Revelation, p.9
Revelation, page 9
To his right, a cluster of media personnel outside the Consolidated Media Producers building perked up at the sound of shouts echoing off the walls.
Doing his level best not to let his annoyance show, Trent met the man with a smile and a handshake. To his horror, the messenger ignored his handshake and instead bent over double, huffing and puffing like he’d just finished a marathon.
A quick glance toward the gaggle of reporters showed an uptick in activity.
AGM owned all the media outlets, so he had no fear regarding the general public. What bothered him was what AGM thought of him. It wouldn’t do to necessitate their involvement in blocking a story that was a non-story.
“Damnit, man!” Trent barked under his breath, trying not to break his smile. “Stand up straight and act like you’ve got your shit together!”
At least he had the proper sense to blush a little.
Would that he could give this pissant a proper lecture; he’d make the man shit himself before he was even halfway through the lesson.
“Mr. President, I’m sorry to interrupt your morning tea, but the Martian Strategy Team sent me to get you immediately.”
Trent felt his body go cold. Tightness gripped his chest most uncomfortably.
They didn’t exactly run, but they were certainly walking much more quickly than he preferred. The feeling of being watched pricked at his back, right between his shoulder blades. So much for keeping AGM in the dark about a potential problem, the details of which he wasn’t even aware, yet. There was nothing worse than being in trouble for something before you even knew what you’d done!
The United Interplanetary Administration Center was a sprawling complex of gentle, sloping walkways amid teeming gardens. The building’s sweeping architecture was a modern marvel, drawing inspiration from the waves of the Pacific Ocean far below. The white nanotube construction was beautiful, and impenetrable.
He barely noticed it as he rushed into the side entrance behind Marcus and the messenger boy.
Much like the grounds themselves, the halls of the UIPAC were a warm, pearlescent white, somewhere between alabaster and cream colored. The dark gray accents gave everything a serene quality meant to convey solidity and confidence to all those who traversed the halls.
None of that applied to Trent this morning, unfortunately. All he could see was the closed door to the room reserved for his Martian Strategy Team. The unit that was supposed to be solving the problems on the damn red planet.
The old-style swinging door practically burst off the hinges when he pushed through.
Everyone inside the room immediately stood to attention.
Without skipping a step, Trent made his way to his appointed seat at the head of the table.
“Well, out with it,” he said, a cold edge to his tone. At least he wasn’t winded like the messenger.
“Good morning, Mr. President,” Agatha Stephens said in that gratingly shrill voice of hers.
“Is it?” Trent interjected with a sneer.
Agatha blinked once then smiled. At least that’s what he thought she was doing, compressing her paper-thin lips together like that. He supposed it could’ve been a smirk. Frankly, he didn’t care which it actually was.
“May I continue?” she asked after a brief pause.
Sighing, he motioned dramatically that she should.
Maybe he’d fire her, too, while he was at it. Might as well save his chief of staff some time and clean house all at once. Why delay the inevitable? The only reason he kept her around was his prurient interest in her, anyway. He could tell she liked being close to power. The thought of it set his blood pumping.
A projection filled the far wall, the crystal-fiber paint capturing the light and amplifying it, turning what had just been a normal white wall into a high-resolution monitor. Video after video of the unrest and turmoil on Mars played out before him. The suffering on the planet must be damn near unbearable.
He relished every frame of it.
When he’d first concocted his ascension plan, he’d intended to err on the side of subtlety. Being what he was at the time, an upper-middle grade bureaucrat pressed against the ceiling of his social credibility and available funds, that had been his only option. A meticulous and carefully crafted orchestra playing quietly in the background.
All that had changed the day he connected with the financial powerhouse of AGM. The ancient tech company had more money than God, or so the stories went. The shadowy contacts he’d made within the organization had been delicate, but pushing through some policies that benefited them greatly put him on their radar. It had only taken two days before they’d reached out and asked how they could return the favor.
The fall of Motwani had been a long time coming, that selfish prick!
Between his own cunning and the unending supply of resources, he’d drawn a direct line to the top. President of the United Interplanetary Council Richard Trent. That was just the beginning, though. He had every intention of surpassing even AGM’s dominance.
Agatha stopped talking suddenly, and he realized he hadn’t heard a word she’d said.
“This is all great information,” he said, “but is there a point?”
She blinked her smokey brown eyes at him blankly.
“Sir, if I can be blunt…” she began.
With a heavy sigh, he nodded. It felt good to show annoyance at their deference. The ultimate power play.
“We’ve lost operational control of Mars.” She ended by spreading her hands out wide, as if everything was laid bare on the table.
The lustful thoughts that sprang to mind about bare things on tables brought a dark smile to his face.
“I’m fully aware of the state of unrest on Mars, Agatha. Is that why I was forced to practically sprint here? You realize the press saw your lackey here—what’s your name again?” The young man jerked erect at being mentioned. Trent pressed on before he could answer, “Well whatever it is, you’re fired. Anyone else feel like packing up and going home?”
Everyone just sat quietly, heads down, hands in laps.
