Chapter Thirty-Three
By the time they had made it to the chancery, Matthieu was vastly impressed with and inspired by the efficiency of Gerard’s thought-patterns as he decided upon the exact sequence of their upcoming investigations. His plan was to find and interview Christian, interview the economics team, and then use the shameful Setian interference with their duties to pressure the Setian president in person to immediately penetrate the Darian IV volume with a Setian scout vessel.
Gerard could then go back to the SDC-20 to supervise that investigation, while Christian and Matthieu would continue Christian’s aborted mission on the planet’s surface, up to visiting one of the Setian auctions themselves if Gerard and Fidel could arrange for another trade fleet to make a quick run to Darian IV. If they were lucky, they could be on their way home in a week.
The legation was immediately escorted to His Excellency Lord Glen Compton’s office. Ambassador Compton dismissed two Sentinels with whom he had been speaking, but before he could greet the legation, Gerard said, “Stop, please,” to the Sentinels.
He fished a data card from his pocket. “My brotheril Prince Stefan is in orbit with arcane equipment. Here are the most recent locations of Christian’s tracer implant and his palm pad, which hadn’t moved for the twenty minutes between the time it took Stefan to detect them and the time we left for the Imperial Goddess.” The Sentinels brightened considerably and virtually ran from the room after Gerard clapped one on the back.
Gerard introduced everyone to Ambassador Compton, and they took seats before his desk. “What’s the most recent communication you’ve had with the Setians?”
Compton handed him two printouts. “The only communications we’ve had from them since Prince Christian disappeared are assurances from the Government Bureau of Investigation that they’re looking for him with every resource at their command, and the receipt of the funds I had to transfer to get our Reparations Evaluation Team out of debtor’s prison.” Gerard looked over the documents before handing them to Sonderman, who fumbled a bit opening the resealable diplomatic portfolio.
“Didn’t you even get an explanation for why they sequestered the Evaluation Team?”
“Not from the Setians,” Compton grumbled. “The prince and his ADC arrived at the Sequestration Center, asking for documentation for their detainment. Commander Cheshire was allowed to scan the copy through a security window, which he sent immediately to me. We had to call the hotel several times before their management gave us the real details. The one thing you must do on this planet is pay for everything in advance. Even meals,” he stated.
Matthieu could hardly believe his ears. The Evaluation Team had paid for the hotel for four weeks, and whenever they ordered a meal, they were told it was being ‘put on their tab’. Everyone else in the known galaxy would assume that meant they would settle their tab at the end of their stay. However, on Seti III, it meant the funds were immediately being subtracted from what they had already paid in advance, so the instant they dropped below a zero balance, the hotel had the local authorities round them up as ‘vagrants’.
Ambassador Compton didn’t dodge responsibility for his true humiliation. “When Princess Elizabeth informed me to expect the evaluation team and instructed me to inform the Setians, I should have at least filed their visit as attachés. I simply sent her description to the Setian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who filed them as a study group.
“I’ve been trying to contact the foreign minister to get that changed, but he isn’t returning my messages. I don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes with the Setians, but if I’m this ineffective, despite having built relationships for fifteen years, I should be recalled.”
“I shall inform my lady wife,” Gerard said simply. “Nevertheless, don’t fret over your assignment; there are several reasons to suspect the Setians are plaguing us with the intent to inflame the Atticans. At this point, the Emperor suspects that whatever is going on in the Darian volume is their doing. What’s been happening with the trade fleets?”
“A few have left, but most are in orbit, siding with us.” Compton grinned. “They’re hassling their embassies mercilessly, all of whom are hassling the Setian Foreign Ministry with their abject cowardice in sending a ship to Darian IV. Since the Silver Scepter needs its patrol boats to investigate cargo fleets, it can’t spare a single one, because they really hustle to get everything done efficiently in the first place—”
An alarm rang on the Ambassador’s vidphone, and Compton moved to answer it. He looked at the screen and cursed. Turning back to Gerard, he flipped the screen toward him.
“We have a real problem. My Sentinel commander says Prince Christian appears to be in the middle of the woods, about 240 kilometers from here, on the training campus of Seti’s equivalent of Sentinel Command, the Setian Directorate of Intelligence.”
Everyone flinched as Gerard slammed his hands on Compton’s desk. “Fuck.”
