Loose Cannon, page 1
Loose Cannon
By Becky Black
Published by JMS Books LLC
Visit jms-books.com for more information.
Copyright 2014 Becky Black
ISBN 9781611526660
Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com
Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.
All rights reserved.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published in the United States of America.
* * * *
Loose Cannon
By Becky Black
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 1
“Lieutenant Corolus reporting, Major.” Barb snapped off a salute.
“At ease,” Pavesh said. “Corolus, did you ever work with Colonel Locke?”
Barb tensed. “Do you mean Colonel Roger Locke, of the 25th Strike Group, ma’am?”
“How many other Colonel Lockes do you know? Yes. That one.”
“No, ma’am. I never served with the Colonel.”
“But you are from Lawrentia, like him?”
Barb kept the usual flinch inside. “Yes, ma’am.” She’d got out as soon as she hit eighteen and never looked back. Almost twelve years later, she made it to first lieutenant, with a good posting in Military Intelligence. She still couldn’t shake the dust of the place from her well-polished shoes.
“We think Locke is selling weapons.”
Barb frowned. She must have misheard. “Excuse me, ma’am?”
“It’s tough to hear. But weapons have gone missing from the base under his command on Pritchitt. An investigation he led claimed it was clerical error. Senior brass didn’t buy that, so there was another investigation—one he didn’t know about. It’s turned up evidence the colonel himself is involved.”
Impossible. Totally ridiculous. There had to be a mistake. Some jerk had messed up. Or was looking to pin something on Locke.
“Excuse me saying so, Major, but I find this difficult to credit.”
“I know he’s something of a national hero to your people.”
That was an understatement. The highest ranking Lawrentian in the service, he was an inspiration to the men and women who wanted away from the mines and the gangs.
“But the evidence is credible and must be followed up,” Pavesh went on. “Believe me, I don’t want this to be true anymore than you do. I’d like it if you came back and told me someone is framing him, or is just plain wrong. But if it’s true…”
If it was true—and Barb had to entertain the possibility it might be. In the end, he was only human. All humans could be corrupted by money. It would be a betrayal of those few Lawrentians like her who had not only joined the military, but had earned commissions as officers. It would damage all of them. Barb knew her background already held her back. She should have a captaincy by now. So she had to learn for herself if it was true. Or make sure he wasn’t being railroaded. Yes, she was exactly the right woman for the job.
“What are my orders?”
Pavesh brought up the holo projector on her desk. A projection appeared, moving slowly, specs floating around it. “Do you know these?” Pavesh asked.
“One of the new model pulse cannons.”
The weapon was almost all a three-meters-long barrel. A bulge at the back was the field generator for the plasma pulses the gun fired. They were like concentrated bars of dense energy and could punch through both defensive fields and ships’ hulls, like a high-velocity round from a projectile rifle.
“These are what he’s selling. Aside from the obvious attraction of their firepower, their other selling point is how easy they are to fit and integrate into a ship’s systems.”
Barb had read the reports on them. The plasma cannons could be swapped out fast. Remove a damaged one from its mounting brackets, unplug the connectors, then mount and plug in a new one in its place. It drastically reduced the downtime of the single- or dual-pilot fighters they were mostly mounted on.
“They’ve also become popular among smugglers and pirates and anyone else with a small ship they’d like to arm with military-spec weapons which are easy to install.”
Barb could imagine. The cannons weren’t sold to civilians—not legally anyway. Anyone who had control over a stash of them might well be tempted by the easy money to be made in a seller’s market. Had Colonel Locke given in to temptation?
“You’re going into the field along with an undercover agent from the Secret Intelligence Services.”
Barb frowned. “This isn’t an all Milintel operation, ma’am?”
“No. For one thing, the fewer military people know about it, the less chance of it getting back to Locke. For another, this agent has been in deep cover for some time, posing as a courier and trader with a sideline in smuggling. Exactly the sort of customer who wants to buy one of the weapons.”
“Then why are Milintel involved at all? Sounds like SIS have it in hand.”
“Because we want to be involved. He’s one of ours. You’ll provide the expertise on military matters the SIS agent doesn’t have. Also, I want you to keep an eye on her.”
“May I ask why?”
“I’ve read her file SIS sent over. I’ll send it to you to check out, too. Frankly, she looks as if she’s been undercover too long. She probably thinks she is a smuggler.”
Pavesh brought up a document on her screen, glanced between it and Barb. “Taisiya Borovsky. The last mission she went on, SIS had to bail her out of jail. She had a psych eval along with her most recent performance appraisal. According to the findings of the appraisal and the evaluation, she’s ‘mostly competent, usually effective, and probably sane.’”
Probably sane? Barb schooled her face into the most neutral expression she could maintain.
“Borovsky will arrive tomorrow and take you on with her to Pritchitt Orbital Habitat, where she’s based. You and Borovsky have to ensure Locke comes to at least one meeting about the sale. If you can put him and the weapons in the same place, we’ve nailed him.”
