Rogue-ARC

  Part of me screamed to do something. This was a legitimate raid, well-intentioned, and these fifteen men and three women were going to die. Their families were going to suffer massive anguish. I knew exactly what was going to happen, what it was going to look like, how dreadful it would be to them. Heck, I’d done it myself once, while carrying a baby.

  Malcolm said, “Proceed,” and they swarmed the building.

  I did not find an opening in which to suggest further caution. I forced myself to remain still.

  The tac team got placed fast. They were quiet, efficient and enthusiastic. I looked at their placement and dispersal and cringed. It was literally textbook, as I’d done it twelve years before. They’d learned from the best. Us.

  Then the explosions started. A flashbang, some cutting charges. Some shots. Malcolm looked very pleased and comfortable.

  Then the shooting continued, interspersed with shrieking screams of agony, gouts of smoke, and more explosions, including one that ripped the side off a floor above. It rained down onto the ground in drumming thumps of debris.

  Malcolm gave me a sideways glance, angry and tense, then headed in himself.

  I couldn’t fault his courage.

  Four very worried officers with carbines followed him. I brought up the rear, not asking, just acting as if I belonged. They didn’t question me, but I think they didn’t notice me.

  Power and lights were out in the building. Once that was determined, I followed them up the stairs. Four floors, each of them seeming farther away and with thinner air. I was having emotional flashbacks, traumatic stress pummeling me. Dammit.

  We got to the fourth floor, two cops with carbines went first, then the chief and I, then the last two brought up the rear and skipped through between us.

  Then they stopped.

  There was some illumination here from their weapon lights, and some through a destroyed door. Tendrils of smoke floated lazily past. They didn’t add much to the scene, because it was so outré nothing could add to it.

  The squad outside the door still smoked, doused in gelled petroleum, probably diesel or paraffin. Some oxygenating compound had been released, and the glop had burned right through their faces to bone and brain tissue. Guts still sizzled, and the corridor smelled like scorched bologna with the metallic sauce of blood and the tang of fuel, with a hint of ozone. Chief Malcolm turned and spewed, trying to avoid contaminating the crime scene, and splattering his hands and the wall. It wasn’t going to matter much. It did add slightly to the smell.

  They’d shattered the door on entry. Textbook. Except Randall had planned for them to do that, and used that as a trigger. Three other bodies were well-bruised sacks of blood from a concussion wave, which had also peeled the wall sheathing. I gingerly moved to the doorway, wary of triggers. There could be more. Malcolm let me take point. Pity he hadn’t believed me earlier.

  The room was full of rubble and bodies and lingering eddies of dust. I looked at the traps and could tell which page of which manual they came from.

  The two that entered through the door had run onto a hard floor covered in ball bearings. Even their grippy shoes hadn’t helped with that. One had a broken neck. The other had a muzzle burn against his temple, just under the helmet brim.

  Two came through the window and caught on a transparent mesh. The first was prone on a bed of caltrops, and he hadn’t died quickly. They were only a few centimeters each. His buddy had landed on him, though, which had probably driven some into his face and throat, judging from the crimson pool starting to skim over. They were probably laced with some neural toxin, since those would be crippling but not lethal wounds. Then I saw some of the window shards sticking out of him.

  His buddy had intercepted a spike. It was above the reinforcement on her armor, right through her lower jaw and spine. That had to hurt, too. Her face was in a rictus, and there was a stain under her. The spike had probably been driven in by hand, as she moved in free flight.

  The ones who came through the wall had fared no better. Sticky aerogel doesn’t show on sonar scans. They blew a hole, dove in and got gooed, then were exterminated with pistol rounds through the atlas. Randall undoubtedly had garments with a keyed enzyme to counter that specific adhesive. The foam around them looked like soap suds tinged pink.

  I heard a faint noise, and very carefully eased through the door, looking for any kind of sensor or trigger.

