The WarLord
1.
"Jared Khan is a monster," said Colonel Ezra Lynch in the most emphatic tone Dr. Victoria Brooks had ever heard. "He's a completely amoral sociopath with no regard for human life or decency."
"Can he really be that bad?" asked Victoria. She had heard the rumours about Jared Khan, in fact, retelling them was a popular pastime on frontier stations like Watchtower 7, but this warning from her commander had the ring of officially sanctioned truth.
"More than you can ever imagine," answered the Colonel as he flopped onto the sofa across from her desk and seemed to physically deflate. Lynch had recently hit middle age, and middle age had hit back hard. The trim figure that had once made him a sports legend in the Union Defence Forces was slowly creeping into fat, and his hairline was retreating quicker than a poorly led army. "Jared Khan is the product of unlimited exposure to corrupt alien thought. Nobody really knows how many people he's killed, and the High Command, in its infinite wisdom has invited him to come here, to my station of all the places in the galaxy."
Lynch's tone with the phrase infinite wisdom had the ring of unofficial sarcasm. Outside of the trusted confines of Dr. Brooks' office in Watchtower 7's sickbay, such unofficial tones might attract the attention of Capt. Gerhard and that could be detrimental to both your career and your health. Gerhard was officially the Watchtower's 'Interdepartmental Liaison.' But in the Terran Military Union there was a gap so wide between what's official and what's real you would need a faster than light Starship going full speed to cross it in your lifetime. Gerhard was really an operative of the Special Political Directorate with the power to snuff out even the potential threat of 'alien subversion' by any means necessary. He was a dangerous man to annoy, but according to Lynch, a bigger danger had reared its ugly head.
"Khan's coming here," this was the first she heard of this. Those rumours, those legends she had heard about Jared Khan were about to be made flesh. The most dangerous human in the quadrant was coming to her home on Watchtower 7. When she first signed on for outpost duty, she was hoping for adventure, but if half the stories about this man were true, things were going beyond simple adventure to become downright dangerous.
"Now you know why I'm cruising for a stress seizure," said Col. Lynch. His breathing was shallow, and his eyes were bloodshot.
Victoria pulled her thick curly hair back, snapped it into a puffy bun, putting herself in full doctor on call mode, and took out her digital prescription pad. "Maybe I can prescribe a mild sedative to calm your nerves."
"I should be mainlining neuro-soma until this maniac's off my station," answered Colonel Lynch, "it's the only thing I can think of to keep me from screaming."
Victoria stood up from her desk and went to the dispenser console. "Neuro-soma's a little extreme," she said, downloading some commands from her digital-pad to the dispenser's computer. "I'm thinking that ten micrograms of quatrozine will do just fine. Is Khan coming for the trade conference with the rebels?" Earth's outer colonies had declared their independence over five centuries before Victoria's birth, but many Terrans still called them 'rebels' out of government sanctioned habit.
Col. Lynch twitched. "Yes," he muttered. "But they don't like to be called rebels; they're now 'Free Citizens of the Republic of Humanitas' and for this operation, they will be our honoured guests and allies. I have to warn you to expect wounded, if not worse, if things go wrong."
Dr. Brooks froze as she reached for the vial of sedative. "What do mean by wounded?"
Col. Lynch sighed and shrugged his shoulders. "That's classified, and I've said too much already. By the way, the Humanitas delegation wants surgical bay twelve kept available. In fact, when they give the word you are to hand over control of the entire sick bay and wait until further notice."
"Why do they want my neuro-surgery station?" asked Dr. Brooks, her curiosity piqued.
"That is also classified," answered Lynch with a shrug as he reached for the vial of medication. Victoria took one look at his deadly serious expression and decided that any more questions would just make things worse.
#
"Of course it's a trap," said Jared Khan with a hint of laughter in his voice. "Why else would both the Republic and the TMU invite me to a trade conference, but insist that I come alone without any security or staff on the pretence that they have some important planet-shattering secret they can tell only me, and only face to face. I must admit that they seem to be losing their edge and getting quite sloppy."
"Then why are you going?" pleaded Zal Algren, his pointed ears and forehead ridges turning hot pink from the tension. They were talking, more like arguing, in Zal's office with its panoramic view of Jared's subterranean capitol city of Pandemonium. The bright lighting, natural wood panelling, and potted flowers gave visitors the impression of a verdant garden, rather than an office over a kilometre beneath the barren stone of an asteroid.