Standing abruptly, he went around the desk, saying, “Get that worthless foreign minister’s office on the vidphone, and let me have that seat.” Compton rushed to get that done. Gerard settled in just as a pretty secretary answered the vidphone.
“Madame. My name is General Lord Gerard Michel Pierson, Special Envoy at the behest of Emperor Victor and Empress Felice Sinclair. If I don’t get to speak to Minister Trey Williamson within five minutes, you will have a devastating war on your hands.”
Matthieu had never imagined he would ever hear Gerard say such a thing, nor had he ever seen anyone in such control of his blazing fury. He did notice Gerard’s ears had reddened.
Eyes burned intently when he was put on hold, Gerard turned to Compton. “If the economics evaluation team members are out of jail yet, have them escorted to the chancery immediately. Sonderman, get your troops to help.” Matthieu stuck his hand out to grab Sonderman’s portfolio as he and the ambassador tore out the door.
Within three minutes, a graying lady returned to the vidphone. “General Pierson, Minister Williamson is unable to come to the vidphone at this time—”
“Then you had better find a way to get a vidphone to him, wherever he is, within two minutes.”
“That is not possible at this—”
“Then you had better get a video-capable palm pad to him within 1.5 minutes, and have a technician link it to this vidphone within 1.75 minutes.”
The lady must have had some brains to make it to her position, for she nodded and put Gerard on hold. Gerard had Matthieu pull a chair behind him to be visible over his shoulder in the pick-up.
A harried, white-haired man showed up within one minute, with rolling green lawns behind him. “Your Excellency.” He dipped his head.
“Are you Foreign Minister Trey Williamson?” Gerard demanded.
“Yes, Your Excellency. If you would be so kind as to—”
“No, I will not.” Matthieu bit his lips together at the vehemence in Gerard’s voice even as he continued. “We know where Colonel Prince Christian Sinclair is on the planet’s surface, and so do you. If he and his ADC Commander Cheshire are not delivered to the Sinclair Demesnes’ Chancery in one hour, we will send an extraction team from our flagship. Have I made myself perfectly clear?”
The minister had obviously been a diplomat for entirely too long. “Your Excellency, if we had known the location before now, we would have certainly divulged it and certainly ret—”
“Then your government is lying to you. You now have 59 minutes before we send that extraction team to these coordinates.” Gerard cut the screen in half and displayed the wooded area, complete with coordinates, on the other half. “Is there anything else you wish to say for posterity at this time, Minister?”
The threat of that left Minister Williamson gaping. “No. I shall see to this in person immediately.” He cut the connection.
Looking up, Gerard saw that Ambassador Compton had returned. “Please make seven copies of this recent conversation.” He got up and moved back toward his former seat as Matthieu retook his seat. Gerard did an arm stretch and rolled his head low, muscle-cooling moves Matthieu recognized from Fight Club, before settling into the chair.
“Which embassies have been petitioning the Foreign Minister, and are they all friendly to us on an everyday basis?” Gerard next asked. Matthieu gaped in awe as Gerard and Ambassador Compton made plans to distribute the entire conversation to those friendly embassies on an open line.
Matthieu inserted five of the copies into the portfolio, Commodore Breton took notes, and Lieutenant Starling sat forward, obviously memorizing the events. Gerard told Breton to contact Admiral Renois to ready an extraction team. “Don’t bother scrambling communications yet.” Breton moved to a corner of the room and accessed his wrist phone.
Matthieu checked his wrist phone. Although it was barely 20:30 local time, it was almost 14:00 Demesne ship-time. “Sir, may I suggest lunch?”
Gerard turned to Compton. “Would you check to see if the evaluation team is here yet? Also, do you have room to house them?”
“Not with your troops, unless everyone sleeps in shifts,” Compton decided.
“I’m willing to bet they’ll be willing at this point,” Gerard offered. “Especially if we have the Goddess execute a war maneuver.”
“True.” Compton was about to call someone on his vidphone when the embassy’s counselor strode into the room, announcing that the evaluation team had just left the hotel. Compton told him to demand return of all further monies from the hotel, causing the counselor to grimace, but bow and leave nonetheless.
