Chimera Company - Deep Cover 3 Read online

  She told him it was because their love was so intense.

  He would reply that it was because she looked so good unwrapped.

  So long as the two of them were together, it didn’t matter why they were so good.

  He wanted to make love to her. Even with Catkins standing a few feet away, he wanted sex. To Izza, though, the eye thing was an altogether more enhanced level of intimacy.

  He supposed she was right, of course. But all the same…

  Fitz sighed and allowed himself to be swept along into the inexplicable current that flowed between them. He walled off any frustration with the thought that if they ever did get away to safety in the Phantom, he would leave Sinofar in charge for a few days while her captain and first mate secluded themselves in the privacy of their cabin, and attended to unfinished business.

  The flow carried him far away from the carriage flinging them through the enormous space station. As always when they connected like this, they felt they were but two distant elements of a gestalt being that forever yearned to draw more individuals within its heart. The flow pulled them to the Dyson ring that mined the nearby gas giant.

  They tarried there.

  The ring held secrets, hints of the deep past and of potential futures. It was trying to tell them something. A secret it was vital they knew…

  They reached for this tantalizing knowledge, but it was pixie dust, evanescent teases that would not reveal themselves.

  Yet for fleeting moments, these glimpses of a deeper understanding firmed and slowed.

  They had seized fragments before.

  Would they catch anything this time?

  OBSERVATION TEAM GAMMA

  “What are they doing?” Silasja scratched her head. “It wouldn’t exactly be the first time we’ve caught passengers having sex on the rail system, but Tango1 and Tango2 are… Hell! I don’t know what they’re doing.”

  “They’re both mutants,” Sergeant Fon-Derez replied. “Both deviant.” He laughed at Silasja. “Why? Were you hoping to see the plant woman in the full glory of her naked bloom?”

  “I…”

  “Never done it with a Zhoogene before, have you?”

  She cleared her throat. “No, Sergeant.”

  Fon-Derez nodded sagely. “Zhoogenes in bloom. One of the wonders of the universe. And the weird thing is they feel the same about humans. Not Gliesans, nor Pryxians, Xhiunerites or anyone else. Just us. It’s like the universe gave you a cheat code, Silasja. I suggest you use it. If you survive the fallout after that fuck up in District Metz. So keep your eyes on the feeds and don’t indulge in your green fantasies until this is all over. If you lose track of those two, I guarantee personally that you will regret it to the end of days.”

  “Yes, Sergeant.”

  Silasja placed her full attention on the carriage swinging along the mag-rail leading toward the center of the station.

  She did her best to obey her sergeant as she observed everything.

  But the images were so distracting.

  TAVISTOCK FITZWILLIAM

  Fitz tensed as he raced into the docking bay, half expecting a trap.

  Instead of running into laser crossfire from hidden auto-sentries, he ran into a card game.

  Sinofar looked up, keeping her cards close to her chest. “Hello, Captain. Lieutenant.”

  His crewmembers were sitting against the bulkhead, using bits of worn starship parts for chips. Hell, they’d even dealt Lynx in, which was always a bad idea.

  “What happened?” Izza demanded.

  “Military ship pulled into the neighboring bay,” Sinofar explained.

  “I took a good look,” Fregg added. “It’s a corvette. Special variant with force keels like you’ve never seen.”

  “Were they on twin-nacelle booms?” asked Catkins.

  “Concentrate!” yelled Fitz.

  “Yes, Captain.” Sinofar tried again. “The bulkhead separating our two bays slid away and armed jacks marched into our ship. They opened up the hatch like they had the codes and turfed us out. I counted them as they came aboard and counted them all back off again, except for their officer who remained on board, waiting for you to show up.”

  Fitz’s good spirits were dragged down toward the depths of despair. Getting away wasn’t going to be easy. It never was.

  “This officer,” he said, “was she a female human? Short? Could be cute if she underwent an emergency personality transplant?”

  “I would say so, Captain.”

  “And her eyes, Sinofar… what color were her eyes?”

  “I cannot say. They were obscured by polarized material. Rather like your sunshades, in fact, but gold.”

