REBELS AND PATRIOTS
By A.G. Claymore
Edited by B.H. MacFadyen & C. Nuttall
Copyright 2014 A.G. Claymore
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents and brands are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of any products referenced in this work of fiction which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with or sponsored by the trademark owners.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Under Attack
Reconnaissance
Enemy Contact
Escalation
Consolidation
From the Author

Under Attack
Terrorist Incident
The middle-aged man dragged a hand across his forehead, scraping the sweat away before it could run down into his eyes. He was having a hard time getting used to the long hair. It made it harder for his scalp to radiate away the heat of Irricana’s three suns. 
Despite the heat, he liked the view just fine. Having been born on a binary system, any world with only one sun just felt… wrong.
He leaned against the hood of the large ground-car and closed his eyes, enjoying the dry, rattling croak of the local avians. The jungles here were filled with some of the  strangest life forms he’d ever seen and he’d fought on dozens of worlds throughout the Imperium. Harsh environments always seemed to bring out nature’s creative side.
Those sounds were definitely starting to diminish and he opened his eyes, knowing what it meant. If they didn’t manage to find…
“I think we found it!” one of the younger men shouted. The older man walked across the maintenance road, stopping at the concrete barrier to look down the slope.
Six men, stripped to the waist, had hacked the exuberant foliage away from an airlock hatch and they stood looking up to him for orders. 
He nodded up at the jungle canopy. 
The reddish orange foliage, dominant in the permanent twilight latitudes of Irricana, was slowly retracting into the dense wooden trunks. “Get it open and place the charge,” he ordered. “Storm’s coming and we want to be far from here when it hits.”
Irricana was a tidally locked planet, one side eternally facing toward the three suns of the system. It made the presence of indigenous life something of a minor miracle and many Imperial terracologists insisted the world had to have been developed by an unknown alien race.
Terraformed or not, the constant condensing of the atmosphere on the night side combined with the malevolent convection currents generated on the day side resulted in a planet lashed by storms of incredible violence. 
The sounds of wildlife were fading fast as the animals sensed the change in air pressure and sought cover. A large, scaled avian landed on the slope just beneath him and began burrowing into the hillside with its wide, flat beak.
He frowned up at the treetops. The jungle was almost completely barren now. “We’ve got less than ten minutes,” he shouted down at his men. 
They were manhandling an unconscious form in through the upper airlock hatch. 
“That’ll do,” the younger man asserted, waving them up toward the access road. He followed them up the slope, scrambling over the barrier as the first drops of rain came pelting down. 
The older man held out his hand to catch a few drops. He licked the water from his palm. It wasn’t gritty so he figured they could get all the way back to the city without having to stop and take cover.
He looked up at the muted crump sound from down-slope. 
A howl of rushing air grew in volume, suddenly deadened as the unconscious body plugged the hole and then resumed as their unfortunate victim was spewed through the rough opening.
“Alright,” the older man shouted over the noise, “mount up, we need to get…” 
His sentence was cut off as a rumble beneath their feet preceded a jet of plasma up through the shattered airlock. They dropped, scrambling over to shelter behind the concrete barrier.
“Shit!” one of the younger men exclaimed, flinching as a small piece of debris struck his shoulder. “That wasn’t in the projections. Who do you think…”
“Never you mind who it was,” the older man snarled. “Get in. We need to get moving.”
The shriek of rushing air was already diminishing as the safety shields started to cut in. The High Speed Vacuum Line was the life blood of Irricana and, for once, the Imperial Engineering Corps hadn’t skimped on the design. 
The HSVL was a tunnel system that ran around the doughnut-shaped habitable zone of the planet. There was wide band of territory circling the day side of Irricana at just the right distance from its three suns to allow liquid water. The planet’s North Pole continually pointed in the direction of its suns, resulting in a world with no seasonal change. 
The shape of the zone made for inefficient ground transport and so the HSVL was built with a near-total vacuum inside. It allowed vehicles to move at incredible velocities, reaching cities on the other side in a matter of hours.
Unfortunately, some poor bastard had come along just after the inner airlock hatch had been blown, but before the safety protocols could kick in, seal off the section and halt all traffic. Whoever it was, they’d slammed into the intruding air like an orbital tender hitting atmo, but without any shielding.
The older man climbed into the front passenger seat, leaning forward to look up at the fast-moving clouds above as the vehicle started accelerating along the maintenance road. 
If not for the damned storm making them rush, someone would simply be sitting down there, facing a containment shield and cursing the delay. 
The man they’d put in the airlock had been a real piece of Human garbage and he didn’t regret his role in killing him, but that might have been a family down there…
The pounding of the rain on their roof suddenly ended as their ground-car floated into one of the hundreds of mountain tunnels between their objective and Vermillion, the planetary capital. 
“Thirty klicks to the end of this one,” the young man behind the controls advised. 
The older man nodded, releasing a tired sigh. “If the wind reads negative for particulates, we’ll keep moving.”
The repair crew would arrive within the half hour, after all. They didn’t want to be seen anywhere near the mess they’d just made.
Portal to Hell
“Davai,” the crew chief shouted at his thruster team. The recovered diplomatic shuttle was slowly easing through the forward nav-shielding of the CVN Manifest Destiny and you’d think it was the first time they’d pulled in a drifter.
“Come on!” a loud voice exclaimed behind him. “I don’t have all morning!”
The chief closed his eyes, taking in a deep, calming breath. This was why he conversed with his crew in Rushto, their ancient language. If their clueless, high-born officer was going to insist on trying to do the chief’s job, then he at least had to come up with his own orders.
The thruster team always took the Rushto orders anyway.
They were through the shielding now and coming down on the quarantine pad. “Smirno… smirno,” the chief urged as the last few inches disappeared between deck and shuttle.
“Easy now…” the aristocratic officer growled authoritatively. 
Though the chief wasn’t rolling his eyes at this, he somehow managed to convey the impression that he was.
“We’ll need to get the containment shielding in place before we cut into her,” the officer advised the chief.
“Spasibo za informatsiyu,” he replied politely, noticing his plasma specialist had turned away to hide his expression. The phrase was usually said in a drier tone, indicating the uselessness of the offered information. 
It was an odd little game that had sprung up when the young aristocrat had rotated aboard the Manifest Destiny six months ago. The chief was free to poke fun at his officer in Rushto and the officer, in turn, was free to pretend an understanding of their enigmatic language. 
The crew got stress relief and the young noble got a little respect from his fellow officers. 
With the shielding up, the plasma specialist moved his boom-lift forward, leaning over the railing of his basket as he ignited his cutter. 
The instant his torch began emitting a pilot-arc of plasma, every helmet inside the containment field snapped into place. The visors darkened, protecting their retinas from the torch flare and the helmets would stay closed to protect against any bio-hazards that might be lurking inside the stricken shuttle. 
The boom pulled back, taking a door-shaped section of hull with it and the chief was shouldered aside. Their brave officer marched to the opening as a crewman extended a boarding ladder.
This time, the chief actually did roll his eyes. His officer’s ‘first through the breach’ attitude was almost certainly a symptom of the shame he must be feeling at his safe posting.
If an aristocrat intended to hold public office, he first had to serve in the military. Most took the requirement as a chance to seek combat on the frontiers, burnishing their reputations against the day they would need to seek votes.
 Some, like this pompous young fool, sought out the safest postings. The Manifest Destiny cruised the deepest heart of the empire, never seeing a hostile vessel.
The officer disappeared inside and the chief caught the raised eyebrows of his plasma tech. He shook his head and shrugged. “Chto delyat?” he asked pragmatically – What are you gonna do? If they managed to arrange an ‘accident’, the next guy might actually be worse.
His gaze darted back over to the opening in the hull, his knees flexing as if to propel him toward or away from the mysterious shuttle as the comms system picked up a strangled scream of pure terror. He heard a crashing noise through his ear-piece and then the young officer came scrambling out the opening, tumbling down the boarding ladder to slam onto the carrier’s deck. 
“Se… security!” the young officer blurted frantically as he crabbed away from the shuttle, waving a warding hand in front of his face. He convulsed,  eyes wild, his hand scratching at the front of his visor, and then he vomited all over the inside of the glazing.
“Bozhe moi!” The plasma tech looked back at the opening, drawing his sidearm. 
The chief backed away from his panicked officer and drew his own weapon, pointing it up at the rough portal. He waved the security team forward through the shielding. 
Bio-hazard or not, there was something terrible going on in that shuttle and it wasn’t his job to deal with it.
A visit from the Eye
The desk sergeant looked up as the shadow fell across his counter. He gave Paul a quick once-over before turning his chair toward the back wall to continue his conversation, touching his right hand to his ear-piece as if to accentuate where his priorities lay.
Paul’s lips twitched up at the corners. Nobody of any importance would be standing at this counter. His expensive clothing, combined with his being here would have told the desk sergeant he was dealing with some prosperous merchant from one of the non-voting classes. Some disenfranchised plebeian come to bribe his son’s way out of trouble.
If there was one thing a flatfoot like this loved, it was putting prosperous merchants in their place. Cops were usually just barely on the right side of the poverty line and the system of baksheesh had been an accepted form of income for so long it was no longer considered to be even remotely illegal.
He’d start by making Paul cool his heels on the sidewalk while he finished his conversation. The more a citizen felt like a supplicant, the bigger the bribes. 
Paul understood the tactic. A rush of warm stink blew past him as a cargo carrier roared past, forcing poorly-circulated air down a passageway that was miles from real sunlight. Nobody stood out here for long if they didn’t have to.
Whatever Paul’s ‘son’ had done, it would require hefty payments, first to the desk sergeant and then to the investigating officer. From there, the money flowed up the chain. If a death was involved, it could take a cop’s annual salary to make it go away.
Except Paul wasn’t a prosperous merchant. He slammed his palm against the secur-shield, square in the middle of the area marked for identification. 
