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Tivor
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“Separation complete, we’re clear of the Westerbrook.” Agent Jonas, the pilot of the six-man assault lander, banked the craft away from the mother ship and set it for a re-entry trajectory well below the horizon of the target site.
Marisa woke up. Achelous had thrown off the covers and was mumbling something in his sleep. She reached to pull the blankets back up. In the dim moonlight sifting through the blinds, she could see him working his jaw.
Achelous, in his third year as a field operative, sat in the rear of the assault lander at the sensors control station monitoring the planet-side activity. Behind him, the lights of the cargo bay of the IDB Westerbrook receded in the blackness of space.
Ilos Septi spread out below them. A terrestrial planet with major continents, dark blue oceans, tropical forests at the equator, and partial snow cover in the northern hemisphere. A grey smudge comingled with the northern jet stream, marking an area of substantial volcanic activity. Ilos Septi had a human population of about two million, another regenerative colony from the Loch Norim legacy, hence the planet's classification as Class E.
“How're our bogeys doing, Atch?” asked Chief Inspector Leggas.
“Still working, chief. No change in comm signals. The ore carrier is waiting for another load.” He tuned the aural-band imager and saw the unmistakable pattern of the portable field generator ramping up for another outbound shift. He mentally shook his head, amazing the audacity of those miners. Did they really think they wouldn’t be caught?
The assault craft bucked as Jonas angled it into the atmosphere for the steep descent, the anti-grav impellers gaining efficiency as the craft descended the intensifying gravity well.
“Target site below the horizon,” Achelous reported. In his third year with the IDB, he loved his work, but the assault landings he could do without. His stomach churned; the inertial dampeners and motion sickness meds worked only so well. He could never dispel the feeling they were falling into an abyss and would hit like an egg. Splat. His butt sank deeper into the seat as Jonas pulled the craft out of the dive and shot between two mountain peaks, the rush of air past the stubby wings louder than the exhaust of the single fusion drive.
Marisa covered them both and leaned in close, her breath on his cheek.
“Landing zone, landing zone,” he mumbled, his eyes closed and twitching.
“Landing zone in five minutes,” reported Jonas. Conducting an enforcement run on a Class E planet was a tricky operation. They needed to surprise the corsairs, and they needed to avoid alarming the natives. It was, after all, the reason the planet was protected from outside influences. Seeing alien craft flying about the skies fanned the hysteria of the provincials, propagating perverse mythologies that lead to all sorts of irrational behaviors. Because of this, Westerbrook’s AI had selected an assault track taking the lander away from populated areas, a route that did nothing for Achelous’s stomach.
Using telemetry data fed to them from the AI in the Westerbrook, Achelous called out the mining site status, “No change at the site; ops still in progress.” The Westerbrook was on autopilot, controlled by the AI. The entire IDB crew, the six of them, were onboard the assault craft.
Marisa figured out that Achelous's nightmares came in chains. Sometimes he’d go for a month sleeping soundly, and sometimes they came every night. She agonized about waking him. It spared him the torture of the nightmare, but he was never happy with himself afterward.
Snow-covered treetops blew by the canopy in a blur. Achelous stayed focused on the sensor panel, trying to ignore what was going on outside. A vast plume of snow, stripped from the trees, trailed behind the lander. The lander broke into a clearing that turned out to be a lake, and with an abrupt and unsettling dip, the craft dove to the surface, skimming three meters above the water. Racing to the end of the lake, Jonas plunged down a deep waterfall that caused Achelous to clench his sphincter.
“Wow!” called Archer, the agent sitting next to Achelous. Archer twisted in his seat, looking out the back of the canopy. “Look at that!”
Achelous grimaced and held on, waiting for the crash at the bottom.
Jonas jinked the craft around the twists and turns of the riverbed. Abruptly he halted the craft –Achelous’s stomach lurched—and hovered over a clearing in the forest. Jonas sedately brought the assault lander to the ground, like parking a passenger car in a garage.
Agent Archer punched the cargo bay control, opened the cargo bay door, and the lander’s cargo, the air car, slid down the ramp on its autoloader. Achelous unstrapped from his seat in the lander and was about to follow Archer down the ramp when Jonas, rising from the pilot’s chair, clasped him on the shoulder. “Was that better?” he asked, half-hiding a smirk.
Achelous gave him a sidelong look. “What? Were you trying to go easy for me?”
