A House United Read online

  “That should buy us a few seconds,” 80 said as the trio collectively stood in the narrow access junction—which thankfully looked like it had been unattended for years. “Let’s get to our ride and skedaddle.”

  “Who invited you?” the Judge asked as they wound through the twisting passageway.

  “I think I just wrote my own invitation,” 80 quipped. “You people are good, but not that good,” he continued after popping his helmet’s visor open. “You didn’t count on the Fury out there showing up—but I did. While their data banks don’t include this emergency launch system, their sensors were updated recently to pick up on maglev signatures like this one’s. They’d have plucked you from the void in seconds without my help in disabling their sensor grid—help which I’m only too happy to give if you let me tag along.”

  Lu Bu’s eyes narrowed, but she kept pace as they moved down the corridor, “Who updated their sensors?”

  ‘Number 80’ snorted, “Ok, you got me. Sometimes a guy’s got to make his own luck.”

  “Fine,” Lu Bu grunted, knowing that they wouldn’t have made it this far without his help. He had also given them information necessary to retrieve Chief Winters, along with the three crewmen who had been abducted with her. There was simply no way around it: whoever this man was, he had helped them significantly and the mission's team—to say nothing of Lu Bu personally—owed him.

  They soon came to the launch ‘vehicle’ which, in truth, looked like a roughly egg-shaped rock.

  She swiped her wrist-link across the craft’s hidden control panel and was rewarded by the audible click of locks disengaging within. A few minutes later, after completing a truncated pre-launch checklist—and after sending the encoded message to Shiyuan telling him to expect them presently—they were hurtling through the fifty mile long launch tube.

  Twenty seconds after they cleared the surface of the asteroid, amid a cloud of debris which at least partly concealed them, the Mode swooped in and collected them using a temporary collection arm that Fisher had rigged up prior to arriving at Paradise Station.

  The Mode point transferred shortly after the trio had boarded, and only then did Lu Bu breathe a sigh of relief at completing her mission.

  She had collected the five people on the list, and now they were someone else’s problem. For her part, and for the first time since embarking on this particular itinerary, all she could think about was getting back to see her children.

  Chapter XI: Fire & Forget?

  “Do you think we can trust them?” McKnight asked of her XO as the droid contingent boarded the freighter which would take them to the Rainbow.

  “I don’t see why not,” Spalding shrugged with annoying indifference. “Think about it this way: they, even more than us, are virtual entities. Their bodies are less important to them than their identities—their cores—and we gave them a means by which they could address what was easily the most debilitating ‘disease’ of their existence: the inability to self-modify.” He snorted softly, “How would we feel if someone came down from the clouds and helped us overcome the most deadly disease known to humanity?”

  “That presumes quite a bit about their psycho-social makeup,” McKnight countered, though in truth she shared her XO’s assessment of the droids’ trustworthiness.

  “What’s the worst that can happen?” Spalding asked rhetorically. “They fail to reach the Rainbow or, after arriving, fail to repair it or, after repairing it, fail to return with it?” He gave her a bemused look, “I’d have thought a Tactical Officer would find it difficult identifying the downside there.”

  McKnight shook her head grimly as the small craft lifted off from the moon’s surface, “That’s far from the worst, XO. The worst is that they betray us and, a few days from now, an Imperial armada descends on us.”

  His silence was sufficient proof that he, too, had considered that possibility.

  She shook her head and deactivated the display from the landing pad’s video feed, “There’s nothing for it now.”

  “Fire and forget?” Tiberius asked with an arched brow.

  “Essentially,” she nodded. “And now that Lu’s completed her mission, it’s up to Fisher to close the deal with the assembled ‘dignitaries’.”

  “I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes,” Tiberius said with measured sympathy before changing the subject. “Speaking of shoes, Helena says your therapy is coming along better than she expected—and in my experience she’s got pretty high standards.”

  McKnight arched a brow, “You’ve been checking in on me?”

  “It’s part of the job, ma’am,” Tiberius said neutrally. “As XO I’ve got to be ready to step in at any time; my CO’s health and duty-readiness are key factors in when I may be needed to do just that.”

  She was actually grateful that he had told her—she’d already known from Helena that Tiberius had been making regular trips to Medical to check on her progress, but that was less important than the continued building of trust between them.

  “Good,” she said simply. “I’ll probably need the braces for another eight to ten weeks, but after that I should be able to carry out my duties unassisted.” His silence prompted her to look over at him, and when she did she saw a distant look on his face. “Do you have something to add?”

  “It’s Tremblay, ma’am,” Spalding finally said. “I just get the feeling he’s playing us somehow.”

  Her lips twisted sourly, “You’re not the only one. I’ve tried to open certain files in Lynch’s database and found that my access is denied.”

  “Same here,” Tiberius said with mild relief—presumably at his having clandestinely attempted to access the same files she had. “As near as I can tell, the blocks were in place before Tremblay came on board with Lynch.”

  McKnight cocked a brow in surprise, “How did you determine that?”

  “Trace code tags and fragments in the database,” he said dismissively, “it wasn’t me that found them, it was Waldo. Unfortunately, that’s all the help he claims he can give.”

