Juno Rising (ISF-Allion) Read online

  Hansen said, “Not that I know of. I need to complete—”

  “Don’t touch me!” Fabio backed into the shelf on the other side of the room. Manning blocked his way to the door. Manning and Hansen would gang up on him. They’d tie his hands and force him on the bed. They’d restrain him so he couldn’t move and then they’d put the thing on him. They’d read his mind. That’s what they did with those machines, didn’t they?

  “Calm down, Velazquez. It’s a routine procedure that has never given us any problems. It doesn’t hurt, and doesn’t tell us anything about your thoughts.”

  “Then why are you doing it, if it doesn’t tell you anything? It’s bullshit, I tell you. I don’t believe anything you’re saying. I retract my permission for this medical.” He was shouting and he couldn’t stop. There would be trouble, but he wouldn’t calm down. His hands trembled so much that his whole body shook with it.

  Hansen retreated to his desk and hit a button on the wall and Manning stopped and held up his hands. “Whoa, calm down, calm down. All the doc here wants to check is if you have any implants.”

  “I don’t. That was already tested on board. You have the results already. You have no right to do this.”

  “Medical examination is a base regulation.”

  “You can’t force me.” Then another snippet of knowledge fell into place. “It’s in the ISF charter under privacy regulations, section 87a, page 413.”

  Red spots appeared on Hansen’s cheeks. “But we . . .” He swallowed whatever he was going to say. “We have to—”

  A woman barged into the room. “Hansen, Manning, what’s this?”

  She was taller than Manning without being lanky, had a sharp-nosed face and shoulder-length dead straight platinum blond hair, which swung loose over her shoulders. She was in Space Corps uniform with senior officer’s stripes. Both Hansen and Manning stiffened and saluted.

  “Just a medical test, Ma’am,” Hansen said.

  “You pressed the emergency,” she said, her voice flat. “That’s not ‘just a medical test’.”

  “He . . .” Hansen hesitated, glanced at Fabio. “He looked like he was going to fight. I wasn’t doing anything except standard procedure, Ma’am. To request backup in case . . .”

  “You know this officer’s name?”

  “Yes, Ma’am. It’s Lt. Velazquez.”

  “Well done. Did you look at your task sheet, Hansen?”

  “I did, Ma’am.”

  “Then what does it say behind Lt. Velazquez’s name?”

  Hansen looked. Froze. “Oh.”

  “What does it say, Hansen?”

  “Contact Research Command.”

  “Does it say: submit him to standard entry procedure?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Then why didn’t you contact Research Command?”

  “It was a mistake, ma’am.”

  “I am getting very tired of your mistakes. The time may come that I will discuss your ‘mistakes’ with Commander Banparra.”

  “That’s not necessary, ma’am.”

  She glared at him for a couple of very long seconds. Then she turned to Fabio. “Come.”

  Fabio scrambled to collect his duffel bag. He was still trembling.

  Manning stood at the door, looking uncertain. “Do you want me to come, ma’am?”

  She stopped to face him, eye to eye, her nose no more than a hand span higher than his face.

  “You’d like that, eh, Private First Class Manning? The more time you spend away from your general duties, the better. Tell me, what need would Lieutenant Velazquez have for your sorry arse if you can’t even follow your fucking orders and keep him out of the bureaucracy down here?”

  “I didn’t get any—”

  “Can’t you read, Private First Class Manning?”

  Silence. Manning went red in the face. “I apologise, ma’am.”

  “You apologise, as if that’s an excuse for your dumbassery.”

  “I didn’t know what—”

  “Shut up.” He shrank visibly with every second of her death stare. “Fucking imbecile. Come with me.” The latter to Fabio.

  He glanced at Hansen, who waved his hand at the door.

  “I’m sorry, but where are we going? I’m supposed to meet—”

  She turned her cold grey stare on him. Then she held out her hand. “Major Katarina Doric. Welcome to Calico Base.”

  Jaykadia

  * * *

  JAYKADIA LAW, HEIRESS and youngest Executive ever of the Ganymede Mining Company and niece of the Governor of the Council Of Four, sat at her desk in her office. When the door to the office opened, she was busy distilling very long and boring sales reports into a slide show that she could present to the board the next day.

  Nobody ever just opened that door, so she called out, “Clarence!”

  Because that was the young man in charge of the door who shouldn’t have let anyone come in.

  She did this without looking up, because she hated to lose where she was with the figures, and it was only after a while that she realised that not only had the person not gone back into the other room, there was more than one person, and they formed a wall of stout-looking men just inside the door.

  Then she looked up.

  Military uniforms. Four of them.

  And, at the same time it dawned on her that this was no ordinary visit, she also realised that Vice Admiral Preston, the dark-skinned man second from the right, would have to have a very good reason to come into her office, and that she was being rude to let him stand.

  “I’m sorry, Vice Admiral. I was busy. I didn’t realise you were here.”