“Well, I just thought with your nervous stomach and all....”
“And what part, exactly, did you go easy on?”
Jonas thought about it. “Um, well...”
Achelous nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
Archer opened the weapons locker and handed out the plasma pulse rifles, deflector shields, and helmets. Achelous buckled on the helmet and connected the data cable to his energy-dissipating body armor. They didn’t expect trouble from the miners, but those first few moments of an enforcement action were predictably tense. If the mission threat profile had predicted a high possibility of a firefight, they would have donned projectile armor, brought a Ready Reaction platoon, and stationed a federation corvette in orbit for fire support.
The seating arrangements in the vehicle were the same as in the assault craft. Chief Inspector Leggas sat up front with pilot Jonas, followed by agents Dagatilloori and Bwn, and followed by Archer and Forushen in the rearmost seats. Later, Achelous would agree with the investigators that sitting in the rear seats saved his life.
Jonas revved up the anti-grav impellers, angled the pitch forward, and scooted the car from behind the hulking lander into the forest. Sleek in design, the air car had a retractable, stealth-enhancing canopy that was now open, though the air was cold, and snow blanketed the ground. The team preferred to ride with an open canopy; They liked to disembark quickly even though the open roof increased their radar profile. The vehicle’s landing wheels and the anti-grav impellers were fully encased within the craft’s plexite body. One of plexite’s admirable properties, in addition to being radar dispersing, was it could take a good whack, as it did just now, bouncing back with just scuff marks.
Jonas didn’t bother apologizing about the scrape with the tree. The team rather expected it. Jonas announced over the team net, “I’m going up top. Tree cover is too thick.”
Achelous dialed up the VR display in his helmet and connected to the laser downlink from the Westerbrook.
“Watch our radar signature,” Chief Leggas said over the net.
The air car flowed between treetops like water in a river valley. Most of the trees were conifers, and their needles whispered against the car’s hull.
“Achelous, sensor readout.”
“On it, boss. We’re three miles out. Mining is continuing.” At this rate, they’d cover the three mils in four minutes. Then in his helmet’s heads-up display, two red circles appeared, each at an approximate corner of the mining site. “Popup radar, popup radar,” Achelous called out.
Jonas immediately trimmed the impeller angle and slowed the craft. He let the car settle in a deep hollow between the shoulders of the trees.
“Where’d they come from?” Archer asked.
“Don’t know,” Achelous replied, checking the sensor readouts from the Westerbrook. “You don’t think they had ground sensors along our approach?” The car was powered by a hydrogen-converter cell, which gave off almost no heat. The impeller drive was silent. The only clue the corsairs could have of the team’s approach was the sound of the car’s passing, like hitting the tree, or aural signature leakage from the open canopy. The direct-connect laser signal to the Westerbrook was pencil thin and impossible to intercept unless you physically passed through it.
“Be damned anal of them if they did,” Leggas said. No one voiced the obvious. If the miners were careful enough to place ground sensors around the perimeter of the mining site the threat model escalated, and the nature of the engagement shifted from enforcement to interdiction. The presence of ground sensors indicated the miners were there to stay, and the corsairs were willing to defend the mine. Defend against what was the question. Fights between rival contract miners were common enough, but were they willing to fight an IDB enforcement unit? The miners were freelancers interested in quick credits, contracted by a shady bulk-resourcing broker who, in turn, was hired by one of the galactic commodity conglomerates. Most of the miners never knew for whom they really worked. The conglomerates preferred keeping their hands clean, so they hired freelancers with plausible deniability through a resource broker—a broker, in the case of an interdiction, would never be seen again.
“What’s the site activity?” Leggas asked.
“Mining ops have halted,” replied Achelous.
“Are they bugging out?” asked Bwn.
“They don’t appear to be. But work at the site has stopped.”
Jonas turned to Leggas. They could see each other through their face shields.
Finally, Jonas said, “If they’re suspicious, they may call for a scout ship to do an orbital sweep." The implication being the scout ship would detect the Westerbrook in her geosynchronous orbit. No matter how well cloaked the IDB enforcement cutter was, stuck in geosynchronous orbit over the mining site, the Westerbrook’s midnight hull would be seen against the ground of Ilos Septi.
Time was ticking.
“Radar sites are off. Mining ops resuming,” said Achelous.
