Asteroid Return: An Arek Lancer Novella Read online

  Nothing good ever came out of anything Coulson was involved in.

  Former General in the 2Es and now currently the Terran Ambassador to the Planetary Council. One of the most powerful people in the galaxy. And as crooked as they came. He had his hand in everything. Always Pro-Earth, but he didn’t do anything that didn’t benefit him in the end.

  We’d had a couple interactions during my time in the Expeditionary Forces. None of them went well. We didn’t like each other.

  He still looked the same, hadn’t aged in the years since I had seen him. Hair perfectly cut to military standards, all gray. Clean shaven, square jaw. Blue eyes in his pale skin. Wore his old dress uniform with lots of shiny medals at all times. Bragging by showing.

  Our last official interaction had really been our last. A couple months before I left the 2Es, so about five years or so ago. That had been a big reason that I had left really. I got tired of the politics and Coulson was always political, doing what would gain him positioning at the cost of the men.

  It worked, which made it worse.

  What Coulson didn’t know was that I had run across him on a planet called Buhin on the edge between the Inner Worlds and Deep Space. A trade hub. He had walked past and I had avoided him. Not that he would have done anything or even pretended to notice me. But he would have noticed me and that could have been trouble later on.

  Really, I’ve always thought he was connected to the business that happened on Buhin. I’d run into another old 2E associate, Thomlin Romer, or more accurately he had forced me into a meeting. Romer was an old 2E Intelligence officer and just as crooked as Coulson. Equally good at his job. When he had left the 2Es it had been under a dark cloud and he was considered persona non grata. Had started up an illegal information brokering business which meant that all of Earth government ignored his do-not-touch status.

  Made him a rich man.

  Romer had tried to force me to a do a job for him. Didn’t work out in his favor. Barely did in mine. I had always wondered if Coulson had been involved in that. Not Romer forcing me, but in the job itself. Coulson would have loved the results of it. Could only have aided him.

  So yeah, being on Buhin at the same time, he was probably involved.

  Just had no proof of it. Not that it would do any good anyways.

  Coulson was standing up, moving from his seat to the right of the head, and coming my way. He was smiling. A big and obviously fake one.

  His hand reached out for mine.

  I felt like ignoring it but ended up clasping his and shaking.

  A strong grip. He had always been strong and age hadn’t weakened him any. I always forgot that Coulson had got his start in the same units that I had, Expeditionary Forces Special Ops. He knew how to fight.

  “Captain Lancer,” he said moving back towards his seat. “Glad you could join us.”

  There were three other people at the table but I hadn’t taken the time to see who they were yet. Coulson had all my attention. Jessups motioned to a chair towards the end of the table, one person between me and Coulson, and started for the head of the table.

  Sometimes I don’t know when to be quiet. I let my mouth just go when I would be better off just staying silent. I really didn’t need to provoke Coulson but this was one of the times I couldn’t shut up.

  “How’s Romer,” I asked Coulson as I sat down.

  Coulson paused before finishing to sit.

  It was a quick reaction, brief and gone, but I caught it. A tightening of the eyes, flash of surprise. Coulson had not expected me to say that name.

  “I do not know Captain,” Coulson replied. I wasn’t sure if he was acknowledging me as captain of my ship or referencing my old rank. Probably the rank. He was trying to put me back into the chain of command which had him on top. “I have not spoken to Thomlin Romer in years.” Which was true, in a way, as far as anyone officially knew. “Over five or more if I remember.”

  “Whatever Coulson,” I said, purposefully not using any of his many titles, current or former. Petty of me, sure. “Next time you’re on Buhin, I’m sure you’ll try extra hard to avoid him.”

  I turned away and focused on Jessups, but not before I saw the reaction I was hoping for. There was no way for Coulson to hide that one.

  Coulson’s expression proved it. He had been involved in that Buhin job Romer had forced on me. Now he was worried about what else I knew or more importantly, had proof of.