"I have to go, I can't have all their hard work be for nothing," answered Jared. "This is a rare occasion of co-operation between the Union and the Republic. Besides, I want to see how it ends. You of all people know how I hate not having the full story."
Zal didn't know what to make of his oldest friend. He'd known Jared since childhood when 'The Rich Pirate's Bastard' was the only human willing to stand up for the scrawny little half-breed who was a scholarship case at the Humanitas Republic's most elite private school. His defence of Zal from a racist teacher had cost the young Jared dearly, but it had won him Algren's lifelong loyalty and service as Jared's personal attorney, administrative jack of all trades, and unofficial diplomat.
Of course, Jared's militantly contrary personality and damn-it-all attitude often tested Zal's loyalty as it would test any sane and rational person. The strain was strongest when Jared set his mind on doing something as dangerous as this latest escapade.
"They could be counting on your arrogance," added Algren. "They could be planning another assassination attempt, one that might actually succeed. Perhaps I should take a few minutes of your time to tell you the fable of the curious cat?"
"Come on Zal," said Khan, "you of all people know my paranoia greatly outweighs my arrogance and my curiosity. I'm going, but I'm not stupid, I'll be bringing a few surprises of my own."
Zal rose from his desk and turned to his office's wide poly-glass window. Outside was a thriving city, with over thirty million souls, both human and over a half a dozen species of aliens, all of them relied on Jared as they relied on his ancestors who first created and then held the title of Lord Protector. They needed him to safeguard the lives they've made and his latest adventure could put them all at risk.
Algren's boss and friend was not a handsome man by any stretch of the imagination. His face was wide, with a small flat nose, like a boxer from Old Earth, and a long scar ran down from the right edge of his forehead, through his right eye, which was artificial, to end at the edge of his thin upper lip. Various doctors had offered to replace Jared's metallic right eye with a newer model that could match the icy blue of his left eye, and others pitched him simple procedures to remove his many scars, but he always refused.
Zal Algren knew the story behind that eye, and he knew why Jared clung to his scars and what they represented. That was just another on a long list of worries Algren associated with his friend, worries that came with being the friend of the Lord Protector of the Hades Belt.
"It's just that I worry about you, about this place, and especially about the people who live here," said Zal.
"That's your job," replied Jared with a smile, "and you happen to be very good at it. I know it's a trap and of course it will be dangerous, but how else can I teach them to leave the Hades Belt alone?"
"So you've decided."
"Of course," said Jared. "I've ordered that The Peregrine is to follow me and to be prepared for anything. Plus, Ho'Dak is eager to see what a TMU Watchtower looks like."
Zal had to smile at that news. The Terran Military Union had closed itself off from 'contamination' from aliens, at a time when the handful of species they had encountered was predominantly humanoid like Zal's Borean mother. He could just imagine their reaction when a three hundred kilo Hissak darkened their airlock.
#
Captain Werner Gerhard triple-locked the door to his office, activated the surveillance scrambler, and turned on his communications panel. Normally, individual officers didn't get unfettered and unmonitored access to hyperspace transmitters. However, Werner Gerhard wasn't a normal officer, and his mission required direct communication with his superiors, without the knowledge and interference of the common military command structure. He accessed one of the more obscure audio channels and turned on the panel's microphone.
"Calling Alpha Centauri Command, this is Gerhard, Werner J., of Watchtower 7" said the Terran officer into his microphone, "code five-delta-epsilon-three-x-ray-six calling Alpha Centauri Command."
"This is Alpha Centauri Command. Code verified," answered a calm voice whose signal rocketed through hyperspace to cross light years with only a few milliseconds delay. "Begin communication."
"Where's Vladimir?"
"Vladimir has to attend to important matters on Earth for the next few weeks," answered Centauri Command. "To maintain operational security he will be incommunicado to us until his return to Alpha Centauri. So until then, you are to report directly to me, authorisation seven-epsilon-delta-six-tango-nine."
"The trade conference is on," said Gerhard after he double-checked the authorisation code. "Plan Alpha-25 can begin on schedule."