The sergeant, hearing the hum of the resisting shield energy, turned a bored face back to Paul, his mouth opening to issue a reprimand that died as his eyes widened in shock at the orange haze around the palm.
Paul Grimm, much to the sergeant’s dismay, was an equestrian-knight, an Imperial rank that  indicated friends in very high places. He was also an inspector and, to make matters even worse, Paul wasn’t just a local city or planetary inspector.
He was from the Imperial Corps of Inspectors – the ICI, the ‘Icy Eye’ or, most commonly…
“Sir…” The sergeant jumped out of his chair. “My apologies, Inspector. I didn’t realize the ‘Eye’ was sending anybody down here to…”
“The door, Sergeant,” Paul cut him off.
“Sir?” The terrified officer gaped at him like an idiot.
Paul pointed at the shutter, just to the left of the shielded window. “The door. It stinks out here.”
A moment of stunned silence and then the man seemed to lurch back into action. “Yes, sir. Of course. My apologies for any…”
His words were lost in the grinding of metal on metal as the ancient grille rolled up into its housing. Paul stepped through and the portal snapped shut with a crash behind him.
The station was laid out in accordance with standard police architectural guidelines. If you were a cop, you could walk into any station in the empire and know exactly where you were going.
Paul headed for the inspectors’ bullpen. A knot of  plainclothes cops were huddled around one desk and he headed straight for them. 
They turned at his approach, their faces showing that amusing blend of hostility & curiosity common to those who find their inner sanctum breached by a stranger. 
He looked down at the inspector behind the desk, the one who’d been the center of attention until he’d walked in. “Inspector Mallas, I presume.”
It was a safe bet. The attention from his co-workers was almost undoubtedly due to his newest case.
“I am,” the man replied cautiously. “And you are?”
Paul smiled. “Inspector Paul Grimm, ICI. You’ve been assigned a hand-over case from the military,” he explained, “and the senate has asked me to conduct a jurisdictional review.” 
Inspector Mallas nodded. “Hardly surprising, given the connections involved.” He waved a hand at the one man who hadn’t melted away when Paul announced his credentials. “This is Captain McElroy, our boss.”
“Captain.” Paul nodded politely. He turned back to find Mallas rooting through a desk drawer. The home-world cop held out a handful of green and white plastic bags. “Bag of joe?”
 “Thank you, no,” Paul smiled. “I’ve had too much already this morning and I’m dangerously close to seeing through the fabric of space-time.” 
With a shrug, Mallas handed one to his captain and each gave their bag a twist to release the heating catalyst. Mallas gave the bag a good shake and set it down while he brought up a holo-screen. 
“Pretty much cut and dried,” he declared. “The CVN Manifest Destiny found a drifting diplomatic shuttle and, when they cut her open, they found the entire crew and two couriers stabbed to death.” He brought up the evidence holo, putting them in the cockpit, though the effect was marred somewhat by the furniture of the bullpen. 
Paul suppressed the shudder of horror crawling beneath his skin, tickling at  his muscles. “Where’s the pilot’s skin?”
Mallas put his hands above a point on his desk and dragged them back toward his abdomen. The shuttle slid past them, putting them in the passenger area. More bodies and at the back, draped in the pilot’s skin, was the closest thing to a friend Paul had ever had. 
And the reason Paul enjoyed the patronage of the powerful Nathaniel family. 
“Julius Nathaniel,” Mallas announced, “son of Senator Hadrian Nathaniel and the current magistrate of Kepler62e. He killed three flight crew and two Imperial couriers before helping himself to a nice new suit.”
Paul cut him off. “It’s only cut and dried if we understand the motive.”
A nod. Mallas brought up a new scene and the other inspectors cheered. The holo showed Julius in bed with two young women. “They’re not on any retinal register,” he said with a shrug. “Big surprise, right? But the tattoos are clearly visible, showing them to be from a courtesan guild on TC-465.”
“The ‘happy ending’ virus,” Captain McElroy explained. “Carried only by the guild members of Temporary Colony-465. It’s sexually transmitted, spreads quickly and dies out within forty-eight standard hours.”
“Giving the client a delightful, eight-hour burst of endorphins as the infection dies out,” Mallas explained. He nodded to where Julius lay. “A very small percentage of clients are genetically predisposed toward a psychotic break.”
Paul looked away from the holo of his old friend. “Well, I suppose that covers motive, doesn’t it?”
“So are you taking the case off our hands?” McElroy opened the nozzle on the corner of his coffee bag and took a sip.
Paul shook his head. “Like Mallas said, it’s cut and dried. You don’t need me interfering.”
McElroy’s brows lowered a few millimeters, but it was the closest he came to showing his true feelings to an inspector from the Eye. He obviously assumed Paul didn’t want to get tangled up in the prosecution of an aristocrat. 
In most cases, he’d be correct. Most inspectors knew better than to make powerful enemies and putting a senator’s son in a ‘silk scarf’ was a sure way to end a promising career with the Eye. 
It was an assumption Paul was relying on. “Thanks for your time, Officers.” He waved toward the hallway. “I’ll see myself out.”
He left the building, crossed the street and stepped into a waiting passenger mover he’d requisitioned that morning. 
“Un-mute Senator Nathaniel,” he sub-vocalized.
“… so get back in there and tell them you’re going to take over the case, dammit!” an angry voice insisted.
“Senator,” Paul replied, firmly but politely, “I don’t tell you how to do your job; don’t tell me how to do mine. When have I ever let your family down?” He neglected to point out that he’d only heard the last few seconds of Senator Nathaniel’s angry demands.
“But we have to get him…”
“Out?” Paul cut him off. “Julius is in a holding complex, surrounded by hardcore killers. The second our enemies think we’re going to get our hands on him, they’ll arrange for a ‘gate-glitch’ or ‘administrative prisoner movement error’ and Julius will find himself in the same cell with some very unfriendly roommates.”
“You’re convinced this is a setup?”
“Absolutely. There’s no way he’d be involved with courtesans and certainly not a guild from TC-465.” Paul waited, wanting to see how much Hadrian Nathaniel knew about his son’s service on TC-465.
“Why not them, in particular?” Nathaniel asked. “He spent five years there when he commanded 488 MEF. He would have heard about them…”
“He heard about them before he brought his troops down from orbit,” Paul agreed. “You know that’s how we met – he came in to ask for a BPS threat briefing.”
The BPS or biological/physical/societal threat briefing was maintained by the military police on each frontier world in the Empire. It was a meticulous description of all the possible sources of danger to the Imperial Marines assigned to garrison duty on the frontier, but it was rarely accessed by incoming forces. 
Julian could have relied on the overwhelming strength of his Marine Expeditionary Force to get through his five-year hitch but that almost always resulted in the loss of a few troops due to sickness, wild animals or social mistakes.
Paul had been a military policeman on TC-465 when Julius arrived and he’d been the one to give the young colonel his briefing. Paul had realized he was taking the threat to his troops seriously, that Julius was one of the few nobles who understood the concept of reciprocal duty. 
“I warned him about the risk from the ‘Happy Ending’ virus. He got his troops tested before he let them off the ship and he was the first to hand over a blood sample.” Paul took a final glance at the station house. 
“Random course,” he ordered his vehicle. 
“You noticed,” he asked the senator, “there was no evidence Julius was conscious while he was with the two courtesans?”
“I did.”
“So someone grabbed him, drugged him and had those two courtesans infect him.” Paul let that sink in for a few seconds. “He’s an operational objective, but you’re probably the strategic target in all this.”
The Nathaniels often treated crime and intrigue as open combat. Every member of the family spent their obligatory term of service in the family unit. The 488 Marine Expeditionary Force descended from a unit raised by Constantine Nathaniel. He’d presented it to the Emperor’s service five centuries ago using private funds. The Nathaniels had supported the unit ever since.
Paul’s military service had been as a policeman, but he’d quickly learned to apply a military template to the endless machinations of the ruling class. “You don’t commit to an attack on an operational objective unless it supports the timing for a strategic move. They’ve done this to discredit you, but what’s going on right now that involves your office?”
There was a short pause. “There’s been talk,” Hadrian Nathaniel replied cryptically. “The imperial court might need to appoint a new regent soon.”
Paul shivered. Nobody really expected the Childe Roland to reach the age of majority but he was only nine years old; there was no rush to bump him off. The position of regent was far more dangerous because, for all intents and purposes, it was the same as being the emperor. Many moths had died from flying too close to that particular flame. 
Was Hadrian Nathaniel in the running?
“Is there anything else, Senator?”
“There’s been talk of sending the 488 to Irricana to pacify some secessionist activity,” Hadrian told him, “but it’s hardly a coveted assignment. Few senators want to be shoved back into uniform for a low-intensity operation out on the Rim.”
“I’m going to follow the evidence,” Paul informed him, “and see where it leads us.” He could hear a soft chime over the link.
“I need to go.” Hadrian sighed. “I have a Defense Committee meeting, but keep me informed.”
Paul killed the link and brought up the copy he’d made of the evidence. Few ICI inspectors had the kind of military hardware that resided in Paul’s sinuses but most of them had never served, either. 
If you have a senator obtaining your early release from the Marines, you can easily leave the service with your implants intact. 
When Julius’ five-year term came to an end, Hadrian had arranged for Paul to be released from his own ten-year contract. The lower orders tended to serve for longer terms, but Paul had made himself useful to Julius on several occasions and the Nathaniels’ sense of reciprocal duty had compelled them to patronize his career. 
It wasn’t entirely altruistic, of course. By engineering a knighthood for Paul and getting him into the ICI, they’d created a potent asset within the law enforcement community.
And his implants gave him a distinct edge. He’d managed to download the entire case-file and now he closed his eyes to take a look at the holo of Julius and the courtesans. 
