Accord of Honor (19 page)

W
e thought
it would be best top avoid the airships so we skipped the landing pad entirely. The shuttle was just small enough to fit on the rooftop of the main prison building. We smashed the hell out of the structure in the process. I was past caring so long as the shuttle remained spaceworthy.

Kel and George stayed aboard to watch the ship and keep the engines warm. Sam and I went with our four security guys. One of them kicked open a rooftop door, and all four started moving down the stairs, rifles at the ready. I followed and Sam reluctantly followed me. He didn’t really want to be here and for a moment, I considered sending him back to the ship. But we might need his skills.

We took the stairs all the way to the bottom. That was where the prisoners were held, according to the schematics Sam called up. The door was locked but Sam was able to hook up a hand scanner and pop the lock in under a minute.

Our men pushed ahead.

“Where’d you learn how to do that, anyway?” I asked Sam.

“You don’t want to know,” was all he would say.

We ran into the first dead guards just outside that door. Two men – both in beige uniforms, both shot in the center of the forehead. Clean kills. Not the result of a fight, then. These were assassinations, by men who knew what they were doing.

“Don’t hesitate,” I said. “Anyone we see down here is probably an enemy.”

The men continued their sweep forward. We entered the cell block and found two more bodies by the door. We had to be close. I kept hoping we’d make contact, praying we’d run into the enemy shooters. Because if we ran into them now, it might not be too late. We might reach them before they got to Dad.

My men rounded the corner and I got my wish. I saw them open up fire. One of them was hit and fell down. The others kept firing, advancing as they went. I rounded the corner, following close behind them. Men in black body armor crouched in doorways down the hall. Two had already fallen to the floor. I carefully placed aimed shots as I walked, and took one of them out.

Something belted me in the chest. It felt like someone hit me there with a hammer. I just walked forward and moved my muzzle from one target to the next, squeezing the trigger.

Then I was out of targets. Some of the enemy had fled, down the hallway ahead and around a corner. But one of our guys was down. I went back to help and realized my own chest was on fire. I could barely breathe. I slumped against the wall, sliding down until my butt hit the floor with a thump. One of the men was there immediately, holding a mask over my mouth. Air hissed through a hose, and I got a couple of lungfuls of high flow oxygen.

“I’m OK,” I said, my breaths finally coming more easily. I looked down at my chest, expecting to see bright red. But – nothing. The chest plate had a huge dent in it, but the round hadn’t penetrated. I was going to have some nasty bruises, but it looked like I’d be fine.

I got slowly back to my feet. My chest still hurt, and taking too deep a breath was painful, but I could manage. One of the men was dead. I realized sadly I’d never learned his name. I leaned over, and ripped the nametag from his shirt. Brenden, it read.

“Thank you, Brenden,” I said.

I shouldered my rifle again. “Let’s go.”

We rounded the corner just in time to see a security door on the far side closing. Four of those black-armored goons were inside, along with an Asian man in a suit. The suited guy sketched a salute with his hand, then turned and walked away. His men followed him.

“Sam, get that door open!” I said. We surged down the hall at a double time. We were moving so fast, I almost missed the one occupied cell on the block – but I saw a light inside one of the rooms and paused just a moment to check.

Dad was inside. He lay on the floor, bleeding.

Decisions. If we hurried, we might still catch the bad guys before they got away. But Dad might die while we were chasing them. He needed help. I didn’t hesitate more than a second or so.

“He’s here,” I said. I opened the door and went inside. “Dad. Hang on.”

There was a body on the floor next to him, holding a gun loosely in a dead hand. Shaunesey. Had he shot Dad? Who was the other guy?

Dad was bleeding from his side, just under his liver. I had to hope nothing too vital had been damaged, because we were a long way from a safe hospital. As soon as I touched his shoulder, he opened his eyes.

“Bomb,” he said. “Need to go.”

I stood back up. “Sam, help me with Dad. He says there’s a bomb – we need to move!” I figured we might have as long as it took for the bad guys to get clear in their airships. Not long. And there were a lot of stairs between us and the way out.

With Sam and I helping Dad, we made good time, retracing our steps. I grimaced as we passed Brenden’s body. I could tell the troops wanted to take him with us. I did too. I just wasn’t sure we had time.

Their eyes pleaded with me. Nobody wanted to be left behind on the battlefield.

“Do it,” I said. “Don’t fall behind.”

Two of them grabbed his body. The other led the way, keeping guard for the rest of us. If the enemy attacked right now, we were screwed. But we made the stairs without incident. From there, it was the longest climb of my life, wondering with each step if the bomb was going to go off before we could make safety.

One floor away from the top, I opened a link to the shuttle. “Kel, we’ve got Dad. He says there’s a bomb in the prison.”