"Vladimir wants assurances that you can contain Jared Khan?" asked Centauri Command. "Our psychological profile says that he will do everything in his power to disrupt our work. In fact, the words 'treacherous' and 'sneaky' show up quite frequently in his file."
"I won't lie to you, it is risky," answered Gerhard, leaning back in his chair, "but all of humanity's greatest achievements required some element of risk. Besides, we will not be acting alone. We will have the rebels of Humanitas aiding us. With their help we will finally gain access to Khan's little kingdom, end his monopoly on Trigonan technology, and then we can end the Trigonans, the Humanitas rebels, and all the rest. Untainted humanity can finally take its rightful place as the dominant power in this quadrant."
"You should be careful," answered Centauri Command, "If Vladimir was here, he would say that you're starting to sound like a politician."
Gerhard smiled.
"I don't foresee any significant problems," said Gerhard, "besides, as Vladimir himself said, if we fail to contain Khan, we can always kill Khan. Thanks to Dr. Vance, we have Plan Alpha-25B to fall back on."
#
The polite greetings of the androids were lately sending creepy chills down Victoria's spine. In fact, the whole concept of the androids was starting to make her feel uneasy, though she'd never admit it publicly. The logical side of her mind discounted it as a childish phobia brought on by the distance and relative isolation of her posting, and that there was nothing to fear.
After all, they were just a month away from the New Terran Year and the year 3000; androids had served humanity, in one form or another, for centuries, and shouldn't inspire almost superstitious dread in a mentally healthy person. Victoria should have seen the androids as she would see a dishwasher or a toaster, useful and harmless. However, there was something intangible about the situation on Watchtower 7 that made her uneasy.
Since her Academy graduation and assignment to Watchtower 7, she had watched the complement of living humans dwindle down from over a thousand, to just under a hundred. It wasn't a disaster like an alien attack or a plague that took the people away. They merely went home to Earth or to closer postings on Mars, or Alpha Centauri. Most were relieved to be heading back; Watchtowers on the outer edge of TMU space were not popular assignments for young ambitious officers. There was just too much risk of contamination by aliens and their inhuman ideas.
Victoria was on the last incoming complement of humans from Earth. She watched how the other humans had left and the semi-sentient robotic Drones had taken their place. These Drones weren't intelligent enough to operate on their own so they took their daily orders directly from the Watchtower's fully sentient Central Intelligence named Gibson 5.5.
Gibson 5.5 took its daily orders from the remaining human personnel, but that thought really didn't calm Victoria. She found these new Drones, with their blank mirrored faces, disturbing, and Gibson's disembodied digital voice, with its mock-soothing tone and air of condescension didn't help either. The past ten monthly courier ships from Earth had been comprised entirely of Drone crews and commanded by Central Intelligence machines like Gibson.
Victoria wanted to talk to a real human being. Lynch had his own troubles, the other regular officers didn't have the background she needed, and Gerhard didn't have 'friendly chats.' That left her one more pleasant option.
"Section 2," she said to the control panel, "level six, please."
"Of course Dr. Brooks," answered Gibson 5.5, not even a simple ride on the transit-tube was outside his attention. The floor beneath her shifted almost imperceptibly as she began the three kilometre descent into the bowels of the Watchtower.
#
"Hello my child," said Chief Warrant Officer Jacob Thorpe as she stepped out of the transit tube, his voice rich in the sing song tones of their shared homeland of Jamaica. Victoria had discarded her accent while in medical school; Thorpe clung to his although he hadn't seen his birthplace in over four decades. He also called her 'my child' like he was a loving grandfather instead of the chief mechanic of Watchtower 7's power core. Victoria let him ignore her superior rank because he honestly did remind her of her grandfather, a warm-hearted old man, who managed a resort hotel during the day, and entertained his grandchildren with stories at night.
Victoria also came to see the old mechanic to hear new stories. But these weren't her Poppa's sunny adventures. These stories were very different.
"Yes," said Thorpe sliding his toolbox back into its shelf, "I know all about Jared Khan, but don't think I ever met the man. I did get to know his Grandfather a bit, back in the day."
"What was he like?" asked Victoria, taking a seat in a soft old chair that had once belonged to one of Lynch's predecessors, but was now part of Thorpe's little kingdom of the discarded and recycled.
