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(Starspeak)

I knew who Shuma Norshun was.

I shouldn't.

By all means, Ingrid had only discovered evidence that strongly indicated Shuma had been spirited away by the Missionary Marines. They could have moved on months ago. We had absolutely no hard evidence to say the rak was still with the M&Ms.

But they were, and by some cosmic irony, it was the one I'd been interacted with most after Mavriste and Macoru.

After the first meeting, I'd really worried how much I would see of Itun. I hated that rak, but they or Mavriste had been savvy enough to keep Itun very far away from me.

Vo, though…they'd snuck up on me.

I had only the thinnest of reasoning to suggest that 'middle bear' was Shuma Norshun, but it fit what few exchanges I'd had with the rak.

'You kill a friend?' I'd asked.

'A couple,' they'd replied. 'Not self-defense'.

If there was one thorn that gave me pause, it was that nothing in Shuma Norshun's history suggested they had been friendly with their victims. Cover to cover, their file read like a classical French revenge novel.

And yet they'd spent a decade infiltrating their nation's military, participating in the drills, working alongside some of the very people they wanted dead.

That was a lot of time.

I didn't like how easily I could imagine the tortured and conflicted look the Vorak might have worn taking their revenge.

Disturbing as those thoughts were, this revelation still wasn't reliable information without proof. Yet, only adding to the absurdity, I knew how we could get some.

"What are we waiting on?" Donnie asked.

"Blood," Tasser said.

"And the Siegfried," I answered.

Donnie was still visibly confused while we sat—seemingly inactive—around the Jack. All of us were talking to the psionic-compatible technology woven into our ship's comms. A dozen conversations unfolded in parallel, making frantic arrangements and exchanges of information as the discovery grew older.

All the while we just looked nervous and paralyzed. When it was time to move though? We would move.

"How can you be sure Middle Bear is Shuma?" Donnie asked. "I mean, what are the odds?"

"There's a couple Vorak military practices that Earth doesn't have," I explained. "They—well, maybe some countries on Earth do it, I don't know for sure—lots of Vorak militaries take and preserve blood samples in case their military personnel are killed in battle and their remains are damaged beyond all recognition."

"Yeah, Earth does that too," Donnie said. "Everyone's DNA gets tested."

"I know that, but Earth keeps the records; I don't know if they keep the DNA itself. Shuma Norshun specifically compromised all the paper and computer records on themselves," I said.

"They're one rak. Surely they can't have gotten all of them," Donnie said.

"Maybe. But they did a good enough job, we still don't have a photo," I reminded him. "The point being though, Shuma destroyed the paper and computer records. They wouldn't have had access to the biological storage for their actual blood sample—mind you, that sample isn't very useful without actual records or something to compare it to…"

I gestured toward Donnie to take the baton.

"…But we do have something to compare it to," he recalled our apprehension of Cadrune's kid, the short-lived scuffle at the apartment building, and the falling glass that had sliced a certain assisting Missionary Marinee. "We're not trying to find them in a database; we have a specific sample we want to compare!"

"Yep," I nodded. "It's just a matter of time before some clerk in Gogathi digs through what I can only imagine is a refrigerated warehouse of blood samples and finds Shuma's, tests it, copies Avi and Mashoj on the result, and we compare it to what Vo bled."

"[Speak of the devil…]" Tasser said, flicking me a just-received psionic file.

Donnie just frowned.

"[Jesus,] how quickly can they do DNA comparisons?" he asked. Unlike me, he hadn't run out of bewilderment to express yet.

"This is only a preliminary match," I said. "Six out of six genetic markers matching. They'll send us a more detailed comparison later, but this is more than enough for us to operate under the presumption: Shuma is Vo."

"You wanted to know the odds?" Tasser asked Donnie. "Fewer than one in two-hundred-thousand people will match six for six."

"[Damn…]" Donnie swore.

<Jordan,> I called. <I'm coming to you. We've got evidence for Avi.>

"I'll come too," Tasser told me.

"Donnie, talk to Peudra.

Proving Vo was our target was the easy part.

The hard part was going to be convincing Vorak authorities we hadn't already known.

·····

Avi traded disbelieving glances between my data and me.

Everything about their face just screamed: 'what in the world is this ridiculous nonsense you've brought me?' The expression was unmistakable. But as they read onward, it melted into grim resignation and appall.

"I think you know how it's going to look to certain authorities above me."

"Yeah, no kidding," I sighed.

