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  “Confirmed recordings of an unknown fleet,” he explained as the image rotated around what Argo had believed had been their command ship. “Have any of your connections informed you of this?”

  She shook her head once and I saw the muscles in her jaw tighten for a moment.

  “Our friends believe that they're a serious threat, an unknown and very dangerous threat. One that's heading this way.”

  “The Commonwealth?” she asked and some of that cold, professional exterior slid away. Her accent began to seep into her words, no longer restrained.

  “We think so.”

  Madam Sill, or perhaps now Princess Himari of Akishino as she truly was, set her teacup down on the table, sat back and steepled her fingers in front of her, resting her lips on the structure. Her eyebrows knotted in concentration and concern.

  “I would have to see it for myself,” she said.

  “I have the recording ready now. You'll understand that I have had to-”

  “Yes, yes,” she snapped, waving away his warning with a flick of her wrist. “We can drop the pretence now. You've brought ill tidings to my door, Mason, and though I'm grateful I do not wish to openly admit that my intelligence network has failed me.”

  “What will you do?” he asked.

  “Do? What can I do? This vessel is a derelict, a floating hulk, it's not capable of moving and to transfer my merchandise would take years and would prove very dangerous to my operation. And where would I go? I'm not some travelling saleswoman, dragging my cart behind me as I-” She'd raised her tone with every word, reaching almost fever-pitch as she realised what she was saying. Mason and I remained silent. My cup was now empty and I caught his eye, gesturing. He poured the last of the pot into each of the three cups and the tension eased a little. Traditions had that effect.

  “How long?” she sighed.

  “We don't know. Our contacts believe that this was simply a scouting party, an advance force testing the waters, so to speak. The main assault could be right behind it or years away. We just don't know.”

  “And why don't we know? Who the hell are they?”

  “All unknown,” he replied softly. “I'm sorry.”

  She nodded and sipped her tea, staring down into the table as if boring holes into it. Then she managed a smile as if reaching a conclusion that settled her nerves.

  “I will think of something,” she said. “I always do.”

  “If there's anything-” She waved one slender hand and stopped him in his words.

  “We did very good business together, Mason. A lot of it would have cost us both dearly had the truth come out. But that was a long time ago and we've both grown since then. TRIDENT is doing very well and I'm happy for you, but being caught helping a known illegal-arms dealer move her merchandise would destroy us both. I would not allow that.

  “But as we all know the real powers for change in the universe are cold hard cash and big guns. This, I believe, is where we can help each other.”

  She stood up, smoothed out the creases in her dress and smiled.

  “So shall we do business, gentlemen?”

  Madam Sill led us out of her chambers through another door and into a warmly lit hallway. At the far end, two soldiers in combat-chassis stood to attention, rifles by their sides and they turned at the sight of Madam Sill and opened the doors behind them. We passed between them onto an open gantry and stopped mid-way along.

  “Gentlemen,” she said, gesturing with a sweep of her arm over the side of the rail. “Take whatever your ship can carry and your need requires. Let's call it 'friend-rates', shall we?”

  I looked across and felt my chest tighten. Vanishing into shadow far across the length and breadth of the ship, row after row after bloody row of shelving and racking, the armoury of Madam Sill stretched into infinity or something approximate to it. No wonder she couldn't consider moving premises. Like images of the terracotta army found hundreds of years ago, the uniform lines of weapons, arms and munitions stood waiting for the most skilled practitioners of war to come and buy them, in this case, at a knock-down price.

  “I will leave you to your work, gentlemen,” she smiled. “Come and see me when you've finished and we will share one more cup before we part.”

  Mason turned to Sill and bowed, arms at his side. I saw tears welling in her eyes as she stood and returned the gesture.

  “Thank-you, Princess,” he whispered.

  Then she was gone in a flurry of dress folds and a mobile staircase slid into fixtures in the gantry. We began to descend.