The decor was licensed to an hourly-rate hotel chain and the artwork scrolling across the side wall was from a video-pool contractor. The particular imagery was tailored by planet and this mix seemed to indicate the hotel was local.
He looked back at Julius. Not even a flutter of an eyelash. If he needed any further indication his friend was out like a light, he needed look no farther than the window. 
Even if Julius was the type to engage courtesans, he would have closed the blinds. Paul frowned at a soft glow outside. “Frame advance,” he subvocalized. The next image in the holo recording came up, and the soft glow was gone. 
“Play holo,” he commanded and the shadow of one of the courtesans began moving up and down against the wall by the window. “Stop.”
Paul grinned. There, outside the window, was the bright neon glow of ‘Raised Eire’. He did a quick title search for address proximity, pairing the hotel and bar names. Not only were they on this world, but he was only twenty minutes away.
He resisted the urge to go there. His presence would only serve as a warning to their enemies that he was still pursuing the matter. He connected to the hotel’s financial portal but, instead of invoking ICI protocol to access their records, he used his quantum processor to hack their security by brute force. 
He didn’t want to alarm his prey.
The room had been paid for by one of the courtesans in the video. It made sense. Whoever had arranged the scene wouldn’t want to pay for it from their own account — they’d simply turn themselves into a loose end in the process.
Paul used her identity to locate an address and tasked his vehicle to go there at best possible speed. The two women would be worth talking to.
Of course, that also meant they’d be worth eliminating and he forced himself to consider his next step in the event they were already dead.
He tried to open the courtesan’s financial records, hoping to find the money trail, but he was unsurprised to find they’d been burned down using a warrant from a local city cop. He brought up the cop’s dossier — unremarkable, under the radar. He was the cleanup-man.
Paul opened the tasking menu and saw the cop was on his way to a public disturbance call. He very much doubted the officer would survive the assignment. 
He opened his contacts and selected the 488 MEF folder. “Major Anthony Nathaniel,” he ordered, opening the connection. 
“Paul, tell me you have something,” Julius’ younger brother demanded eagerly.
“Following some leads, Tony, but they have a habit of going cold. One of them is a city cop, badge alpha-245-golf-566-echo-4567. He’s probably on his way to catch a bullet right now so I need him collected in the next ten minutes.”
A disembodied voice intruded, announcing the launch of a tactical aircraft. 
“I’ve a team on the way,” Anthony advised him. “I’ll meet you at the echo site.”
 
Dead End
Paul’s vehicle slowed to a halt and slid sideways into an opening on his right. He stepped out of the ground car and crossed the small platform to a bank of transit shafts. Each shaft had a magnetic monorail at the back for the ubiquitous transit-capsules that sped throughout the city. The capsules tended to travel individually in remote areas but when entering a dense neighborhood like this one, they joined into long trains.
Just like the boarding platforms for horizontal tracks, this vertical station had no doors or guard rails. The only difference here was the three-kilometer drop for those who failed to exercise caution.
A short train arrived, the capsules separating to slide into the adjacent boarding shafts. Eighteen capsule doors slid open and Paul stepped into the nearest one, ignoring the curious glances of the three young women and two men inside. The conversation between two of the women had died as he stepped inside and announced his destination to the vehicle.
He didn’t belong down here, so far from fresh air. His clothing, his bearing, both proclaimed him as someone who possessed wealth and influence. He wasn’t the kind of person who entered the rezzas without a good reason and, whatever that reason was, it probably didn’t  bode well for the locals.
The rezzas were large, high-density neighborhoods, usually located near the labor-intensive industries. They typically occupied a cubic kilometer and had little or no access for independently controlled vehicles. 
Not that the denizens of a rezza could afford to use one anyway. Transit capsules like this one were the only way in without climbing the stairs and nobody with any sense used the stairs. 
There were no security cameras in the stairs.
The car slid to a halt and Paul walked out through the gate, turning right to head down an endless hallway. Every five steps brought another door, another argument or blast of music, another smell of rotting garbage or a backed-up toilet.
He came to the address and, seeing the open door, drew his sidearm. The scanner on the outside was missing three screws, looking like it had been hacked and quickly put back in place.
He took a deep, calming breath and glided quietly through the open portal. The small apartment had no windows — few did down here — and there was no place to hide. 
Not that the occupants were concerned about hiding. Both of the young courtesans had been decapitated, posed on the sleeping platform with their heads cradled in their hands.
He knew the business with the heads was just an attempt to cover tracks, to obscure the true motive behind their deaths. The local cops would write it off as just another cult or lone maniac, if they even heard of this. He started heading back toward the transit gate.
He was halfway there when he noticed the two people headed his way. A man and a woman. Both had been on the transit capsule with him but they’d stayed on when he exited. 
The only way they could’ve gotten back down here so quickly was if they’d exited on the next level and run down the stairs.
He’d been a cop his entire adult life and he’d already noticed the bulges under their light jackets. They each had a small-caliber weapon dangling under their left shoulders. Paul could clearly see the rhythmic movement of their clothing as the weapons collided with the fabric. 
When he was still five doors away, the young woman pulled the man around and shoved him up against the wall, planting a deep kiss on him. 
It was one of the oldest tricks in the book. There’s a natural urge to look away and that’s the moment you catch a bullet in the head. 
This would come down to resolve. Paul was certain they’d been planted on the transit system to watch for anyone coming to look for the courtesans. There would be others, seeing as there was more than one transit line leading to this neighborhood. 
Considering how thoroughly they were cleaning up the loose threads, Paul had to assume they’d be inclined to kill anyone looking into it. What other reason for them to come into this hallway?
He also didn’t want it known that he was investigating. If the conspirators got spooked, they might decide to liquidate Julius.
 They’d want to wait until he was past them, looking the other way. 
Now came the struggle. Instinct is like a half-tamed animal, caged in the cellar. You hear it screaming, warning you of danger, but the standard reaction is to turn up the stereo and ignore it. That’s why people venture out of their bedchamber, armed with a lamp to investigate a noise in the middle of the night.
If you were sure there was danger, you would have stayed put and called the police. 
Paul fought the urge to downplay the risks. He was going to be shot in the next five seconds unless he listened to his instinct. 
He watched their faces, sure he could see the tiniest sliver of eyeball. The man was watching him, so he was unlikely to draw his pistol until Paul was past, but her right hand was obscured by their bodies.
Paul faked a cough, bringing his right hand up toward his mouth but he diverted it at the last second, reaching under his jacket to draw a compact 5mm pistol. He swung the weapon up as his left foot hit the floor behind them and fired a three-round burst into the back of her head.
The rounds passed through both heads and buried themselves in the aluminum-foam panel of the wall behind them. Both bodies slumped to the floor and he noticed a small handgun in her right hand.
Despite his certainty, he was still relieved to see proof that he hadn’t just murdered a young couple whose only crime had been bad timing.
He kept walking, sliding his pistol into his right hand jacket pocket and keeping his finger alongside the trigger guard. 
A shadow began to bounce its way down the wall across from a stairwell twenty meters beyond the transit gate. Paul broke into a run, slapping his palm on the car-call button as he reached the first gate. 
A man emerged from the stairs at a trot, one hand inside his jacket and, seeing Paul, pulled out a pistol. Paul snapped off a three-round burst, horribly inaccurate at twenty meters, and jumped across the vertical transit shaft, barely managing to get a grip on the framework at the back of the confined space. 
He scrabbled with his feet until he managed to wedge them above a cross-brace and swung his weapon back to cover the opening. The approaching footfalls slowed and he held his sights to the left side of the boarding portal. 
The growing hum told him a new capsule-train was approaching from beneath, but he didn’t dare risk looking down. A face popped around the corner and darted back. Paul held his fire, wanting his newest opponent to get cocky. 
The man shoved his pistol around the corner and Paul fired a burst at the arm before he could aim. There was a grunt of pain and the arm withdrew. 
The capsule was getting very near now and Paul was anxious to finish the engagement before he left. He took a quick glance around, seeing the usual collection of junk thrown in here by the locals. He saw a broken holo-camera sitting atop a transverse beam, only inches from his left hand and he reached across his body to shove it loose using the pistol in his right hand.
“Shit!” he exclaimed in mock anger as the camera tumbled down the shaft, doing its best to imitate a falling pistol.
 The grinning assailant stepped around the corner, limp right arm hanging at his side and a pistol in his left hand. His grin turned to shock as he realized his opponent was still armed. 
Three rounds took him in the center of mass and he went down. The small rounds were designed to tumble inside their target and his internal organs would be irreparable.
Within hours, the three bodies would be scavenged by the locals and dumped down a biomass chute. He finally looked down to see the capsule slowing in response to the button he’d pressed earlier. He fervently hoped he was at the right end of the platform. If he got it wrong, he’d find himself crushed between two capsules as they left the station. 
He breathed a sigh of relief as he saw cars appear from beneath the top capsule, shifting to the left as they headed for their assigned gate. The top car kept coming straight for him, slowing as it approached the gate. He hopped onto the roof of the car, hearing the startled shouts of surprise from its occupants at the dead body on the hallway floor. 
 He leaned down to knock his pistol against the capsule roof. “Six twenty three, please.”
 
A Fireside Chat
Paul stood on the sidewalk for a few seconds, knowing he was being watched. He wanted to give the operators from Tony’s grab-team enough time to recognize him before he began walking toward the door of the abandoned production facility. 
He pretended to be looking up at the open space. Industrial areas were typically located deep within the cities of the Empire but they usually had several civic layers of open space above them. It allowed the high-density aerial traffic needed to keep raw materials and finished goods flowing at peak efficiency.
There was always some churn as businesses came and went, and this particular factory had been producing servo motors until the Nathaniels had bought it and shut it down. 
Now it served as one of several safe locations, ready on a moment’s notice for use by those who counted the Nathaniels as their patrons.
