Shelley, Rick - Dirigent Mercenary Corps 05 - Lieutenant Colonel

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Dirigent Mercenary Corp #05
Lieutenant Colonel
By Rick Shelley
Prologue
The year is A.D. 2823. The interstellar diaspora from Earth has been in progress
for seven centuries. The numbers are uncertain, but at least five hundred worlds
have been settled, and perhaps well over a thousand. The total human population
of the galaxy could be in excess of a trillion. On Earth, the Confederation of
Human Worlds still theoretically controls all of those colonies, but the reality
is that it can count on its orders being obeyed only as far as the most distant
permanent outpost within Earth's system, on Titan. Beyond Saturn, there are two
primary interstellar political groupings, the Confederation of Human Worlds
(broken away from the organization on Earth with the same name, with its capital
on the world known as Union) and the Second Commonwealth, centered on
Buckingham. Neither of those political unions is as large or as powerful as they
will be in another eighteen decades, when their diametrically opposed interests
finally bring them to the point of war. In the meantime, humans who need
military assistance, and do not want the domination of either Confederation or
Commonwealth, have only a handful of options. Those who can afford it turn to
mercenaries. And the largest source of those is on the world of Dirigent....
1
Major Lon Nolan allowed himself to accept the deception that he was standing in
front of a ten-foot-square window looking out at the one world he had spent
nearly twenty years telling himself he would never see again. But he had seen
that world, spent nearly five months on it. Now he was leaving again, and this
time there was absolutely no doubt in his mind. He would never return to Earth.
He could not imagine ever wanting to return again. I finally broke the strings,
he told himself.
From Over-Galapagos, the space city in geosynchronous orbit roughly over the
islands that gave it its name, the world looked as Lon recalled it. Two decades
could not bring changes large enough to alter the view. But the months he had
spent on the surface had convinced him that Earth had changed-far more than he
would have deemed possible in the years since he had left to go to the mercenary
world of Dirigent to fulfill his childhood ambition of a career as a soldier.
Now, Lon's principal thoughts were of home-and Dirigent was home now, not Earth.
He had spent a month traveling to Earth, five months there, and it would be
another month before he could get home. He had traveled in civilian clothes,
under an assumed name. Prior to his departure from Dirigent, he had undergone
genetic-level na-nosurgery to make absolutely certain that his true identity
could not be discovered from fingerprints, retinal pattern, or DNA testing of
his blood or skin.
There won't be anything to tie me to Earth in a few months, he thought. He had
hesitated to accept the mission to Earth, but once he had, Lon had decided to
make the best use of the unexpected opportunity. After finishing his work for
the Corps-and only after finishing that work- he had contacted his parents, then
gone home to visit them at his childhood home on the eastern side of the Great
Smoky Mountains, near the city of Asheville. Even then, Lon had been forced to
stay incognito. Had his true identity been discovered by the authorities, it was
a virtual certainty that he would have been arrested, that he never would have
seen his wife and two children again.
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The purpose of Lon's trip to Earth had been espionage.
He had needed nearly the entire month he had with his parents to convince them
to emigrate. Although both his mother and father wanted to see their
grandchildren, the ties to Earth were strong. They needed time to convince
themselves.
"I've got my work at the university," his father had said when Lon first
proposed the move. "And your mother has her garden, her friends."
"Dirigent has a university, and students who are there, are there because they
want to leam, because they hope to make a difference to mankind. What have you
got? You've told me yourself that most of your students are just hoping for a
miracle that will help them climb out of the circuses into something-anything
better. You don't even go to the university but-what?-once each term? And then
you need an armed guard. You can't go into town safely. This pleasant little
country compound you both treasure, even it's an illusion, with electric fences,
guard dogs, and armed patrols to keep the real world out. Once you get beyond
the fences, casual violence is almost impossible to escape for long." Casual
violence, happenstance, had worried Lon more during his months on Earth than the
possibility that his mission might be discovered by the authorities.
"This is where our life has always been," his mother had added, in a voice that
sounded more fearful than nostalgic. "Except for you and your family, everyone
we know is here."
"All locked away safely in guarded compounds like this one," Lon replied.
It still took a lot of talk to get his parents to change their minds. When the
decision was finally reached, they couldn't all travel together. Lon had a
schedule to keep. He had to get off-planet and out of the reach of Earth's
police and what remained of Earth's Confederation of Human Worlds, the old
Colonial Office whose authority no longer ran beyond the solar system. His
parents would wait a few weeks, sell what they could, then book passage by a
circuitous route to Dirigent. By the time they arrived, Lon would have a cottage
lined up for them.
Night was beginning to move across eastern North America. Lon stared until he
saw the terminator line move across the mountains, past his parents' home, out
of what had once been North Carolina into what had once been Tennessee. He saw
lights in the cities and along the major connector routes. The cities were urban
jungles, with the majority of people crowded into areas known as circuses, slums
where the common denominators were poverty and lack of hope.
