The Ninth Circle (11 page)

Read The Ninth Circle Online

Authors: R. M. Meluch

Colonel TR Steele commanded a loyalty of the kind only ever seen for John Farragut. But where Farragut was dramatic, TR Steele was a brick.
Like John Farragut—like any man—Steele could get real protective around a woman.
And now Steele was standing in front of his Marines, barking orders and feeling like he had his pants around his ankles because he knew that just about five-quarters of these guys knew that he was practicing docking maneuvers with Flight Sergeant Kerry Blue.
Do not look at Kerry Blue
.
There was Flight Leader Cain Salvador. Alpha One. His best man. Mixed race. Sleek and powerful as a seal. Cain was a solid Marine.
Until this morning, Cain Salvador had been a Flight Sergeant, flying as Alpha Three. That was until Espinoza went and got herself pregnant.
Replacing Cain as Alpha Three was a she-guy, came over from the
Rio Grande
. Hard core. Cute face, elfin cheekbones, broad top shelf. The Marine was out here to fight, not to dance. The knuckles of both hands were tattooed DNFW—Do Not Foxtrot With. And the red X on her brow in the third eye position announced that she was equipped with a dragon—an appliance more vividly called a sausage peeler. Her name was Geneva Rhine. Nothing to do but call her Rhino.
Alpha Four. Carly Delgado. Whip thin and cuddly as razor wire. If you want your squad to take prisoners, you don’t send Carly in. Not that Carly was vicious—okay Carly was vicious—but it took a lot more mass and muscle to take an enemy captive than it did to make him dead. Carly couldn’t take captives. Carly could do dead. At her size it was self-preservation.
Carly was attached at the hip to Twitch Fuentes, Alpha Five. Quiet, calm. Steady as an anchor. Just tell Twitch what to do; you know it’ll get done. Twitch understood spoken Americanese. He just didn’t speak it. Used to. Said something stupid once and hadn’t tried again since. No one remembered what it was except Twitch. Steele did not want to know that Twitch couldn’t read.
Into the Alpha Seven spot came another all-American mongrel by the name of Asante Addai. Part Colombian, part Mayan, part some kind of slave-descended Black, part sub-Saharan Arab. One hundred percent U.S. Fleet Marine. Asante had spent a year in college between tours, decided it wasn’t for him. Moved like a boxer, light on his feet. Asante kept his springy black hair shorn close to his head. He wore a lot of scars, which he never got repaired. Medical gel would have healed those over. But, as Asante said, “I don’t do the pink crap.”
Steele stood through roll call of the Wing and the Battery. Then he informed them of their destination—Zoe. There had been an attack, but the initial crisis had passed. There had been no further attacks. But it was not over.
How Admiral Farragut knew that, Steele didn’t ask.
We’re running out to the end of the galaxy to rescue the admiral’s pet hamster, and I’m not questioning orders.
Steele would do the same for Kerry Blue.
It would take
Merrimack
no less than a month to get to Zoe. The admiral could have chosen to wait for more information or more hostile activity, or he could get his big guns in motion now.
John Farragut had a sense for these things. The man could smell smoke before there was a fire.
Steele had no doubt that by time his Marines got to Zoe, hell would be loose.
 
