Starship's Mage 2 Hand of Mars (15 page)

Damien was unconscious before he could agree aloud.

#

The fires were starting to burn out.

There wasn’t much left of Government House. The fires, the explosions, and general devastation had turned the seat of a planetary government into a shattered ruin. Rebuilding would be expensive if it was even possible. It might be necessary to simply write off the old structure and build a new mansion.

If Vaughn’s plan came even close to working, it would be a more than acceptable cost.

He’d relocated to a small conference room, still buried in the command center barely a kilometer from the smoldering ruins of his home. A pair of Scorpions, both of them fully trained Enforcer Mages and members of the Presidential Security Detail, kept most of the staff and media from bothering him.

Montoya, of course, simply walked right past his men. The Governor waited for the door to close behind the commander of the Scorpions before speaking.

“Well?” he demanded. He knew that the backdrop of the burning city on the wallscreen behind him would be unsettling, even to a hardened man like Montoya. Perhaps
especially
to Montoya, who knew damned well who’d ordered the disaster still taking shape above them.

“The SDF has confirmed what Cor’s people said,” Montoya replied. “There were no survivors from the
Tides of Justice
. Of course, our brave men and women thought they
wanted
to find survivors, so they were looking hard.”

Vaughn nodded silently, considering. That was one mess neatly cleared out of the way. The crew of the
Tides
had clearly realized
something
in their final moments, but with their deaths it would go to the only safe place for secrets: the grave.

“And the House?” he demanded, gesturing at the fire on the screen behind him.

“We have a clean sweep,” Montoya confirmed. “Planted Alaura’s body in the middle for the rescue crews to find, and every member of her staff is confirmed dead.

“Two of them were Mages no-one had bothered to mention to us,” he continued. “Recruiting Mages for the Action Wing was a good idea, though I made
damned
sure neither of them survived the pursuit.”

“Good,” Vaughn grunted. “The rest of the Wing?”

“Over-extended and shattered,” Montoya said calmly. “Between my boys and Caleb’s, we killed over eighty percent of the teams deployed for the attack. No-one’s going to be surprised when the remnants are hard to find and disconnected from the rest of the rebellion.”

That had been a concern when they’d set up the Action Wing - its actions were intended to draw the attention of Protectorate law enforcement away from other things, and to tarnish the overall Freedom Wing. But, necessarily, the Action Wing had only the most tenuous of links to the Freedom Wing.

The Action Wing having been smashed to pieces alongside its greatest ‘triumph’ would make that lack of links seem perfectly reasonable.

“What about the contact points?” he asked.

“Three of our contact officers died in the attack,” Montoya replied with a shrug. “Brockson was with Montgomery, so he’s probably dead. The others are making sure the members of the Wing who know them… don’t survive the pursuit.”

“And Montgomery?” Vaughn asked.

The commander of his special forces sighed.

“The shuttle was shot down, and the jet escaped without being identified,” he confirmed. “But…”

“But what, Montoya?”

“Our ground sweep got caught up in the forest fire triggered by the crash. But they did manage to confirm that Montgomery was not among the dead,” the General said quietly. “We lost contact with one of the aircraft ten minutes ago. The other pair are moving to support, but they’d spread pretty far out.”

“You lost contact with…”

“With a forty-five million Martian dollar imported helicopter attack gunship, yes,” Montoya said bluntly. “I’d
like
to assume they’re having communication difficulties. Unfortunately, I suspect…”

He cut off as his wrist computer buzzed. Tapping a key, he opened a holographic window.

“Report, Lieutenant,” he said sharply. “I’m with the Governor, connect me to your video feed.”

A moment later, one of the views of the wreckage of Government House was replaced with a moonlit highway and a burning wreck.

“Not entirely sure what we’re looking at, General, but I’m pretty sure that’s Hussar Two,” the pilot reported. “They look… flattened.”

“Is there anyone in the area?” Vaughn demanded. “Any thermal signatures?”

He could
hear
the pilot swallow hard when he realized who was talking.

“We’ve run scans,” the pilot reported. “The entire forest west of here is going up in flames, but if he followed the road or went east, we’d be able to pick him up. If he was on foot, we’d have found him by now, sirs.”

“What are you suggesting, Lieutenant?” Montoya asked.

