In Earth's Service (Mapped Space Book 2) (35 page)

My brother gave the
Chairman a sour look. “Not at all.”

The door to the
technical services center rattled as someone tried to force it open, then a
fist banged on the door outside. “Hey Ardie, why’s the door locked?”

I wanted to hear more,
but I couldn’t risk being caught now, not with what I knew. I disabled the
console, killed the feeds from the Vega Room and stunned the technician and the
guard again. Knowing I’d never get the stunner through the arch scanner, I left
it on a shelf filled with spare parts, then slipped out through the rear exit,
activating my communicator.

“Jase, you there?”

“Yeah, Skipper.”

“Have Izin access the
Aphrodite’s passenger manifest. I want him to identify a passenger for me, name
of Manning. Born on Ardenus, probably lives on Earth. They call him the
Chairman.”

* * * *

The Chairman’s name was Manning
Thurlow Ransford III. Izin discovered the
Aphrodite’s
most expensive
suite was permanently set aside for his personal use and a super yacht parked
several clicks away was his private interstellar taxi. What he was chairman of,
how he had the power to summon leaders from six major Core System worlds or why
he would initiate an undeclared war on Earth with Mataron technical assistance
was a mystery. He wasn’t listed in my threading’s catalogue of cosmic criminals
and none of the public data services had any record of his existence. Wherever
his talents lay, remaining out of the public gaze was high among them.

“Access to the Olympus Deck requires a restricted
security pass,” Izin informed me via communicator.

I’d found a vacant seat in a fast service diner.
Serverbots hung from a network of slideways above the tables, dropping
interactive menu screens in front of customers, lowering food from the kitchen
onto the tables and scooping up empty plates with robotic efficiency. It was
crowded, noisy and anonymous.

“Any way in?” I whispered into my hand.

“There’s a formal dinner tonight for conference
attendees, Captain,” Izin replied. “Ransford’s name is on the guest list.”

“Too public.”

“The ship’s butler service is currently cleaning his
dinner suit. It’s due to be returned at four.”

“Where’s the butler service?”

* * * *

A short time later, I stepped from the service
elevator onto the Olympus Deck wearing an ill fitting service uniform and an
identification chip that told the ship’s tracking system that I was a thirty
two year old woman from Belize. The chip would open doors for me, but any
scrutiny would reveal I bore no resemblance to the maid now bound and gagged in
a cramped closet five levels below. At the far end of the corridor, a pair of
guards at the main entry looked my way. I gave them a curt wave, which they
acknowledged with a disinterested nod, then I carried Ransford’s biowrapped
suit to the Pantheon Suite’s large white double doors.

“Suit for Mr. Ransford,”
I said to the door panel, hoping it was equipped with only a chip reader, not a
DNA scanner.

“You are two minutes
late, Miss Manzanero,” the door panel informed me. “A performance decrement has
been added to your efficiency profile. Your performance rating is now ninety three
point four.”

“Ninety three point
four? That’s good. Now open the door.”

The double doors slid
silently apart, giving me access to a long lounge area. A marble topped bar
filled with a vast array of elaborately labeled and shaped drink dispensers ran
off to my left, deeply padded lounge chairs occupied the center and an enormous
curved table surrounded by transparent datapanes dominated the far side of the
room. The rectangular thin sheets standing at the edge of the table scrolled
with numbers, charts and news feeds, all playing to an enormous empty chair, the
center from where the spider spun his cosmic web.

Opposite it all was a floor
to ceiling holowall running the length of the room, providing a realistic vista
of palm trees, pure white sand and an aquamarine sea reaching to the horizon. Muted
sounds of the ocean and the aroma of tropical flowers filled the room. If I
hadn’t known I was aboard a starliner eight hundred light years from Sol, I
might have believed I was at a luxury estate in Tahiti
. It was an absurd
use of space and energy on a starship, even a starliner, yet proof humans would
pay exorbitant prices for a little bit of simulated Earth far from home.

I hiked across the sprawling
entertainment area, past the Chairman’s datapane encircled nerve center, to a
door that slid aside as I approached. Inside was a dressing room with closets lining
one wall, a wide entry to an immense bathing area opposite the wardrobes and access
to a bedroom at the far end. Standing along the wall beyond the bathroom entry
were ten recharging alcoves, each with its own full body exoskeleton, all
identical in design except for their colors which ranged from black through the
spectrum to white. The sound of running water came from the bathing area where
a large circular shower rained upon a lavishly decorated spa pool. Strangely
for a dressing area, there were no mirrors, perhaps a sign of the Chairman’s
dislike of his own appearance.

“Is that my suit?” Ransford
called from the bubbling pool.

“Yes, sir,” I replied
with butlerish politeness.

“Do you want me to see
to it, sir?” a female asked.

“No. Finish drying me.”

The sound of absorbers
wiping wet flesh came from the bathroom, then a completely naked Ransford glided
out on a pressure chair, his rolls of fat on full display. He was followed by a
beautiful young woman. She was tall and lean with short golden hair and wore
only a G-string. His pressure chair floated into the center of the room while
she retrieved his undergarments from one of the closets. When she returned to
his side, pressure fields lifted him into the air allowing her to dress him.

“Which color, sir?” she
asked.

“It’s a formal dinner,
so … the black one, thank you, Dara.”

“Of course, sir, an
excellent choice.”

Dara guided the pressure
chair by hand toward the black exoskeleton while Ransford floated above it like
a beached whale in white underwear, then he touched a control on the chair’s
arm and the black machine stepped from its alcove.

“That’s far enough,” I
said, tossing the suit on the floor.

Ransford turned toward
me, for the first time acknowledging my existence. He studied me curiously,
gauging the threat, while his statuesque assistant moved to place herself
protectively between him and me.