  Sadly there was nothing.

  Not that it mattered, but I took my victories where I could find them.

  Just making him squirm a bit was enough.

  Jessups was looking from me to Coulson. He gave me a curious expression. One that also said “you’re going to tell me later”. I shrugged. If he wanted to know, I’d tell him.

  I finally looked at the other three in the room. Two men and a woman. None I recognized at first glance.

  One of the men reminded me of Davin, the Lieutenant that had met me when I first got here. Uniform perfectly pressed. Trying to look all official and important. A desk jockey. A little older than Davin had been, handsome enough, blond. Probably some rich guy’s kid.

  The other guy looked like a pilot. He was leaning back in his chair, looking relaxed. Hair was cut in regulation style, but he had a cocky air to him. Fighter pilot.

  I studied the woman. She was attractive. Black hair, sharp nose, brown eyes, short shoulder length hair. But that wasn’t why I studied her so intently. Not fully anyways. I was trying to figure out if I knew her. She was Special Operations. My old unit. Don’t ask me how we can tell, but Spec Ops can always spot Spec Ops.

  Only the desk jockey looked at me as I walked in.

  Felt out of place. Here I was in my standard outfit: pants and shirt. If I had been wearing my weapon it would have been in a low slung holster, definitely not military issue. At least I had my old military jacket on. All of the others were in current uniforms, clean and up to date. The Spec Ops lady’s jacket looked a little worn. Coulson’s uniform wasn’t current, but it was cleaner than any of the others. More medals too.

  Jessups took his seat at the head of the table.

  “For the record, Captain Lancer’s security clearance Delta has been reinstated for the duration of this meeting.”

  That did send some glances my way. Delta was pretty high, there was only one level higher. One of the more interesting aspects of getting clearance that high is that you’re bound to it for life. Even when you leave the 2Es, you’re still under oath. So my clearance wasn’t really reinstated, I had never truly lost it. More accurately I had just lost access to the information that clearance gave me but I was still bound to not reveal anything I knew.

  Another side effect was that my rank of Captain was also temporarily reinstated. It had to be to reactivate the security clearance.

  What Jessups meant was that for this meeting, it really was like I had never left the Expeditionary Forces.

  The Spec Ops soldier now studied me. I smiled at her. She rolled her eyes.

  “As long as Captain Lancer understands that the Delta oath binds him to silence over anything heard here,” Coulson added.

  “I haven’t revealed anyone’s dirty laundry so far,” I replied leaning forward so Coulson could see me. “Why would I start now?”

  It was Jessup’s turn to roll his eyes. I knew I had to rein it in. This little back and forth with Coulson wasn’t gaining anything. Just me being petty. Jessups wouldn’t say anything because I doubted the others in the room knew anything of my history in the 2E, let alone how it connected with Coulson. To say something more would be to invite questions.

  And the only part of my history that I really cared to deal with right now was how the murders affected my future.

  Jessups settled back in his chair, glancing around the room. This brought the others to attention and concentrating on the Colonel, except the desk jockey who was fiddling with the tablet in front of him. That guy was obviously in charge of the presentati
on aspect of whatever this was.

  “First introductions,” he said. “Lieutenant Gott,” he pointed at the desk jockey. “Intelligence Division. Captain Devin Yearly,” he continued and pointed at the pilot. “Lieutenant Lysa Harrow, Spec Ops. Ambassador Coulson,” Jessups finished.

  No one bothered to get up so neither did I. They didn’t bother to look at me, so I didn’t either.

  Quite a mixed group.

  “Captain Arek Lancer, former Spec Ops,” Jessups said for benefit of the others in the room but I had a feeling they already knew who I was.

  I really wanted to ask why I was here but held back. The more I let Jessups talk, the more I was going to end up being involved.

  This was starting to feel familiar, like any of the dozens of mission briefings I had attended. I could feel myself slipping back into old routines. It’s true what they say, you never really leave the military.