  The one who’d come through the ceiling had carefully selected his spot to place him in a corner, facing into the room, with clear crossfire with his buddies. We have the same manual. The expression on his face could almost be sexual, until you deduced it was pain. He’d hit a bed of long, very slender, almost molecular spikes. A quick leap had pulled his feet free, but then he’d landed ass first on much longer ones back in the corner. He was impaled, right through the pelvic girdle and assorted nether regions, possibly as deep as his diaphragm. He might still be alive, and he might be salvageable, given that the puddle of slime under him was mostly gut contents and only a liter or so of blood. Every tiny twitch caused excruciating agony, though, which caused him to twitch more. He was in so much pain he couldn’t even scream, which probably reduced those twitches a bit. His breathing was very shallow but apneic. He’d been there ten minutes with his brain undoubtedly cauterized by the hormones, convulsions and neural torture. He’d need to be doped to the teeth, then extracted carefully to avoid bleeding out—some of those needles were possibly through his kidneys and inferior vena cava—reconstructed with nanos, all under massive amounts of drugs, then he’d need physical and psychological therapy.

  I trod lightly so as not to shake the poor bastard. I looked above him.

  The team intended to follow him had never made it. As they blew that hole down, Randall’s explosives had blown up. I guessed the frag as razor blades and molecular wire debris. Through the entry hole, I could see two of them tossed and dead. The bottom third of those men was ground meat.

  The whole place smelled as if someone had cut loose with explosives in a slaughterhouse which, in effect, he had.

  Malcolm looked stunned and traumatized just by the emotional overload.

  I said, “You figure you know how to handle one old troop gone bad, eh?”

  He gasped for breath and words, finally strangled out, “How did you know?”

  “Because it’s what I would have done.”

  I walked off in disgust.

  I realized then that I’d leaned well into the room. Luckily that moaning, impaled thing had not been intended as bait for more. Apparently, Randall lacked the real killer instinct some of us have. Either that, or he’d been pressed for time.

  I was downstairs and outside before Malcolm caught up.

  He shouted, “Wait, you! You don’t just get to walk out of here after my constables died.”

  I said, “I wanted to talk to him, and take the risk myself, of deescalating. Now I have to chase him.”

  “The bloody hell you will on my planet.”

  My only excuse is that I’d shifted into combat mode. Randall was nearby, and could easily kill more. If he saw me, he’d be smart to shoot me at once. I had nerves like naked wires a meter out from my skin, feeling for any hint of danger . . . and Malcolm grabbed my arm.

  I disentangled, pulled, pushed and he staggered and sprawled.

  At that point things got much worse, because I didn’t want to fight his nervous, trigger-on-finger constables, running would create visibility and a scene, and standing still meant I could still get shot by Randall.

  I decided I was safest surrounded by arresting officers.

  Within a local hour I was back in the hoosegow, charged with assault, battery, resisting arrest, hindering an investigation, conspiracy and probably obscene acts with kittens. Luckily, Silver was observing and had bail ready, in cash, before they even processed me.

  It would have helped, if there hadn’t been a stop order on my release, from far up the food chain.

  Another hour, a
s Randall fled, and was probably unfindable at this point, and I was escorted by plain uniformed men, all almost exactly 190cm tall, with firm builds. The only uniform was plain blue coats with clipped-on badges and no other marks. I thought I knew what that meant.

  It didn’t seem possible, and was either very good or very bad. We entered a van with no windows. I wasn’t restrained. I saw no reason to evade in the midst of traffic, though, with these men around me.

  I was invited out of the vehicle. That put us in a bay that led to a corridor with lovely lighting and fine carpets, then inside a cozy, wood-paneled office with a carved desk. The woman behind it wore a plain, elegant suit to match her elegant hair and features.

  “What exactly is your rank at this point, Operative Chinran?” she asked.

  I did the only thing I could. I bowed enough to be polite, and said, “Thank you for seeing me, Your Majesty.”