  “Kanha Wei,” cursed Izza. She jogged toward the Phantom’s open hatch.

  “Next hand wins,” Fitz told his crew. “Then pack up and be ready to board. This could get ugly.”

  TAVISTOCK FITZWILLIAM

  “Get out of my husband’s seat!”

  “I thought we had a deal, Fitzwilliam.” Kanha Wei’s slight frame was hidden by the back of the pilot’s seat, but her feet were resting, ankles crossed, on the flight console where his feet belonged.

  “And I thought JSHC was safe because you told me it would be.” He spun his seat around, so Wei faced them. “You lied. Now do as the lady says and get out of my damned chair.”

  “I didn’t lie. My intelligence was compromised. And that is one of the reasons I need you as assets.”

  “I see,” said Fitz. “Let me think about it. Hmm.” He pulled at his chin. “No. No way. I’m not running a team for you. Goodbye.”

  Kanha Wei held her hands out in a placatory gesture.

  It only riled Fitz more.

  “I came to tell you that you’re in danger,” she said. “There’s a tracker secreted on Phantom.”

  “By your people?”

  “No. By the bad guys. People are out to kill you, Fitzwilliam.”

  “Really? Oh, is that why we had to dust an assassination squad in District Metz?

  “What?”

  Wei took off her shade band. Azhanti! Those blazing lilac eyes… This was how he’d looked to Izza back on the train. “I didn’t know about that,” she admitted.

  “Well now you do.”

  “And now that you are more informed,” said Izza, slipping on a pair of knuckle spikes for emphasis, “get the hell off our ship.”

  “The both of you together couldn’t take me down,” said Wei. “Probably. But I wouldn’t want to find out for sure and, besides, I keep trying to explain that I need you. Before you fly off, I still need you to load up the legionary and Militia part of your team.”

  “I don’t trust you,” said Izza trumping her knuckle spikes by drawing her plasma pistol. “If we’ve been bugged, we will find the device and destroy it. And whatever you think of your fighting prowess, Kanha Wei, this is our home turf. If I am to die this day, it will be a great consolation to drag you down to the Five Hells with me.”

  Wei gave Izza an appraising look that terminated in a nod of respect. “I understand what he sees in you. For the life of me, though, I just can’t see it the other way around. Okay, let’s try another tack.”

  She shrugged off her cloak.

  “Not again,” Fitz groaned. “She does this, Izza. I don’t know why, but this is her thing. It’s a compulsion for nudity. Can’t you keep it modest this time?”

  “We are all laid bare before the eyes of the Empress,” Wei intoned. “She sees all. Knows all.”

  To Fitz’s relief, she wasn’t naked beneath her cloak this time, but she pulled down enough clothing to show the upper reaches of her tattoo: the woman with lustrous indigo hair.

  “I swear on the Immortal Empress,” said Wei solemnly. “May she strike me down and dishonor me if I lie. I knew nothing of the danger you would face on this station. I will fulfill the terms we agreed earlier and help you to evade pursuit by neutralizing the tracker. In return, you will fulfill your terms of the bargain.”

  Fitz
expected Izza to be angry, but her beautiful eyes were wide with fear when she turned to him.

  “Nyluga-Ree wants us to return to her immediately,” she said. “She made contact a few hours ago. If we don’t serve a ten-year indenture, she’ll have you killed. The hard way.”

  “No, she won’t.” Fitz shook his head. “She’s just being a little frisky. Ree loves me really.” As he spoke, he re-ordered the list of the powerful people that he knew bore him a grudge, and weighed it against the latest promises he’d made. Coming to a decision, he pointed at Wei’s tattoo. “I’m on her side.”

  Izza thought for a moment and collected herself. “I think you are very wise.” She holstered her pistol and started removing the knuckle spikes. “We work with Kanha Wei.”

  “Wait,” said Fitz. “What just happened there? Now you’re okay to work with that woman?”

  Izza shrugged. “Wei swore on the Empress.” When Fitz remained unimpressed, she added, “Don’t you ever say a prayer to the Empress in your hour of need?”

