Firebrand

"You think they are lying about their injuries?" Lorza asked, her furry brow furrowing. "For what purpose?"

"I think I have some idea," Boyd said warily, "but I'll let the Chief explain. Sounds like he has a personal stake in this."

"Tell me, Agent Lorza," Moralez said as she swiveled her furry ears in his direction attentively. "What do you know of the Sino-American war, and the Yellow Sea treaty?"

"I know that America is an Earth territory," she replied, "but nothing else."

"In the middle of the twenty-second century, there were two great powers on Earth. The United States of America, and the People's Republic of China. Both sought economic and military dominance, engaging in trade wars and proxy battles, for the most part."

"Those were the days of atmospheric fighter craft, launched from carriers that floated on the ocean," Boyd explained with a grin. "It was before humans had colonized space. We weren't using railguns back then, mostly weapons with chemical propellants. Closer to what the Borealans use than what we have today, really."

"The power of the ruling party in China began to wane," Moralez continued. "They took extreme measures to secure it, capturing surrounding islands and territories. Theirs was a highly technological society, unfettered by the ethical concerns of other nations. They had access to gene-editing technology, and advanced prosthetics that could be used to augment their soldiers, and they used them. They edited healthy genes to make their soldiers larger, stronger, more resilient. They amputated healthy limbs and replaced healthy organs with cybernetic substitutes."

"Was it not wise to take every measure to ensure their victory?" Lorza asked, perplexed.

"As it turned out, no. The program was very successful, the People's Liberation Army was able to best the Americans on the ground when they intervened, even if their Navy and their Airforce were inferior. They began to favor amphibious attacks, hopping from island to island as they pushed the USA back. Their soldiers were ruthless, tireless, the better training and weapons of the Americans had been nullified. Allied countries in the region fell one after the other, capitulating to the Chinese. South Korea, Japan, Taiwan. The Americans had to sail their ships thousands of miles to reinforce their troops, and for every engagement that they won in the air or on the ocean, they lost one on the ground."

"I still fail to see the downside," Lorza said, but Moralez kept talking.

"The downside came when the PLA soldiers started to get sick. It turned out that their gene-editing technology wasn't quite as advanced as they had initially thought, and the mutated DNA of their soldiers began to cause problems. Cancer was the biggest killer, the more their damaged cells replicated, the more it spread throughout their bodies. What's more, many of them began to reject their implants, losing the use of their limbs or dying outright due to organ failure and infection. When the Americans launched a campaign to recover the occupied territory, they were met not by super-soldiers, but by invalids and piles of corpses."

"Were all of their soldiers so affected?" Lorza asked.

"No, they had plenty of unaugmented soldiers in reserve. The country had a huge population, but they were no longer able to hold the captured territory. It eventually resulted in a peace deal between the two countries that lasted until the Chinese government collapsed in the twenty-two hundreds."

"How does the treaty that you mentioned come into it?" the Polar said.

"The Yellow Sea treaty was penned at the end of the war, and it was later signed by all members of the United Nations. It forbids the practice of weaponizing the human body. It forces all signatories to recognize that soldiers are people before they are weapons, and that all those who serve in the armed forces should do so with the expectation of returning to civilian life one day. It forbids genetic manipulation for the purpose of war, cybernetic augmentation, indoctrination, or anything else that irreversibly modifies the body to make a soldier a more effective killer at the expense of their health. For that reason, it's illegal to amputate a healthy limb in order to replace it with a prosthetic, such surgeries can only be performed for medical reasons."

"You can't go back to life as a civvie if you have a railgun for an arm," Boyd added. "You can't work as a bank teller if your skin has been replaced with a Kevlar weave, and your eyes were replaced with infrared cameras. You can't hold your baby with hands designed to tear open tank hulls."

"Then this treaty is about respect for the sanctity of life?" Lorza asked. "It does not matter if your technology has improved enough that such procedures would be safe, it is a matter of principle?"

"Yeah," Moralez replied, "something like that."

"And you suspect that these men are violating the treaty?"

