Trial by Fire - eARC (32 page)

“They will not. They will learn submission.”

“With respect, First Fist, most of them will not. Their history teaches clear lessons on this topic.”

“Yes. It teaches that the human generals lack the resolve to carry out punishments against insurgents inflexibly and invariably. It is their own weakness that makes this sound strategy a failure in their hands.”

Yaargraukh’s reply was calm. “I commend you to the annals of the German occupation of the Balkans under the Nazi regime, or the Japanese occupation of China and Southeast Asia during the same period. Consider also the tribal conflicts of less than a century ago in Africa. In each case, the conquerors showed no mercy. In each case, they carried out just such ruthless reprisals as the ones you suggest. And in each case, the occupied peoples mounted bitter and dedicated insurgencies. The humans will not submit: they will live to dine on our entrails, or will die trying.”

“Enough.” First Voice stood higher. “I am decided.” He turned to Astor-Smath. “Recall your humans. Our combat operations must have utter political and ethical clarity. At least for now.”

“Very well. With your leave, I must depart to oversee an unusual security matter in Jakarta.”

First Voice checked his armlet. “Then you should make haste in your departure. You have twenty minutes left.”

Astor-Smath smiled and bowed. “And before those twenty minutes have elapsed, I will be safely on the ground in our metro-center compound. Until we meet again.” He turned and headed for the same high-speed VTOL which had brought him.

Darzhee Kut looked up at First Voice. “What happens in twenty minutes?”

“In twenty minutes, Speaker Kut, the humans will discover what happens if they choose to ignore our new terms for peace.”

Chapter Twenty

Alexandria, Earth

Downing sipped at the last drops of water in his glass, sighed, checked his watch: 1940 hours and still no sign of Elena. He looked around the mostly empty restaurant. Despite Elena’s claim to the contrary, Papillon was not only quiet, but almost abandoned. His table was one of only three that were occupied.
Right. This has gone on long enough
. Downing pulled out his palmcom, hit the all-address option, selected voice-only connection.

The multitone pattern on the carrier signal indicated that Elena was being sought on all her data-contact lines. It continued its repetitious cycling of notes. Downing expected her answering message to take over after ten seconds, but it didn’t. After ten more seconds, he hung up and stared at the palmcom, checked that he had indeed selected the contact matrix for Elena Corcoran. He had. But no answer.

Well, perhaps it was time to call the other Corcoran. If anyone knew what was delaying Elena, it would be her brother.

Trevor answered his vox-link the second ring. “Hello, Uncle Richard. How can I help you?”

Trevor’s voice was not quite as flat and cold as it had been when he left the office. But it wasn’t much warmer, either. “Sorry to disturb, Trevor, but do you have any inkling of where your sister is?”

“She’s probably shopping. She called from a sporting goods store about two hours ago.”

“Still trying to find something for Connor?”

“Yes. Without much success.” Trevor’s tone shifted from cool to suspicious. “Why? What’s going on?”

“Nothing that I know of, but she’s rather late meeting me for dinner. Must dash now.”

Trevor disconnected without waiting for a “goodbye” or offering one himself. Richard sighed, looked at his palmcom.
So where in bloody hell
is
Elena?
He chose her contact matrix again, waited to hear the connection go through.

Annapolis, Earth

Trevor stared at his commplex after disconnecting.
What the hell was that all about? And why is Elena meeting Richard for dinner when she told me she’s coming by here with Connor later?

He leaned back and frowned at the commplex. In times past, when she had just been a civilian, interacting with civilians, and doing safe civilian things, Elena had been at the greatest risk when she had been with Trevor or their father. They were the guys who had the clearances, and had performed the deeds, that might attract the malign interest of any number of unsavory folks.

But now that she, too, had become snagged into the clandestine webs of IRIS, and was carrying confidential, defense-critical information between her ears that was possessed by less than two hundred persons—well, it was no longer permissible to simply wave off strange behavior as some misunderstanding or anomaly. Now, it was only prudent to ensure that atypical communication did not also signal an atypical situation in the making.

