Trial by Fire - eARC (2 page)

Behind him, Caine heard a warning tone announce the imminent departure of the maglev passenger car. It would be ten minutes before the next would arrive, ten more minutes surrounded by harrying jackals.
No thanks.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but you’ll have to excuse me.”
So much for my “first command.”
He started to turn back to the maglev car.

“One last question, Caine. Who’s your new girlfriend?”

Ensign Brahen started as if stuck by a pin. Caine turned back around, foregoing the escape via maglev. Instead, he searched for the source of the question, asking, “Besides being grossly unprofessional and misinformed, just why is that a relevant inquiry?”

“Well,” explained Mr. Bad-Skin Worse-Hair as he reemerged from the mass of faces and limbs, “we were expecting to see you with Captain Opal Patrone, your personal guard. And, some say, your personal geisha.”

Enough is enough.
Caine planted his feet, kept his voice level, his diction clipped. “I feel compelled to point out that, in addition to raising a thoroughly inappropriate topic, you didn’t even manage to frame it as a question.” Caine looked out over the faces ringing him. “If there are any competent journalists here, I’m ready for their inquiries.”

The group quieted; the mood had changed. Their quarry had turned and bared teeth. Now, the hunt would be in earnest. The next jackal that jumped in tried to attack a different flank. “Mr. Riordan, is it true that you were present when Admiral Corcoran died after the Parthenon Dialogues?”

Caine pushed away the mixed emotions that Nolan’s name summoned. The ex-admiral-turned-clandestine-mastermind had arguably ruined Riordan’s life, but had also striven to make amends and forge an almost paternal bond. Caine heard himself reply, “No comment,” just as the maglev car rose, sighed away from the platform, and headed off with a down-dopplering hum.

“Mr. Riordan, do you have any insights into how Admiral Corcoran’s alleged ‘heart attack’ occurred?”

“Why do you call it an ‘alleged’ heart attack?”

“Well, it’s a rather strange coincidence, don’t you think? First, you were reportedly present for Admiral Corcoran’s heart attack in Greece, and then for the similarly fatal heart attack suffered by his Annapolis classmate and crony, Senator Arvid Tarasenko, less than forty-eight hours later in DC. Comment?”

“Firstly, I don’t recall any prior assertions that I was near Senator Tarasenko at the time of his death—”

“Well, an anonymous source puts you in his office just before—”

An anonymous source like Astor-Smath, I’ll bet.
“Madam, until you have verifiable information from verifiable sources, I’m not disposed to comment on my whereabouts at that time. In the more general matter of the heart attacks of Misters Corcoran and Tarasenko, I cannot see any reasonable explanation
except
coincidence.” Which was superficially true; Caine had no other explanation for the heart attacks that had, within the span of two days, removed the two leaders of the shadowy organization which had sent him to Delta Pavonis Three: the Institute of Reconnaissance, Intelligence, and Security, or IRIS. On the other hand, Caine remained convinced that the two deaths had been orchestrated. Somehow. “Timing aside, there’s not much surprising in either of these sad events. Admiral Corcoran never fully recovered from the coronary damage he suffered during the mission to intercept the doomsday rock twenty-six years ago. And Senator Tarasenko was not a thin man. His doctors’ warnings to watch his weight and cholesterol are a matter of public record.”

Tasting no blood, the jackals tried nipping at a different topic. “Mr. Riordan, our research shows that you spent most of the last fourteen years in cold sleep. And that your ‘friend’ Captain Opal Patrone was cryogenically suspended over fifty years ago. What prompted each of you to abandon the times in which you lived?”

As if choice had anything to do with it
. “In the matter of the recently promoted
Major
Patrone, she’s the one you should ask her about her reasons.”
Hard to do, since Opal’s on Earth by now.
“But I can assure you that she did not ‘abandon’ her time period. She was severely wounded serving her country. In that era, her choice was between cryogenic suspension and death.”

“And
your
reason for sleeping into the future?”

“Is none of your business.”
And is a
non sequitur
, since it wasn’t my choice.
Caine had simply stumbled across IRIS’s secret activities, which had earned him an extended nap in a cold-cell. “Next question.”

“A follow-up on your long absence from society, sir. Some analysts have speculated that, as a person from another time, you were just the kind of untraceable operative needed for a covert survey and research mission to Dee Pee Three. What would you say in response to that speculation?”

