Season 4: Mind Games

EPISODE 4-1: Perceptual disturbances

Watching a spaceport through the ferroglass always strikes me a bit like watching a holovid. I can never quite shake the feeling that what I’m watching isn’t real, like there’s no way these ungainly, metal-plated Easter eggs could get 10 meters off the ground, much less blast themselves into space. I just keep waiting for one of the puppeteers to slip up, for the wires holding them to be exposed, the whole painted backdrop to come crashing down. Like the whole thing was an elaborate con, that humanity had actually been stuck on Terra all these centuries.

Mind you, spaceports themselves are covered in a kind of glaze of unreality, aren’t they? All built in the same swooping, curving cream ceramic, filled with lavish aristos-only lounges, modern art displays of metal in liquid shapes and kiosks with coffee at eye-watering prices. Like you’re on a holovid set: All distinguishing marks or features carefully sanded away, leaving you in a kind of eternal, omnipresent limbo-land, a not-place that exists at the intersection between every Planet You Were On and every Planet You Want To Be On, a spiritual and intellectual void to complement the physical one you just crossed between the stars. 

This one was on Addicks, I think. Though it might well have been Quentin. Or Fomalhaut? No, definitely Addicks. Like I say, all spaceports are much the same. We were traveling slow on Forrest’s Buccaneer, picking up cargo on one planet, taking it to the next, where we’d pick up the next shipment, take it onwards. Edging steadily closer to Terra and the Commonwealth. Sometimes legitimate cargo, sometimes not—the latter rarely exciting, just booze or oil or anything somebody didn’t feel like paying taxes on.

Alys-who-was-Reina had gone on ahead to the unit on Summer while I aimed for Galatea, which left me with only our smuggler friend for company. Forrest was off meeting someone about our next cargo, the rest of the crew scattered about the spaceport or out in the town enjoying themselves.

So it was just me and the almost-but-not-quite-holovid screen of the ferroglass window looking out over the vast acres of cracked and weather-stained ferrocrete that formed the spaceport landing pads. A couple of DropShip crew in beige overalls and merchants in silk shirts were watching a holovid in one of the public waiting lounges, something about an up-and-coming Solaris duelist named Xiang. The Solaris Circuit is one of the reasons I’m glad I never became a MechWarrior—pilots are untainted by the commercial depths to which they’ve dragged the BattleMech. Blood sports for the citizens of a decaying Rome.

I just tried to shut out the noise and enjoy the view. Sky so blue it had to be fake.

The chair was reclinable, and if you fed a C- or D-Bill into the slot on the side, it would massage your back and neck for 15 minutes with stubby, insistent robotic fingers moving beneath the leather.

I was about to feed another bill into the machine when a voice stopped me: “Mister Glass?”

I turned and saw a big slab of human, lots of hair on his forearms and the backs of his hands, dressed in a chocolate brown spaceport security uniform that seemed about a size too small for him. Wide “Addicks Spaceport Security” armband around his bicep, an organization whose acronym was about as smart as its employees.

He also wore small wire-framed round glasses that sat, incongruously tiny in the middle of his blocky face. Five other security types stood in a rough semicircle around my chair, about five meters away—well out of lunging distance, in other words. Armed with sonic stun guns attached to lanyards around their necks: the stunner’s a non-lethal weapon, but even those can mess you up bad if used close enough, for long enough.

The big guy who’d spoken looked like he belonged in a holovid, too. He reminded me of the brother on “Home is Were the Hart is”, you know that one? The family of were-creatures, with the dad who turns into the horned Master of the Wild Hunt, and the brother turns into a bear. That’s the one. He did not, in other words, look like the sort of guy who turns into a spaceport security officer when he wakes up in the morning.

“There a problem?” I asked.

“What there are, Mister Glass, are questions,” he intoned slowly, with heavy emphasis on the last word. “Questions about a certain nobleman’s daughter. Questions you might be able to answer.”

“Okay, shoot,” I said, then flicked a glance at the others. “Not literally, guys.”

“Not here, Mister Glass, but in private,” the were-bear gestured with one paw. “If you’d follow us please, this way. The matter of a nobleman’s family calls for certain discretion. As I’m sure you can understand.”

Well, no, no I didn’t, but then I figured if they wanted me dead, I’d be dead, and if I didn’t go willing I’d probably wind up going unconscious, so what the hell. “Hey, sure thing,” I said, and bounced out of the massage chair. The other five guards either took a step back or reached for their stun guns, but I noticed Hairy Bearson just kind of half-dropped into a fighting crouch. Instead of a stun gun, his holster held a Stetta machine pistol, big blocky thing with a magazine big as a cigarette packet and a custom-molded grip. Interesting. Definitely not one of the boys. “Lead on,” I told him.

One of the security stiffs walked in front, Bearson just behind my shoulder, the other four making a loose box around us. We got lots of odd, surreptitious corner-of-the-eye looks from passers-by eager not to make eye contact, but I didn’t see either Alys or any of the crew.

“You’re not security, are you big guy,” I said conversationally, over my shoulder. I saw the name badge over his breast pocket read ‘A. Tracey.’

“I am not,” he agreed. “I assist my clients in finding certain personages of interest.”

“Bounty hunter, huh? I thought you had a green outfit and a Marauder?”

“Not The Bounty Hunter Mister Glass, but A bounty hunter.”

“A-Tracey the bounty hunter? That some kind of joke?”

“Sometimes it’s convenient to take a name that suits one’s place in life. Isn’t that right, Mister Glass?”

“Sure.” I smiled and waved at a small kid in a straw hat who stared at us. He ran behind his mom’s skirts. “Any hints on who’s offering the bounty?”

“All in good time, Mister Glass.”

They led me outside, which answered any lingering doubts about whether this was a legitimate security stop or not. Parked directly in front of the terminal entrance was a hover car, a rounded block of mirror-polished black, more dolled-up Harasser scout tank than limousine. A number of small round ports down the side suggested the thing’s idea of an anti-theft device was a series of flamethrowers. There was an unfamiliar crest on the front—three black birds, like lean turkeys or peacocks with long stringy tails, arranged in an inverted triangle pattern on a silver background.

Only Tracey and I got in, the other security guards stood uncomfortably outside, clearly relieved to be rid of us and wishing we’d just go.

Inside were two rows of plush seats, facing each other with maybe a meter of space between them, and a sheet of bullet-proof glass, cross-hatched with a tracery of steel wire, separating the passenger compartment from the driver. I sat in the rearward-facing seat, Tracey diagonally opposite, corded arms folded across the expanse of his chest, one hand just above the butt of his custom Stetta. There were no windows, but rather a flat-panel display to either side of the seats, linked to cameras mounted on the vehicle.

“Forrest sell me out?”

“Every man has his price.” His face looked sad, like this was one of the bitterest truths life had taught him.

The hovercar-slash-tank lifted from the ground with the soft electrical purr of a fuel cell engine rather than the rough chugging of biofuel, and on the screens to either side I saw we were slaloming effortlessly through traffic as cars either pulled over or slowed down to let us through.

“Those pheasants on the front?” I asked Tracey, wondering who’d have enough clout to clear the roads like that.

“Birds of paradise, Mister Glass,” he informed me.

Well, that confirmed that suspicion.

EPISODE 4-2: Delusions of grandeur

The building we stopped in front of looked like an ancient Japanese shrine or temple, if ancient Japanese shrines and temples had been built of frosted glass and steel. The shape was right, but instead of wood panels and beams there were these ink-black metal spars and multi-meter tall sheets of semi-transparent stuff, through which you could see vague shadows moving and somber lights flickering.

The door was opened by liveried footmen dressed in black and white, with the three bird of paradise crest on either shoulder. Two armored guards, similarly monochromatic, watched us disembark from a respectable distance, auto shotguns slung over their shoulders.

One footman guided us inside, around mossy rock gardens and carp-filled pools, through a seeming funhouse maze of mirrored walls and floors, to an inner courtyard where a young man dressed in loose white robe and billowing navy pantaloons held a two-meter long bamboo bow. At the other end of the courtyard, a small target—flanked on either side by the three-bird crest—was already pin-cushioned with half a dozen arrows.

Behind the archer, on a raised veranda that ran around three sides of the courtyard, a man lay face-down on a table positioned in the middle of an intricate Turkish rug, while a female masseuse worked on his shoulders and back. The man was gray-haired and wore only a towel about his buttocks; the masseuse was completely naked, save for silver jewelry about each wrist and ankle, and a stud in her belly button. Armed guards stood at each corner of the courtyard.

“My Lord: Mister Adolphus Tracey and associate,” the doorman announced with a bow, then quietly shuffled backwards.

The man with the bow looked up and frowned, then back down at his bow. He fitted an arrow to the string, lifted both bow staff and arrow over his head. Brought the two down and apart at the same time, held the arrow near the cheek for an instant, and loosed. The bow twirled in his fingers as he released the arrow, spinning so that the string faced away from him.

Thwack. The arrow hit the edge of the target.

There was a moment of quiet, interrupted only by the tinkle of jewelry and the rhythmic, liquid slap of the masseuse’s hands on the old man’s bare back.

“Ah, Adolphus, success I take it?” said a muffled voice from the massage table. “A little lower, my dear. A little more. Ah, just there. Harder, now, don’t be shy.”

Tracey was frowning at his feet, a little embarrassed by the skin on display, I think. “My Lord, the gentleman in question is present,” he told his shoes.

“Howdy,” I offered. “Nice rug.” I winked at the masseuse. She blushed.

“Ah, thank you dear, that will do for now.” The old man sat up, wrapping the towel around himself as the nude woman bowed and padded from the courtyard. Got a good look at the man’s face: Angular features, black hair gone to steel. “Thank you Adolphus, efficient as always. Have you told him who I am?”

“Figured that out for myself,” I replied before Tracey could. “Wish I could say it’s nice to meet you, Mister Paradis.”

Thwack.

“My Lord,” hissed Tracey.

“What?”

“You’re supposed to call him ‘My Lord.’”

“Well, I doubt he’s supposed to kidnap people from spaceports, but here we are,” I said, crossing my arms.

Tracey tensed but Lord Masayuki Paradis, Count of Toyokawa, owner of half of Ozawa just smiled and chuckled. “You will see, in due course, why such secrecy was necessary, Mister Glass,” he said, a small smile still tugging at his lips. He snapped his fingers and a servant rushed forward with a Japanese-style robe. He held out his arms as the servant fitted the robe and cinched it shut, then let his arms fall. “I take it you can guess why I wish to speak with you?”

“Reina Paradis.”

“In part,” he said. “My wayward third child and second daughter. Tell me, Mister Glass, do you know where she is?”

“Yes.” Well, I knew where she had been several weeks ago: splattered across a sidewalk inside a SHEL space habitat at the New Avalon L3 Lagrangian point. Where she’d fallen, shortly after being abdominally perforated at point-blank range with a needler pistol.

“Is she with you now?”

“No.”

“Is she dead?”

“Yes.”

He sighed. “I suspected as much. Did you kill her?”

“No.” Might have helped a bit, but didn’t actually pull the trigger, so technically not a lie.

“A wild child, she did rather seem destined for an early end. And the woman commanding your unit, she is impersonating my daughter?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to answer every question with just ‘Yes’ or ‘No’?”

I thought about that for a second. “No.”

“Glass,” Tracey rumbled threateningly.

“Oh back off, Fozzy,” I told him irritably. “Lord Peacock Feathers wants something, he can get right to the bloody point.”

Thwack.

Paradis sat down on the edge of the massage table with a sigh, beckoned a servant who brought a tray with a wine bottle and half-filled glass. Paradis took the glass, then told the servant, “Leave the bottle. I have a feeling I’ll need it.” He took a sip, swilled it around his mouth a moment, savoring it, before swallowing. “Mister Glass, anyone who learns of our meeting will assume I wished to talk to you solely about the whereabouts of my daughter. Well, consider my curiosity assuaged.”

He nodded towards the young archer. “Hiroyuki is my heir, his sister Mina is set to be wed to one of the Devries. Reina was always a bit of an afterthought. A marriage for her to one of the lesser Sandovals or Sorteks might have helped cement our position, but perhaps this new woman can be persuaded to fulfill that role—after all, I hardly mind if she’s my blood or not. It’s the alliance that matters, not the children that come from it.” He set down the glass. “However, all this is smokescreen. I have another reason to speak you, one which coincidentally, is also related to marriage.”

I looked sidelong at Tracey, but his face betrayed no understanding of where Paradis was going with this. “I’m very flattered,” I said. “But you’re not really my type.”

Paradis harrumphed, clapped his hands twice, sharply, the sound ringing out like gunshots in the courtyard. The servants and guards bowed and made themselves disappear. The archer—Hiroyuki—looked up at the old man questioningly. “You too,” Paradis said. “The less you know of this, the better.” The young man scowled, threw the bow down on the ground and stomped off, bare feet slapping against the hard glass flooring.

Tracey took a step back, before being halted by a raised finger. “Not you,” said Paradis. “You’re my insurance in this.” Then he turned back to me. “Now, Mister Glass. You are from the Free Worlds League, are you not?”

I nodded. “Oriente.”

“What if I told you there was a threat, a very real threat, to the continued existence of that League?” Paradis asked. “Wouldn’t you want to do something to warn your homeland?”

There was clockwork calculation there, the same dead voice that had spoken so casually about replacing his own daughter. There was a shape behind those words, hidden between the steel planes and knife-edged panes, what I was hearing was a blurred reflection of his real intentions.

I moved past him, down the three shallow steps from the veranda to the center of the courtyard, bending down to pick up the bamboo bow. It was huge, taller that I was, but surprisingly light. The wood felt strange in this place of glass and metal, a single living thing amid all this millimeter-precise architecture, the hard surfaces and ambition, the cold calculation. I frowned to myself, thumb rubbing across the bow, holding it crosswise in front of me, parallel to the ground.

The old lecher had asked a good question though. Well, would I want to warn the League? But as soon as I asked myself that question, I saw it was the wrong one. “Depends on whether I believed the threat was real,” I said. There was a long quiver of arrows leaning against a bow stand. I took one and fitted it to the string, feeling Tracey’s eyes intent on my back with every motion. “Depends on why a Federated Suns nobleman would want to give such a warning.”

