The Far Bank of the Rubicon (The Pax Imperium Wars: Volume 1) (29 page)

Summers set quickly to work. He inserted a scanner into the mouth of Holland, and within seconds, a printer across the room started spitting out the dental implants he would use. He also used an eye-dropper and gloves to drip a few globules of black, sticky liquid into the palm of Holland’s hand. The viscous liquid seemed to melt, spreading across Holland’s palm. Summers felt the familiar prickling and stinging as the skin on his own palm changed, adjusting to fit that of the deceased man. Then the intelligent liquid moved onto each of Holland’s fingers. Summers’ hand responded by changing each of his fingerprints. The process wasn’t perfect, yet. It would take a few days for the muscles underneath to move so as to fit their new hand, but it would be good enough to use any locks accessed by Holland to enter the palace.

While this was all taking place, Summers removed a small capsule from his pocket and swallowed. This was always the part that Summers liked the least. The pill activated as it was pushed to the back of his mouth, and instead of proceeding to his stomach, it propelled itself into his airway. The sensation was always one of choking. He had learned to control his natural reaction as best he could, but it was never comfortable. After about ten seconds, the choking sensation subsided, and Summers took a deep, relaxing breath. He then removed Holland’s heads-up, put it on his own head, and dialed Holland’s dentist. In a voice remarkably like that of Holland, Summers cancelled Holland’s appointment, saying something had come up at work. Holland-Summers went ahead and rescheduled the appointment for a month from now. There was little chance that Summers would need to keep it, and rescheduling always lessened suspicion. In the last few months, Summers had often kept appointments for those whose identities he had stolen, although he couldn’t do that with a dentist.

When all was said and done, Summers wore Holland’s clothes and had his face and eye color. Summers imitated his build and height, along with his fingerprints, and even his retina pattern had been mapped onto the contacts Summers wore.

Holland’s body was placed in the back corner of the rented space. Summers injected him with a special fluid which would help his body decay from the inside out without odor. Six weeks from now the husk that was left would collapse in on itself, and two weeks after that, there would be no DNA left in the pile of carbon and minerals lying on the floor. The only sign that it had been a body would be its shape.

A little over forty minutes from when Summers had walked in the door as a stumbling-drunk Athenian Colonel clutching a friend, Staff Sergeant Jeremy Holland appeared to walk out, very much alive.

Summers took a small taxi token out of his pocket and tapped out a short, private, entangled particle message. Means of entrance acquired. Expect contact soon.

Three days later, Summers watched Duke Malek prance bleary-eyed and drunk down the hall of his palace into one of the guest suites near the main ballroom with a young teen on his arm. The oversized Duke towered over the girl, who couldn’t have been over sixteen, more likely fourteen.

Summers cringed internally. Men like Malek were why the Unity needed to bring order to the rest of the galaxy. Whatever vestigial bits of deference had been left in Summers’ soul faded into oblivion as the door to the guest suite shut behind the Duke. He wanted to strangle him.

The girl made the appropriate noises at the appropriate times. Yelping when she was hit, but always managing to keep in her grunts an apropos, if contrived, note of desire. Thirty minutes later, looking simultaneously proud and stung by her ordeal, the abused adolescent smiled and curtsied as a mostly naked duke kissed her hand goodnight at the door.

Summers wondered if the Duke could see the disingenuous hollowness in the smile. He probably can, and he doesn’t care. In fact, I think it gets him off. Summers batted away the unwanted emotion, and kept his inner world serene.

If the girl’s eyes had appeared terrified when she went into the room, they now seemed dead. Whatever had happened, the girl resided somewhere far away in a dark and protected corner of her mind. Summers knew that because he took advantage of such corners.

The irony of the similarities between he and the Duke weren’t lost on Summers. When he thought on such things, Summers comforted himself with the knowledge that he was creating a better world, a more orderly galaxy with a proper system of governance, and a destiny—that he wasn’t a monster simply for the sake of his own personal gain.

But at this moment, Summers didn’t waste time on philosophy. Wanting to take advantage of the Duke’s state of undress, he was moving even before the girl had completely disappeared around the corner. He entered the guest suite almost at a run and then immediately stopped to block the door, locking it behind him. He faced the Duke, who was just working his way back into his huge pants, the waist of which would have easily engulfed three Summers.