“You’ve crumpled my
suit,” he said without any sign of fear.

“Considering you’re
about to attack Earth for the Matarons, that’s the least of your concerns.”

A cold look spread
across his face, then he nodded to the young woman. Dara immediately launched
herself at me, kicking at my head with surprising speed. I barely evaded her attack,
then she spun and kicked low and hard at my legs, sweeping my feet out from
under me, sending me crashing back-first to the floor. Her speed and strength
told me she was no mere plaything, but a gene-modded, combat trained dark
angel. I’d heard of her kind, sex toy by night, body guard by day, born to kill
and please with equal proficiency, but they were so rare and expensive, she was
the first I’d ever encountered.

The moment I hit the
floor she was in the air, kicking down at my throat. I rolled away as her heel
slammed down with neck breaking force, then she kicked out at my head with her
other foot as I came to my feet. I deflected with an elbow and kicked at her
standing knee, but she somersaulted into the air and side footed me in the ribs,
launching me through the bathroom entry. I struck the unbreakable ceramisteel
tiles awkwardly as she landed with perfect balance.

“Bravo, my dear,”
Ransford said as if he was attending a sports event.

The dark angel leapt at
me again as I started to get to my feet. I rolled beneath her, kicked up and caught
her trailing foot, trying to knock her off balance, but she twisted in mid air
like a cat and landed gracefully. Giving her no time, I charged. Dara tried gouging
my eyes, but I deflected with one hand and caught her throat with the other, driving
her back toward the spa-pool. She thrashed wildly, tried palm-striking my
elbow, kicking my groin and clawing my face, but I deflected each attack before
slipping on the wet tiles. We fell together, my weight on top as I drove her
throat down hard. There was a sickening thud as her head struck the tiles at
the edge of the pool then she went limp in my hands. I rolled off her, getting
to my feet slowly as blood dripped from the back of her head into the pool and her
glazed eyes stared blankly at the ceiling. Certain she was dead, I turned to
Ransford who was watching from his pressure chair.

“Impressive,” he said,
showing no concern for his dead angel. “Dara would have killed most men.”

“One look would be
enough,” I said walking into the dressing room as Ransford floated back in his
chair, keeping his distance.

“I’ll give you ten like her
and a hundred million credits.”

“You don’t even know who
I am or what I want.”

“Does it matter? You just
defeated one of the most highly trained, custom designed killing machines money
can buy,” he said, instructing his pressure chair to lower him down onto its cushions,
“and you know things you shouldn’t. I’m quite sure you’re not here to help me
dress.”

“No,” I agreed.

“Are you planning to
kill me?”

“Would the attack on the
Solar System stop if you were dead?”

“Nothing can stop it
now.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because I can,” he
replied coldly. “Because someone has to break Earth’s control.”

“What are the Matarons
paying you?”

A superior smile
appeared on his plump lips. “Paying me?” He chuckled incredulously. “They’re
not paying me anything. I’m paying one Mataron scientist a king’s ransom to
provide technical assistance and paying even more to the Brotherhood for a few
alien-tech generators. If the Matarons discovered one of their people was
working for a human, they’d kill him – and me!”

In a flash I realized
Ransford, who thought he was pulling all the strings, had been tricked by the
Matarons! “You don’t know!”

“Know what?” he asked as
a flicker of confusion appeared on his face.

“The snakeheads are
providing the energy siphons to the Brotherhood. Inok a’Rtor is their agent. They’ve
been playing you from the start!”

Manning Thurlow Ransford
III’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not possible.”

“How’d you find out about
the Hrane technology? Whose idea was it to use a wormhole to bypass the Solar
System’s defenses? Who has the most to gain if mankind tears itself apart?”

His expression hardened
as he reconstructed events in his mind. “
Inok a’Rtor offered me a way to
speed up interstellar trade. How we are using that equipment was my idea.”

“The snakeheads have the technology to listen in
on any conversation you have. They knew you were looking for a way to break
Earth Navy’s power and they gave you exactly what you wanted. They used your
greed for their own ends!”

“Why would they do that?” he asked suspiciously.

“Because the Tau Cetins will never let the
Matarons attack us, but the Forum will sanction mankind if we try to destroy
ourselves.”

He stared at me with
growing annoyance. “Who are you?”

“Sirius Kade.”

His eyes widened in surprise.
“The same Sirius Kade who was involved in the disappearance of the Soberano?”

There was only one way
he could know about the
Soberano
, if he was the man responsible for
sending her to the edges of Mapped Space a year ago. I realized he wasn’t
simply the chairman of a gang of traitors, he was
the
Chairman, head of
the Consortium, the shadowy organization that used money as a weapon, that had the
power to exploit planetary economies and control world governments. And worse, unbeknown
to Manning Thurlow Ransford III, the Matarons had been pulling his strings since
well before the
Soberano
incident.

“What did happen to the
Soberano?” he asked.

“Ask the Matarons. I’m
sure they’re listening!” The details of her destruction were classified. She’d
been listed as overdue and her crew lost for reasons unknown. The truth was, I
destroyed her.

“A pity. Her Captain was
quite useful to me. I suppose he’s dead?” He took my lack of an answer as an
affirmative. “Hmm. I took a hefty loss on that deal.”

“Not as big a loss as
you’re going to take on this one!”

“That’s where you’re
wrong. Even if the Matarons are getting what they want, so am I.”

“You already have
everything,” I said. “Why risk it all by starting a war?”

“It’s not about what I
have, but what I don’t have,” he said simply. “More is always preferable to
less.” He pinched one of his rolls of fat absently as if his obesity was proof
of his insatiable appetite.