“You’ve heard of the alliance between the Lyran Commonwealth and Federated Suns?”

“Well, that’s no secret.” I stood, arrow still against the string, holding the bow vertically now, straight out from my body. “Hardly seems worth a secret meeting to tell me that.”

“There is a secret clause in the alliance.”

Feet slightly apart. Raised both hands high above my head, bow still held perfectly straight. “One that lets you kidnap space tourists?”

“One that promises Melissa Steiner in marriage to Hanse Davion.”

The arrow slipped from my fingers then. I fumbled for it, caught it before it hit the ground. “Not just an alliance then,” I said. “A union.” I nodded to myself. It made sense, from Davion’s point of view anyway: access to an industrial base capable of supporting his patently unsustainable military spending. Seemed like political suicide for Steiner though, instantly making an enemy of every Commonwealth Duke, Margrave, Baron and Earl who’d hoped to marry whatever spotty, greasy, inbred heirs they’d produced to the Archon-Designate.

All seemed kind of academic, though, especially for a second-rate nobleman from a third-rate world. I fitted the arrow back to the string. “Still, can’t see how that harms you, unless you’d been planning to marry Reina off to him? In which case, you’d have to get in line.”

“What will happen, once this clause becomes known, do you think?”

“For the happy couple? A few years of bliss, followed by long decades of slow realization that you can never truly know another person and we are all ultimately alone in the universe. Oh, and three to five kids, who may or may not contribute to the aforementioned existential dread thing.” Drew the bow and arrow down and apart. Arrow to my cheek, just below the eye. “For the rest of us? The usual: War.”

Release. Bow spinning in my hand.

Thwack.

“No, not the usual war, Mister Glass. Something quite different.” I turned, to see Paradis smiling thinly down at me.

“You missed,” observed Tracey.

At the other end of the courtyard, my arrow jutted from the eye of the top right bird of paradise on the crest painted on the wall. “How careless of me,” I murmured.

“Since war is inevitable, the Commonwealth and Suns will launch preemptive invasions of the Draconis Combine and Capellan Confederation, respectively, and once they fall the League will surely follow,” Paradis said, refilling his glass. “However. The Draconis March will be denuded of men to reinforce the strike against the Capellans. Now do you understand why this insane plan must be stopped?”

I nodded, slowly, feeling again that the bow was the only natural thing down there in the room. Standing with a man who’d sell not just his own daughter, but his own realm if it served his interests. “You are worried you will lose your fief to a Combine attack while the AFFS concentrates on the Capellans.”

“Sono toori, Mister Glass. Ex-act-ly. This is where our interests align.” Paradis took a long drink of wine. “Conquered Capellan worlds will be given to the Lyrans—to those weak-kneed bankers while ancient Marcher families stand to lose everything. What does Davion care if he loses a world here and there if he conquers a score from the Confederation?” He suddenly flung the wine glass away, shattering it against a wall. “He will abandon all of us in the Draconis March to serve his own grasping ambition!”

There was irony in this man criticizing ambition, but I somehow doubted he would see the humor. “Why tell me?” I said, placing the bow carefully in the stand. “I doubt the Combine or Confederation are going to take the word of an ex-League mercenary.”

“Because we have obtained a complete, detailed copy of Operation Rat, the plans for the invasion of the Capellan Confederation,” Paradis said, triumphantly. “Troop movements, timetables, targets, everything. With this you have all the evidence you need to warn the other realms and prepare them. Find someone you can trust, and give them the plans. Once it becomes clear his enemies are alerted, Davion will have no choice but to call off his damn-fool invasion and protect our borders—all our borders.”

“Why me?” I asked. “Why not ComStar, say?”

“Who do you think arranged this treaty?” Paradis scoffed. “ComStar is in this up to their necks. With you, as I said, I have a cover for arranging a meeting. You’re a League citizen—even with the stakes involved, I’m not sure I could stomach giving this information to a Kurita or Liao—and I trust that motivates you to do your best to pass on the information. And, let’s be honest, you are deniable—if you are caught or attempt to betray me, I can expose your complicity in the impersonation of my daughter, and discredit anything you might say.”

I chewed my lip a little, looked up, watched the sky. Still too perfect, not quite believable. “Okay, so you cancel the invasion and get to hold onto the family mansion.” I glanced around the courtyard. “Or mansions, as the case may be. What’s in it for me?”

“Other than the warm patriotic glow of knowing you are helping to save your homeland?”

“Yeah. Other than that.”

Paradis’ jaw twitched a little. “Very well, I undertake not to expose your commander’s charade and allow the two of you to live unmolested. How does that sound?”

“You undertake, do you?” I raised an eyebrow, looked at Tracey. “Hear that? He ‘undertakes’. What fancy words you have for blackmail.”

“Ever man has their price, Mister Glass,” Tracey said slowly. “Just not every man gets to choose it.”

I sighed. “No, I guess not.” I was starting to regret not letting the spaceport security just shoot me. Unity, I needed a drink. I walked back up the steps to the veranda. “What’s your angle in all this, A-for-Adolph Tracey?”

“He will continue to represent my interest in this.” Paradis had a confident smile again. “He will be your escort and bodyguard, until the information is delivered. He will keep you from harm, in other words, meaning both the suffering and the causing of. I trust him, because I know he is loyal to whoever pays him the most. And I do not doubt for a moment I can pay him far, far more than you can ever offer.”

“I try not to let things get complicated.” Tracey spread his big hands wide, and gave a little shrug.

“All right,” I reached over, picked up the wine bottle still beside Paradis, lifted it to my lips and took a swig. Dry, very dry. “This from Ozawa?”

“No, Mister Glass. All the vineyards on Ozawa were irradiated during the First Succession War. On my world, we know how terrible the price of war can be.”

“Yes, so terrible, the damage it can do to wine,” I deadpanned, and put the bottle down. Looked around. “Okay. So, where are these plans?”

Paradis rubbed fastidiously at the neck of the bottle with the sleeve of his robe. “Oh, I’m not so foolish as to keep anything so grossly incriminating around here,” he tutted primly. “You will meet our courier in the Optimates Lounge at the spaceport.”

“The spaceport?” I groaned, dragging one hand across my eyes. “You mean you drove me all the way out here just to have this little chat, and now you’re going to ship me all the way back again. Doesn’t this strike anyone as a touch. You know. Inefficient?”

“Well, I’m certainly not going out there,” Paradis said, brows furrowed in puzzlement like the very concept was unimaginable. He flapped a hand dismissively. “Run along now, Mister Glass. Adolphus knows the way. I do so very much hope we shall never meet or speak again.”

EPISODE 4-3: Hypomaniac episodes

The limo-tank that had brought me to Paradis’ mansion was still waiting outside.

“He do this a lot?” I asked Tracey as we climbed back in. “Shuttling people around like cargo—not the high treason thing.”

Tracey shrugged, a mournful little landslide of muscle. “He can afford to.”

“And yet he’s still alive,” I marveled. “Adolphus my friend, you are a paragon of patience. A saint.”

“They pay well and on time,” he said by way of explanation, taking off his small eyeglasses and rubbing them with a cloth. The whole lens disappearing beneath his thumb. “It’s easy to hate the rich, but what would you do differently in their place? Nothing. Nothing at all. Because they’re still people, still the same species, the same DNA as the rest of us, so in a real sense they are you or me, but for accident of birth. The nobility are just like us, only. With more money.”

Which was more than I’d heard out of him all day. Perhaps a sensitive topic. “Yeah, maybe,” I agreed. “But on the other hand: Definitely not.” A sensitive topic for me at any rate: One didn’t go to Princefield Military Academy on a commoner ticket without developing certain views on the subject. “There’s also entitlement.”

Two Addicks Spaceport Security guards at the entrance to the Optimates Lounge moved to block our path. Tracey, still in his ill-fitting uniform, produced a guest pass which a guard scanned with a handheld device shaped like a fat grey scorpion. It beeped reassuringly. He waved us in.

Inside the Lounge was a long wooden reception counter and a beaming hostess in a form-fitting black tuxedo suit and bowtie. She consulted a glowing monitor behind the desk, then looked up at us. “Ah, Mister Tracey. So nice to have you with us today. You’re here to see Lady Querrey? This way, please.”

She led us through the main lounge, a long rectangular room lit by the glittering constellation of a gigantic chandelier, the room’s wide space dotted around the edge with plush chairs and sofas of various shapes and sizes. A string quintet played softly on a low stage at one end of the lounge—three violins, two cellos. Playing Tourmaline’s “Exodus of Exo Dust.” The musicians were all hairless albinos, dressed in Renaissance style with outrageous ruffles at the wrists and neck.

There was a long buffet table with a layer of crushed ice, piled high with pyramids of multicolored fruit, bleeding red meat and soft, pink slug-like cephalopods, some of which were still moving. Guests ranged up and down the table in restless, animated herds, spearing this food or that with long, gold-plated forks. A side table with chilled wine and champagne did brisk business, while the hulking, frothing drink dispenser had enough barrels to win the Solaris Grand T.

There were women in shimmering gold silk as sheer as body paint, with long braided hair and the side or back of their heads shaved like Commonwealth MechWarriors. Wizened old men in long-tailed jackets with warpaint-smeared faces, pseudo-tribal logograms or leering skulls in vivid pastel colors. A young man in tennis wear, racket under one arm, though I hadn’t seen any courts in the spaceport. A woman trailed everywhere by a small drone hovering overhead, which projected a series of wildlife holos across the canvas of her white dress.

Some people said it was odd humanity hadn’t yet encountered any alien life, but looking around the lounge I wasn’t so sure.

The hostess led us to a door off the side of the main lounge, pressed an intercom button beside the door and stood, beaming politely at the smooth, reflective surface in the way of service people who’ve been told to never stop smiling.

A green light winked above the intercom and the hostess said, “A Mister Tracey and guest to see you, My Lady.”

The door swung open, apparently automatically, and the hostess bowed and ushered us inside. The door swung closed, suddenly cutting off Tourmaline’s Exodus of Exo Dust in mid violin-swell. Soundproofed walls, a nice touch.

The walls inside were paneled in glossy black wood, and in the center of the room was a long table laden with a noteputer in the center, and three chairs each facing a truly impressive tonnage of silverware. Looked more like a surgeon’s tool kit than a dinner setting. There was a meter-high window stretching nearly the entire length of the far wall, with a view away from the spaceport, over the anthill outline of Saint Randall CIty and towards the rose and violet mountains in the distance.

Tracey coughed, maybe he meant to do it politely but with lungs like his it sounded like an elephant giving birth. “Lady Querrey.”

In front of the window stood a woman, just turning towards us, short platinum blond hair, an off-the-shoulder black dress beaded with lustrous stones, a voluminous wide skirt studded with metallic glowing nodes around the hem. Streams of ruby, sapphire and emerald butterflies danced and whirled around her feet and legs, before abruptly disappearing when they rose past her knees.

“Holo emitters in the skirt,” she said, noticing my attention. She pointed at the luminous blobs at the bottom of her dress. “Used to have them set to ‘Avalon Mist’, so I could appear enchanting and mysterious, but people kept thinking my dress was on fire and pulling the fire alarm. So it’s butterflies now, instead. Less exciting but I stay drier.”

I pinched the collar of my navy blue DropShip crew jumpsuit, rubbing the material between thumb and index finger. “Yes, well, only thing this does is turn black. Eventually,” I said wryly. “If you don’t wash it for long enough.”

“Don’t mind him, My Lady,” rumbled Tracey. “Irreverence seems to be his default setting.”

“Well then, let’s be seated and get this over with,” she said, moving to the table. “Then he can go be irreverent at someone else.”

Tracey and I sat on one side, Lady Querrey on the other. Facing a phalanx of forks, spoons, knives and other things which could as easily have been torture implements and eating utensils.

“What’s this?” I asked, picking up something that looked like the galaxy’s smallest stainless steel spatula, with two curved prongs jutting out of the handle.

“A lobster fork,” Querrey replied, with a slightly condescending smile.

“Aha, so that’s what one looks like.” I twirled it around in my fingers. “And what’s a lobster?”

“Delicious.” She folded her hands atop the table. “Mister Glass, this information is being provided to you at no little risk to us. I hope you will appreciate the gravity, and act accordingly.”

“Us?”

“Count Paradis is not alone in his … concerns. Hanse Davion’s obsession with the Capellans is one thing, yes. If he fails in his gamble, it will be a disaster for the Draconis March. The danger to the rest of us, though, is: What if he succeeds? What stops him from proclaiming himself Emperor, Autarch or Star Lord then? Already, his Brigade of Guards could wipe out any Duke he likes on a whim. With this alliance, he grows twice as powerful, yet a planetary Duke gains no power at all. His success threatens us as much as his failure.”

Ah, the tightrope act every House Lord must walk with their nobles. If the ruler is too weak, they attract contempt and revolt, usurpation even. Look at Alessandro Steiner. But by the same token, if they are too strong, too popular, they attract jealousy and fear. Not among their enemies, or not just among them, but among their own vassals as well: fear of being stripped of their privileges, of losing their independence. Our neo-feudal society is a tripod, with the House Lord’s power supported by the legs of the aristocracy, the military and industry. Weaken support from any one of those three, and the whole thing comes toppling down.

“Hasek-Davion?” I guessed, still toying with the fork. “Sandoval?”

Querrey gave an elegant, negligent shrug. “It could be both, or neither. Does it matter?” She reached over to the noteputer in the center of the table, flipped up the monitor and turned it around, so that it faced towards Tracey and me. “Now to the matter at hand. We realize you will have a hard time taking us on faith. You may inspect the file and confirm its authenticity before you leave for Galatea.”

“Its authenticity?” I mused, tapping the spatula end of the fork against my palm. How was I supposed to judge that? I occurred to me this could be Davion’s version of Operation Fortitude, a deliberate deception meant to send Combine and Confederation forces to defend the wrong targets when the blow finally fell. Paradis and Querrey might even genuinely believe the information to be true, but the plans themselves might be fake ones purposefully leaked by DMI or MIIO. It was enough to set one’s holo-butterflies all aflutter.

I tapped through a few pages. From what I could tell, it was just as Paradis had described—Davion was gambling everything on a massive, overwhelming strike aimed against the Confederation, hoping to take them out of the fight before the Combine could intervene.

