A Choice of Treasons (3 page)

For an instant Harshaw appeared offended, but he adjusted to the situation quickly. He swallowed once, then spoke carefully. “We’re mixed up in a big power play on the part of some local politicos. For the last twenty years Trinivan’s been neutral, which is just another way of saying its government is loaded with factions that include hard core supporters of both the Syndonese and we imperials, and of course everything in between. But the in-betweens have lately been drifting toward the Syndonese, and the imperial sympathizers are now badly out numbered. And this unscheduled visit of Her Royal Highness was like throwing fuel on an already hot fire. She—”

“Her Royal Highness?” Telyekev barked. “You have a member of the royal family down there?”

Harshaw frowned. “Why, yes. I thought you knew.”

“I know nothing,” Telyekev said. “Following standard procedure we down-transited two days ago to check in with Fleet. They told us you were in trouble and you needed help. That’s all. Beyond that I am wholly unaware of the situation down there.”

Harshaw nodded and collected himself for an instant. “The emperor’s daughter, Princess Aeya, arrived unannounced four days ago with an entourage of about fifty, apparently on a lark. Her arrival aggravated an already bad situation, though my intelligence sources suspect Directorate intervention here so I don’t believe she alone is responsible for this. In any case, whoever’s behind it started agitating shortly after she arrived and brought it to a head two days ago. With the active help of some local politicians, and the passive sanction of others, they whipped up a mob of several thousand supporters and stormed the embassy compound. They murdered about thirty of the embassy staff—literally tore them apart in front of our eyes—and ransacked most of the embassy. Those of us who are still alive are holed-up in the top two floors of the main embassy building. The mob controls the bottom four floors. We’ve deactivated the lifts, and have about a dozen marines guarding the lift shafts and the two emergency stairwells at either end of the building. We have no food or water, no sanitary facilities, no medical supplies, and very little ammunition left for the few weapons we have. The situation is critical, and becoming more so by the hour. And not coincidentally, the leaders of this mob started whipping it up as soon as you made transition, so they’re obviously being fed data by someone in the local government with access to off-planet scanning equipment. Something’s going to happen in the next hour, and when it does, we won’t be able to hold out for long.”

“What about
feddies
?” Telyekev asked. “Are they part of the mob?”

“Certainly there are Syndonese spies all over the place,” Harshaw acknowledged, “competing with all the imperial spies, I have no doubt. But as for any direct intervention by the Syndonese, I couldn’t say. We’ve been able to identify only a few of the mob’s leaders, and they’re all known locals with histories as empire haters.”

“Mr. Ballin,” Telyekev said. “Do you have any questions?”

“Yes, sir. I’d like to know if the mob is armed. And if so, with what kind of weapons?”

“They’re not heavily armed,” Harshaw said. “Not more than one in twenty, and their weapons are a mish-mash of knives, guns, and rifles of all sorts.”

“Any Syndonese issue weapons?” York asked.

Harshaw shrugged. “I wouldn’t know a Syndonese weapon from any other kind.”

“You’ve got a noncom in charge of your marines, don’t you? Ask him.”

“Right,” Harshaw said. “But he’s a she, and it’ll take a minute.” He looked at Telyekev.

“Go ahead,” Telyekev told him. “Lieutenant Ballin and I have to confer anyway.”

York switched off the external audio. “We’re off-line, sir.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant. Commander Rame. Compute a short transition hop into Trinivan
nearspace
.”

“Aye, aye, sir. But it’ll be difficult to be accurate. We’re already within heliopause.”

“Do what you can, Olin. Mr. Ballin, this is a job for your marines, don’t you think?”

A cold knot formed in the pit of York’s stomach. Several months ago
Invaradin’s
marine CO had taken a bullet in the face. Telyekev wanted an experienced officer in command of them, so he’d made York acting marine CO. York wanted to snarl that they weren’t his damn marines, but instead he said politely, “Yes, sir.”