"His name was Ethan Khan," answered Thorpe as he sat in his favourite storytelling chair, another product of his rich recycling skills. "I was just a junior tech on my first assignment, but he was very polite and nice to me. We had quite a few chats whenever he visited."
"Did he visit often?"
"Oh yeah," answered the old man, "this is the closest Watchtower to the Hades Belt, so we did all the important trade meetings."
"What kind of a name is Khan?" asked Victoria, she wanted to know everything about this 'monster' coming to their station, no matter how trivial it might seem.
"My, oh, my," said Thorpe, "You're the curious cat today. Family used to be called Conroy, but old Ethan told me that some of their friends couldn't pronounce it correctly, so it got shortened and eventually re-spelled."
"What friends couldn't pronounce their name?"
"Alien friends," said Thorpe. "They have a lot of alien friends. That's what makes the Khans so scary and so important to the powers that be."
"Why are they so important?" asked Victoria. "Most of the stories I hear they're nothing more than a family of pirates and smugglers. Yet you tell me that Ethan Khan used to visit here often, and now the government has invited this Jared person over."
"To a certain degree they are pirates and smugglers," answered the mechanic, propping his feet up on a crate full of replacement reactor conduits. "And I've heard stories about them, some from Ethan himself, which would turn a black cat white from fright. The one about Jared killing his own father is one of the milder ones. Both the Union and Humanitas would be glad to see Jared Khan dead, but finishing him off is a complicated matter."
"Why?"
"So many questions," said Thorpe, "didn't they teach you anything at that fancy Academy of yours? They need him. See that big grey tube in the corner?"
Victoria nodded.
"That contains Thorinium-C. It's used to line the interiors of our reactor cores, without it, we'd have to stop and re-coat the interior of our reactor cores every three months instead of once every two years. There's only one person in the Orion Arm who supplies it."
"Jared Khan?"
"Exactly," said the old man. "You're learning little girl. His great granddaddy met these aliens called Trigonans, who are smart, and have lots of slick technology. And so the legend goes he traded something, nobody know what exactly, and in exchange, he got access to some of their knowledge. He can make Thorinium-C and other neat stuff that no one can copy because he has nano-tech that can operate outside of a cryo-environmental tank."
"That's impossible," replied Victoria. It was an established scientific fact in the Terran Military Union that industrial nano-technology could only function in tanks filled with ice cold argon gas.
"Nothing's impossible," said the old man with a chuckle, "especially when you've got the technology to back you up. The Khan's are the only ones the Trigonans will have any contact with, let alone trade. Because of this, the Union, Humanitas, and more than a few aliens are no doubt eager to get their hands on his secrets. But every time they try to take him out or rip him off..."
The old man's voice trailed off as he searched for a euphemism fit for mixed company. "Well, let's just say it gets messy. I sure hope they're not going to try something stupid here."
"That's great," said Victoria, slumping in her chair. "I came down here for a few reassuring words. Now I'm more scared than ever."
"By the pricking of my thumbs," said Jacob Thorpe, "something wicked this way comes..."
2.
"Do I look like an idiot to you?" asked Jared Khan, his eyes narrowing to laser points. The Peregrine was waiting for him at his personal docking bay, but he had to take a moment to handle this personal business.
Toby Byron shook his head; he tried to speak, but only dribbled out lukewarm water.
"For some reason I don't believe you," said Jared, and with a nod signalled the burly Janissary to dunk the poor bastard's head in the water bucket again.
Toby Byron's body convulsed and water bubbled and splashed out of the bucket, soaking the floor of the storeroom. After a few seconds that lasted two and a half eternities to Toby, the Janissary yanked his head out of the bucket and dropped him on the floor.
"I don't understand you Mr. Byron," said Jared Khan as he circled around the drowned rat lying in a puddle on the metal floor. "You've got a good job; you have three beautiful children and a wife that loves you, and you choose to put that all at risk by acting like a complete and total ass."
Khan crouched down and picked up Toby Byron by his hair. The man winced, but did not dare cry out because he could see right into those eyes. One was blue and held all the warmth of a polar ice cap, the other was made of metal, circuits, and lenses, and was just as cold.
"Melissa, you do remember your wife," said Khan, "is the daughter of one of my late grandmother's oldest friends. That makes Melissa a friend of my family, and I don't permit people who think I'm an idiot to live, even if they are married to friends of my family."
