The Ninth Circle (20 page)

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Authors: R. M. Meluch

BOOK: The Ninth Circle
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They got up and walked away to find an unoccupied thicket.
 
Senator Catherine Mays came to Base Carolina to see Admiral John Farragut.
She found him on the baseball diamond, fielding for the team’s batting practice. She tried to call him out of the diamond to talk to her.
Instead, Admiral Farragut told someone to toss the Senator a glove and made her come out in center field with him.
Senator Mays took off her suit jacket, left it folded on the bench. She pulled the fielder’s glove on and walked out onto the grass. She knew to wear flat shoes when visiting her brother.
The players tipped their caps to the Senator.
Catherine took a position beside her brother John in the outfield. She squinted. Admiral Farragut passed her his ball cap. She snugged it on.
John Farragut had the energy of an overgrown boy. There was a true sparkle in his blue eyes, and he was always smiling unless you gave him a reason not to.
Team Carolina had lost its last game. Apparently that was unacceptable and the admiral was making sure it didn’t happen again. Any excuse to get onto a ball field.
The crack of the bat sent a grounder sizzling off to right field, scorching all the worms.
“Cat, you’re acting like you’ve come to a funeral.” John nudged her. A big, solid man, John Farragut nudged like an ox. “They’re not that bad.” He was talking about the batters. “That first game against Norfolk was a fluke.”
Catherine opened her mouth, but John spoke first.
“Oh, for Jesus. You didn’t get a strange visit from His Honor, did you?”
“What? No. I’m looking for sublegal military operations being conducted outside of the knowledge of Congress.”
“Not from
my
base, they’re not,” Admiral Farragut assured her.
“I don’t know whose operation it is,” said Catherine. “But if the room smells like decomp, it’s time to tear up the floorboards.”
“What do you think is under the floorboards?”
A high fly ball skied to left field. Landed neatly in the left fielder’s glove. John booed the batter.
The batter shouted back from the plate, “Up your nose, sir!”
John pointed at his nose. “Put it here.” Farragut hunkered down, expectant, in a mobile stance ready to sprint for a grounder his way. But he hadn’t lost his place in the conversation. “You’ve stopped talking, Catherine.”
Catherine blurted the question, “Is John John running black ops for your boys?”
“No, ma’am,” said Admiral Farragut.
Crack
.
The ball whistled out their way. Got stopped short by the shortstop.
John stood up straight, faced his sister, “And just what in the wide black yonder grew that notion?”
Catherine watched another grounder go foul. She spoke low behind her glove, as if she were being surveilled and someone might be reading her lips. “Someone posing as John John stole an ambassadorial Xerxes from the Italians on Phoenix.”
John Farragut absorbed that shock. Said, “
That
is one ballsy pirate.”
Crack
. The ball soared up.
“I got it,” said John, crowding Catherine.
“Back off,” Catherine pushed back. She caught the ball and threw it to the shortstop.
John said, “On Phoenix. You’re not talking Arizona. Is Phoenix a planet?”
“Phoenix is a Roman colonial world in the Perseid Arm. And don’t tell me you didn’t just dispatch
Merrimack
to Perseid space. You’re out of your theater of operations, John. Are the events related?”
“No, ma’am. You know I am not dispatching a space battleship to the edge of the galaxy to run down a stolen Italian spaceship.”
“So why are you sending your battleship to the edge of the galaxy?”
Your
battleship
. Merrimack
would forever be John Farragut’s.
“Rescuing two of
Mack
’s officers. You want this one?”
Another ball came soaring their way. Catherine backed up to catch it. She flipped it to John, who threw it home.
“Your officers are a little far from deck,” said Catherine, suspicious.
“They’re on leave with a LEN research expedition. They ran into some trouble. Did you ever meet Hamster?”
Catherine thought for a moment. “Little redhead? Sharp gal. Married to a gwerb.”
“That’s the one,” said John. “Hamster and her man reported alien invaders on a planet in the Outback. I also asked Jose Maria to look in on them. He’s closer.”
“No half measures with you, are there, John?”
“No, ma’am—and hold on. Replay the audio. Someone posing as
who
stole a Xerxes?” The idea was so bizarre it had taken until now to register in his brain.
“Our kid brother,” said Catherine. “John John.”
“Someone posed as our brother to steal a ship?”
Repeating it didn’t help it make sense. Just made it a farther fetch.
“Yes.”
“Is he insane?”
“He got away with the ship.”
“Are
you
insane?”
“The hijack hasn’t been made public. It
has
been authenticated.”
“How can that happen? Didn’t anybody check this guy’s ID before he got anywhere close to an ambassadorial ship?”
“There are indications that the consulate did run some checks. Now there are warrants out for John John’s arrest. I’m trying to back them off and bring John John home before someone can kill him, but I don’t even know where he is.”
Farragut’s brows went way up. His first impulse was to protest. Catherine saw the protest stick in his throat.
“Your mouth is open,” said Catherine. “You know something.”
Admiral Farragut said, as if to himself, “I don’t.”
Catherine pressed. “I couldn’t help but notice on the way in—as your guards checked my identity—that your base is on elevated alert status.”
“Just one level above green,” said the admiral. “It’s not just Carolina. It’s a Fleet-wide caution. Just means we don’t know where Caesar is.”
“You
lost
him?”
“I asked Numa to file an itinerary, but he won’t do it. Last time we misplaced a Caesar, you remember where he showed up. We’re just not happy unless we know what planet he’s on. That’s all.”
“John, that is
so not
all. Fact is, either someone posing as John John stole the Xerxes or John John did it. I need to ask you. Is John John working black ops for the military?”
The admiral stared at her.
A ball came out of the sky. Landed in the grass at their feet with a thud.
Boos and raspberries hailed from the infield.
Admiral Farragut picked up the ball. He called back to the hecklers, “That was the Senator’s ball.” He threw it to the pitcher.
Admiral Farragut signaled himself out. Tossed his mitt to the man who came trotting out to take his place in center field.
The admiral escorted Senator Mays off the diamond.
Catherine said, “There’s an international warrant out for John John’s arrest. They could kill him. I need to find him first. But I need to know: Is he working for the military, or did someone steal his identity?” She placed her borrowed glove on the bench. Retrieved her suit coat. “Answer the question, John.”
John Farragut said slowly, “I’m thinking you should be asking His Honor.”
Catherine looked puzzled. “What has Papa got to do with this?” “He came to see me.”
“Oh, Lordy.” Catherine looked toward heaven.
The end of days is upon us
.
And where in hell was John John?
 