  “Most of this will be old news for the rest of you but we’ll bring Captain Lancer up to date on where things stand with the conflict.”

  Ask the soldiers, we were still at war with the Tiat. Ask the government, and it was just a conflict.

  One of the longest continuous wars in Earth history.

  Twenty years and counting. Officially the Third Galactic War had only lasted seven years but the sides were still fighting even after the treaty had been signed, a cold war. My time in the Earth Expeditionary Forces had been in fighting that cold war. I had joined up two years before the war ended.

  Jessups signaled to Gott and the screen mounted to the wall went from black to showing a star map. Four systems were visible. Just from the map with no labels, I couldn’t recognize any of them. Maps like this one had no scale. The left system could have been twice the size of the others, or half the size. No way to know. Also no way to know the distance from one system to another.

  Navcomputers were needed to calculate the actual distances. Maps were just used to get an idea of how many hops would be needed to get from one system to another. Good reference to know where you’d be traveling through and what to expect.

  Gott made some quick movements on the tablet and labels started to appear.

  I wanted to curse.

  The far left was one of the Tiat’s major systems. The next one over was a colony system of theirs. The one where the rock was located. The third system was one I didn’t know the name of. The fourth, on the right, was Rewe.

  I had never realized how close Rewe was to the rock and Tiat space. Only three hops and judging by the numbers I now saw on the screen, it was three very short hops.

  No wonder the Tiat had fought so hard to take the system from us when we tried to secure it.

  Rewe was practically in their backyard.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “On the left is the Towrandru System,” Jessups said.

  Definitely a Tiat name.

  “Three habitable planets, controlled by the Tiat,” he continued. “There’s a major shipyard mid-system, two military stations at either edge and a civilian trade station orbiting one of the planets.”

  Civilian trade for the Tiat meant more of their people, which meant somewhat less military. The Tiat were a matriarchal military society. Everything was run through the military. The civilian station just meant that there was no overt presence of soldiers. It was also where their allied species would do their trading.

  There were a lot of species governed by a militaristic society. The Dyer was another. Allies of us humans. But the Tiat took it to a whole other level.

  “The right system is where we are now, Rewe,” Jessups said as if we didn’t know.

  I didn’t miss that about briefings. Going over things that everyone in the room already knew. Gott was hanging off of Jessups every word. Yearly was pulling the typical flyboy, listening to every word but pretending he wasn’t. Coulson was the politician. Perfect mix of attentive interest and studious remembering. Harrow was like me. Ignoring the parts she already knew.

  The reasoning for it made sense. I got it. I just didn’t like it and my attention would start to wander. I’d gotten reprimanded enough back in the day but I’d always retained what I needed for the missions.

  “To Rewe’s left is an unclaimed system called Jeffern.”

  “Who named it,” Harrow asked.

  Which is a question I would have asked back in the day.

  There is really no such thing as an unclaimed system. Someone found it, planted the navsats and named it. If it had a name, that meant it had something within the system that was worth having. Ores, gases, water. Whatever. No one would bother naming a system that had no purpose.

  And because it had a name, it meant someone was there. Unclaimed was just saying that none of the galaxies many empires or expansionist species had bothered to claim it yet. Some trading consortium was there, mining or harvesting, and bribing the right people.

  “The Saxit,” Jessups answered.

  A trading consortium. Engyn if I remembered right. Wonder how secure they felt knowing they were between the Tiat and Terrans. I wouldn’t feel secure about my hold on anything in that situation.

  “The last is the important one.” Jessups returned to his presentation. “The Tiat have designated it as Unitouro and there has been nothing there. No habitable planets. No asteroids of size worth mining. No reason to go there except as a hop point.”

  “And the rock,” I muttered.

  Jessups nodded.

