Third front the dali tam.., p.1
Third Front (The Dali Tamareia Missions Book 3), page 1
THIRD FRONT
A DALÍ TAMAREIA MISSION
BOOK 3
E. M. HAMILL
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Epilogue
Glossary of Terms
About the Author
Also by E. M. Hamill
For my mother
Sandy Warner
1944-2022
who encouraged my love of reading from an early age,
and supported my dreams until the end.
Love you forever.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Coming to the end of this story arc is a bittersweet thing. Dalí will have more stories to tell, probably in novella form.
So many people supported me through all this. Thank you to my writing family, especially Jem Zero, cheerleader and critique partner through the entire process of this third book. Thank you to my alpha readers from the beginning, Mark Millham and Ashley Miller, and the mutual support community of Writers Refuge headed by the disgustingly talented Sarah Chorn. My beta reader Janean Dobos was here for the whole series, and Jessica Smith took on the challenge with Third Front. Thank you, a million times.
I want to extend my gratitude to Keshav Kant, my sensitivity consultant, for her insight into the Hijra community and spirituality and encouraging me to bring more of this rich culture into the story.
A standing ovation to Justin R. Gibson, who finally gave Dalí a voice via audiobook after all this time.
Kudos and huge hugs to Jami Nord and Evan MacGregor at Chimera Editing. Jami, my developmental editor and friend, thank you for your support, professional advice, and guidance through the series.
Thank you to artist JCaleb Designs for three brand new, gorgeous, exciting covers.
It was important to me to have Dalí come from a loving, supportive family. I was lucky to grow up in one. Not all of us in the LGBTQ+ community are. Paul Tamareia and Marina Urquhart are much like my parents were: loving, irreverent, and entirely supportive of their children. I want to express my thankfulness here, both for them and for my in-laws, who raised an exceptional human.
I am in awe of my children, Kylan, Gabriel, and Jayden, and Mark, my life partner of nearly thirty years, for making dinner and doing laundry for me while I worked full time as a nurse, finished my BSN, survived quarantine without maiming each other, AND put up with me writing this series for the last six years.
And last, but most ardently, I am thankful for all of you, who read Dalí and asked for more.
CHAPTER
ONE
I have done a lot of stupid things. When I chose to man the turret of a stolen militia sandrail and chase Sol Fed drug dealers across the Martian desert, it was not one of my wisest moments.
The pulse rifle's sights bounced off the faceplate of my environmental suit as the MDEA officer behind the wheel swerved to avoid an outcrop of rocks. The buggy bottomed out in a divot pocking the sandy crust. "Don't you have a clear shot yet?" my driver demanded.
"I might if you stop hitting every crater on the goddamn planet, Cortez!" I braced my feet wider and re-sighted the weapon on the plume of dust kicked up by our target.
"Oh, so sorry, Tamareia. Didn't know galactic cops are such pussies," she retorted. "Can't handle a little off-roading?"
Another bump, and my teeth solidly clamped on my bottom lip. I tasted blood. "Fuck! When we stole this thing, I thought you knew how to drive it."
She snorted. "Hah! Who said I could drive? Where the hell is our backup?"
Good question. They should have been there by now. "Sumner, where are you?"
"Airborne." The clipped reply came over the private com implanted in my mastoid bone. "Sorry we're late. Williams wouldn't let the tower clear us for takeoff until they headed out."
"They're coming. Your boss is being a prick again," I told Cortez.
"Can't blame him, eh? We did just fine until you guys decided to stick your noses in our operation," she yelled back.
My team was dispatched to Mars to work with drug enforcement officers as part of a galactic response to curtail a sinister new drug's arrival in Sol Fed. Local authorities were still getting used to the idea of Remoliad agencies meddling in their business.
Drug cartels found a foothold in the crowded tenements of Mars, offering chemical bliss to exhausted shift workers from the food processing plants. The formula locally referred to as "vape" had made its way to our solar system five years before. It targeted humanoid physiology, manufactured elsewhere in the galaxy by insectoid Pilean chemists.
I first encountered the drug in the seedy illegal market of Rosetta Station's underbelly. Thanks to a Kadrelian doctor, I had recently subdued my addiction to vape for the second time in three years. It was still a struggle to stay clean. But things could be so much worse for humanity: the drug's most recent compound was far more threatening than its predecessor, rewriting human cells to pass the dependence on to future generations. We needed to cut off the supply line.
The whine of a projectile pinged off the bulletproof glass of the turret behind me. "Shit!" I twisted in the cylinder to locate the pursuing vehicle. "I think their backup got here first."
A bigger, flashier version of the sandrail we "borrowed" was rapidly gaining on us, glimpsed through the cloud of tawny sand thrown by our tires.
"The one up front is three kilometers from the canyon. We'll lose them," Cortez said over the speaker in my helmet. "Can your team intercept?"
