Prologue
The Year 532 UGC
Aquaria, Alliance Space
I’m lying fifty meters up, on the edge of a pillowy canopy of glossy red and orange leaves. Dead ahead lies an island community built entirely on stilts. Twin suns, one small and red, the other yellow, beam down from their mid-afternoon positions, turning ripples on the water into shards of rubies and flecks of gold.
From outside the island paradise looking in, I see lavish mansions ringed with reflective picture windows, and restaurants with expansive outdoor dining areas. Elevated walkways connect the restaurants to touristy souvenir shops over a channel of water. Hoveryachts sit motionless in docks all over the island.
Behind it all, a soaring volcanic mountain is carpeted with red, ocher, and black foliage. I can’t see the beaches, but I remember seeing from the air that the sand is clear and white. The natural beauty of the islands of Aquaria, with all of their unique flora and fauna, has been preserved by confining construction to the shallow oceans around the islands. And even then, only where coral doesn’t grow. Everything is built on high stilts between the reefs, designed to have a minimal impact on the environment.
To my back and under my belly is a vast forest of gravity-defying salt water trees that soar up from the shallow ocean. They form an interlocking canopy of branches, frilled with glossy red and orange leaves at altitudes as high as sixty meters. These trees are an ideal vantage point from which to surveil my target. The canopy is actually strong enough for me to walk on, not that I would risk it. I’d be too visible if I stood up now.
I’m not even using the screen on my holoband to keep my target in sight. The light from the holo display, or the glint of metal on my forehead might give me away. Instead, I’m doing this the old-fashioned way, with my right eye lined up behind the scope of my Lex&Coros G42 rifle. I have a suppressor on the barrel, a guided round in the chamber, and plenty of spares in the waterproof bag beside me.
The target, Cristophe Zabelle, of Zabelle Enterprises, is in full view, tanning himself on the back of his hoveryacht. His wife, Nadine, and teenage daughter, Bella, are beside him. A fleet of bots waits on them hand and foot.
Cristophe looks like an easy target. Already tanned to the tinge of burnt caramel; his black hair is wet and slicked back. Eyes shut. Arms flat at his sides while he inches down the color chart from burnt caramel to charcoal. Lying out in the open like that looks like an immense risk for someone in his position, but it’s an illusion. The hoveryacht is shielded, and if I shoot a round at him, it would only disintegrate a dozen meters off the back of the yacht. All that would do is expose my position. So today, I’m here strictly for surveillance. Unless the target slips the noose. Then I might have to get up close and personal. And I really don’t want to do that with four cyborgs and two full-on bots providing security.
“The target is in sight.” I whisper into my comms.
“Copy that, Charlie Kilo.”
I frown at that. Not much of a call sign—CK. My initials. That’s what you get in the military. Alphabet soup for everything.
I roll my shoulders to work out some of the tension. But Cristophe never leaves my sight. I watch him without blinking, until my eyes burn. Nestled in my hideout, with only my weapon’s muzzle sticking out, I’m completely invisible up here. Only an air car would have a chance at spotting me, but I’ve thought about that too: I’m lying under a digital ghillie suit that hides me from visuals as well as thermal scanning. As far as anyone from the air can tell, I’m just a collection of leaves. Unfortunately, that means the cloak must be the same temperature as the leaves, so there’s no power-cooled lining to keep me comfortable.
With two suns overhead, my back is drenched with sweat, which trickles down to collect around my waist, itching like hell. To top it off, there’s water, water everywhere, and my mouth is dry as a desert.
Hurry up and wait. That’s the job of a Paladin. Not as glamorous as they made it seem in the recruitment vids and the holo posters. See the galaxy, they said. Be a hero, they said. Protect and serve the Coalition. Preserve our utopian ideals for generations to come. They made it seem like I’d be grav surfing on shock waves, and spraying lasers at the bad guys. And don’t even get me started on all the promised attention from the ladies. Most of the time I don’t get to stop and breathe, let alone speak long enough to use a pick-up line.
They didn’t say anything about drowning in your own sweat and dying of thirst while surveiling a target either. Or worse, wearing a diaper because you’ve got to sit in the same damn spot without moving for an entire day. Sometimes two or three.
At least this job is supposed to be a relatively quick one. I got here less than thirty minutes ago. Swam over from Cirim, the neighboring town, in nothing but my trunks, snorkel gear, and a belt with a UV shield attached.
I found the bolter rifle dangling from a branch on the designated tree along with some other gear that I may or may not need. I’m hoping not.
Thirty minutes and counting before Christophe’s meeting with the CEO of the Chronus Mining Guild. It’s too far for him to take the yacht in that short of a time. Besides, the CEO of Chronus is a rough character, so Cristophe wouldn’t take his family to that meeting. He’ll take the air car parked on the roof of his yacht, and he’ll go alone, which means he’ll die alone, and the company will be inherited by his wife. The brains behind Zabelle Enterprises will vanish, taking down the Alliance’s most promising line of research into FTL Rifts—a possible means of FTL travel which would be nearly instantaneous and untraceable.
If the Alliance were ever to develop a safe, reliable way of using the rifts, it would give them deadly first strike capabilities against the Coalition, and that would end the cold war overnight.
We already stole Zabelle’s research data, and we tried to get him to switch sides, but no joy. Christophe has it in for the Coalition ever since they drove him out with their antitrust lawsuits and high taxes.
Since then, Christophe and Zabelle Enterprises became the primary supplier of the Alliance’s FTL tech, and it’s now leagues ahead of what we have in the Coalition. Their FTL drives are faster, harder to track, and they have shorter spin-up and cool down times. That already gives them an immense edge, and the Coalition can’t let them to get any farther ahead. Numbers only count for so much in a fight before superior tech wins the day.
But if Christophe dies and his backup neuroscans are all found to be riddled with a data-corrupting virus, then the Alliance’s research into FTL Rifts will hit the same wall as ours, and the Coalition will have a chance to catch up to the Alliance in FTL tech.
So here I am, a Coalition Paladin, assigned to sabotage Christophe Zabelle’s air car and then watch from a distance to make sure he goes out with a bang.
Is he a bad guy? Does he deserve it?
Maybe, maybe not. It’s not my job to know, and this isn’t about him. It’s about the war that we’re trying to prevent and the billions of lives that will save.
At least, that’s what I tell myself at night to keep the ghosts in their closet. They shouldn’t call us Paladins. It makes us sound heroic and noble. They should call us what we are: assassins. Killers. Wraiths that sneak up behind people in crowds and snap off nanoblades in their backs.