Terra Dawning (3 page)

“Thank the Gods! We'd hoped you might have survived, but then we heard the report. Let's just say that we are very happy to hear that report proven false,” Elrond said.

“Why would it matter to you?” Addson asked. “You've got a pretty large body count, what does one more or less matter?”

Elrond lost his smile. “Every one of them matters. We've the deaths of those at Great Falls on our hands, yes, but the fewer deaths laid at our feet the better.”

“What about those from the tram you robbed?” Addson asked.

“There were ten more people on that train than we were told. We told them not to leave the tram station emergency shelter and there was supposed to be a rescue mission dispatched as soon as the tram stopped. They were not supposed to die. In fact, they shouldn't have been more than inconvenienced. We had no idea they hadn't been rescued until we heard the report of the incident and by then it was too late for us.

“You see, most of my people are indentured servants in the house of the Duke. Since humans in that household tend to end up on the dinner table, we jumped at the chance to have our debts canceled.

“At first, it was simple stuff. Smuggle this or that to another planet in the duchy. Stage a mock pirate raid on a freighter that was supposed to be carrying high value goods. No one ever got hurt though. We made that clear to him; we wouldn't kill except in defense.

“Fucking Lizard is pretty smart. He's also been using us all along. By the time we realized it, we already had several murders and kidnappings laid at our feet. You see, those freighters we 'raided'? Well, after our raid, his personal house troops would go in and remove the crew before the investigators got there. Poor bastards ended up on some lizard's table and we got tagged for it.

“We stopped the raids and refused to do anything else. He told us to come here and do a few more jobs for him and he'd honor our bargain. He promised no one else would be kidnapped.” He snorted and looked at his lady, then shook his head. ““He didn't say killed, he said kidnapped. But let us think he meant killed. He also threatened to turn us in to the Hyclarion as pirates if we didn't obey his orders.

“With each thing he ordered us to do, we got deeper and deeper, with no way out. The Great Falls nightmare was the last thing, though. We had decided that we were going to try to make a run for it. We thought if we could at least get out of the atmosphere, we could get our asses out of the Empire, and someplace where we could be human again,”” Elrond said. “I thought you knew most of this? The soldier we talked to knew we took our orders from someone else.”

“If the Duke is the one giving you orders, like you said, why don't you simply offer those recordings in defense of your actions?” Ben asked. “As for what we know... well, we have no proof of anything, except for the fact that your actions made no sense at all.”

“We can't. The Duke is a lot of things, but one of things he is the best at is computers. He does something to the messages so we can't record them, or trace them back to him. We have nothing and no way to prove anything we've just told you. It's our word against his, which wouldn't even be listened to,” Elrond said, shrugging. “No one would believe us and all of us would be hung.”

“Voice stress analysis indicates he is telling the truth, Prime. I would very much like to investigate the computer systems of the enclave,” Mother said through the speakers. “Perhaps I could find the evidence he is speaking of.”

“Thank you, Mother. I'll take that into consideration when planning our next steps,” Ben replied.

“But you could have refused to shoot me down, or to blow up the Aerie!” Addson replied.

“No, we couldn't. The Duke would simply have called in the HRO and turned us over to them. Now, it looks like we're finished anyway. An HRO investigation team arrived on planet a couple of days ago,” Elrond said. “It’s only a matter of time before they find us.”

“What's the HRO?” Ben asked.

“What you would call the Imperial Police, Ben,” Addson answered. “They are very good at their jobs and carry the authority to do what they need to do. They are notoriously honest and fanatically loyal to the Empire.”

“There is a human woman leading them,” Elrond added. “M'Lord Duke wants us to capture her and kill the rest of the team. I assume, he would like to kill her himself.””

“Hold it, everyone.” Ben raised his hands to stop the conversation. “This whole thing is confusing the hell out of me. We need to have a pow-wow here. Elrond and Arivan, would you please accompany me to my home? Your friends will be well looked after, I promise you,” Ben said, indicating the other couple.