Byron tried to talk, but could only sputter and drool.
"You were banned from the casino for a good reason. You're a stinking degenerate gambler," continued the Lord Protector of the Hades Belt, his voice rising to a scalding boil. "However, you thought you could sneak back in and that I wouldn't know about it! And then you had the temerity, the sheer unadulterated balls, to strike Melissa! Did you think I wouldn't know that you broke her nose, you ignorant little shit-bag?"
Jared Khan let go of Byron's hair and he fell to the floor with a thud. Toby dared not make any move that might further enrage Khan, for on the Hades Belt; Khan literally had the power of life and death over all who dwelled in his little realm.
Tears began to flow down Byron's face. It was time to come clean and hopefully walk out of this mess with his hide intact.
"I need help," he croaked.
Khan stood up and looked down at Toby Byron. He had important things to do before he left, and he didn't want to deal with a worm like Toby Byron. Usually the Janissary Domestic Affairs Unit handled such matters, but Jared did give his word to Melissa's mother that he would look out for her, and that meant personally teaching Toby Byron a lesson.
Toby Byron had made his fortune managing annoyingly upbeat musical groups to entertain the kids of the neighbouring Humanitas Republic. A fortune he regularly pissed away at the gaming tables of every inhabited planet, colony, or outpost he visited. Melissa had asked Jared to ban Toby from the Belt's Pleasure Centres, which he did immediately. Toby responded to her wifely concern by trying to violate the ban, and when that failed, he broke her nose, and blackened both her eyes. That was the last straw to Jared Khan, because that was not how a gentleman acted toward a lady.
"I'm in a forgiving mood today Toby," said Khan as he again circled the prone man like a shark. "I'm giving you one last chance. Not because I like you, in fact, I can't stand you on both a personal and a musical level. I'm doing it for Melissa, who, for reasons unknown to me, still loves you. You're to take the treatment prescribed by the Tribunal of Health for your problems, or you will force me to make that lovely woman a widow. I hate to see a woman cry, especially over someone that doesn't deserve tears."
"Thank you Protector Khan," muttered Byron weakly.
"By the way," added Khan in a whisper not unlike the hissing of a cobra. "Lay a hand on her again, and I will personally skin you alive and feed you to the Hissak."
Byron nodded.
He had lived long enough on the Belt to know that you never called Jared Khan on his bluff.
Khan turned to the Janissary who stood silently in the corner and said: "Take him home. I've got places to be."
#
David Foster-Meridian liked to visit Uncle Kenneth's house in the most prestigious suburb of Wotan Prime's capitol city. Not that it was really a house; it was much more than that. It was also more than just a mansion; it was, for all intents and purposes, a palace, making it more interesting than David's father Gustaf's luxurious, but bland penthouse in the upscale neighbourhood the locals called 'The Money Core.'
This palace was the very heart of the House of Meridian, one of the oldest, wealthiest, and politically powerful families in Humanitas. It was a recreation of the home of some forgotten king from Old Earth and power literally dripped from its walls.
David's father was in the study, talking to his various relatives about the upcoming general elections. David, being a boy, found their discussion of voter statistics and political action committees as exciting as watching paint dry. So, he wandered away from the family gathering to do a little exploring of the fascinating house.
There were unspoken rules directing his behaviour while visiting the heart of the House of Meridian. He had to be quiet, and he couldn't touch anything that looked in anyway important or breakable. It's not that his parents believed David to be a loud and destructive child, he wasn't. It was just one couldn't trust a thirteen year old voice to always say the right things, and thirteen year old hands weren't trustworthy enough to handle antiques whose pedigrees went back beyond the Republic, beyond the Founding, to Old Earth itself.
David didn't mind the rules, and would take it upon himself to quietly explore the vast home. He had read extensively on architecture and history, and could even give the technical names for many of the place's decorative features. Not that anyone asked him about them.
The house was quiet except for the ongoing political discussion echoing from Uncle Kenneth's study, and the occasional buzz of a cleaner-bot polishing the hardwood floors. Kenneth and Portia's children, David's cousins, were much older than David, and were either away at University or in the study with the adults, discussing politics. David didn't mind, it was not like they knew the difference between a Palladian window and a hole in the ground, or even cared. Jessica might have, she knew a lot about the arts, but not her brothers.