Without looking back at the youth, he pointed to the door. “Get out!”
His yell rebounded off the wall, giving his voice an otherworldly depth.
As he stood, he buttoned his suit jacket reflexively, the way a proper gentleman should. Then with purposeful strides, he made his way to the projection of a cluster of dirt-smeared, bloodied corpses of Protectorate soldiers lying in a shallow grave.
“There’s only one way to put down a rabid dog,” he said to the screen.
The plan was progressing right on schedule. It was time to be done with restraint. If nothing else, they’d proven there was no diplomatic solution to be had. The council and general population would back his need for a quick resolution to the conflict. For the sake of the system.
He glanced over at Agatha, noting a sheen of sweat glistening across her exposed chest.
Yes, indeed, everything was coming together just as he’d planned.
* * * * *
Chapter 8: Colt
“Who ARE you?” Colt said as she typed the same into the terminal.
The cursor blinked maddeningly.
No response came.
Colt started to panic and terminated the connection to the Protectorate mainframe.
Her breath came in ragged bursts. She could see her heart thudding against the positive pressure suit.
The last line of communication stood out across the top of the terminal.
Stop! You will get caught. You’re bad at this. I’ll send info shortly. Wait!
The words stung more than they should. She was not bad at this! If anything, she just needed some more practice. Maybe a mentor or two. Either way, whoever this person was, they didn’t need to be a dick about it.
The thought made her somewhat petulant. Admittedly, she was stumbling her way through being a spy, at best. Nothing she had tried had actually yielded any worthwhile information. Her thought had been to just bump around until something interesting shook loose, or she got better at electronic espionage.
It bothered her that she’d been found out. She’d done everything she could think of to stay hidden. Unless someone had been explicitly watching for her, she didn’t understand how her trespass had been noticed.
That thought didn’t make her feel any better. The list of people who’d be watching specifically for her was a very short, very dangerous one. Could it be her Uncle Harris? The short, mildly offensive, tantrum-like outbursts didn’t really seem like his style of communication. Maybe he was purposefully masking his identity?
The lights in her room dimmed and flashed amber.
An intercom chimed to life.
“Scramble Baker, Scramble Baker. Outbound gate Golf 212. Threat Level Two. Repeat: Scramble Baker, Scramble Baker.”
The message repeated three times, but before the third finished, Colt had gathered up her flight gear and was running out her bunk door. Threat Level Two meant there was an active attack in their area. Of the five threat levels, two was the second worst, behind only a direct attack underway on the station itself. A level two could be an incoming attack to their location, or a freighter under attack in their AO. Either way, you didn’t mess around with a TL-2.
Marconi and Azarov came ripping around the corner just as she hit the docking bay doors with a giant G-212 emblazoned across them in bright yellow.
Nobody said anything.
Colt felt uneasy about the new, stoic version of Marconi. He was always the first one to talk, some innocuous quip or juvenile jab at her character or accomplishments. Lately, he hadn’t done either. He was so quiet at times, she forgot he was even there.
It was unnatural.
She studied him out the corner of her eye.
Nothing about his posture seemed off. Well, except that his mouth was closed. So weird.
Without saying anything, the three of them hopped up into their cockpits. With such a heightened threat level, the maintenance teams had already spun up and done the pre-flight checks. It irked Colt that she didn’t have time to do it herself. It was rather unsettling, trusting your life to someone else and their diligence level. Nothing to be done about it now, unfortunately.
A quick glance at her controls, and everything looked solid.
“Control, Baker 1, green and ready,” she said into the comms.
“Baker 1, Control, clear for TO.”
“Roger.” She smashed the deployment button even before the word had left her mouth. The cockpit descended quickly and silently into the fighter.
As soon as the pressure indicator lit up, she disengaged the clamps and throttled up. Her fighter shot out into the darkness like a streaking missile. As part of the RRT, they weren’t under the same restrictions as the rest of the station. That was also the primary reason the airspace around G-212 was kept mostly clear.
Marconi and Azarov were only a half-second behind her, so close she could actually see their craft glittering in the sunlight against the dark backdrop of Nemesis Asteroid.
A chirp announced an incoming data packet.
There appeared to be an entire convoy under attack along the shipping lane through the belt.
Pirates had been thick and active lately, like horseflies in the summer.
Not like she’d ever seen a horsefly.
Or horses, for that matter.
There were no craft counts yet as it was preliminary data. The long-range scans showed quite a messy situation, though.
She flipped on her squad comms. “Anyone else think the pirates are being more ballsy lately?”
“Probably taking advantage of the mess on Mars, thinking the Protectorate has its hands full down there,” Azarov said.
Marconi was silent.
The lack of a witty response from him made the hair on her arms stand up. Or try to, at least.
That wasn’t the first time this had come up. There was definitely a correlation between the level of activity on Mars and the pirates throughout the system. She’d even heard that there was a significant increase in crime on Earth.
The unrest on Mars is irreparably damaging the cohesion of the system.
It was a sobering thought.
