Starship's Mage 2 Hand of Mars (27 page)

Damien was reviewing the data he had on the anti-air and anti-space defenses of Nouveaux Versailles when Amiri walked into his room, the Secret Service Agent not even bothering to knock. He glanced up as she came in, and then watched the tall woman as she crossed the room, pulled a spare chair up next to the desk and took a seat, watching him.

He returned her gaze for a long moment. Her silent regard was nerve-wracking, and he finally broke the quiet.

“Did you want something, Julia, or are you just here to fuck with me?”

“I’m trying to find the Hand inside the man hiding in his quarters,” she said bluntly. “I’m not Desmond Alexander. I don’t know what he sees in you. I don’t know your plan. And right now, the future of this planet hangs on what you’re going to do.

“So I’m trying to see how hiding in here while the only force you
might
be able to commandeer runs in circles, serves your plan.”

He glared at her. She was right, but it still burned to be called on it.

“I don’t
have
a fucking plan,” he snapped. “Is that what you want to hear, Julia? I don’t have a gods-damned
clue
. The only plan that comes to mind is to mount up and attack Nouveaux Versailles on my own, and runes or no runes, that’s fucking suicide.

“I need the Wing - I need their brains, and I need their knowledge - and I need them to come on-side of their own free will. Ordering them around isn’t going to save anyone.”

And he was terrified. He’d spent the last three years buried in the most secure fortress on the planet, learning everything he could about magic and law. He’d fought before that, and he’d fought now to survive, but it wasn’t his first choice.

Even on the
Blue Jay
, he’d only been trying to save himself and his friends. Now, an entire
world
seemed to be expecting an answer.

“They’re not going to ‘come on-side,’ Damien,” Amiri said flatly. “They ran in circles for two hours and are splitting up to ‘think it over’. Like you said, no-one can order them around - not even Lori. All our dear ‘Alpha’ can do is
lead
them, and right now, she’s leading them into indecision and fear.”

Damien threw up his hands, the holographic screen from his PC fading out in the air.

“And what do you want me to
do
?” he demanded.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But what I do know? These people need a Hand. They
need
someone to show them a way. Otherwise, the Marines are going to arrive, and tens of thousands will die because they’ll have no choice but to bombard the city’s defenses.

“That’s the kind of mess from which UnArcana worlds are born,” she reminded him. “And they look at you, and they see a kid playing at war. I
know
your past. I know the Mage-King gave you that Hand for a reason. But they don’t even know you’re a Hand, and they can’t see past your appearance.

“Telling them you’re a Hand won’t help - you need to prove it. You need to make them believe you can save them.”

“And what if I can’t?” Damien whispered, even as her words tugged at something in his mind.

“If you can’t, no-one else will,” his bodyguard told him.

He swallowed hard. She was right. That thought was what terrified him and had him hiding in his room. He’d
seen
what happened when Mars failed to intervene properly - he’d almost died on Chrysanthemum, a world where a lack of Protectorate intervention had led to the locals getting Legatan help and becoming an UnArcana world.

Legatan help. Like helicopter gunships, advanced weapons, veteran trainers - even Augment special forces. The kind of men and women who could, say, take down a security patrol without blinking.

“
Son of a bitch
,” he swore aloud as the pieces clicked into place. A moment later, he was on his feet. “Where’s that battle laser of yours, Julia?”

“In my room,” she replied, clearly confused.

“Grab it,” he ordered. “I may not have a plan yet, but if nothing else, I just realized there’s an extra player in this twisted game - and I want to make sure whose side they’re on.”

#

Alissa Leclair had been living permanently at the hidden airbase for a while, and her quarters were near the command center - well away from where the various guests had been quartered.

“Would you care to explain why I’m toting a squad support weapon through the middle of a friendly base?” Amiri demanded as Damien checked to make sure the corridors were clear around them.

“Leclair is a Legatan Augment,” he explained simply. “And almost certainly a Legatan
spy
. If she so much as twitches, shoot her and keep shooting until she stops moving.” He stepped up to the door, grinding any fear or nervousness under foot.

“Is it likely to get that bad?” his bodyguard asked, subtly shifting her stance as she realized he was deadly serious.

“I hope not,” he admitted, and knocked on the Legatan woman’s door.

“What is it?”

“It’s Montgomery,” he told her. “Can we talk for a minute?”

“Sure.”

The door slid open and Damien stepped through. Amiri followed him through a moment later, and the door slid shut behind them as Leclair turned to face them.

“What the
fuck
?” she demanded as she found herself staring down the crystalline emitter of Amiri’s battle laser.

“Sit down, Miss Leclair,” Damien ordered flatly. “Like I said, we need to talk, and I need your complete honesty.”

“So you have your minion point a
heavy weapon
at me?”

“If I’m wrong, I will apologize, but I have the suspicion not much less would suffice if you decided to be a threat,” he told her calmly. “You see, your contacts slipped in your scuffle last night. I was too distracted for it to really hit home.”

The Legatan woman stared at him like he was crazy.

“What are you on about?”

“I take it you weren’t briefed on my history,” Damien told her conversationally. So far, there was still a chance he was off-base, but he doubted it. “Or you’d have known I once spent a month transporting an entire platoon of Legatan Augment commandos.”

She froze. It wasn’t even a subtle thing. Every conscious and unconscious movement completely shut down as her body slipped into an inhuman trance. Her eyes flicked to the battle laser, assessing.

“I almost didn’t realize what I’d seen,” he continued, certain now. “After all, who has
square
pupils? Only combat Augments. I’m surprised the Directorate didn’t send a more… subtle agent.”