Paul moved across to the door and entered the code. He stepped inside,  and his pupils dilated as he struggled to adjust to the lower light levels. He noticed a black-clad Marine on his right and nodded a greeting, accepting the offered respirator. 
He pulled it on, adjusting the seals out of long habit. Years of hull-breach drills flooded into his mind as the Marine nodded in approval.
He moved down the hallway and stepped out onto the ordinarily quiet production floor. The equipment stood silent, except for a single arc-furnace, used to melt large quantities of metal. A red-orange glow emanated from inside, slashed by brilliant white light every time an arc of electricity crashed through its interior. 
Three more Marines, faces obscured by respirators, stood over a kneeling man.
Paul approached, moving to stand in front of the kneeling policeman. The man looked up at him, registering the civilian clothes and probably assuming, correctly, that Paul was the man he’d been brought here for.
“Look,” he pleaded, “whoever you think I am, you’re mistaken. I don’t know anything, I don’t have anything. Why don’t you just let me go? I haven’t seen your fa…”
Paul pulled off the respirator. He’d caught a break, finding this cop before he could be eliminated, but who knew what other breaks were out there being eliminated while he talked to this man?
He had to move this along quickly — give the prisoner hope, take it away — rinse and repeat as needed…
The cop sighed, shoulders sagging as he looked at his captor’s face. He shook his head morosely. “Why’d you have to go and do that?” 
“Because I think we can be of use to each other,” Paul replied, crouching in front of the man to reinforce the offer of mutual benefit. The polymer tarp beneath their feet made small crinkling sounds in counterpoint to the louder arcs. 
“You’re taking money from people that I don’t like and that’s fine, as long as you keep me in the loop.”
“Are you bent?” The cop shook his head. “If they ever found out, they’d…”
“Kill you?” Paul cut him off, grinning. “You’re already dead.”
He watched the man’s eyes widen, saw the rapid flaring of his nostrils as his gaze darted to the arc-furnace. “We sent a team to that ‘domestic dispute’,” he told the cop. “When our marines walked in, the squabble ended very abruptly and they both turned out to be armed, unrelated and registered as living at two completely different addresses.” 
They’d done nothing of the sort. For all Paul knew, there was a real domestic dispute at that address, but it was a safe bet the cop had been on his way to his death, so why stand on ceremony?
The cop looked away, staring off into a dark corner. “No,” he whispered. “They wouldn’t dare. Seneca would never tolerate…” His eyes darted to Paul as he shut up.
Jumping to conclusions was one of Paul’s favorite investigative techniques. It was surprising what you could shake out of a suspect through the occasional leap of insight. “Seneca would tolerate them ‘borrowing’ you but he can’t let them get away with killing one of his assets,” Paul agreed, hoping he’d read the partial sentence correctly.
He leaned in, putting his left hand on the cop’s shoulder. “That tells me they’re prepared to escalate the matter beyond the original plan.”
The plan was still a bit of a black box for Paul but he wanted the cop to think he was being questioned by someone who already knew most of the story.
“All I know,” the cop pleaded, “is they gave me a  pile of credits in return for having the courtesan’s financial records burned down.” He winced as another arc flared behind Paul.
“The agent may have gone rogue,” Paul mused for the man’s benefit. He focused on the cop’s eyes. “Who contacted you?”
“He didn’t exactly exchange meishi with me, did he?” he retorted, one eyebrow raised. “His info was shielded, but I managed to get his facial rec off a street cam.”
“And?” Paul prompted.
“And he’s Ruffus Hancock, a nobody, but a nobody who works for Romanus Kinsey.”
Paul nodded impatiently, giving the impression he already knew who the agent belonged to. “But what exactly did he say to you?”
A shrug. “Burn the records out of the system, keep my mouth shut, don’t start spending the money for at least a full cycle and I’d be fine.”
Paul sighed. “You ever tell a citizen to cooperate and they’d be ‘fine’?”
Another furtive glance at the arc-furnace.
Paul took a moment to choose his words. “Look, you’re already a dead man. You’d have died an hour ago, if not for us.” He waved a hand at the Marines standing behind the cop. They moved around to stand behind Paul. 
“Think of us as ‘life support’,” he urged. “We could just pull the plug, as they say, or we could help you out.” He grinned suddenly. “Funny old saying, isn’t it?”
“What?” A tone of exasperated fear.
“Pull the plug,” Paul replied. “What plug? Did life support patients float in some sort of fluid in the pre-imperial days?”
“Do I look like a damned medico?” Exasperation was clearly winning out. 
Paul shrugged. “Frankly, you’ve been of use to us, so I’m inclined to offer help.”
“What sort of help?” the man asked, brows lowering.
“We’ll get you off-world, take you out to the frontier somewhere.” He held the cop’s gaze. “Man can make a name for himself out there — a new name, of course — but it’s worlds better than waiting for death here.”
A sigh. He looked down at the floor for a moment, face twitching as a flash of arc-light washed over him. The arc screamed a tortured warning. 
He looked up at Paul. “No, thanks,” he said. “I’ll take my chances.”
Paul brought his hand out of his pocket, the small pistol fired three shots and the cop fell back onto the polymer sheeting. “You already have,” he said quietly.
He stood, backing off the sheet and tossing the pistol down next to the body. 
Kinsey was an aristocrat of moderate means. In all probability, his holdings were less extensive than Paul’s.
The Nathaniel family’s concept of patronage included stock tips. From their perspective, it was a zero-cost proposition to pass along tips to trusted assets like Paul. 
Inspectors from the ‘Eye’ were free to take cases as they saw fit, but they were only paid by the case. In making Paul financially independent, the Nathaniels were able to access his services more freely. 
Paul, knowing the tips were the result of Hadrian manipulating the market, frequently bet heavily and rarely failed to come out ahead. He was now a major shareholder in several companies.
Kinsey’s relatively average wealth meant he couldn’t be the primary mover behind this particular conspiracy. That would be someone with far more wealth. Not just impressive resources, like Paul had, but startlingly obscene amounts of credits. Kinsey had been known to fall in with the schemes of several leading families and Seneca had made use of him before.
He looked over as the Marine on his left pulled off his respirator. His face was covered in sweat and his eyes were glued to the corpse on the floor. 
Paul stepped over to him. “Are you OK, Tony?” He grabbed the man’s shoulder, turning him away from the body. He lowered his voice. “You’ve seen bodies, even killed more than your fair share of people yourself.”
“Yeah, but that was combat…”
“So is this,” Paul hissed. “The Empire is always in a state of civil war. It’s secret, it’s dirty and it never goes away. If your father hasn’t told you that, I’ll eat that arc-furnace, piece by piece.”
The light in the room increased dramatically as one of the Marines deactivated the shielding on the furnace. The unmitigated glow of the melted steel  bathed the grisly scene.
“But his hands were tied,” Tony growled. 
“Don’t lose track of what kind of war we’re fighting here,” Paul said quietly, watching the Marines roll up the body and weapon in the polymer sheet. “Just because a man’s hands are tied doesn’t mean he’s no longer a combatant. He was in the fight right up to the instant I shot him.
“I even gave him the chance to surrender,” Paul reminded the Marine officer. “We could have relocated him and we’d have even found a use for him, eventually. If we’d let him walk out of here, he’d have told the enemy everything he knew about us in exchange for a few more seconds of life, and then your brother would die in prison.”
“Yeah,” Tony grunted. “Yeah, right. So what’s next?”
Paul was watching the Marines throw the body into the arc-furnace. “Kinsey’s a small fish. Too small to be running a play against your family on his own. He’s out in the Gliesan systems, supposedly ‘stiffening’ the sector defense forces against rebels.”
“We don’t have anyone out there, do we?” Tony finally tore his eyes away from the fading color variations in the crucible. 
Paul tilted his head to the side a few degrees as he came to a decision. “Not until I get there.” He looked over at Tony. “I need a couple of operator pairs.”
Tony waved a hand at the two men standing by the furnace. “Ed and Mike, here, Sandy and Al at the door… best operators in the 488.”
Paul noticed the lack of reaction at this praise from one of their officers. They were that good and they knew Tony was aware of it. He nodded at Ed. “Do you boys have civvies close to hand?”
“Yes sir.” Ed pulled his collar back to reveal a blue shirt underneath. “Never can tell what sort of camouflage you might need on a city op.”
“Good.” Paul angled his head toward Tony. “Leave your uniforms with the major. We’re heading straight up to Wayfarer Station. First ship taking wormholes for Gliese 667 will have us on it.”
“Mmmm,” Mike chimed in, grinning. “Ration paste — how I’ve missed it!”
Paul chuckled. “Sorry to disappoint, but the four of you wandering around in steerage practically screams ‘covert military operation’. We’ll have to put you in better accommodations. First class is the last place anyone would think to look for grunts.”

Reconnaissance
 
Boarding 
The clerk at the boarding gate looked up at Paul, assessed his clothing, hairstyle and general demeanor and flashed him her best welcoming smile. “Good afternoon, sir. How can Pulsar Lines help you today?”
Paul returned an easy smile. “I believe this vessel is bound for Gliese 667?” He waved a hand toward the window behind her.
She beamed. “Yes indeed, sir. The Pulsar Intrepid is leaving in three standard hours but I’m afraid we’re down to second class and lower staterooms. First class is booked solid.”
Paul placed his hand on the ident-square on her shield. Unlike the police windows, the systems here were far more discrete. His social rank and profession were only visible from her side and her eyebrows raised a fraction, followed by the corners of her professional smile.
It wasn’t his equestrian status that raised her politeness a notch. Paul was a three-percent owner of the Pulsar line. 
The Nathaniels had managed to float a rumor about the passenger line several years ago. One of the family’s assets at Carbon Heavy Industries had ‘confided’ to a reporter that CHI was about to issue a category-one maintenance bulletin on their entire line.
The reporter had promised to keep it quiet and then put it on every feed an hour later. News that Pulsar’s entire fleet was about to be grounded by CHI for weeks caused the stock to plummet.