Still, the hover car snuggled in its concealment. Jonas and the entire team loath to surrender their camouflage.
“Well, boss,” asked Archer, “is it a ruse or real?” Referring to the resumption of mining activity. They all knew the story of Ten-Five Alpha, where an IDB team had succumbed to just such a ruse. Two of the six were killed and one wounded in the ensuing ambush. At the inquest, the corsairs claimed they were so busy defending themselves from rival attacks that they didn’t know they were shooting at IDB.
“Button up,” said Chief Leggas. “Slide us around to the north. Go slow.”
Jonas did as instructed. He closed the canopy, turned the car ninety degrees to the north, and dropped beneath the treetops. This time, unusually careful, not disturbing the barest twig, he swished them along. It took them thirty minutes to circumnavigate the site and reposition on the northern edge of the periphery. The only words during the ride were occasional steering suggestions by Leggas and site updates from Achelous.
In position for the high-speed blitz into camp, Leggas popped a site map up on the team’s helmet displays. He drew the assault arrow, landing zone, area objectives, and team array. “I don’t like how these guys are acting. Three-man fire discipline, combat spread. Bwn, be ready with the missile launcher. If someone takes off, you have weapons free. When we’ve secured the site, we’ll disperse in standard search and seize.”
Achelous mentally sighed. The boss meant business. Usually, in engagements like these, Bwn did not disembark with a loaded missile launcher with permission to shoot.
“Ready?” Leggas asked.
“Ready,” replied Jonas. “Approach set; guidance locked.” Using the downloaded visual mappings from the Westerbrook, Jonas programmed the approach into the car’s AI. He would leave the hard acceleration, jinking between treetops and diving between buildings to the autopilot. He needed to be ready with his pulse rifle, prepared to jump out the moment the AI popped the canopy. Flying was fun, but shooting was serious.
“Let’s go.”
Jonas tapped the engage button, and the autopilot took over. The car shot out from its concealment. Green foliage streaked past, and Achelous instinctively held on. Even though, theoretically, the AI was more reliable than a human, he’d come to trust Jonas’s instincts more than silicate programming.
The car jinked, dived, banked, and cleared the last trees just as the missile warning blared.
There, just at the tree line, stood a concealed auto launcher. Its camouflage panels open, and a white vapor trail streaked straight for the car. Jonas had just enough time to grab the controls before the missile struck. The warhead exploded beneath the bow tossing the vehicle to the right. Rolling, the car smashed into the roof of a temporary prefab building and deflected up. Totally out of control, the car tumbled end over end through the air and across the mining site. Landing in the snow at the far side of the clearing, it bounced once, twice, and slid across the snow, dropping into a creek bed just deep enough to conceal the wreckage.
Marisa woke up. She'd drifted asleep thinking his nightmare over. Exasperated, she shook him gently, "Atch, Atch."
Achelous dimly heard a woman’s voice. It was Marisa. He was in Tivor lying in bed, or was he? Struggling, he tried to get free of the blankets. A monotone voice intruded with something about an injection.
The drugs of the crash cocktail entered his system, and his eyes shot open. “Smokes,” he cursed. Fumbling with his restraining harness, he released it and pushed open the canopy section. He needn’t have bothered; most of the canopy glass was missing, and only the structural-impact cage remained. He climbed out onto the hull and then fell into the shallow creek. Struggling, consciousness wafting away from him, he hefted himself up and kneeled in the cold water. He could sense the water flowing around his hands and past his legs, but feeling the chill was beyond his faculties. He took deep breaths, trying to sort through the combination of crash trauma and the effects of the shock-suppression drugs the car seat injected into him. Adrenaline, one of the drugs, got hold of him, and he stood and staggered against the car. He glanced to where Jonas sat, but the bow was either sheared off or completely crushed. In his current state, he couldn’t tell which. He called over the team net, not knowing if it worked, if his helmet functioned, or if anyone was still alive.
"What, Atch? What is it? I'm here." Marisa answered.
Amazingly, Archer responded. “Trapped. I’m trapped! Out, need out!”
For Achelous, the rising panic in Archer’s voice drove clarity and purpose into his concussion-fogged brain.
