Hells jesters, p.20
Hell's Jesters, page 20
A huge hand came to rest on her shoulder and Jerry Rodann’s syrupy bass spoke at her ear. “I was beginning to wonder after you.”
With a grin she couldn’t suppress, Kelly pivoted into the Hauler’s arms, laughing. The throng of refugees parted around them, a few grumbling. After a long squeeze, she pulled back to look him in the face. “Me, too. They treat you right?”
He shrugged. “Better than what we’re used to.”
They shared another laugh at that.
“Look at all this.” Jerry turned her around and gestured at the surrounding mania. “There’s a lot more to these Jesters than I would’ve expected.”
Armored Jesters waited near the base of the ramp, directing the traffic. A similar scene played out in front of other transports. Groups divided off, some forming lines toward the row of hangars on the field’s far side, others, smaller knots, heading towards a row of parked shuttles with the Jesters’ Death Head symbol leering from their hulls. There was crying and embraces, tears and farewells. A few would-be recruits paused near a pair of the insidious Jester fighters—“Hellhounds” Kelly had heard them called—but were chased off by maintenance crews.
Kelly glanced at Jerry again, had picked up something in his tone, something that sounded like admiration. “Have they been talking to you, Jerry?”
The Hauler grinned uncomfortably. “Yeah.”
Kelly nodded and looked away to hide the melancholy she knew would show across her face. “And you’ve been listening to what they have to say.”
“They’ve said some things that make sense, Kelly.”
“Some things...” She winced away a memory of the Admiral swearing vengeance over an empty grave.
“I’d kind of hoped—” he trailed off at the look on her face. “But, no. I guess not.” He shrugged mountainous shoulders. “I understand.”
“Do you?”
“I’m trying.”
“Then tell me why you’re going with them.”
Another shrug. “I don’t have anything left.”
“What about that daughter of yours, Jerry?”
He looked wistfully into the sky. “Tina grew up without me. The only thing she probably remembers is a dad who worked too much. And what was I working on?” His expression twisted into something momentarily angry and bitter. “They blew away everything I thought I was dedicating my life to on Gallaton. They made a lie of my life’s work. They made I lie of what I gave up seeing my daughter’s childhood for.”
“Going with the Jesters isn’t going to bring any of that back.”
“Maybe not,” Jerry’s voice trembled, “but maybe someone will pay for it.”
Kelly started an answer, one that would have come out cynical, despondenct, but she held it in, seeing the raw emotion in her new friend’s eyes. “I see.” She stepped back from him a little bit, held out her hand. “Good luck to you, Jerry Rodann.”
He accepted it. “We’ve got to stop doing this—saying goodbye, I mean.”
She stiffened to attention and flipped him her best parade ground salute. “It has been an honor.”
Jerry’s smile faded slightly. “You’re going to be all right?’
“Yes.” The word caught in her throat and Kelly had to fight back the lump there and the sudden rush of despair that nearly became tears. “I will be fine,” she rasped.
Jerry put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her close, kissed the top of her head in a fatherly way. “I hope you remember that there are people who care about you,” he whispered, his voice faltering at the end. He broke contact suddenly and moved away.
She didn’t turn around again until she was certain he was gone.
“That one will be a welcome addition,” Red’s voice said from her flank. The leader of the Jesters came up alongside her. “We need helmsmen. A friend of yours?”
“One of the only ones.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way, you know.”
Kelly didn’t look at the other woman, watched Jerry’s silhouette cross the landing field to the throng waiting to board a Jester craft. Silence dragged between the two of them, the only ones still waiting on the transport ramp.
“I’m sorry, but we’ve got a timetable,” Red said finally. She touched Kelly’s arm. “If you change your mind, Ms. Harrison, we’ll be back this way before long, maybe a couple months.” The Jester leader started down the ramp.
“That holo recording you gave me...was that the real thing?”
Red turned to look up at her. “Of course it was.”
“Don’t jerk me around.” Kelly tried to sound tough, but the tears were coming at last. “I’ve had about enough of that.”
Red smiled sadly. “I’m afraid the truth is bad enough that I don’t have to manufacture it.”