Caine smiled, hoped it didn’t look as brittle as it felt.
I’d say it’s too damned perceptive
. Aloud: “I’d say they have excellent imaginations, and could probably have wonderful careers writing political thrillers.”

Bad-Skin Worse-Hair jumped back into the melee. “Stop evading the questions, Riordan. And stop playing the innocent. You knew that the Parthenon Dialogues were going to be biggest news-splash of the century. So did you also advise the World Confederation on how to shroud the Dialogues in enough secrecy to pump up the media-hype? Which in turn pumped up your consultancy fees?”

Caine stepped toward the young reporter, who hastily stepped back, apparently noticing for the first time that Caine’s rangy six-foot frame was two inches taller than his own and decidedly more fit. Riordan kept his voice low, calm. “It’s bad enough that you’re plying a trade for which you haven’t the aptitude or integrity, but you could at least check your conclusions against the facts. Without commenting one way or the other about my alleged involvement with the Parthenon Dialogues, it must be clear to anyone—even you—that the world leaders who attended were grappling with global issues of the utmost importance, and that the secrecy surrounding them was a policy decision, not a PR stunt. In short, whoever brought information to the Parthenon Dialogues may have delivered a sensational story, but not for sensational purposes.”

But if that admonishment curbed the jackals momentarily, Caine could already see signs that they would soon regroup and resume their hunt for an inconsistency into which they could sink their collective investigatory teeth. And there were still at least five minutes before the next passenger car arrived. Five minutes in which even these bumbling pseudo-sleuths might begin to realize that the real story was not to be found in the storm and fury of Parthenon itself, but rather, in the surreptitious actions that had been its silent and unnoticed prelude. They might begin asking how the mission to Delta Pavonis had come to be, and—in the necessary nebulousness of Caine’s responses—discern the concealed workings, and therefore existence, of some unseen agency. An agency that was unknown even to the world’s most extensive intelligence organizations—because its select membership dwelt amongst their very ranks. An agency, in short, like IRIS—

From behind Caine, the maglev rails hummed into life, braking and hushing the approach of a passenger car. Surprised by the early arrival of the train, Caine turned—and saw that this passenger car was a half-sized private model, furnished with tinted one-way windows. The pack of reporters fell silent as the doors hissed open—

—to reveal a shapely blonde woman, sitting at the precise center of the brushed chrome and black vinyl interior. She smiled. It was a familiar smile.

Caine grimaced.

Ensign Brahen looked from the woman to Caine. “Isn’t that Heather Kirkwood? Isn’t she a reporter? A
real
reporter? On Earth?”

Caine resisted the urge to close his eyes. “She is that. And worse.”

“Worse?”

“She’s my ex.”

“Your—?”

Heather cocked her head, showed a set of perfect teeth that were definitely more appealing—and far more ominous—than those possessed by the half-ring of jackals surrounding them. She crooked an index finger at Caine. “You coming? Or are you enjoying your impromptu press conference too much to leave?”

If possible, Ensign Brahen’s incredulous eyes opened even wider. “Do we go with her?”

Caine sighed. “Do we have a choice?” He led the way into the car.

Chapter Two

“The Pearl,” Barnard’s Star 2 C

It was typical of Admiral Martina Perduro that she started talking as soon as Trevor Corcoran opened the door. “Well, Captain, ready to ship out?”

The admiral’s tone was jocular, so Trevor replied in kind. “Not at all, ma’am.” He attempted to conceal his slight limp with a bouncing stride. “Heck, I was just getting used to the luxury billets here at The Pearl.”

Perduro’s answering grin was crooked. “Glad you’ve liked the accommodations.”

“I’ve always been partial to the narrow bunks and dull steel fixtures, but it’s the weather and the scenery I like best. Poisonous atmosphere, lethally low atmospheric pressure, hard rads due to the lack of a magnetosphere, and not a living cell except for the ones we brought with us into this gray-walled rat warren.”

Perduro leaned back. “Okay, but smile when you say all that, Captain.”

“I
was
smiling, ma’am—wasn’t I?” Trevor glanced at a chair.

“Sit, sit already,” Perduro waved at it. Then, not looking at him: “How’s the leg?”

“I beg your pardon, ma’am?”