Lon turned away from the videoscreen that masqueraded as a window and left the
observation compartment to return to his transient quarters two decks below. He
would not be able to board the ship that would take him on the first
interstellar leg of his trip back to Dirigent until the next afternoon. Twenty
hours from now, he would be on his way out of Earth's solar system.
If his false identity remained safe another day.
* * *
Seven months earlier, Lon might have thought that the DMC had no surprises left
to spring on him, that he had seen the full repertory. He had been an officer in
the Corps for nineteen years, gone out on more contracts than he could easily
recall, seen every variety of life in garrison, including the political byplay
that suffused the higher officer ranks. He had not even considered that anything
out of the ordinary might be in the offing when Major Cava-naugh Zim, number two
man in the DMC's Office of Strategic Intelligence (OSI), had asked him to stop
by his office at Lon's "earliest convenience." The two men had known each other
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for some years, and occasionally paired up in bridge tournaments in Dirigent
City.
"I remember when you used to work for me in the audit department, back when you
were a lieutenant still learning the ropes," Zim had said after the usual
opening pleasantries.
"Seems ages ago, Cav," Lon had said, nodding. Lieutenants in the Corps spent one
day a week, while they were in garrison, away from their troops, helping out,
learning a little bit about other parts of the Corps than their own assignments.
"And then some," Zim had agreed, returning Lon's nods. "When I filed my
performance report on you, at the end of your tour here, I added an observation
that you might, in time, be uniquely qualified for a special mission."
That had been enough to make Lon sit up straight-the first indication that the
invitation had not just been for a stroll down nostalgia drive. Lon had cleared
his throat. "A special mission?"
"You know our mandate in OSI-to obtain, catalog, and analyze information about
as many of the settled worlds as possible. We're always years behind. New worlds
are settled, and it might be decades before we even hear about them. Conditions
change, often dramatically, on worlds we do know about. The Corps would like to
have up-to-date intelligence on every settled world, at least every world we
might possibly be called upon to serve, or oppose." Zim had shrugged. "Not that
that rules out any world. And we can never count on being anywhere near up-to
date on any world but Dirigent."
"I don't need the lecture, Cav. Just what are you working up to?"
"We want you to do a job of work for us, Lon."
"Tell me something a cadet couldn't have figured out by now."
"Think about it, Lon. What sort of intelligence mission would you be uniquely
qualified for?"
Lon had blinked twice, slowly, as it hit him. "You want me to go to Earth?"
"The boss and I talked about it at length. Then I chatted with Matt." Matt
Orlis, now a lieutenant colonel, commanded 2nd Battalion, 7th Regiment. Lon was
his second-in-command. "Matt agreed that you would be perfect for the job, so we
put the proposal before the Council of Regiments. The General remembers your
work here. He mentioned your analysis of the Aldrin contract." There was only
one General at any given time in the Dirigent Mercenary Corps, head of
government for Dirigent as well as commander-in-chief of the Corps, elected each
year by the colonels who made up the Council of Regiments. The current incumbent
was Jorge Ruiz, who had commanded the Contracts Section at Corps headquarters
which included OSI-when Lon was a lieutenant doing one day a week in Contracts.
"The General okayed the mission, providing you were willing to volunteer. It
will mean being gone for six months, more or less, but you've been away nearly
that long on contract before."
"My son is fifteen. My daughter is nine," Lon had said. "I've missed a third of
their lives already, being away from Dirigent. I know-it goes with the
territory. I need time to think about this, Cav. And I need to talk it over with
my wife."
"Of course. I didn't expect an answer right now. This isn't like a contract
where you take the luck of the draw and go out when it's your turn. The General
was adamant. Accepting this mission has to be voluntary. Entirely."
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"The first rule any recruit leams is 'Never volunteer for anything,' " Lon
mumbled as he settled himself for sleep that night in Over-Galapagos. He had not
agreed to the mission lightly, or quickly. Just thinking about the possibility
of returning to Earth had brought him new nightmares. Part of him wanted to go
back, almost desperately, but another part of him was frightened by the
prospect. It had been two days before he even mentioned it to his wife, Sara.
"Of course you'll go," she had said at once, and she proceeded on the assumption
that he would.
Lon had needed a lot longer to convince himself. The chance to see his parents
for the first time in twenty years was what settled the question. "Maybe I can
get them to move here," Lon had told his wife. "I've been suggesting it for
years. Maybe, face-to-face, I can convince them."
Sara had giggled. "Or just kidnap them and sneak them off-planet."
He had spent two weeks learning his cover identity and undergoing the genetic
manipulation that would ensure that he could not be identified as Lon Nolan when
he reached Earth and Earth-controlled space. He went as a trade representative
from Calypso, a world he had some personal knowledge of. If necessary, the
government there would vouch for his identity ... but if that became necessary,
it would mean that something had gone wrong, that he had made some mistake along
the way.
Real-life espionage had nothing in common with the vid-adventure variety. Lon
had carried neither weapons nor ultra-high-tech snooping devices. He had done no
furtive sneaking about, no suborning of government officials. His information
was collected through far more prosaic methods. He had talked to people. He had
kept his eyes open, looking around, questioning what he saw, what he heard. He
had copied libraries of data-books, newspapers, and magazines-transferring
everything to scores of high-density data chips. Fourteen ounces of chips had
been enough to record everything published on Earth in the past quarter century.