“Someone picked him up, General,” the Lieutenant reported. “Probably
after
he killed Hussar Two. We can’t pick out the tracks of a single vehicle, too many have passed in even the last few hours.”

“I’m sorry, Sir, Governor - he could have gone either way, and with a vehicle he’s long gone. We’ve lost him.”

Montoya held a hand up to forestall Vaughn speaking.

“Thank you Lieutenant,” he said calmly. “Return to base and organize a medical unit for Hussar Two.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The voice channel cut out, and the video link froze on the last picture of the wrecked gunship.

“Yelling at the pilot won’t help us, sir,” Montoya told Vaughn as the Governor glared at him.

“Two people needed to die, James,” Vaughn said harshly. “Two people - with the authority to hang us both.
Everything
was about making sure Alaura Stealey and Damien Montgomery died. And now you’re telling me Montgomery lives, and you have no idea where he is?”

“We’ll find him,” the Scorpion replied calmly. “He has no resources, no contacts, and no allies. He may have found a ride on the highway, but he still has to find somewhere to sleep. Every method of payment the man has is a government card, and we can track those.”

“And if he meets up with the rebellion?”

“The Wing is going to go into deep hiding, the kind only the Hands will drag them out of,” Montoya pointed out. “Without that kind of authority and resources, Montgomery won’t be able to find them.”

“He doesn’t need to find the Wing to find allies,” Vaughn pointed out. “We have other ‘friends’ out there. What happens if he hooks up with the fucking Greens?”

Montoya shrugged.

“They know perfectly well their seats in the Parliament are on sufferance,” he pointed out. “Would they really back him?”

“To bring us down?” Vaughn demanded. “Hell yes. We both know they’ve skirted the edge too many times to ignore, and would
happily
put Montgomery in touch with the Wing. Hell - one Hand falls, another rises to replace them. Just keeping Montgomery alive until the next Hand shows up could screw us.”

The leader of the Scorpions eyed his Governor. Vaughn turned a determined gaze and a cold smile on his most reliable subordinate.

“You get your wish, James,” he said bluntly. “I don’t trust the Greens, they’re a vulnerable point with the Envoy on the loose, and we know where they are.”

“If you don’t have evidence, manufacture it,” the Governor of Ardennes ordered. “And then lock up their whole ‘Annual Convention’.”

#

Hauling an unconscious man into a hotel gave Amiri a strong sense of deja vu. From the quirk on his lips, Riordan was drawing the same connection as he and a hotel staff member held a side door open for her.

“Where are we?” she asked as they proceeded as delicately as possible down a staff corridor.

“High Ardennes,” he told her. “Second-best mountain resort town on the planet, closest ski resort to Nouveaux Versailles.”

“Ah,” Amiri acknowledged, though she guessed it didn’t really matter. “Own this hotel too?” she asked.

“Like the car it’s buried under a bunch of shell corps, but yeah,” Riordan admitted. “Old Man Riordan built quite the hospitality empire, but didn’t want anyone to know he was rich. Strange old bastard, he was.”

The staff member led them into a public corridor, then swiped them into a room.

“Best ground floor suite, sir,” the suited clerk told Riordan. “We’ll cycle the booking, make it look like you aren’t here.”

“Thank you, Hedley,” Riordan told the young man.

While Riordan was playing ‘good manager’, Amiri promptly charged into the ‘room’. Suite was a more accurate descriptor as the ‘room’ had two separate bedrooms off a central seating area.

“Best suite indeed,” she muttered, carrying Montgomery into one of the rooms and dumping the bloodied Envoy on the expensive duvet.

“Second best hotel in town,” Riordan told her, dumping his coat and following her into the suite. “Dad made a point of never owning the best - attracted too much attention.”

Ignoring the rebel’s reminisces about his father, Amiri began quickly checking Montgomery over.

“He’s been hurt pretty bad,” she said quietly. “Lots of minor trauma, at least one blunt impact to the head.”

“They shot his shuttle down, Julia,” Riordan replied, suddenly serious. Weird - she hadn’t thought hearing the Freedom Wing speaker use her real name would have given her shivers.

“He’s lucky to be alive,” he continued. “He
should
be going straight to a hospital.”

“And what would happen to him there, Mikael?” Amiri demanded.

Riordan straightened and shook his head.

“Nothing good,” he admitted. “I’m assuming you have first aid training of some kind, but this is beyond a first aid kit and good intentions. We need a doctor.”