Most of our crew had gone back to the Jack to make preparations and help Donnie. Except Johnny and Nai. They were getting us a head start on what undoubtedly came next.

"I want your recommendation that our visas clear emigration," I said. "We found Shuma Norshun, and nothing in our agreement actually demands we help bring them in."

"Harpe Hane…" Avi sighed, "you're not dumb enough to think that will succeed."

"…No, I'm not," I admitted. "Had to try anyway. This is not how we wanted this to turn out."

"I wouldn't say that to anyone," Avi warned.

I blinked.

"What? Why not?"

"That phrasing: makes it sound like you had… designs," Avi said.

I threw my hands up in the air.

"It's pure coincidence! We contacted the Missionary Marines remotely, before we even made the visa agreement! I didn't meet any of them until—"

I bit off that thought.

"…Until?" Avi asked.

"Until after we met you," I said reluctantly. "Peudra and I met at your office, and half-an-hour later we met the Missionary Marines. Shuma—Vo was right there on the beach. Not even a kilometer from your office."

Agent Avi's frown deepened, an already grumpy expression made doubly so by Vorak facial expressions.

"Caleb, I know I don't need to tell you how monumentally bad this is for you and me." They picked their words carefully. "So please understand the proper emphasis I'm giving these words by telling you anyway: if you, personally, don't apprehend Shuma, you're going to be directly at odds with planetary military alliances and clandestine intelligence services of at least two nations—and that's not a threat from me! That's…"

"That's purely advice based on your knowledge of how groups like that will react," I nodded. "I understand."

I glanced at Jordan.

"We're already arranging an…arrest? What's the actual word for this kind of thing? 'Offensive operation?' Some euphemism like that?" she explained.

"The Missionary Marines aren't some lightweight street gang," Avi warned. "They're a paramilitary with contacts and sympathies all over Kraknor. They pull security retainers from a dozen nations, and they spend those funds exclusively to enhance their military capability."

"We're not a street gang either," I said.

"They have a greater number of Adepts, but the crews of the Jackie Robinson and Clark Kent badly outweigh them in the talent department. If we can get conventional forces to back us up?" Jordan explained.

"You mean like law enforcement?" Avi said.

"Special tactics teams," I said. "Law enforcement reserved to respond to situations beyond ordinary crimes, hostages, armed standoffs, that kind of thing."

"D.O.V.A," Tasser clarified for me. The Starspeak acronym for SWAT I hadn't known before now.

"You want me to use the task force to mobilize…what, troops?"

"Don't you want to catch Shuma?" I asked. "We might need to, but you still want to, right?"

"Sorry, I wasn't clear," Avi said, raising their hand. "I meant, you want me to mobilize now?"

"Yes," I said. "I have limited information on the M&M's location, but they only left Pudiligsto today—by now it's past midnight? Technically yesterday then. We can catch up, but time is of the essence."

"…Tell me more about this Adept advantage and I'll see what we can put together," they said grimly.

·····

I grabbed ninety minutes of sleep while transport and backup were arranged. The Missionary Marines had less than a day on us, and they didn't know we were coming.

Hopefully.

With dawn still hours away, there were still plenty of 'i's to dot and 't's to cross.

<How are you, Peudra?> I asked.

They were still reeling from the negotiations failure. She was, I had to remind myself. That moment had to be one of the worst in her life, and it had dashed my hopes right along with hers.

After commiserating like that, I couldn't help but think of Peudra as a friend. But it had surprised me when she'd resorted to an informal pronoun with me. I hadn't thought of our relationship as that…well, 'friendly'.

Maybe I needed to start.

<Awful,> she said honestly. <Not just because you woke me up.>

<Yeah. Sorry about that. I wouldn't have if it wasn't important,> I said. <Two things. First, where's Halax? Second, I need you to be ready for a big day. You're going to need to get aggressive with the planetary liaison offices about our visas.>

<Wait—hang on. Where's Halax?> Peudra asked.

<I don't know,> I said. <He was supposed to be our baby-sitter, not the other way around; I haven't been keeping track of him. Last I saw him…a little less than a day? After I talked to the Prolocutor, but before the John Brown took off.>

<John Brown…> Peudra mumbled. <The one carrying Empress and the delegation?>

<Yes,> I huffed. <Keep up.>

<I was asleep five minutes ago,> she snapped.

<Yes. Sorry. Time is of the essence.>

<Because I need to get aggressive about your visas? Will we be trying to contest the contingency clause in court?> she asked.