"Copy," Sumner said before I had a chance to relay. "ETA sixty seconds."
"They've got it!" I informed Cortez.
"We need at least one of them alive. Hold on to your ass!"
Cortez braked and yanked the wheel of the sandrail hard to the left in a low gravity spin out which carried us away from the path of the approaching buggy. They sped past and I glimpsed mirrored faceplates turning toward us. I got off a few shots from the mounted rifle as Cortez completed the arc. She floored the accelerator, coming in behind the buggy. Bullets careened off our vehicle's armored skin and I ducked out of instinct, cursing.
"Ignore them," she ordered. "We have military tech, they don't. Lock on their back tire and shred it. Let the gun do the work!"
I focused the sights on the left rear tire and squeezed the tracking trigger. Red crosshairs formed over the tire, and the gun took on a life of its own, following the target. All I had to do was hold down the firing mechanism. A volley of shots rattled out and huge chunks separated from the tread, but they still moved forward. Someone in an environment suit leaned out of the vehicle with a long, black tube that belched fire.
A magnesium-white explosion blossomed in our path. Cortez jerked the steering wheel to the side and avoided the worst of the violent eruption of rocks and dirt.
"What did you say about military tech?" I accused. "That was a fucking Pilean grenade launcher!"
"Okay, that's new."
My weapon locked back on its target, and I fired. More chunks of tire peeled off the rim until it disintegrated into elastomer snakes and the buggy unevenly bounced over the terrain. A badly aimed explosion went up on our right. When the dust cleared, I sighted on the remaining rear tire. With their speed already compromised, the gun chewed it up.
The heavy buggy wobbled on the uneven landscape and spun out in front of us, rolling over twice before Cortez swerved out of its way. We tilted at a heart-stopping angle in the low gravity before our sandrail tumbled back to four-wheeled contact. Three enviro-suited figures staggered out of the overturned buggy when we completed our wide circle. The laser tracking of my gun danced red dots over their chests as Cortez broadcast over the external loudspeaker,
"MDEA! Hands up if you don't want your suits ventilated, dickheads."
A soft whump from the rim of the canyon and a spray of ochre sand preceded the whine of Thunder Child's atmospheric engines as she streaked overhead and away. "They're not going anywhere," Sumner advised over my implant. "Incoming MDEA vehicles. I think we should let them do the pickup. Peace offering. We'll meet you back at the base."
"Copy."
The battered cartel runners raised their hands as Cortez grabbed the rifle mounted in the sandrail's cockpit and spilled out the door. "On the ground. Now!"
They complied. I squirmed out of the turret and joined her, training my sidearm on their prone bodies. "The other vehicle's disabled. Tell your guys they can pick them up."
In the distance, the thick dust cloud created by the approach of MDEA's all-terrain transports veiled the sparkling trail of climate domes in a burnt-amber drift of Martian soil. Cortez muttered into her com and some of the group peeled off, headed for the lip of the gorge. The rest continued t
"Exactly how much trouble are we going to be in for liberating a militia sandrail?" I inquired. Cortez favored me with a wolfish grin.
"Williams will square it with them. I'll tell him this was your idea."
Back at headquarters, Captain Williams was having none of Cortez's bullshit. Or mine.
"Stop smirking, Lieutenant Cortez!" he barked. She straightened her expression, but my empathic nets still picked up the sparkle of self-satisfaction in her emotional broadcast. "I know it was your idea. You get to apologize to Colonel Tun. I'm done listening to her ride my ass, so you lick her boots. Make it good and maybe I won't chain you to a desk for the next quarter."
He spun, his dark eyes squinting at me. "And you? As soon as you and Cortez are done with reports and your people finish questioning the suspects, you can get the fuck out of my division, Tamareia. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out. Understood?"
"Yes, sir." I couldn't resist a dig. "You're welcome."
Williams shook his head, sneering. "We were on top of this long before you got involved."
"Without our intel, you wouldn't have known where the drop was happening," I said evenly. "We identified six cases of the new drug in this shipment, Captain, but there's still more out there. Until we figure out how the cartel is getting it into Sol Fed, not to mention how the hell they got Pilean grenade launchers, we need to work together whether or not you like it."
"I won't have a division left if you and Cortez keep this up. But this isn't your job anymore, is it? Riga*nat is now the permanent liaison on this venture." His tongue clicked awkwardly on the glottal stop, but Williams was making an admirable effort to pronounce the Burkani officer's name.
Riga*nat was not my favorite being in the galaxy, but as far as drug enforcement agents went, he was among the best. By Burkani standards, he was one of the more diplomatic examples of his blunt, outspoken species. Even though we weren't welcomed to Mars with open arms, he and Williams had surprisingly hit it off, in part due to their mutual dislike of me. As far as the MDEA was aware, the team and I represented their galactic counterparts in drug enforcement. Our status as a Remoliad intelligence unit was not something we shared with Williams.