As a strategy, it relied on the Combine not doing precisely what the Federation was doing—going straight for the jugular. That seemed a dangerous gamble to make with the Combine, whose smaller but professional military was essentially the concept of ‘go for the jugular’ distilled and given physical form. Without the Commonwealth as allies, it would have been madness. Even with them, it still seemed risky, since a lot was riding on both the Lyrans’ ability to take on the Dracs—something they had singularly failed to do for much of the previous two decades—and on the League not counterattacking in the Confederation front, not distracting the Lyrans by opening a second front, indeed, on them not doing anything at all.

“Well, it’s not exactly Aleksandr Kerensky,” I said. “But then, I bet even Aleksandr Kerensky wasn’t exactly Aleksandr Kerensky, so who knows. Is it possible? Maybe. Is it real? Couldn’t tell you.”

“Is it believable, then?” she said a little frostily. “And for Unity’s sake, put that fork down!”

As if on cue, the fork slipped from my fingers, hit the edge of the table and clattered to the floor. “Got to be careful with these things,” I muttered. “You could put someone’s eye—”

I bent down to retrieve the fork.

Crack. Crack. Crack.

I glanced up. The window now sported three neat, round, orange-glowing holes. Looked over—the noteputer monitor had a matching hole, while white stuffing was blowing from two holes puncturing the back of the seat I’d just been sitting in. Tracey was already prone on the floor, shouting “Cover!” while Querrey sat there, mouth in a round ‘O’ of shock.

Sniper laser.

I joined Tracey as horizontal as possible on the floor, then kicked the crossbar of Querrey’s chair and sent both it and her toppling over backwards, just as another series of crackling laser shots punched through the glass, blowing divots out of the walls on either side of the room.

“Try for the door?” I shouted at Tracey.

He shook his head. “He’ll have that covered.”

“Well, he’s going to figure we’re on the floor soon,” I looked over to where Querrey crouched in a puddle of black satin. “Can your dress still do the mist thing?” She nodded mutely. “Do it, dial it up to 11.”

She fumbled at the base of her dress, cringing as the sniper aimed lower now, shots burning straight through the wall and blowing up tiny eruptions of carpet. Then the room was filled with slightly pixelated, undulating mist.

“Now!” I shouted, grabbing Querrey by one arm and fumbling for the data crystal in the noteputer in the other, crouch-running for the door. A row of fiery red holes appeared in the door’s surface, just above waist height. Tracey had already crawled next to the door, threw it violently open, and all three of us dashed into the main lounge.

A couple of people looked curiously in our direction, then away in boredom. A flush-faced noblewoman bursting from a private, soundproofed room with two rugged military-looking men, her dress in disarray, was cause for gossip and smiles hidden behind hands, not alarm.

“You okay?” Tracey asked me as we walked briskly towards the exit, running without looking like we were running. Mist continued to swirl up from Querrey’s dress.

“I think at this stage of the proceedings, my being okay would be a pretty strong sign I wasn’t okay,” I remarked, half-dragging Querrey along with us. Nodded pleasantly to the tuxedoed hostess as we swept out of the Optimates Lounge. “I’m unhurt. We got a destination?”

“The DropShip,” Tracey nodded through Querrey’s digital fog, towards the departures lounge. “Put some distance between us and that trigger-happy maniac. Preferably a few light years of distance. You believe the plan is real now?”

“I believe someone believes it’s real.”

“Please tell me you have the crystal.”

“Oh sure, no problem, it’s right here in my hand,” I held up my hand to demonstrate. Nestled inside it, gleaming in the concourse lights, was the lobster fork.

“Ah no, wrong hand.” I held the crystal between thumb and index finger, while Tracey just gave me a long look, and slowly shook his head.

Then someone pulled the fire alarm and the ceiling sprinklers burst into life.

EPISODE 4-4: Persecution complex

The fire alarm turned out to be a stroke of luck. Thank Unity for whatever overzealous good Samaritan decided to pull the little red bar when they saw Querrey’s steaming dress.

Shrill bells started screaming, water was pouring from the ceiling, people looked up, looked at each other, then stampeded for the exits, blasting straight through the desperately reassuring, calming brownie-clad security guards like a PPC through kindling.

“Come on,” I shouted as the three of us plunged straight past spaceport security and out onto the tired grey hardtop of the launch pads. A lone Draconis March Militia Valkyrie stood like Egyptian statuary at the edge of the field by the security fence. People were scrambling, dashing amid the cargo carriers, fuel tankers and coolant trucks. It was at least 100 meters to even the closest DropShip, as bare as Candace Liao after a night of drinking, and suicide to cross with a sniper still out there, somewhere. With the panic, though, there were hundreds of people all bolting across the field in every direction, so we could make a run for it and pray whoever it was wouldn’t just mow everyone down and damn the consequences.

“Which one’s our DropShip?” I shouted at Tracey, a bewildered and now bedraggled Querrey still in tow.

“That one,” he pointed to a battered olive green cargo DropShip with swept-back wings terminating in oval weapons pods. The side of the hull proclaimed it the Market Equalizer.

“Ha, no, Adolphus, that’s Forrest’s DropShip.” I slowed my pace so he could catch up, let me drop my voice to a less lung-busting volume. “I mean the DropShip that’s going to get us out of here.”

“Yes, that’s the one. Is there a problem?”

“You tell me: The man’s already been bought at least twice,” breathing hard now, the boarding ramp right in front of us. “Doesn’t inspire confidence.”

“You can go back if you like,” said Tracey, waving back to the shrinking spaceport building in the distance and all the exposed ground between us and it, then pounded up the ramp.

Swearing under my breath, I followed, slamming my palm on the door close button once we were inside.

The bridge was much as I’d left it that morning: a haphazard collection of consoles and acceleration couches, none of them the originals and no two exactly alike, with jury-rigged wiring sprouting like multicolored tentacles from every surface, coiling underfoot in anaconda loops of sheathed copper and fiber-optic cable. The sort of deliberate, defiant clutter of a rebellious teenager’s bedroom—I think Forrest kept it messy just to make the point that order was overrated.

Derek Forrest himself was standing in the center of the bridge, talking to a man I didn’t recognize—bearded, dark-skinned, with intense eyes. Forrest turned and did a double take as we entered the bridge, still dripping wet from the fire sprinklers, boots squishing with each step. Querrey had the hem of her dress in both hands and was wringing it out on the deck.

“H-hey Glass,” Forrest smile weakly. The perpetual crease of worry down the middle of his forehead deepened into a crevasse. “Didn’t expect to see you again. I mean, so soon.”

“Shut up and stop worrying, Forrest,” I said, fighting for breath and leaning against one of the consoles. “I won’t kill you. Now.” Smiled warmly at him. “Just kidding. Maybe.”

“Got a problem, Derek,” said Tracey looking at the new guy. “Who’s this?”

“Oh hey, yeah, the newest member of the crew, just signed on today. Say ‘Hi’ to Jafar guys and why are you pointing a gun at us Jafar?”

As Forrest was speaking, the man had reached casually down into a large olive duffel bag at his feet, and when he straightened was holding a brutal-looking gun in both hands. It looked a bit like weaponized indoor plumbing: A short length of steel tubing with a trigger and foregrip welded to the bottom, a folding shoulder stock and massive revolver-type drum magazine. The whole thing was painted a bright, cheery yellow, except for the muzzle, which was tangerine orange.

A 40mm FedArms riot gun, capable of firing a variety of non-lethal ammunition, like tear gas or pepper rounds, but also just as capable of firing perfectly lethal stuff too, like a drink-can sized solid shot that would not so much leave a big hole in you, as leave a little you around a big hole. No guesses which this one was loaded with.

“Shut up Forrest,” said the man, echoing my words from seconds earlier. He kept the FedArms aimed about halfway between Tracey and me, ready to waste either of us with a slight twitch. “The data crystal, if you please, gentlemen.”

Keeping very still, I said: “It’s in the pocket of my overalls. Going to have to let me move to get it.”

“Slowly,” he said, the black maw of the FedArms not wavering.

I reached into my pocket. No weapon there, unless you counted the lobster fork. Which, while deadly to crustaceans, probably wouldn’t do much to assassins. Still, better than nothing, I figured. Pushed it up my sleeve with one finger, then brought up my hand, data crystal held between thumb and index finger.

Jafar toed his bag slightly towards me. “In there, if you would, Mister Glass. And don’t think of throwing it away. I’ll just paste the pair of you and look for it after.”

I slowly tossed the crystal into the open bag. Let the fork fall down into my palm as I lowered my hand.

“Excellent. Such a pleasure to work with professionals,” Jafar smiled. “Now, if you would remove your dress, Miss Querrey.”

She looked at him blankly, eyes going quite wide. She shot a look at me, at Tracey, but I could only give a tiny shrug.

“As distasteful as this is, my employers wish this kept as quiet as possible,” Jafar’s widening smile suggested he found nothing even remotely distasteful about it. “A noblewoman caught in a compromising situation will ensure everyone does their best to keep this out of the public eye.”

Querrey swallowed noisily, nodded one, twice jerkily. “Okay, okay. Oh Unity. Please don’t kill me. Got to disconnect the emitters first, otherwise the dress won’t come off. Please.”

“Do it.”

She slowly crouched down, a trembling hand reaching for the emitters, just the way I’d seen her do before—when she switched them from butterflies to mist. She shot me a look through her eyelashes as she bent down. I tensed. Her hand brushed an emitter.

Strobe. An intense, blinding flash of light, directed right at Jafar’s eyes.

I leapt over the consoles as Jafar reeled backwards, barrel of the FedArms flying up, and stabbed him through the right hand with the fork, trying to make him let go. Didn’t work. Jafar screamed, pulled the trigger. Deafening roar, punching a bowling-ball hole in the ceiling—thankfully stopped before it penetrated all the way through. Shower of metal fragments like confetti raining down on us.

I grabbed the barrel with one hand, keeping it upwards, twisted the fork through the tendons of his hand and forced him to let go the trigger. A sharp kick to the back of the knee sent him crashing to the deck. I stepped quickly back out of reach, the FedArms in my hands now, flipping it to point at Jafar as he struggled to rise from the deck.

“Right.” I breathed. “Now—”

My words were cut off by a burst of gunfire, a metallic roar shockingly loud in the cramped bridge, Jafar’s head jerking back and fountaining blood across the deck, dark roses suddenly blooming across his chest.

Tracey stood with his Stetta held in both hands, smoke curling from the barrel.

“Understandable,” I said to him. “Though a little. Extreme. Perhaps? Might have waited until after we’d had a chat with the man. Who sent you and all that.”

Tracey shrugged, slowly lowering the Stetta. “Thought he had a grenade in his belt,” he said. “Better safe than sorry.” He turned towards Forrest, still holding the machine pistol. “A new recruit, you said? A slight … lapse, in judgement, or something else?”

The worry line on Forrest’s forehead became a crevasse. He tried to back up, but bumped straight into a control console instead. “Hey … no … look … the thing is … it was like this …”

“Like what?”

“Oh, lay off him Adolph,” I said, shaking my head. I threw the hand cannon back on top of Jafar’s bag, wondering why it was bright yellow—to disguise it as a paint gun or power tool, maybe. Bent to pick the data crystal back up. “This one time his incompetence works in his favor. No way he has the wit to be a triple agent.”

“Th-th-thanks Aric.” Forrest’s smile was one hundred percent desperate insincerity.

I was about to ask Querrey if she was okay, then realized what a stupid question that was. “Nice work,” I told her instead. “Quick thinking.”

She kind of nodded absently, looking at Jafar’s body in a daze.

The communications console crackled to life. “DropShip Market Equalizer, this is Addicks spaceport control. Everything okay down there folks? Had a report of gunfire.”

Forrest blinked, kind of shook himself—looking a bit like a ferret after a swim—and moved to answer the call.

“Wait.” I said. “You recognize that voice?”

Forrest cocked his head, shook it. “No, but, there must be lots of people who work there. Why?”

“How in Unity’s name did anyone file a report when they’re in the middle of a fire alarm?” I asked. “Look, if this guy and his sniper friend were DMI or MIIO, we’re probably about ten seconds from them calling in the militia and boarding us, secrecy be damned.”

“What sniper? What fire alarm? Why would Davion intelligence be after us?” Forrest’s forehead was beyond crevasse territory now, well on its way to a worry chasm.

“Repeat, DropShip Market Equalizer, this is spaceport control. Please respond.”

“All the crew on board?” I asked Forrest.

“Market Equalizer, respond please.”

“Well, yeah, except the now there’s no pilot—” he said, gesturing helplessly towards Jafar.

“Don’t need him,” I said, sliding into the pilot’s couch. “Strap in folks. We’re leaving.” I punched the ship-wide intercom. “Attention all crew, this is your pilot speaking. Prepare for liftoff in … well, right about now.”

Then grabbed the straps of the couch restraints and brought them clicking together. Fired up the DropShip’s reactor.

“Market Equalizer, what the hell is going on down there? Turn off your reactor. You do not have permission to take off.”

Glanced around. Everyone else was buckled in. Tracey looking grimly intent, Querrey’s eyes screwed tightly shut, arms folded across her chest as she gripped the straps over her shoulders. Forrest essayed a weak smile. “Could be this guy’s for real. Maybe we should just tell them—”

Reverse. The DropShip suddenly lurched into motion, jerking back away from its docking port. Orange and yellow sparks flew across the viewport as power cables that had linked the ship to the spaceport’s power supply stretched like rubber arms, then snapped violently free.

“That’s it. We’re calling in the militia—”

The voice cut short as Tracey closed the circuit. Now forward throttle, turning us in an arc towards the aerodyne DropShip runway. Slowly gathering speed, distant tremors as the rugged landing gear transmitted to us the negative spaces of gaps between ferrocrete blocks. Luckily, the Buccaneer could take off from improvised fields as well as prepared runways.

Forrest was still babbling: “No need to be paranoid, I’m sure if we explained—”

Proximity alarm started howling. A Fury DropShip falling straight toward us, nose up, making its final approach. I rammed the throttle all the way open, get us under and past it, the DropShip leaping forward, sudden acceleration pressing us down. Engine noise kicking up from elephant rumble to hyena scream.

