The Lazarus Particle (11 page)

“Indebtedness declined. Creator says the scales are balanced and to be immediately upon your way. No further delays, except those created in your own interest. Please be off now. Safe travels!”

They didn’t argue. Even Ensign Cassel fell into the retreat as part of the team without further prodding. Roon guessed she understood that someone had saved her from a sudden and brutal execution, and that the least she could do to thank them was to use every skill in her arsenal to see these fugitives outside the reach of the long arm of corporate justice as quickly as possible. Hell, if she played dutiful hostage long enough she might even live to be able to claim cooperation under duress. Assuming she too lived long enough, Roon had every intention of standing as witness to that defense, no matter how much it incriminated herself in the process.

Up the ramp to Commander Orth’s yacht they ran, Ensign Cassel stopping only to take a bracing and no doubt prayerful breath before announcing, “Authorize entry, Delta-Delta-Cassel-Five-Six-One-Six-One-Zero-One-Beta-Gamma.”

The hatch didn’t open, but neither was the code denied. An unnerving number of seconds passed, the foursome loitering nervously on the gangway, expecting to be overtaken at any moment. Their only hope was that OverCom’s so-called Creator had managed to throw some obstacles in the way of their pursuers.

Ensign Cassel, meanwhile, fretted endlessly. “C’mon, c’mon… This happens sometimes, y’know… It usually takes a few minutes for the voiceprints to refresh… It really shouldn’t be much—”

The keypad lit green before she could finish, the hatch opening to allow their entry.
“Voiceprint accepted. Welcome aboard, Commander.”

“—longer. Oh, thank god.”

Xenecia and Roon shared broad, toothy grins as together they strode aboard the Commander’s yacht. Ensign Cassel hurried ahead of them to take the controls; moments later, the deck of the yacht lurched subtly beneath them as they took flight.

Despite its name, the Commander’s yacht put far greater emphasis on its defensive capabilities than a sporty, showy interior. There was room enough for all four of them to spare, but it was of a more utilitarian nature than one might have expected. Some space was given over to a small galley, a few racks, and, further back, a bank of biostasis units for especially lengthy flights. Otherwise, the majority of the yacht’s space was claimed by the ultralight proprietary ceramic engine technology that made Morgenthau-Hale vessels the fastest and most maneuverable among the fleets of the various sovereign corporate powers. Because it was the Commander’s yacht and not a standard transport vessel like the one Roon and Ensign Cassel had arrived on, its engines were even more powerful, configured to allow for maximum evasive capabilities—something Xenecia had worked out they would shortly be very much in need of.

“I can’t believe it,” Roon said as they accelerated forward and shot out of the executive landing bay. “We did it. We actually did it. Well,
you
did it.”

Xenecia scoffed. “That was the easy part. The rest is up to your pilot.”

“
Our
pilot,” Roon corrected under her breath. Xenecia heard it regardless but said nothing. She was right, after all; if Ensign Cassel couldn’t outrun their pursuers, it was all their asses in the fire.

Given that her ass numbered high among her best features, Xenecia very much wanted to avoid that fate if at all possible.

“Deploying chaff packets,” Ensign Cassel said from the pilot’s seat. It was a purely rhetorical statement, more for herself than anyone else. The chaff packets were densely packed canisters of ionized metal particulate that would deploy in a staggered formation over the span of several seconds. Once the entire string of chaff packets had been released, the onboard flight computer would automatically signal them to detonate, creating a massive particulate cloud. The cloud, in turn, would shield them against attempts to lock onto them with an inducer beam or disable the yacht’s engines.

The yacht shook suddenly with a fierce, short jostling, though they had yet to actually be fired upon.

“Shit!” Cassel exclaimed. “They’re trying to get an inducer beam on us!”

“That would not be a desired outcome,” Xenecia said sourly.

“Think I don’t know that?! C’mon,
c’mon…
” She gave the controls a sharp jerk, then another in the opposite direction and still another back. She was trying to break up the vessel’s profile. It was a fairly low-tech approach to what the chaffs would accomplish, but only if she could avoid a lock until they blew. The yacht seemed to respond, though somewhat more sluggishly than the urgency with which she was pushing it. “Just another second or two. Damnit,
move
, you bucket!”