  The House Guards left, except for one in the corner. He barely betrayed nervousness at my presence.

  Annette had been Crown Princess the three times we’d met, first at a dinner followed by a diplomatic intel téte a téte, later after she was taken hostage and I and some of my goons blew up everything around her and barely chipped one of her teeth, in the process of killing the kidnappers. Her mother had died five years ago, now.

  “Please sit,” she said, polite even when angry.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” I said. I really didn’t want to be here, but it might be useful, and I had to be diplomatic. I went with the program.

  “You’re stalking one of your own, loose on my planet, and I don’t even get a courtesy note from your ambassador?” she asked, sounding miffed but reasonable, for now.

  “The ambassador doesn’t know, ma’am, and we’d much prefer to keep it that way.”

  That raised her eyebrows.

  “I see,” she said, and leaned back while taking a sip of tea. She waved a hand in offer, and I nodded and poured myself a cup. No servants for this matter, and I wouldn’t insult her bodyguard by expecting him to. I’d be disgusted if he agreed.

  “Ma’am, I can’t tell you much more than you already know. Someone is loose. Very dangerous. I have to stop them. No one can know. Any leaks will only hurt my efforts, not them.”

  “I suppose that makes sense, and I’ll help you with that matter. You do realize this is an international, intersystem incident, of course.”

  “Yes, ma’am, and we’d like to limit it to one.”

  “Should I order the ports closed?” she asked, reaching for a phone.

  “Please don’t. Anything that indicates anything out of the ordinary will make it worse.”

  “Very well,” she agreed. “I hope something can be done for the families of eighteen Tactical Response personnel.”

  “I’m sure something can, ma’am, and it most certainly should be, but that’s something the ambassador will take care of, after orders from the Marshal. Unfortunately, I have to resolve this first.”

  “So what do you need from me?”

  “Ma’am, you are most gracious under the circumstances. I need as little attention on me as possible, and to be able to move freely.”

  “Will a Royal Warrant and appropriate ID assist in that? And access to any reports from investigations?”

  “Very much.”

  “I’ll have them issued at once. I want you to understand, though, that this is because I owe you my life, I believe you are honest, and most importantly, it seems the fastest way to resolve this. I advise you not to make things worse by abusing the privilege I’m about to grant you.” Her expression was not challenging, but it was not friendly.

  “Ma’am, that’s exactly how I take it, and I am very thankful. My goal is to resolve this quickly.”

  “This will be text and scannable,” she said. “I advise discretion in showing it. The media will ask questions. I’ll have to publicly deny anything. I dislike that.” She frowned slightly.

  I knew that. She knew that. I really had her worried. She’d seen us work up close, and now knew what could happen one on one, as well as the activities during the War. She wanted him and me out of her system as fast as possible.

  Then the phone chimed. She clicked it on. “Yes?”

  Someone said, “Your Majesty, Mister Rothman has just been killed by a rocket fired through his window.”

  She closed her eyes, sighed and turned back.

  “That is most unfortunate. Please express Our condolences to his family. We are discussing responses right now, but We cannot furnish details.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She looked back at me.

  “So, should I close the ports now?” She leaned on her hand and stared through her fingers. Very unroyal. I deduced that meant I rated fairly highly on her list.

  “Ma’am, he could easily lie low here for months. Or, he’ll just falsify identity and walk through.”

  “We have a DNA trace.”

  “There are ways to fake that, even in a star port. He hasn’t so far because it’s been useful to him.”

  “You’re sure? We both used it to locate him.”

  “He wanted to be found. If I find him, the worst is that I die. If you find him—”

  “Yes, though I’d rather end this sooner, even at some loss.” She sat up and sighed.

  “He’ll be leaving. I’ll get him shortly.”

  “See that you do. This code,” she passed over a laminated card, “will contact my immediate staff, should you need support.”