Gerard looked at his ADC. “Code a call to Admiral Renois, ask if Stefan has detected if Christian is on the move yet, and further ask him to make all moves in preparation for extraction. I don’t care if they’re halfway here by the end of the hour; wherever Christian is at that point, the extraction team should be sent.” Commodore Breton nodded.
“Have a meal set up for us when the evaluation team gets here.” Gerard stood. “And have us shown to our quarters.” Compton called in some staffers, who led them to a residential wing.
Looking over the five rooms, Gerard noted there were double beds in each room. “Let’s cut this down to three rooms. Matthieu can bunk with me, the rest of you can double up, and the professors and two political assistants can have two rooms.” The staffers rearranged the luggage as Gerard and Matthieu entered their room.
“Scan it, please.” Gerard searched for a refrigerator as Matthieu set down the diplomatic portfolio and scanned the bedroom and restroom.
“Clear.” Matthieu put away his shiny floss-case scanner and caught the softee Gerard tossed him. “Think I should scan the drinks?”
Bottle halfway to his mouth, Gerard decided, “Yes. One never knows.” Matthieu used his food scanner on their drinks, and they plopped into the only two arm chairs. “At this point, let’s have you scan the retinue’s food and drinks. The embassy’s Sentinels can scan the others.”
Matthieu slouched back. “Damn, it was awesome to see you go all Fight Club on those people, mowing them down. I guess having a desk job leaves you with a lot of frustration.”
Gerard laughed. “Exactly. Trying to get people at interstellar distances to provide timely data has given me good incentive to get things done in real time.”
“I know you gave Commodore Breton his own room, but I wonder if you would reconsider arrangements, because we don’t know how long we’ll be here. I could stand to room with either Starling or Sonderman, or even Vic Bradley.
“But Starling and Sonderman are night and day; I don’t know what their relationship is like on the Imperial Goddess, but it only took three words for me to realize they may develop animosity with each other.”
“True, but in emergency situations, you have to think what is best for the mission. As my personal assistant, I need you with me. The other lieutenants need to make their own way.”
“Would it not be best for the mission to have everyone alert and in tune with each other, though?”
“True. Still, if they need to come to terms with each other, you can put a word in their ears. Otherwise, I have things the way I want them.”
Matthieu nodded. “Yes, sir.” Gerard may have never commanded an off-planet diplomatic mission before, but he surely had vast experience in commanding situations Matthieu couldn’t even imagine. “And where shall we house Christian and Commander Cheshire?”
“I would prefer they be sent back to the Imperial Goddess, but it depends on what shape they’re in.” Gerard stood to pace. “If they’re unharmed, I want to debrief them. If they’ve taken any harm, they should go to the Goddess, for we can’t trust any medical facilities on this planet, not even if the chancery has an infirmary, which they likely do since they have a complement of twelve Sentinels.”
“When’s the last time you slept?”
Gerard shook his head. “I could stand to sleep right now. Once we get Christian settled, I’ll think about it.”
A staffer knocked to announce their meal was ready. When they arrived in the dining area, Matthieu immediately went to Vic for a brief hug. “We can’t talk now except in general terms. I have duties as Gerard’s personal assistant.”
“I understand. But it’s such a relief to see you.” Vic pounded his shoulders and went to take a seat with the other eleven members of his team.
Matthieu arranged food-scanning duties with the two Sentinels as Gerard and Commodore Breton met each team member. They scanned the food before Gerard settled at the head of the table and briefed everyone as they ate. “I can’t guarantee quartering you on the Imperial Goddess at this point would be any better, but unless you insist on staying at a hotel, it’s best we have you here until we’ve completed the mission.”
“We were scheduled to return to the Demesnes in six days,” one professor said. “After our last quarters, I’m certain we will have no problem doubling up here. In addition, with no auctions and no trade fleets running, we had been kicking our heels for something to do for the ten days before being detained.”
“Are any of you missing any possessions?” Commodore Breton asked.
“We’ve not had time to check. We only got back to the hotel this morning, with our possessions delivered about twenty minutes before Lieutenant Sonderman and his troops showed up.” The assistant sent by Duke Bonnaire frowned. “I don’t know about anyone else, but my possessions had certainly been investigated. They were stowed every which way, hastily crammed into my valise, yet with a kind of pattern to them, as if they had been all laid out on a table and simply swept in.”
Gerard had opened his mouth to speak when the counselor burst into the room. “Highness, my lord, come immediately!” He fled.