“It’s your hotel!” she snapped. “Find us one.”

A sigh and a shake of a head transmuted into a roguish smile.

“It is my hotel,” he murmured. “I can’t be found anymore than he can,” he continued, gesturing towards Montgomery on the bed, “but I have people here. I’ll see what I can do,” he promised, glancing down at the very small man on the bed.

“Keep him alive until I get back,” he asked, then left the room to find help.

Amiri watched him go, then turned her attention back to Montgomery. At this point, her first duty as a Protectorate Secret Service Agent was to make sure he stayed
alive
.

She slowly and carefully peeled off the shredded remnants of his suit jacket, wincing as she realized that his rough bandages were coming off with the clothes and leaving raw skin behind. Slowly, grateful that the young man was unconscious, she got his shirt and blazer off and looked at him.

It took Amiri a moment to even process his injuries once she got a good look at his torso. Alaura had once shown the ex-bounty hunter the strange swirling runic inlay that ran up her arm, a rune carved by the Mage-King himself that increased the Hand’s power tenfold.

Montgomery’s
entire
torso
was covered. From the standard Jump Mage runes inlaid into his palms to what looked like two separate runes covering his chest, swirling characters of silver polymer had been carved into his skin in patterns that tried to shed the eye. The runes covered both of his arms, wrapping onto his torso and looping around his chest and back.

Between, over, and around the runes were the inevitable bruises and scrapes of surviving a crash. He’d roughly bandaged the one really bad gouge across his ribs, and she carefully replaced the bandage with clean gauze and tape from the hotel room kit.

With his wounds at least somewhat bound, she tucked a sheet over the Envoy. He wasn’t as young as he looked, she knew - short as he was, it was easy to forget that Montgomery was almost thirty, and only five years younger than her.

His clothes were going to need to be destroyed, and she started going through his pockets to make sure they kept anything of value. The Warrant had somehow survived undamaged, its traditional parchment crinkled but untorn. As she removed it from the blazer, she felt a hard lump she wasn’t expecting to find.

The pockets had been shredded, so it took only a moment to extract the object from the jacket and let it fall into her hand.

It lay there, unresponsive and impossible.

Montgomery was an Envoy, not a Hand. Amiri had been fully briefed on the young man accompanying Alaura to Ardennes. If he’d been a Hand, Alaura would have
told
her.

Yet the icon she held in her fist was a Hand’s symbol of authority.

“When you wake up, I have a lot of questions,” she told the unconscious man.

But she’d need them answered before she let Riordan know there was anything to question. Tucking the Warrant and Montgomery’s wallet into a folio she found in the closet, she slid the Hand into her own pocket.

Part of the job of the
Secret
Service, after all, was to keep the Mage-King’s secrets.

#

When Riordan finally logged back into the net, Lori was furious with him.

“Where the hell did you go, Lambda?” she demanded. “We’re in the middle of organizing an evacuation, and the man who arranged half our safe-houses ups and disappears! Where are you?”

“Breathe, Alpha,” her wayward cell leader told her. “You have a list of most of the safe-houses for a reason. But I was given what I thought was an opportunity to change
everything
- I had to take it, Alpha. Even if I was wrong, I judged it worth the risk.”

“I’m in High Ardennes now,” he continued. “And I need your help.”

Lori blinked. When he’d gone dark earlier in the day, Riordan had been in Nouveaux Versailles. Now he was in the same town as her - and he was one of the people who knew where she was.

She touched a command on the military encryption coms, opening a direct channel to Lambda and activating a different encryption algorithm.

“What’s going on, Mikael?” she asked quietly.

“Envoy Montgomery survived his shuttle crash,” Riordan told her. “I’ve got him and a Protectorate Secret Service agent holed up in the Silver Lion Hotel, but the Envoy is hurt - flesh wounds and a concussion that I can identify, but I’m no doctor and I don’t know what I can’t see!”

Lori was stunned into silence.

He was right - this could change everything. If they managed to get the Envoy on their side, then when the next wave of the Mage-King’s servants arrived with their righteous rage, Montgomery could direct them at the
right
target. Envoy Montgomery’s survival could end Vaughn’s entire scheme - his entire
government
.

“Damn,” she whispered.

“Yeah.”

“Can we trust him?”

