“Not if we move fast,” Jaruzelska said, “and that’s why I need you to go back to Commitment early, through Scobie’s.”
Michael frowned. “But I’m going back with you, in the
“Pay attention,” Jaruzelska snapped, her face marred by a peevish frown. “I said to go back
Michael’s stomach knotted. Much as he wanted to go back-if only to see Anna again-doing that meant getting past DocSec border security. “Umm, yes,” he said, “I guess.” He shrugged. “Can’t be any worse than going back in
“You can. The peace treaty allows both sides to maintain their networks of surveillance microsats, but we cannot provide any material support to the Revival and NRA, and that includes comsat networks. Needless to say, Fleet has ignored that prohibition, but thanks to all the ships the Hammers have in Commitment nearspace, our comms have become a very hit or miss business-mostly miss, I’m sorry to say.”
“Because we can’t afford to get caught?”
“We have to keep the Hammers thinking that we’re complying with the treaty. But our bandwidth has been close to zero for most of the last few weeks, and if we’re to bring Juggernaut forward, there’s a pile of planning material we have to get to the NRA. We can’t get dirtside safely without their help.”
“And you need a courier to do that?”
“Just in case we don’t get our comms back. The NRA and Revival need our latest plans for Operation Juggernaut. We also want to give them a brevity code book.”
“Brevity codes?” Michael shook his head in disbelief. “Talk about primitive.”
“I know, I know,” Jaruzelska replied, “but we need a fallback if we don’t have adequate bandwidth to the NRA on J-Day. If we have to make mission-critical changes at the last minute, the NRA has to know.”
“Okay, sir,” Michael said after a moment’s thought. “I can see why you need a courier, but why me?” He paused. “I’m not saying no,” he added, “but if I’m going to do this, I need to know.”
“Because we have access to only two valid Hammer IDs: yours and Marine Shinoda’s-sorry, she’s Sergeant Shinoda now. Luckily for us, your IDs were never handed back to the spooks in Department 66 after you both got back from Commitment; it was an administrative error …’
“… and they’ve been sitting in Fleet intelligence all this time. We have friends inside 66, but they can’t generate brand-new IDs without a lot of very awkward questions being asked. Anyway, will you do it?”
Michael swore under his breath. He shivered at the memory; walking up to the black-uniformed DocSec immigration officers had been one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do.
“They will be,” Jaruzelska said with some asperity, impatient now. “We’re not stupid. Our friends in 66 can do that without any questions being asked.”
Jaruzelska’s hands went up when she saw the look on Michael’s face. “I’m sorry. You have every right to ask,” she said.
“I’ve been lied to a lot lately,” Michael replied. “I don’t take much on trust anymore.”
“Fair enough.” Jaruzelska paused for a few seconds before she went on. “Look. This is not about IDs. I want you to go. You’re the best person for the job, and I trust you to get it done.”
“Relax, admiral; I’ll do it,” Michael said. “Has Shinoda agreed?”
“She has. She’ll be here next week along with the four marines who’ll make up the support team. I’ve arranged for one of our friends from 66 to be here tomorrow; he’ll help with the detailed planning. I’ll let you know when he arrives.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Once outside Jaruzelska’s office, Michael stopped. The relationship between him and the admiral had changed. He’d ‘yes sir, no sir’ the woman until the cows came home.
But trust her? Not a chance.
Michael drifted in and out of consciousness. He floated on a sea of drug-induced calm, untroubled by the fact that he had been in a box the size of a coffin inside a container of mining machinery for hours now. What did bother him was an itch somewhere down by his left ankle, an itch he could not reach no matter how hard he wriggled and squirmed. The plasfiber box was simply too small. He did his best to ignore it, but cut off from the outside world except for transient shifts in the ship’s artificial gravity field that told him only that he had been moved onboard a shuttle, he had little else to focus on.
He wondered when to start panicking. He should have been released hours ago. Six hours, he had been promised; six hours to clear Fed border security for transfer to the freighter to take him to Lagerfeld.
Right from the start, he’d resigned himself to a long wait. The entire consignment had been lashed with a nearly lethal dose of x-rays during security scanning, sending his neuronics into a near panic, alarms urging him to get the hell out of there. Even now the nanobots loaded into his system worked furiously to repair the damage to his system the x-rays had inflicted.
In the end, border security must have been satisfied by the scan. Otherwise, they’d have torn the container apart and he’d be in custody. That would have been interesting in light of the fact that he was supposed to be dead. He sighed. So what if things were not running to schedule? As long as his supply of sedatives held out, he didn’t care. He tried not to think about how he’d feel if they did run out. Michael suffered, and badly, from claustrophobia, and he had never been in such a tight space.
So he did the only thing he could do: He upped his sedatives and within minutes was asleep.
“Hey, spacer! Wake up!”
Michael opened his eyes.
“Oh, hi,” he mumbled.
“You had us worried. Now let’s get you out of there.”
With an effort, Shinoda and a second marine-one of the four making up the security detail Jaruzelska had insisted on sending along-levered him out of the coffinlike box and stood him on his feet.
Shinoda’s nose wrinkled. “I think we left you in there a bit long.”
“Now that you mention it,” Michael said, flushing with embarrassment, “I think you did. There’s only so much those diapers can take, so show me to the shower.”
“This way,” Shinoda said, standing well clear and pointing to the access door leading from the freighter’s cargo bay.
Michael cradled a welcome cup of coffee as Shinoda popped the silver cube of a near-field jammer onto the table. “So what happened?” Michael asked.
“Those assholes at border security smelled a rat. At first we thought they’d been tipped off, but it turned out they just wanted to know why we were taking mining machinery to Lagerfeld.”
“Fair question. The mines there stopped production a century ago. But you showed them our end-user certificates?”
“We did, but of course they had to check. I mean, would you accept an end-user certificate from the Live-in- Hope Mining Company?”