  She rose from her seat, pulled out a chair from the side of the desk—because she rarely received people in here—and dragged it to the other side of the desk so that it faced her.

  Preston sat down, his face prim, eying the stacks of to-scale models tottering on the shelf in the corner.

  Great, she clearly had not made a great impression. Did she say that she didn’t like receiving people in here?

  Running a company as big as this was no job for a twenty-five-year-old, others said.

  Jaykadia went back to her own chair and swiped the financial data off the pad and pushed the pad aside.

  “It’s quite an honour to see you here,” she said, heart hammering.

  Vice Admiral Preston of the Jovian System division of the ISF was old enough to be her grandfather. She had no doubt that he’d enjoyed a good relationship with her father, established when her father was young and wont to frequent bars where military men came. Jaykadia was not part of that scene and he probably viewed her as some sort of alien.

  “I won’t take much of your time,” he said.

  They all said that, right? “Go ahead.” And clearly, he wanted to be out of here as soon as possible.

  “We need the Ganymede Mining Company’s cooperation for a major military exercise. Within the next few months, we will see a dramatic increase in the number of troops stationed in the system. Many of them will bring their own ships, but we need places to house the logistics support crew. We don’t have enough space and need large spaces we can rent from the commercial sector.”

  “You mean?” She hated the blah of words that people of that generation used. Almost as if they were afraid to speak the truth.

  “Your equipment maintenance halls.”

  What? “You want to put people in there? Many of those halls aren’t insulated or pressurised.”

  “I know. We have pressure tents which we can put up inside. We have portable air makers and we’ll be bringing all of our own tools.”

  Jaykadia was still trying to process what he was asking. “But those halls are full of mining equipment. We need to do maintenance there, away from the dust.”

  “But you’re not using all of the space.”

  “Not all the time, no.”

  “And the machines can be taken outside?”

  “They can, but . . . what is this ab
out? Are the bases on Io really all full?”

  “Not yet, but they will be soon. We need accommodation for maintenance crews, who need little secrecy but easy access to maintain and repair fleet craft, and who are not part of the craft’s crew. We also have logistics operations that I prefer to be planet-based.”

  “That must be a pretty big exercise.”

  “It is.” He sounded prim. “And it’s of vital importance to the security of the system.”

  “When . . . would you need these places? For how long?” She was quickly thinking of business operations. It was true that the sheds were not always full, but they were necessary for performing maintenance. She suspected that the engineers would object violently to being told to have to perform maintenance in a hard vacuum. She suspected that some maintenance could not be done in a vacuum.

  “A few weeks at the least, and the first troops would be arriving on Sol 154.”

  That was barely a hundred and fifty days. “But that barely gives me time to organise alternatives. I can’t just shift entire maintenance operations to be done outside. Are we meant to be compensated for this in any way?”

  In fact, the more she thought about it, the more it bugged her that he dared ask this on such short term. Did he think the commercial mining operations were just hanging around waiting for the military to use their services?

  “The compensation will be the safety of the system.”

  “We’re talking about an exercise, right? You must have known about your requirements sooner than this.”

  “Yes, and this is the point of the exercise: to set up logistics in case of an outside attack.”

  “And who is going to attack us?”

  “Any enemy. In this case, a fictitious one. It’s of vital importance that we can defend our settlements. We haven’t done any large-scale exercises for many years and we’re well overdue for one.”

  And, damn, that was true as well.

  Jaykadia remembered those times at school in Ganymede City where a siren would go off at random times and all the kids had to scramble to the emergency room to put on breathing apparatus, or hide in the shelter, depending on the type of alarm. And during those times, the place would crawl with military officers and her father would complain about them at dinnertime.

  But that was also the time that tensions were high between ISF and Allion, and now, after Mars, Allion was gone and there was no longer an immediate threat.

  There had not been a large-scale exercise for a long time. Hence the massive military operation.

  She blew out a breath through her nose. It was annoying, but she would have to cope with it. At least it was only a short-term operation. Despite being civilians and working for commercial operations, most people in the system respected the military and what ISF had done for them: brought the ships and the stations, transported most people and, occasionally, kept the peace.

  Not only that, but there would be no business for Ganymede Mining if the military didn’t buy most of their products.

  She nodded. “All right, I’ll look into what we can do.”

  “There is a level of urgency. We’ll begin rolling out the plan soon.”

  “Have you spoken to my aunt about any assistance from the settlements?”

  “Yes, the Governor realises the importance of the operation and I’ve been assured we’ll have her full cooperation.”

  “So . . . when can I expect these troops to turn up?”

  “Some are waiting in orbit.”

  Crap. The company had contracts to fill and obligations to meet.

  Leaving the machines outside all the time added to their maintenance downtime. If she couldn’t get the ore to the processing facility at West Plains, then the plant would sit idle and run at a loss. And to say nothing about other companies that relied on Ganymede Mining for their supplies. Those would be livid.

  He promised to stay in contact and gave her a direct access code.