David turned a corner and into the library. Old-fashioned paper books, bound in leather, lined three of the walls, while sunlight streamed through the broad windows of the fourth. David walked up to the window and looked out. Beyond the glass was the capitol city, sitting deep in a bowl lined with hills that were themselves lined with mansions, all trying to imitate the House of Meridian.
A sleek Tri-Star Mark-5 hover-car glided up the long driveway, and David could see his Uncle Kenneth stepping out of the front door. He was no doubt coming out to greet his wife Portia home from her latest expedition to the boutiques of the Money Core. It was something he did with the regularity of clockwork.
David turned from the window and went over to the wide shelves to see if there were any new additions to the library.
He saw the flash first.
The walls disappeared around him, replaced by an infinite white emptiness. Then the roar of a thousand thunders striking all at once filled the room.
The air rushed from his lungs as he impacted the bookshelf, and shards of broken window glass sliced through his school uniform jacket and into the flesh of his back.
David fell to the floor and landed hard on his back, driving the shards deeper into his flesh. He wanted to scream and he tried to scream, but he didn't have the air. Old books rained down on the boy, forcing the last of his breath from his lungs, and plunging him into blackness.
#
"Mr. Foster-Meridian," said a voice out of the blackness, "we are on our final approach to Watchtower 7."
David Foster-Meridian woke up, rubbed his tired eyes, and took a deep breath. Books weren't burying him anymore, only a small hardcopy of the latest trade report rested on his chest. That only threatened to bore him into oblivion, not to pound the living breath out of him. The razor-sharp shards of glass embedded in his back were gone too. Surgeons had long ago removed the scars that would have normally remained, leaving no physical evidence of that day when he was a boy.
"Mr. Foster-Meridian," said the voice from the intercom.
"Yes," answered David. "I had just dozed off a little."
"We are beginning our final approach to Watchtower 7," reiterated the voice on the intercom. "The station will be in visual range in a few minutes."
"Thank you," said David reaching for the intercom's off button. "That'll be all."
David Foster-Meridian slouched in his chair and took a deep breath. It had been years since his dreams had wandered back to the library on Wotan Prime. It was not a memory he was keen to relive, but he knew that it would crawl back for one last shot before he buried it, and the man who created it, forever.
David sat up and looked through the thick layer of duroplex glass at the TMU Watchtower as his ship the RHS Integrity approached. He had last visited this Terran Station a little more than three years earlier. Then, it was a bustling trade station and the massive tower that emerged from its asteroid base was dotted with lights, the universal signal of human habitation. Now the lights seemed to be on in only a few levels surrounding the command centre and docking ports.
He had heard that the Union had gone hog-wild with their android automation program, but this had slipped into the realm of the ridiculous. Had Old Earth become so obsessed with keeping out the 'alien' that they've lost faith in their fellow humans?
Then David sighed and realised that it was probably for the best. They were about to do something very dangerous. Something more experienced hands had warned them not to do, but new advances in neural interface technology had made the situation too tempting to pass up.
David nodded to himself, admitting that it was best to have the station as empty as possible. The fewer soft targets you gave an animal like Jared Khan, the better. What Khan had done to David's family was a crime he had to pay for, with twenty years worth of interest.
The police investigation, cursory though it was, revealed that the Meridian patriarch's luxurious hover-transport had exploded vaporising Kenneth Meridian and his wife instantly. Somehow, someone had slipped past the family's many layers of security and planted a micro-plasma flash bomb in their transport. All that remained of the transport was a smouldering hole over three metres deep. The police were officially baffled, but the family knew who did it.
However, Jared Khan, the chief suspect, was supposed to be dead at the time, which was one hell of an alibi.
An unknown assassin was supposed to have killed Jared Khan with a laser pulse, and dumped his corpse in Emerald Bay, but the murders were classic Khan. Jared really had survived the assassination attempt, and was teaching the Meridians and the whole Humanitas Republic a lesson. By the time class was over, thirty adult members of the Meridian clan were dead. Twice that number fled their homes, changed their names, and scattered throughout the quadrant to avoid his wrath.