“I’d find out.”
“I know.”
Kelly wiped at her eyes furiously. “Do you really...do you think we can make a difference?”
“I do.” Red stepped towards her. “We already have made a difference—” she reached out to clasp Kelly’s arm “—for you.”
Kelly nodded, felt blasted and hollowed-out inside, but free somehow. “All right.”
Red linked Kelly’s arm with her own and led her down the ramp towards the Jester ships.
SCENES PIXILATED WITH interference showed carnage and fire in the streets of Hidalgo in the aftermath of riots on Santos. The voice of a local media personality breathlessly related death tallies and millions of credits in damage, but assured its viewing audience that the situation was under control and the ringleaders apprehended. A commercial followed the feed’s sudden cut-out, cheerily urging consumers to take advantage of a once-of-a-lifetime subscription to a beauty product line.
Snarling, Hal Geiger killed the hologram with a wave of his left hand. He paused at the motion, for a few moments regarded the pinkish regenn flesh and the new fingers he was still learning to use, eight months after Gallaton.
The regeneration surgeon who’d been paying Geiger a visit looked up from his holopad. “How’s that feeling, Admiral?”
Geiger shrugged and let the hand fall to the armrest of the plush ottoman at the center of his suite. A gentle breeze smelling of a Nova Terra afternoon lilted in from the balconied window to his left and played against his face, still numb and rigid. He eyed the arm again, reconstructed completely from the elbow down, and thought of similar bright pink coloring from shoulder to left knee.
“Admiral?”
Geiger didn’t look at the doctor who’d been healer and tormentor since the blasted hunk that had been a man had been brought to the clinic. “It’s fine. It’s not that.” He nodded disgustedly to the empty space in the air where the hologram had been.
“Oh, that.” The surgeon sighed. “Things aren’t all as bad they make it, are they?”
“Worse.”
“Do you think it will escalate further?”
“It already has. The Alliance is rotting.” Geiger looked at the other man now, offered him a smile that would be horrific with the bunching of scar tissue still awaiting the regenn tanks. He held up the new arm. “Like you had to remove the charred stump of this, we’re going to have cut out that rot, Doctor. We’re going to have to purge the Alliance.”
The surgeon nodded, but clear discomfiture with Geiger’s words prevented a response. He made to busy himself with some minutiae of his holo-charts.
A ping from Geiger’s armrest controls brought a globular hologram into being before him, showed a trim nurse with a humorless stare. “Doctor, the Admiral has a guest.”
“I’ll allow it,” the surgeon replied, a little too quickly. He glanced at Geiger. “No more than ten or fifteen minutes.” He made for the suite door. “You need your rest.”
“I’ve had enough,” Geiger growled after him.
The last man Geiger would have expected took the surgeon’s place in the entrance. Nehemiah K. Harrison grinned coolly as he leaned against the doorframe and Geiger was reminded instantly of how much he hated the man. Noticing the new, third jeweled star glimmering on Harrison’s high black collar, his hate approached incandescent levels.
“Nehemiah.”
Harrison stepped into the room. “Hal.”
“Or should I say, Fleet Admiral?” Geiger didn’t bother to hide a scowl. “A little redundant, isn’t that? You already had the Fringe World.”
Harrison took the examination stool to Geiger’s right. “The Admiralty thought it fitting, seeing as they are broadening the scope of my command.”
Of course they are. Geiger had to look away, wouldn’t let the man see the loathing and fury swirling in his eyes. To hell with Syntar’s instructions, to hell with it all. I want him to know. I want him to hear it from me what a cowardly traitor his daughter was.
“The Admiralty has a gift for you, too.” Harrison set a holopad on the tray beside Geiger, followed it with a velvet-lined case on top. “Congratulations, Vice Admiral.”
Geiger’s head snapped about to stare, the emotions of a moment before doused in a cold wash of surprise. Harrison grinned in response and popped the case open to reveal twin stars, winking ruby in the sunlight filtering through the suite’s window.
“What is this?” Geiger demanded in a throttled voice.
“It’s reward for good service.”
