Cold Conflict (Deception Fleet Book 2) Read online

  Western Steppes

  Canaan—Terran Coalition

  6 November 2464

  * * *

  Jackson Adams fastened the access panel on the skiff’s starboard hover nodule. “Try it again.”

  The unit hummed to life, but as it did, a vibration grew. It continued to shudder until wisps of smoke bled from the panel’s edges. “Shut it down! Kill the power!”

  “All right, relax!” Harrison Adams’s voice boomed from the control cab. “I’m doing it.”

  The vibration subsided. Jackson coughed and waved the haze away from his face. The cold air made it settle around him instead of dissipating.

  He reached for the panel. “Let me give it another shot.”

  “Forget it. Your skills aren’t getting the job done.”

  “Thanks, Harry, I hadn’t noticed.” Jackson tossed the adjustor into the tool bag at his side. He stood, brushing snow and mud from his knees.

  The squall that had barreled through that quadrant of the Adams ranch had left a few centimeters. It was melting rapidly, turning the dirt to a viscous muck. As cold as the air was, the sun peeking from behind the clouds beat down on the back of Jackson’s head. Instinct drove him to face the source.

  The rush of heat sent his heart rate soaring, only for a second, before he remembered where he was—on the repair field outside the homestead, not on the street facing Salvatore’s Ground Effect Garage. He’d worked undercover at the garage for a month while uncovering the League of Sol’s efforts to destabilize a refugee situation on Aphendrika, a Terran Coalition border world. Either the League or a local cartel had bombed the garage once one of Jackson’s coworkers had revealed to police the human trafficking in which Salvatore’s business was a silent partner.

  Sudden heat brought to mind the explosion. It had for months. Jackson scowled at his inability to put the past behind him. What he needed was a new assignment, which was why he’d been elbow deep in repairing the family’s ranch machinery ever since his brother had been injured.

  Shattered femurs, nerve damage—being thrown from the skiff during a freak windstorm had put Harry through the wringer at the clinic, leading to weeks of missed work and grueling rehab.

  Harry climbed the ladder down from the control cab at the speed of a Goldberg snail. He winced as his boots hit the ground. A medical support exoskeleton wrapped around his legs, up his hips, and encompassed his torso. Pulsating lights dribbled down the core of each leg, showing battery status. The motors whined as Harry clumped through the mud. He was up to moving at half his prior speed, but Jackson knew he had a long way to go before he regained full mobility.

  “We need to put in an order for a new regulator,” Jackson said.

  “I’ll put the order in and get it routed through Mom’s account.” Harry stepped near enough to splash mud on Jackson’s pants. “Especially since you fouled up what was supposed to be an easy fix.”

  “It’d be an easy fix if the equipment weren’t ten seasons out of date. Did you even consider updating it before Canaan’s star died?” Jackson regretted the snide rejoinder as soon as it left his mouth, but only by a little. The past weeks had ground his patience down to a thin layer separating the cool politeness from burning resentment.

  “Nice. I appreciate the critique, coming from you. It’s not like we’re rolling in credits down here in the dirt, Jack, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “I’m not even going to follow that one.” Jackson scooped up the tool bag and walked for the line of maintenance sheds on that end of the property. “You’ve got plenty of my money. Spend it.”

  “Where are you off to?”

  “Perimeter check.”

  Harry snorted. “Seems like that’s all you do.”

  “Well, since neither of us can fixed the damned skiff, I figured I’d better make sure the sensor posts are operational and our stock isn’t crossing onto the neighboring lands.” Jackson turned midstride and continued walking backward. “I’m doing my best here, Harry. You’ve got to meet me part way.”

  “I never asked for your charity, Jack. If Dad weren’t in such bad shape—”

  “Look, forget it. They don’t want me visiting. I doubt they would have even acknowledged my presence on the planet if I hadn’t been here to drag your excess weight around because you got careless.” Jackson pointed at him. “So, get your part ordered, and I’ll get it installed—and for the fortieth time, consider coming up with the money to make some genuine improvements around here.”

  “Sure, we’ll remodel the whole ranch while we’re at it.” Harry scowled. “Any suggestions?”