Well,
Trevor decided,
I can sit here trying to figure it all out myself, or I can take the short cut.
He called up his commplex’s contact list, chose Elena’s home commplex, pressed for a connection, and widened the video pickup to maximum.

Two buzzes and the screen brightened. The face that looked out at him caused a hard, aching knot to rise into his throat. At thirteen, Elena’s son Connor was the spitting image of the pictures of Nolan at the same age. Trevor cleared his throat, smiled past the lump there, “Hey, Connor. I thought you had a game tonight.”

“I did, but they canceled it.”

“Why?”

“Beats me. Pretty weird. We were suited up and on the sidelines, but that was as far as it got.”

“Well, that stinks. Although I have to admit, it’s the first time I was ever glad I
couldn’t
get to one of your games.”

“I don’t know how you get to any of them, Uncle Trevor. You’ve got a long ride in from Annapolis.”

“Yeah, well, I hate to miss ’em. And given how many games your Mom and I both had to miss earlier this year, I know she must have been just as disappointed as you were when they canceled today’s. By the way, is she around?”

Connor frowned. “No. She wasn’t at the game either.”

Huh?
“Why? Where is she?”

“I wish I knew, Uncle Trev.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I had to get a ride home with Dave Sklar and his dad, ’cause Mom never showed. When I got inside, I found a note from her, telling me I was going to be staying with Grandma.”

What the hell?
“Why? Where’s your Mom going?”

“I don’t know; she didn’t say. Her note only said that she had to travel on business, she loved me, and she’d be back as soon as she could. I don’t think she’ll be gone long. She only packed a single piece of carry-on luggage.”

Trevor kept the frown off his face; no reason to frighten Connor. He was a pretty resilient kid, but he was still only thirteen. “So, what time did you get home?”

“About an hour ago.”

Trevor did the math. Two hours ago, Elena had called him from shopping. She had sounded exasperated, nothing more. But over the course of the next hour, she had evidently gone home, arranged for their mother to take care of Connor, written him a note, and packed for travel. And now she wasn’t taking calls from Richard, whom she had asked to meet for dinner. A dinner which was scheduled at almost exactly the same time she had said she’d pick up Connor from his game and drive out to Trevor’s townhouse. What the hell was going on?

“Listen, Connor,” Trevor said easily, “don’t worry. I’m sure everything’s all right. I’ll find out what’s going on and give you a shout, okay?”

“Okay, Uncle Trev. See ya.”

“Not if I see you first.” The response satisfied the corny farewell ritual that they both cherished. “’Bye, Connor.”

As soon as the connection closed, Trevor hit the commplex data string for Elena’s palmcomm and the rest of her contact-matrix. No answers on any network and no location information. However, just as he gave up, his own incoming data tracker toned twice. A text-only message had arrived.

He called it up. Strange timing. It was from Elena, but had been posted an hour ago.
An hour’s wait? What was—?
Then he saw that she had put a one-hour delay on the delivery time.

Dear Trev:

Not much time; must run. I’ll be out of touch for a while, but don’t worry. Family business.

Look in on Connor. He’ll be at Mom’s.

Love, El

“Family business?” There was no family business. Just the unfinished business of Nolan Corcoran and IRIS, which always seemed to involve Caine and Richard and exosapients and skullduggery. And Opal. Yes, he could call Opal. She might know something. Besides, it was an excuse to call her.

He did, but after ten seconds of paging and receiving neither an answer nor a locator grid result, Opal’s automated message came on. He disconnected.
Something has gone very wrong. Gotta call Uncle Richard—
and he stopped as his finger hovered over the “connect” button on the commplex’s dynamic datapad.

But what would trigger Elena and Opal to go incommunicado and at exactly the same time? What might link their actions?

Well, that was easy—sort of. Caine.

Trevor sat up straight.
After hearing about Case Timber Pony, they don’t want to be
able
to get instructions or orders that they can’t, or shouldn’t, refuse to follow.
Opal, being Caine’s guardian angel as well as girlfriend, and still unaware of Elena’s connection with him, had probably decided to find Caine on her own.
Which is better than waiting for that harebrained rescue mission Uncle Richard was cooking up, the one that would probably get everyone killed.