Her whole life had been spent in relative comfort. Sure, she had her own struggles, but she’d never once worried about system-wide politics. Now, suddenly, she went to bed every night wondering if the UNIC would live to see another sunrise.
Not really, though. The UNIC was one of those “too big to fail” type governments. It was too complicated to unravel. Not worth the effort.
Colt throttled up her craft, flirting with maximum power.
The sleek fighter stretched out; it was built for speed, meant to race among the stars. She wished they’d ease up on the restrictions a bit. The speed limits barely scratched the surface of what these fighters could do. Sure, it created a bit more danger for the pilot, but imagine what they could do with even a slight increase.
A chime sounded from her console.
She glanced down to see an incoming, unregistered data packet.
Her eyebrows rose.
An unregistered packet meant it was coming from somewhere outside the Protectorate mainframe. A prompt to Accept or Decline appeared.
Shrugging, she hit Accept.
From time to time, packets were corrupted during entanglement. It was rare, but it happened. If that were the case, a bunch of random junk would load onto her screen. Then she’d have to spend some time fussing with Nemesis controllers to track down what it was supposed to be.
The file loaded quickly; it was an encrypted message, rather small from the file size.
A password prompt blinked slowly.
Now her brows furrowed, and she leaned back into her seat, confused.
Why would Control send her a password protected message without some kind of key?
Because they expected her to already know it.
She leaned over to key in her Protectorate identification number.
The password field blinked red and reset. A warning underneath read, Invalid Authentication: Four Attempts Remain.
Colt pursed her lips thoughtfully. She couldn’t think of another password that both her and the Protectorate would know to use without some kind of key or heads up. Which begged the question—had this originated from the Protectorate or someone else?
Beneath her pressure suit, she felt a sudden chill course through her body. Who could this be from?
There was only one person she could think of… the judgmental spy.
Which made the password easy to figure out.
She keyed it in.
Spalding.
The message loaded.
The pirates were involved. Have loaded your nav with location data you might be interested in. Grab info while you’re there. Be careful. This runs deep.
The style of talking, the tone, all matched the previous conversations.
It was her secret spy.
There was no doubt about it.
Colt let out a held breath slowly. There was a lot going on with this message. How had pirates been involved in setting Spalding up? How? Why? What did that have to do with Aldis?
While she considered the implications, she loaded up her navigational data. Just like the spy had claimed, there was a new entry that pointed to asteroid 243-Ida. Although it was a decently sized S-class asteroid, there were no registered structures on it. Which wasn’t surprising; there were over a million and a half-registered asteroids, with more being discovered in the Kuiper belt and the closest reaches of the Oort Cloud every day.
What was hiding on Ida that had anything to do with Spalding?
Obviously, it was some kind of base of operations for pirate activity. Thus, its proximity to the shipping lanes and the conflict they were currently heading toward. That made the most sense to her. Which begged the additional question—what kind of hornet’s nest were they flying into?
Despite fighting them constantly, little was known about the pirates. The official Protectorate stance was that there was little to no organization to be found. Their claim was that it was a single group, managed by the so-called “King” of the pirates, scattered loosely and haphazardly throughout the two belt systems. She vehemently disagreed with just about every aspect of their assumptions. Through her own experience, she’d observed them to be highly organized, well-equipped, and somewhat fanatical in their governance. Not the type of enemy you should underestimate, in her opinion.
That information, obviously, didn’t sync well with them being involved in a massive, system-wide conspiracy to overthrow the Martian government, as well as defame the face of the Protectorate Fleet.
Lisa had always thought the pirate’s life was somewhat alluring. Being free to go and do whatever you felt like, living a life you chose. Those feelings probably had originated with her extremely restrictive childhood. Still, there was something appealing about the purported lifestyle.
Now, she suddenly found herself faced with a perplexing dilemma. Should she trust this person? It could easily be a trap. Abducting the only offspring of a Protectorate admiral wouldn’t be a bad strategy. More had been done with less over the centuries, that’s for sure. Still, if it was in fact the same person who’d saved her from being discovered during her moonlighting as a hacker, the question then became, why? Not only would that have required quite a lot of forethought, it was a risky gamble. If the aim was to abduct her, just ambush and capture. Why all the elaborate electronic interactions?
No, she’d go to the coordinates programmed into her systems. She knew that as soon as she saw them there. Her curiosity would always get the better of her. Plus, if this person knew what they were talking about, and there was proof of a coordinated effort against Spalding at that location, she was spiritually bound to acquire it. She wasn’t sure why she felt that way, but she was unwilling to try to unpack it enough to properly rationalize it. Something inside her demanded she clear Spalding.
That being settled, she checked her estimated arrival time. They were still well over an hour away.
What should she tell Marconi and Azarov? Whatever it was, it’d have to be good. There was no way they’d let her go somewhere alone. Not during an active engagement. It wasn’t like she could just sneak off during a battle, either. That certainly wouldn’t look good, especially if there were losses. That was far too close to what had allegedly happened with Spalding, and like him, there was no way she could bring herself to do that.