Geiger stared into Harrison’s green eyes, eyes matched by his traitor daughter’s. Disbelief was slow to thaw from his mind. “I wasn’t aware that the Admiralty was in the habit of rewarding cock-ups like the Gallaton situation.”
Harrison waved dismissively. “No one’s blaming you for that, Hal. It was a bad situation, one that any number of commanders might have fallen prey to.”
But not you, assuredly, Geiger seethed, but just slightly—the shock was wearing off.
“Anyway, the Admiralty appreciates a commander willing to make the hard decisions, take a hard line with the anarchy that I fear is spreading in the Outregion. You showed that you’re that kind of commander.”
Geiger offered the Admiral a smile—half-smile, scars leaving the left side of his mouth rigid. “And the Admiralty knows that there’s no other officer willing to risk reputation and career on messy measures.”
“I’m willing to risk it—” Harrison’s conversational tone slipped for a moment, went icy “—on you.”
Geiger let his resentment fade, flipped Harrison a casual, not quite mocking salute. “I am at your service, Fleet Admiral.”
“Good.” Harrison brightened. He tapped the holopad. “Your full orders are here, but I’ll explain. Part of my broadened responsibility is the creation of a new formation, based in the Outregion exclusively. For now, we’re calling it the Outregion Rapid Response Force. I’m reconsolidating several of the patrol and pursuit squadrons from the Spinward Sector. You’ll concentrate on lighter, faster units and ships.”
“I want the Immolator.”
“I thought you’d feel that way. She’s completing refit now. You’ll have her, as well as what remains of Subjugate.” Harrison got to his feet, started to pace. “Officially your task is to show the flag, create the appearance of the Fleet being everywhere, its eyes on this lawlessness and the long arm of the Alliance ready to react.”
“And unofficially?”
Harrison spun to face Geiger, eyes smoldering. “You are to hunt down the Hell’s Jesters.”
Geiger’s smile grew to ridiculous proportions, actually wrinkled the hard mass of scarring. Geiger felt something crack, felt a warm trickle as blood beaded free. “With the utmost pleasure, Admiral.”
Harrison stalked towards Geiger. “You don’t like me, do you, Hal?”
Geiger didn’t back down from the piercing stare. “It doesn’t matter.”
“You don’t have to deny it.” Harrison halted an arm’s breadth away, glowering. “I don’t like you, either. Never have.”
Geiger shrugged. “We’ve always had different ideas about our purpose, I suppose.”
“Not so much, anymore.” Harrison put a hand on the armrest. “You’re the kind of man with no use for the niceties, the kind of man who sees no point in refining war beyond destruction.” He leaned close and there was a storm in his stare that unnerved even Geiger. “You’re the kind of man who can bring me vengeance.”
With a shudder he couldn’t conceal, Geiger realized the context of the second Admiral’s star now. “I was sorry to hear about your daughter.”
Harrison winced, the disturbing flames in his eyes flickering as something human and hurt fluttered back into his face. He straightened and turned away. “Find their holes, Hal, and burn them out,” he said hoarsely. “Slaughter them.” He glanced over his shoulder. “And liquidate anyone you catch aiding them.”
Geiger nodded. “It will be done, Admiral Harrison.”
“Excellent.” Harrison didn’t look back as he started for the door. “Finish up whatever lazing about you’ve been doing. You’ll be expected by week’s end.”
The regeneration surgeon had to jump out of Harrison’s way as he passed through the exit at a brisk stride. Taking a look at Geiger, the doctor’s eyes widened. “Oh, your face.” He rushed to his side with a bit of gauze and dabbed at the crack in his scarred flesh.
Geiger keyed the armrest control and brought up a screen of polarized particles that acted as a mirror. The right side of his face was the old him. The left was a half-mask of mottled red and brown ridges, the cheek shrunken to paper thin winkles against the teeth, the eye socket sunken. Some of his eyebrow had grown back in, some of the hair, the new eye was splotchy but functional, but the rest...
The new me.
“I heard they’ll need you by week’s end,” the surgeon was saying. “That’s not optimal. We’ll have to have you in the regenerator tanks tonight to work on this.” He dabbed a final time at the sore and stepped back, frowning, trying to mask revulsion as he looked at the damage. “Shorter time with the tanks means more pain, Admiral. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. We won’t bother.”