“Very good, York. Mr. Sierka will relieve you at com.” Telyekev looked at his screen. “I see Harshaw’s back.”

York switched on the audio. Harshaw needed no warning. “Corporal Elkiss says she’s spotted several Syndonese issue weapons, though there aren’t too many, and they’ve all been projectile weapons, no power weapons.”

Telyekev shook his head. “Doesn’t really sound like
feddies
, does it York?”

“No, sir.”

Telyekev shook his head. “Any more questions, Lieutenant?”

“No, sir.”

“Then you’re dismissed as soon as Commander Sierka relieves you.”

York’s hands trembled as he punched in a call to the marine ready room. Master Sergeant Mieka Palevi, looking quite bored, appeared on one of his screens. The marines didn’t like regular navy, especially when they had to take orders from them, and the sergeant smiled with a special sneer he reserved for York.

“Sir,” Palevi said flatly.

There was never any small talk between them. “One hundred marines,” York said without emotion. “Full battle kit, plast-armor, and a fifty-fifty mix of radiation and projectile weapons. Short term rations. Hazardous situation, non-hazardous environment. Both assault boats fully manned and armed. Orbital drop to planetary surface, high G, crash priority. Got all that?”

Palevi’s look of boredom changed to a smile. “Of course, sir. Will there be anything else, sir?”

York couldn’t put aside the fact that no one believed him about the
feddies
. “Bring along two portable mortars and maybe a couple of portable rotary blast cannons. And have you got any antipersonnel gas that’s unpleasant but nonlethal?”

Palevi’s face broke into a broad grin. “Oh yes, sir. Some real nasty stuff, sir. How do you want it? Grenades, mortars, or sprayed from the boats?”

“All of the above. And scramble on it. I’ll be down soonest.”

“Aye, aye, Cap’em,” Palevi said, granting him the marine equivalent of his naval rank, though, as was customary among the marines he carefully mangled the pronunciation to distinguish it from Telyekev’s rank. The marines knew how much it bothered regular navy in general, and York in particular.

Sierka sat down in the seat next to York. “You’re relieved, Lieutenant.”

York lifted his hands off the console, acknowledged Sierka with a sloppy salute, stood and threaded his way through the darkened clutter of
Invaradin’s
bridge. He stepped into the personnel lift, cycled the lift hatch shut, and once alone he paused to retrieve a small container of pills from a sealed pocket in his fatigues. High G drop,
higee
drugs, he crammed a half dozen
phets
into his mouth and swallowed hard.

He returned the container to his pocket, growled “Hangar Deck,
One Bay
.” The ride, beginning to end, took little more than a heartbeat as the lift shot him downward at more than one hundred gravities, though the computer compensated the lift’s internal grav field so York felt nothing. But during that heartbeat he damned Telyekev a dozen times for making him acting-captain-of-marines. He was a ship’s officer. He didn’t belong in combat armor. Put him at a console, throw warheads at him that could crack a planet; that didn’t bother him half as much as stepping personally onto the soil of some godforsaken rock so some idiot with a rifle could take shots at him.

The lift door slammed open and York stepped out into service bay
One
. He caught a momentary glimpse of one of
Invaradin’s
two assault boats, appropriately named
One
, then someone slammed his chest plate hard against his ribs. He would have fallen but someone else behind him let him stumble into his back plate. They spun him about dizzily, dropped him into his leg plates and boots, checked his joints and seals. It was a routine they’d rehearsed many times, for he, unlike they, was forced to post duty as both ship’s officer and marine CO, and would never have time during an alert to stop by the ready-room for his gear. But it was more than that; it was a not-so-subtle reminder of who they were, and who he wasn’t. It was an insultingly familiar pair of hands—male or female—touching him momentarily where they had no right to touch him, all under the guise of checking his seals. It was insult, bordering on insubordination, but never in such a way he could call them on it.

Someone slammed his helmet down over his head, and while they were checking his neck seals someone else snapped the heavy reactor pack into place on his back. That done, the marines stepped abruptly away from him.