  “Hidden depths,” I said to him as I followed him down. “So many hidden-”

  “Shut up,” he said. “It's time to shop.”

  27

  At the bottom of the stairs, two loader bots rolled towards us on rubber wheels dragging multi-levelled racks behind them. A human worker dressed in perfectly clean and pressed overalls joined them, smiled politely at us and held up a tablet with stylus.

  “Shall we begin?” he said in almost perfect English.

  “Yes,” said Mason. “Let's start with orbital drop pods and Banshee launchers.”

  The man began scratching at the screen, smiling the way a waiter might take a drinks order.

  “This way please.”

  We followed him down the aisles, passing through row after row of racked weapons arranged in meticulous order with intent and purpose. I tried not to look too hard, it was distracting enough already.

  “This next aisle,” he said and turned a corner. More loader bots passed by, taking items off shelves and lifting them onto their own racks behind them. “Any particular make or model?”

  “Let's look at a few,” said Mason. “I was thinking FARGO or RosCO.”

  “Good choices both,” grinned the man. “We have 26 units of the FARGO 'Banshee' and 34 units of RosCO 'V115'. I personally would lean towards the RosCO as they quite recently modified the launcher system to overcome a lag in the activation circuits. A delay of 3.4 seconds was recorded during FARGO inspection testing when compared to the RosCO at 1.2 seconds.”

  “Okay. We'll take six units of the RosCO V115.”

  “Excellent. Might I ask if you're considering retrofitting them to drop pods?”

  “You read my mind,” laughed Mason.

  “If you were to deploy using drop pods then I would expect the need for a rapid exfil as well. Simple logic. We have twelve units of the V115 already compatible with RosCO X3 drop pods. Perhaps I could interest you in six of those units instead?”

  “That will do nicely,” said Mason. The man scribbled away on his stylus and one of the loader bots began moving down the aisle, selected the appropriate rack and began lifting enormous wooden crates onto his own shelving.

  “What else can I help you with?” he smiled.

  “A 654 rapid supply drone with a balanced payload/speed ratio.”

  “Anti-air?” he asked. Mason nodded. “Please step aboard one of our loaders; the item in question is much further away.”

  We did so, only now noticing the cages suspended at the front of the bots. Once we were all onboard, the loaders gained speed and began moving rapidly through the aisles, blurring the shelves as we sped past. Within seconds we were slowing down in a much larger open space with fewer racks. Here drone craft were on display, already assembled whilst some remained in their original packing crates.

  “Here we are,” said the man, leaping down. “The 654 series are this way. Please follow me.”

  We did. The volume of stock was unbearably large and it began to feel overwhelming. I focussed in on the direction we were going, noting that there were a great many pieces of equipment that had never seen the light of day, let alone a battlefield.

  “Is that the Thunderbird 34?” I asked, pointing to a sleek midnight-blue coloured rocket with narrow wings and a sharp nose. It bristled with armaments.

  “Indeed. Only six were made and we own five of them – we sold one last week.”

  “Must be expensive,”
I said. He cleared his throat.

  “More than you realise.”

  We continued on, arriving at a less elegant craft raised on a display platform with a fat belly and large engine ports.

  “The Ottoman 654. An equal balance of payload-to-speed, the fastest drone for the maximum possible weight distribution. Fitted with anti-air shielding and afterburner exhaust porting for a twelve-second boost into orbit.”

  “How much can it carry?” asked Mason.

  “Three metric tonnes.” He nodded his approval.

  “We'll take two units.”

  “Excellent.”

  Again the loaders lifted two of the packed drone crates onto their backs and the man gestured that we should climb aboard again.

  “Exo-shells,” said Mason before he had a chance to ask.

  “Any particular make or model?”

  “Let's browse.”