  “No. No, I really don’t. I can’t believe you, Izza. You’ve never talked of this before.”

  She shrugged. “Of course not. It is a private matter.”

  “Azhanti! What’s wrong with you?”

  She smirked. “Azhanti, eh, Tavistock? You yourself invoke the name of the Empress.”

  “I thought her name was Indiya.”

  “She goes by many names. Littoranes call her Sh’Ieddyz S’Fsh – The Holy Wrath. Azhanti is one of the names commonly used by humanoids.”

  “And now you trust Kanha Wei. Do you really understand who she is? The things she’s done? She shows you a tattoo, and instantly you believe in her.”

  Izza raised a golden eyebrow. “Didn’t you, husband?”

  Fitz stared at the two women, now in an unholy cahooting alliance.

  His wife had been right to talk about home-turf advantage. But there were secret mods within the hidden traps that even she didn’t know about.

  With nothing more than a few words, he could disable both women, throw them off his ship and be away.

  He didn’t need anyone else to fly Phantom.

  But it would be a lonely existence without Izza beside him.

  Wei gave him a disappointed look, as if to say the thought process in his head was clear to see, and she was impatient for him to reach the obvious conclusion.

  “Time is not our friend,” she nudged.

  Fitz grinned at her, because he’d come to the conclusion many years before that the galaxy treated him a little better when he smiled at it.

  “Well then,” he said. “I guess that’s settled. Let’s go round up the rest of Chimera Company.”

  OSU SYBUTU

  “Grab your gear. Fresh assignment, boys. We’re outta here.”

  Bronze and Zavage were lying on their racks in a tiny berthing compartment. They looked up at Osu in surprise.

  Then they rushed to comply, grunting in unison when their bodies reminded them that they had been wounded in the escape from Rho-Torkis, and not yet fully healed.

  The sight of two grunting sappers of the Legion vacating their berthing was maybe not quite stirring, but sure gave Osu a feeling of reassurance. At last, life was beginning to move in more familiar patterns.

  Their orders were to board a commercial supply ship to Eiylah-Bremah. There they would locate Vetch Arunsen and bring him back to Joint Sector High Command for a proper Legion debriefing. One carried out in conjunction with the Legion.

  This still wasn’t the Legion work he’d trained for, and the rest of 27th Squadron were still frozen irradiated ash in the ruins of Camp Faxian. Nonetheless, it was a step in the right direction.

  His good mood faltered when he realized that even in his own head, he was still referring to the former SpecMish operative as Bronze, reluctant to use his service name for fear it would provoke dangerous attention.

  Hines Zy Pel.

  Nope! The man’s real name still felt dangerous.

  No matter that the Legion had just used the name ‘Zy Pel’ to issue him fresh orders. Osu figured he simply wasn’t ready to trust the galaxy again.

  Not even here in Joint Sector High Command.

  Not yet.

  ——

  “Slow down, Sybutu,” said Bronze, wincing in pain as they jogged away to the closest mag-rail platform. “We need to think about this.”

  Osu slowed down all right.

  “That’s, Sergeant to you,” he growled. “You belong to me now, SOTL.”

  “I’m sorry, Sergeant. I just get nervous when orders make no sense. Why are we going to pick up Arunsen in person? The Militia could simply order him back here.”

  “To keep it off the books?” Osu suggested, and then cursed himself for answering Bronze’s question. “It doesn’t matter. Our orders were given to me in person by a full colonel. That’s all any of us needs to know. The officer didn’t feel the inclination to justify his thinking, and neither do I. Now, pick up those damned feet, SOTL. The Pride of Lienport is delaying departure until we board. They won’t wait forever.”

  They picked up the pace, but Bronze wasn’t finished with his insubordination. “How do you know this colonel was genuine? After what happened on Rho-Torkis, the chain of command runs from you, Sergeant, straight to General Moritz at divisional HQ. Everyone else is dead. Does the colonel report to him?”