And what then? A court martial? A public show where everyone got to say they know those Lawrentians couldn’t be trusted? Or would he be ordered to quietly resign or retire, citing ill health? Barb wanted the truth. But she wasn’t sure she wanted the truth exposed to everyone else.
* * * *
Barb turned up at the spaceport the next day with a duffle bag and the number of the berth where she could find Borovsky in the area reserved for small commercial ships. She stepped off the tiny, automated electric tram that ran up and down the long lines of ships on the ground, without bothering with the door or with slowing the thing down. It crawled along like it had treacle in its wheels, anyway. She hopped over the guard rail and barely wobbled on the landing, though she did jar her bag from her shoulder.
The sound of someone slow-clapping as she picked up the bag made her look up. The ship she’d come to find—an unimpressive hunk of junk—stood in front of her, and, sitting beside it in a lawn chair, apparently enjoying the sunshine sat…a person who must be Borovsky. Height, age, and weight all matched the file Barb had read. But the picture in it had been quite innocuous: a late-twenties woman with mid-length brown hair, wearing a white shirt.
This person was not innocuous. She wore a tight shirt and pants, which did nothing to hide her figure. A good figure, too. She looked taller than the height recorded in her file because she wore quite enormous boots. Her hair was in one of those fashionable just-got-out-of-bed styles, and streaks of blonde and dark red enhanced the brown. Least innocuous of all, she carried a gun on her hip. It pushed the limits of the term “handgun.”
“Corolus?” Borovsky said. “Hell, why am I asking? You stink of military.”
Barb resented the idea of her stinking. And she didn’t have on her uniform. Borovsky was probably points-scoring.
“Let me check your ID,” Barb said.
“By the book, huh? Sure.”
Barb held out her pocket terminal. Borovsky swiped her fingers across it too fast. The terminal said the fingerprints were unreadable, but a second later, it showed Positive DNA match. Taisiya Borovsky.
“Yes, I’m Lieutenant Corolus.” Barb offered her hand. “Good to meet you, Agent.”
“Let’s nip the ‘lieutenant’ and ‘agent’ shit in the bud right away, before you say it accidentally in front of the wrong people,” Borovsky said as she shook Barb’s hand.
“Would you prefer me to call you Borovsky or Taisiya?”
“It’s Taya to my friends. But you can use it, too. What about you? Barbara? Barbie?” Borovsky smirked.
“Barb.”
“Pointy. Okay, Barb.” Borovsky—Taya—led the way up a steep ramp, which extended from the side of the ship, and through a hatchway. “Welcome to my ship. It isn’t big enough for two people to share comfortably, so we’re shit out of luck there. Come aboard and find someplace to dump your gear.”
Finding someplace didn’t take long, since the ship was too cramped to have many places.
“Living quarters and control room up here, cargo hold and engineering section underneath,” Taya said. “Engineering section is really just the far end of the cargo hold.” She opened a hatch in the floor for Barb to check out the lower section.
Barb dropped down the ladder to it and looked around. Taya didn’t accompany her, apparently having better things to do than give her the grand tour. By the time Barb climbed back up, she found Taya in the cockpit, starting the engines. Barb slipped into the co-pilot’s seat and brought up the preflight checklist, which had nothing marked off.
“What?” Taya said, catching the look Barb flashed her. “Please, I’ve got the whole thing in my head.”
“Completion of the checklist is a legal requirement.” Barb worked her way through it, to Taya’s obvious amusement.
“Auxiliary power unit operational?”
“Auxiliary power unit happy as Larry.”
“Communications board status.”
“Green as your eyes, Babe.”
“That’s Barb.” She marked the item off the list. Ignoring any of Taya’s nonsense, Barb finished the list by the time they had takeoff clearance. The ship rose. The orange sky faded to indigo at the horizon.
“Course set and laid in for Pritchitt Orbital.” Once they reached orbit, Taya steered away from the planet. “You want coffee? I’d kill my grandmother for a cup right now.”
“Do you have decaf?”
Taya looked at her as if she’d asked for a cup of blood. “God, no. Are you mad?”
“Tea then?” Barb needed a night’s rest before they hit Pritchitt. She needed to be fresh and ready for action when they reached the rendezvous.
“Keep an eye on the instruments.” Taya headed out to the tiny nook referred to as a galley and returned a few minutes later with two glass mugs full of hot black tea. “Sugar?” She pulled some paper sachets from her pocket.
Barb did usually enjoy sugar in her tea—it had been such a rare treat back home—but the sachets looked as if they’d been in Taya’s pocket for a month. “Thank you, no.”
Taya shrugged, tore open about four of the packs, spilling sugar on her lap. She dumped what she hadn’t spilled into her tea and brushed the rest off her knees to the floor. She lounged back in her chair, looking as if she was preparing for a nap.