Fury pilot must have seen it too, tried to abort his landing, struggling to gain altitude, drive flare blossoming from the rear of the DropShip like an incandescent torch.

Passing over our tail plane, meters to spare. Drive exhaust scorching a black line down our dorsal armor. Heat gauge in the cockpit surging into the yellow zone. And then we were past it, shooting underneath, nothing but the straight runway ahead.

Nothing, except the 10-meter high figure of the militia Valkyrie standing in the middle of it.

“Brace for impact,” I said. The Buccaneer is 100 times more massive than a Valkyrie. Hitting it wouldn’t do much to slow us down.

“—it was all just a misunder—Oh Unity, we’re all gonna die—”

Mechjock must suddenly have realized we weren’t slowing down. He raised the right arm, fired a laser pulse at our nose. Crouched and brought the left arm up in front of the cockpit—like that would have helped any.

Lucky hit impacted right against the ferroglass. The glass held, but for a split second I was blinded, muscles reflexively twitched to avoid the blow.

Thud. Thudthudthudthud. We’d swerved, just a few degrees, but we were running diagonally across the field beside the runway now. The muted juddering of the cracked ferrocrete became full-on titanic shaking, like some hundred-handed giant was rattling us like dice in a cup. Control stick aiming to rip both my arms from their sockets. Spaceport security fence coming up fast—10 meters of reinforced ferrocrete topped with electrified barbed wire.

Hauled back on the stick. The Buccaneer hesitated a little. Fence getting real close real fast. Forrest finally shut up, just watching the viewscreen white-faced. Querrey audibly praying to a number of gods in quick succession. Fence really too close now.

Kick as the wheels left the ground. The DropShip seemed to stagger, surprised to find itself airborne, then powered forward, up, up, not fast enough, up. Dull bang as something caught the top edge of the fence, tearing free. Glance down at the control panel showed we’d lost one of the landing gear.

Wobble in the flight, one wing dipping. My arms like steel around the control stick, bringing us level again.

Then tilting us up, up, almost vertical, powering higher and higher into that too-perfect, false blue sky.

Episode 4-5: Imposter syndrome

“Can someone explain to me,” Forrest asked in a whisper. “What the hell is going on?”

Querrey just mutely shook her head, over and over. Everyone was still strapped into the acceleration couches, feeling double their usual weight. Thrust pressing down on us with a thousand invisible hands, clinging to the arms, neck, legs, making every little move an adventure in kinetics.

“I think the key thing to understand,” sighed Tracey, “Is that Glass has a magical knack for attracting precisely the wrong kind of attention.”

“Didn’t you read my file?” I asked over my shoulder.

“I did,” he nodded. “I was convinced most of it was an … exaggeration.” Another sigh. “I stand corrected.”

“Not helping, guys,” Forrest interjected, looking around at Querrey. “Who the hell was Jafar working for? And who is she?”

“Lady Querrey has shared … some sensitive details the Federated Suns would rather nobody else knows,” I said. “Hence Jafar’s interest in the data crystal. He was probably military or civilian intelligence, DMI or MIIO. We’ll take the crystal to Galatea, find a buyer there.”

“I think we should head directly for the Combine or Confederation,” Tracey argued. “Why risk the long journey?”

“Small World, Ingress or Murchison,” suggested Forrest.

“Either one of those realms would just take the data, then torture us to death to confirm its authenticity,” I said. “Not too keen on that, myself. Do the handover on neutral ground.”

“Fine, then why not Sirius or Procyon?” Tracey insisted stubbornly. “Far closer than Galatea, and no need to go through potentially hostile Lyran territory.”

“Aha, yes, well.” I smiled. “See, thing is, I’m, er, wanted in the League for murdering my commander. Could lay low when I was just a mercenary, but the League will probably try to find out all they can about me if I suddenly show up with … with Lady Querrey’s information here. Fingerprints, retinal, blood. Not likely to just take our word on this one.”

“Of course, Lady Querrey,” Tracey said suddenly. “We need to find a safe port and let Lady Querrey off. Think of her position.”

“Think of her funeral, if she tries to go back,” I countered. “Whoever was shooting at us definitely saw her face.” Switched my gaze to her. Seemed to have reeled in whatever parts of her psyche had taken the last hour as an excuse for an extended vacation. “Lady Querrey. I’d say your best bet is to stick with us, but. It’s your choice.”

Laughing. Then crying. I’ve been a mercenary so long it took me a second to realize that was actually a very reasonable reaction to being shot at, threatened with a grenade launcher and then strapped into an acceleration couch inside a DropShip with a certifiable maniac at the helm (that would be me).

“Lady Querrey?” She laugh-sobbed. “I’m just a bloody courier. One of the help.”

“You’re not a noblewoman?” Tracey sounded personally wounded.

Of course not. Expendable, deniable, convenient scapegoats, every one of us.

“I’m about as aristocratic as the French Revolution.” Getting herself back under control. Deep breaths. “Lady Marchburn, Baroness of Mirage, she’s the highborn one. I’m just one of her servants.”

Tracey still looked hurt. “Why the charade then?”

“Her ladyship offered me the chance, and I took it,” Querrey’s shoulders rose and fell awkwardly beneath the harness, a kind of strangled shrug. “Wouldn’t you? It sounded so easy, all I had to do was hand over a data crystal to some mercenary. Along the way, I could play-act the regal noblewoman, take a trip in a luxury liner, wearing dresses that cost more than most families earn in a lifetime, swanning about places like the Optimates Lounge, eating the food, drinking the wine. Experiencing everything, everything I could always see but never touch in her ladyship’s household.”

“Please tell me your name is still Querrey,” I asked. “Just once I’d like to work with someone who uses their real name.” Aware of the irony of me saying that.

“Well, you’re in luck, my name’s still Querrey. Grace Querrey.”

“Okay. Grace. Derek, Adolphus, Aric,” I pointed at each in turn, myself last. “We should be able to stay a step ahead of the Feddies now. We’ll jump to Ingress as Forrest suggested, but shtum on the crystal thing, cut through to Alula Australis, then just two jumps to Galatea. Once we make the delivery, there will be no reason for anyone to be looking for you. Let’s see if we can avoid any more excitement.”

“Yeah, about that, Aric.” Forrest was back in forehead-canyon frown mode. “Got two aerospace fighters on an intercept course.”

Twisted back to the console and looked at the 3D sensor map. Two contacts hurtling towards us, from almost directly aft. Draconis Militia Sparrowhawks: Feddie interceptors that look like a bull elephant’s head, with the deadly tusks of two Martell lasers jutting from the nose. Makes them about as aerodynamic as a pachyderm too, but fast enough in space to run rings around the Market Equalizer.

“Hailing us,” said Tracey.

“Let’s hear it.”

“—repeat, turn your ship around and return to Addicks immediately. This is your final—”

“Forrest, old chum, I’m a little sore at you at the moment, but here’s your chance to make it all better,” I said. “Please tell me you’ve been a good little smuggler and added a few guns to this thing?”

Moving back onto familiar ground seemed to help Forrest reorient. Fleeing from the law: Here was a situation he was familiar with. “Quad ventral and dorsal turrets. Double lasers in the tail,” he said. “Weapons officer station.” Nodding towards an especially ramshackle collection of display screens and control modules squatting in front of an empty acceleration couch.

“Atta boy, Forrest. Might let you live.” I eased back the throttle to 1G acceleration. Wasn’t like we were going to outrun them anyway. “Take the helm,” I told Forrest. Palmed the harness, slipping out of the chair and bounding over to the junkyard collection of weapons control interfaces. Be lucky not to electrocute myself before I’d fired a shot. “Just try not to hit anything. That’s my job.”

Punched the power and grabbed the control yokes. Slipped a bulbous black-visored FC helmet over my head. Nothing. Then disco static. Kicked the bottom of the console. Facebowl of the helmet flared to digital life, quartered view from the viewpoint of each of the turrets as well as the forward guns in the nose. Tried switching between each, getting a feel for how quickly each turret turned, the smoothness of the controls. Crosshairs bouncing like homicidal fireflies across my vision.

There, two pinpoints of drive flare in the rear turret monitor. Set the rear turret twin lasers to chain fire, each one firing while its mate recharged, let them fire on auto. Just wanted to stop the interceptors sitting on our trail. Let me concentrate on the top and bottom turrets.

The two contacts danced and twisted away from the laser fire, then split—one arcing up, port high, the other diving beneath us, starboard low. Making sure one of them would have a clear shot at our side, no matter which way we turned.

“Roll to starboard, 45 degrees,” I shouted at Forrest as the two fighters came screaming in. Firing both the top, then the bottom turret at the same target as we rolled, trying to concentrate fire on one fighter. Glittering explosions skittered across the thing’s armor, but it plunged through, fired a salvo before twisting away. Armor ablated and boiled away from our belly, then from a wing as the second fighter swept across, spewing green fire. “Roll back!”

Chased them both with the quad lasers, but they were too fast, too nimble.

They looped around for another pass, on the opposite angles now, port low, starboard high. Trying to wrestle the crosshairs over their dashing outlines. Stabbing, killing light. One hit, two, but not enough, just scratching their armor. Another rain of laser beams pelting our outer armor. In my helmet, the ventral turret screen froze and then went dead.

Bad news. Wouldn’t take them long to figure out we were blind underneath, then sit there and hammer us to pieces. Called for something unexpected, a lobster fork of a dogfighting move.

“Forrest, on my signal, 1G reverse thrust.” Two red icons swooping in again. “Now.”

The Market Equalizer slammed to a relative stop, deceleration hitting us in the back like going over a bump in a roller coaster, brief weightlessness of zero G, then gravity pushing us hard against our restraints.

A Sparrowhawk flashed over top of us, going too fast to slow or turn. Drive flares filling the forward viewscreen. Right in front of the Market Equalizer’s two big laser guns, as well as four more in the wings. Link-fired everything—no need to worry about heat with these DropShips—and watched as six lines of fire converged on the fighter’s tail, blowing off the tail plane, slagging one engine, sending the fighter tumbling away from us in lazy spirals.

“Forward thrust.” Another split second of freefall, then slammed back against the acceleration couch.

Surviving fighter coming around now. Militia pilot, rattled. We’d just taken out his wingman. Angry, careless.

Strafing run from directly off our port side. Flying straight at us. Zero deflection, easy target. Hammering away at his nose armor with all four lasers from the top turret. He held course, didn’t sheer away. Gave time for another salvo. Sliced through the barrel of one Martell. Snapping free, the barrel crashing directly into the wing, tearing it half off.

The fighter wobbled, rolled. Looped away. And kept going. Gone.

“Precisely the wrong kind of attention,” Tracey repeated quietly to himself in the relieved silence that followed. “Precisely.”

Episode 4-6: Wishful thinking

Alula Australis had an Olympus recharge station where we juiced the JumpShip’s batteries and repaired the Market Equalizer’s landing gear. Bit of maintenance, too: Paint job, new name, the works. Gave us a few days to kill on the public grav deck, a kilometer-wide spinning torus of restaurants, lounges and entertainment parlors, all showing their centuries-old age.

The concourse had only one store, selling a mishmash of League-approved kitsch along with a few things normal human beings might actually buy. Patriotic flags, badges, key fobs, iron-on shirt patches and holos in five different colors: lilac, violet, lavender, grape or purple. League Family dolls, one big happy interstellar gang made up of Oriente, Regulan, Andurien and Marik members, their plastic smiles looking rather strained.

The only other customers were a pair of twins, young women, Teutonically blond like Querrey, sleek young hard-muscled things like gymnasts, dressed in reflective black body-hugging athletic wear that highlighted every curve and line. One grinned at me as we brushed by in the narrow aisles, but I just nodded politely, kept browsing the jingoistic kitsch, the useless trinkets hard to see as destined for anything but some ungrateful recipient’s garbage can.

The shop also sold data crystals, rows of identical, indistinguishable pure white shards, blank slates on which to write an allegory of man’s hubris and folly. I bought a dozen.

I found the other three in a booth at one of the concourse’s restaurant-bars, an interstellar diner done in red and white plastic trimmed in dull, fingerprint-smudged chrome. A kind of desperate, depressing jollity about the whole place. Trying so hard to convince you that you were enjoying your drab, rundown surroundings. The meat was actually tofu, the fries, cardboard.

One side of the restaurant was lined with holo emitters, supposed to project a three-dimensional landscape image onto the bulkhead, make the place feel bigger, less claustrophobic. It started out as a seaside on Alula Australis, somewhere with jagged basalt rocks and majestic pounding surf, though the effect was kind of ruined by the lack of wind or sea-spray whenever a really big wave hit. Ended up just reminding you that you were in the cosmic equivalent of a paint can, spinning in a circle once a minute just to retain even a fraction of gravity.

Tracey and Forrest were playing leapfrog, a board game a little like checkers, where the object is to leap pieces over others in order to capture them and remove them from the board. So you won by stripping clean the board, leaving nothing behind. An appropriate game to play in our era.

Grace Querrey watched them play, toying with a long drink whose paper umbrella was as miserably festive as the rest of the place.

“So just what was our cargo this time?” Tracey was asking as I sat down.

“League Family,” Forrest said, eyes on the board, embarrassed.

“Human trafficking?” Querrey was shocked. “Unity Forrest, where were you hiding them?”

“Na,” he flapped his hand, negating. “League Family, as in the kids’ dolls.” Waved a hand in the direction of the concourse convenience store-slash-political indoctrination outlet. I saw the greyhound-slim twins walking out. “By law you’re supposed to make ‘em in the League, but it’s too expensive. So they pay this place in the Confederation to make ‘em, ship ‘em in here quiet-like.”

“Even our propaganda isn’t ours,” I shook my head. “Might as well surrender now.”

A waiter drifted by to take my order. Had to work my way halfway down the list to find something they still had in stock—no beer, no whiskey, no vodka, no rum—but they did have tea. Always thought of tea as more of a Skye thing, but I guess some things creep across the border through cultural osmosis, sneaking in like Forrest’s Capellan-made figurines.

When the waiter had gone I noticed he’d changed the holo background on the wall to a leaf-shaded canal on Zosma.