“Uh, sure,” Elrond said turning to look at Arivan who nodded agreement. The other couple however, looked slightly uneasy about being separated from Elrond.

“Just go with them, Jaric. If they had meant us harm, we would be in a cell or already dead and not in a briefing room,” Elrond told them.

Ben spoke to the ceiling. “Mother, could you ask Deirdre and Jorga if they have some free time. Also, I would like to have Councilor Carlyle there via telepresence.”

“Yes Prime. Marcy would like to know how many other people will be there so she can make sure that there are plenty of refreshments as well as seating,” Mother replied. “Captain Elrond, I need to inquire if you or Ms. Jythee have any food allergies.”

“Like most humans, we are allergic to Spican seafood, but other than that, we should be okay,” Arivan replied. “Thank you for asking.””

“You are welcome, Ms. Jythee. Prime Council, Minister Bedouin and Vice Councilor Jorga have acknowledged your request. Councilor Carlyle has replied that she will be ready,” Mother replied.

“Thank you. General Greenwold; I would like you to accompany us and bring along any security and intelligence folks you might have. We need to figure out what the big lizard is up to before we're all made extinct!” Ben said, leading the way out of the room. ““I would like you to be there as well, Addson.”

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E
R/SAR Command and Control ship Tiderius

Sector 3421 (1 1/2 miles south of the Great Falls crater.)

Terral III, Duchy of Cassius (Earth)

Hyclarion Imperial Consortium

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“T
his is the same location I conducted my search for survivors, Commander. At the time, it was as close as we could get to the site of the explosion.” Warmake said, addressing the smaller human beside him.

He had no real opinion about humans being in the HRO, except for a slight feeling of pride for the race. It was about time the humans were allowed to integrate. He knew his Lord hated humans except for lunch, but in his experience, they worked just as hard, if not harder than their non-human counterparts, just to overcome the bias that they had been faced with.

To see a human not only in the HRO, but commanding a team was an accomplishment that should have been a source of pride for the race. Unfortunately, he knew that most of the race would never know of her achievements unless they met her in her professional capacity.

“I've read your report, Task Commander. It was very thorough. I especially appreciated the high-res, false color images you had taken of the area. Did you notice what looked like a path leading off to the south, toward the Inland Sea?” Jance asked.

“Well, I wasn't exactly sure that's what it was, but I had the boys and girls try to follow it. Unfortunately, they lost it thirty-one units north of the coast. As a follow up, I had a brace of skippers fly the coastline for eighty units in both directions from where we thought they might have come out. They didn't find anything but sand, and couldn't re-establish the trail from that end either.””

Jance nodded. “What about the Satellites?”

Warmake shook his head. “This whole area was under a thick cloud cover because of the Aerie being in operation at the time, thermal was pretty useless as well. Then, once the explosion happened, the whole sector was too hot.”

She nodded. The man did know his business. He also did more than required of him, just in case. The people of this planet were lucky to have a man like this watching out for them. Too bad they'll probably never know. Maybe the other commanders will adopt some of his work ethic.

“We know this attack was staged from the ground, as were the train robberies. Where was this Addson Dee when she was shot down, and what was she doing there?”

Turning to his pilot, Warmake said, “Take us to Sector three-four-seven-one and do a slow circle of all four quads.”

“Yes, Sir,” the Pilot replied.

Replying to the HRO officer, Warmake explained. “Upon the initial report, we believed her to be on a routine prospecting mission. However, we later discovered that she had just been transferred from Great Falls Aerie to Argassi's Anti-Piracy Command. She was sent out on a recon of the sector. She was alone and in an unarmed skimmer. She hadn't even sat down at Argassi before she was sent out here.”

“On the surface, that sounds incredibly too coincidental. Why was she sent out like that?” Jance asked.

“It was thought that since she was known as a prospector from Great Falls and her skipper was set up for deep-water scanning, she would be mistaken for exactly what she was; a simple prospector,” Warmake explained.