  “You don’t trust him?”

  “Do you?” he countered.

  “I actually might,” she mused. “He’s one of the few members of this crew who has made absolutely no bones about why he’s here. That might not make him perfectly compatible with our mission, but it does make him predictable.”

  “You can take the officer from Tactical, but you can’t take Tactical from the officer,” Tiberius said wryly.

  “That wasn’t nearly as clever as you thought it was,” she deadpanned.

  “I wasn’t going for clever,” he said knowingly, “just accurate.”

  She had to give him that much: she was still thinking of things in Tactical terms, and she had become increasingly frustrated with that fact. A commander was supposed to think in strategic terms at least as much as tactical ones, but she found it increasingly difficult to do that in her current predicament.

  Tremblay had apparently gained a greater measure of Lynch’s trust than anyone else presently attached to this operation, and that was enough all by itself to give her major cause for concern. That concern had, among other things, played a key role in her decision to roll the dice on the droids’ attempt to bring the Rainbow back into play—and to do so secretively.

  “We are what we are, Lieutenant,” she said, breaking from her reverie. “And in a few hours we should have Fisher’s first report on the negotiations which, if all has gone according to schedule, should be getting underway any moment now. That report will determine much of what comes next. Are the Tracto-an preparations proceeding apace?”

  “We’ve got nearly two hundred fully-trained Tracto-ans in various stages of rehab,” Spalding said, gesturing to the data slate containing the report, “all but twenty of them should be combat-ready in another three weeks. Beyond that, there are twenty youths that have distinguished themselves by sailing through the crash course in Lancer training that Lu developed before embarking on her assignment. Another ten or f
ifteen will probably make the cut before she returns, which beats Valeria’s anticipated number.”

  McKnight scowled at hearing the word ‘youths’ used to describe this second batch of recruits. Some of them were as young as fifteen—and each of their ages had been confirmed via medical scans conducted by Helena with Tiberius’ direct oversight—and she still harbored significant reservations about sending such young people into combat.

  “They would have been fighting in trenches back on Tracto at their present age anyway,” she said in a vain attempt to counter the doubt she felt about her decision to allow them into the Lancer program. Like so many other decision’s in a person’s life, she had initially allowed them to partake in the training program because she’d felt that she could remove them from candidacy later on if she changed her mind. But now that twenty of them had successfully passed the rigorous testing which Lu had put them through, McKnight found herself unable to think of them as anything but combat-ready assets ready to be deployed.

  “They would have—and half of them would have died by now,” Tiberius agreed. “Cold comfort, sure, but it does weigh on the ethical scales somewhere.”

  “In any case, we should have plenty of manpower by the time the op’s next phase is underway,” she gestured to the display built into the far wall—the same one on which they had watched the droids disembark. That display now contained a mission timeline for the next phase of their operation—an operation with which Mr. Tremblay was every bit as familiar as McKnight and Spalding were. “But I think it’s time you and I—and no one else,” she added darkly, “come up with a revised Phase Three. I don’t trust Tremblay—at all—so I’m disinclined to place our collective fates in his hands. I’d be a fool not to expect at least one of those hands to hold a knife.”

  She spun a data slate—one which, due to her ‘modifications,’ now completely lacked any wireless connectivity capability—around and handed it to him. It contained the first steps in her proposed modification to Phase Three of Tremblay’s operation, but she knew that she would need help to craft a successful exit strategy—which is precisely what this was: an exit strategy that would, if it went off, either put significant distance between themselves and Tremblay before the inevitable betrayal came or give them sufficient leverage to wriggle free of any traps he might have laid.

  Spalding exhaled in apparent relief after reading through the first page or so, “I’m glad to see we’ve been on the same page all along, Captain.”

  “Same book,” she chided, “if we were on the same page, I wouldn’t need your help.”

  “Fair enough,” he nodded, and together they worked through the night to make revisions to the plan.

  Chapter XII: Negotiations

  “I’m going to go ahead and assume you all know each other,” Fisher began while Lu Bu looked on from the back of the room. She had little interest in the proceedings’ specifics, and had no doubt that Fish could take care of himself if any of the dignitaries got uppity—even the rotund Senator had been effectively shackled by Shiyuan’s temporary implant of a local jamming device that inhibited her implanted augments from playing much of a factor. “And,” Fish continued confidently, “I’m going to further assume that, even if some of you are unfamiliar with others present, you’re all smart enough not to want to know any more than is absolutely necessary in order to limit your respective legal liabilities. Stop me if I get any of this wrong,” he said, sweeping the five-person assemblage with his surprisingly hardened gaze.

  To Lu Bu, Fisher had always been a relatively lighthearted and happy-go-lucky type. But since the investiture—or whatever they chose to call it—in front of the Purity Council so many weeks earlier, Fish’s attitude had become increasingly serious. This new version was more like someone Lu Bu would gladly stand shoulder-to-shoulder with on a firing line, whereas the former version was one that most people—even Lu—would think of more as a friend and after-hours buddy.

  She was perplexed for a moment when she realized that she didn’t know which version she actually preferred.