"It certainly seems that way," Moralez grumbled, "but I don't have any way of proving it right now. It just...pisses me off. I know people who would give anything to have their original limbs back, people who wake up every night trying to scratch an itch on an arm that isn't there anymore. These SWAR guys are making a mockery of that, all in the name of...I dunno, machismo. The rest of us get on fine with our Mark Is."

"Do you think that they had something to do with the assassination attempt?" Boyd asked, "or are you just wasting our time?"

"I don't know," Moralez replied with a shake of his head. "They had a pretty overt hatred of the Bugs, but so do ninety percent of the people on the station. I don't see how they could have been involved, but something funny is going on with those guys."

He wasn't yet ready to voice his suspicions of Admiral Vos, he didn't trust the two yet, Boyd especially. In time, perhaps he would get to know them well enough to share his thoughts, or enough to know to keep his lips sealed.

"If you say so, Chief."

"Right now, we need to focus on Vice Admiral Korbaz," Moralez continued. "We're narrowing down the list of suspects, and she's pretty high up there. She's always acting shifty, even when she hasn't done anything wrong, and more than once I've caught her trying to smuggle weapons onto the hub. I never thought that she'd actually use them before now, it's just typical Rask behavior, but it raises some red flags."

"Do I sense a hint of bias, Chief?" Boyd asked.

"Bias? I'd call it experience, the Rask are always a huge pain in the ass."

"What motive would they have for trying to kill the ambassador?" Lorza added, her voice emanating from somewhere above and behind Moralez due to her height.

"There are several possibilities," he replied, "revenge is one of them. She might not share Elysiedde's pragmatism when it comes to the war. Another is genuine apprehension about the Bugs betraying the Coalition in some way, they're not a people who like to wait around and let others solve their problems for them. Perhaps the Rask hope to expand their influence in the alliance if there are fewer members. I don't know, it could be anything with them."

"What do we know about her?" Boyd asked. "I've read her file, but you seem to know her personally."

"Korbaz is your typical Rask," Moralez said. "She's headstrong, ambitious, stubborn, aggressive. I'm not sure what the title of Vice Admiral entails for a people with no Navy who are surrounded by deserts, but she has a high position in the Matriarchy. She has a low opinion of other species, as is commonplace among the Rask, and she's expressed on more than one occasion how she believes that the Coalition is being poorly managed. She imagines her own people taking a leadership role, of course."

"Do you know her well?" Lorza asked.

"I've had a lot of dealings with her, she's nothing out of the ordinary, but it's hard to give her the benefit of the doubt. Honestly, I've been waiting for her to cross a line for quite some time. I will say that her reaction when the ambassador entered the conference room was by far the strongest of all the delegates, she was furious. I thought that I might have to restrain her."

"That could just as much be taken as evidence of her innocence," Boyd added, "someone who had foreknowledge of the Bug's visit wouldn't have been so surprised."

"Unless she was exaggerating her reaction to give that impression," Lorza suggested.

"The words innocent and Korbaz don't go together, I know that much for sure," Moralez muttered. "We should be arriving at her suite soon, it's not far off. Just let me do the talking, we have a kind of...working relationship. I'm mostly talking to you, Agent Boyd..."

"My lips are sealed," Boyd replied sarcastically, miming zipping up his mouth.

"If only," Lorza grumbled.

***

"Well, if it isn't my favorite human," Korbaz purred as she opened the door for them. She had a smile on her face that came off as wholly insincere, her yellow, predatory eyes telling a different story altogether. She was wearing her usual leather getup, half biker, and half post-apocalyptic raider. The litany of belts and holsters had been returned to her wide hips, laden with bulky revolvers and wicked daggers. Her padded jacket was open, her tank top short enough, and her pants riding low enough to show off some of her toned midriff.

"And you've brought your mate with you," she added, narrowing her eyes at Lorza.

"A pleasure as always, Vice Admiral," Moralez said as he stepped into her suite. It was identical in layout to the rest, and it didn't look as though the ambassador had spent much time in it. "These are Agents Boyd and Lorza of Naval Intelligence, they're here to assist me in my investigation. Lorza is not my mate, she's a colleague."

"Oh, then there are more of them," Korbaz muttered as she looked the Polar up and down disdainfully.