It would give the analysts and auditors in OSI plenty to do for the next couple
of years.
There hadn't even been much real danger when he had contacted Dirigent's
resident agents and factors on Earth. Their covers were also impeccable. As long
as his cover story and identity passed casual scrutiny, no one in authority
would give him a second thought. It wasn't until he returned to areas where he
had been known as Lon Nolan that there was any serious reason for nervousness,
for insecurity. Someone might recognize him, even after twenty years, and
wonder.
But nothing untoward had happened. His few encounters with authorities had been
the result of what had appeared- to them-to be the casual violence they saw
every day, and there had been no reason to look too deeply into Lon's cover. Lon
had his reunion, spent time with his parents. even spent time hiking around in
the mountains, just as he had done when he was young. Those few weeks had made
the entire mission worthwhile.
Waiting to board the ship that would carry him from Over-Galapagos to Calypso
was, in some ways, the most difficult part of the entire mission for Lon. His
mind kept conjuring up ironic climaxes-the sudden appearance of uniformed police
officers, weapons raised, shouting for him to raise his hands and surrender;
being carted back to Earth and a lifetime lease on a six-by-eight-foot prison
cell. Or worse.
His baggage, including the data chips, was loaded aboard ship two hours before
the four passengers were allowed to board. Lon spent most of those two hours in
the observation deck, watching Earth below, saying a private, final farewell to
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the planet of his birth... for the second time in his life. This breaks the
strings, he told himself-several times. The image remained strong: Earth
strings-they reached out to every world humans had settled.
Once the ship started accelerating outbound, Lon started to relax a little. He
would not feel really safe until the ship made its first jump through quantum
space, five days out from Over-Galapagos-the first of three jumps it would make
to reach Calypso. By the time of the first jump, it would be too late for the
authorities from Earth to recall the ship or to intercept it. He would be out of
their reach. Forever.
Five days, five nights. Lon slept lightly, when he slept at all. Dreams came,
the same fanciful worries he had felt in Over-Galapagos, failing to get away,
being intercepted at the last possible minute and carried back to Earth to stand
trial... or simply being "made" to disappear without trial.
Five days of constant acceleration, farther and farther from Earth and its
dependent colonies within the Solar System. When the first warning came over the
ship's communication system-"Q-space insertion in thirty minutes"- Lon had bit
his lip. So close. Could escape possibly be snatched from me now?
On a civilian ship, there were frequent warnings leading up to the Q-space
transit. While the ship was in the void of quantum space, all the power of its
three Nilssen generators-which provided artificial gravity aboard ship as well
as propelling the vessel through Q-space-would be diverted to force the transit.
Passengers were required to be in their bunks, strapped in, during the period of
zero gravity-for their own safety . . . and to keep them from being a
distraction to the crew, or worse, without weight to hold them in place. A
crewman went to each passenger's cabin to make sure everyone was strapped in,
then hurried to his own duty station to strap himself in for the duration.
"Thirty seconds until Q-space insertion."
The final ten seconds were marked by a countdown. Lon held his breath until he
felt the slight shudder of the ship as its Nilssens ratcheted to full power and
drew a bubble of Q-space-in effect, a pocket universe just slightly greater in
diameter than the longest dimension of the ship and theoretically tangent to
every point in the "real" universe-around it.
"Safe." Lon was not concerned that he had spoken the word aloud. He was in Q
space, outbound from Earth. Safe. It was not important, at the moment, that he
was still more than three weeks from home, from Dirigent. Every interstellar
passage took fourteen days, or slightly more:
five days out before the first jump, three days before the second and third
jumps, and from three to five days from the final jump into the destination. And
Lon had to go to Calypso before he could transfer to another ship, a DMC ship,
to get to Dirigent. And his family.
2
Lon was surprised to leam that there were two staff floaters waiting for him at
the civilian spaceport in Dirigent City. The explanation came quickly, though.
Cavanaugh Zim had come in one from Corps headquarters to take the case of data
chips off Lon's hands.
"We'll do a full debriefing next Monday morning," Major Zim told Lon. "And I
have a message for you from Matt Orlis. He doesn't want to see hide nor hair of
you until after that."
"A full week off?" Lon asked. "Somebody gone soft?"
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file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-books/Rick%20Shelley%20-%205%20-%20Lieutenant%20Colonel.txtDirigentMercenaryCorp#05LieutenantColonelByRickShelleyPrologueTheyearisA.D.2823.TheinterstellardiasporafromEarthhasbeeninprogressforsevencenturies.Thenumbersareuncertain,butatleastfivehundredworldshavebeensettled,andperhapswelloverathousand.Thetotalhumanpopulationofthegalaxycouldbeinexcessofatrillion.OnEarth,theConfedera ionofHumanWorldsstilltheoreticallycontrolsallofthosecolonies,butthe...

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