An indicator light on the control panel lit bright red. Several kilometers behind them, the chaff packets finally detonated, throwing out a massive three-dimensional screen of fine expanding debris. So confused was the inducer beam coming from OS
Tau
that Ensign Cassel was able to briefly shunt all residual power into the engines for a microburst of acceleration, just enough to push them out of its path without frying one or even both of the engines. She let out a triumphant whoop as they slipped beyond the effective range of the inducer beam just in the nick of time. Then the gravity of her situation settled in around her once more and she reverted to grim silence.

Moments later, the radio crackled to life.

“Absconders,”
the voice on the other end of the transmission said, affecting a keenly level tone.
“This is Lieutenant Commander Harlan Garrity, executive officer, Orbital Station
Tau
. By now you are no doubt aware that you are beyond our effective range of pursuit. Do not take this to mean you are beyond the reach of our justice.”
The voice paused to let that statement sink in. Not justice as in an abstract, unbiased precept of law and order.
Their
justice, as in corporate-sanctioned vengeance perpetrated in cold blood.

The kind they had been prepared to apply to Fenton.

The voice continued.
“To the person or persons in control of the Commander’s yacht, I have been authorized to offer one million credits in exchange for the safe return of all Morgenthau-Hale property currently in your possession. This includes both the vehicle itself and the contracted employees within. You will not be harmed. Repeat, you will not be harmed. Please respond if you are willing to accept these terms and arrangements will be made for you to land at once.”

Xenecia’s breath caught in her chest. A million credits. More than five times the bounty she had been promised then denied—more than
twelve
times what Roon had offered for the job they had essentially just completed! More than any bounty she had ever laid claim to in her career. Her mouth literally watered at the prospect. With a small fortune such as that she could retire early and live out the rest of her days like a queen. That, or vastly expand her operations as a huntrex. Buy a ship of her own, build up her arsenal with exotic contraband, maybe even hire on a few outside contractors. The corner of her mouth curled up with wicked amusement as she toyed with the notion of offering Quint Samuels a job. A very high-risk, low-reward job.

Then she remembered the deception, the manipulation, the detention and humiliation
she had been subject to while under contract with Morgenthau-Hale. She had no reason to trust any offer this man made on his, their, or anyone’s behalf! Looking up, she saw that Fenton, Roon, and Ensign Cassel were all staring at her. Each of them brandished the same slack, ashen expression, as if expecting her to effectively sell them out any moment now. There was no hope any of them could even come close to matching the offer on a moment’s notice. They knew it, she knew it, hell, even Garrity knew it.

“Ensign Cassel, open a channel with OS
Tau
.”

“Fuck,” the young woman whispered. Even if she was able to convince the Morgenthau-Hale Internal Espionage and Subterfuge Division investigators of the forced nature of her role in the unfolding episode, it would only come after a comprehensive and thorough interrogation suite that would include several mandatory and, it was said, extremely unpleasant methods. Even then, she would likely be reduced to the lowest form of scut work for some time before someone decided to trust her with piloting so much as a garbage-burn detail again. “Channel open.”

“OS
Tau
, this is Xenecia of Shih’ra. Confirm receipt of message.”

“Confirmed. Do we have an understanding, Xenecia of Shih’ra?”

Roon shot her a desperate, beseeching look. “Don’t do this,” she mouthed silently.

“I shall require half up front as a show of good faith. If you can make one secure payment, you can make two.” Xenecia just smiled. It must have looked much more maniacal than she intended, because they all blanched just a little bit more.

Several beats ticked by…

“Done,”
came the response from OS
Tau
.
“Prepare to receive account information.”

“Hold one.” Xenecia looked to Ensign Cassel and drew her finger across her throat. In retrospect, it was perhaps a regrettably menacing gesture given the circumstances.

Ensign Cassel cut the wire at her signal. “What are you—” she started.

Xenecia threw up a hand, cutting her off mid-sentence. “Can you access the station’s primary data matrix from here?”

