Heart of Darkness

[Jane Hartman]

Heart of Darkness

Freeport 4, Magellan

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Gravity was always first. Curling around her ankles, tugging at the Executioner's joystick, trying to pitch the little fighter up and back out of the Freeport docking bay and toss it, spiraling, into the inky black of Magellan lingering behind it like a widow's veil. Near enough to twenty years in space, and the transition to station gravity still left her feeling like a sixteen year old sneaking her first drink, senses buzzing in faint objection as her organs settled back into their proper places, blood dropping back into her feet. It was the sort of thing she regularly found herself trying not to think of and so, with the certain sort of inevitability such things have, found herself thinking of little else. There were, in retrospect, Hartman reflected, certain advantages a heavy transport bridge had over a fighter cockpit.

Not enough to make her go back. There weren't enough advantages in a dozen Manhattan brothels to drag Jane Hartman back on to the bridge of a transport. She tugged the cockpit release, sending the plexiglass screen sliding up and away from her, undid the myriad buckles and straps tying her to the spacecraft and - slower then she would have liked - clambered down the well-placed stairs to the docking bay floor, stepping onto the metal with a shock that ran up her flight-cramped legs like an elevator.

Across the bay, an order fighter's landing gear kissed metal, engine comically silent in the confines of the bay. Hartman scowled, tugged the creases out of her flight suit and made her way over. It was not a welcome sight, all sharp lines and a strange, twisting finish that seemed to absorb the light around it, bulbous weapon pods hanging from its wings like chicks caught in the talons of a vulture. Not a military craft. Not in the sense she knew them. The Order fought their wars in the shadows. It was just a right pity that they refused to stay there. But a debt was a debt, and that went beyond her own dislikes. More was the pity.

Bolevara was going to have some explaining to do after this one. And he won't be alone. Behind her, the Executioner's cockpit slid shut.

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[pillow]

[Jane Hartman]

Jane Hartman

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"A pleasure." Hartman shook the man's hand, though the look on her face said the experience was anything but. This was a diversion and an inconvenience, and the least of a half-dozen scenarios that required her attention. Meeting an Order operative in place of filling them full of holes went against enough regulations that it ran close to treason.

A fact of which Konrad was blissfully unaware.

Hartman stood back. Counted cadence in her head while the agent ran the gamut from questioning to rambling to veiled threats. Anything you can do I can do better. He was older than she had expected, older than his behaviour warranted.

Despite his age, Hartman cultivated a growing certainty that the man was no better than a child in uniform. He hopped from topic to topic like a toddler loose in a supermarket, never lingering long enough to get tied down. I know you, Mr Konrad. By nature, if not by name. Men like Konrad were cheap. Oh, not in physical sense; some charged rates that made military pay look like pocket money.

They were cheap in belief, cheap in discipline, cheap in substance. Too caught up in their own, rambling sense of freedom to give a toss about anything more. They were the fleeting, selfish masses that threw themselves into a uniform for how it would look at the local bar. Instead, they ended up another slab of meat in the grinder and wondered how they'd got there or, worse yet, made officer. There was a sense of arrogant invincibility about the man that reminded Hartman of a kitten staring into a shark cage. He wouldn't have lasted a week as a boot. I can do anything better than you.

Hartman let the threat slide. The only people who made threats were generally incapable of carrying them out. Freeport Four was a fair distance from core space, but not far enough to be out of Liberty's reach. She didn't spell it out. Didn't need to.

"What I want to talk about is your organisation's obsession with sticking its nose where it's liable to get cut off." Hartman's voice was low and accusing. She jabbed a finger at Konrad's fighter. "What I want to talk about is why you feel the need to undermine the defence of this house by tailing my ship through three systems, including the capital, because you want to have a chat. What I want to talk about is why the hell you're out here, talking to me about how much fighting exhausts you, instead of staying in the Omicrons." Where you belong. Hartman refrained from adding. No point burning bridges. Not yet.

She exhaled, a long breath that dragged at her lungs. All the while, those grey eyes stayed fixed on Konrad. "What I want to talk about, Mr Konrad, is why you're apparently determined to provoke a military response." Hartman patted a pocket. "And don't you dare tell me it's classified."

It was posturing. Roars and chest-beating. For all that humanity had dropped from the trees, for all that we had left natural predators far behind, we still fought like animals. For the first time in years, Hartman missed the cramped, heavy, powered armour of the Marine Corps. Interpersonal conflicts had been a simpler problem with a few hundred kilograms of steel and servos to back her up.

That was diplomacy for you.

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[pillow]