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Chapter

Ten

Dunar

It wasn't until mid morning, three days later that Jon finally contacted Kiole and informed where he could meet them in the starport. He spent most of the time in between either holed up in his hotel room, or at a nearby netcafé where he made use of their public-access terminals to find out all he could about recent events in the sector, and who their prospective employer might be.

It didn't take Kiole long to figure out the only person in the Dunari system with the kind of wealth and power that could afford hired mercenaries like Jon and Kiole was the Hegemonic governor. What confused Kiole was why she would need mercenaries. As the system governor, she had more than one hundred thousand troops at her command, and could easily request more if she needed. The system itself was sparsely populated, with only Dunar Two, usually just referred to as Dunar, being the only planetoid in the system with a breathable atmosphere. There were scattered mining colonies on the fifth planet, and on the moons of the eighth. These were staffed mainly by Eechena, and there had been some demonstrations, protests, and labor strikes on these colonies, but they had been mostly peaceful and contained by GalPol, until this past week when a news bulletin reported that a battalion of infantry had been posted to the fifth planet, and the Governor had revoked GalPol's charter in the system. He simply didn't see any need for Jon and himself in the system with all of the troops there.

Then it clicked in his mind. Jon had said their employer was hiring them to undermine her rivals. If it were the Governor's political rivals, then she could hardly send regular troops against a fellow Hegemonic official. Kiole began searching through links on the political happenings in the sector.

He turned up an article posted about six months ago from the Hegemony's information bureau, announcing that the current sector governor was planning to retire at the end of the calendar year. The two officials judged likely to succeed her were the Dunari system governor and the governor of the nearby Zai-Obri system. Both had their weak and strong points in the eyes of the Hegemonic High Command. Kieran O'Rourke, governor of the Dunari system, was a career military officer, and had achieved the rank of colonel before being posted to the governorship. Her husband was also a military officer, a general, and captained a battleship in the Hegemonic fleet, the MHS Burnside. O'Rourke ran her system like a military command. She issued orders and expected them to be followed without question. When they were not, she was never hesitant to use military force to impose her authority. She had little tolerance for crime, and had steadily reduced GalPol's presence in the system, replacing them with military security, until she had finally nullified their charter. She also had little tolerance for the Eechenan political movement, and quickly dispersed demonstrations, especially when they threatened to disrupt the mining operations. Her approach was generally viewed favorably by the Hegemonic High Command, but in her 'cons' column, the economy of the system was in a pitiful state, and the non-Human citizenry did not think highly of her.

The governor of the Zai-Obri system, one Nobu Soto, stood in stark contrast to O'Rourke. He commanded a more populous system, and was therefore much more accustomed to handling civilian issues in a political and diplomatic way. He had also done much to improve the economic strength of his system. On the other hand, it seems that the economic success had encouraged a crime wave of pirates and others preying upon the system. Kiole also found information that suggested that the Eechenan political movement had gained a great deal of strength in the Zai-Obri system due to Soto's more lenient stance.

Kiole began searching through the criminal activity reports in the Zai-Obri system. Some digging revealed that most of the companies and banks suffering from the recent crime wave were local companies, based in the system, and not larger corporations from elsewhere in the Hegemony. Even further digging revealed that most of those businesses had implied connections to Governor Soto. As a rule, Hegemonic officials were not supposed to have personal stakes in business, so as not to influence their decisions, however it was a rule that was becoming more and more frequently overlooked.

Studying the crime reports, Kiole got a pretty good feel for the kind of operation that O'Rourke was running. Unfortunately, it wasn't much of one. The strait-laced life she had led prior to becoming a political official had left her lacking in any knowledge of how the galaxy outside of the military operated. The pirates, thieves, and smugglers she had been using were amateurs at best, and several had come dangerously close to being caught by GalPol, and compromising her operation. She probably preferred hiring the amateurs and dimwits because they were easier to control, easier keep in the dark, and were expendable if need be. Kiole figured that he had a good shot at working this into a permanent gig, working for the Governor, if she was amenable to listening to his ideas.