  “We are going to treat this as if there were a serious threat,” he said, while standing at the door, having rejoined his three silent companions who had waited while he was talking. One of them had already opened the door, letting in the moist air from outside. Jaykadia could hear the sprinklers going in the planter boxes outside.

  “There may well be some surprise events. My staff has been writing scenarios and we will use a random sequence that none of us knows beforehand to simulate a real scenario. Expect some disruption.”

  Great. “But at least it will be temporary.”

  “Yes, it will be.”

  And then he was gone.

  Jaykadia leaned her head in her hands. Just this morning she had made a joke about having sailed through the past few months without major interruptions.

  She hadn’t actually asked for any interruptions.

  And then, because she wasn’t the type that moped, she pulled up a map.

  If ISF took the sheds and put their troops inside, those resources became lost to her. She bet that they would have guards keeping out anyone and everyone who wanted to visit the area. That meant that not only did she need to move out all the mining equipment housed in the sheds, but all the auxiliary equipment as well. The computers, the testing bays, the stores of spare parts. And most of those things could definitely not be stored outside. Keep in mind that when you unpacked a tightly packed suitcase, the contents, when strewn about the room, took up three times the space they did when packed, and you definitely had a problem.

  From memory also, ISF sprang large surprises in exercises. This was likely to mean that things would suddenly stop working for no obvious reason or that a huge number of “refugees” would turn up in a ship unfit to be sent anywhere else, and they would have to find space for those as well. At the end, they would be rated on their performance and lengthy reports would be sent to all participating communities.

  Yes, the settlements were supposed to have policies that were meant to cope with emergencies like this, for example the failure of a neighbouring dome, but resources were scarce and it was easy to just use an empty hall intended for emergency accommodation for other purposes and forget to check the emergency rations and replace necessary supplies. And yes, they should keep all of this audited, but that whole process was a farce.

  Because frankly, no one had seen the need after Allion had been defeated and was gone. Who was going to attack them out here?

  Also she loathed the idea of putting a lot of effort into this for an exercise to amuse the military.

  So, preferably, any changes that the company made should cater to another purpose after the exercise.

  The Law family had not become wealthy by doing nothing and putting up their hands in the air when things got hard. They sought solutions and considered all reasonable options.

  She would have to go to see her aunt in Galileo City to coordinate their efforts. Because if it was ISF’s aim to show the civilian settlements how unprepared they were, then she was determined not to come last in the rankings.

  If the vice admiral wanted the exercise, then let’s have the exercise.

  But when she turned to her desk screen, those dratted income reports stared back at her. They were not going to go away.

  Damn it, she had work to do.

  A column with the newsfeed scrolled over the right hand bar of the screen. A delegation of people from the Council Of Four had left for Io.

  That was an issue that had been running forever.

  The military bases on Io generated a small but very persistent stream of rumours that life inside the bases was hell for those who fell foul of the established majority or the command. Add to that the fact that the troops sent to Io were often on some punitive detention, and the words bullying, deprivation of freedom and even torture were never too far away.

  Since Io had—finally—agreed to formally take a seat in the Council Of Four—so named after Jupiter’s four major inhabited moons—they had to comply with human rights conditions.

  And this delegati
on to Io—one which checked living conditions and interviewed at-risk troops at the base—had been talked about for a long time. Like, years.

  The Council demanded it, ISF didn’t want it and kept changing the conditions under which they would allow it. But finally they had come to an agreement.

  The newsfeed showed a photo of the delegation prior to departure from Galileo City. And there were two people in the picture whom she knew quite well.

  One of them was Thalia Hasegawa, a long-standing childhood friend of hers although they hadn’t seen each other for a few years. She seemed to have aged little since they had been at university. Her hair was still dark, glossy and very long. She still wore it in a long ponytail that only looked a little bit less messy now that she had an official position. She still looked deceptively elfin-like. Just make sure that you didn’t get into her way.

  Jaykadia was always melancholy when she thought of that time through secondary school and university when she, Thalia and Kat were inseparable. They’d had so much fun together, until the terrible accident when a truck they were driving had overturned, nearly killing them.

  Things had never been the same since, but lately she had run across Thalia a few times and had followed her activities, mainly because she thought that her former friend was doing admirable work.

  Life in the higher classes at the Council Of Four meant you were born into a family. Jaykadia had always known that she would need to run the company just like the other friend in the group, Kat, had always known that she would sign up for active duty in the force. Because that was what their respective families did. Thalia had always been a bit different. Because she was the youngest child, her family put no expectations on her future.

  Thalia chose to use that freedom to make this part of the solar system a fairer place. And it was not as if that wasn’t needed. When the first priority was survival, things like human rights of both civilians and, especially, the military went out the window.

  Jaykadia felt a little bit guilty about always considering commercial options and money as priority. Thalia seem to be all about humanitarian causes. And maybe it was time that she considered the effects of the decisions she made, including shifting large populations out of bases and allowing soldiers to occupy commercial space. That was an uncomfortable thought.