Honor Bound

“he told me that the mutineers have access to instantaneous FTL communications. That’s gotta’ mean they’ve somehow found and figured out how to use the wormholes Antonov discovered… and I don’t know how they could have pulled that off without outside help. This thing is way bigger than we thought and I need to know how far you want me to take this. I do not feel comfortable recruiting young trainees to something that could get them arrested or killed…” Ari trailed off, something teasing at his subconscious, something he hadn’t quite heard, but knew there’s been a sound…

There. A faint crunch of a footstep on mulch…

Ari had barely had time to straighten up from his stretch before the man was upon him, an indistinct figure clad in speed and darkness, striking with a hiss of a blade passing through the air. Ari threw himself backwards on instinct more than anything else, feeling the breeze of the strike against his skin as it just missed, then he darted in with both arms held up in a block and caught the return swing in mid-motion, his forearms cracking against the back of his attacker’s left arm, the impact sending the small, dark-bladed knife the man had been holding spinning through the air and into the brush.

Ari turned the block into a grab, catching his attacker at the wrist and triceps and yanking him into a knee- strike that slammed into unprotected sternum with a crunch of cracking bone. He could hear and feel the wind go out of the man in an explosive gush and his training told him to lock his opponent into a choke and finish him… but instinct made him spin the man around by his captive arm and throw him into the path of the second attacker he’d sensed more than heard was coming at him.

The disarmed attacker tumbled into an uncontrolled roll and took the oncoming assailant at the knees, pitching him face-first into the dirt. Ari only had the barest impression of dark clothes and a stocky build-he couldn’t tell if the man was armed or not-but he pounced on the second man immediately, pressing his advantage with an elbow strike on the downed attacker’s back that broke his right clavicle with an audible snap. A muffled scream came through the man’s black balaclava and the assassin reached desperately with his left hand for the knife clutched in his now-useless right, but Ari had spun around and pinned the left arm with his knee. With a swift, trained motion, Ari wrapped his arm around the man’s neck and yanked backwards sharply. A sickening crunch and then the man’s struggles stopped and he went limp.

Ari was up in an instant, coming into a crouch as he watched the first man scramble to his feet, still struggling to breathe. Ari lunged at him with the tactical aggression that he’d been taught in the Intelligence Service’s unarmed combat courses, catching him low across the hips, and yanking him off his feet, slamming his shoulders squarely into the ground. Not knowing if there were more of them out there, Ari took the man out quickly with a vicious punch to the throat, crushing his trachea.

Leaving the man thrashing on the ground, choking to death, Ari jumped to his feet, scanning for more attackers, his own gasping breath and pounding heartbeat deafening in his ears. Suddenly a sound penetrated the cacophony of his own respiration, a coughing snap that he instantly recognized as the report of a suppressed gunshot. He spun toward the sound and saw a third black-clad man slumping to the ground, a compact pistol slipping out of his lifeless fingers.

Standing behind the man was Alida, dressed in running Capri’s and a tank top, an ugly little pistol with a sound suppressor attached to its barrel held in her outstretched hands. He stared at her agape as she glanced back and forth, checking for any other threats before lowering the gun.

“Getting a bit sloppy, Captain Shamir,” she said softly. “You should have known they’d have someone backing them up with a gun, just in case.”

He started to respond, then checked himself, his mouth left wide open.

“What the fuck?” was all he was finally able to say. “Do you… are you with… us?”

She laughed softly, her hands working to detach the suppressor from the pistol then stowing the gun and the silencer in a small waist pack. “You mean am I with the Fleet Intelligence Service? No… I work for the Guard Investigative Division, but at the moment I am working directly for General Kage.”

“General…?” Ari felt incredibly disoriented, as if he’d walked into the middle of someone else’s conversation. “So, General Kage isn’t…”

“Look,” she sighed, “we don’t have much time… we need to get these bodies off the trail and out of sight, then get back to the OQ before we’re on duty. I’ll fill you in while we run.”

Ari nodded, finally hearing something he could understand. Without another word, the two of them dragged the three would-be assassins off the trail and deep into the trees, then covered them with brush, making sure their weapons were left with the bodies.

“Someone will find them eventually,” he warned as he paused to retrieve his ‘link from where he’d dropped it near the bench.

“I’ll get a team out here to clean up,” Alida assured him. “Now, let’s get going.”

Ari and Alida made their way back onto the running path and broke into an easy jog. Ari felt a jolt of post- fight adrenaline jitters hit him like a hammer and only previous experience kept him from curling into a ball on the trail. Instead, he used breathing exercises to keep his pulse and respiration under control as he kept up a steady pace next to the woman he’d thought he knew.

“General Kage knows about the conspiracy?” He asked Alida once he had his breathing under control.

“Of course… he’s many things, but he’s not stupid,” she replied, seemingly calm as a mill pond.

“How did you know who I was?” He heard more anger in his voice than he’d meant to put there. Mistakes like that could easily get him killed.

“The GIS stole the Marine personnel files on all the Marines that were recruited to Intelligence,” she explained with a shrug. “So, we had biometric recognition, voice recognition, DNA recognition, etc… for you and a bunch of others that came in five years ago when everything got reorganized. Frankly, with what was going on, we expected someone. That’s why I’m here…”

“If you know what’s going on,” he asked, panting a bit, “why didn’t you just bust it up yourselves already?”

“Two reasons… one, as you may have guessed by now, it goes beyond some dissatisfied Guard officers who want to pull a stunt, and we don’t know how far yet. Two, you Fleet boys don’t trust us and Kage figured the best way to get your help was to let you see it for yourself. Who the hell do you think started the rumors so you’d pick up on this?”

“Well shit,” he commented bitterly. Not only had he been played, the whole Intelligence Service had been played. “And now Lee knows about me too.”

“Those hitters didn’t work for Lee,” she told him. “Lee doesn’t take a shit without us knowing what he had for dinner. He’s as happy as a pig in slop to have someone like you… like Mo… here.”

“So who the hell did send them?” Ari wanted to know.

“I don’t know,” she replied, “I spotted them when you left the room-I’m not that sound of a sleeper, you know. I tied into the security cameras with my ‘link to see where you were going and I spotted them head out about five minutes after you did, going the opposite way on the perimeter trail. They tried to look like joggers, but no one wears that much clothing to run here in summer, not even before dawn. I thought about calling security, but I decided to see if I could handle it myself.”

“And I appreciate you saving my life,” he told her. “Thank you.”

“I like you, Ari” she told him, and he could see her smile even in the dark. “Even when you’re pretending to be Mo. So don’t take this the wrong way, but the real reason I saved you is that we do need you Fleet boys’ help and we can’t wait for them to send your replacement. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen soon.”

“You think I can still maintain cover?” he asked her, surprised. “Whoever sent those hitters must know I’m not who I say I am.”

“Oh, they may try again,” she agreed. “But that just gives us an opportunity to find out who they are. What? You afraid?” she asked, teasingly. “You did pretty well, for a guy in skimpy running shorts.”

He couldn’t help it… he laughed, a coughing, breathless laugh. “As long as you’ll be there to watch my back, Alida… or whatever your name is.”

“Alida will do for now,” she told him. “Wouldn’t want you to slip and call me something else. If we live through this, I’ll tell you my real name.” She sighed. “I hadn’t intended to come out of cover with you so soon… but I suppose it does simplify things if you know we are both working to the same end.”