“Well, why don’t you?” Querrey asked suddenly, leaning forward over the table. “Why not surrender? Would that be so bad? Wouldn’t ‘First Lord Hanse Davion’ be a small price to pay for peace?”

A timely reminder that my companions and I were doing this for very different reasons. Baroness Marchburn and Count Paradis—through Querrey and Tracey, their local boots on the ground—wanted to protect their own interests, not save the League. Wasn’t even sure I wanted that myself or not—just wanted to get Count Paradis off our backs, remove that sword hanging over our heads.

“That’s the thing, isn’t it?” I pulled a data crystal from my pocket, set it down in the center of the game board, on one of the open squares. Ready to be leaped over, captured. “Is this plan of Count Paradis’ even going to work? If we succeed—we actually find someone who believes us, takes this information to their House, what then? Scenario one: Hanse Davion realizes his plan is compromised, calls off the invasion. Hooray, Paradis was right, plastic propaganda dolls and umbrella cocktails for everyone. Or. Scenario two: He realizes the other Houses know his plan, so gets his staff to make a different one—maybe one that leaves the Draconis March even more exposed. Scenario three: He doesn’t realize what we’ve done or thinks the plan’ll still work, invades anyway. Scenario four: Figuring they’ve got nothing to lose, Marik, Liao and Kurita don’t wait for the blow to fall, but strike first.”

A waitress brought my tea, a tall thin glass of brown-orange liquid without an umbrella, then she flicked the holo wall back to the Alula Australis coastline as she went back to the kitchen. Waves crashed soundlessly, throwing up sprays of nothing that came down as air.

Forrest nodded, staring down at the crystal. “I see what you’re saying. In three out of the four cases, we achieve little or nothing. Or even make the situation worse.”

I stabbed an index finger at him. “Exactly. Just think: They tried to stop us twice on Addicks—first the sniper, then Jafar. Jafar knew Querrey’s name, which DropShip we’d be using, everything. So Davion intelligence has to know their plan is compromised.”

“The job is to deliver the plans.” Tracey rubbed a stubbly chin with his pitcher’s mitt-sized hand, then shook his head. “So we deliver the plans. Not our fault if things don’t turn out the way Paradis expected.”

The twins entered the restaurant and sat at one of the other booths in their sea lion-slick outfits. The one I’d seen before waved to me, a brief flipper-flicker of fingers before she put her hand down. Best to ignore, I figured. Not like I needed any more complications.

“But if there’s a chance, shouldn’t we take it?” Querrey asked. “Never mind what Count Paradis or Baroness Marchburn, or even Captain-General Marik wants. Ethically. Morally. Think of the lives we might save, if we can stop this war. How many will die, do you think, if we do nothing?”

“Might stop this war, but not the next one, or the one after. People will die if we do nothing, people will die if we do something,” I observed. “People dying does rather seem to be the one constant in all of this.”

Forrest frowned, reached for the crystal but stopped at an ‘ah-ah’ rumble from Tracey. “So what, we just give up, throw it away? Not like the DMI or MIIO are going to believe us if we say we don’t have it any more.”

I shrugged, picked up the crystal, tossed it in the air once or twice. “Kill a million by our actions, or allow a million to die by our inaction? Or—” I put the crystal down on the table, then brought the heel of my hand crashing down on it, shattering it into tiny rainbow fragments scattering across the table.

The reactions were interesting. Forrest looked stunned, only more so than usual. Querrey was horrified, eyes wide, mouth wider. Tracey was furious, both hands forming battering-ram fists. From the corner of my eye, I saw both twins spin round, alert.

“Relax guys,” I dug my hand back into my pocket, brought out another half-dozen crystals and let them tumble into a pile on the table. “A blank. Just a joke.”

“Copies?” asked Tracey.

“Not yet, but I will. Copy it. Seems a sensible precaution. Just for us though: Leaving hundreds of copies lying around seems guaranteed to convince Kurita and Liao the information is a deliberate plant, misinformation rather than genuine.”

“You’ll go to Galatea then?” Looking at me very intently.

I ran a hand over my face. Let out a long breath. “Oh, don’t worry Adolph, I will. Screw the ethics of it though. I’ll do it because I told Paradis I would, and it’ll save Reina and I from looking over our shoulders the rest of our lives. All comes down to that in the end, doesn’t it? Everyone just doing whatever makes their life easier. And just like that, a few billion die, because it was too much effort to think of a way for them not to.”

“Hunh,” Tracey grunted. Heaved himself to his feet, which was a bit like watching a historical holo of Easter Island natives raising a Moai statue. “Good. Better if you could’ve made up your mind without the ‘joke,’ Glass.” He juggernauted out the restaurant, past the twins, past the holo wall which was, I noticed, back to being the Zosma canal again.

Forrest scooped up the leapfrog pieces, threw them into a black velvet drawstring back, sliding the board in last. Muttering excuses, he trailed after Tracey, leaving Querrey and I alone in the restaurant.

“He frightens me,” she said quietly. “Tracey, not Forrest. Even more than you. You trust him?”

“Forrest? Not even a little. Adolphus? About as far as I can throw him.”

A sad smile, a dry laugh. “Right. How do you build a 25-ton Locust? Put Adolphus in the cockpit.”

“For a mercenary, he is strangely insistent that we carried out this job, even though we know it’s probably futile,” I observed. “Professionalism, or something else? Then there’s the way he got rid of Jafar before we could question him. Lot of question marks. But then, full disclosure, I’m not even entirely sure I trust you, either.”

“Well, someone did try to murder me to stop me from talking to you.”

“Did they?” I’d been thinking about this. “Pretty bad shot for a sniper, weren’t they? Managed to very carefully not hit anyone at all, even after what, a dozen shots? And didn’t fire even once when we were out in the open, on the landing pad. Then only two light fighters sent to pursue us. Like they wanted me to escape with the plans.”

She froze. “That’s … suspicious of you.”

I heard what she hadn’t said. “Paranoid, you mean?” A helpless laugh. What else could I do? Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean people aren’t trying to kill you. “Why I hate this. This secret. The mentality it forces on you. So many ways all of us could be playing each other false. Like those two women over there,” I flicked a finger in the twins’ direction, made it look like I was toying with bits of broken data. “Innocent passers-by or Davion spies?” Knuckled my eyes with both hands. “Driving me crazy.”

Shattered shards across the tabletop, aborted blocks of information, useless knowledge.

“Crazier,” I amended.

Episode 4-7: Confirmation bias

The renamed, repainted Buccaneer-class DropShip Free Beer touched down in Galaport in the chalky, bleached-out light of the yellow-white sun.

While a team of grey-clad customs officers crawled all over the cargo bay (no dolls this time: sunglasses, hats, parasols, goggles, UV blockers, zinc cream, everything you needed to stay wrinkle- and cancer-free on this planet), a red-bearded officer scanned our IDs while keeping up a constant patter of impenetrable Skye patois.

“Alexander Gould, eh? Weelcum t’Gala’ea,” he said, handing back my ID. “Firs’ taim wi’us muckers, izzit?”

I blinked, not just at using my real name for the first time in years, but also trying to remember if I’d ever been on Galatea using it before or not. “Yes,” I nodded. “First time.”

“Ye wun o’them jockies are ye noo?” Wide grin, quick glance to Querrey, dressed now like Tracey and I in a crew jumpsuit rather than her multimedia gown. “Be wit’ ye in a flash, hen.”

I had the distinct feeling he was pulling my leg. “Right. Aerospace pilot.”

“Pilet? Wellies on t’grown fir me. Yir off yer heid me laddie,” shaking his head, gave me a comradely first-bump to the shoulder. “Still, down t’emmer timorrae, eh? Enjoy yersel tennite. Go’an get bevvied.”

“Fantastic,” I nodded. “Great.”

“Bevvied, lad. Ye no? Be-ve-rage. A drink.” Miming, little finger extended, tipped up, thumb to lips.

“Right, stay hydrated.”

Shaking his head, muttering “League Sassenach” as he turned away. Then beaming at Querrey as he scanned her papers. “Grace Querrey? Ah, welcome to Galatea, Lady Querrey. Delighted to have such a distinguished guest from the Federated Suns with us. Please enjoy your stay … ”

Bought a couple of things at the port—prepaid communicator, something to wear other than the damned jumpsuit, handheld panic alarm. Looked like a baby blue oval key fob, had a 150dB buzzer inside. For women and kids it said. Sure. Or potential kidnap victims.

The three of us piled into a forest-green Celestial Wagon taxi, Tracey in the front—giving the taxi a decided list to port—Querrey and I in the back. “Poseidon Park Hotel,” Tracey told the driver, a white-haired Asian man perhaps one-third Tracey’s size.

We’d chosen Poseidon Park as it was the one hotel in Galatea City that had rooms not at the top of some skyscraper, but underwater, dug into a cliff below the surface of Lake Leto, just to the south of the city. A little far from the Mercenary Review Board, but it did make it rather hard for anyone outside the hotel to spy on what you were doing in your room, unless they had a submarine or full diving kit.

A motorcycle pulled up alongside the taxi at a stop light. Missile-sleek speed machine, seat kind of floating above the rear wheel on a spike of chrome and leather. Rider seemed shrink-wrapped in black leather from head to foot, save for the sliver crescent of a mirrored helmet visor. Arrow slim. My brain said: woman. The visor swiveled once, towards the taxi. Held a second, then looked forward again. Wrist twitched. The motorcycle shot away before the light changed.

My brain said: Uh oh.

“Interesting bike,” I said aloud, deliberately casual. Mindful that the cabbie was listening. “You recognize it?”

In the front passenger seat, Tracey squinted, shook his head, causing the taxi to rock gently. “A … Federated Suns model, maybe?”

“Could be,” I agreed. “Probably more than one in town.”

“Let me know if you see one again.”

Querrey looked back and forth between us, like a spectator at a table tennis game. “Oh Unity, not again,” she muttered.

“Tell you what guys, change of plan: I’ll hop out at the MRB, you guys head on to the hotel.” Our chance to see if I was being paranoid or if we really were being followed. Also gave me an excuse to get away from Tracey and Querrey—not that I didn’t trust them, just … no, okay, I didn’t trust them. “Just want to test the waters first. I’ll catch up later.”

Opened the door. Tracey leaned out the window. “You got it?”

Nodded towards the trunk. “In my duffel bag.” White lie, that. Actually had it in the breast pocket of my crew jumpsuit. “Leave it in the room after you check in, okay?” Tracey made the OK sign as the cab pulled away.

From the outside, the MRB looks like a successful but conservative bank, or maybe the terminus station on a maglev line. Sort of a combination of arching glass and gothic columns. Vaguely vulture-like gargoyles around the edges. Defensive camouflage, I think, both physical and psychological—make itself look less threatening, distract you from the fact that the business conducted in here was the business of body bags, bodies for hire, death for rent.

Hopped out the taxi and waved the other two away, then through the metal detector and body pat-down outside the doors—conducted by men in ComStar ivory this time, not Steiner grey—and into the main concourse. Officially on ComStar ground now, not Lyran. How they got away with having representatives from enemy states hiring soldiers here.

Duke Nowakowski, being a practical, businesslike Lyran, accepted them as a necessary evil, and happily took a cut of the proceeds. Guess he figured the other four Houses were going hire mercenaries anyway, so might as well make sure he got a slice, charged ComStar rent.

Bit like a stock exchange inside, five big hollow circles, one for each great House, ringed with monitors showing available contracts, staffed by the monk-like ComStar fixers and go-betweens. A constellation of smaller circles around them, for Periphery states, corporate or private noble contracts. Around each island flowed shoals of mercenary negotiators or their ComStar agents, distinguishable by their red armbands, tagged with the unit they represented.

Down here on the main floor it was small fry, lance, platoon or company-sized units elbowing each other aside for a chance to catch a fixer’s attention, land that one special contract that would see their unit through another season. Bigger, richer units didn’t come down here on the floor themselves—the second through fifth floors were for private offices, where agents lavished more individual attention on their most lucrative clients.

I wandered the floor almost at random. Drifting one way, then suddenly turning back and heading in the opposite direction. Stopped by the Confederation ring. Left a message for Gansukh Zhao, a negotiator I’d met before we signed our first contract. Remember him? Combine island next. Note for Mamoru Akechi, the Rasalhaguian with a Japanese name. Call me babe. League one last. Katarzyna De Graaf, Arshad Ram, Helena Sorreno. Let’s do lunch sometime. Figured that should confuse my tail, if there was one. Started to doubt that though a little, as I’d completed maybe three circuits of the place, and hadn’t caught anyone watching or following me. Of course, that might just mean they were very good at what they were doing.

Stepped back out the doors and almost ran straight into a petite Japanese woman, fur-collared leather flight jacket, bug-eyed sunglasses that covered everything from hairline to cheekbone. “Aric!” she cried.

Took me a sec. Right, last time I’d been here. Tiltrotor pilot. Working for the yakuza. “Hey—” fumbling desperately for a name.

“Mori,” she supplied, using her surname. Japanese thing.

“Right, Mori-san. How’ve things been?”

“Less exciting since you left,” she said with a wry smile. Pushed her sunglasses a little further up her nose with one hand. “Though that may change. Things have been dicey with the triads since you left. Please tell me you aren’t staying long.”

“Gone before you know it,” I lied. “How’s … our mutual friend?” Old man named Hashiba, a kumicho, gang leader. I’d done him a favor, he’d done me one. Okay, several. But I hoped leaving him a stolen Stinger LAM had cancelled out that debt.

Mori shrugged. “Far away. We’ve still got your parting gift in storage somewhere. Might come in handy if the triads try to take things a step further.”

I wasn’t really listening. Starting to get nervous, standing out front of the building, in full view of the traffic zooming past. Though, that might work to my advantage. “Oh right? Yeah, look, might need to ask a favor.”

She snorted, lowered the glasses slightly to look at me over the tops of the rims. “Another one? What do you want to do this time Aric, start a war?”

“Na. Stop one,” I said, and took a milky white crystal out of my pocket. Blank, no data. Watchers wouldn’t know that, though. “Look, just give your oyabun this, okay? If he wants to know more, I’ll be at the Poseidon Park. Name of Gould. With a U.”