  The audience was clearly over. I took a polite gulp of the tea, placed the delicate cup carefully down, stood, bowed, and said, “Thank you for Your gracious help, Your Majesty. I’ll finish this as quickly as I can, and only call if I need to.”

  “Good day to you, Ken,” she said, stood and offered her hand briefly.

  As I left, I realized she was one of a bare handful who knew my real last name and rating.

  At least the House Guards were a little more open on the return.

  “Where are we to take you, sir?” one of them asked.

  Ten minutes later I was at a train station three squares from the hotel, and ten minutes after that I was back in the room. I had all my possessions in hand, including the “stolen” gun. Interesting.

  At some point, I’d have to tell Her Majesty what contemptible scum existed in Her prison system. For now, I had more pressing matters.

  CHAPTER 9

  I debriefed Silver, and not in the way I’d like to debrief her, of those very nice briefs she wore when not wearing a thong. Yes, frustration was getting to me again.

  “He’s either heading off planet now, or will find a hole somewhere. The latter is cheaper and more efficient. Don’t move if you don’t have to. The former is safer with me following him.”

  “It also gives him a chance to travel and spend money,” she offered. “Also to acquire more gear. There’s a finite amount and type of resources in any given system.”

  “Good thought,” I agreed. I didn’t know if he was the recreational type. I’d never known if he was, and he had changed. He probably hadn’t been then, seeing as he’d been fighting the system to try to reenlist when I recruited him for the unit.

  “How do we track the starports?” I asked.

  “I have software,” she said. “The more we refine the parameters, the better. But, the more we refine them, the greater risk of a disguise working.”

  “We’ll need several searches, then.”

  “I’ll need both our comms and try to borrow or buy another.”

  ***

  Caledonia had four starports. It was quite the cosmopolitan system, in one sense of the word. Silver actually was able to create a patch through a coded police channel, to the Caledonian National Police, and into their line to the security cameras at the ports. She was sure it was secure, and I believed her. It would have been nice to jack right in through the CNP’s line, and HM Annette would allow it, but I had to assume he could track exception codes, or that
someone would note it and, permissions aside, make a scene, hoping for promotion.

  That wasn’t the problem. Nor was the volume of people a problem. A few thousand a day left the system. However, tens of thousands only left the planet, and went through the same ports. They used different lines, but he could easily change from one to another at one of the orbitals.

  Silver’s training was impressive. A good Special Projects troop is a better grade of spy than most actual agents, because of their training. We never had enough of either them, or Operatives or even Blazers, because there just weren’t enough people with the combination of high intellect—top .5 percentile—psychology and fitness.

  She helped me set up search parameters around his photo; with enough slack we started getting hits at once. We tightened it slightly, and left it to run. I scanned through the faces it had captured, and we set up five more patterns, hoping for gait, physical proportions, ID types and unusual itineraries.

  I was most concerned about appearance. ID was probably a waste of time, as was itinerary, and gait and proportions were very unreliable without recent video to work from.

  I had a face every few minutes; the estimate was several hundred for the day. This could continue for some time, and I had to rest in there. To my advantage was that once I knew where he was, I could call for backup at the far end. In theory.

  Silver worked backward toward my encounter with him. There was no guarantee he’d fired the rocket. It could have been a remote system set days before, or he could have consulted for someone else. I hoped to find out which, but didn’t know at present.

  I worked in realtime, and she occasionally pinged one to me to double check. We got nothing all day.

  We took shifts for showers, restroom, food runs, kept the “Do Not Disturb” sign lit, reinforced with an occasional step outside to nod and greet the housekeepers, and offer occasional tips. We took turns doing calisthenics, and she went to the hotel gym every day for a brief run. I prefer calisthenics. That is to say, I prefer me doing calisthenics. She’d take breaks for pushups and crunches to keep awake and burn off nervous energy. When she did I got to listen to her “Uh!” and “Urh!” once she passed forty. It sounded deliciously sexual, and I could only compensate with louder music and trying very hard not to look at her.