"Thank you for agreeing to remain on the station during the investigation," Moralez said as Boyd stepped inside, the automatic door sliding shut behind him. "I'm sure that you're eager to return to your home territory."

"I can imagine worse places to be confined, Security Chief. Your summons today has interrupted my leisure time, however. I would thank you to get this interview over with quickly before my countrymen begin to miss my company."

"I'm sure that your absence has them distraught, Vice Admiral," Moralez said as he gestured to the kitchen table. "Shall we sit down and begin?"

The four of them took up seats around the table, Korbaz resting her face in her furry hand as she drummed her claws on its varnished surface, apparently bored already.

"When you asked that I wait for you alone in my suite," the Vice Admiral complained, "I had other activities in mind."

"You've always had a very vivid imagination," Moralez replied, her insincere smile returning as she locked eyes with him over the salt and pepper shakers. "We're here to discuss the assassination attempt on the Betelgeusian ambassador. We've been interviewing everyone who was present at the security council meeting, and we have cause to believe that someone inside the room was feeding information to the shooter."

"And I am the prime suspect," she replied, rolling her eyes at him. "Sometimes, I think that you just want to have me in handcuffs, Security Chief. Perhaps the thought excites you?"

"You're actually not the first person that we interviewed," he replied, "but you were present in the room during the attack. That makes you as much a suspect as any of the other ambassadors."

"Very well, ask your questions if you must," she sighed.

"I think that we should start with the elephant in the room," Moralez began, Korbaz raising an eyebrow in confusion as the term went over her head. "Your opinion of the Betelgeusians is...poor, shall we say. You reacted very strongly to the ambassador's presence, and you expressed your dislike for her in no uncertain terms."

"Is that not my right?" she asked. "You know me well enough to know that I do not mince words, Security Chief, I speak what I feel."

"Indeed," he replied, "but you can see how that might raise suspicions?"

"If hating my enemies is a crime, then put me in chains," she replied with a sneer. "I stand by what I said in the meeting, these creatures will betray us the moment they have the strength. They have spilled Rask blood, and the only fate that they deserve is extermination."

"You're not exactly convincing us of your innocence," Boyd muttered, the alien shooting him an angry glance.

"I need not defend myself against baseless accusations, I have nothing to hide. Would you have me lie about my intent, and dull my tongue, all to appear more docile so that you might think better of me? That is not our way."

"So what would you have had happen to the Betelgeusian Ambassador?" Moralez asked.

"I would not have shed a tear in mourning if the insect had been turned to paste," she laughed, no doubt imagining the scene in her mind's eye. "You were fools to bring it aboard to begin with, and I know that it was a human decision, you and your Broker friends were already conspiring behind our backs. Tell me, how can the Coalition function if members with more influence conspire to keep the rest in the dark?"

"It's true that Admiral Vos and some of his personnel knew that the Betelgeusian would be arriving on the station before the other delegates did," Moralez admitted. "I was only informed a short while before her arrival, it came as a surprise to me, too. I share many of your concerns, but my job is security, not diplomacy. Whether the Broker delegate knew in advance, I honestly don't know," he added with a shrug of his shoulders. "But it was decided that her presence should be kept a secret until after the Valbaran vote, the Admiral wanted them to be able to have their say in the matter."

"Then they do not keep you in their confidence either, Chief. Does their lack of faith in you not insult you? Does your blood not boil to know that they deceive you just as they do the rest of us? What about you two?" she continued, directing her question towards the two agents. "Did you know about the insect? Even the other humans dislike you, they call you Ninnies, spooks. Imagine all the secrets that are locked behind those tight lips."

"We aren't at liberty to discuss that," Boyd replied with no small measure of satisfaction, Lorza staying quiet as she met the Rask's icy gaze.

"Enough time alone and uninterrupted with the little one, and I could have him squawking," Korbaz said with a sinister grin. "We might both learn something, Security Chief."

"I'm sure we would," Moralez replied, "but that's not why we're here today."

Lorza chimed in next, Korbaz glaring at her from across the table with her feline eyes.

"If you are so adamant that our suspicions are baseless, surely you have something to say in your defense?"

"I suppose that you will not leave me be until I do," the Rask grumbled. "Very well, have it your way. How am I supposed to have been in contact with the would-be assassin from inside the conference room when I had no communications equipment?"