Having been the one who arranged the ‘chance’ meeting between the CHI employee and the reporter, Paul had already borrowed several hundred thousand shares of Pulsar from his broker and sold them before the news broke.
Two days later, he repurchased those shares at a fraction of their original price, along with a three-percent stake. The original shares went back to the brokers and he found himself sitting on a large pile of stock and credits.
He grinned. “Are we still sold out for first class?”
She tilted her head to the side. “I’m afraid we still are, sir, but there is the owner’s suite.”
“How big is it?” 
“Four bedrooms, a living room and a dining area!” she replied.
Paul nodded. “We’ll take it. Please have our bags  sent up.” 
He turned away from the counter, waving his four Marine companions toward the boarding tunnel. “Two of you will have to share a bunk.” He started moving for the walkway himself when a man bumped him. 
“Watch where you’re going!” the man admonished Paul, his voice clearly indicating his high opinion of himself.
Paul simply continued toward the tunnel opening, hearing the man address the boarding clerk — ahead of the rest of the people in the line.
“My employer requires your best accommodations. I think you know what suite we’re expecting…”
Paul grinned. The best accommodations on the Pulsar Intrepid now meant second class. He looked back to see his Marines closing on his position and, behind them, a man followed by a mostly alien entourage , also heading straight for the boarding tunnel.
Paul knew the type. A noble, but just barely. He was fairly certain most prosperous non-voters were happier than this man. In a highly stratified society like the Empire, few things were more galling than to be at the bottom of your particular social ladder.
Even when it was still the top ladder.
A man like Hadrian Nathaniel preferred to travel quietly, eschewing ostentation. He was one of the most powerful men in the Empire but he felt no need to impress that on everyone who saw him.
This low-level aristocrat, however, had a retinue of useless followers and most of them were inexpensive aliens from the various subjugated worlds. The few Humans on his payroll were the face men. It was as if he was constantly proclaiming that he really was an important man. Paul knew the man was trying to convince himself at least as much as he was others.
The boarding tunnel ended and he stepped out into the ship proper. A helpful steward greeted him and offered to lead him to his cabin. 
As Paul and his four companions followed the young man, he questioned his own behavior. Here he was, being followed by a small retinue of his own and taking the best accommodations on the ship. 
He hadn’t asked Tony for these men so he could look important, though. He knew he might need a friendly military presence and, on a world where Kinsey held sway, he couldn’t turn to local forces for help. 
As for the owner’s suite — screw it, he liked his comfort.
Was he deluding himself?
Was anyone ever not deluding themselves?
The steward reached the end of a hallway and pressed a button on the wall, opening a wide portal. He waved the five men through. “Your bags will be along shortly, gentlemen.” He sketched an elaborate  bow, his right hand held forward, ostensibly for balance but really for a tip.
“Thanks,” Paul replied, waving his own hand over  the steward’s, automatically transferring his usual, generous tip.
Paul closed the door as the last Marine walked in. He looked around the room. Not bad at all. It was more or less equal to his own apartment as far as the interior went, but the view from the lounge was amazing. 
It boasted a broad, curving balcony looking out onto the ship’s atrium, providing a magnificent view of the gardens on the central column.
The column ran the entire length of the vessels atrium and its outer surface, roughly a half kilometer in circumference, was home, not only to the ornamental gardens, but also to the bustling shops, pubs and restaurants of the Pulsar Intrepid. 
The Marines obviously approved. Ed pulled a bottle of wine from a wall rack. “Holy shit!” He carefully put it back, looking at the other members of his fire-team in wonder. “Real glass bottle! Must be worth a year’s pay at least!”
“Well, don’t put it back, Ed.” Paul waved at the cabinet to the left of the wine rack. “Grab five glasses and we’ll see if it’s worth the money.”
The Marines’ grins were interrupted by a chime from the portal. Paul walked over and activated the monitor. 
He chuckled. “This is rich!” He looked back at the four men and grinned. “Try to act serious.”
He opened the portal to reveal the minor noble. His entourage waited behind him, encumbered with baggage. The man who’d bumped Paul was rushing down the corridor, too late to intercept his employer with the bad news about the accommodations.
Paul made a show of looking past the noble to see the baggage. “I’m sorry,” he said, turning his gaze back to the bemused noble. “There’s been a mistake.”
The man obviously couldn’t read Paul, who simply refused to give any definitive social signals as to his actual status. 
As a class, Paul generally regarded aristocrats as a waste of Imperial resources, including oxygen. It was difficult to reconcile that attitude with his close association to the Nathaniel family, but he’d managed to rationalize that through his respect for their ideals.
“A mistake?” the noble repeated the statement as a question.
“Yes,” Paul confirmed, leaning to point at the small group behind the man. “Those aren’t our bags.”
For a minor noble, being mistaken for a wealthy equestrian would be bad enough, but being mistaken for a baggage steward was intolerable. His face purpled.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked Paul, his voice a dark warning.
 Paul leaned in, squinting slightly. “Can’t say as I do,” he mused. He suddenly brightened. “Didn’t you work at the Continent Club?”
The noble was horrified. He sputtered indignantly and might have worked his way up to actual words if his employee hadn’t caught up with him, whispering in his ear.
Hearing he was now destined for a second-class cabin probably didn’t improve his day by much, but he at least managed to bring his response under control. He grabbed his servant’s arm and turned him back down the hall. 
He followed, turning one last baleful glare at Paul before waving his entourage to follow.
Paul held out his hand, and the man’s glare slid immediately to the obsolete but highly fashionable timepiece on the extended wrist. 
“Something for your trouble?” Paul offered in the standard gesture of a tip. 
Without a further word, the man stormed off and Paul slid the portal closed. He was surprised to realize he felt a little bad about the encounter. Offering a tip might have been just a bit too much.
He looked over at Ed, holding five glasses and staring at the bottle, now on the sideboard. He was about to tell him to get on with opening the bottle but realized, just in time, that a Marine lance-corporal would have no experience in extracting a cork.
 He walked over to the sideboard, grabbed the corkscrew and opened the bottle. “Suppose I should have gone easier on the poor fool,” he muttered as he poured.
“Are you kidding me?” Sandy chuckled. “Even considering the room and the expensive booze, that was the highlight of the mission so far.” He nodded at the door. “I’ve had to serve under fools like that. It’s good to see one of ‘em put in their place for a change.”
Paul shrugged, raising the glass to take a drink.  He looked up to see the four men, holding their glasses and staring at him. He shrugged a second time. “It’s ok,” he said. “One thing you learn if you drink enough of this stuff is that there’s no such thing as a bottle of wine that’s really worth more than a few hundred credits.
“The price difference is all in the marketing,” he insisted. He finally got a grip. He was probably ruining the moment for them, but then these were practical men, not given to gullibility. He could see from their expressions that they appreciated his honest explanation.
“So our plan for tonight,” he went on as they tried their drinks, “is to split up. I’ll do dinner in the Atrium, you lads split into pairs and pick a couple of first-class restaurants. Keep your ears open and spend some time at the bar. We probably won’t learn anything, but it never hurts to conduct a recon.”
“The four of us in first-class joints?” Ed looked dubious.
“Camouflage, Ed,” Paul replied. “It’s just another op, so put on an attitude the same way you’d put on a ghillie suit.” He waved his glass around, indicating the lavish suite. “I camouflage myself with foolishness like this on a daily basis.”
“Hell,” Sandy muttered. “I’d take this over a ghillie suit any day.”
“Speaking of camo…” Paul looked at the civilian clothing the four men had worn beneath their uniforms. “Purser’s office,” he ordered.
“Nin hao,” a cheery voice filled the room. “Purser’s office, Kyle speaking.”
“Nin hao, Kyle. This is Paul in the owner’s suite. I’d like four tailors sent up right away. I’m going to need my companions ready for dinner tonight.”
“Certainly, sir. Is there anything else you need?”
“No, that should be all, xiexie.” Paul broke the connection.
“What’s wrong with what we’re wearing?” Sandy demanded. 
“Nothing at all if you think ‘first class’ means the falafel hut down on the promenade.” Paul drawled. “I need you to fit in on the upper decks. That means suits and it means some watches – nothing flashy, I think, something understated, discerning…”
“I understand the need for this… camouflage…” Ed assured him. “But what are we supposed to do with all this stuff when we get back to the 488? We don’t move in the kinds of circles where this stuff fits in.”
“Get your heads in the game, boys,” Paul advised. “Get comfortable in your camo and tell yourselves you’re officers. It’ll help if you can assume a persona you’re familiar with.”
He paused in thought for a few seconds then nodded to himself. “Help me pull Julius’ ass out of the fire and Hadrian himself will know your names. I wouldn’t be surprised if your next deployment sees you berthed up in officer country.”
By the time the Pulsar Intrepid broke umbilicals and slid away from the station, Paul had effected a surprising transformation in the four soldiers. 
To their credit, they were highly intelligent and motivated individuals and they already possessed the confident swagger of men who’d learned to manage their fears.
It had really only required a few tweaks. Imperial Marines are among the most cosmopolitan  citizens of the Imperium. Their deployments immerse them in an incredible variety of cultures. When they’d seen the fashionably exotic menus of the various ship-board restaurants, they realized they were probably more familiar with the food than most of the upper-class patrons.
An hour out from the first jump gate, the four Marines were good to go, perfectly comfortable in the outfits they jokingly referred to as ‘urban ghillie suits’.
“Eyes and ears open, boys,” Paul told them as he opened the portal. He grinned. “And try to have some fun.”
 
Meet and Greet
Paul approached the elevator to Carbon. It was listed in the ship’s systems as the premiere restaurant so it was no surprise to see a reception desk in front of the elevator door.
A slightly harassed clerk looked up, forcing a smile. “Good evening, sir.” He gestured to his screen. “Do you have a reservation?”