  “For starters, buy a skiff that wasn’t built before the League’s first invasion so you won’t fall off it again!”

  Jackson slammed the tool bag onto the catch panel he’d rigged to the back of his skimmer. The dual-seat, lightweight sport hovercraft was spattered with mud across its entire hindquarters, the brown gunk making the yellow paint job all the more brilliant. He gunned the engine, the initial buzz transitioning into a powerful purr, and zipped away from the repair yard in such haste he forgot to put on his helmet.

  The first mouthful of gnats he had to spit out reminded him. With the face shield down, he could breathe easier and reflect on the disastrous morning as the skimmer raced over rolling hills and threaded through frosted gullies. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t tried to reconcile. Hadn’t that been Brant’s advice? To turn the other cheek? The problem was that every time Harry opened his mouth, Jackson wanted to punch him right in the cheek.

  He supposed the lingering resentment was inevitable. They’d brawled right before Jackson’s first deployment with Covert Action Unit 171, come to the same blows Brant had recommended they avoid. But his friend didn’t understand their animosity. Come to think of it, neither did Jackson.

  Mom and Dad hadn’t helped. No one in the family understood Jackson’s desire to leave, to be out among the stars, to see the worlds of the Terran Coalition—and more importantly, to be the one stopping the League’s subtle plans to destabilize the war-weary nation. With Dad sick, though, and Harry injured, the homestead had dragged him back in, the pull as inexorable as a gravity well.

  Colonel Robert Sinclair, his CO, had been kind enough to grant him extended leave with the understanding that Jackson would be called back to duty the moment the team was again needed. Jackson had found himself staring at his wrist comm for the last five days.

  He zipped past the skiff terminal, where two more of the broad-bellied hovercraft were docked. A couple of the hired hands waved at him. He gave a salute in response. From there, he banked northwest, heading up the hills into the base of the mountain ranges cordoning the valleys. Their cloud-shrouded peaks were coated with even more snow than usual. He knew from the latest satellite images. The valley sprawled to his left, filled with cattle and grasses turning yellow in the midst of the region’s autumn.

  His comm pulsed. Perhaps it was the colonel. Jackson frowned as he glanced at it. No, Harry. He clicked his jaw against the base of his helmet, activating the link between the communications setup inside and the signal routed via his wrist device. “Yeah?”

  “Hey, while you’re out there looking at the posts, check West One Seven. It’s on the Castillo’s boundary.”

  “I remember.” The Castillo property bordered the Adams ranch to the west. The easiest link between properties was a half-kilometer-wide pass bounded with tall red ochre cliffs on either side. “Got it.”

  “So… look.” Harry’s exhale crackled through the helmet speakers. “The Christmas plans.”

  Jackson blinked. His brother had avoided all talk of those plans for months. “What about them?”

  “A couple of the hands had ideas for the ranches to combine their efforts—you know, a get-together like Mom and Dad used to throw with the neighbors when we were little. I said it wasn’t, uh, a bad idea. And you’re keen on it so… when you get back, maybe we can run through your ideas.”

  “I—okay. Sure.�
�� Whatever prompted Harry’s attempt at amends, Jackson wasn’t about to look into the proverbial horse’s mouth. “I’d like to hear what you’ve got in mind too.”

  “Good. We’ll do that.” The pause was long enough Jackson thought Harry had disconnected. “Thanks.”

  The signal cut, and Jackson was alone with his thoughts again—well, his thoughts and the cattle. He skirted a herd and angled the skimmer down a steep hill toward West 17. The sensor post was twice as tall as a man, a bundle of six poles spaced equally, like spaghetti clumped together. Jackson smiled at the memory of Mom cooking dinner, asking the young version of him to separate the stuck noodles. It had been his job to fix it.

  The sensor post’s individual poles should have each had a blue light blinking counterclockwise, one after the other, at two-second intervals. Instead, all shone a steady red. Not surprising, given the malfunction notice streaming across Jackson’s helmet from his wrist unit. The presence of a Castillo hand already there to take a look was surprising, however.