"Get out of my office. Finish those reports." He sat down at his desk and glared at a screen, ignoring us. Cortez jerked her head toward the door, her lips twisted in a smug grin.
"Kind of refreshing to see someone other than me dressed down for making a dumb ass decision," I muttered when the port hissed shut behind us.
"Oh yeah? You think that was bad?" She laughed. "He's been worse. You? Sumner seems like a tight ass."
"Nothing I didn't deserve, but yeah. He doesn't hold back." Actually, Sumner held back a lot, but that was a whole different scenario. I changed the subject. "Do you want to grab a drink after we get the reports done?"
She paused. "Is this goodbye?"
"Yeah, I think so."
"Then you're buying. We'll bring the booze to my place."
"You're on." Cortez and I had worked together for three months on this assignment. We formed a bond based on competition and alcohol. In the last two weeks, we'd also branched out into casual, enthusiastic sex. She liked rough women. I had enough scars to pass her muster and the ability to sprout breasts with the right stimulation, so my lack of fixed gender did not constitute a deal breaker.
"Tamareia?" One of the other officers jerked his head at the enclosed local communications terminal. "You have a private call."
I frowned. "They asked for me by name?"
"Yeah." He shrugged and ignored me. I stood there, trying to figure out who the hell would call me at MDEA headquarters until Cortez elbowed me in the side.
"Did you forget to charge for a blow job or something?" She snickered.
I flipped her off as I slid into the booth and closed the door.
The second my fingerprint registered to accept the transmission, I regretted it. To get the word about the new drug's properties out to the public, I made a deal with the devil's asshole.
I promised sensational journalist Kiran Singh an exclusive story. Like a goddamned idiot, I didn't specify which one.
I was almost blinded by pearly teeth as he grinned at me. "You are a difficult person to reach, Dalí."
I groaned. "What do you want, and why are you on Mars?"
"I'm here covering the first joint operation between Sol Fed and Remoliad law enforcement." His smile slipped and his expression became more predatory. "And I have a message from Mother England and the Third Front."
"Whatever it is, I'm not interested."
"Oh, I think you might be." Singh paused and leaned forward into the lens. "Does the name Miriam Skadi mean anything to you?"
A haze of red threatened my vision, and I closed my eyes against it.
He was asking about my family's murderer, the terrorist who engineered the bombing of Luna Terminal.
"I take that as a yes." Singh's mellifluous voice darkened in the shadow of a frown I glimpsed as my gaze fixed again on the screen.
"What do you know about Skadi?" The weight of my need for retribution constricted my chest. I fought to breathe normally.
"Me? Nothing but what I can find in the records." He sat back. "Born on Europa to a militia officer. One of two Nos/human hybrids who were the products of a war crime."
That much was true. My commander, Rion Sumner, was the other hybrid— Miriam Skadi's half-brother. I doubted Singh knew that yet.
He continued, "She lit out for the galaxy when she was about eighteen. After a decade's absence, she returned to Sol Fed every six months or so to visit her dear old mater in a convalescent facility on Europa, right around the time things heated up with the Nos Conglomerate. But the last three years? No visits. No record of her coming in or out of Sol Fed. Her mother is still alive, but Skadi appears to have evaporated. Who is she?"
"No idea."
I was evading an answer, and his kohl-lined eyes narrowed in suspicion. At heart, Kiran Singh was a malicious, gossip-collecting bitch, and it drove him completely over the edge to not know everything.
"If you'd like to learn more, you're invited to a very exclusive party tomorrow night in the Hijra Quarter," Singh said. "Mother will talk to you there."
For a minute, I wasn't sure I heard him correctly. "She wants me to come to Luna?"
"Yes. And I want the story you owe me."
"I can probably get you a voice-only interview with one of the MDEA agents who made the arrest today," I offered weakly, still processing.
"No. I want this story." Singh's eyes gleamed. "I want to know what this is about."
"Ask Mother. You two are inseparable, right?"
"She doesn't really talk to me anymore," he said moodily. "We're estranged, at the moment."
That was interesting. "It's an ongoing investigation. I can't tell you anything."
"You trusted me with the information that took down President Batterson."
Oh, the irony. "I gave you the information because I knew you couldn't keep your fucking mouth shut. I counted on it."
"I recognize the look on your face, Dalí. The pain. This has something to do with the bombing."
A bleak laugh escaped me. "If you want something from me, you should stop talking now." But damn it, I was interested.
Despite the almost three years our team had been chasing Skadi and the malevolent entity for whom she worked, we had little solid information to go on. We finally gave a title to the organization: Residuum, a name coined out of frustration. Given that we could never find them, only the traces of where they'd been, the name stuck.
