“I’m Warrant Officer Yamazaki, Federated Worlds Space Fleet. I have orders to return you to Terranova planet, Lieutenant.”
“Show me,” Michael demanded.
Yamazaki held out a single sheet of paper. Michael took it and read through the dense legalese. He wasn’t left much the wiser. He had no idea whether what he was looking at was valid, but he was determined not to give the Feds any more slack than he had to.
“Looks okay,” he conceded, handing the orders back to Yamazaki.
“It is. Now, your hands, sir.”
“Is that necessary? There are hundreds of you bastards, you’re all bigger than me, and we’re inside a planetary defense base. How far do you think I’d get?”
“Just do it, sir,” the woman said, her voice flat and cold.
“Why are you such an officious asshole, Warrant Officer Yamazaki?” Michael snapped.
“Now!”
With reluctance, Michael held out his hands. He was cuffed by the largest spacer in the escort. The man ran a thin plasfiber cord from the cuffs to a band on his own wrist. “Oh, come on!” Michael protested. “That’s not necessary either.”
“Not your call, sir. Let’s go.”
“No kidding,” Michael muttered as he was led out of the cell, with the rest of Yamazaki’s team of fleet police falling in around him.
Flanked by his escort, Michael stepped out into a hot Jamuda morning. The sun hammered down. It turned the ceramcrete apron into a blazing sea of heat and light that brought Michael to an abrupt halt, his eyes flooded with sudden tears. “Shit,” he hissed, wiping his eyes with the back of a plasticuffed hand.
“Come on, sir,” Yamazaki said. “Keep moving.”
The warrant officer looked anxious. As well you should, Michael thought. The Hammers might deny any responsibility for the abortive attempt to kidnap him, but that had not stopped them from jacking up the rhetoric, with their embassy demanding that he be extradited back to Commitment to face Hammer justice. And Yamazaki would have known every bit as well as Michael did that the Hammers would stop at nothing to get their hands on him.
“Okay, okay,” Michael said as they set off again. They had gone a few meters when Michael stopped again. His mouth dropped open. In front of him was the Federated Worlds Space Fleet assault lander waiting to take him back to Terranova.
His heart sank. He was about to come face to face with the very people whom he had betrayed, whose code of honor he had despoiled, whose reputation his actions had so traduced.
The cell door opened to admit a young spacer carrying a tray. “Lunch,” the man said.
“Thanks,” Michael said, getting to his feet.
The spacer leaned forward. With great care he spit into the food. “Enjoy,” he whispered, holding the tray out.
In an instant, rage consumed every part of Michael’s being, and he erupted into violence. He smashed the tray aside. His hands lunged for the spacer’s throat. He rammed the man back against the bulkhead with a sickening thud that drove the air from his lungs in an explosive woof. Michael spun the man around and pulled him back and down to the deck, one fist clubbing his tormentor’s face in a brutal, frenzied attack that gave the spacer no chance to protect himself.
Within seconds the cell filled with bodies, and Michael was dragged off. His chest heaved, and his heart pounded. He was still consumed by anger, and his arms and fists lashed out until sheer weight of numbers pinned him down. A soft pffftt and stinging pain from a gas gun ended his fight. “Tell that little fuck I’ll kill him next time I see him,” Michael screamed as blackness closed in. “You tell that … little …”
The marine corporal sitting on Michael’s unconscious body eased himself off. He stood up, shaking his head. “Now what the hell was that all about?” he asked.
“Who knows?” his buddy said. “But I’d bet it was something-” He reached down to pull the whimpering spacer to his feet. “-this sad sack of shit did.”
“Visitor for you,” the intercom said.
“Piss off,” Michael muttered. He refused to open his eyes even when the cell door opened, furious with himself that he had lost his temper, even more furious that his left wrist had been secured to the bulkhead by a plasfiber restraint.
“Lieutenant Helfort,” a voice said, a woman’s voice, authoritative and controlled. “I’m Commander Kadar, captain in command of the FWSS Pilgrim.”
Discipline, deeply ingrained, forced Michael to his feet. He snapped to attention. “Apologies, sir,” he blurted. “I didn’t know it was you.”
“Don’t apologize. Now, first things first.” Kadar turned and waved a marine into the cell. “Get that restraint off. That’s better,” she went on when the man was done. “I’m here to apologize to you. The security holovid showed us what happened. We’ll be taking disciplinary action against Spacer Gillespie.”
“I’m sorry I lost it,” Michael said.
“Pity about all this.” Kadar waved a hand at the cell’s sterile white bulkheads. “But rules are rules.”
“I understand that.”
“I know you do.” Kadar leaned forward a fraction. “You’re not on your own, Helfort-” Her voice had dropped to the faintest of whispers; Michael struggled to hear her. “-so hang in there.” Kadar stepped back. “Now,” she continued, her voice strong again, “if there is anything you need, just ask. I can’t guarantee you’ll get it, but anything we can do, we will.”
With that she was gone. Michael wondered just what the hell she’d been talking about.
Wednesday, August 20, 2403, UD
Offices of the Supreme Council for the Preservation of the Faith, McNair City
“Michael Wallace Helfort …”
If the black-gowned judge was troubled by the gravity of the occasion, her voice did not show it.
“… it is the sentence of this court that you be transferred to a duly authorized place of execution, and there, on the date specified by the minister for planetary security, you be put to death according to law. Take the prisoner down.”
“Yes!” Chief Councillor Polk hissed. “It’s about time, you piece of Fed garbage.” He scowled. “Months and months they took! Can you believe it, Lou?”
“That’s the Federated Worlds for you,” Lou Nagaro, Polk’s chief of staff, said. “Very keen on due process.”
Polk snorted derisively. “I’ll give the assholes due process,” he grunted.
“At least they got there in the end, Chief Councillor. So how about a glass of champagne to celebrate?”
“No, not yet,” Polk said with an emphatic shake of the head. “I’ll share a bottle of champagne with you, a good bottle from Old Earth, but only when that man is dead and not before. Now go and find out where Councillor Kando and Colonel Hartspring are. I want to see them.”
“Sir.”
Polk waited in silence until Nagaro returned.
“Kando and Hartspring will be back in McNair tomorrow,” Nagaro said.
“Good. I want Kando to make sure that the Feds carry through with this, and I don’t care how much we have to spend or who we have to suborn. Helfort must be executed.”
“I think Kando can make sure of it.”
“He’d better.”
“But what about Hartspring? What can a DocSec colonel do?”
“A lot, Lou, a lot. Michael Helfort might be on his way to the gallows, and none too soon, but death’s not enough for him. I want him to suffer every minute of every day he has left alive. I want him in so much pain that he’ll be begging the Feds to kill him when they strap him into the chair.”
Skepticism flitted across Nagaro’s face. “Forgive me, Chief Councillor, but how can we do that? The Feds will have Helfort locked away where nobody can reach him. No matter how much we spend, we’ll never lay a hand on him.”
Polk smiled indulgently at Nagaro. “You never were much of a creative thinker, were you?”
“I don’t follow.”
“Watch and learn, Lou; watch and learn.”