  The woman had left a long, broad hovercraft parked a few meters from the post. Jackson wondered if she was new to Castillo’s workforce, because she didn’t have one of their signature black jackets emblazoned with the family brand. She wore a thicker red winter coat with fur around the collar. And yet, her trousers were marred by the kind of grease stains one only received from working on ranch hardware.

  “Morning.” Jackson dismounted the skimmer. “I appreciate you stopping to check on the sensor, but it’s one of ours, Adams gear. I’ll take care of it.”

  “I know it’s yours. It’s not a problem to fix.” Her brunette hair carried blond streaks earned by a lifetime working outdoors. Pale-blue eyes watched him approached with the tool bag in hand. Had her face been less tan, her freckles would have stood out more. Her mouth lifted into a smile, prodding his memory. No, not a new hire. He should know her.

  “Sorry, have we met?” Jackson returned the smile. “I’m usually much better with names and faces.”

  “Since you haven’t been around much the past few years, Jay, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.” She sidestepped him and opened the access hatch for the post’s control box.

  Jay. Since when has anyone called me by that name? Very few back in the day, and none in the past decade. “Abby?”

  Abril Castillo glanced over her shoulder. Thankfully, she seemed more bemused than irritated by his lapse in memory. “In the flesh. Nice to see you around the homestead again. Don’t tell me—Harry’s fall cracked his brain instead of his femurs, and you’re in charge.”

  Jackson couldn’t suppress the laugh. It made a pair of nearby cows raise their heads, pausing in midchew. “No one would like the result, I assure you. Mom and Dad wouldn’t approve, in either case.”

  “How is your father?”

  “Not well. The DNA treatments can only do so much. At the rate he’s deteriorating…” Jackson shook his head. “Neither of them is interested in me taking over, even if Harry has to be rebuilt from a skiff’s spare parts.”

  “I’d heard he wasn’t doing well. That’s why I’m out here. The folks have been keeping an eye on the boundary with your spread. I see no sense in passing by when you need a helping hand.”

  “Thanks.” Jackson craned his neck, hoping for a better look at her handiwork. By the way she made the third of five bypasses, he knew he was dealing with someone who did more than tinker. “Abby, really? I thought you were all about the Colonial Rangers when you finished your required tour.”

  “I wanted to do my duty, but my parents needed me and my sisters here. Too many of the crew went off to fight, especially in the last decade of the war. I had a duty to the family.” Abby fumbled the fifth bypass circuit. It buzzed. Her cheeks reddened. “That’s—sorry. I didn’t mean you weren’t doing yours.”

  “It’s okay. You wouldn’t be the only one who thought so.” Jackson handed her the adjustor.

  “Right. Thanks.” Abby whistled a tune as she finished the circuit bypass.

  Jackson recognized it as one she used to play on her violin while he sat in a tree outside her bedroom window, three floors off the ground at the Castillo villa.

  “Seriously, though—I heard you re-upped but then disappeared.”

  “Nothing so dramatic.” The lie came easily, which was the hazard of his work. He was so used to concealing who he really was and what his true work entailed that he could spin a tale to practically anyone, like a bot programmed for only single tasks. “I did a stint with CBI before CDF Intelligence scooped me up.”

  “Oh? A spook.” She grinned. “Let me guess—you know where all the secret files are stashed in the deepest bowels of Lawrence City.”

  Jackson thought of his tense negotiation with a gas-poisoned cartel thug a few months ago. They’d faced off on the bridge of a CDF Border Patrol corvette, one stolen from a repair depot and refitted—allegedly—by rogue League elements, all for the purpose of inflaming a refugee crisis of the League’s own making. “Something like that. I have a spare recharge wire in the bag.”

  “I’ve got one.” Abby yanked the burned-out wire and tossed it to Jackson. He caught it between two fingers. “So.” She twisted the wire into its new fitting. “Why are you here, if your parents aren’t glad to see you and Harry… well, he’s never glad to see anyone, is he?”

  “They still need help. I promised to do what I can, no matter what, before I have to ship out again.”

  “The noble son.”

  “I can’t avoid the responsibility forever.”