  Osu shuddered to a halt. “Listen good, both of you. This is Joint Sector High Command, not a random children’s birthday party. The people who wear officer’s insignia on this station have earned that right, and you will not challenge their legitimate instructions, unless in exceptional circumstances where you are privy to tactical information that has not yet passed up the chain of command. And since we have just been debriefed, this is not such a scenario. I don’t want a peep out of either of you until we’re walking through the boarding hatch of Pride of Lienport. We’re through rubbing shoulders with the Militia. You will once again comport yourself as legionaries.”

  He squared up to Bronze. “Acknowledge!”

  “Up the fuck shut, Sergeant. Got it.”

  “Make sure you have, SOTL.”

  Bronze acted the chastened legionary as they jogged along the passageway, following the signs to the mag-rail platform, but he wasn’t convincing Osu. With all his skills and experience, the damned pipe smoker should be an asset, but there was a huge problem Osu had only just realized.

  Bronze would always think he was better than his NCO, because the SpecMish man wasn’t a real SOTL: sapper of the Legion was just a part he played when it suited.

  When he’d roused his team from their racks, Osu had finally begun to feel back in control, but all that had been undermined by just a few words from Bronze.

  Like every other jack in the Federation, Osu had always listened to scuttlebutt, and argued with gusto over beers about how to sort out the Federation’s many ills. The truth was that he’d never known what was going on outside his barracks unless he’d been briefed.

  Arunsen and his Militia comrades had been sent to Eiylah-Bremah.

  Osu had never heard of the world.

  The colonel had spoken of it as a terminal posting. The kind of place you were sent to die, which had struck a nerve, because Arunsen had claimed that was the reason he’d been sent to Rho-Torkis. But on Eiylah-Bremah, it wasn’t so much the cold as the citizens of that world who caused such a high attrition rate for Militia troopers.

  The planet was under the iron grip of a dictator, and it was the Militia who was enforcing her brutal rule, playing the bad guys in a guerilla war.

  It would be easy to die in such a place. As deserters, Arunsen and the others would be first into the meatgrinder.

  The colonel had taken the time to explain this because he’d assumed Osu would be ignorant. He’d been right too. But Osu guessed that Bronze would know more about Eiylah-Bremah than the senior officer.

  And why had he been issued orders by a colonel? He’d been too
busy trying not to say anything dumb to even think of such a question. But he was asking it now.

  Damn Bronze for being right.

  Am I being a professional disciplined soldier obeying orders? Or am I a dumb jack being played for the ignorant skragg I am?

  Osu picked up the pace still further, but he couldn’t outrun his doubts.

  Veteran soldier or naïve patsy? From where he was standing, it was impossible to tell the two apart.

  TAVISTOCK FITZWILLIAM

  This wasn’t like their exuberant return from District Metz. The mag-rail carriages were full of passengers from the watch changeover, and Fitz was feeling trapped inside the small metal boxes.

  To make matters worse, he’d left his F-Cannon back on Phantom, and dispatched his wife to bring back the Militia troopers while he fetched the jacks.

  She’d advised against splitting up, and she’d been right.

  Though it pained him, Fitz needed to be apart from her for a little while. His heart and head needed to test whether the situation really was so bad that he’d have to activate his deepest contingency plan: deep cover.

  “Excuse me,” he said pleasantly to the trio in engineer’s fatigues standing by the inter-carriage door. “Would you mind letting me through?”

  One of them frowned at him beneath heavy eyebrows. “Can’t you read the damned sign? Door’s not to be used while train is in motion.”

  “Yes, I can read, thank you. But such statements only hold advisory weight for people such as me.”

  “Oh, yeah? What does that make you? The Empress’s assistant butt wiper?”

  Fitz scratched behind his ear, casually revealing his Guild token. The obstinate engineer practically dragged his two companions off toward the far side of the carriage in his haste to get away.

  I must thank Nyluga-Ree for inducting me, Fitz mused as he contemplated the doorway to the next carriage. Kanha-Wei had told him that the legionaries were somewhere aboard this train, but there had been no sign of them so far.

  He shrugged. Crossing between moving carriages was the kind of task best done and not contemplated. Besides, in comparison with traversing the gap left by a missing carriage five minutes’ earlier, this should be a cinch.