“I don’t know,” Riordan admitted. “He passed out about when I arrived. The Secret Service agent though… she says they were planning on arresting Vaughn sooner or later. Only their uncertainty around the destruction of Karlsberg had protected him this long.”

“So he might work with us,” Lori said aloud.

“He’s an Envoy, Alpha,” Riordan reminded her. “Saving his life won’t hurt, but you need to remember - it’ll be us working with
him
, not the other way around. The man speaks for Mars.”

“I guess we’ll find out the hard way,” she told him, making her decision. “Dr. Staite is in High Ardennes - he owes me some favors and he’s sympathetic to the cause. I’ll see if I can talk him into a house call.”

“I’ll keep my eyes open,” Riordan promised. “I’m linked back in for the evacuation, too. Even if this works out, we want our people buried deep. Envoy or no Envoy, right now Montgomery’s only resources are his own bare hands.”

#

With Dr. Staite on his way to the Silver Lion, Lori turned her attention back to co-ordinating the quiet dissolution of her rebellion into small and hideable components. The biggest problem, as Sierra had pointed out when they first realized how deep a hole they’d been dropped in, were the airbases.

It had taken a lot of effort, money, and favors to sneak in their two squadrons of Legatus-built stealth gunships. Even sitting in a bunker though, the aircraft required regular maintenance, which left the Freedom Wing running two complete airbases on opposite sides of the planet. They
couldn’t
fully shut those down, not without risking losing the gunships.

Thankfully, both of the airbases were literally bunkers - quietly blasted into mountains with expensive, radiation-blocking, shielded launch doors. Mage-Governor Vaughn had spent a lot of money over the years on his surveillance satellites, and the Wing had learned to stay hidden.

As she finished directing one of their direct action cells - high on the Scorpions’ list due to recent operations - to take shelter in the airbase on the south continent, an urgent alert light flashed up on her com. One of her cell leaders was requesting a private channel.

“Alpha,” she answered crisply.

“Boss, it’s Iota. You have a problem.” Iota was their source in the Ardennes Military - a mid-ranked officer who commanded the day shift on the busiest communication center on the planet.

“No shit,” she replied. “But I take it you mean a
new
problem.”

“They’re keeping mission specifics
damn
close to their chest, but a full battalion of Scorpions just rolled out High Ardennes-way,” Iota told her. “Mage-Colonel Travere has taken operational command, and brought his Enforcers with him.”

“Well, shit,” Lori repeated. Mage-Colonel Travere was the most senior of the handful of combat Mages in the Scorpions. He headed the glorified ‘platoon’ made up of the Enforcers who worked for Montoya. Perhaps thankfully, finding Mages sadistic enough to fulfill the kind of missions Vaughn and Montoya had for Scorpion Enforcers apparently wasn’t easy, but…

“How many is he bringing?” she asked. The Wing had Mages in its ranks, but none of the hundred or so Guild-trained combat Mages on Ardennes had joined them.

“They’re not saying,” Iota replied. “I did some digging, and it looks like he’s got his entire Bravo Squad. Ten Mages, plus Travere himself.”

“Any idea what they’re after up here?”

“They’re not saying on channels,” Iota told her. “I think they know whatever Hand replaces Stealey will crack open government communications like a rotten nut when they arrive. Scuttlebutt on the air is Travere’s orders were on
paper
.”

“I can tell you one thing, though,” he continued. “They didn’t borrow any gear from the Army. No heavy tanks, no exosuits, no anti-aircraft. All they rolled was APCs and light armor.”

Lori considered the resources they had at the airbase near High Ardennes and hidden in half a dozen warehouses around town. Even with just the personnel she had in town, she could guarantee that battalion would never come home. If she rolled the gunships and weapons hidden at the bunker in the mountains nearby, the Scorpions would never make it to High Ardennes at all.

Of course, at this point, that would kill everyone involved.

“They’re not after us,” she murmured. If nothing else, Montoya and Travere were smart enough to know they’d run into the gunships if they came after the Wing - and bring the AA units to deal with them.

“I don’t think so,” Iota confirmed. “But they’ll be running by you. Keep your head
way
down.”

“
Merci, mes amis
,” Lori told him. “We’ll be careful. Thank you.”

“
Bonne chance
, boss,” he replied.

Cutting the channel, Lori turned back to her immediate concern. Suddenly, concealing everyone in High Ardennes had moved up the priority list!

#