As they pounded down the hall, Matthieu huffed, “This can’t be good.” Gerard merely grunted.
Christian and Cheshire were on two grav-cots in the entrance foyer, surrounded by several embassy Sentinels and two medics, checking their vitals and calling their infirmary for intravenous fluids and blankets. “We need to get them to the hospital immediately,” one medic said to the counselor.
Gerard plowed forward. “Will they last until we can get them to the flagship?”
The medics looked at each other. “Yes, if we go with them.”
Gerard turned to Matthieu. “Get the troops to pull out seating for the cots and medics.” Matthieu took off as he heard the counselor describe how an anonymous ambulance had simply dropped the men off at the entrance gate to the chancery.
Bursting into the dining hall, Matthieu gasped, “Sonderman, you and your troops need to redline it to the shuttle. Breton, attend the General. Starling, come with me.” As the men burst into action, Matthieu grabbed Sonderman long enough to tell him to have his troops unhook the shuttle’s seats and guard them on the tarmac until he returned with the shuttle.
He dragged Starling down the hall a short distance, giving him a rapid briefing. “Is your wrist phone capable of a scrambled orbital call?”
“Yes.”
“Call the SDC-20 and ask for a pick-up to debrief thoroughly to Commander Jeffries. Ask Gerard for any details he might wish to convey before you go.” Starling nodded, and Matthieu led him to the front foyer of the chancery.
A staffer was just explaining that they had to hire an ambulance to take the men to the shuttle port. Gerard fumed, caressing Christian’s hair as a medic set up a second IV bottle.
“What exactly is wrong with them?” Matthieu asked a Sentinel. Sallow and rumpled, they looked and smelled like they had been thrown into a windowless cell and forgotten.
“They’ve been drugged, perhaps for a long time. They show internal injuries consistent with a severe fight from when they were first picked up a few days ago. It sounds like the commander got the worst of it.”
The Sentinel looked at Matthieu. “Those other coordinates you gave us? We found three palm pads at the scene, tossed into a ravine, and we have two men scanning for further items.”
“Is there a chance local authorities might catch them?”
“Yes. One of our men is bringing the palm pads to us now,” the Sentinel assured him.
“Have them abandon the scene. We can’t afford to let any more of our people fall into Setian hands.” Matthieu heard the ambulance arrive just as he strode to the counselor. “Keep in mind, we still have Darian IV to investigate.”
Exhaustion struggled with resolve on the counselor’s face. “Yes. We’ll get right on that.”
“In the morning. Get the evaluation team settled as best you can. And be sure to ask Commodore Breton whether he prefers to bunk with General Pierson, or whether they prefer to have Sentinels in their rooms. Not that we don’t trust your staff; I simply prefer they be attended at all times,” Matthieu said gravely, watching the medics move Christian and Cheshire out the door.
The counselor nodded. “At this point I plan to have Sentinels refuse all local workers and make up the beds themselves.” Matthieu clapped him on the back.
He told Gerard the commands he had given. “Anything else?”
Gerard shook his head. “Haul ass.”
He replied, “Get some sleep.” They hugged, and Matthieu launched himself into the front seat of the ambulance.
The sun had almost set, and the troops were almost finished stacking shuttle seats when the ambulance arrived at their berth. He popped out and told Sonderman, “Make sure the cots are as secure as possible while I do my flight checks.” Glancing at the shuttle seats, he added, “And get everyone out of the way; you’re probably going to have to restack the seats after my takeoff.”
Sonderman gulped. “Yes, sir. Anything else?”
Matthieu grabbed his shoulder. “I know you like to use humor to get through life. Starling’s an odd bird; do your best to keep on his good side and learn from him. I know him from a previous tour, and he’ll dismiss you as incompetent if you don’t keep on your toes. It’s really important that there be no internal animosity on this mission.”
With a nod, Sonderman saluted him. “Hurry back.”
Matthieu had to wait for Christian to be loaded; he placed his hand in brief blessing on Christian’s clammy, pale forehead before diving for the cockpit as they began loading Cheshire. Calling flight control, he warned them he would make an emergency take-off from their berth, headed directly for the Imperial Goddess and completely bypassing the usual runways, which were built to take the pressure from shuttle gravity slipstreams.