The Duke turned and looked at the guard. “What do you want?” he said, clearly angered by the interruption of his privacy.

Summers drew Holland’s side arm and pointed it at the Duke as he let his face morph.

“Who the hell…?” The Duke started to yell.

In meatspace, Summers moved quickly, elegantly wrapping an arm around the Duke’s windpipe and cutting off his ability to speak before he got another word out, all the while pointing the weapon at Malek’s temple. In intraspace, he moved to disable the subcutaneous emergency beacon located just below Malek’s collarbone.

Summers spoke in his most measured and calm voice. “My name is Elijah Summers. I work for Timothy Randall, CEO and president of the Unity corporation. I am here to discuss your attitudes toward a possible alliance between our two nations. Negotiations would be hampered if I had to deal with your son. Nod to me if you will keep quiet.”

A gagging, purple-faced Malek nodded once.

Summers lessened his grip until Malek inhaled a desperate breath of air. When Malek didn’t scream, Summers let go of his throat completely but still kept the weapon pointed at the fat man who now panted and gagged while holding his throat. Summers stepped around from behind the enormous man and picked up the Duke’s shirt, which lay on the floor. Holding it out to him, he said, “Duke Malek, I apologize for the discourtesy of my introduction. As you can imagine, it is of the utmost importance that I am not found.”

Malek accepted the shirt with his right hand and rubbed his throat with his left. He scowled, speaking with the petulant tone of an aggrieved child captured in an adult’s body. “Where’s my bodyguard?”

“I am sorry, Duke Malek, but I must inform you that I murdered him.”

The Duke buttoned his shirt. His face reddened, and he raised his voice, slightly. Overall, however, he kept his anger in check. He still feared the man with a gun standing across the room. “You come in my palace, murder my guards, then attack me in my own room, and you expect me to negotiate with you? What makes you think I won’t have you killed?”

Summers smiled. “You may try if you like, but all you will do is lose more men.”

Summers paused before he went on. “There is another way you might choose to look at the situation.”

“And what is that?” Now clothed again, Malek drew himself up to his full height, trying to restore some of his dignity. To Summers, he looked rather like a walrus, all fattened for a long winter after a year’s worth of feeding. It wasn’t all that impressive.

Summers answered with measured calm. “You might try to recognize that you are very important to Timothy Randall. Of all the esteemed rulers in this galaxy, he sent me to you as your personal bodyguard.”

Malek squinted. “You said Randall wanted to give me an alliance. What does he offer for such a betrayal of my liege lord?”

“Nothing less than the throne of the House of Athena itself.”

If Malek was surprised at the statement, he kept it well hidden. “And what must I do to be worthy of such a prize?”

Recognizing that they had moved from bargaining to simply fixing a price, Summers smiled openly.

Jonas walked up the ten steps of the royal shuttle. As he climbed, he remembered a time over seven years prior in which he and his father had exited this same vehicle with sixty other fathers and sons for a pilgrimage walk with a priest who was no longer welcome at the palace.

Even nearly a year after his father’s death, the unwanted memory threatened Jonas’ composure as he stepped on board. At the top of the stairs, he turned and waved, acting as if the press had been invited to witness the event. They hadn’t, and only one lonely, military documentary camera hung in the air.

Jonas thought it might be a good time for a gentle smile.

This mission was to be kept secret, at least until it succeeded. Then they would release the video to the world, and the press could act like they had been there every second along the way. Its importance would make cameras a ubiquitous part of his existence for the next few weeks. Jonas had become so used to them he hardly noticed, and he didn’t give it another thought.

As he stood at the top of the steps and waved, he let the corners of his lips turn up just enough to show that he wasn’t worried or concerned, but not too much so that he appeared jovial or too happy, either.

Jonas turned and walked on board, ready for his shuttle flight to the newly minted Allied Seventh Fleet.