“Sir?”
“Leave it as it is. I like it, as a reminder.” He flashed the surgeon his monstrous half-smile. “A reminder of what I must now do.”
TIM TRUDGED INTO THE Jester’s senior conference room nursing a hangover. Corey’s warnings about the damnable Junction homebrew should’ve prepared him for the nightmares, but he was seeing Nikki’s face everywhere, in every shadow. At least the cat shit taste in his mouth offered distraction.
“—I mean have you seen those sick-eyed tenderfeet?” Pitt was grumbling to Peter Yoshenko. “Red thinks we’re going to build the Jesters back up with these dregs?” The scrawny youth glanced up at Tim’s entrance. “Holy crap, Watkins, you look like ass.”
“You’d know,” Tim drawled as he slid into the chair beside Cory, across from Pitt, “you spend enough time scratching your own.”
That brought a chuckle from Yoshenko and some of the others around the table, Jester veterans promoted to fill out new leadership positions. What they’d be leading seemed to be the topic of conversation.
“Galen, here, has little regard for our new crop of talent,” Yoshenko volunteered to Tim.
“Talent,” Pitt snorted. “I’m sure they’re all well and good in a street brawl but how many of ‘em have actually been in deep space? Huh? Most of ‘em hardly know a grav drive from a garden hose.”
“How many of us were in the same place when we started out, Galen?” Yoshenko countered with red creeping into his pale, pock-marked features. “Not everyone had your previous comfort with killing.”
Pitt’s eyes glimmered but he didn’t respond, eyed Tim across the table instead. “How about you, Watkins? What do you think of the newbies?”
Tim shrugged and rubbed at eyes that seemed filmed with glue.
“Oh, that’s right,” Pitt smirked, “you haven’t bothered to come out and watch them unload. You’ve been too busy working on—what is it now?—a month-long blackout?”
Tim leaned back in his seat, stretched out until his vertebrae creaked, and unleashed a prolonged belch.
Pitt frowned as Yoshenko and the others shook with laughter. “Charming. I see you’ve really elevated your game.” He leaned across the tabletop, eyes roiling with ice fire. “And when was the last time you actually sat in a Hellhound, Watkins?”
“What the hell have we been called here for?” Tim asked, ignoring Pitt.
Yoshenko shook his head. “Maybe it’s for the long-overdue Gallaton Part Two debrief.”
Tim glanced at Cory, who’d been silent until now and squirmed as his eyes drifted over her. “You know, don’t you, Cory?”
Before she could answer, the door on the far side of the chamber whisked open to admit Red, moving with a spring to her step Tim hadn’t seen in some time and her hair newly-dyed to a fresh metallic crimson. Tim had expected the AGH spook, Jones, to be following but found instead a tall, hard-figured woman with a sharp chin, snowy features, and hair of an auburn shade that hit him like a plasma blast in the way it reminded him of Nikki.
“Good morning, Jesters,” Red said as she took the seat at the head of the table. The stranger remained standing at her flank, rigid with feet spread and hands folded behind her back in military formality. “I’m sorry we haven’t had time talk. It’s been a busy few weeks, seeing to the logistics following our little show in Gallaton.” She paused and offered a feral grin to the gathering. “Oh, and about that: hell of a good job people!”
That brought crowing from the men and women around the table, all of whom had had a taste of the action on Gallaton. Cory smiled a little. Tim did not.
“I couldn’t have asked for better,” Red went on. “Really, you all did me and yourselves proud. And the haul wasn’t too bad either.”
Pitt smirked across the table at Tim.
“AGH is well pleased. Syntar and its allies on the Assembly have been pissing themselves trying to explain away our broadcasts. And now we have the recruits we’ve needed.” Red let the cheery babble go on for a bit longer before rapping the tabletop with her knuckles. “All that said; we’re here for business. But it won’t be business as usual. As some of you have no doubt been guessing, there are going to be some changes. We’re growing again and that means training and accelerating our construction and armament programs. That also means reorganization.”