  He motioned to Gott and the image on the screen changed. Now we were looking at an asteroid belt, a very large belt of small rocks. Lots of them. Like Jessups had said, there was no asteroids of size to make mining worthwhile. Ores, all of the various kinds, were somewhat plentiful in a galaxy full of planets made of rocks. Unless an asteroid had a rare ore, and lots of it, the expense to mine it wasn’t worth it.

  But other uses for asteroids could be found.

  “The rock is what we called a very specific asteroid,” Jessups said finally getting to the good part. “Six years ago, 2E Intel got wind of the Tiat building a weapons development lab in the Unitouro system.” He paused and looked down the table at me.

  I wasn’t looking at him or the screen. I knew what the rock looked like. Knew where it was located in the asteroid belt. I could feel his eyes on me. The others all glanced at me, now starting to understand why I was here if they hadn’t known already. Didn’t take a genius to figure it out.

  “Turns out they had already built it,” Jessups said.

  My mind flashed back those years to that mission. Not one I wanted to remember.

  It was supposed to have been an insertion to destroy a facility that was in mid-construction. It wasn’t. It was fully built and occupied. Heavily occupied.

  Somehow we succeeded in destroying it. Once we found what they were building there, we had to. There was no choice.

  “When did we start picking up chatter that it was up and running again,” I asked, still looking down at the table.

  “Started about three months ago,” Jessups said. “Rumors, nothing substantial. Until recently. But nothing indicating that it’s an R&D facility again. We think it’s a staging ground. There has been an increase in terrorist activity on Rewe as well.”

  Part of me wondered if that was why Rewe had been so contested by us. It was on the edge of the frontier, a good staging ground for exploration into the unknown regions but also a good staging ground for operations into Tiat controlled space.

  “When do we go in,” Harrow asked.

  Right to the point. I liked her.

  “The problem is that we don’t know the exact location of the asteroid,” Coulson said speaking for the first time. “Six years ago we were never able to pinpoint the exact location. We sent in scouts and lost every one.”

  “How did we finally find it?” Yearly asked.

  “Ask him,” Coulson said and pointed at me.

  I sighed. This was why I was brought here.

  The level of tech in the galaxy is prett
y high. We can travel from solar system to solar system in a matter of hours. We can live on planets that are poisonous. There is so much we can do. But there is also a lot we can’t. Asteroid belts are perfect hiding spots. If the right kind of ore is in the rocks, no sensors can penetrate the belts. With the asteroids constantly moving, maps aren’t that accurate either. They’re hard to fly around in, so any mining is usually the edges. Going inside a belt can be extremely dangerous if you don’t know the path.

  “We got lucky,” I said, leaning back in my chair and now staring up at the ceiling. “We hid out in a drop ship for days on another rock just waiting for a Tiat supply ship that we could follow in.”

  I paused, remembering. Drop ships are never comfortable. Ugly, bare bones. They’re not meant for long term use but we did it. Somehow. Twelve of us plus the pilot. Four of us made it back.

  “Lucky,” I laughed, a bitter one. “Not sure how lucky it really was.”

  “You’re here so you must have destroyed the place,” Harrow said. “How are the Tiat able to use it again?”

  I liked Harrow even though she was questioning my ability to do my job. It was the right question to ask and she didn’t mean anything personally, just doing her job. She was the one that was going to lead the mission, that much was now obvious, so she had to know everything.

  “Remember it was supposed to be under construction,” I said leaning forward. “Just one of many times that Intel let us down.” I stared at Coulson. Everyone knew he was ex-intel and now started to wonder at his involvement. “There were twelve of us. Four times that many Tiat. We blew the place up, destroyed their equipment and whatever they were developing. Barely made it out alive.”

  “During the war we kept an eye on the place,” Jessups said. “The Tiat never went back. Over time the intelligence resources were deemed better used elsewhere and we abandoned our watching of the rock.” He looked at Coulson.

  A pretty big indication of who had deemed the resources wasted.

  “Again I ask, when do we go in,” Harrow said it as a statement, not a question.