“We should discuss our plans,” Barb said. “Explain to me how you intend to get Locke to the meet.”
Taya gave her a narrow look. “Listen, Barbie, let’s be clear. This is my mission. I’ve been working on the contact for a month. You’re not going to swan in here and take over.”
“That’s Barb. And there’s no need to be hostile.”
“There is if some deskbound intel analyst on a glory-hunting exercise is trying to come along and ruin all my carefully laid plans.”
“Plans like the one that got you sent to jail on your last job?”
“Oh, why the hell does everyone keep going on about that? Like I explained in my report, I urgently needed some information from a contact, and she’d gone and got herself tossed in jail. What else was I supposed to do?”
“Abort the mission?” Barb suggested in a tone implying this was what a sane person would do.
“You mean quit?”
“I mean make a realistic judgment. The mission was no longer viable.”
“You mean quit. And of course it was viable. I got the information. If my boss hadn’t panicked and bailed me out, everything else would have gone to plan.” Taya scowled and sipped her tea. “I don’t quit.”
That sounded almost…reasonable. Ridiculous to any normal person, maybe. But undercover operatives weren’t exactly normal people. Going by the outfit, Taya was on the more eccentric end of the scale. Barb scowled at the plunging neckline. It revealed a lot of admittedly quite enticing cleavage. Was it all part of the game? To distract the men Taya dealt with and make them lower their guard?
“Doesn’t that outfit you wear draw attention?” Barb asked.
“I hope so. But it doesn’t make me look like an agent, does it?”
“It makes you look like a pirate.”
Taya laughed. “That’s the gun. I can barely lift it with only one hand. I never use it. I think the power ran down.”
“You walk around with a useless weapon?” Barb said, looking at the huge pistol in its holster.
“For show. Then when they’re busy looking at it and wondering if I’m going to draw it…”
Taya suddenly held a sleek, matt-black pistol in her left hand. Barb had not seen her draw it and had no idea where it might have been concealed. Taya grinned at her stare. Surprisingly, she displayed good firearms discipline and kept it carefully pointed away from Barb and the instruments panel. The pistol vanished again, and Taya went on drinking her tea. Barb watched her for a while, then spoke up.
“I’m not a desk jockey, and I’m not glory hunting. But I acknowledge I don’t have the deep cover experience in the field you have. I’m not trying to take over the mission. I apologize if I gave that impression.”
Taya stared at her. “I should have got that on tape. An officer apologizing to me. There’s a first.”
“Don’t milk it,” Barb warned.
“Okay, Peaches. Apology accepted.”
“Please don’t call me that.”
“Excuse me. Lieutenant Peaches.”
Barb gave up because it would only encourage Taya.
“Do you want to discuss the mission?” Rather more diplomatic than before.
“Okay. When we get to Pritchitt, I’ve got an appointment set up with a man who claims he can arrange a meeting with the person he calls ‘the vendor’ of the weapons.”
“Locke.”
“That’s the assumption. He thinks I’m in the market for two of the guns to up the firepower on this baby.” Taya patted the console.
“But will Locke come to a sale? Especially a small one. Doesn’t he have people doing his dirty work for him?”
“Usually. But he always shows up for a cash transaction. I guess he doesn’t trust his minions not to cream a few bills off the top.”
“Cash? Where do we get so much cash?” Barb asked.
“Ah, now we get to why I agreed to have you tag along. Milintel can arrange the cash for us. You put the request through to your boss for it. Reassure him we’ll bring it back—”
“She,” Barb corrected. “My commanding officer is a she.”
“Good. She might have the brains to see the sense in the plan and not worry about the stupid money.”
“How do I reassure her we’ll bring the money back? What’s your plan there?”
“I’m sure I’ll think of something on the way.”
Chapter 2
Barb emerged from the ship’s tiny bunk room in her civilian clothes. Taya raised an eyebrow.
“This is your idea of being out of uniform?” Taya asked.
“What do you mean? Of course I’m out of uniform.”
“And wearing a suit of clothes that looks almost exactly like your uniform minus an insignia.”
Barb glanced down at herself. She supposed the pants and jacket were similar in color and general appearance to her uniform. Probably why she liked them. “What do you suggest?” she asked. “Because most of what I’ve brought is like this.”
“Hang on.” Taya went into the bunk room and came back out with her arms full. “Lose the jacket,” she said.
Barb shrugged, but did. Taya was the one with experience undercover. Perhaps Barb should yield to that experience. She took off her jacket. Under it, she wore a black, tight-fitting, ribbed shirt, with a placket of buttons at the neck. Taya reached up and twitched a couple of the buttons open. Barb froze and resisted the urge to slap Taya’s hand away.
“Put this on.” Taya handed her a well-worn, brown leather belt with bronze studs and a bronze buckle in the shape of a dragon. “Accessories are key.”