“Captain Corcoran, do you really think I don’t get training updates on command grade personnel? Or that I don’t read them?”

Trevor felt a little less jocular, now. “My leg is fine, ma’am. Never better.”

“Hmph. Not what the base CMO said a few days ago. Fractured left tibia, if I recall.”

“Hairline stress fracture,” emended Trevor. “A small one.”

“Yes, but enough to warrant them going in and poking around, evidently.”

Trevor shrugged. “Which is, I suspect, the source of my discomfort, ma’am. I don’t know why the CMO felt the need to get busy with a knife. I talked to the medtech who took the scans. Hardly anything to see.”

“Hm. Is it the leg that’s dented—or that SEAL ego, Captain?”

“Technically, I’m no longer in the Teams, ma’am.” It annoyed Trevor that a chief petty officer had tagged him that hard during hand-to-hand drill.

Perduro was smiling at him with one raised eyebrow. “I’ll be sad to see you go, Trev. Your visit brought a bit of color to the navy-gray of Barney Deucy.”

Trevor stared at the files on her desk, at the screens that surrounded her. Caine Riordan’s name or image was on at least half of them. “Well, Admiral, to be frank, it wasn’t really
me
who brought the color, was it?”

Perduro’s smile was small but genuine. “Don’t sell yourself short, Trev. Besides, being with you is a bit like old times for me. Your father—God rest him—was the BELTCINC when I was a shave-tail HQ staffer during the Belt Wars.”

Trevor nodded, did the math, was surprised that Perduro was that old, considered her very well preserved indeed. “But still, ma’am, I’m not the novelty around here.” Trevor pointed at Caine’s face on one of the screens. “He is. Understandably.”

“You both met five species of exosapients at the Accord’s Convocation last month. That makes both of you celebrities in my eyes.”

“You’re very kind, ma’am. But I just went along to carry the figurative shotgun. Caine was the liaison, the communicator. And the guy who found the first exos on Dee Pee Three.”

“Yes, and who I’ve now had to make a naval officer to boot. As per Richard Downing’s orders.” She frowned. “About Downing: what intelligence agency is he with? And how the hell did he get the clearance and command-equivalency rating that he waved in front of my nose when he dropped you two off here a month ago?”

“Admiral Perduro,” Trevor sat up very straight and cleared his throat. “I regret to say I have no information pertinent to the assignment or disposition of Mr. Richard Downing, nor would I be officially disposed to share it if I did. Ma’am.”

Perduro’s other eyebrow rose to join the first. “Ah. The Holy Creed of Plausible Deniability.”

“Sorry, ma’am.”

“I’m sure you are.” She fiddled with a palmcomp stylus for a moment. “Downing is your godfather, isn’t he?”

“That is correct, ma’am.”
And he’s the new chief of IRIS. And a direct advisor to President Liu. And the sonofabitch who turned my father’s body over to the same aliens who sneaked some kind of organism into his chest. Yes, that’s my friend-buggering, skull-duggering Uncle Richard.

Perduro nodded, might have detected the overly crisp tone in Trevor’s reply since she changed topics. “And what’s your take on our thirty-day wonder, Mr. Riordan? Will he cut it as an officer?”

“Ma’am, I’m sure you must have all of Caine’s scores.”
I can see them right there, in front of you.
“His lowest performance index is still a three sigma-shift above the center of the bell curve. Can’t ask for better than that.”

“Trevor, don’t be obtuse. You know what I’m asking. He looks fine on paper. I need a human perspective from someone who knows him but can be objective.”

Trevor frowned as if he was mulling over his response while his brain raced in a different direction.
You think I can be objective about Caine Riordan? Gee, that might be a little hard, seeing as how he’s the guy who fell in love with my sister fourteen years ago, the guy my dad then mind-wiped, who is the father of my fatherless nephew, and who is now romantically involved—well,
entangled
—with one hell of a wonderful coldsleeper from the past, Opal Patrone. Who my late father all but stuck in Caine’s bed. Yeah, sure, I can be impartial about Caine Riordan, aka “Odysseus.” Not a problem.

“Captain Corcoran, are you uncomfortable giving your assessment of Riordan?” Perduro’s tone had grown slightly more formal. “Is there some failing not indicated on his OCS results?”

“Oh, no, ma’am, just trying to find the right words.”