The Legatus Military Intelligence Directorate officially didn’t exist. Certainly, the Mage-King’s government had never acknowledged its existence - but everyone knew it was the dirty tricks branch of the Legatan government. A branch that, at least occasionally, helped rebellions turn planets into UnArcana worlds.

“Even if I
am
an Augment,” Leclair said slowly, “I’m still a private citizen, here on my own business. People off Legatus like cyborgs little enough that it’s wise to keep secrets.”

“I could almost buy that, Miss Leclair,” Damien told her. “Except… modern stealth gunships? A pilot completely trained in the use of those aircraft? An entire
arsenal
of modern small arms and squad support weapons?” He gestured to the laser in Amiri’s hands. “No. This is an LMID operation. I saw them on Chrysanthemum, and I can see the pattern. So you have a choice. You can tell me the truth, and we can perhaps come to a compromise - or I can tell Lori her entire rebellion has been funded and orchestrated by Legatus to betray the Protectorate.”

The Augment, still in that inhumanly frozen combat mode, glanced at the battle laser, then at Damien’s ungloved hands where the silver inlay was fully visible.

He could see the moment she made up her mind, her body slipping out of the hyper-active combat mode piece by piece, slowly returning to a normal human tone.

“Fuck,” she said softly. “This whole op has been a disaster from the beginning,” she told them, slowly leaning back and taking a seat on her bed. “You may as well take a seat. Keep the gun on me if you want, Amiri, but let’s all be honest - I’m not one of the Mage-hunters, so I don’t stand much of a chance against Montgomery here.”

Damien pulled up a chair, but Amiri remained standing, the laser’s emitter still trained on Leclair.

“I wasn’t
supposed
to be an infiltrator,” Leclair told them. “You’re right - LMID doesn’t send combat Augments on infiltration missions. By and large, we don’t even send Augments on them, but there are a few with more expensive optics used for quiet ops.

“It was supposed to be a full-disclosure armed support mission,” she continued. “The Wing was offered a deal - in exchange for putting UnArcana status to a vote in the new, properly elected, legislature, we’d provide aircraft, armor, and infantry equipment, plus trainers for all that, to wage their revolution. We were offering a lot for what we figured wasn’t a big concession.

“Armstrong and her people turned us down flat. We had to scramble at the last minute - in the end, we started smuggling the gear we’d planned to
give
them into the shipments they were paying for. More than a few smugglers and arms dealers got paid twice, but we got the gear we wanted into their hands here.

“I and a few others were already en route, so we were tasked with subtler infiltration,” she explained. “I was supposed to command the training team, but I was the only one who actually managed to get into the Wing - and the trust I earned was worth too much to risk it by bringing in the rest of my team.

“So yeah,” she concluded, “I’m LMID. But honestly? We’re here because Mars
wasn’t
. At this point, we’re not even getting anything out of it - but we’d planned the op and Vice-Director Rickets figured removing Vaughn was worth the money and equipment we already had in place all on its own. A moment of weakness on his part, I suppose.”

“I can imagine that de-stabilizing the Protectorate and distracting Martian resources for years were also on his mind,” Damien said dryly. “So what happens if I tell Armstrong and the rest this?”

She stiffened again, though this looked to be a more… human reaction than her earlier lapse into combat mode.

“Nothing of much fun for anyone,” she admitted. “They need me to lead the gunship squadrons, but wouldn’t trust me if they knew the truth. Armstrong might even do something… unwise.”

“Like kill the spy?” Amiri asked from the door.

“Like that,” Leclair agreed, glancing over to the Secret Service Agent and the bulky laser.

“I think we can probably avoid that,” Damien allowed. “On two conditions.”

Leclair glared at him, but he let it wash over him. He’d been glared at before - and by people more likely to kill him.

“You support me in getting the Wing to act,” he told her. “And when the dust settles, and Vaughn is gone, you disappear before I have to start investigating all of the Legatan gear that got mixed up in this. You understand me, Miss Leclair?”

“I’m not your enemy, Montgomery,” she pointed out.

“You were here on a mission to de-stabilize a Protectorate world and send it careening into open civil war,” Damien replied flatly. “Barring Vaughn’s insanity, we would never have been on the same side. Work with me, and I’ll forget I saw you. Oppose me…”

“I get it,” Leclair said aloud. “I’ll do it,” she agreed. “Regardless of our reasons and our causes, today we
are
on the same side. I, for one, want to see that son of a bitch fall.
Nobody
should nuke a city and walk away.”

“On that, Miss Leclair, we are in complete agreement,” Damien told her.

#

“Are you ready?”

Amiri’s question interrupted Damien’s pacing. For the first time ever, he wore the golden Hand of his new office outside of his clothes, but they hadn’t yet left his quarters. Armstrong had re-convened the cell leaders ten minutes before, but he doubted they were getting any further.

“Yeah,” he said after a moment’s thought, glancing over at his bodyguard. “You?”

“All I’ve got to do is stand there and look pretty,” she told him sweetly. “But yeah, let’s go.”

She led the way in front of him, clearing the corridors from his room to the hidden airbase’s single conference room. What he was aiming for now was as much theater as psychology, but every piece of momentum he could leverage, he would use - and complete surprise about the Hand was the biggest piece he had.

Two Freedom Wing fighters, in street clothes under medium body armor and carrying assault rifles, barred the doors to the conference room. They both looked uncomfortable as Damien and Amiri approached, and one of them clearly saw Damien’s Hand, involuntarily taking a step back.

“Let us in,” Damien ordered.

“They’re not to be interrupted,” the less aware guard told him. “Armstrong was very clear.”