The suit began its initialization sequence, flashing readings and diagnostic data on the inside of his visor. He flipped the helmet visor up as Palevi stepped in front of him. Like York his visor was up; he smiled and slapped a pistol into York’s hand. “Yer sidearm, Cap’em,” he said, grinning that special grin of his.

York suppressed a snarl, looked at the gun in his hand. Palevi had chosen a grav-gun for him. Its gravity field accelerated a small fragmentation shell up to something over mach one. The shell would puncture armor, or flesh, then fragment. It frequently caused more damage than an explosive round.

York looked at the gun clipped to the sergeant’s thigh plate, a bluish-black, chemically-powered, heavy-caliber slug thrower. Every time York saw that gun he thought of the last marine CO, a desk jockey assigned to
Invaradin
with lots of rank and no experience. The marines had gotten into a pinch on some jerkwater planet and their new CO called
Invaradin
for fire support. Unfortunately he didn’t know how to call in fire support, and
Invaradin
cut her own marines to pieces. After it was over the new CO was among the dead, though oddly enough no shrapnel had touched him. He’d been shot in the face, his visor up, by a chemically-powered, heavy-caliber slug thrower.

York gave his sidearm a quick once-over, snapped it into the clips on his thigh plate without fully inspecting it.

“You had a chance to check out the news yet, Cap’em?”

York looked at Palevi quizzically. When they’d down-transited the day before to check in with
Sector
—and gotten the urgent message to rendezvous with
Nostran
and the
Diana
and
proceed with all haste
to Trinivan—after so many months out of contact they’d also received a standard transmission packet. York hadn’t had time to review it personally, but it would contain mail, promotions, reassignments, transfers, and an up-to-date summary of every newsworthy occurrence since they’d gone out on patrol. “No, Sergeant, I haven’t.”

Palevi’s grin broadened. “Darant bought the farm eight days ago somewhere in Orion. It’s been confirmed.”

York’s armor grew very warm. “Who’s the new SDO?”

“Sadeline,” Palevi said. “She’s on the
Lonesome Star
somewhere in this sector. You know, sir, with all your time on the clock, that moves you up to number two.”

“No it doesn’t,” he growled. “I can’t be SDO because I ain’t no god damn marine.”

Palevi shook his head. “Don’t worry about it, Cap’em. The closer you get to SDO the less likely you are to get shot. The way I figure it, them
feddies
don’t wanna kill you until the reward’s good.”

“Shut up!” York snarled. “Visors down and seal ‘em up, Sergeant. Short inspection and com check.”

“But, sir, we’ve already che—”

“I don’t give a damn. Do it.”

Palevi saluted casually. “Yes, sir,” he said, then shouted orders at his marines. They lined up quickly in front of
One
, their rifles held out for inspection, visors down. Palevi spotted something he didn’t like, did more shouting.

Someone behind York cleared his throat politely. “Um. Lieutenant?”

York turned about slowly, found Canticle Thring dressed in the long, archaic robes of a churchman. York didn’t have much use for the church; among crew he was not unusual in that. “What can I do for you, Canticle?”

The man seemed almost frightened of York. “I was wondering, Lieutenant, ah . . . if any of your people might care to be blessed before going into danger.”

York shook his head, couldn’t believe the man would ask such a stupid question about marines. “Sorry. No time for that.”

York turned back to Palevi and his marines, dropped his visor, felt his ears pop as his suit ran an automatic pressure check. A small square in the upper-right corner of the visor blackened and his suit computer displayed a stylized image of a suit of armor colored in green. A readout next to it told him they’d fully recharged the core of his reactor pack; he was carrying a capacity of well over fifty gigawatt-hours. “Computer,” he said. “Status, physical, execute.” The display on the inside of his visor changed to the silhouette of a naked man. The right knee and ankle were tinted a pale yellow; old wounds, old damage. The suit would keep the pressure seals around the knee and ankle slightly over-inflated to provide extra support, but beyond that, and some painkillers, there was nothing he could do.