Only two still held their original names, and stayed in the Republic. One was David himself, the other, was his cousin Jessica Meridian. Khan spared David because he was only a child during what the media called the 'Meridian War.' Khan spared Jessica with her sad green eyes and scarlet hair, for reasons David didn't understand until he was an adult. Those reasons, when he did learn them, disgusted him.
Shortly after the shooting stopped, Jessica Meridian moved back into her parent's house, her bedroom window overlooking the crater left by the blast that vaporised them. A hole she refused to fill in, as if it was some sort of memorial, not only to her family, but also to some unspoken sin.
When the last name on his list died, Jared Khan emerged from the dead, and reclaimed control of the Hades Belt. Life started again, as if nothing had happened, with Humanitas' most prominent citizens wilfully ignoring the gaps at the Founder's Club's Charter Member table. In fact, the surviving members of the Meridian clan used all their political clout to make sure this happened smoothly and without unnecessary questions. They even prevented the Humanitas Constabulary from any serious investigating, let alone avenging, of the crimes.
Any real investigation, even one by the tame Constabulary would have revealed the Meridian family's deep involvement in the conflict. That made criminally charging Khan impossible, because it would have escalated things beyond the family's control into open war with the rich and militarily powerful Hades Belt.
The full story of the war hadn't reached David until he was a student at New Harvard University, and his father, now called Gustaf Martinez, and prematurely aged from fear, told him what really happened. Until then they gave him the official line of radical anarchists causing his relative's deaths, not their own stupidity.
If his father was not light years away, working as a metal trader among the green-skinned Sulurians, he would have said that David was being stupid too. In fact, the word suicidal popped up numerous times in the imaginary conversations David held with his father. But Gustaf Martinez, formerly Foster-Meridian, wasn't here. He was hiding on an alien planet, pretending to be an innocent salesman, and cowering at every knock on the door.
David wasn't going to let a little punk like Jared Khan disgrace the name of the greatest family of the Republic. He was going to capture him, drain every secret out of his evil little head, and then he was going to make him pay.
"Docking successful," chimed a pleasant mechanical voice. David Foster-Meridian slid on his formal coat and strode towards the airlock.
#
Capt. Gerhard gave the top button on his dress browns a quick polish and the checked his shoes. His reflection sneered back at him. He didn't like dealing with rebel scum from the so-called Free Republic, but that didn't give him permission to be a slob. Besides, they were here for a little mutual benefit at the expense of a dangerous criminal. Politics and business made strange bedfellows, and Gerhard was thankful that at least he didn't have to deal with any aliens.
The door hissed open and David Foster-Meridian strode into the reception hall. He was dressed in the high collared blue coat befitting a junior charter member of the Founder's Club. Tradition dictated that Gerhard and the rest of the staff treat Foster-Meridian and his associates as visiting diplomats. This was borne from the simple fact that the Founder's Club was the de facto government of Humanitas, something known and accepted by all but the most naïve.
A thin sallow faced man in an ill fitting grey suit followed Meridian through the airlock, and Gerhard figured that he must be the doctor the rebels were pinning so much hope on. Personal profit was the only reason an arrogantly handsome elitist like Foster-Meridian would ever associate with such a pale, rat-faced little fellow.
"Welcome to Watchtower 7," said Captain Gerhard. "Colonel Lynch is prepared to meet you in the Commander's Dining Room."
"This is Dr. Vance," said David Foster-Meridian, introducing his rodent-like companion.
Gerhard greeted the little man and shook his cold, clammy hand.
"Is your neuro-surgery equipment up to date?" asked the little man with a hiss.
"We have the best the Union has to offer."
Dr. Vance snorted. "Your tin men must be most careful with my equipment. It is very delicate and must be protected, or nothing will work."
"Our androids are most capable," said Gerhard, in a vain attempt at a sympathetic tone. "Everything will work out perfectly. Now while the androids are unloading your ship, let's join Colonel Lynch for dinner."
"Yes," said David Foster-Meridian. "I understand your android chefs are quite skilled." Foster-Meridian was looking forward to a good meal. The secrecy of his mission meant that he had to leave the luxuries of the official Founder's Club star-yacht behind on Wotan Prime, and take a bulk transport with nothing but pre-packaged rations, an indignity he would soon never have to face again.
Because soon, David Foster-Meridian was going to go down in history as the man who finally broke Jared Khan, and altered the balance of power in the Orion Arm.
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