She reached up hesitantly. Took it, held it a second, chewed her lip. Felt guilty, then. Felt like Count Paradis, using whoever was convenient. There was a honk from the road, deep blue Avanti pulled over by the side, window rolled down. Two black-suited men in front. Mori looked up, back at the crystal, undecided.

“Hey, it’s just data,” I said. “How much harm can it do?” Aric, you lying arsehole.

Honking again from the Avanti, more insistent. “Look, got to go,” Mori said. Snap decision. Pocketed the crystal. “All right, I’ll give it to him. No promises. Like I say, this isn’t really a good time. No freebies, either.”

How wrong she was. “No freebies,” I nodded solemnly.

One suit opened the back door of the Avanti, glaring at me even through his solid-black shades. Just from the set of the brow, you can tell, right? Slammed the door shut, car peeled away.

Watched it go. And. One. Two. Flash of a motorbike. Familiar black-on-black leather fetish getup, mirror helmet. Swerving through traffic, hot after the Avanti. Well, someone somewhere was either about to go on the wildest goose chase, or else stir up a whole badger’s nest of trouble. At any rate, I figured I’d lost my tail for now.

Raised my arm to hail a cab.

Not a Celestial Wagon this time, burgundy red, Reed’s Rides. Logo was a caricature of a balding man with a frizzy halo of white hair, presumably the titular Mister Reed, giving me an enthusiastic thumbs up. Reed, old buddy, if you only knew.

Took a step towards the cab when there was a distant, hollow crump. From the direction the Avanti had disappeared. Like thunder, if you were a civilian. Nothing at all like thunder if you weren’t. Stopped me midstride, trying to see. Taste of guilt in my mouth.

Movement in the corner of my eye. Blinked. Motorbike slewed to a stop, maybe three meters from me. Slim rider, leather black as shadow, silver helmet. Impossible, my brain said. No way she could’ve gotten back here. Not so fast, so soon.

And then, the old synapses making the connection.

Alula Australis. Twins.

Unzipped a pocket of her midnight jacket, reached in, arm unfolded, hand at the end of it holding a Mydron auto pistol. Whoever their handler was, seeing my apparent handoff, pushing the panic button. That blast? The other twin had pulled in front of the Avanti at a stop light, then rolled a grenade under it. Boom. This twin was here to clean up the other end of the deal.

Things moving too fast for the eye now. Black round eye of the pistol level with my own. Combat instincts, lunge forward, knowing it was futile. Movement in the corner of my eye, dark blur, massive, fast. Machine howl of a combustion engine mixed with the eagle screech of tires on asphalt. Crunch of metal on metal. Motorcycle, rider, gone. Vague impressions: A blur hurtling across my vision, the woman half-turning, then caught, flying in the air, off the bumper, head-first off the windshield, pinwheeling bonelessly through the air, landing in a wet heap almost exactly where she’d originally been standing. Metal, flattened pancake of the bike, curled like a U.

See, there are some things a yakuza gang expecting a war with the triads will and will not do if you throw an explosive at one of their cars. The list of what they won’t do is rather short, but at top of it is ‘Sit around wondering if they’re doing the right thing or not.’ The list of what they did do, in this case, was somewhat shorter, with just three items: One, concluded that the triads had just declared war. Two, spread word that the triad assassin was a black-clad female biker. Three, run a 5-ton converted, marginally de-militarized armored car—with muzzle-like bumper bars specifically designed for ramming into things—right over anyone who fit the description, at the fastest practicable speed.

The car didn’t stop to check how I was doing, just kept right on going at full speed, leaving me prone on the pavement by the side of the road, just in front of an open-mouthed Reed’s Rides cabbie. Road was Lyran territory, so the ComStar guards were also all prone, like we were playing the galaxy’s worst game of Simon Says, only in their case they all had rifles pointed at the road, whereas my weaponry consisted of the Addicks lobster fork—kind of a good luck totem for me now.

Lyran security showed up a few minutes later, bustling everywhere with the kind of studied incompetence only true professionals can achieve, doing everything very correct, very by the book, achieving absolutely nothing. Cordoning off the crime scene. Interviewing witnesses—including me. It’d all happened so fast, there was no reason to link me to the murder: Looked like a gangland hit, far as they could see.

I commiserated, agreed how terrible. Had they heard anything more? Explosion, a car bombed. One dead, two seriously injured. Bomber had escaped. Matched the description of the victim here, but couldn’t be in two places at once.

Which meant the other twin was still out there.

Episode 4-8: Loss aversion

I walked to the hotel.

Planetary militia were in the streets. Long columns of dove-grey jeeps and trucks flew past, like migrating birds. Soldiers in those odd mollusk-like Lyran helmets strung links of spiked chain across the roads, setting up checkpoints. Had my ID scanned as I went through each one, waved onward wordlessly by tense-looking conscripts.

At one, we heard the pop-pop-pop of distant gunfire, convulsing the whole checkpoint into frantic action, everyone trying to get as flat as possible on the asphalt or crouching behind cars, cement planters, bollards or fences. Soldiers went hedgehog, tight little circle with guns bristling in every direction.

Stayed like that for 30 minutes before they let us get up, keep moving.

If my objective was to stop a war, I was off to a bad start. Yaks and triads were busy evening old scores, most of the victims that first day just targets of convenience, the owner of a shop popular with the yaks a merchant who’d once done business with the triads, lives taken to repay debts they didn’t even know existed.

Poseidon Park had acquired its own garland of tire-puncturing metallic snake-spikes across the entrance and exit, as well as a platoon of militia, including a flamethrower-armed APC parked right in front of the entrance.

“Already checked in,” I told them, and they had a young private, probably too young to drive or drink, march me over to the front desk. He hovered behind me, hand on his laser rifle, until the breezily efficient receptionist handed me the passkey to my room. “Room 26. Mr. Tracey has the other copy,” she said with a smile.

From the lobby, took the elevator down: a sterile, spotless grey box, embodying the best in Steiner design—safe as a bank vault but only half as exciting. Little 2D screen over the buttons tuned to a news program, where an anchor urged calm while showing the most hair-raising footage of the day’s violence they could get past the censors.

Doors swished open onto a long corridor of natural stone, minimal lighting, ambient sound of rushing waves, done to reinforce the awareness you were under the lake’s surface here.

A slim black shadow detached itself from the wall in front of Room 26, giving me a jolt of panic before I realized it was Grace Querrey.

“Saw the news,” she said. “Worried about you.”

“I’m fine. Thanks.”

“No, not worried for your health. Worried what you were getting up to.”

“Arranging a diversion. Seems to have worked. Maybe a little too well?” I held up my passkey. “Now, it’s been a long walk, so maybe we can continue this some other time?”

She leaned against the door. “You could invite me in.”

“Does that seem like a thing I’m likely to do?”

“Try it and see.”

“Look, Lady Querrey. Grace. I’m really not—”

“Please?”

Felt my shoulders slump. Too tired to deal with this. “Would you like to come in?”

A show of thinking about. “Now that you mention it.”

I handed her the key, watched her swipe the magnetic strip and swing the door open. Lights came on automatically. Not a huge room, but had a double bed, pair of chairs, a glass wall looking out into the depths of Lake Leto. School of orange fish swimming by. Flashback to Poulsbo made me suppress a shudder, but felt better when I saw none of the fish had three-meter fangs, barbed tentacles or poisonous spines. Just kind of large goldfish, really.

Contents of my duffel bag spread liberally across the top of the bed, a shirt or two on the floor, half a dozen sparkling crystals on top of the heap. Adolphus Tracey squeezed into one of the chairs, facing the door, Stetta resting in the plateau of his lap

“Come in Aric, shut the door,” said Tracey. “You too, Lady Querrey.”

Flicked it back with my wrist, without moving or turning. Soft click. Standing very still.

“Where is it, Aric?” His fingers brushed the grip of the Stetta.

“Doesn’t matter. It’s worthless now, if it wasn’t always,” I said. I still planned to sell the information, but testing Adolphus like this was interesting. Thought I’d see how far I could push him. “Davion intelligence has been following us since at least Alula Australis. Probably just to see who we’d try to give it to. The plans are either a deliberate lie, or the plans have been changed now the Feddies know they’ve been compromised.”

“That’s not the deal you made with Count Paradis, Glass. Your job is to deliver the plans, nothing else.” Tracey lifted a hand from his gun, to point at the memory cubes on the bed. “Blank. All of them. Where is it?”

“Jumpsuit, top pocket. Unity, Tracey, you’re being damned weird about this. Paradis isn’t here, he’ll never know if we did or didn’t hand over the plans. Man’s probably got problems of his own—Feddies either knew he’d leak right from the beginning, or they do now. He isn’t going to be coming after anybody for a good long time, if ever. Relax, guy.”

“Got a reputation to maintain. I serve the people who pay me,” he said, his hand dropping back to the gun. “Contents of your pockets, on the bed. Now.”

I sighed in frustration, unbuttoned my chest pocket, tossed the little translucent cube onto the bed. Prepaid communicator, lobster fork. “What is it you think I’m up to?” Hand closing around the panic alarm in my pocket.

“Starting to think you’re getting cold feet. Or perhaps Miss Querrey is trying to convince you not to go through with this?” Hefting the Stetta, letting its barrel go tap-tap-tap against the arm of the chair. “Maybe you need a reminder—”

Querrey, indignant: “I did not—”

“Maybe you need to drop the mob enforcer shtick and back off,” I said, raising the panic alarm, my thumb over the button. “Or there’s a whole platoon of soldiers upstairs who are going to come running if I push this.”

Tracey’s face set. “Go on. Push it then.” His machine pistol stopped tap-tap-tapping.

Ice tableau, both of us frozen in place, neither one of us backing down.

The silence was shattered.

Burst of Malalaika bleak-pop. Repeated again. From the communicator on the bed.

Querrey on her knees, hyperventilating on the carpet, where she’d fallen when the music started.

“Gonna let me answer that?” I asked.

“On speaker.”

Reached over pressed the answer button. “This is Aric.”

“Ah, Glass-san. Chu-sa Akechi here. You wished to speak?” A faintly Swedenese accent.

“Not like this,” I said, never taking my eyes off Tracey, who was slowly lowering the Stetta. “Face to face.”

There was a long pause. “There are currently no available contracts with the DCMS for a black-listed unit such as yours, Glass-san.” This was a negotiating tactic, clearly. He’d called, so I’d piqued his interest—but he wanted to deal from a position of strength.

“I’d like to clear up any misunderstanding lingering over Port Moseby,” I said. The DCMS had built a mass driver on Port Moseby’s moon—and then on our advice, the Lyrans had destroyed it with a nuke. “With a small gift, a token of our sincerity.”

“A gift?”

“Face to face, Akechi-san.”

I named a time and place, and switched the communicator off.

“You went to the Combine?” Tracey said. “Well, I suppose they are more capable and trustworthy than the Ca—”

Malalaika tunes.

“Glass here.”

“This is Chief Negotiator Gansukh Zhao calling for Flight Captain Aric Glass.”

“Speaking.”

“Weird audio. Are you on a speaker? Hm. Anyway, I’m calling about your message.”

We set a time and place to talk further, and I clicked off.

Tracey and Querrey were both looking at me oddly. I started to smile, I admit. It had been a terrible day so far, but I was starting to enjoy this.

“Both of them. What game are you playing, Glass?”

Malalaika.

“Hi, Aric, this is Helena! Always a pleasure to talk to someone from the Duchy. How can I help you?”

The look on Tracey’s face. Priceless.

“Well, Lady Sorreno, maybe I can help you this time.”

Clicked off.

Couldn’t help grinning now. “Hey, I’m a mercenary. Sell the info once, get paid once. Sell it twice, get paid twice. The deal was to provide the info; I never promised to give it away for free. That’s just good business sense, Adolph.”

Tracey frowned at me for a moment, then reluctantly nodded. Clicked the safety back on his Stetta, stuck it into a hip holster and dropped his shirt over it. “I will be glad when this job is done,” he said, looming to his feet. “And I am done with your, hm, humor.” A battering ram finger stabbed at me. “From now on, you stay with us. No more surprises.”

“No more surprises,” I agreed.

Surprises, no. Suspicions, yes, especially where he was concerned.

Episode 4-9: Pseudocertainty effect

“Was there anything else, Grace? Or did you come here to threaten me as well? Because I have to tell you, that’s getting very old very quickly.”

Querrey slowly picked herself up off the carpet, half-staggered to one of the chairs and slumped into it. Behind her, a school of electric blue delta fish swam in lazy circles, then scattered as the black slash of a knifefish cut through their formation.

“Wanted to ask if there was any way I could help,” she said. “Feeling bloody useless at the moment. Well, for most of the last two weeks, to be honest.”

Instinctively, I wanted to trust her. Or maybe I was just tired of suspicion—wanted someone I could believe, and she seemed to have the most to lose and least to gain of any of us. I pulled over the other chair, the one Tracey had used—cushion still deformed from where he’d sat—turned it to face her hand sat down. “You heard the calls; we’re almost done,” I told her. “Meet them, hand it over, end of story.”

Her shoulders slumped a little. “You think it’ll be that easy?”

Sighed, dragged a hand across my head. “Nah,” I admitted. “No such luck.” What I was planning was what the Feddies would be expecting. Somehow I doubted I could keep the meeting place and time secret. What I needed was a surprise.

“Maybe I should stay here then, out of your way. At the hotel,” she offered, standing back up. Slim, dancer build.

Gave me an idea. The way she’d scared me, out in the hallway. Right height for it, right shape. Something unexpected.

“How would you feel,” I asked her, “If I asked you to change out of that jumpsuit?”

*

After she left I had all of five minutes to myself before the phone rang again. The room phone, not my communicator this time. Well, there went any hope of getting some rest, I though. I picked up, and was greeted by the receptionist’s voice. “Mister Glass, there is a woman here to see you.”

“Did you get a name?”

“Miss Mori. Says you were expecting her. I can send her down, or would you prefer to meet her in the lobby?”

So, not dead then. I felt a guilty wave of relief, followed very quickly by realization that she probably wouldn’t be entirely happy with the way the afternoon had panned out.

“Is she alone?”

“No, two companions.”