Director Izrael Benet stalked out of his tent.
The rest of the LEN expedition members were gathered around the fire pit at the center of camp.
Some of the xenos turned, hearing the director coming. He was stomping.
Izzy Benet shouted, “Who summoned the U.S. military!”
There was much looking about, eyes meeting blank eyes, quizzical murmurs.
“What?”
“What military?”
“Are they here?”
“Apparently,” Benet started, making a show of struggling to keep his temper and losing. “The United States is sending a battleship here!”
“Why!” several xenos asked at once.
“
Someone—”
Benet’s gaze fell upon Glenn—“told them we were under extraplanetary attack.”
Dr. Suri Chin said, “Who would tell them a thing like that?” Dr. Chin had not been on board the
Spring Beauty
.
Most eyes found their way to Glenn. She was traveling under the name Glenn Hull, but, as she was married to Patrick Hamilton, the xenos could put the pieces together.
Director Benet looked to Patrick in suspicion and betrayal. “She’s a thug, isn’t she?”
The implicit slight in reducing his wife to a pronoun to her face did not escape the linguist. Patrick bristled. “
Glenn
is a decorated line officer and veteran of the war.”
“The war,” Director Benet said witheringly. “Funny how anyone who was in the war is
proud
of it.” Disbelief and disgust thinned his full lips.
“Funny that,” said Glenn. Rome had declared the war, and claimed the United States of America as a Roman province. “I just didn’t want to learn Latin.”
“Everything is an attack to your type,” said Benet.
Glenn nodded.
Possibly
. “Especially an attack.”
“The war is over. Your kind just doesn’t get it.”
No one who called you
your kind
ever meant you well.
Glenn kept her voice even. Let the facts throw the punches. “Then explain what happened to the
Spring Beauty
.”
Director Benet said, “You wrested the controls of a LEN spacecraft away from the authorized pilot and crashed it into the ground causing widespread injury and total destruction of the craft.”
Glenn asked, “What do you make of the piece of manufactured metal lodged in the
Beauty
’s hull?”
“I don’t pretend to have any idea what that shard is. It could be U.S. make for all I know. You’re either covering up your blundering into an asteroid field, or you’re staging a pretext for your country to send guns to the Outback. Your Admiral
Nelson—
I beg your pardon—
Farragut
is establishing a bridgehead to the Perseus Arm. The U.S. has no bases in Perseus space. That’s it, isn’t it? You’re coming to take over Zoe! By God, this is monumental. It’s an outrage.”
“Director Benet, you are wrong,” Glenn said evenly. “The
Spring Beauty
came under attack by multiple hostiles.”
She glanced to Manny for support, but the pilot still wasn’t volunteering his version of the story.
Benet challenged, “So where were these space invaders when all the previous expedition ships were arriving at Zoe? Isn’t it odd that your combatants mysteriously showed up only to attack
you
?”
Glenn had no answer to that.
Benet went on, “I suppose you are now going to tell me they’re Roman.”
“They’re not Roman,” Glenn said.
“Thank you. Finally, a rational statement. Now.” Benet made a show of looking up at the sky. “Explain why there is no rain of aliens following up on their first strike. Funny that your attackers didn’t press their advantage. Isn’t that what your kind does? You must be disappointed.”
Disappointment was not what she was feeling.
“There are spacecraft that can’t handle an atmosphere,” said Glenn.
Director Benet said, “When your battleship arrives, you will get on it and depart.”
Glenn was afraid of what she would say, so she kept silent. She’d never liked the League of Earth Nations.
They wish we’d go knuckle-walk back to our caves, and we veterans, well, we just want to shoot them.
That left Patrick in the middle, the worst place to be.
Patrick tried to explain, “You’ve got to understand, Izzy is an administrator. He’s a fund-raiser. He’s accustomed to overstating his case for dramatic effect. He goes hyperbolic. Don’t take it personally.”
“Patrick,” said Glenn, her palm up. “Please stop talking.”
Izrael Benet was right about one thing. When her battleship arrived, she would get on it.
 
Space Control detained the Terra Rican racing yacht
Mercedes
in port on the planet Aotearoa in the Perseid arm of the galaxy.
Aotearoa was a New Zealand colony, but the officer who boarded the Terra Rican yacht was Roman.
The officer extracted data from
Mercedes
’ control console and demanded of Jose Maria de Cordillera, “Purpose of your travel?”
Nobel Laureate Jose Maria Rafael Meridia de Cordillera was a Renaissance man. A true aristocrat, he owned an enormous tract of land on the former Spanish colonial world of Terra Rica. At one time Jose Maria had served as Terra Rica’s ambassador to the United States of America.
He was a slender, gracious presence on the elegant spaceship.
“
Por favor
,” Jose Maria said. “Why am I under scrutiny of Rome while I am on a New Zealand colonial world in ANZAC space? I am a neutral.”
“
Don
Cordillera, if you are a neutral, then I am the tooth fairy,” the officer said. “No. Back up. I actually have been the tooth fairy.”
“I also,” Jose Maria said.
“If you are a neutral, then I am the Little Mermaid.”
Roman Imperial Intelligence suspected that Jose Maria de Cordillera had planted the nanites that had incapacitated mad emperor Romulus.
Imperial Intelligence was right.
“Are you of the Romulii?” Jose Maria asked.
The Roman officer recoiled, aghast, as if the mere suggestion of being a Romulus supporter were a lethal contagion. “No! You brought down a Roman emperor in wartime. An action,
de facto
, NOT neutral.”
“I consider myself a citizen of the cosmos,” said Jose Maria. “And there is no present war. May I not travel freely?”
“Purpose of your travel?” The officer demanded again.
“To establish trade relations between Terra Rica and Aotearoa.”
The officer’s shoulders slumped a bit in impatient annoyance. “We know your business
here
. But you are leaving
here
. Early. Abruptly. Why?”
“I answer a call from a friend.”
The officer would know from the ship’s communication log that the friend was Admiral John A. Farragut.
“Where are you going?”
“I am certain that
Mercedes
has already told you my destination,” said Jose Maria.
A course to the planet Zoe, deep in the Outback, was loaded into the racing yacht’s nav sys.
“I’m asking you,
Don
Cordillera.”
“My son, sometimes redundance is not good. Sometimes it is just redundant. May we go?”

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