  “But most of you probably don’t know who I am,” he continued as she mulled the former conundrum over in her mind, “so let’s fix that: my name is Anthony Fisher, and I’m the current Steward and Executor of House Raubach.”

  “So the rumors were true…” the rotund Senator scoffed. “House Cornwallis’ reach is far, indeed, if he managed to take out Raubach’s leadership what with them all camped out on the Rim.”

  “The Spine,” Lu corrected irritably, taking offense at her home Sectors being referred to as ‘the Rim’ since the latter suggested lawlessness and the lack of anything approaching genuine civilization.

  “That’s what I said,” the Senator sliced an acid look in Lu Bu’s direction, prompting the Lancer Corporal to return the look even more severely. “In any event,” the Senator broke eye contact after a short-but-intense battle of wills, “why would Cornwallis need our help?”

  “You’ve got the wrong idea entirely,” Fisher snorted. “Cornwallis wasn’t the one who took out Raubach’s old management—we were.”

  “Yes, yes,” the Senator waved a hand airily, “you’re clearly quite capable and…resourceful people,” she cast a disdainful look around the Mode’s ultra-spartan interior, “to be able to do so much with so little. But we can dispense with the posturing: House Raubach lives and dies at Cornwallis’ pleasure.”

  “Perhaps you are not as apprised of current events as others present,” the Judge—now fully-clothed, as was Lu Bu—said witheringly, “but my sources inform me that House Raubach recently supported Governor Cambridge’s public defection from Cornwallis’ policies.”

  Fisher inclined his chin toward Lu Bu, “She’s the one who convinced him to do that—well, her and one other.”

  The five heads swiveled in Lu Bu’s direction, and even the Senator grudgingly allowed, “Well…she can be fairly persuasive—in her own, limited way.” But she shook her head and refocused on Fisher, “Even if we believed you, why would we possibly want to work with you? House Cornwallis’ star is in ascent; the scraps left to a rebellious vassal House like Raubach are hardly enough to make someone with Cornwallis’ aspirations do more than laugh.”

  “You’re wrong about Cornwallis’ star being in ascent,” Fisher shook his head firmly. “It’s at its apex—and when it falls I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near the crash site. That’s why you should listen to what I have to say,” he said, again sweeping the assemblage in turn with his dark, brown eyes. “Because each of you has more to gain from Cornwallis’ fall than even House Raubach does—but none of you would admit it to each other if you didn’t think making it a reality was feasible.” With that—and with practiced confidence that Lu Bu knew he was largely feigning—he tapped a control icon on his data slate and the lights in the room dimmed.

  A hologram sprang up from the center of the table, and that hologram showed a series of numbers—most of which made absolutely no sense to Lu Bu, but which seemed to have convinced Shiyuan of their relative merit—arranged in a cloud-like formation.

  “You all recognize which of these numbers is important to you individually,” Fisher said after allowing the group a few moments to take the graphic in. “And now you’re each memorizing which of these numbers isn’t important to you so that you can figure out who at this table they might be important to. Don’t,” he said flatly. “I’ll provide them to you individually after the meeting is concluded; at the moment I want your total attention, now that I’ve demonstrated that I understand each of you well enough to have this conversation without any of the pretenses you’ve all been keeping up.”

  He tapped the slate and the hologram vanished. The lights in the room brightened afterward, and Lu Bu was more than mildly surprised to see that every single one of the ‘dignitaries’ had undergone a radical shift in his or her apparent attitude. Where before they had been stiff, unreceptive and downright hostile, now all of them—even the Senator—were clearly h
ungry to hear what Fisher had to say.

  “So it’s true…Jameson actually did get his revenge,” the Senator mused. “And you’d be willing to surrender House Raubach’s ranking post on the Cultural Ethics committee in exchange for my help?”

  “No haggling—yet,” Fisher held up a finger. “For now, suffice to say that we’ve got common goals and that, after we work through the particulars, I’ll be more than happy to share my proposed compensation packages with each of you individually.”

  The egghead leaned forward and splayed his hands, “You’ve assembled a sitting Senator—one who grudgingly co-chairs the committee she just referenced,” he gestured to the artificially tubby Senator, “a Sector Judge,” he gestured to the woman who Lu Bu had retrieved from Paradise Station, “the estranged scion of a vassal House with even less clout than your own,” he pointed his two thumbs toward himself before turning his fingers to the fourth person at the table—a hulking man who had caught Lu with a good uppercut during his ‘invitation’ to these proceedings, “the Governor of Cydonia,” and finally rested his gaze on the fifth person, who was an elderly but sharp-eyed woman that had been the easiest to bring to the table, “and the Chief Archivist of Cydonia’s Cultural Museum.”

  “What’s your point, egghead?” the Cydonian Governor growled, prompting Lu Bu to belatedly stifle a laugh at hearing that she was not alone in labeling the annoying information specialist as she had.

  “My point is simple,” the egghead said dismissively, “whatever it is you’re planning, it’s a heist—and what you’re after is information for which you’ll need four of the people at this table to help you secure, and the fifth,” he pointed his thumbs at his chest yet again, “to help you access. That narrows the list down to three possibilities, the first of which—”