Paul detected the slightest emphasis on ‘you’ and assumed he’d just missed a scene. “No,” he replied, giving the clerk time to take a deep breath and then stifle the exasperated sigh that threatened to escape. “But I’m in the owner’s suite.”
The clerk brightened. “Ah, well that puts you at the captain’s table.” He glanced down at the screen. “Will your companions be joining you?” 
“No, they’re exploring other venues tonight.”
“Very good, sir.” The clerk pressed a button and the elevator door slid open. “Enjoy your meal… you might find four troublesome guests up there, so I apologize in advance for any disturbance.”
When the door opened again, Paul was only slightly surprised to find the same noble he’d insulted talking to the maître d’hôtel. It looked like  he was being stonewalled. 
He must have bulled his way past the clerk downstairs but getting on the elevator and getting a seat in a hot restaurant were two very different things. 
Paul caught a whiff of expensive cologne. His cranial processor identified several designer pheromones in the scent - illegal on most core worlds due to their aphrodisiac properties. Somebody was taking full advantage of the lax statutes  of the Gliesan system. He looked to his right, following the source of the scent.
Three Marine officers, a major and two lieutenants, were waiting near the elevator door, looking like they’d like nothing better than to leave. Their Identification, Friend or Foe transponders identified them as serving in 538 MEF – Kinsey’s unit.
It was a double opportunity. Paul did feel slightly bad for the earlier insult, but he also wanted a chance to talk to the three officers. If they were on their way to the Gliese system, he might learn something useful.
Paul briskly walked past the distracted maître d’, not looking around at the restaurant, but simply picking a spot and heading straight for it. If you looked lost, some employee would inevitably intercept you. Once he was in the middle of the seating area, he took a quick look around.
The captain’s table was easy enough to spot. It was more or less centrally located and it had a man in a brilliant white uniform, heavy with gold brocade and a sash of rank that bore decorations from previous service in the Imperial Navy. 
Paul walked over and slid into the introduction chair on the captain’s left side. The chair was a common fixture on passenger liners, saving the captain  from the need to stand and greet passengers. It was bad enough he had to eat with his ‘cargo’ but nobody expected his meal to get cold while he socialized. 
“Good evening, Captain. My name is Paul Grimm…” 
“Captain Harold Williams.” the captain nodded politely. “I’ve been expecting your party for dinner. Always a pleasure to have one of our owners aboard.”
“A pleasure for the owner, perhaps,” Paul grinned, “but less so for the crew, I’m sure.”
The captain laughed. “You’ve behaved yourself so far, and you’ve been tipping the crew — which seems a foreign concept to most of our owners.” He waved to a seat on his right. “I believe I can tolerate your company for an hour or two.”
“Speaking of company, Captain,” Paul spoke in a slightly more confidential tone, “there’s a gentleman I gave inadvertent offense to — I mistook him for a baggage steward when he showed up outside my door — and he’s over at the ‘front of house’ talking to your maître d’ right now…” 
“And you’d like to use my table to make amends?” The captain glared at him. “How many?”
“One noble gentleman,” he explained, the inflection on ‘gentleman’ making it clear he was a man of relatively limited means for his class, “and three companions.”
“The gentleman is welcome,” the captain offered grudgingly, “but his sycophants will have to dine elsewhere. I’ll not have them licking his bum at my table; it ain’t sanitary.”
“Oh, they’re not sycophants, Captain. They’re Marines.”
“Teufelhunden, huh?” The captain grunted. “Well, that’s different. Might even be interesting.” He waved to the entrance. “Why don’t you convey my respects to the four gentlemen and ask them to join us for dinner?”
The noble had a slight sheen of perspiration on his forehead as Paul approached. Obviously, the negotiation for a table was not going well and he was starting to lose face in front of the three Marines. 
Paul put a hand on the man’s shoulder and the noble turned to look at him. Before he could react to the man who’d taken him for a servant, Paul launched into an apology. “Terribly sorry for the mistake earlier, old boy,” he whispered. “Imagine my mortification when I discovered who you really were.” 
He raised his voice just enough for the maître d’ to also hear. “I’ve told the captain you’re out here and he asked me to convey his respects and offer an invitation to his table.”
He caught the look of surprise on the man’s face as he started turning his head toward the three officers by the door. 
“Your three companions as well, of course,” Paul added.
The noble looked back at Paul, still somewhat flustered. “Well, sir,” he managed, gruffly, “damned decent of you!”
Though the maître d’ hadn’t even noticed Paul until now, he didn’t think to question the confident interloper. He simply nodded his assent and stepped out of the way, glad to be rid of the drama.
Paul waved the men toward the captain’s table before leaning close to the maître d’. “What the hell is his name?” he whispered.
A chuckle. “Paronius Thatcher,” he whispered back. 
Paul grimaced. “Sounds like something you catch from untreated water…” He caught up with the party as they arrived in front of the captain.
He gestured toward the noble. “Captain, allow me to present Paronius Thatcher and his party.”
They were all waved to their seats by the captain, just in time for the first course.
A well-dressed couple was seated next to the major and the wife turned to him as the first course was being cleared. “Major, why are you called Marines? I mean, it’s not as though you have anything to do with water, right?”
The major smiled politely but, before he could reply, the captain jumped in.
“It’s an acronym, my dear,” he exclaimed with glee.
The major rolled his eyes, ever so slightly.
“An acronym?” she asked.
“Indeed.” The captain set down his fork and a steward immediately whisked the small plate away. “It stands for ‘My Ass Rides In Navy Equipment’.”
The Marines smiled politely at the chuckles. The major turned to the young woman. “Actually, ma’am, it traces back to a time before the Empire, when naval battles were still fought on water. We’ve always been needed on ships. If they get boarded, you don’t want those poor, delicate little sailors getting a chipped nail…”
“Very true,” the captain conceded amid the laughter. “Fifteen years in the service and I’ve never had a ruined manicure!” 
As the laughter increased, the major nodded to the captain, raising his wine glass in an informal salute.
“So what takes you to Irricana?” Paul asked Paronius.
The noble set down an empty glass and it was filled almost instantly by an attentive steward. “We’re actually on our way home,” he explained. “We were trying to convince the empty heads at CentCom to authorize a planetary blockade.”
“Against who?” the captain asked, his eyes wide with surprise. 
“Not against, captain,” he corrected earnestly, “for. We need to cordon off the Gliese-667 worlds.” He leaned forward to look over at the captain. “You see, the only way we can starve the insurgents of new recruits is to stop them getting off-world in the first place.”
“Starve may be the only accurate word in that sentence,” the captain growled. “You do realize that a blockade means absolutely no ships are allowed to cross the gravity threshold? Those worlds are primarily minerals exporters. Without the off-world customers, they won’t have the money to buy food, not that it would matter much, with none coming in…”
One of the lieutenants accompanying Paronius waved a dismissive hand. “Economic shipping would have to continue, of course, but…”
“Blockades don’t work that way,” the captain cut him off forcefully. “There are three inhabited worlds in the system, meaning we’d have close to five Billion square kilometers of orbital space to watch. D’you really expect the Navy to board and search every vessel trying to pass through that much space?”
Paronius’ party was silent. Paul noticed that Paronius himself looked slightly surprised, as though nobody had bothered to explain the simple facts to him. How could the major traveling with him not grasp the logistical impracticality of a blockade? He certainly didn’t seem like an idiot.
“Simple mathematics,” Paul observed. “That much space takes thousands of ships to police, and that’s just for a complete shutdown. Anything tries to leave atmo… they destroy it.”
He leaned back, lifting his wine glass and gazing into the red liquid. “If you intend to board and search every single vessel…” He shook his head. “I’m afraid we’d have to strip every squadron on the Rim to get enough ships.” He looked back at Paronius. 
“The Grand Senate would doubtless deem it too costly, assuming CentCom bothered to pass the suggestion along. Wage cost alone would cripple the plan. I doubt the Gliese-667 system could afford to pay a single squadron, let alone several entire fleets.”
He could see, out of the corner of his eye, a furtive glance from the major.
His implants let him read others like a book. Paronius’ heart-rate was fifteen percent above baseline and his face was growing darker by the minute but, though he usually found a confused noble unremarkable, this seemed a bit much. 
Then the elements fell into place. 
Paul resisted the urge to look over at the major.  Whatever his official mission, the Marine officer was the real purpose for Paronius Thatcher’s voyage to home-world. Thatcher was simply too clueless to have been sent for any serious reason.
He was just window dressing.
Governor Balthazar must have been politely ignoring Paronius’ insistence on a blockade, writing it off as his idiot-brother’s typical nonsense. 
But if Balthazar needed to coordinate something delicate, something he didn’t want picked up by Imperial monitors, he’d have to communicate via the old-fashioned Mark I data-storage-unit. 
In this case, the major’s head.
Suddenly, a barely aristocratic dimwit with a half-baked idea would be just the ticket. His ill-advised plan provided the perfect cover. The major could spend a few hours watching the blockade plan being laughed out of CentCom and then he’d be free to meet with co-conspirators on home-world.
Paul was still no closer to identifying what they were up to, but he was at least starting to build the order-of-battle – military parlance for a chart identifying the enemy’s structure.
Paronius wouldn’t be sent off to home-world without the governor’s blessing, so Balthazar was involved. The major was almost certainly a go-between – he doubted the two junior officers would be trusted with information that could get senior officials executed. 
He stored the facial patterns of the major and his two lieutenants in his cranial implant. When the  ship crossed threshold at the Sumpter wormhole station, he’d be able to pull a real-time data query on them before the event horizon normalized.
“A bad business,” Captain Williams insisted, “starving your civilians. Especially when it has no effect on the secessionists. Creates resentment…”
“It would only be until we stopped them,” Paronius countered weakly.