So it was with high hopes that Kiole packed up his few possessions and headed for the Kethelon City starport five days after he first arrived there. Jon had instructed him to meet him and his 'gal', as he referred to her, at a private hangar on the south eastern rim of the starport.

"Which one are you at again?" Kiole asked into his comm-link. He looked up at the numbered signs posted above the corridors which led to each hangar as he strolled through the mostly vacant section of the starport.

"Hangar forty nine, bud." Jon's reply came back over the link.

"Hangar forty nine, gotcha. I'm almost there," he added as he saw that he just passed by hangar number thirty seven.

The canopy of the hangar was closed when Kiole entered through its tunnel-like access corridor. It was dimly lit by bluish-white columns of light panels spaced every ten yards or so around the circumference of the cave-like, circular room. In the center was a small, elegantly-shaped shuttle. Jon was standing just inside the shuttle's door, his back to Kiole. He appeared to be conversing with someone on the inside, presumably his 'gal'. Off to the side, a Leosian male was dragging a fuel line towards the shuttle. Fog billowed off the line and the nozzle, from the super-cold liquid hydrogen inside the line. The Leosian, and the sweater he was wearing looked oddly familiar to Kiole.

Kiole was about to go over and help the Leosian drag the fuel line, when Jon hollered at him from the shuttle. "Hey, Kiole, o'er here, buddy!" he waved Kiole over, as if he hadn't figured out that Jon would be in the only shuttle in this hangar.

"Hey, kid," Kiole smiled and shook Jon's offered hand as he walked up to him.

"Well, hey, man!" Jon greeted him. "We's just about ready ta lift off. Just gotta wait on her boy," he thumbed at the Leosian, "ta finish fuelin' the ship up. Then it'll take a couple a minutes fer tha compressors ta solidify it."

"Not a problem," Kiole shrugged and unshouldered his rucksack.

"Hey, Kandria, darlin'," Jon leaned inside the shuttle door and called, "My buddy's here, come an' say hi!"

A few moments later, a slender, elf-eared woman appeared in the doorway. She was short for an Alakán, only about six-one, just slightly shorter than Kiole. Her dark, curly, brown hair had been pulled into a pony tail, and she was wearing considerably less than Jon and Kiole, only a T-shirt and a pair of very short shorts.

"Mr. Enkal," she smiled and offered her hand, "It's a pleasure to meet you, Jon has told me that you were quite helpful to him the other night."

Kiole shook her hand and was about to reply when he suddenly grimaced.

"Whatsa matter, bud?" Jon asked.

"Please... don't try to scan me..." he said to Kandria, "I'm immune to psionic probes. All it does is leave a bad aftertaste in my mouth."

"My apologies," she smiled, "It's just a force of habit to read someone I'm talking to. That's a rather odd side-effect, though, I must say," she added.

"Yeah, every species is different," Kiole explained. "Unfortunately Alakáns leave a coppery taste." He curled his tongue and brushed it along the roof of his mouth, trying to get rid of the taste. "If you'll excuse me, I'm gonna grab a drink, try to wash it outta my mouth."

"Certainly," Kandria smiled diplomatically, "Terribly sorry about that, Mr. Enkal."

"Not a problem," he said over his shoulder as he walked towards a vending machine that was back at the entrance tunnel. "And call me 'Kiole'."

"Well, I think yer sweet as sugar, darlin'," Jon said, patting her bottom as they stepped back inside the shuttle.

Kandria finished inputting the data from the shuttle's navigational computer and then pulled back the control lever on the hyperspace inducers, rocketing the ship past lightspeed. "Well, we should arrive on Dunar in a few hours," she stated, swiveling the pilot's chair around and standing up. "Kiole, can you keep an eye on the controls for me? I have some things I'd like to discuss with Jon in the aft compartment."

"No problem," Kiole nodded, "It's been a while since the last time I piloted a ship, but I think I can handle it."