The smuggler ship
Villa Grande
was maintaining a lawful sublight velocity on an exit vector from the Phoenix star system when swamplights fell upon it out of the blackness.
Interpol ship 2186 ordered
Villa Grande
to halt.
The smugglers halted and let their vessel be boarded and inspected.
They had their black market cargo safely cached outside the star system, hidden in the infinite dark.
The Interpol officers smelled something in
Villa Grande
’s empty cargo holds, but the something wasn’t here, so the police could not detain them for smelling bad.
The black marketeers were set free. They waved happy good-bye fingers after the Interpol ship.
The smuggler ship
Villa Grande
went dark again and wandered for a while so as not to give away their destination.
“We have a tail,” said the lookout, a man they called Crow.
“Again?” the ship’s captain said, annoyed. Spat on the deck. His name was Maurice. “They can’t stop us twice.”
“It’s not police,” said Crow.
“What is it?”
“It’s a Xerxes.”
“Merde muffins,” said Maurice. Didn’t believe it.
“It’s a Xerxes, and it’s flying a Jolly Roger,” Crow said.
“No, it is not,” said Maurice, stalking to the console to check Crow’s readouts.
The other five smugglers crowded behind him. Last thing you wanted on an outlaw ship was a lookout who was missing his calls.
But the other ship truly was registering on the instruments as a Xerxes.
“What’s he doing?” Gaston said.
“Looks like he wants to come alongside,” said Crow.
“Let him,” said Maurice.
Crow slowed the forward velocity of the
Villa Grande
to let the stranger move up on their port side.
When the instruments said the Xerxes was directly parallel, Maurice activated full portside swamplights.
“Ho!” Gaston jerked back from the viewport.
“
Hell
of a disguise,” said Etienne.
The ship really did look like a Xerxes. Its Jolly Roger stood up stiff in the vacuum.
“Why is it showing a pirate flag?” said Crow.
“Because it’s
stolen
,” said Etienne.
“And they’re
advertising?
” said Crow.
“Amateurs,” Gaston said, and the others sniggered.
Philippe let his head wag, mystified. This was unbelievable luck. Unbelievable stupidity. “Why are they coming to us?”
“They must need help moving their merchandise,” said Maurice.
“There’s always a problem with a heist that big. Where do you go with it?”
“Where would
we
go with it?” said Philippe.
“
We
didn’t steal it,” said Maurice. “
We
can collect the reward for returning it. Probably get something extra for snagging the lot on board too. I hope they’re wanted dead. I’m not even trying to do this alive.”

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