  “I know it.” Abby leaned back. “Give it a restart?”

  Jackson tapped into the post’s control grid. First restart—red lights. Second, yellow. He counted to five before jumpstarting the program. Blue lights pulsed back into being, counterclockwise.

  He grinned. “Nice job. Want to invoice me for materials?”

  “What, and not for the time?” Abby laughed. “Please. Let’s say you’ll owe me.”

  “Name the price.”

  “Dinner. Soon. I won’t hold you to a date because I know you’ve got to go when the CDF calls, but I will remind you of your responsibility. Can’t avoid it forever, someone said, I think.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  Jackson’s comm pulsed. He wished it were Harry so he could brush his brother off and continue the warm chat under the morning sun, but that time it was Brant’s code. Whatever it was, Abby was definitely not cleared to hear it.

  “Take it.” She touched his shoulder. “It’s nice to see you again, Jay. You know, my folks have been trying to reach yours for almost a year about formalizing the help we’ve been lending. It would benefit both our ranches if we were closer, more dependent.”

  “I can see how.” Jackson wondered how close she intended—for the ranches. It wouldn’t be the first time a neighbor had offered a partnership or a buyout. Goodness knew three others had already combined their efforts into a cooperative to counterbalance their weaknesses. It might be time he had a look at the ranch communications. “It was nice to see you again too.”

  Abby stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek, the warm gesture just as soothing as it had been when they were teenage neighbors. “See you round, spook.”

  Jackson watched her board the hovercraft and waited until the engine rumbled before he answered his comm. “Go ahead.”

  “How’s life out in the sticks, Captain?” Lieutenant Brant Guinto was the most familiar voice to issue from his communications device. Anytime it was anyone else, Jackson was mildly surprised.

  “Very few trees, Brant, so hardly the ‘sticks,’ but it’s been a peaceful experience.” He shook his head at the umpteen fights he’d had with his brother. “Well, the scenery is peaceful, anyway. I’m guessing you’re calling to bring me back in.”

  “Colonel’s orders, I’m afraid. We’re redeploying in a couple of days. Everyone else is already back.”

  “Oh? How’d the training go?”

  “Sparks
had a kick bothering the civilian contractors who’ve been refitting the new shuttle.”

  “You mean the racer.”

  “As Gina keeps reminding us, yes, the racer.”

  “Speaking of—”

  “She was busy making sure Sev didn’t shoot the wrong person when the regulars tried to pick on him for being, um, peculiar. Anyway, we’re headed out to the Saurian border, into the unclaimed zones. Possible League interference with Nosamo Aerothermic.”

  Jackson was starting the skimmer’s engine when Brant spoke the name. “Really? We have to help them out? Did you ask Sinclair if this was a punishment? I thought we succeeded in our last mission.”

  “Briefing’s at seventeen hundred tomorrow. That’s all I’ve got to go on. Seems like whatever Intelligence has stepped in with Nosamo has put the brass on edge. I’ll catch up with you when you get up to the fleet yards.”

  “Thanks for the heads up. Adams out.”

  Harry was gone. Jackson couldn’t raise him on the comm, but he’d left a message back at the house. Mom called me to the clinic. Dad’s treatment in its last stage. Talk Christmas later.

  Jackson shook his head. He scribbled his apology and packed what few belongings he’d brought, including a few mementos of past missions—like a crumpled pay chit, a porcelain mug with a broken handle, a burnt metal shard from a hovercraft’s undercarriage, and the pale-yellow leaves striped with green-blue that Gina Wilkes had preserved from their last mission.

  Familial reconciliation would have to wait. But Gina, apparently, wouldn’t. She was seated on a bench at the tram station when he arrived a half hour later, reading from a tablet just like a dozen other passengers waiting with her. She smirked as he guided the skimmer up the ramp onto the platform, the engine shut down but the hover nodules holding it aloft.

  “You drag it around like a puppy. Should we repaint it and call it Rover?”

  Jackson chuckled. “Fitting name. Better than Spot.”

  “If you coated the flanks in leopard print…” She shrugged. “Have a nice vacation?”