“We’ll blast away as soon as you’re aboard,” she said.

“Be ready,” I replied, panting with the effort of getting my father up the stairs.

We made the roof. George was there on the shuttle ramp, and together we all wrangled Dad’s unconscious form and Brenden’s body onto the ship. As soon as the ramp raised, Kel hit the thrusters. I watched behind us as we rose away from the Earth.

We weren’t a mile up when the nuke detonated inside the prison. They’d only waited so long to detonate it because they needed to get clear of the blast area with their airships. Our shuttle was a good deal faster. We arced high over the planet, bound for our ships in orbit. I was done with this place.

D
ad was still unconscious
, but stable. We held orbit another day, making sure he was going to be OK, but it was clearly time to go. Earth was falling apart. A nuke had gone off, less than fifty miles from one of the biggest cities in the United States. The U.N. President was missing, and the Vice President said he was killed by Mars-affiliated commandos during a rescue mission for the notorious Mad Bomber.

The radio squawked day and night with calls for us to surrender. I ignored the thing until we were just about ready to leave. Then I made a call myself.

“Admiral Perrault,” I said, once the man’s image appeared on my screen. “Thanks for taking my call.”

“What can I do for you, Thomas?” he asked. His words implied he wanted to help, but his eyes were wary.

“We’re boosting for Mars shortly. Governor Clarke wanted to assure the U.S. that the deal he brokered still stood, if they want.”

“I’ll pass that along. Anything else?” he said, voice sharp, eyes cold.

“We didn’t do it, Admiral.” I meant the nuke. He knew it.

His eyes softened a little. “I know that.” He sighed, looked down. “Things are going to be a mess down here for a while. You’re not officially up on any charges right now, Thomas...”

“But that could change. And Dad?”

“On the U.N. most wanted list. Dead or alive. The reward is impressive.”

“Charming. If I see him, I’ll pass that along,” I said.

He laughed, his face warming some. “You do that, son. Oh, and if you see the old dog? Tell him he owes me a bottle of damned good bourbon. Lost a bet over him.”

“Oh?”

“Yes,” Perrault said. “I bet he’d be free a day earlier than he was. Lost the pool we had running on him.”

I grinned. “Sorry about that, Admiral.”

“Fly safe.”

I closed the comm link.

I looked out through the view screen. Earth was below us, blue and white, slowly spinning by. I’d been watching the news feeds ever since we were safe in space. Choi was going to win control of the United Nations. He had the power – had the connections, the resources, the finances, whatever it was that it took. I didn’t know those halls of power, but I knew how patterns worked, and I could see the web of his control strengthening hour by hour.

He’d already been named President. How long would he hold the position? Usually, it was voted in a year at a time. I had a feeling Choi planned to be in power for longer than that.

Mars had declared independence, but what did that mean? There were fifty thousand people living on Mars and over ten billion on Earth. Sure, we had the advantage for now. But there was no way that would last. Earth needed the power from Mars uranium. Even if we sent them all they wanted, they’d never leave Mars free. A free Mars was a Sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of every nation on Earth.

I started up the Connie’s drives and called the other ships. “Everyone ready?”

“Excalibur’s set,” James said.

“Defender is go for burn,” Glenn replied.

“Hang on then, travelers,” I said. “We’re going home.”

The drives kicked in, gently because we had wounded, and damaged ships. It would take us a few extra days to reach Mars, but that was all right. The Connie came about under my hands, the view out the front spinning to show me stars. I pressed a button and the view flashed to a rear facing camera. There was Earth again. I could see the whole planet now, a round sapphire floating on black velvet.

Kel’s hand was on my shoulder. “We’ll be back,” she said.

“I’m not so sure,” I said.

“Will you miss it?”

“Maybe? I think Earth stopped being home for me when it tried to kill my father. What about you?”

She shook her head. “I was born out here. All this,” she waved her hands around, trying to encompass all of space, “is home to me.”

I’d forgotten. I’d spent most of my life on Earth. Kel had only been there for short visits. To her, Mars was home in a way that Earth never would be. I wondered how many others were like that. How many people thought about space as their first home, and Earth as someplace far away where other people lived?

She leaned in and kissed my cheek. “We’ll be OK.”

I shook my head. “OK isn’t enough. Not anymore. George took a huge step back there, and there’s no going back. We’re free, or nothing. There’s no middle road.”

Earth shrank in the viewer, growing smaller by the second. It was just one orb in all the dark, after all. The smaller that orb grew, the less attached I felt to it. I felt like a dagger sliced through a cord, sawing at it with each second. My eyes were damp, but no tears fell.

I pressed the button on the console again and the view flashed around to the stars ahead of us once more. Kel left the bridge, but I sat there a long while, watching the stars as the ship’s drive carried us out into the black.

T
hanks for reading
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