The car was upright with its bow on the far bank of the creek bed and the stern propped up on the near bank. Achelous stumbled and then crawled under the car and came up on Archer’s side. Slowly, his mind began to clear, and he became aware of a terrible pulsing headache and fractured vision. He grabbed the door release and yanked. As he feared, the door was wedged. Fumbling around the underside of the car, he found the emergency access port. He popped open the panel. Inside, the door-charge light glowed red, having been armed by the impact. The door charges would blow all six access doors or those that remained. Normally, one took precautions to ensure the door charges were aligned so they detonated outward, but Achelous cared only about rescuing Archer and retrieving a weapon.
The security sergeant signaled a halt to his three-man squad. Multiple small pops and detonations sounded from the creek bed. Smoke drifted up in the cold air to be whisked away in the breeze. For the umpteenth time, he cursed the foreman for ordering first-attack mode for the missile launchers. They didn’t know what they had shot down. It could have been one of their own hovercars coming in from an ore survey mission, though he knew all the cars were, including the car belonging to the geologists from Nordarken Mining. Their car now sat crushed in the collapsed garage the low flyer hit when it crash-landed. He could hear chaos on the communications net. The foreman barking orders, the excavator boss demanding first priority for field shift out of here, the Nordarken Mining geologists demanding help to load their test and sampling equipment on a grav sled so they could shift out as well. The corporate stiffs were loath to risk any connection with illicit mining operations, but everyone did it. This rhodium mine was working well. So well, the production analysts in Nordarken finance didn’t believe the projections and sent a team of their own geologists to inspect the operation, and now they were stuck here in the midst of the chaos.
He signaled his two teammates to keep advancing. He’d feel more comfortable with a full team of five, but more bodies were just more pockets to split tonnage bonuses, and the owners were driving the foreman to keep costs down.
Shuffling through the snow, he stepped into the track left by the vehicle when it slid into the ditch. In places, the soft, unfrozen ground was churned up with the frozen topsoil. He waited until the foreman quit talking on the net, “It’s probably an intrusion contractor come to sniff our ops. So it’s no problem. We got them.”
The sergeant was inclined to agree, but they should know what outfit had tried crashing their party, Mckenz, Po, or Lite Rock. Whoever it was, they’d finish off the crew and set a plasma mine booby-trap to kill whoever came to rescue them. One thing bothered him, though: why come so close? Why do a flyover? Usually, intruders landed in the distance and sent in a recon bot.
His rifle at the ready, he stepped over the stump of a tree sheered clean off at the ground. The rear of the hover car pointed up at him. He signaled one man to move left, the other to move right, both of them to cover the wreckage while he stooped low and peaked into the shallow ravine.
Crouching in the snow, he noticed the car was pearl white with black numbering in an official-looking font on the rear quarter panel. Where have I seen that before? His memory was trying to tell him something.
Sliding through the calf-deep snow, he got his first good look at the car and choked. “Blazes—”
The foreman was monitoring the progress of the security team and the active scanning of the four popup radars waiting for signs of more intruders. “What is it?”
“Uh—”
“Well?” demanded the foreman, “I haven’t all smoking day. Are we pulling out or not?” Not that the foreman would let the security sergeant make the call. The mine was running at full capacity, and the ore vein had forked into three other veins. There was money to be made.
“Uh, it's an IDB enforcer car.”
Silence on the net.
The foreman came back. “Whaaaaat? Are you bloody daft?”
“No, I’m not daft,” answered the sergeant. “It's IDB.”
Everyone started squawking. Then the sergeant heard the foreman, “Shiren. Spirits damned and hell!”
He winced at the foreman’s cursing. Any calm left in the camp evaporated.
The foreman ordered an emergency evacuation. Everything would be left behind except for the excavators and their accompanying ionizers, and those would be the last to leave. There were three excavators, and it would take time to cycle them through the shift zone. “Get back here and set the demolition charges,” the foreman ordered.
“What about the IDB? The car doors are open. Looks like some of them got out.”
“Kill them. And do it quickly. They’ll have Ready Reaction down on us in—” the foreman looked at the missile log, checking the time of the launch, “Smokes, they could be shifting in minutes.”
“Why don’t the team and I just come back now?” He was worried about the mob of people trying to shift out. He’d didn’t want to be at the end of the line. “These boys have got to be toast.”
“No! If any are alive, they’ll try to take out the field generator or start zapping us. Anyone who gets zapped stays behind.”