He heard Sonderman and his men finish securing the cots as he finished his pre-flight check. Sonderman hollered, “Good to go.”
“Once you dog the hatch, take off running,” Matthieu yelled back. The hatch closed, Matthieu counted to ten, warned the medics, checked the airspace being hastily cleared, and blasted almost vertically off the tarmac. Despite their own gravity control, the sudden momentum made the medics curse, but Matthieu didn’t care.
Ten minutes into the forty-minute flight, one of the medics called out, “We lost him.”
“Who?” Matthieu took a second to glance through the open flight deck.
“The younger one.” A medic was already covering the sheet over Cheshire’s eyes.
Burning with determination, Matthieu hailed the Imperial Goddess. “Get me Admiral Renois.”
The Admiral’s voice was calm. “Yes, Lieutenant?”
He reported that Commander Cheshire had just died, despite being cared for by medics, and that Christian was nearly as bad off. “Permission to make an emergency docking maneuver.” He described how the cots were set up.
“Get one of the medics into the co-pilot’s seat to communicate with our sick bay,” Renois commanded.
Two minutes of medical jargon later, the medic signed off and went back to Christian. Matthieu called Renois. “Permission to make an emergency docking maneuver.”
“Permission granted, but it better be quantum,” Renois warned him.
“It shall,” Matthieu assured him.
Thankfully, Admiral Renois had thought to have the shuttle bay wide open, empty, and pointed his way in plenty of time for Matthieu to calculate his docking several times. He began his extreme reverse-thrust a mere kilometer from the ship.
The shuttle’s engines whined at a brain-exploding pitch he had never heard before, and he could even see the thick blue-white halo of grav-counterthrust energy surrounding the shuttle, but Matthieu came to a full stop relative to the ship when the shuttle was halfway in the hatch. He slid it forward quickly, matched gravities, and made a very slight bump in landing.
As he immediately powered down the engines, the Imperial Goddess’s hatch clamped shut, he unsealed the shuttle’s hatch, and medics swarmed from the inner air lock to open the shuttle. Matthieu rested his head, closed his eyes, and let everyone get about their business.
Someone eventually climbed into the co-pilot’s seat and sat with him. “Have you had any sleep?” Admiral Renois asked.
“I’m good for another shift,” Matthieu replied. He opened his eyes to see the Admiral’s deep concern. “What’s going on now?”
Admiral Renois lifted his chin. “I’ve had a communiqué from Prince Stefan. It sounds like you need to fly the SDC-20 shuttle back to the courier ship before you go back to retrieve Lieutenant Starling.”
“That’s odd. Did he say why?”
Renois grimaced. “I don’t know how he has retrieved information from Darian IV, but he says we are in no way allowed to refuel from Setian sources. He says he’ll have Starling transmit that data to us, but for now you are to have your shuttle refuel from its mothership.”
“So, I’ll be flying Starling back to the courier, then here?” Matthieu frowned. “I need to be with Gerard. Do you have a spare pilot who could take over my duties?”
“Yes. We’ll have him come immediately to you, and his bunkmate can make up his kit to transfer to the SDC-20.” Admiral Renois moved out of the cockpit, but turned briefly to say, “And vids of that emergency docking will probably be making the rounds by the time we’re out of this miserable volume.”
“Making the rounds?”
Renois grinned. “Every single ship in this parking orbit undoubtedly made vids to be immediately transmitted to their governments. Quantum, indeed.” He chuckled as he left.
◊ ◊ ◊
Commander Jeffries met Matthieu and Pilot Officer Lieutenant Windholm at the air lock. “There’s my star pilot,” Jeffries raved. Matthieu grinned in embarrassment. “To the flight deck.”
They introduced Windholm to Captain Bales as Stephanopolous flashed Matthieu a thumbs-up. Jeffries immediately dragged Matthieu to the mess, chased out the two off-duty engineers and two weapons officers to go get Stefan, and served up coffee. Stefan popped up and shut the door; Matthieu had been completely unaware there had ever been a door to the mess, it was so cleverly hidden.
Stefan said, “We’ve got your shuttle refueling right now.”
“What’s that about?” Matthieu’s curiosity knew no bounds.
