War Criminals by Gavin Smith (ereader for textbooks .TXT) 📕

Nice to see they’re bonding, Miska thought. Particularly as the ex-FBI agent’s job had been to hunt down people like the Doc. Corenbloom sat up and slapped his face a little. If the Doc looked tired then Corenbloom was clearly exhausted. Miska noticed that Vido was struggling to hide the apparent disgust he had for the ex-FBI agent.

‘Well?’ her dad asked.

‘The long and short of it is that they’re reasonably sure it wasn’t us,’ Corenbloom told them. ‘I could go into detail if you want but basically it was a series of sloppy copycat killings. It didn’t help that we use the same weapons as Triple S, but the ballistics and knife wounds don’t match our gear.’

‘Well, that’s great, isn’t it?’ Miska said. ‘When are they going to release that information?’

‘That’s the problem. They can’t tie it to Triple S either. They handed over weapons and equipment that they say Resnick’s squad wore when they relieved you but we suspect they were the wrong ones …’ Corenbloom’s words faltered as his eyes flickered.

‘The time of death places Resnick’s people at the scene of the crime,’ the Doc continued, ‘but that’s circumstantial at best. They were careful. We suspect they wore clean suits, they left very little evidence.’

‘Let me guess, they wiped the memory on all the security lenses?’ Miska asked. The Doc nodded and then he shook Corenbloom awake again.

‘What?’ he asked. The Doc just pointed into the lens that was shooting the holographic image. ‘Oh yeah, so basically they’re holding back on the announcement because New Sun’s lawyers are telling them that if they implicate Triple S in any of this there will be hell to pay.’

‘But they are implicated,’ her dad said. Even to Miska’s ears it sounded naive.

‘Doesn’t matter what you know, it matters what you can prove,’ Vido and Corenbloom said at the same time, and then realistic net icon and hologram glared at each other.

‘So they’re holding back on the announcement?’ Miska asked. Corenbloom nodded. ‘But we can tell people, can’t we? I mean they’re free to try and sue me.’

‘It’ll be better coming from the UN investigator,’ Vido told her. ‘We lack credibility and we could do with less emphasis on the amount of contempt you have for the law.’

‘There’s something else,’ Corenbloom added. ‘Between the possible first contact situation at Trafalgar, and the war crimes, the UN are quite close to calling in a peacekeeping force.’

‘I don’t suppose they’d employ us for the job?’ Miska asked. There were a few smiles around the table,

‘With respect, Colonel, I think they feel that you’re part of the problem but basically they’re looking for an excuse,’ Corenbloom told them.

Miska nodded again. She knew when she was being warned.

‘Okay, thank you both, get some sleep,’ she told them. Corenbloom glanced at Vido and then the hologram flickered off.

‘So we’re going to be exonerated,’ Miska said.

‘Of that,’ Vido added.

‘Eventually,’ her dad said.

‘So what do we do now?’ Miska asked.

‘What do you want to achieve?’ Golda asked. ‘After all, we’re not getting paid.’

It was a good question. She wanted to know what New Sun were up to but that wasn’t enough justification for military action. She knew that Raff would want to know as well. He, and by he she meant her employers in the CIA, would also want any evidence of Martian and/or Small Gods involvement. Miska would quite like Colonel Duellona exposed as well, if for no other reason than it would explain the beating she took at the other woman’s hands. But none of this was justification for an unpaid mercenary action and in terms of Small Gods’ tech, she needed to keep whatever the Ultra was quiet. Except you sent him right out on a mission immediately after saying you wouldn’t.

‘Have we heard from the Nightmare Squad?’ she asked.

‘Nothing yet,’ Golda told her.

‘We’re burning money staying here,’ Vido pointed out.

‘We got anywhere else to be?’ Miska asked. There was always going to be down time, which was going to burn money, though she had to admit the docking fees for Waterloo Station were exorbitant.

‘What do they want?’ Miska asked.

‘New Sun?’ Golda asked. Miska nodded. ‘Does it matter?’

‘It’s bothering me,’ Miska told him.

‘It never hurts to know what your enemy’s objective is,’ her dad said, ‘and they are the enemy.’ These last words were growled. They hadn’t talked about the allegations made but she knew her dad. Rage was bubbling under the surface. God help the people responsible if he ever got hold of them while he was wearing the Cyclops.

‘They want the north, right? The highlands, the mountains?’ Miska said. ‘That’s why they crossed the river, that’s why Trafalgar wasn’t near anything strategically useful.’

‘But if there’s something up there why don’t they just send a force directly? Why such a big military action?’ Golda asked.

‘They want the planet,’ Vido said. ‘That’s clear.’

Miska agreed with him. The military effort was one big distraction, however they justified it. They wanted the planet for some reason and that reason wasn’t the gas mining operation.

‘But Miska’s right,’ her dad said, ‘too much emphasis on the north.’

‘Which is uninhabited, and the survey says there’s nothing of value up there,’ Golda said.

‘Surveyors have been bribed before,’ Vido pointed out. ‘To leave things out of the report that can be exploited at a later date.’

‘Golda’s right, why don’t they just go to whatever it is?’ her dad asked. ‘They’ve managed to set up a no-orbit rule, presumably to hide something. So fly to whatever it is, set up a concealed camp.’

‘What if they can’t fly to it? FOB Trafalgar was extremely low tech. What if advanced tech doesn’t work up there?’ Miska asked.

‘How would that work?’ said her dad.

Miska shrugged.

‘Are we forgetting that there’s something down there killing people?’ Vido asked. He looked less than happy. She suspected that his encounter with the artefact on Barney Prime had been more than enough ‘alien’ for Uncle V.

‘The Doc said there’s something odd with the flora on Ephesus. He suggested