir?”

“We all have our masters to serve. I will not begrudge you your duty.”

“I appreciate that, sir.”

“Have a seat, if you would.”

Pruitt nodded cautiously. Not surprisingly, he did as suggested.

“Tell me how you came to be Tier One, Daniel.”

Whether it was the informal use of his first name or simply the request itself, Pruitt was clearly taken aback.

“This is no inquisition, I assure you. Tell me what you can. Tell me about yourself. There’s obviously much I don’t know. I would correct that.”

“We’re chosen from the low families based on aptitude and ability,” Pruitt offered after a moment of quiet reflection. “I was selected when I was six. I’ve not seen my family since.”

“Elevation comes with a price.”

“Always, sir. Originally we hailed from Litos IV. After my selection, however, the Admiralty arranged to move them to Litos Prime by way of recompense.”

Interesting. The lad’s dossier declared him to be of Litos Prime. Litos IV, one of its moons, was a mining colony, if Orth recalled correctly, and not one particularly well heeled, either. But then mining colonies rarely were. Few born into such a place would find opportunity outside the mines or the colony’s brothels. Had it not been for the Admiralty, the trajectory of Pruitt’s life would have taken a vastly different arc. A lucky thing, as he had neither the frame nor the bearing necessary to endure a lifetime of such backbreaking labor. More than likely he would have wound up in one of the brothels catering to less pleasant appetites. How that favor might manifest against Pruitt’s supposed sworn allegiance remained to be seen.

“Go on.”

“The training is more rigorous than words can do justice,” he said. He explained that the process began immediately upon selection and lasted well into adolescence. Fewer than a quarter of those initially selected in any one year would go on to complete the training; fewer still would be permitted to join the ranks of the special envoys. By age sixteen the cream of the envoy crop would have already undergone a decade’s worth of the finest military and intelligence training Morgenthau-Hale had to offer, as well as a grueling battery of tests designed to tax recruits’ physical and emotional limitations to the fullest. Over the next four years, each recruit underwent highly targeted training in the specialization that was to serve as their cover upon being embedded within their assigned command. The most common specialization, for obvious reasons, was command staff operations. During this period they also learned to operate the interrupt protocols that could, given the necessity, seize operational control of any vessel or station’s command functions. This, ostensibly to prevent a rogue captain or commander from acting against Morgenthau-Hale’s corporate interests. Pruitt assured Orth that no special envoy in Tier One history had ever abused his authority for personal gain.

Privately, Orth doubted a Tier One envy would admit to anything less than absolute and unswerving loyalty. Yet here was Pruitt, divulging his true masters’ greatest secrets to the very animal he was sworn to thwart. For three years Pruitt had served him diligently, without flash or fanfare, but likewise without any great failures or blemishes on his part. For three years he had deceived him expertly, a true testament to the thoroughbred indoctrination of the Admiralty. Somewhere between those two extremes, he suspected, lay the lad’s true motivations.

“I feel you still have not been entirely honest with me, Daniel.”

“I’ve answered every question you’ve asked as truthfully as I can, sir.”

“True.” Orth nodded. “That much I believe. Yet you have neglected to answer the one question I have not asked.”

“Atonement,” he finally said.

“Atonement?”

“As I said, sir.”

An intriguing answer. Orth narrowed his eyes, trying to read the inscrutable young man before him. “I’m afraid I don’t follow,” he was finally forced to admit.

“I feel an obligation to those we lost, Commander. I feel…” Pruitt hesitated. “I feel a personal stake in the events that led to our present situation.”

Like dominos falling in reverse, the events Pruitt spoke of finally lined up in Orth’s mind’s eye. How the Tyroshi were misled into launching a punishing bombardment on his own station. How the Free Planetary Irregulars acquired access to and used his stolen yacht to deliver a high-yield nuclear device right into the midst of the Kerikeshaala fleet. How a visiting pilot without the voiceprint authority to operate his personal yacht could have used the vessel to spirit a fugitive, an advocate, and a huntrex free of their impending fates.

How, indeed.

The answer sat squarely before him.

“You allowed them to escape,” he said, the words landing in the no man’s land between a statement and a question.

Pruitt opened his mouth to deny the charge but fell just short of following through.

“Did you or did you not use your interrupt protocol to facilitate the escape of Fenton Wilkes, Roon McNamara, and Xenecia of Shih’ra, as well as the abduction of Ensign Ohana Cassel and theft of my own personal yacht?”

“Commander…”

“It is a simple question, Special Envoy.”

“But not one with a simple answer, sir.”

Orth raised a brow questioningly. Invitingly.

“She was under duress,” Pruitt finally relented. “The huntrex was going to kill her because she couldn’t provide them access to your yacht.”

“… Ensign Cassel?”

Pruitt nodded, eyes downcast.

So. Things were starting to make sense after all. “Go on.”

“We met during the final two years of my training. My cover training. We grew close, but because of my commitments I couldn’t…” He paused, sighing heavily. When he continued, he was clearly speaking of a much more recent past. “I couldn’t watch that happen to her. I couldn’t watch her die.”

“I understand, Daniel.”

“But, sir, because of my actions—”

“A young woman may yet live.” A young woman—and an incredibly valuable corporate asset. If in fact she were still alive, she would likely possess a wealth of intelligence regarding the inner workings of the Coalition’s military wing. “You had no way of knowing the chain of events that would occur as a result of your intercession. Still, if we must speak on the subject, let it be toward your… how did you put it?”