“Fidel made it to Darian IV day before yesterday,” Stefan stated. “According to the Darians, the Belmont fleet had just entered the volume and almost finished setting their bearings for the planet when they fell silent. Fidel found the four closest to the Attica Prime wormhole had Attican patrol boats docked to them. All were adrift, and the Attican mothership had informed Athenia that, as soon as their patrol boats had docked, nothing was heard from them.
“They had all four reached cargo ships about the same time and simply expected to take a quick scan and report. Since everyone on board was probably dead, they were requesting teams to perform biological containment investigations, when the Attican High Council decided to let Fidel through to investigate, probably hoping he would lose people, too.
“Fidel’s technicians set up a portable tube with airlocks, drilled holes in one cargo vessel, and entered in space gear. The Setians who last fueled the Belmont ships did so with some kind of corrosive or substandard agent, completely destroying the sealed engine’s integrity and flooding every ship with deadly gases. I suspect it happened due to the unusual stress of traveling the wormhole, which does interesting things to a regular ship’s engine.
“Fidel informed the Atticans, who were trying to rouse their ire against the Demesnes since we inspect the cargo ships. However, Fidel’s men sent them extensive videos on their every move, showing the exact damage to the engines as well as the chemical composition of the internal atmosphere, so the Atticans are trying to decide if they should have their Galactic Assembly Representative complain about Seti or not.”
“Why would they not?” Matthieu couldn’t believe the Atticans would overlook something this serious.
“The Setians were friendly to the Attican Empire before the interdiction,” Jeffries said. “Although the Setians don’t think much about it except in practical terms, the Atticans had some high noble intermarriages with Setian bigwigs, which the Atticans take as seriously as a treaty. They don’t want to get the Setians in trouble in the galactic arena.”
“What can we do about it?”
Stefan said, “I suggested we have Fidel send a patrol boat to us to deliver the videos to the galaxy. Commander Jeffries thinks we should have Gerard’s permission first, in case he needs to hold it back for ammunition.”
“He’s got plenty of ammunition right now,” Matthieu growled, briefing them on events on the surface. Commander Jeffries and Stefan looked at each other in amazement. “Why the hell else would I nearly ram our flagship, except to save Christian’s life?”
“Stefan, brief Fidel and the Empress, ask for permission for Fidel to send us that patrol boat, and go ahead and ask for permission to make the Darian IV videos public,” Commander Jeffries said.
Matthieu looked at Stefan. “Did you tell him about that hack you wrote?”
Stefan nodded. “You think we might need it?”
“Definitely. The way Christian and Cheshire were so cowardly abandoned at the gate to the chancery had Gerard in a state I’d never seen in anybody before.
“I would say, start amassing the codes for all the quantum transmitters of every Setian shuttle port. If they want to start a war, at least it can be a relatively bloodless war.” Matthieu ground his teeth. “If they can’t receive any ships from any planet, perhaps they’ll realize how badly they’ve been treating everyone over this debacle.”
Jeffries growled, “No, Stefan. Make it every quantum transmitter on the planet’s surface, especially their military and government. Will anyone be able to detect how you do it?”
“No. Once the diaphragms begin quivering, they will have lost the messages. Unless there’s a ship in orbit that resonates to the same inveiglement, none will be able to interpret the messages, and if one does, it’ll be disabled, too.”
“Good.” Jeffries vented a bitter laugh.
“Sending a message through beacon stations necessitates codes before sending a specific ship or transmitter’s code, so in theory you could disable any ship or transmitter in existence if you know its inveiglement and which beacon stations you have to run it through to get there,” Matthieu mused. “Even if we have to leave the volume mid-message, we could leave the messages at the beacon and they could keep disabling transmitters. Am I correct?”
“Entirely.” Stefan grinned but sobered. “However, the unusual number of transmissions would alert the beacon station attendants that something was amiss. Let me think about this.”
Matthieu stood. “Anything else I need to know before I deliver Lieutenant Starling to you?”
Jeffries rose and gripped Matthieu’s shoulder. “Let’s have Captain Hartford fly you to the Imperial Goddess to retrieve that big shuttle. He can fly Starling here, and you’ll have transportation handy when you’re ready.”
Stefan added, “As soon as you get Christian’s palm pad, immediately begin typing any data at all. Either Mother or I will contact you if it’s viable.”
“Sounds good.” Matthieu grinned. “Surely it can only get better from here?”