Williams shook his head. “When you outlaw travel, only the outlaws will travel and you’ll have a damn sight more folks turning to the cause if you interfere with their livelihoods.”
“But we have to make an example,” the young lieutenant insisted, gamely coming to Paronius’ defense.
“Hardly the example you want to make.” The captain shook his head before leaning far forward to point at the hapless aristocrat. “It’s folk like your young Miss Urbica who’re making the right kind of example.”
Thatcher recoiled, both from the pointing hand and from the name invoked. “Her father needs to reel her in,” he declared. “It’s unseemly, staying in uniform so long after her demobilization option, and in a combat role? Ridiculous — she’s just a wisp of a girl with a Zhan-Dark complex!”
It was a common enough insult in the Imperium. Women who showed too much independence were labeled with it, even though nobody had any idea of its origins.
Any man who felt he was being upstaged by a woman was almost sure to use it, and Paul couldn’t help but feel the comment meant Thatcher felt inadequate where young Miss Urbica was concerned.
The aristocratic young woman leaned toward the major. “She’s a Marine, isn’t she?” She clearly didn’t care for Paronius Thatcher’s views and wanted to keep him squirming.
A nod. “Yes, ma'am,” he confirmed. “A colonel. Daughter of a middling noble family out of the Ganges system.”
“Came out with that adviser team under the late Rear-Admiral Crispin,” Williams explained. 
“Pardon me, Captain,” the young woman interjected, “Did you say ‘late’?”
Williams touched a finger to the side of his nose. “Crispin had an accident with his sidearm shortly after they arrived in-system. Apparently, the poor fellow managed to shoot himself in the back three times, so now it’s a bit unclear as to who’s in charge. “They’re supposed to stiffen the sector defense forces, but she’s the only one doing any stiffening…
“Pardon my carelessness, ma'am.” He hastened to mollify the shocked young noblewoman. “I mean no double entendre. She’s just a damned good officer. Instead of endless lecturing on how to fight insurgents, she took them off to the edge of the Rim and beat seven kinds of Hell out of the  raiders – even tipped into a skirmish or two with the Greys.”
“When she could have been back at 667, stopping  secessionist terrorist attacks,” Paronius groused.
The captain turned on him with barely concealed disgust and Paul suddenly felt less guilty about tweaking Thatcher earlier. The fool really did have his own blood in the water and here he was, splashing it around like a maniac.
“How exactly would the SDF stop a stadium bombing? Fire on the bomb from orbit? They’d crack open the dome in the process and let that nasty weather in. I suppose you could at least claim the thousands of dead citizens weren’t casualties of the secessionists.”
Paronius developed a sudden interest in the restaurant’s ornate decor.
The captain turned back to the young aristocratic couple “She kept giving the SDF units victory after victory, y’see,” he resumed his explanation to the young woman who was now giving him her undivided attention.
“When they came back from the Battle of the Carbon Well, she gave them a present, the best kind of present a beloved leader could ever give her troops.”
“What?” the noblewoman demanded breathlessly, eyes shining.
“An identity. She declared they would no longer  be miscellaneous, numbered SDF units. From that moment on, they would all be known as the 1st Gliesan Dragoons.”
“And that pleased them?”
“Ma’am, after that, they’d follow her straight into a black hole. She welded them together into a single unit, gave them something to hang their pride on. They don’t have to explain that they were with 724 Regional Defense Squadron which was one of the units that fought at Carbon Well. They just wear the 1GD on their shoulders and everyone knows what they did.”
“Random citizens buy them drinks,” the major drawled, rolling his eyes.
“Not to mention commercial captains,” Williams added emphatically. “We used to have six or seven piracy incidents a year — per ship — but since young Colonel Urbica and her dragoons started patrolling the Gliesan Main…” 
He leaned back, spreading his hands. “Not a single attack in two years.”
“They’re that effective?” the young woman asked.
“It does strain credulity, just a bit,” her husband added. “The raiders were quite bold the last time we came out this way. We were overtaken and boarded in full view of the Iridium colony just four years ago.” He looked at his wife and shuddered. 
“We were completely in their power.”
“Your lovely wife would have been quite safe, I’m sure,” the captain offered gently. “Most of those raiders are nothing more than businessmen, when you get right down to it.”
“Businessmen?” Paronius exploded. “They’re criminals, plain and simple.”
The captain arched an eyebrow. “What businessman isn’t a criminal? Perhaps their only fault is their lack of circumspection? I’ve known aristocrats who commit atrocities on a planetary scale and get Imperial commendations for it.”
He turned back to the young couple. “My point was that they usually have the sense to keep their hands off their high-born captives. Stirring up moral outrage is bad for cash flow.” He shrugged. “Last thing they’d want is a Marine Expeditionary Force sent  to slap them down.
“That, in essence,” he explained, “is what Colonel Urbica is using against them. She knows she just has to make it too expensive for them to continue operations on the Gliesan Main. They’ve gone elsewhere.”
“Chasing off pirates doesn’t stop the secessionists,” the major observed.
“No,” the captain agreed, “it doesn’t, but it does slow them down, or do you think they get their supplies from legal sources?”
The major tilted his head, acknowledging the captain’s point.
Paul drained the last of his wine and set the glass on the table. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said, rising to his feet, “I believe I’ll explore the rest of our excellent ship. Sir.” He returned the captain’s nod and headed for the elevator.
Major Trouble
Paul wandered down the Grande Allee, a seven-story atrium in the ship’s main cylindrical hull, noticing the incredibly expensive merchandise with more than a little disgust. 
The aristocracy was obsessed with their things. He gazed at a pair of shoes in a shop front. They cost enough to feed a family on a Rim world for an entire year. 
What made a couple pounds of silicone and leather worth so much? 
The value of things — such an artificial concept.
He shook his head and moved on. He was no paragon himself. The anachronistic mechanical timepiece on his own wrist would house a family for an entire year.
And he’d just given four of them to his Marine companions. 
He’d bought them as camouflage, or at least that was what he’d told himself at the time. Even if it was camouflage, was it justifiable to spend so many credits simply to confuse aristocrats? 
He knew it helped to move investigations along. When nobles couldn’t figure out what social order he belonged to, it kept them on their heels, made them slip up. 
But he still enjoyed the effects of his camouflage and that always left a taste of guilt. If he’d had the money for just one of those watches as a child, his father wouldn’t have died as an impoverished miner on Hardisty.
He turned right and followed a corridor toward the center of the ship. The ornate hallway turned into a bridge as he stepped into the massive, cylindrical central atrium.
Roughly a kilometer across, the atrium was dominated by the central column. The sounds of music, shouting hawkers and passengers grew in volume as he reached the sliding joint between the bridge and the rotating central cylinder. He stepped onto the column and, preferring a little quiet to order his thoughts, angled toward the garden side.
That major would be his best bet. If he could find out who the Marine was reporting to on Irricana, he’d be able to move on to the bigger players. He knew there was no guarantee that the major’s plot was connected with Julius’ predicament, but it was definitely probable.
He suddenly caught a hint of cologne. 
Those damned pheromones… 
Faint footsteps approached, accelerating. He detected ozone. 
A stun ball. He grinned, continuing to walk through the park as though he didn’t have a care in the world. 
The major would be counting on his augmented abilities — implants that gave Imperial Marines incredible strength, speed and agility. He probably didn’t know he was approaching a target that represented a very rare convergence of factors.
Paul was ex-military and he’d won the patronage of a powerful aristocratic family. The Nathaniels had  arranged for him to keep the basic military augment-suite on his discharge.
Then they sent him for testing.
He wasn’t part of that fractional percentage of citizens compatible with full augmentation, but he was eligible for a hell of a lot.
The Nathaniels had him tweaked within an inch of his life. There were times when he hated them for it, but it did come in handy at moments like this.
He felt a tingle at his lower back as the stun ball made contact. He turned to find his assailant twitching on the stone pathway. He crouched, offering his erstwhile attacker a friendly smile as though they were bumping into one another at a coffee shop or bar.
“Part of the electronic warfare package,” he explained casually, tapping his own chest. He brushed off the man’s feeble attempt to grab his arm. “Not to worry, the effects will wear off over the next twenty minutes.” 
The Marine was purple with rage. His attack had been turned against him with alarming ease. He glared at Paul, who affected not to notice the hostility.
“Directed ionization, or something like that,” he mused. “I wasn’t really listening at the time — the pain was absolutely excruciating.” 
He tilted his head. “But here I am, telling you what you already know. You’ve got the standard Marine package, I’m sure.”
There was no answer from the stunned officer, but he did hear approaching footsteps. Someone was moving through the trees to the left of the path. 
Paul stood as Ed and Mike emerged, pistols in hand. “Gentlemen,” he greeted them warmly. “Your timing is impeccable.” He gestured to the helpless form. “We need to help the major back to our quarters. Seems he’s had a little too much.”
“Too much electricity, you mean.” Ed grinned. “We saw you come into the central atrium and figured we’d keep an eye on you.” He gestured down at the incapacitated Marine. “When this one pulled a stun ball, we almost dropped him, but I had a feeling you knew he was there.”
“Perceptive.” Paul raised an eyebrow. “And if I’d failed to detect his attack?”
Mike shrugged. “Well it was just a stun ball. We would’ve been able to get you both back to the room.”
“Well, we need to camouflage him before we start back to the room.” Paul nodded at Mike. “Dump some whiskey on him, get a bit of it down his throat as well.”
“What makes you think I have…”
“Flexi-flask, right front pocket of that new dinner jacket,” Paul cut him off. “I was in the suite when you put it in there, remember?”
Mike pulled out the small rectangular bladder and  popped the spigot open, pausing to take a sniff. “Y’know, this stuff ain’t cheap.”
Paul bit down on the impatient response that leapt to the tip of his tongue. For a Marine non-com, whiskey, any whiskey, was an expensive luxury. Even the cheap rotgut currently leaking its aromatic compounds from the flask.
