“But what about the Portal—,” he began.
“Look,” I cut him off, my patience gone. “I told you all I can tell you.” But I had one more idea to help seal the deal. I took out my shotgun and put it under Rendrae’s chin.
“If you repeat what I just told you—if you hint what I just told you—I will kill you,” I said with a leaden voice. “And you know this is not something I say idly.”
This was not taken so much as a threat by Rendrae as a stamp of authenticity. His eyes literally glittered with the idea he had Secret Knowledge. He giggled giddily.
“This is fantastic information, Hank. But what good is it to me if I can’t comment on it? You owe it to the citizens to share this.”
“The way I see it, I don’t owe the citizens of Belvaille nothing. They didn’t spend a month in the hospital with fifty broken bones and having their guts regrown. I did more than my fair share already.”
“True. True. And you’ve seen I’ve given you generous thanks for that. But Hank.” Rendrae was pleading.
“No. More than my safety is at risk if word gets out,” I said grimly.
Rendrae bit his fingernails at this new piece of information. As if that was the only thing preventing him from repeating it at the top of his lungs.
“So…,” and Rendrae was momentarily speechless, which was a first.
“I’m going to talk to Garm later. I’ll ask her about the stuff you mentioned. I mean, yeah, some of it is weird.”
“Be careful, Hank. She’s far more dangerous than you think,” Rendrae said.
“Oh, I know she’s plenty dangerous,” I replied.
I went to see the mastermind of badness the next day.
A world of change had come over Garm’s City Hall. The soldiers stood around at attention. The check-in process was formal and laborious. The interior of the building itself was scrubbed and orderly.
The soldiers I saw with their helmets off stood to the side as I walked by and didn’t quite snap to, but close. No one smiled.
It took me thirty minutes to get in to see Garm, which was ridiculous.
“So what’s—,” I started when I was finally permitted to see her, and before I could complete the thought, she walked away into what appeared to be a side room.
Okay. I followed her and she closed the door to a bare closet, holding two chairs and bad lighting.
“This place is soundproof,” she explained, and we both sat down.
“Awesome. So what’s this I hear about a battlegroup coming here?” I said like I had something on her.
“Battlecruiser group,” she corrected. “Where’d you hear that?”
“Never mind, what about it?”
“Eh, Rendrae probably told you,” she said. “It’s true. Four battlecruisers, six cruisers, three destroyers—”
“Destroyers?” I interrupted.
“Yeah. Three destroyers, two transports, and various logistics ships. All coming to good old Belvaille.”
“For what?” I asked.
She shrugged. “To find out why the first contact we’ve had with the Dredel Led in centuries happened here and why it was hostile, I guess.”
“How many troops are they bringing?”
Garm sighed.
“About a quarter million.”
I sat there. My mind refused to do the math.
“Can the city even hold that many people?”
“No. Most are going to stay on their ships, but I’ve been instructed to make habitation available for twenty-five thousand soldiers.”
As I was sitting there dumbly, Garm broke in.
“In case you’re wondering, we have 535 Colmarian military here now. And about 216 government workers who do services for the station.”
Again, my mind was fumbling with the crazy numbers.
“So all those ships are going to be at our port? All those cops?”
“Well, most of those ships are too big to dock at our port,” Garm corrected. “They’ll just be floating nearby.”
“Oh, good,” I blurted sarcastically.
“We need to make a lot of changes before they get here,” she said.
“No way, you’re kidding? You mean the Colmarian Navy isn’t going to be pleased to find we deal mostly in black market activities?”
“This is serious, Hank. For everyone. The Captain of that group has full legal rights. They’ve preemptively declared martial law. For all I know they could start dragging people into the street and executing them. I need you to help call a meeting of all the bosses. Everyone. We got a few months to scrub this place down before they get here.”
“They’re taking months to come out here, presumably they’re going to stay a while. How are we supposed to fake it that long?” I asked.