<No, we're in the very active progress of fulfilling it,> I explained. <We found Shuma, but it's bad. They're with the M&Ms.>

Peudra was dead silent back on her temporary bunk in the Jack. Lacking facial expressions, psionic conversations often failed to fully express conversational quirks like stunned silence, but there was really no mistaking the flare in Peudra's emotions.

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<…Wow. Hence why you need to locate Halax immediately,> Peudra said. <Yeah. Okay. I'm moving. You don't think Halax knew, do you?>

<No, but the Prolocutor hinted that his fleet is facing some serious allegations. If he's disappeared on us, it might not even be related at all,> I sighed. <Or maybe didn't know from the beginning, but his old friends confided in him after reconnecting. I don't know. It doesn't really matter. I just know we need to know what he's up to.>

<Just contacting the visa liaisons won't be enough,> Peudra warned. <We need to make sure whatever militaries in orbit are informed too—we're trying to leave as soon as possible?>

<Immediately,> I confirmed, <which is why you need to contact both the Prolocutor's liaisons, the visa coordinating office, and the militaries. Don't feel any need to be subtle. We need headway, and I'm going to busy.>

<With?>

<With confronting the Missionary Marines and dragging back Shuma,> I said. <Peudra…they were under our nose the whole time! Unless you see another option?>

<…Oh. Oh tides,> Peudra swore. <N-no, not off the top of my head. I'm still fuzzy though. Let me go over things. Maybe we have recourse…>

<Get on your side of things,> I said. <If you do find an alternative, yell for me or Jordan. If not…?>

If not?

We were going to be ready whether we liked it or not.

·····

There was an art to crisis management, a balancing act between urgency and caution.

The airfield that Cadrune's manor adjoined was purely civilian. But it also butted right up against the Pudiligsto city limits, which also happened to double as the national border—it was just a city-state after all.

I hadn't bothered to learn the name of the neighboring nation to the north. A small oversight, perhaps, but I didn't think they would mind too much.

We only needed to borrow their airfield, the decidedly not civilian one, the one that eagerly shared air-traffic-control provided by the reservoir-spaceport in the middle of Pudiligsto.

It was critical that we get airborne as quickly as possible— urgency, yet crucial that we not dig ourselves any deeper than we already were in the process— caution.

Even minutes' delay might matter. The Missionary Marines were mobile. They had two submarines and almost a day's head start. It was tempting to cut corners in a desperate bid to catch up. That was the kind of haste that could see us walk right into a trap—hence the need for caution, even in crisis.

But this case was slightly different.

I didn't think the M&Ms were going to be lurking around the wrong dark corner ready to shank us if we went in too hastily.

No, the risk of rushing here was if we went in the wrong direction. It would not be hard for someone to paint a particularly compromising picture of our relationship with the Missionary Marines.

Agent Avi had called up almost a dozen rak volunteers from their agency to help us. Agent Mashoj had even called in some of the squads who we'd helped in the hurricane's first landing, but our manpower was still a far cry short of the bare-minimum one-hundred twenty members of the M&Ms.

The battle plan was nebulous so far.

Mavriste had said they were 'heading north'. Taking him at his word, there were a handful of spots they were likely to go, but without a more precise location, tactical planning had to wait.

That and transport was our only limiting factor.

The Jack could fly a crew of twenty-four, but in a pinch you could stuff as many as a hundred people into the mess and cargo bay. But a spaceship wouldn't suit our purposes today. At least not any Flotilla ships—we'd be shot down without the right clearances.

No, our spacecraft wouldn't be lifting off until Shuma Norshun was apprehended.

So we needed more conventional wings.

I loathed to do it, but we didn't have the luxury to be picky.

I got Cadrune to loan us a plane.

It wasn't even hard. They cordially took the phone call and half an hour later, we were hauling open a hangar with a massive cargo plane inside.

They were staring down the alien equivalents of a dozen grand jury indictments, and they were still just crazy enough to drop everything for an hour to help out mere acquaintances of Ingrid.

It was stupid.

This entire thing was stupid, made all the worse by the fact that our best move for the next hour was to sit on a tarmac and wait for the Siegfried in orbit to give us a precise idea where the Missionary Marines had gone.