"You could have smuggled something onto the hub," Boyd replied.

"After the good Security Chief gave me such an intimate pat-down?" Korbaz asked, flashing Moralez a toothy smile. "His metal fingers do wander..."

"It's true that you were subjected to a thorough pat-down," Moralez admitted, "but you have been known to smuggle objects into secure areas in the past."

"A force of habit," she said with a dismissive shrug. "In my culture, one is never without their weapons, least of all in a diplomatic setting. The more heavily armed the participants are, the less chance there is of anyone starting a fight."

"Mutually assured destruction," Boyd muttered, shaking his head in disbelief. "Why am I not surprised?"

"Another thing," the Vice Admiral continued, "how would I have known that the insect would be present on the station before its arrival? If the secret was so closely guarded that the station's own Chief of Security was not aware of it, then how could the information have reached the Rask in time to organize such an attack? We have no personnel in your hierarchy who could feed the Matriarchy information, we provide only warriors for the Coalition's armies."

Moralez had to admit that she was making sense. After all, had Korbaz not been too obvious a villain? She lacked the means to commit the crime, even if she had the motive and opportunity. So who did that leave on the list? The Krell, the Araxie, the Valbarans? No, if such a list existed in a physical form, at the top of it would be Vos' name underlined in red marker.

"Chief, can I talk to you?" Boyd asked, nudging Moralez to get his attention. "Alone?"

"Please excuse us, Vice Admiral," Moralez said as he rose from his seat. "We'll be back shortly. Lorza, please keep the ambassador company."

Boyd followed after him as they made their way to the bathroom, closing the automatic door behind them for privacy. Boyd reached up to the Borealan-sized sink and turned on the faucet, Moralez raising an eyebrow.

"Borealans have sensitive hearing," the agent explained, "and I don't want to be overheard."

"Alright, what's so important that you had to interrupt the interview?"

"I was using my visor to download the data that our surveillance equipment collected on the ambassador when I noticed an anomalous signal," Boyd began, Moralez interrupting him.

"Wait, wait. You bugged the ambassador's suite?"

"Of course we bugged the ambassador's suite," Boyd scoffed, "we bugged all the suites. What do you think our job is, sitting on our asses and twiddling our thumbs?"

"Oh, for fuck's...alright, what's this anomaly that you found?"

"There's a wireless signal being transmitted from inside the suite, it's sending data to the station's intranet. There should only be the wireless signals for the appliances, and then our equipment. Thing is, this new signal is using encryption protocols that aren't UNNI, or UNN. Whatever data it's sending, they don't want it to be decoded."

"Could it be a personal device belonging to Korbaz?" Moralez asked.

"Maybe, but we were looking for a listening device of some kind that had been smuggled onto the hub, and here we have a mighty strange signal using some pretty hefty encryption."

"Think it's a smoking gun?" Moralez asked.

"Could be, just stall Korbaz for a bit while I pinpoint its location."

They reemerged from the bathroom to be greeted by Korbaz's suspicious stare, her feline eyes tracking them as they returned to their seats at the kitchen table. She drummed her claws, their sharp points tapping on the varnish.

"Vice Admiral," Moralez began, "how would you describe your people's relationship with the Coalition?"

Korbaz leaned back in her chair with a creak, crossing her arms and glancing between the trio suspiciously.

"Why?" she asked, narrowing her eyes at the Chief.

"What's the matter, Vice Admiral?" he asked. "You've always been very forthcoming with your opinions in the past, even without solicitation."

"If I did not know better, I might think that you were trying to entrap me," she replied. "The attack was against the insects, what does the Coalition have to do with it?"

Boyd pressed a finger against his temple, operating the controls of his visor inconspicuously as Korbaz directed her attention towards Moralez.

"You've always expressed a dislike for how things are run," he continued, meeting her angry gaze. "That the Rask are better suited to a leadership role than any of the other members."

"I do not deny that," she hissed, "but how does it relate to the attack? In my mind, killing that repulsive creature would be an act of defense, not of aggression. If we wanted to destroy the Coalition, then letting the insects overrun it would require nothing but our inaction."