“Absolutely.”

“Can you access it in a way that no one on the station will know about?”

Ensign Cassel blinked, licking her lips and staring down at the control board in front of her. She studied it for several seconds, thumbing through a number of screens and slowly nodding. “I think so. Give me just a second or two… you want OverCom, right?”

“Clever girl. Yes, I want OverCom.”

Ensign Cassel leaned fractionally closer to the controls, her fingers moving with almost balletic precision as she manipulated the signal to do as Xenecia asked.

“Got it!”

“Hello, gang. How can OverCom be of assistance?”

“Is the signal secure?” Xenecia asked first and foremost.

There was a pause as OverCom tested the signal.

“Yes. Ensign Cassel did an exceptional job masking the signal.”

Ensign Cassel seemed almost to blush at the compliment.

“Good. We are about to radio into your main communications array, OverCom. Tap into the transmission, flag and monitor the account that follows for transfer of half a million credits, then transfer it immediately into the following account.” Xenecia rattled off a string of nearly two dozen alphanumeric characters. “Get all that?”

“Loud and clear. Will that be all?”

“That will do, thank you. Put us back in contact with OS
Tau
.”
 

“Said and done. In three, two, one…”

“
Apologies, Lieutenant Commander. We are now prepared to receive your account information.” Xenecia took a flexpad from the cabin. Instead of accessing the account relayed over the wire, however, she tapped into the account she had given to OverCom. Sure enough, its balance rose by half a million credits within a matter of seconds. She smiled and replaced the flexpad.

“…
Transfer of funds complete. Reverse course and return to OS
Tau.
Once aboard you will surrender any and all Morgenthau-Hale property and indentured employees in your company as agreed upon in the previous exchange. Do this and the remaining funds will be credited to your account and you will be allowed to depart the station peacefully.”

“I think not,” Xenecia said airily. “I have just one question for you, Commander: Was it as good for you as it was for me?”

The wire went silent for several moments, presumably while some luckless junior officer informed Commander Orth that the absconders had just swindled Morgenthau-Hale to the tune of five hundred thousand credits
and
his personal yacht. When at last the wire picked up again, a new voice oozed out with menacing smoothness.
“This is Commander Orth. Let me be perfectly clear, Xenecia of Shih’ra: This will not end well for you. When you are hunted down—and you will be hunted down, of this I have no doubt—I am going to personally eviscerate you and your companions and decorate the command module with your still-dripping entrails while you bleed out at my feet. I’m going to pluck your eyeballs from your heads and your tongues from your mouths. I’m going to pull each and every one of your teeth one by one and flay you to the bone. Your families—”

She signaled, much less harshly this time, for Ensign Cassel to cut the wire, then stood and gave her shoulder what she hoped was a reassuring squeeze. “Get us out of here, Ensign. Fenton, Roon; it is going to be a bit of a haul from here. What say we see if the Commander’s galley has a liquor cache, shall we?”

PART II

13 • FRONT LINES

The mood on Free Planetary Base Oviddia was somber as the deck rats guided Gold Wing’s wounded birds back to their appointed berths within the Nest. The pilots disembarked slowly. Some rushed to embrace and be with friends. Others stalked off to handle the latest round of losses on their own terms. Curses were uttered, words of reassurance exchanged. They were losing the war, and if they didn’t know it before then, they certainly knew it now.

“Hey, Commander!”

Vichante Harm, Flight Commander, Gold Wing, Free Planetary Irregulars, had just finished disembarking. Planting both feet on deck, he turned square into Alexia DeCoud’s balled-up little fist, a blinding cross that fell just short of putting out the lights.

“You promised you’d bring him back!” she shrieked as he lost his footing. “You promised me, you son of a bitch!”

Even before his ass hit the floor a second later, bright silvery motes pinwheeling before his eyes, a chorus of close-by voices was crying out in protest.

“Whoa!”

“Crazy bitch!”

“Like you’re the only one who lost someone!”

“Will somebody get her the hell out of here, already? Them, too—hell,
everyone
just take three steps back, alright?”