<I hate this,> I said. <We've stumbled our way through some situations beyond our control before, but this one really has me feeling like we're skidding across the ice—really thin ice.>

<We're not exactly helpless,> Nai commented. <You're that stressed?>

<I don't like that it got to this point,> I said. <I should have picked up the signs.>

<Occupational hazard,> Tasser said glumly. <There's nothing anyone could have done to see this coming.>

<I think you're maybe wallowing in it," Nai said. <We're in a winning position. Even if the M&Ms know we're coming, they can't make effective preparations in the time they have. Not as long as I'm here to tip the scales.>

I had to resist the urge to snort.

Nai wasn't being egotistical, only realistic. She was a walking trump card, and ignoring her as an overwhelming advantage was pointless.

<I'm not worried about if we can win,> I said. <I'm worried about what it's going to cost us. I didn't spend that much time with Mavriste, but I do feel like I got to know him. But I can't order anyone to try going easy on them.>

Nai and Tasser exchanged a look of concern, something wordless passing between them.

<…You've never been trained for warfare,> Nai says, choosing every word carefully.

Her Speropi translates automatically between my ears, and I saw what she was implying.

She taught me to fight. Defend myself and others.

But even if I've thought of myself as a soldier, I'm not. I'm not trained for this kind of thing. We were going to attack friends in a few hours because we needed to. That wasn't an ordinary presentation of self-defense.

<It's not just that we're going to fight people I like,> I admitted, <…I'm worried they won't even hate us.>

<No, some of them will definitely still hate us…> Tasser said softly.

<Yeah,> I nodded. <But the ones who know us?>

Those were the ones that were going to hurt. Bad.

There were three different possibilities now, each one required careful measurement and prediction. If we misread our information even a little bit, the Missionary Marines would take Vo to the other side of the planet, and they wouldn't be seen again for years, maybe ever.

Simply, they could flee in three directions.

Their submarines would go either south, north, or out to sea.

If they went out to sea, there was almost nothing we could do. On Earth, it was a scientific quirky fact that we knew more about the composition of stars millions of light years away than we did about the contents of our own ocean floors.

Kraknor wasn't so different.

If they just chose to dive their subs low and keep quiet, there was nothing we could do save for one-in-a-million psionic scans from orbit.

But in my gut, I knew they wouldn't go out to sea. Mavriste and Macoru wouldn't accept it. They weren't cowards. They were rak on a deeply spiritual mission to fight evil and give even the worst offenders a chance at redemption. Hiding on the seafloor while they snuck to the other side of the planet would take weeks or months out of their schedule.

No, their plan was simply to run. If I guessed correctly, wherever they helped out next, they would try to spend some of the social and political capital they earned to keep pursuers at bay. In fact, they had probably done just that in Pudiligsto. Vo couldn't be the only fugitive among their marines. It hadn't stopped them before. They might even have some kind of orientation about it.

'Yes, some of you are wanted by the law, but part of signing up with us means helping people out anyway; you don't get to hide'.

They would never pass up an opportunity to help just because it jeopardized one of their number. Out to sea was never in the cards.

It left only the coinflip of north or south.

My gut turned up another answer. They'd already come from the south after helping with some of the hurricane preparations. And when the hurricane had gone off course, it had veered north, up the coast.

North was still too vague on its own, but it was where I'd told the Siegfried to start.

That call saved us more than a dozen hours.

Jordan got the information via pearl, and one look was all it took.

"<Avi, Mashoj, Nai!>" I called out. <Everybody gather round: we've got a target.>

We gathered around a psionic holo-display. Anyone without the corresponding constructs in their brains would just see us staring at a plain machine, but we were treated to an elaborate three-dimensional presentation, manipulatable in real time with just a thought.

"<They're close,>" Jordan announced. "<Just two-hundred and change miles north, a city called Balumspar.>"

The map twisted to show a city nestled behind a peninsula on the coast, and red 'danger' indicators popped up, alongside some ominous yellow symbols.

"<New or old Balumspar?>" Avi frowned.

"<Old,>" Jordan said. "<The Siegfried's orbital scan clocked their subs' nuclear reactors and confirmed their presence in the bay.>"

"<It's more of a lagoon,>" Mashoj commented. "<Tactical nightmare, but that's only assuming they're actually there.>"

"<Nuclear hotspots don't mean anything in old Balumspar,>" Avi elaborated. "<The city is completely desolate due to nuclear detonations from a century ago. Some of the last hot war on this planet was fought there.>"

"<Yes, bombs off all kinds went off there,>" Jordan briefed. "<Fission, fusion, even dirty. This is a planetary-backscatter gamma scan of the hot zone from ten years ago…>

A map flashed up on our display, showing an angry orange and yellow radius centered on a couple craters inland of the densely forested marsh.