“Up in our suite,” Paul began in a salesman-like tone, “there’s a bottle of single malt, distilled on Iona. It spent fifty years in oak before they bottled it, five hundred years ago.” He tilted his head. “Some don’t care for the woody hints, but you,” he emphasized, pointing at Mike, “you, my friend, strike me as the kind of man who might just appreciate such a brilliantly composed whiskey.”
Mike was spellbound.
Paul knew he’d closed the bargain, but he just couldn’t stop himself. He might be a cynic where wine was concerned, but he had a real love for good whiskey and the anticipation was half the fun, something he wanted to share with Mike to the fullest. 
“Fifty years in a sherry barrel,” he continued. “It was one of only eight hundred that survived the bitter trade-war between the Campbells and the MacGregors. It was bottled during the conflict, but then it sat, forgotten, for three hundred years while the Ionans rebuilt their war-shattered planetary economy.
“And then one day, they found the caverns where the last production run of Campbell’s distillery had been stored, and the bottles have been circulating throughout the Imperium ever since. Every now and then, someone dares to open one.”
Mike was nodding, his grin threatening to split his head in half. He stepped over to the major. “Ed, get his mouth open.”
Ed held the major’s nose and, when the man finally opened his mouth for a breath, Mike was ready, pouring almost half down the officer’s throat. Ignoring the strangled coughing, he poured the rest on the man’s tunic and pants.
“Right, let’s get him back to the rooms.” Paul gestured at the coughing form. “Gentlemen, perhaps you could give our inebriated friend a hand? I don’t think he’s quite ready to walk.”
Interrogation
Sandy and Al walked into the suite, just back from dinner, and stopped, staring at the scene before them as the doors slid shut.
Paul, Ed and Mike were sitting on the couches in the main lounge, laughing their heads off at the antics of a holographic cat and mouse. 
A major of the Imperial Marine Corps sat in one of the club chairs, his hands tied and a lamp shade over his head.
“Pre-Imperial stuff,” Paul explained, waving at the cartoon animals. “It’s a wonder it isn’t banned. The cat’s constant failure to catch the mouse despite his huge advantage in strength could easily be seen as a sinister commentary on the Imperium.”
He looked back as Ed and Mike broke out laughing again. “That thing on the cat’s tail is evidently a trap and, from its size, designed for killing mice but it’s been turned on the cat instead.”
He shook his head as he chuckled. “How the Imperial censors never saw the allegorical reference to revolution is completely beyond me.” He looked at the newcomers and followed their gaze. “Oh, the major?” He smiled. “A real party animal, that one, but he didn’t care for the show, so…”
He stood, waving a hand to bring up a holo-menu and pausing the program. He walked over to the prisoner, removing the shade from his head.
“Let’s get started, shall we?”
He sat on the coffee table in front of the major. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like some whiskey? One sip and you’re transported back five centuries to the trade-war on Iona.”
The major gave him a look of pure loathing. “Might as well start slicing into me,” he growled, “cause I’m not going to play along with any of this, you psychotic freak.”
“Well, of course you aren’t,” Paul said in mild surprise, as if he’d always taken the point for granted. “You’re a Marine, after all – incorruptible, after a fashion.”
He looked up at his companion’s frowns and waved a placatory hand. “It’s practically unheard of for a Marine to be bribed or compromised,” he allowed, “but what if you serve a leader who’s so morally compromised that you’re faced with a decision between obeying illegal orders or engaging in mutiny?”
“Like I said: start cutting.”
Paul shook his head. “I have no intention of torturing you, but I will destroy your reputation as well as that of the 538.”
The major frowned but kept his mouth shut.
“I can easily access a burner account,” Paul said as he opened a new holo-menu. “Easiest thing in the worlds to move several hundred thousand credits from that account into yours.” He closed the window.
“There! Payment received; now we just need to make it look like you carried out your little freelance assignment.” He leaned forward. “You’ve just been paid for the demise of one Paronius Thatcher, an aristocrat of some mild comedic value, but the Imperium’s better off without him, don’t you think?”
The captive’s eyes widened. “You murdering bastard…”
“And what was your plan for me?” Paul countered. “After you’d stunned me and done God-knows-what, were you just going to let me go, knowing who you were?”
“You wouldn’t have seen my face,” the major insisted. “I was behind…”
“Behind me, yes,” Paul admitted, “but wearing so much of that cologne you smelled like all the brothels on Narbonne combined. You’re so inept at this.” He shook his head. “You leave a trail like a quick-slug. It will be no surprise to anyone who knows you that you received a fatal defensive wound while murdering your target.
“Or you can tell us who you report to and I’ll remove the offending funds from your account.”
“Go to Hell!”
Paul sighed. “Are you so sure we aren’t already there?” He stood, looking at Ed. “Well, if he isn’t going to comply, we only have one use for him. Let’s get him down to Paronius’ cabin and…”
He tumbled back onto the coffee table as the officer lurched out of his chair and raced across the room. The major leapt, getting his right foot onto the low railing overlooking the central atrium, and pushed off, easily escaping the artificial gravity field of the suite.
As the five men stared in surprise, their escaped prisoner writhed in agony as he floated toward the central column. His skin slowly turned blue and ice crystals formed around his eyes and mouth.
Paul chewed the inside of his lip for a few seconds. “Well, that was certainly unexpected.” He looked at his companions. “Do you think he was aware of the extreme cold and lack of oxygen out there, or did it come as a surprise?”
“Came as a surprise to me,” Ed admitted. 
Paul nodded. The atmosphere in the central atrium was held close to the central column through a process that involved an artificially created energy gradient. It drew oxygen and energy away from most of the vast, open space.
“Oh, shit,” Mike exclaimed. “His wrists are still tied. It’s going to raise questions.”
Paul gave it a moment’s thought, then shook his head. “No, it’s just as though he’d been dropped in a vat of liquid nitrogen. He’ll shatter when he hits the garden. Shipboard security will have a hell of a time figuring it out — probably write it off as a drunken leap.”
He opened a holo screen and located the ship’s outgoing message queue. He hacked into the secure folder easily and found one message from a major in the Imperial Marines. Just to be sure, Paul deleted it.
No sense in letting a message get out that might identify Paul as a threat.
“What exactly were you hoping to get from him?” Ed asked.
“I’d originally planned to keep a discrete eye on him to see who he’s dealing with on Irricana,” Paul explained as he watched the major impact the garden, too far away to see the grisly details. No sound reached them across the airless space.
“Unfortunately, he developed suspicions about me and tried to… Well, we’ll never know what he had in mind, but he forced a change in the plan. I was hoping he might trade a little information in return for my abandoning a plan I never would have carried out in the first place.”
 “You were bluffing about the contract killing?” Mike was surprised.
“Nothing to gain in actually carrying it through.” Paul shrugged. “I was just going to toss him off the balcony.”
“Well, I suppose it’s nice he did it on his own,” Ed mused. “Death before dishonor…”
“Well, he was a Marine, after all,” Paul agreed. He looked at Sandy. “Did you guys learn anything of interest?”
A grin. “We had a first rate jaeger-schnitzel at a place on the Grande Allee, drank a bit too much lager and talked to a hell of a lot of idiots.”
Al picked up the story. “Then we went looking for that falafel hut you mentioned.” He held up a hand. “Don’t give us that look,” he insisted. “We didn’t learn a damn thing in the first-class areas, but it’s the vendors on the promenade that have to pay attention to what’s going on if they want to earn out their franchises. 
“They need to read the crowds and identify the potential customers if they want to stay in business. Some of those guys would ace the deep recon course — they’re perceptive.”
“All right,” Paul held up his hands. “I withdraw my earlier remark. What did you learn at the falafel hut?”
“First off, this guy’s had the franchise on the Gliese run for more than twenty years, so he’s got a good feel for what’s normal and what isn’t,” Sandy explained. “He took one look at us and pegged us as officers in the 538.”
“The 538 specifically, huh?”
“That’s right,” Sandy nodded. His eyes suddenly lit up when he saw the open whiskey bottle on the sideboard. He nodded inquiringly in its general direction. 
“Help yourself.” Paul dropped onto a couch as Sandy and Al made a beeline for the bottle. “Grab flasks from the drawer and fill ‘em up while you’re at it. That stuff’s too pricey to leave any behind for the crew to guzzle.”
Sandy rooted through the drawer while Al poured two tumblers. “So he knew the 538’s been shifting troops to the Gliese system for a couple of years now.” Sandy said. “Used to be a couple hundred per trip, at first, but now it’s just a dozen or so. That many grunts — some of them are bound to spill a few beans.”
 “And they’re always in civvies,” Al added. “He made us for Marines in a heartbeat and the way we’re dressed had him thinking we’re officers. He asked us if we’re planning to move the entire unit to Irricana.
“We acted as though we had no idea what he was talking about, with a nudge and a wink thrown in so we wouldn’t scare him, and he took great delight in showing us what he knew.”
The four Marines were all at pay-band twenty or above. That meant they all had the advanced Prisoner of Conflict course. A big part of POC training was resisting interrogation which, of necessity, involved an understanding of interrogation methods.
Paul was pleased with the results of their efforts, but he wasn’t terribly surprised. 
He held up a hand to pause the conversation. Accessing his cranial processor, he opened the queue with the facial recognition queries from dinner and added in a request for logistical records from the 538th Marine Expeditionary Force.
He’d seen more than a few sneaky deployments over the years and the troops themselves were usually hidden with great care, but a unit with fifty thousand personnel was a complex beast. Somewhere, there were details that the conspirators might miss.
The new request would synch with home-world as they traversed the event horizon at  Sumpter station.
“OK,” Paul said, picking up his tumbler. “We should be able to find corroborating evidence if the 538 is really involved, but what is it they’re involved in?” 
He looked into the amber liquid. “That’s a question we’ll have to answer when we reach Irricana.”