“Right, okay guys,” the sergeant called to his men, “shoot anyone you see. I’m going to check the car, so don’t shoot me!” The sergeant had been zap-stunned before, and the memory compelled him to take caution.
Achelous adjusted the wound seals around Archer’s legs; they were a mangled mess. He'd activated the suit's med kit, and for the moment, it was the most he could do for him. The agent was fading in and out of consciousness. Achelous had him propped up against the roots of a huge tree that was toppled in the creek. Water flowed just at the agent's feet. They were downriver from the crashed car and around a bend, out of sight. He laid Archer’s rifle on the agent’s lap. At least he’d have it if he stayed awake long enough to use it. He turned to go back for Bwn, who was alive but worse than Archer. Dagatilloori was dead. Both Leggas and Jonas were missing, apparently jettisoned from the car when the bow hit the building. He’d go looking for them as soon as Bwn was safe.
He shouldered the plasma pulse rifle. It was Dagatilloori’s, but his own was crushed in the crash. It had taken a frustrating minute to first remember and then enter the clearance code into Dagatilloori’s rifle with his trembling fingers so it would accept his aural signature.
Peering around the bend, his helmet’s infrared sensor immediately picked up a target crouching behind a tree and another on the other side of the car. Most of that person was obscured, but the bogey’s legs were clearly visible beneath the undercarriage. He zoomed in on the target by the tree. Definitely a hostile with a weapon trained on the car. That settled that question; the camp personnel hadn’t come to rescue them. He thumbed the pulse rifle to electro-stun mode. Like all IDB agents, he’d undergone extensive combat training and did the scheduled injection learning refreshers, but he’d never actually had to shoot someone.
Suddenly two plasma blasts came from the car.
Achelous stared. What?
Another two bursts flashed in the car, and he could see Bwn’s helmet explode.
They’re killing us! Achelous thumbed the rifle to plasma pulse and drew on the assailant by the tree. The target indicator in his heads-up display signaled a lock, and he fired once, twice. His injection training took over; he ran in a crouch up the streambed, not bothering to check the assailant.
“IDB Eider to IDB Westerbrook assault team, do you copy over.”
Achelous watched the legs of the bogey behind the car. He contemplated shooting them, but then they moved out of sight towards the front of the car.
Achelous steadied his targeting pip just above the front of the car.
“IDB Eider to IDB Westerbrook assault team, do you copy over.”
Just when the bogey peered over the car, Achelous fired.
“Damn,” the hurried shot missed, and the bogey ducked out of sight. “I read you IDB Eider. This is Agent Forushen.” The Eider was the corvette backup for all the IDB cutters in the system and must have shifted in orbit answering to the aircar’s distress beacon.
“Report status.” The request was short and to the point. Ready Reaction Force didn’t waste time.
“I’m in a firefight right now.” He scuttled forward and kept his targeting pip aimed below the undercarriage hoping for a leg shot. He waited for movement. Moments passed, then he heard splashing in the stream.
“Forushen, be advised we’re picking up a detonator signal. They’ve set a timed charge near your location. We have two humans moving away from your position heading for the field generator. No other targets near you.”
Oh, oh. “Roger that. Thanks, Eider!” Achelous wheeled and ran back along the creek as fast as he dared on the treacherous, ice-covered rocks. He turned the bend, splashing through the water, breathing heavily. Running to Archer, the flash of a terrific blast beat him. He dove for cover behind the toppled tree as dirt, water, and debris rained down. A part of the plexite body, perhaps a fender, hit the tree and sprung up and over, landing in the creek.
“What the hell did you do?”
Achelous looked up from his prone position; mud smeared his cracked face shield. Archer was sitting with his back against the bank. The agent appeared to be alert. “The bastards set a timed charge. Tried to lure me in. The Eider warned me.” He didn’t tell him Dagatilloori and Bwn were dead. Although, with the explosion, Archer would figure it out.
“Ready Reaction is here?” Archer asked, leaning his head back against the frozen bank.
“Yea. They’re on their way down.”
“Oh. I can’t hear anything on the net. My helmet must be broken.”
Achelous rolled onto his back and sat up, scanning the brush between him and the camp. “Westerbrook assault team to Eider, you coming down?” He tried to keep his voice steady though panic hovered at the edge.
“ETA ninety seconds,” came a female voice, sounding just like Marisa. He could tell by the background noise and shudder in her voice that she was aboard an assault lander and not in the Eider in orbit. What was Marisa doing on an assault lander? The lander was coming down hard and fast.