"Very good," she smiled as she headed for the aft compartment of the small shuttle. She let the fingertips of her left hand brush up Jon's arm and over his shoulder as she passed by him.

Jon winked at Kiole, before standing up and joining Kandria.

After the door had sealed, Kiole got up from his chair and removed his trench coat. "What do you say we turn up the temperature in here?" Kiole asked Kandria's Leosian slave who had been huddled quietly in the back corner. "Alakáns like it too bloody cold for my tastes."

"Ruulraar agreesss," he nodded. "Ruulraar mussst alssso thank Kiole for thisss warm clothing, it made Ruulraar'sss ssstay on the planet more comfortable."

Kiole looked over and nodded his head at Ruulraar while he adjusted the cockpit's thermal controls. "Ruulraar honors me by speaking my name."

Ruulraar tilted his head quizzically, "Kiole knowsss of thisss cussstom?"

"Yup," Kiole replied. He pulled up the sleeves on his own sweater and plopped down in the pilot's chair. "I thought I recognized you, by the way," he added.

Ruulraar moved up to the front of the cockpit, and sat down in the co-pilot's chair next to him. "How did Kiole learn of thisss?" he asked.

"I grew up on Aldeman Three," Kiole explained, "When I was absent from school, which was a lot more often than I should've been, I used to hang out with one of the street gangs in the colony's main settlement. There were a lot of orphans from periodic raids on the colony by the Rovellans. One of the members in the gang I ran with was a Leosian who's masters had been killed in a raid. He hid out in the back alleys and abandoned buildings in the town. My gang looked out for him, tried to make sure he didn't get caught. He taught me a lot about your people."

"Ruulraar knowsss very little of Ruulraar'sss people," he said mournfully. "David O'Rourke hasss owned Ruulraar sssinssse before Ruulraar can remember."

Kiole pursed his lips and nodded, not letting on to Ruulraar that he had just confirmed his suspicions about who it was that was hiring him. "I hope you don't mind my saying 'you' instead of your name," Kiole commented, turning his head to look at Ruulraar. "I don't mean any disrespect, it's just more natural for me."

"Ruulraar underssstandsss," he nodded his head at Kiole, "Thanksss for being consssiderate enough to ssstate asss much."

Kiole smiled. "Say, do you know how to fly one of these things?" he asked, changing the subject.

"No, ssshe doesss not think Ruulraar isss sssmart enough," he said pointing his thumb at the door Kandria had gone through.

"She doesn't treat you very well, does she?" he asked, eyeing Ruulraar's still stubby mane.

"No," Ruulraar admitted. "David O'Rourke and O'Rourke'sss children are kind, but O'Rourke'sss wife and her Alakán are not nissse. Ssshe likesss to ussse her mind powersss to torment Ruulraar."

Kiole frowned at the thought of what kinds of punishments someone with psychic abilities could inflict. They sat there in an uncomfortable silence for a few minutes.

"Anyways, flying a shuttle like this is pretty easy," Kiole assured him as he got back to his original point. "Wanna learn? It may come in handy some day."

"Sssertainly," Ruulraar said enthusiastically.

"Well... This is a pretty standard control set-up. You'll find that most civilian ships that are sold inside the Hegemony have something similar to this," Kiole began. He started by showing Ruulraar the shuttle's status display, where any damage, malfunctions, or other problems would show up, if they occurred. It also showed the shuttle's power levels, fuel levels, and life support information. He then showed Ruulraar the external sensor display, and how to spot potential hazards such as asteroids, comets, or other space anomalies. Finally, he showed Ruulraar how to manually steer the shuttle, and get the navigational computer to calculate a course through hyperspace between two points.

By the time the lesson was over, they were less than fifteen minutes from arriving in the Dunari system. Kiole made some final checks of their flight status before using the shuttle's intercom to inform Kandria and Jon that they were almost ready to exit hyperspace.