That could be bad news. Or it could be something else unexpected. In any case, a public meeting would probably be safer, I figured. “Ah, well in that case, I’d better go up there. Please ask her to wait.” Changed out of my crew jumpsuit and into the new clothes I’d bought—too much risk Tracey had put a tracer or bug somewhere in the jumpsuit. Mercenary chic: collarless olive jacket with plenty of pockets, white T, black trousers, low boots. Communicator, panic alarm, passkey went in one pocket. Data crystal in another. Lobster fork in a third.

Stepped out of the elevator into the lobby, and found Mori waiting by the front desk, along with two looming dark-suited bodyguards. Black guy with a scarred face and an Asian one with slick-backed hair. Mori positively tiny by comparison, one side of her face swathed in white gauze, left arm in a sling. Both eyes watching me with deadly intensity.

“Good to see you again, Mori san,” I said. She just nodded, slowly. A raised eyebrow said, ‘And?’ I waved towards the adjoining lounge. “Maybe we can sit and talk?”

The lounge was as dimly lit as the hallways underground, and what light there was, was projected in kaleidoscopic azure and aquamarine shapes that rippled and swam, as though the light were being filtered through meters of water. A 2D video screen filled the far wall, tuned like the ones in the elevators to a news station. Chaos in Galatea City. Fighting on Pacifica. Latest from Solaris. The sound was muted, but details filled in by a stream of text along the bottom of the screen. A variety of watery sounds played instead, thunder, rain falling, splashing as it landed.

We sat down on aquamarine sofas on either side of a low table. Cushions shaped like clamshells. Really committed to their esthetic, I guess. The table was bare, except for two memo pads with matching pens in upright holders.

The lobby was empty save for the two of us, and Mori’s twin shadows. They took up forbidding position on either side of the lobby entrance.

We’d barely sat down when Mori snapped, “What the hell was on that crystal?”

Deep breath, let it out slow. One chance to turn this around. “Complete, detailed plans of a massive Federated Suns invasion of the Capellan Confederation. Timed for the middle of next year, in coordination with a Commonwealth assault on the Combine.” I took out a copy—the real thing, with the plans I’d gotten from Paradis—and placed it on the table between us. Hadn’t planned on giving it to them, originally, but the game had changed. Time for a new move.

Mori leaned forward, looking at the cube dubiously, the blue overhead lights reflected infinitely within its facets. “For real?”

I shook my head. “Almost certainly deliberate disinformation spread by Davion intelligence. It will perhaps contain a grain of truth, in order to initially convince the Confederation and Combine it is real, ensuring they protect the wrong targets or try to assault ‘defenseless’ positions that turn out to be heavily fortified.”

“Why would you give this to us?”

“Need your help in moving it. As you saw, there are some people who’d rather it remains a secret.”

She looked up, hard into my eyes. “So who tried to kill me? The FedRats?”

“Ah, now that is the question, isn’t it?” I held up two fingers. “There seem to be two agencies involved, one that knows the information is false and wants it spread around, and one that thinks it’s real and wants it kept secret. My best guess is it’s either the Lyrans who don’t realize it’s a hoax, or else the two Fed Suns agencies, the DMI and MIIO, haven’t been talking to each other.” I shrugged again. “Then again, it could be somebody else entirely. The people who gave me this information seemed to think ComStar was involved, for example.”

She nodded absently, unconsciously scratched at the arm in the sling. “Did you know they’d try to kill me?”

Ah, the tricky question. “Honestly? No, I wasn’t even sure they were following me. Hey, look, the biker your people ran over was about to kill me, so it’s not like this is all part of some elaborate plan of mine.” I slid the crystal towards her. “Here’re the details, for what they’re worth. Consider it a kind of negative information—the lies someone wants the Combine to believe. Could be useful to you—military contracts, disruptions in security, all that good stuff.”

She picked it up with her good hand, holding up to the light. “This is a start, Glass san,” she said after a moment. “The value is speculative, though perhaps we can use it to forge a truce with the triads. What we really want right now is the woman who attacked our car.”

“Hey, that’s what we both want,” I said. “Now, I can’t guarantee anything, but I’m pretty sure she’s going to turn up when I hand these plans over to people from the other three Houses.” I tore a sheet from a memo pad on the table, used the pen to scribble the location and time. Folded it and offered it towards Mori.

Her eyes narrowed. “How can you be so sure?”

“Because,” I smiled thinly, “I’m almost certain one of my traveling companions is working for them. And I made very sure they know when and where the handover is happening.”

“A trap,” she said fiercely, taking the memo. She scanned the writing, then broke into a wide grin. “Perfect,” she said, balling the paper in a clenched fist.

“And I’m the bait,” I said. “All you need to do is catch the rats.”

“This will work?”

On the news screen, a clip from Solaris was playing. A Rifleman taking down a garishly-painted Centurion whose autocannon seemed to have jammed. Scrolling text at the bottom: Wolfson wins grudge match, kills Xiang.

“Hey. Like I said, no guarantees. Anything can happen.”

Episode 4-10: Auditory hallucinations

Tracey looked worried when I joined him in front of the elevator the next morning. Him in a long, loose grey shirt hiding the Stetta at his side, me in the clothes from the previous night, olive jacket, white shirt, black trousers. Unarmed except for the panic alarm in one pocket.

“Querrey is missing,” he said. “Not in her room, no sign of a struggle. It’s possible she’s either done a runner or sold us out.”

I just grunted, nodded. “Too late to worry about that,” I said. “Be over tonight, either way.”

“You have it?”

I patted one of my chest pockets.

The door chimed and slid open, revealing the brushed-metal cubic minimalism of the elevator interior.

“Stay close,” grunted Tracey, hand briefly going to the concealed holster at his hip. “Let’s not have any more surprises.”

Brief ride up, watching the news on the mini screen. Rebellion on Verthandi. Raid on Barlow’s End. Violence in Galatea City dying down, troops remaining on alert.

Doors slid open. Reception counter, cerulean lounge.

“Ah, Mister Gould. There is another young lady to see you,” chirped the receptionist, with a knowing smile. She waved towards the front doors, where a figure was waiting.

Slim, dressed head to toe in black leather. Motorcycle helmet, mirrored visor. One hand on her hip, the other in her jacket pocket. Faint outline of something in there, something hard and pointed.

Tracey and I froze. Kept our hands where she could see them. Receptionist looked back and forth between us and the woman, confused.

Tracey took two steps laterally away from me.

“Gladiator, Excalibur, Radar, Spartan,” he said, pronouncing each word slowly, carefully. “This is an MIIO op. We’re on the same side.”

I stayed very still, watching him move only with my eyes. “Adolph, what are you doing?”

“Keeping you alive, among other things,” he said, without looking at me. “I wouldn’t, if I were you.” This at the receptionist, who had been slowly sliding back from the desk. She went deer-in-headlights still.

“Thought you were a professional,” I said. Hard to keep the bitterness from my voice.

“I said I’m loyal to those who pay me,” he replied, unapologetic. “And MIIO pays very, very well indeed.”

The woman said nothing, silvered crescent of her helmet tracking Tracey as he moved. The right hand stayed in her jacket. She pointed at Tracey’s hip with her left.

Frowning, he slowly lifted his shirt, unholstered his Stetta, held it horizontally a moment, and then tossed it lightly towards the lobby lounge. It bounced off one of the sofa cushions, landing under the low table where Mori and I had talked. “

“Didn’t you hear me? This is an MIIO op,” he repeated. “Gladiator, Excalibur, Radar, Spartan.”

I sighed, and dropped my hands, shaking my head. “So it was all a set-up?”

He looked from the woman to me. “Yes, MIIO, deliberate disinformation. Only these DMI idiots kept trying to screw things up. First Jafar, now these two. But what do you care? MIIO will take care of Paradis for you now they know he’s a traitor, and it’s not like you have any loyalty to the League or anywhere else. Now, I’d get your hands back up before she shoots, Glass.”

“Should have been straight with me. I don’t like being used, Tracey,” I said, then nodded towards the woman. “Think she has even more reason to be angry, though.” Took a couple steps away from him, angling to get between him and the Stetta.

The woman took her hand out of her jacket, dropped the lobster fork she’s been holding in her pocket, reached up and pulled off her helmet. Revealing, underneath, the face of Grace Querrey.

“You marble-mouthed, baw-faced, scabby arse-trumpet,” she seethed, hurling the helmet at him. It clattered to the floor, well short of its target. “I’ve lost my home. My life, you absolute weasel.”

“Shouldn’t have sold out your own people then,” Tracey returned.

I took a few more steps towards the lounge in the meantime.

“Well, that’s that then,” Tracey sighed. “Guess I’ll have to call the whole operation off.”

“You utter, lavvy-headed … What, really?” Querrey halted in mid-rant.

Tracey smiled. “No,” he said, and launched himself at me.

Don’t know what his plan was, not sure he had one. Just animal rage and frustration at seeing his plan thwarted, looking for a convenient target to take it out on. Berserk battle rage.

Flying tackle, no chance to dodge, both of us somersaulting backwards over the back of the sofa, me coming crashing down in the middle of the table, the whole thing breaking under my sudden impact. Wheezing, gasping for breath, scrabbling in the carpet for the Stetta that had to be down here, somewhere.

Kick caught me in the side, sent me rolling away from the table, caught flashes of the room as I went rolling: receptionist gone, either behind the desk or straight out the back office, Querrey looking at us in horror for a second, then dashing out the front doors. On my own then.

Bounced to my feet, saw Tracey looking for the Stetta. Aimed at kick at his head but he caught my foot, twisted it, sent me sprawling back on the ground again. Twist, kick. Caught his elbow. Like jamming my toes into concrete, white flash of pain up my leg, but he let go the leg. Aimed a kick at my head instead, but I rolled away, let it catch only air.

Back on my feet, throwing everything I had at him. Flurry of strikes, aiming for his head, neck, ribs, Krav Maga stuff, stay on the offensive, go for the weak points. Didn’t work. Tracey swept them aside like I was tickle fighting. Like punching a BattleMech. Solid hit to the ribs, he didn’t even grunt. Just screwed up his face, plowed a punch right through my guard and into the solar plexus. Dropped me to the floor, choking, wheezing for breath.

Table leg under my hand. Gripped it, swung it like a baseball bat as his next kick came flying at me. Caught his knee, threw him off balance. Shoulder charge, drove him back one step, two, cracking right into the news viewscreen on the wall, but didn’t take him down. Hammered me in the side, forced me to let go, stagger back.

He charged me with a roar like a bear, dodged aside but too slow, one paw caught my shoulder, spun me backwards. Needed a weapon, any weapon. All I had was the panic alarm. Dug it out, hit the button. Jet roar peal, deafeningly loud in the small lobby. Tracey charged again and I clapped it against his ear.

He chopped my hand aside, shattering the alarm against the wall. In the shocked silence he stood, shaking his head. Might have burst an eardrum. Gave me one last chance to dive for the Stetta.

But Tracey was already moving, slammed into my side, grappling for me. Stabbed for his eyes, desperate now, hadn’t much strength left. I broke his glasses, hit something liquid, forcing a bellowing scream out of him and driving him back a step. Dodged back. Caught a right hook all the same, whole room spinning, like a broken grav deck, couldn’t seem to find my feet.

Took one step, drunken, sideways, two steps, fell again. No air, no strength to stand.

Tracey just looked down at me, wiped his eye, walked slowly over to the table, found his Stetta, crouched down at picked it up. Slid the receiver back with a click. “As ever, precisely the wrong kind of attention, Glass,” he said.

“All right, drop your weapon,” said a new voice. “NOW.”

Tracey and I both looked up. Half a dozen Lyran troops in mottled grey combat fatigues were pouring through the door, crouch-running, laser rifles tucked against their shoulders, eyes down the sights. Fanning out in a semicircle focused on Tracey. The hotel’s own garrison, after my trick with the yakuza. We’re supposed to hate the Elsies in the League, but right then, I’d never been happier to see another human being.

Tracey began to raise his hands.

“Drop it,” shouted the Leutnant in command. “DROP IT.”

Tracey dropped. Into a firing crouch. Stetta sweeping across the six soldiers, full auto with the trigger down, bullets hammering into them, kicking them back in red-black eruptions. Only the last kid even had time to fire, two scarlet beams striking Tracey’s shoulder, abdomen. Then he was down too, neck half gone, fingers spasmodically reaching for the hole. Poor kid—the one who’d brought me in when I first arrived.

More Lyrans bursting from the back entrance now, not bothering to shout, just firing. I stayed prone, tried to be as two-dimensional as possible. Tracey ducked, turned, and ran for the entrance. Leaped right through the glass in a crystalline explosion, shots smacking into the door frame around him. Missing.

Tracey hit the ground outside. Stood.

WHOOSH.

That’s about as close as I can get to the sound an anti-vehicular flamethrower makes. APC parked out front turned Tracey into a writhing, screaming torch. He took a step, sank to his knees, and pitched over sideways, still wreathed in flame and oily, foul-smelling smoke.

Shouting voices told me to stay down, and I figured that sounded like a pretty good idea. Aching ribs, ringing head. Yeah, horizontal on the floor sounded about the best place to be. The Lyrans had a lot of hard questions, later, about why our traveling companion had a gun, why he’d tried to kill me, but all I had to do was plead ignorance. The man was clearly insane, I said. Claimed to be some kind of secret agent.

With nothing else to go on, they let us go, with an admonition not to leave town any time soon. Fair enough by me. Had plans in town, in any event.

Episode 4-11: Gambler’s fallacy

“DFA” was the name of the casino tucked into the far corner of the ComStar compound that held the MRB, accommodations for visiting mercs, and heavily-guarded warehouses holding their equipment. It was a vertical knife of steel and glass, with a narrow base in whitewashed ferrocrete, then broadening to the main glass-clad casino levels, and slowly tapering to a lofty point some fifty stories up.

Another one of Duke Nowakowski’s brainstorms, this. Give mercenaries with too much money and time on their hands something to spend it on, let ComStar handle the dirty work while he skimmed off a percentage. Easy money for no work. Of course, ComStar had themselves delegated the work, but no guesses who to.

We were in one of the private roulette rooms up on the fourth floor. Unlucky number in Japanese—their word for ‘four’ is pronounced as the word for death: shi. Looked out over the mercenary warehouses, long marching rows of uniform ferrocrete-and-steel boxes, distinguishable only by the huge, color-coded numerals daubed across their doors and on their roofs. Green for tanks, blue for fighters, red for BattleMechs.