“I can see the logic of that, but to leave her out there all alone, with no help in the area. I would question the wisdom of that action. However, that is none of my concern. Since she was doing a recon, then a satellite was at least providing cover. Did we get a location for the missile's launch point?”

Warmake seemed to cringe. “No. She was sent in while a storm system was building in the sector. I did check, but for some reason the orbital's infrared and launch tracking facilities were off-line. The explanation I got was the bird was in use by the Met department. They had disabled those two functions so they could use the storm track programs.””

He paused and lowered his voice. “It sounded like lizard bait to me, but I really doubt the pirates would be so organized as to have an agent in the Meteorology department to cover for them 'in the case' that something like this would happen.”

Jance frowned. “Yet they had managed to get access to military grade weapons that have no place on this planet to begin with. Do you have any theories on how they got those?”

“A private theory, nothing more,” Warmake said.

“Please, share it.”

“Well, pirates like this don't just up and decide to start raiding and killing one day. I figure that they had to come from off planet, in which case, perhaps they had hit a military transport of one of the house military's. That would explain their weapons and some of their resources,” He said, then shrugged. “I'd never heard of such a transport ever being attacked, but I suppose it could happen.”

“All such raids and attacks are supposed to be reported to the local office of the HRO. I assure you, we know of no such raid,” Jance said.

“Well, no, you wouldn't. You see, you have to think like one of the Dukes; I mean, none of them would want it known that one of their transports was hit. It would make them look weak and the other Dukes would begin to stage a few of their own raids if you know what I mean. Hell, the black market has to get its supplies from somewhere right?”” Warmake explained.

Jance gave him a small smile. “You are very perceptive, Task Commander. I'm beginning to believe your skills are being wasted here.”

Warmake snorted. “If I'm so damn perceptive, then you should have only had to pick up the pirates after I'd captured them for you.” He snorted again, this time in frustration. “There is something missing here and I'm not seeing it! It's driving me mad!”

“Perhaps we can help each other. What part of this is bothering you?” Jance asked.

“These pirates; they hit a few supply trains, or raid a floater, but they've never gone out of their way to hurt anyone. Now, all of a sudden, they blow the shielding on an Aerie reactor? Why? Where is the payoff?” Warmake explained.

“What about the victims of the train robbery? They died did they not?” Jance asked.

He nodded. “But that could just have been base stupidity on their part more than negligence of the pirates. The tower that the pirates stopped the tram at had a survival station built into its base. There is only one of those stations per sector on the train line. They could have stopped the train anywhere along that line and simply thrown the passengers off. No, they picked that location on purpose.

“Surveillance cameras confirm that the passengers entered the station. It was their choice to leave it, and against the posted instructions too, I might add,” Warmake explained. “None of the floaters they've raided had a crew, so no one was hurt there.”

“What about the Addson Dee incident? Firing a missile at someone is a pretty obvious thing to do,” Jance replied.

“Is it?” Warmake said, warming to his explanation. “That particular missile system uses a multi-spectrum tracking suite by default. The only possible way a skipper could have avoided even the first missile was if it had been intentionally programmed to restrict itself to optical search mode. Addson Dee managed to evade two of the missiles,” he paused. “I think it was because they were trying to scare her off, not kill her.””

“That doesn't track for me, Task Commander,” Jance replied. “If they were only trying to scare her off, there are hundreds of less lethal ways to do it.””

Warmake nodded. “Yes there are, but not too many of them are possible during a storm of that size. Even the floater that proved Addson's ultimate bane diverted after the collision. I don't know if you're familiar with floaters, but it takes a serious weather event to turn one of those aside.

“At the time of the attack, three of the four quads of the sector were in the full fury of the storm. The storm itself covered the better part of nine sectors! That's the reason rescue attempts were so slow in responding; it was too dangerous for them to search until after the storm passed and by then the wreckage was spread over the entire sector.””

“Are the pirates not listed as responsible for her death?” Jance asked.