But Elena, too? She was no commando, to put it lightly.
And if she had decided to try to help Caine herself, why wouldn’t she at least tell me?

The answer was so obvious it felt like a slap.
Because she knows I would have stopped her just as surely as Uncle Richard would have. And commando or no, she spent a lot of time on pretty risky field assignments. Damn it, I’d bet dollars against donuts that she’s en route to Jakarta, because that’s where Caine will be, if the invaders decide to bring him planetside. And so, if I call Richard—

Trevor took his finger off his commplex’s datapad, closed the contacts directory.
In my case, Richard will want to keep me close until he can send me on Case Timber Pony. Or, if the invaders decide not to play diplomatic games, and IRIS gets lower on manpower, he’d hold me and my security team in reserve, as his last little trump card. Well, so sorry, Uncle Richard, but that’s not how it’s going to go down. I’ve got a prior commitment to help a young lady.
Whether he meant Elena or Opal was unclear, even to him.

He opened the commplex directory again, found the number he needed, called.

“How may I help you?” The Central Intelligence Agency never announced itself as such when called, not even on the secure, high-clearance traffic line that Trevor was using.

“This is Captain Trevor Corcoran, USSF, calling for Duncan Solsohn at extension 2454. My access code is U-uniform, S-sierra, D-delta one zero niner.”

A pause. A new voice. “Sign is black gull. Four. W-whiskey.”

“Countersign is low tide. Three. E-echo.”

“Connecting.” Then another new voice. “Hello?”

“Duncan, this is Trevor. I’m glad you’re still on the overnight.”

“Well, I’m glad that one of us is glad about it. What’s new, Trevor?”

“I need a favor.”

“What’s new about that?”

“Ha. And ha. Listen, I need a complete traffic trace: all messages sent and received, transactions, booking, transport records.”

“Yeah, ‘complete’ means complete, last I checked. But ‘no’ means ‘no.’ You don’t have anything like the kind of clearance necessary to initiate a request like that.”

“Really? You might want to review my clearance and security ratings.”

“Yeah? Well, last I saw, you were just a—Jesus Christ, Trevor, have you started playing golf with God? How the hell did you get—?”

“If I told you, I’d have to kill you. Just get on the job, okay? And I need it fast.”

“How fast?”

“Five minutes ago.”

“Ugh. And who’s the target?”

“My sister. Here’s the data you’re going to need—”

Chapter Twenty-One

CoDevCo security compound, Jakarta, Earth

Caine swayed in his seat as the CoDevCo shuttle braked sharply. Ground controllers had waved it away from the vertipads atop the twinned towers of the Indonesian Bank Complex and down into the courtyard-turned-landing field.

“We shall debark quickly,” Eimi said nervously to the cabin in general. “No reason to attract attention.”

You mean, “attract snipers,” I think,
Caine reflected as the vehicle jolted into a quick VTOL landing. He undid his straps. Rather than off-load through the passenger portal at the front, the silent Arat Kur troopers indicated the opening aft bay doors.

Following Urzueth Ragh, Caine stalked down the ramp into the thick, humid brightness of Jakarta and momentarily flashed back to debarking into similar weather conditions on Delta Pavonis Three.
Only a year and a half ago. It feels like a different life.

Outward-facing gray-suited soldiers flanked the loading ramp as he exited. They were clones: all the same height, all the same face. It was a face he had seen before, staring impassively over Ruap’s shoulder before the Parthenon Dialogs in Greece, and again, with a corporate factor at Nolan Corcoran’s memorial on Mars. These identical faces in Jakarta were every bit as unemotional and alert as those had been. If any of the soldiers noticed his quick scrutiny, they either had orders not to react, or simply didn’t care.

With the two Hkh’Rkh hulking at the rear of the debarkation line, the shuttle’s passengers made quick progress to a nearby berm-lined enclosure of ballistic brick. As they wound through a anti-blast dogleg in the walls, the shuttle did a quick dust-off from the pad and headed southward. Its jets were shrill as it passed over them, growled and howled where their downwash buffeted against the berm.

“Now what?” asked Caine when he could hear again.