  We shot off again and I felt the beginnings of nausea. The journey took longer this time and we turned right at an intersection, joining the rapidly moving lines of loaders coming and going. When we came to a stop I had that momentary feeling that we'd stumbled onto a staging ground for an army ready to deploy. Row after row of stationary exo-shells was lined up in deployment fashion, all empty of course but bearing a faint reminder of massive troop movements during some of our larger campaigns. We climbed down and one suit, in particular, grabbed our attention.

  “Everybody does that,” said the man with a grin on his face. “Quite magnificent, isn't it?”

  “I thought it was a myth,” said Mason, walking towards it. “They've never been seen on a battlefield and most assumed they were just a silly designers idea.”

  “I assure you, this one is not. The FARGO T-105 'War Suit'. Four units were recorded as having been manufactured and this is one of them. The other three are suspected to have been lost in transit but no true report has ever been submitted to FARGO.”

  Standing at over three times the height of a man, the T-105 was a Titan of battle, bearing multiple weapon platforms on two solid legs each the width of my body. Shoulder mounted rocket launchers looked down on us while multi-barrelled cannons and plasma lancers took the place of arms. From behind the pilot could continue to wear his or her own exo-shell inside the body of thing and in the event of catastrophic failure, eject and continue fighting.

  “It's beautiful,” said Mason, running his fingers over the two-inch thick armour plating.

  “Indeed,” said the man. “But so is the price.”

  “We'll take it,” he said and my heart dropped. There was Alice again, her head in her hands, looking at the invoice.

  “Do you want to find a prize on the way home to pay for it?” I said.

  “I'd pay for this out of my own bank if I thought I needed to,” he laughed.

  “Done,” said the man. “This unit will need to be walked onto your ship,” he explained. “I'm sure that a man of your skill will have no problem dealing with that.”

  “You're right,” nodded Mason. “Onto the next items.”

  I face-palmed before taking one last look at the monster and tried not to hear that voice inside my head screaming at me, asking why I'd let him buy it.

  By the time we'd finished we had everything we needed which was a miracle in itself. Even the thermo-nukes had been in Madam Sill's cache. As the last of the loaders vanished in the direction of the Hikane, we made our way back towards the gantry.

  “It's been a pleasure, gentlemen,” said the worker, heading in another direction, possibly to consider retiring on the fat commission that we'd just made for him.

  “Likewise,” said Mason and I knew he meant it. I looked up and saw Madam Sill leaning on the rail, smiling down at us.

  “Find what you were looking for?” she asked.

  “Pretty much.”

  “Come,” she said. “Tea is ready.”

  We returned to her personal chambers, exhausted like kids worn out in a sweet shop. The tea tray had returned and there was a small buffet of sandwiches laid out on another table between the couches along with a vast amount of cake.

  “Please, help yourselves. You've just parted with a lot of credits, a vulgar amount of credits and I feel that this paltry fayre is quite insulting in comparison. I can remember what you like, Mason. Still eating too much cake?” He gave a broad grin and nodded.

  “It's wonderful,” I said. “But to say you have quite a collection would be just as vulgar.”

  “But accurate. As you've just taken one of my show-pieces it has diminished somewhat. Perhaps I should have hidden it away.” She laughed then and the sound was pleasant on what I believed could be a very callous woman when she needed to be. “But I'm afraid you've made me a very nervous woman.”

  “In what way?” asked Mason.

  “A data sniffer. Cutting equipment. Heavy defensive weaponry and static ordinance. Rapid exfil. Nothing says grand-theft like that kind of shopping list.”

  We said nothing. Over the corner of a ham sandwich on white bread, she looked at Mason and waited, biting off a small piece and chewing on it with some thought. Time passed.

  “Corano,” I said in the end. “Remus IV.”

  She stopped chewing and her cheeks took on a tint of pink. She put the sandwich down and cleared her throat.

  “Why?” she managed to say.

  “He has something we need.”

  “Such as?”

  “You know exactly what he deals in,” I replied. “And because you know I suspect that he has something you might need too. Something he's taken from you.”