Kandria emerged from the aft compartment first. She had traded her light, cold-weather clothing for a rather bulky and unflattering military-issue environmental suit. Her dark, curly hair had been let loose out of the pony tail, with the leading strands tucked behind her pointed ears to keep them out of her face. She had washed off her exotic cosmetics and replaced them with more subdued, business-appropriate ones.

Jon appeared a few minutes later, looking a bit ridiculous. His hair was ruffled, with several strands standing upright due to a residual static charge, presumably from rolling around in the cabin's bed. His stylish shirt was wrinkled and buttoned incorrectly. The left side was fastened one space higher than it should have been, so that the shirt was lop-sided. He carried his cowboy boots in his hands, and began to pull them on after he plopped down in one of the cockpit's rear chairs.

Kiole relinquished the pilot's seat to Kandria. "Hey, kid, your shirt..." he advised Jon as he moved to one of the rear seats as well.

"Oh... Right. Thanks, bud," Jon grinned as he rebuttoned his shirt.

"We're here," Kandria announced as she flicked off the hyperspace inducer. The Ice Star shot back into realspace. Ahead of them, through the cockpit window, Kiole could see a brown and yellow globe hanging against the black of space. He couldn't see any patches of blue or green, which would indicate surface water. There were barely any cloud formations either, which meant it was likely a very dry place.

"There's Dunar," Kandria stated. She made no attempt to hide the lack of enthusiasm in her voice. "I would give you a tour, but you've just seen everything."

"Just a big dirtball with some breathable air around it, huh?" Kiole asked.

"Yeah, that about sums it up," Kandria affirmed. "There's really only the one city," she elaborated what little she could as she brought the shuttle in on its final approach. "It's built into and around some canyons in the planet's main mountain range, to avoid being buried by sand storms. The rest of the planet is just an endless expanse of shifting sand dunes. It's mainly a rest area for the mining colonies on the other planets and moons in the system."

"I imagine after a few months of being cooped up in a domed, enclosed colony, most people get a little crazy for some real sky over their head, and unrecycled air, even if it is on a rock like that."

"Shoot," Jon commented, "I'm a little crazy fer it myself, just bein' on this ship a few hours."

"Well, if you do go outside to see some sky, just take some sun block," Kandria advised them, "It's a hundred degrees in the shade, and the sun is unbearable if you're out in the open."

When the shuttle reached just a few miles of altitude, Kiole could start to see the small buildings clinging to the mountain sides and canyons. They appeared to be made of some type of conglomerated stone, like concrete, but were reddish-brown, like the surrounding mountains. Down in the canyons, Kiole could see small and large terraces carved into the cliff faces, with tunnels leading into the rock.

They descended down to only a few hundred feet above the canyons, and passed over a large gorge that obviously functioned as a starport. Dozens of small ships were parked on terraces along the cliff walls, while the larger ships idled with their anti-grav engines near docking ports.

"I wonder what they're hauling," Kiole commented about some gigantic transports that hovered along the northern edge of the gorge.

"Ice. There's virtually no water here, not even so much as an underground aquifer," Kandria explained "The ice is mined from the asteroids in the belt out past the sixth planet, and then brought here where it's processed and purified."

She flew the shuttle past the starport gorge and veered to the left, circling around the settlement.

"We ain't landin' here?" Jon asked.

"My employer has a private landing area, we'll be there in just a few minutes."

Kandria brought the ship down into a small crater-like depression. Domed buildings ringed the crater. Some of them had plastiglass canopies, and Kiole could see greenery and even some large blue areas. The cliff faces on the crater were at least a hundred feet high, and several levels of terraces ringed the courtyard that they landed in.

"Clean up the shuttle, but transfer the fuel to the storage tanks first. It'll evaporate quickly in this heat," Kandria ordered Ruulraar as she powered down the shuttle. Ruulraar glowered but said nothing as he followed Kandria, Jon, and Kiole down the shuttle's boarding ramp.