The trip to the fleet orbiting above Athena would take just over four hours. Along the way, he would have time to think. He wasn’t exactly sure how it had all come to this. It didn’t really make sense to him. He would have much rather been stationed with his unit on the remnants of the Fourth. They were the battle-hardened veterans. They were his friends. This mission for the palace made him uncomfortable.

Ever since his role in the capture of the
Indiana
, his relationship with the palace had been difficult, to say the least. The Allies needed a war hero, and with his name, Jonas fit the bill. Since that time, he had hardly spent any time with his unit at all. Instead, he had been paraded around, used to recruit volunteers, and to tell the widows their loss was a worthwhile sacrifice for a house of nobles who truly cared.

Jonas hated that last part of the work. It felt so disingenuous. How could the House of Athena ever replace a lost lover or father?
We can’t, and it’s a lack of integrity that we speak like we can
, thought Jonas.

He fidgeted with his jacket. He hated the red sash he now wore. It felt out of place on his Marine Captain’s uniform. The military liaison for the palace suggested that he wear it to identify him as the Prince, rather than simply another captain assigned to the fleet. Jonas had no interest in standing out from any other captain in the fleet and was about to object when Dmitri reminded him that he wasn’t going as simply a military officer. He was going to represent the House of Athena.

How he was supposed to do that he wasn’t sure. Very little guidance had been given him by Dmitri or anyone else, for that matter. He knew that the people regarded him as a war hero. Dmitri had shown him a couple of the more egregious letters to the editor, one of which demanded that he be made a fleet admiral immediately. Another said that control of the whole war ought to be turned over to him. Jonas knew enough to understand that if Dmitri had brought these two to his attention, they weren’t perceived to be the work of a couple of crackpots. There must have been others.

Even so, he wasn’t sure what his status as a war hero to the public had to do with bringing him on board the Seventh Fleet for the coming counterattack. He felt like a mascot or a lucky charm. He didn’t like that role at all.

Jonas sighed. With this mission, the palace had finally found a way to co-opt his military service and make it part of the grand scheme for the House of Athena.

He picked up the heads-up in his pocket and put it on. He absently sent a dialing command with his thoughts. The device started to ring.

Sleepy and bleary-eyed, Sophia picked up. “Hello?”

“Hi, sweetie. Sorry to wake you. I just wanted to hear your voice.”

On the display over his left eye, Sophia smiled.

The cameras rolled again when Jonas left the royal shuttle and entered the hangar bay on the deck of the brand new Athenian dreadnaught
Ares
. He stepped smartly down as the officers of the fleet stood at attention in their best dress uniforms. At their head, Admiral Carmanda Brennen stood at attention and saluted the Prince. He returned the gesture and then fell in step beside her as they reviewed the stiff rows of officers before departing for a private meeting in a nearby conference room. The camera followed them to the door, which Jonas noticed was completely mechanical, with a wheel to seal the bulkhead.

Steps forward by moving backward
, Jonas thought, as he entered the compartment, which was closed by a short, red-headed crewcut young sailor all of eighteen.

The Seventh Fleet was the first fleet of Athenian warships built in response to the dangers posed by Korpi cyber-warfare. The Seventh was the Admiralty’s baby. The design and construction of the fleet went back to before the beginning of the war. With the Korpi's aggressive cyber-warfare plan leading to the disastrous fall of four gates within days of the war’s start, the Admiralty immediately halted construction of the Seventh and did an emergency audit of all electronic systems on the ships. The timing of the redesign caused major problems for the Athenian war machine, as keels for several of the larger vessels had already been laid, but the shocked Admiralty finally grasped the magnitude of the cyber threat.

It turned out that ninety-six point two percent of systems involved in the fleet either had an active connection to intraspace or an electronic component which could be accessed through intraspace. A quick analysis of what systems could be built without any use of hackable electronics followed. That process was completed within sixty days.

In the Seventh Fleet, things like mess halls, which used to be chock-full of food printers and electronically-controlled matter-storage facilities, now had chefs, old-fashioned natural gas freezers, and ovens. It took another sixty days of non-stop labor to redesign each vessel. The process was mind-bogglingly expensive for Athena, using a staggering seventeen percent of the overall defense budget and requiring the forced recruitment of thousands upon thousands of engineers and systems experts.