It was dark out, long past sunset, the blocky silhouettes of the warehouses outlined in the faint ice of moonlight, broken by pools of orange from overhead floodlights.

ComStar patrols everywhere, marching black shadows along the perimeter fence, in the roads between the warehouses. Most from Periphery or near-Periphery worlds, from what I could tell, though I guess that’s where you found people who still viewed ComStar with something approaching religious awe.

Up on the fourth floor, we had a standard roulette table, polished brown wood and silver-spiked wheel at one end, green felt covering, checkerboard blue and red squares (not black and red here in the Commonwealth—these Houses do love their primary colors). Seven brown leather swivel chairs around the edge. Lucky seven. Big monitor on one wall, Querrey at the noteputer connected to it, seated at a table underneath. Petite Asian croupier, face a little white, like she was using makeup to cover something up. Two doormen outside: one black, scarred, one Asian, gel-haired. Like I said, ComStar had outsourced the casino work.

Chu-sa Akechi was the first to arrive, in his dress whites as always (Did he sleep in them? Probably—if he ever slept). Swept the room with a glance, and took the seat opposite mine, without uttering a word or giving any reaction. Great poker face. Is there such a thing as a roulette face? Anyway, man didn’t know it, but he was trying to play the wrong game. I could wait.

“Well?” he said at last.

“Waiting for the other players,” I said.

Gansukh Zhao was next, stopping abruptly one step into the room, then nodding awkwardly to Akechi. He left a chair empty between them, and sat down slowly, eyes nervously shifting between Akechi and myself.

“A little unusual,” he said mildly.

“A definite break from tradition,” I agreed. “Hopefully the start of something new.”

Helena Sorreno was ushered in before we could say more. She smiled at Akechi, glared at Zhao before turning to me.

“Mister Glass, a pleasure,” she said, with a glance at Zhao. “Though I see your taste in company has gone downhill since we last met.”

I indicated an open chair. “Matter of perspective, Lady Sorreno,” I smiled. “So glad you could join us. Please have a seat.”

“So, what is all this about?” asked Zhao.

“Well, we’re at a casino, so—” I reached into my pocket, and placed a data crystal down on the green felt table. “—let’s gamble a little. Here’s my stake.”

“What is it?” Akechi asked, eyes narrowing.

“Complete plans for a Federated Suns invasion of the Capellan Confederation.” I nodded to Querrey, and the 2D screen sprang to life. A star chart of the Inner Sphere appeared, color-coded by House, annotated with troop strength and locations, movement. A number of systems flashed red across the green of the Confederation, spreading like wildfire, until the green was almost gone.

“As you can see, it calls for an initial diversionary strike against the Tikonov Commonality, followed by a blitzkrieg thrust through St. Ives, aiming straight for Sian.” I looked at them each in turn. “The importance for you, Mister Zhao, I should think is obvious. As for Chu-sa Akechi, as you can see, in order to achieve local superiority over the Capellans, Hanse Davion will strip much of the Draconis March of its forces. This presents your realm with certain opportunities.”

“That’s an enormous risk,” Akechi mused. “He must be mad.”

“Not if the Combine is occupied elsewhere,” I said. “Not contained in the crystal, but mentioned, is a full-scale Lyran assault on the Combine, aiming to incite the independence movement in Rasalhague and break that prefecture away from the Combine.”

Akechi was silent a moment. “Rasalhague, you say?” He fell silent again.

“Where did you get this?” Zhao asked suspiciously.

“Leaked by members of House Davion’s own vassals,” I replied. “A number of nobles want to weaken and discredit him, to strengthen their own hand. They see him as more of a threat than the Confederation, as terrible as that must be for your ego.”

Sorreno tapped the table irritably. “Well, that’s good to know for those two, perhaps, but what is the benefit to the League?”

I shrugged. “That depends on you. If you can put your differences with the Capellans behind you, there’s an opportunity to work together and give the Davions a bloody nose. Or, if you can’t work with them, then there’s a chance to hit the Capellans while they’re down or swoop in and kick the Feds off captured worlds while they’re still licking their wounds.” Zhao’s face darkened. “Sorry, friend, that’s just the way the system works.”

The monitor went black as Querrey shut the feed down.

Akechi spoke again. “What is your price for this information?”

“Cutting right to the point I see, Akechi-san.” I smiled. “For the Combine, the price will be to drop all accusations against the Black Arrows regarding the invasion of Port Moseby and the use of WMDs. If you’re honest, you’d realize you’ve no hope of winning this case before the MRB, not after using the mass driver, so really you’re doing yourself a favor and stopping yourselves from wasting time and money.”

“Hai.” Akechi’s face was unreadable. The Japanese ‘yes’ is a little different from the Standard—often just means ‘I heard you’ rather than agreement or acceptance.

“For the League, you will issue a full pardon for Eagle Corps Lieutenant Alexander Gould in the matter of the death of Colonel Baz Vukovic.” Sorreno frowned. “Gould with a U. Look it up.”

“And the Confederation?” Zhao asked.

“You will end all financial and material support for triad criminal groups operating on Galatea,” I said. Quick wink at the croupier. Tracey was right, everyone had their price, from the lowest to the highest, from gang leaders to interstellar princes.

“A small price to pay,” Zhao allowed. “If the information is true. Is it? Do you have any proof?”

I shot the croupier a look, and she nodded slightly. “Well, given the small price and large potential value, I’d hoped you might take this on faith,” I said. “As luck would have it though, you don’t have to. You see, a strike team of Davion Military Intelligence agents has just entered the building. If you please, Miss Querrey.”

The screen flickered on again, this time bisected into quarters, each showing the feed of a security camera in one of the casino lobbies. A private entrance for VIPs, direct access from a heliport, reception desk with two white-clad ComStar attendants, and a pair of double doors leading into the casino proper. A sleek tiltrotor had just set down on the pad, and disgorged a group of four black-suited men, two carrying large, grey steel suitcases.

Akechi and Zhao leaned forward, almost eagerly. Sorreno’s hand fluttered at her chest.

“Not to worry,” I reassured her. “The casino is well-guarded. And prepared.”

They entered the lobby, walked to the counter. Spoke to the receptionist, who smiled beatifically, and pressed a button under the counter. Metal security shutters slammed down the blurring speed over the desk as well as the doors to the casino. The lights went out, briefly blacking out the cameras, then the lobby ghosted back into shape, in the wraith-like grey tones of low-light vision, the glaring white outlines of the four men standing out like beacons.

After a second of hesitation, they leaped into action. Cracked open the suitcases, pulling out rifles, fitting masks just as casino security began to pump tear gas into the lobby. One ran forward, placed something against the security door blocking access to the casino, then they all retreated back to the far end of the lobby.

On the screens, a brilliant torch of light, washing out the view. In the casino, a dull crump that rattled the ball in its roulette wheel, like the jolt of an earthquake.

When the feed cleared, the men were on their feet, rushing forward. Movement at the ceiling, a panel opening, something dropping down. Remote pulse laser rifle. Angling down, then ripping loose with a stream of fire. Caught two men in the back, bodies jerking once, sprawling on the ground. Another hit in the leg, fell to the floor, screaming, clutching at the blackened, blistered skin. The laser whined again and nailed him to the floor with another fusillade.

Last one raised his gun, squeezed off a long, rolling and perfectly useless burst of fire against the armored laser gun. Bullets pinging off its shell with bright sparks. The barrel shifted, sighted, fired, kicking the man back, out of frame.

“Any further doubts?” I smiled to hide my disquiet. The team had included four men. No sign of the remaining twin.

On screen, a squad of ivory ComStar guards cautiously approached the bodies, weapons ready. The leader sighted at the head of each of the fallen men, and fired once, four times total. In low light, all we saw were bright pulses of light that kicked a spray of black liquid across the floor with each hit.

They don’t mess around, out there on the Periphery.

“What you ask will take some time,” Akechi said slowly. “I can’t authorize what you ask.”

“Nor I,” said Zhao, looking shaken. After all, it was his realm being threatened with annihilation.

I nodded in understanding. “Of course. Shall we meet again here in, say, a week?” I picked the crystal back up, stuck it in my pocket. “I’m afraid I’ll be out of touch until then, just in case any of you get tempted to take this information rather than pay for it. Now.” I put a stack of chips on the table. “While we’re here, let’s enjoy the game, shall we? I’m feeling lucky tonight.”

The white ball raced around the spinning wheel, a shining moon around its planet, or perhaps a man drawn inevitably downwards towards his destiny. It jumped, bounced, flew off the table and went skittering across the floor.

“What the—”

Dull crump, crump. Like an earthquake.

Or, the feet of a BattleMech.

I turned, slowly, to look out the windows, out over the military equipment warehouses. Just in time to see a massive sheet shutter, painted with the red number seven, blast free of its hinges and crash to the ground, kicking up a blast front of dust.

Out stepped a 25-ton Commando, painted in a confusing dazzle of white, purple and green, the logo of the “Wild Jokers” on its chest. The ’Mech paused a moment, then turned towards the casino. ComStar guards scattering, knowing their small arms were useless against the machine. Except one lunatic who stood his ground, light machinegun barking, sparking off the thing’s legs until one foot came down and crushed him against the asphalt.

I was on my feet, kicking back the chair, backing away from the window. “Not to be alarmist or anything folks but—”

The Commando raised its left arm, and unleashed a searing beam of jade light that blew out half the windows in a silvered hail of shards, punched through the ceiling and brought the room above crashing down.

I was prone on the floor, trying to crawl towards the exit, slabs of ceiling crashing to the floor around me. I could hear the croupier—Mori—yelling into a palm-sized mini communicator, “Guardian, guardian, guardian!”

I was still crawling when the missiles hit. Rippling explosions all along the side of the building, then the floor shifted, tilted down, broken tiles and loose chairs sliding past me, towards a gaping hole blown in the glass wall. Started sliding myself, rolled onto my back, tried to dig my heels in, but I was still sliding, closer and closer to the edge. Nothing in my pockets but the damned lobster fork.

Worth a shot, Stabbed it down into the carpet, tried to jam it into the floorboards, but the fork was too soft, too weak, didn’t do more than slow me down a little as it dragged, then bent and broke.

Zhao went tumbling by, his face a red mask of blood, just rolled right out the hole and into open space, dropping from sight. Sorreno was screaming, holding onto the roulette table for life, Akechi already clawing at the exit, dragging his torso out the room, over the bodies of the two doormen. Querrey and Mori braced against the noteputer desk, Mori still shouting “Guardiaaaaan” into the palm of her hand.

The Commando was right outside the windows now, one-eyed nightmare mask leering right into the room. Faceplate twisted left and right slowly, actuators whirring, taking in the whole space. Gave me the time to slide a few more centimeters to the ledge, really enjoy that feeling of inevitable doom, one foot over the edge now. Nothing but ten meters of nothing, and then hard asphalt.

The face came to a stop looking directly at me. Audible click as the sensors refocused.

A loudspeaker voice: “For my sister.”

The right hand came up, high over the Commando’s head, balled into a fist. Hesitated, the face tracking up, away, just as the boom of jet engines rattled the building, shaking free another avalanche of glass shards.

A trio of blinding red beams lashed down, hammering into the Commando’s back. A bat-winged shape dropped from the clouds, with a needle nose and the vestigial arms and legs of a Stinger LAM in AeroMech mode.

Must’ve hit the gyro, as the Commando couldn’t seem to stand straight. It tried to turn, but reeled drunkenly, one shoulder crashing against the casino wall. The jade light of the left arm laser fired wildly, piercing the night clouds.

The Stinger dodged higher, firing all three lasers in sequence now rather than together, keeping up a continuous rhythm, one-two-three-one-two-three, constantly pounding the Commando, shaking it, sheets of armor running like water. Until finally, the Commando staggered, tilted overbackwards, and crashed headfirst into the roulette room.

The impact shook my tenuous hold on the angled floor, sent me skittering towards the edge—the jarred to a halt as I landed on the BattleMech’s forehead.

I counted to ten, very slowly, before bracing against the Mech’s head and trying to find my footing. Dusted myself off, brushed the glass from my clothes and hair. Gave a mock salute to the AeroMech pilot. Saved all our lives. Turned to give Mori the thumbs up, too.

She wasn’t smiling though. Pointing behind me, shouting something. Which is kind of when I noticed the hiss-clang of a BattleMech cockpit hatch opening.

Turned just as the twin came flying at me, screaming like a banshee, wedge-tipped tanto blade in her hand. I grabbed for the knife, lost my footing and she stabbed it down into my shoulder. Impact as she bowled into me sent us both sprawling. Ended with her straddling me, tearing the knife free from my shoulder, raising it for another strike.

Threw the palm of my hand up at her chin, felt it connect, saw her head snap backwards. Then her arms pinwheeling as she tipped over backwards, rolling, right off the edge, gone with a startled scream that quickly faded, then cut short.

Which is about when my brain, encouraged by blood loss, decided it had had about enough of this shit, and knocked me out entirely.

Epilogue

Warm sunflower sunshine through an open window. Crisp white sheets with some incredibly high thread count. Lavender in the air, not quite hiding the bleached smell of disinfectant.

And standing by the window, Reina Paradis, arms crossed, dressed in a fancy blue and white uniform I didn’t recognize that seemed to involve sashes at various angles and large amounts of braid at the shoulder.

“I leave you alone for five minutes,” she said, shaking her head. “The Lyrans who found you said you seemed to be trying to headbutt a Commando.”

A smile didn’t seem to hurt to much, so I treated myself to a small one. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.” Tried to lift a hand, but my shoulder informed me that was a Very Bad Idea. “Nice threads,” I said instead. “Nice room.”

She turned from the window. “Nothing but the best for the XO of one of Duke Lestrade’s personal units,” she said with a wink.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “What?”

“While you’ve been busy trying to get yourself killed, I’ve been making friends,” she said. “We’re now on long-term contract, part of Duke Lestrade’s personal household guard.” She came to the side of the bed, bent down and kissed my forehead, patted me gingerly on the shoulder. “Get well soon, Aric. Sounds like he has something special planned for us.”