“Be advised they have missile launchers and other defenses.”
“Roger that,” she replied.
Achelous looked up. There, directly above him, was the fireball of an assault lander coming straight down. So fast its heat-dissipating shell was blazing. The sight galvanized him. Anger replaced panic. Marisa called to him. He’d not let her down. Leaping up, he wanted to find the bastard who blew up the air car, the same person who shot Bwn, unconscious and defenseless. Turning to Archer, “I’ll be back. You going to be okay?”
The agent’s eyes were closed, but he waved a hand weakly. “Go.”
Achelous dashed across the stream and climbed up the bank. Before him, a hundred meters distant, a concealed missile launcher sat with a missile in its firing tray. Radar and missile were pointed directly at the incoming assault craft. A sudden, brilliant flash blew the anti-aircraft battery into a thousand pieces. Heated air and a concussion wave assailed him. He staggered, then kneeled against the gale; his helmet sound suppressors clamped down. Two more flashes struck the compound.
Achelous ran for the destroyed battery, his rifle at the ready. He halted near the wreckage of the missile launcher, now marked by a crater from the Eider’s particle cannon. The frozen ground around the crater soft and oozing. He dodged into the tree line and skirted the compound, heading to where the field generator and shift zone was located. The pounding in his head threatened unconsciousness, so he stopped and knelt to let the swaying and flashes subside.
With a whoosh and blast of hot draft air, a heavy-assault lander came down like a hawk on a rabbit, its 30-millimeter plasma cannon and twin laser turrets firing at anything that moved, notably the two ore extractors lumbering toward the shift zone. A laser hit the track of one, slicing the tread in two; the track rolled off the drive wheels like a broken conveyor belt. The extractor spun in a circle on its one good tread until a plasma bolt hit the engine, putting it out of the operator’s misery. The operator and mechanic jumped out of the cab and made a run for the shift zone.
Achelous crawled over to a stout tree and watched the destruction. The heavy-assault lander carried a crew of two and a Ready Reaction platoon of ten. Ready Reaction troopers disembarked the lander, hitting the ground running, immediately disbursing in teams of two. Suddenly a missile ripped away from a retractable rack atop the lander. Achelous watched as it streaked across the clearing and then up into the sky. There, a hover car was making good its escape until the missile detonated, blossoming black-yellow. The car spun in the air; smoking, it dropped into the distant forest with a crash of shattered trees.
“Agent Forushen?”
Startled and in a fog, Achelous turned. Two Ready Reaction troopers stood there, one with a field-portable, wound-stabilizer lab slung over his shoulder.
“Aural scanning shows you are seriously injured.”
“Huh? Archer is worse.” Torn, he wanted to find the person who booby-trapped their car, but right now, saving Archer took precedence. “I’ll take you to him.”
"Atch, Atch!" One of the Ready Reaction troopers was Marisa. She had her helmet off.
"What, what," he said groggily, slowly surfacing.
"You were dreaming. You had nightmares again."
"Huh?" He could feel Marisa close to him, her face next to his. He was in the master's chamber at Marinda Hall. The sound of her voice was a welcomed relief to the nightmare of Ilos Septi, her warm breath a delicious comfort.
He sighed, then sat up in bed, trying to focus. Marisa was snuggled under a pile of quilts; her body heat leaked out from where he sat exposed. His mind spun, part of it still reliving the Ilos Septi interdiction from twenty-seven years ago. The fire in the stove was out, but he didn't want to bother with it, feeling the way he did. Finally, knowing Marisa watched him, he leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. "I'll go check on Boyd."
Achelous sat a low-burning lamp on the nightstand beside his son's bed. Collapsing in the reading chair beside the bed, he drank from a glass of water. Boyd lay there sleeping like all young boys, dead to the world and innocent of all its crimes. Sliding down in the chair, he considered how Ilos Septi, a single event, had shaped his life and, more importantly, his values. Guarding civilizations was no longer a career or a passion; it was an obsession. Unscrupulous operators proved they were willing to kill for profit. He’d seen his team members shot dead, point blank. And then there were the others dead from the crash. The shooter was never caught, though a suspect was identified. Achelous suspected the shooter's body drifted in some asteroid belt, insurance against being mem-scanned.