Kiole and Jon followed Kandria into one of the tunnels leading out of the courtyard and into the rock face. A few yards inside, plastiglass doors opened and they felt the cool air inside the complex escape and wash over them. The inside of the complex was made of stonework, carved and polished directly out of the rock face. A red rug with black trim ran the length of the hallway they walked down, and potted plants and lamps were spaced evenly along the corridor. Pieces of artwork hung along the walls. Typical of a government facility, they were mostly landscape paintings, unprovocative, and uncontroversial.

The only interesting thing about the structure that they walked through were the periodic panels of plastiglass that revealed a vast underwater seascape beyond them. "Impressive," Kiole commented as they walked past one of the view ports. "That's a Varlosan in there if I'm not mistaken..."

"Yes, that's Odi, he takes care of the..." Kandria caught herself before she said 'governor', "...my employer's aquarium. He's the only one that the sharks and seals won't try to attack."

"Must have cost quite a bit to build something that size, considering how scarce water is on this planet."

"Yes, well as I said, my employer is a person of means," Kandria said as she lead them into a small waiting room. "If you'll have a seat, I'll let her know you've arrived." She motioned to a row of couches that looked into the aquarium, and walked through a door off to the side.

"Dang, this here's 'bout the fanciest place I ever done been. Even the league president's mansion weren't this fancy," Jon leaned over and said to Kiole excitedly after Kandria had left.

"Such is the power and prestige of a system governor," Kiole replied. "The decorations are a little sterile, but the aquarium is a nice touch." He picked a piece of fruit out of a basket that was set on a coffee table in front of the couches and took a bite.

"System governor?" Jon asked.

"Yeah, I did a little research, and I figured that Kandria's boss is the governor of this system. Now that we're here I'm sure of it. All the red and black on the furniture and carpets is a dead giveaway, and only a system governor would have an estate of this size."

"Dang..." Jon was about to say something else when Kandria reappeared through the door.

"She would like to speak with you, Kiole," she motioned him through the open door, as she walked over to sit down next to Jon.

"Mr. Enkal, welcome, please come in," a red haired woman smiled and greeted him as he walked through the door. She came around her desk and closed the door to her office behind him. She was of medium height, about five foot eight, and though she looked to be a few years older than Kiole, she was still fairly attractive.

Kiole shoved the piece of fruit he had been noshing on into his coat pocket and shook the woman's hand when she offered it to him. "Please, Governor O'Rourke, call me Kiole."

"Governor?" she tried to play off his comment as she walked around her desk and sat down, motioning him to a seat in front of her.

"I did a little research, I don't like to walk into a situation blind," he explained as he sat down. "It wasn't too hard to figure out. Let's just be straight forward, it's easier that way."

"Fair enough," she admitted. "Well, usually I won't meet with someone that Kandria can't probe, but I did some research of my own, and I found that you're a decorated war veteran, and that caries a lot of weight with me. I was curious though... your file was sealed starting after ten years ago, until you were discharged from the service six years ago. Could you elaborate on that please?"

"Well, I can't really say too much, I was transferred from the Planetary Marines to HSOC," he explained, "most of the stuff I did with them is still classified. What I can tell you though, is that most of my team was captured on a mission and I spent a couple of years in a Rovellan prison camp on Gaerath Four, until I escaped. That's what most of my medals were for. After I was debriefed, I figured I had done enough for the war effort and took an honorable discharge."

"Well, that's understandable." She flipped through a set of papers sitting on her desk before continuing, "There doesn't seem to be much information on you before or after your military service..."

"I like to keep a low profile. After I got out of the service, I spent most of my time in the Corridor, there's more work there for people with my 'skills'. As for my records before I joined the Military, I grew up on Aldeman Three, and those were all lost when the colony was wiped out by the Rovellans about twenty years ago. I was traveling to Mars to visit my grandparents at the time, which is how I avoided being caught in the massacre."

"I see..." she flipped through the papers some more. "Enkal... that's a Niäsan surname, but it says on your enlistment papers that you're Martian?"