  “Taken?” she snorted. “Taken? You mean something he has on me, information that would put me on a prison asteroid for the rest of my life and see my bank accounts emptied into his own. If that's what you're referring to then yes, he does have something I want.”

  “Which would also mean that the kind of force we will be going up against is probably taken directly from your own stores, right?” She nodded, looking directly at me. Gone was the confident Matriarch of War and in her place was now the frightened Princess from Tokyo.

  “I could check my receipts if he were a paying customer. Instead, he simply tells me what he wants and I deliver. It's that simple.”

  “Do we stand a chance?” I asked. She tried to smile, but she shook her head.

  “No,” she said flatly. “You'll be annihilated.”

  “Even with our charm and wit?” said Mason. She stifled a giggle behind her tears and reached for her tea.

  “Damn you twice you bastard,” she said to him. “I was pleased to see you at first and now I feel like I'm saying goodbye for the last time. Are you absolutely sure you must go through with this?”

  “We are,” I said. “It's one of our own.”

  “We'll do it,” said Mason with a firmness that seemed to shake her. “We'll get what we need and we'll level the place. We'll bury his empire under radioactive rubble so deep he'll have to dig up half the planet just to find the melted mass we'll leave for him. His hold over you will come to an end one way or another. I promise.”

  Madam Sill stared at him and a single tear escaped down her cheek. She put her thin-fingered hand gracefully on his knee and patted it twice.

  “I'm very grateful that the universe continues to shrink for us, Mason. I truly am.”

  We returned to the Hikane in time to see the first of the items being lifted into the rear of the ship. Baz and Grant were overseeing the process from the gantry and when they saw us down below they waved.

  “Got everything?” called Baz.

  “Yeah. Even some Coke.” He shot me a 'thumbs-up' and returned to watching. Mason was climbing into his exo-shell, the prototype that we'd brought with us. Thankfully it turned out to be compatible with the T-105 and as he stomped back down the arm towards his new toy I smiled.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” said Jo, appearing beside me. I turned. She looked beautiful even in the artificial light coming from above, dressed in plain combat fatig
ues and a vest. My eyes passed over her ink, following the thin black lines that snaked up her arms and wrapped themselves around her soft neck, vanishing behind wavy locks of golden hair. I leaned towards her, kissing those lips that had become so familiar to me now. She giggled as she pulled back and wrapped her arms around me.

  “You should go shopping for guns more often,” she said. “It makes you glow.”

  “That'll be the fear of seeing Alice's face when she gets the bill. Imminent death always warms my skin.”

  She kissed me then, held it for longer than usual and broke away. She was holding back her emotion, I could see it in her eyes.

  “It's going to be okay,” I said. “Try not to think about it if you can. Switch it off.”

  “I'm trying,” she said though the words came out a little broken. “It kind of hit me when I saw how much equipment was coming on board. This is a big deal, isn't it? Not just some one-day Op.” I shook my head.

  “I wish it was. But everything we needed was here and we've got it. Not many soldiers can say they started a mission with 100% of their requested gear, can they?”

  “I guess not.”

  “Speaking of which...” I let her go as one of the loader bots came onto the docking arm bearing the exo-shell I'd picked out for Jo. I waved at it to unload it onto the deck and it did so, service station and all. We walked over to it and she whistled with admiration.

  “You did one better than the FARGO suit,” she said and ran her fingers over the enhanced armour plating. “Does it stick in your throat to see your woman in CHERICA-AUTO?”

  “She's not wearing it yet,” I grinned.

  “You're going to just stand there and watch me undress?”

  “I most certainly am, honey.”

  With a sassy smirk on her lips, she stepped up onto the platform and began powering up the suit from the control panel. I watched as her brow furrowed in concentration while she began to remember her old training in zero-g repair suits. I said nothing.

  “Why CHERICA-AUTO?” she asked without turning to look at me.