Ironically, it was the crash that sealed the fate of Nordarken Mining that day. The contract miners interdicted on Ilos Septi had no direct ties to Nordarken. Most personnel except for the two extractor crews escaped through the shift zone before a demolition charge destroyed the field generator and its log of shift targets. The extractor crews, heads-down in the mine, were unaware that geologists from Nordarken Mining, the ultimate customer, had arrived to conduct a surprise quality inspection. Until the Nordarken geologists appeared, the site supervisor was the only person with a clue, and only a clue, as to who the customer ultimate was. It was a clerical error at Nordarken HQ that sent the geologists in the first place.
The subterfuge and standard plan to conceal the identity of the customer ultimate would have worked, as usual, except for a single piece of evidence. Found in the collapsed garage, partially crushed, sat a Maglev Streamer aircar car with Nordarken Mining emblazoned boldly on its side. Registration of the vehicle tied it directly to the Resource Production department at Nordarken corporate. Fingerprints and residual aural signatures identified two Nordarken employees: a senior geologist and a field intern.
After years of legal wrangling, Nordarken suffered fines and the loss of mining rights equivalent to thirty million Avarian Federation credits, equating to a net reduction of five percent of annual corporate profits. Hardly a devastating blow, but the loss of the mining access rights caused them, in those days, to fall from second to third largest galactic resource conglomerate.
Since then, they have recovered their position and more. Today they were the largest resource-harvesting firm in human space in both ore tonnage and revenue. Sitting there in the dark, Achelous shook his head. It was a running joke amongst IDB agents that they should form a support group for agents who’d encountered Nordarken Mining. Unfortunately, it was a small group of agents who’d successfully brought a case against them. Achelous was one of the few, and because of Ilos Septi, he was marked as a person "of interest" in the Nordarken intelligence system. He’d heard it from ex-Nordarken employees, particularly those who’d joined Celestial Navigations, the number-two strategic resource conglomerate and main Nordarken competitor. Anything Celestial could do to hamper Nordarken Mining, they did, including passing information to the IDB.
Staring at Boyd's tiny form beneath the quilts, he admitted I'm no closer to making a decision, and events are getting away without me. I can be dragged along behind them, or I can get out in front. Clienen will soon agree to a transfer date to Dominicus III. He sipped the water. The clean taste cleared his thoughts. There are few absolutes in life, but this one is certain, I will never leave Marisa and Boyd. He took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. What else is there? Career does not compare to love and family. And though his mind shied away from it, he finally conceded even my oath does not compare.
"Papa?"
He surfaced from his melancholy musings.
"Papa, you sleep with me?"
Relieved by the intrusion, he looked at the small pale face and wondered, can he read my thoughts?
Boyd slid out of bed, dragging a quilt with him. He tossed it in a heap on his father's lap and climbed up the chair. Snuggling close, he pulled up the blanket and said, “Papa, we go sleepy."
The devils of his thoughts dispelled by the small voice in the night, he wrapped his arm around the boy's shoulders and laid his head back. In the morning, he would start planning.
The embed alarm woke him. Marisa would be up soon, and he needed to place a call. He carried Boyd to their room and tucked him in next to his mother. Marisa stirred, but he leaned in close, "Shush, go back to sleep; it's not morning yet."
He padded silently through the hall and up the stairs to the solar. On the deck outside, he climbed up to the observatory.
An idea he mulled was to keep the Auro Na temple field generator operational after the Dianis shutdown. With it, he could come and go between Dominicus and Dianis. Wiping the transmit logs would be a problem, but he knew it could be done. But was it sustainable? How long could he travel back and forth before being caught?
The primary problem with that idea was it did little to counter the Nordarken threat. He could sneak into Dianis to visit Marisa and Boyd, but he'd have no time for other activities. The image of a Nordarken surrogate drilling and excavating on Dianis and invariably dominating the local populace came to his mind's eye. He fumed. He was certain they were the cause of his predicament, though he had no clear proof of their involvement, he did have four basic facts.