"My father was Niäsan, my mom was Martian, and I was born on Mars while my dad was at the Psi-Ranger academy."

"That explains where you get your psionic immunity from," she remarked as a matter of fact, rather than asking as a question. "Well, now that you've filled in the gaps for me, do you think you can handle the job I need you to do? I assume Kandria filled you in on the basics."

"Yeah, this is exactly the type of covert op they trained us for in HSOC. As a matter of fact, I'm sure I can improve your operation considerably."

"How so?"

"Well..." he took a deep breath. Either this would impress the hell out of O'Rourke, or it would insult her, but it was the truth, "No offense, governor, but you haven't been doing a good job of covering your tracks and keeping yourself insulated from the activities of your operatives. Kandria may be a good political aide, but she doesn't have a military mind, and neither of you have a criminal one. This type of meeting with the operatives you employ needs to stop, both with you and Kandria. Keep yourselves compartmentalized, so that if your operatives are caught and interrogated they can't give you up. Let me be the point of contact between you and anyone else you need for this kind of work. I know the kind of people you need for this and where to find them better than Kandria, and I know how to cover my tracks better as well. Also, if I ever get caught, they can't probe me or otherwise force me to divulge information. My resistance to interrogation is one of the reasons why I was transferred into HSOC."

"You don't think you could be forced to talk?"

"Ma'am, I spent two years under the 'tender care' of the Rovellans. There's nothing that GalPol or Hegemonic Security can do to me that even comes close to what those lizards did to me, and they couldn't break me."

"Point taken," O'Rourke agreed. "Do you have any other suggestions, Mr. Enkal?"

"Well you're whole point of this little exercise is to undermine Governor Soto in the Zai-Obri system, so that you'll be chosen to be the next sector governor, correct?"

"That's correct," she admitted, "You're right, I haven't been doing a good job of covering my tracks."

"We'll work on that, but the point I wanted to make is that you're over looking a great resource in undermining Soto's authority... the Eechenan dissidents. Covertly supplying them aid and training to carry out raids on some of these businesses of Soto's would not only disrupt his financial resources, but would also show High Command that he has no ability to keep the Eechena under control. Then when you're proclaimed sector governor, you sweep in, put down the uprising and look all the better for it. It's a classic use of manipulating guerillas and insurgents."

O'Rourke leaned back in her chair, contemplating what Kiole had said. "If I were to agree, what sort of supplies would you require?"

"Well... Aside from room and board, I'll need cash. Enough for a junky old ship, and some weapons for Jon. Other than that, not much, and as I said, the less you know about it, the better for you. Oh and any intel that you already have on Soto's operations."

She swiveled her chair around to look into her aquarium as she mulled over Kiole's plan. After a few minutes she finally spoke, her back still turned to Kiole. "You make some very valid points, Mr. Enkal. Though, I can't say I like the idea of being out of control of the operation. I tend to be a very 'hands-on' type of person."

"With all do respect, ma'am, you can't afford that luxury any more. You don't have the experience to run this type of clandestine operation, and if you proceed in the manner which you have been, eventually you're going to get caught. The fact is that you've been needing someone like me for quite a while. Someone who knows how to run an operation like this and keep you out of any direct involvement in the event that the operation is discovered. If it's a matter of trusting me, send your Leosian along with me, he can always report back to you, and you could order him to tear me apart if I betray you," Kiole added, shrugging.

"That's a very confident statement," O'Rourke said swiveling her chair back around.

"That's because I don't have any intention of betraying you, and therefore I know I don't have anything to worry about."

"Very well then," she smiled and stood up, leaning across her desk to shake Kiole's hand. "We have a deal then. I'll have Kandria requisition the necessary funds for you. How long before you'll be ready?"

"It'll take me about two weeks to get Jon up to speed, he's a little green, but I can work with him. Then maybe another four weeks to locate some accomplices, plan an operation, and execute it."