"<And here's the same scan the Siegfried took two hours ago,>" she said.

Alongside, a new map flashed up with much of the same angry orange and yellow. Slightly smaller cloud. Reading the numbers accompanying both scans, the scan taken yesterday was finding much weaker radiation than the one from a decade ago.

"<It's smaller, but that's to be expected. The radiation should decline slightly over time,>" Mashoj said.

"<It's not just smaller, I said, it's rounder.>"

Pairs of eyes narrowed and squinted at the blobs of radiation.

"<That's what the Siegfried picked up on too,>" Jordan said. "<Hate to tell you Nai, but it was actually the Empress who noticed.>"

Nai scowled.

"<They looked closer,>" Jordan elaborated. "<The gamma hot zone didn't just get smaller and rounder, look really closely. At the east and west edges. Ten years ago…today. Ten years ago…today.>"

She flickered back and forth between the two images, and it became clear.

"<It moved,>" Avi realized. "<How does a radiation hot zone move?>"

The difference was tiny. On a digital display, it might have been imperceptible, not even a pixel. At the scale of the map, it was probably a shift of less than a mile, made all the more difficult to notice due to the seemingly natural shrinkage of the hot zone.

But it was there. Instead of being mostly focused on the city, the center of the bloom clipped the marshy bay now. Unlike ten years ago, the source of the radiation on today's scan had the potential of being in the water.

"<It didn't move,>" Jordan explained. "<The radiation bloom from today isn't from bomb fallout. It's the fusion reactors in the Missionary Marines' subs.>"

"<They're hiding in a hot zone?>" Avi snorted. "<Wow. That's gutsy. Stupid. But gutsy.>"

"<It would be stupid,>" Jordan agreed. "<…If it were still a hotzone.>"

She flashed up two new scans of the same map area. One zoomed in with two bright red molten points in the middle of the new hot zone, right at the water's edge.

The second map showed the whole region, and was oddly featureless. No nuclear death clouds.

"<First, a follow-up scan from the Siegfried. High intensity rapid exposure backscatter plot confirms that Old Balumspar has not one, but two discrete hot spots.>"

Avi and Mashoj were more fixated on the second scan though.

"<Second we have an old-style scan, super lowtech. Basically just a long exposure aerial photograph, limited to the UV band,>" she said. "<And we can all see what's missing.>"

Radiation was missing.

According to the measurements the Siegfried had taken, the Old Balumspar hot zone wasn't a hot zone. It didn't have any more radiation exposure than where we were standing as we spoke.

"<How's that possible?>" Avi asked.

No one had a good answer for that, but I had one that was just okay.

"<Smart plasma,>" I guessed . "<They cleaned it up.>"

I turned to Nai.

"<You know crazy adeptry. Could they have cleaned up all the fallout and unstable isotopes?>"

She mulled it over.

"<I can't say for sure if they actually did,>" she hazarded, "but…yes. They could have.>"

"<Doesn't matter,>" Mashoj said. "<If it's not a hot zone, then we have a pretty clear tactical plan.>"

"<Yep,>" Jordan flashed one more map with a basic trajectory cutting right into the heart of the false hot zone.

"<Mashoj, get on the phone with air traffic and get us a flight plan for New Balumspar,>" I said. "<Avi, we can deploy from the air and surround their camp—>"

"<I know,>" they cut me off, turning to the gathered Vorak volunteer regulars. "<Who's ready to be a paratrooper?>"

Less than an hour later, with half-a-dozen tweaks to our battle plan, flight path, drop zone, and more, we were loaded onto the plane.

·····

Back in the hospital, Ingrid stirred.

In the room with her was a guy she only somewhat recognized. Had Caleb called him Sid?

The guy in question cracked an eye open, saw Ingrid was conscious, and instead of awakening himself, he sleepily picked up a note next to him and threw it in her lap.

Then he shut his eyes and settled back in his comfy chair.

Peeling open the paper, the message was simple.

'We know. Going after M & M right now. Talk when we get back—Caleb'.

Ingrid's hand clenched up, and her borrowed heart pounded in her chest. She'd be lying if the impulse to run didn't go through her head multiple times in less than a minute.

"[You're an idiot,]" Sid said, still slouched in the chair with his eyes closed.

"[…Yeah,]" she agreed, trying not to cry.

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