He leaned forward on the observatory railing, not seeing the dawn creeping up the shoulder of Mount Epratis or the early teamsters delivering cargoes on the street four stories below. Pulling out the Auro Na bible, he opened a secure document and titled it simply: Knowns. He started to list the facts as he saw them. First—aquamarine-5—a critical strategic resource found on Dianis, was in short supply across the galaxy. Second, Nordarken Mining needed the resource, not just for profit but to maintain entire product lines against aggressive competitors. Third, Nordarken Mining knew of the aquamarine-5 deposits on Dianis. Fourth, Nordarken Mining had repeatedly demonstrated they were willing to violate Class E sanctions, particularly with contract miners willing to take the risk. The question was not if they would come but when and how? He didn’t have the proverbial plasma trail, the one piece of evidence that told him they were coming, but he had an idea of how to get it.
He thumbed to the communicator screen in the bible and readied a call. Short of Internal Security finding the analyst from Water Resources and chasing the lead deep into Nordarken itself, he didn’t know how else he’d get his evidence.
Letting the aural selector bring up Baryy Maxmun’s A-wave locator, he placed the call. A-wave direct-direct was untraceable.
The call went through. The geo-identifier placed Baryy in Wedgewood.
“Yea, chief,” the agent answered, his image appearing on the multi-func’s small hologrid.
Achelous could see tall trees in the background, snow still on the boughs. Spring came late to the mountains. “Did I get you at a bad time?”
“No, just hauling firewood to the cabin. I'm clear. What’s up?”
“Well, I’ve got to make some inspection rounds in preparation for shutting down operations.”
“Oh. It's going forward, huh?”
He tried to not sound as depressed as he felt, keeping his voice business-like. “Yes,” he nodded to the holograph imager, then forced a chuckle, “The director from Dominicus III called and wanted me there in two weeks.”
“Two weeks!” Baryy looked around, making sure no one saw him. “How are you going to do that?”
“I’m not. I’ve put him off for a while.”
Baryy appeared relieved. “Oh good.”
“How are you doing with the Timberkeep sensitives?”
Baryy cocked his head, “We’ve been making good progress.”
“Can you wrap up your research in three weeks?”
Achelous could see the sociologist’s jaw tighten. A long pause settled as the agent deposited the load of firewood next to the door of a squat cabin. Snow was shoveled clear of the steps. “Yes, but it won’t be as good. There is just so much to learn.”
Achelous leaned back. “I understand. I don’t think I can give you more time than that. But I do have an idea I want to run by you; it may help our cause.” He laid out the idea, expanding and refining it as he went.
Baryy listened without interruption; a slight frown began to form halfway through the plot. Finally, after considerable hesitation, he brought himself to ask, “Is that legal?”
Achelous took a deep breath, not hiding his own discomfort with the idea. He would need the agent’s assistance if he were going to pull this off. “If you think there is someone we can work with, we can mind-wipe them afterward.”
The agent’s frown deepened into a scowl. “I don’t know, chief, that sounds sketchy.”
“Baryy, look at it this way. What happens if I’m right? Rumors are already spreading about the aquamarine finds, both in-country and off-planet. Who do you think will be first to be exploited if Nordarken sends a deep-cover research team?”
“Well, the Timberkeeps. But I don’t know, that’s a lot of ifs. If they really have the information, if they learn of the Timbers and sixthsense, if they send a deep-cover team to evaluate, and if they think it is worth the trouble.”
Listening to Baryy's skepticism, he had to agree the scheme seemed implausible, so he tried a different tack. “You can’t debate the aquamarine, though. They’re hurting for it real bad and have broken exclusions to get it before.”
Baryy sighed. “Yes, you’re right. It is a problem.”
“So let's try my idea as an insurance policy. If we don’t learn anything or they don’t see anything, then I’m just being paranoid, and we can button things up and head for Dominicus III.”
Baryy thought about it. As close to violating ULUP as Atch’s idea came, he was right that they should know if Nordarken Mining or any other extrasolars had intentions on Dianis. The idea would actually aid his research, potentially propelling it far beyond what he originally planned if it worked. With a mind-wipe of the event, it would be no harm, no foul. Still, if the director or someone above Achelous found out about the little escapade, the chief would have lots of explaining to do and a potential sanction.
“Okay, but this is your idea.”
Achelous pursed his lips. “Absolutely. If it goes in the ditch, I take full responsibility. You were just following orders.”
Baryy smirked. "Yea, well, I'm a big boy. The sociologist in me tells me this is a reasonable research effort, potentially good for the Timberkeeps if it gives them a warning. In that case, it is good for Dianis. But, it violates the civil rights of the provincial we test, and that means ULUP, but that's your problem."
