BSI : Starside, Final Inquiries

by Allen, Roger MacBride

• ISBN13: 9780553904635
• ISBN10: 0553904639
• Copyright: 2008-02-26
• Publisher: Random House Inc

Summary

It's the most dangerous assignment of their careersa mission so top-secret, not even their commanding officer has been permitted to know the details. Within minutes, BSI agents Jamie Mendez and Hannah Wolfson are whisked aboard an Elder Race ship as massive as a small moon, hurtling across the galaxy at unheard-of speed toward the scene of a crime no one dares to put into words. They've been partnered on the case with Brox 234an agent of the Kendari, humanity's chief rival in the endless game of interstellar diplomatic threat and bluster. Mendez and Wolfson quickly learn one thing for certain: they're about to face a threat so deadly that only an alliance between the human race and its fiercest foes will give any of them even the slimmest chance of survival. And even that chance is about to slip away.... From the Paperback edition.

Excerpts

ONE NEED TO KNOW Agents Jamie Mendez and Hannah Wolfson hurried across the BSI Bullpen toward the Commandant's officeand reached it just in time to see the door slammed shut in their faces. Special Agent Boris Kosolov looked up from his cubicle just across the aisle from the office and laughed unpleasantly. "It's all backwards and forwards in there." He watched as Hannah raised her hand to knock on the door. "I wouldn't do that," Kosolov said. Hannah looked at him and frowned. "Why not, Boris?" "Not such a good time to be disturb her, I think." "She just called us on our pocket comms," Jamie said. "Told us to get here on the double." "Yeah, but that was what, thirty second, forty second, ago?" Kosolov asked. "Something else come up since. More than on the double. On the triple, maybe. Double plus triple." He grinned. "She got a visitor. Is an outsider. They been talking. Friend of yours, I thinking." For half a heartbeat, Hannah wondered if Kosolov was pulling their legs. He was an odd fish. Supposedly his Russian was as mangled as his English. She gave him a good hard look. He knows who the visitor is, she thought. And knowing scares him, a little. But he also knows there's a pie in the face coming straight at Jamie and meand he gets to watch. She was about to say something to him when the door to the Commandant's office swung open, and Kelly stuck her head out into the Bullpen. She spotted Jamie and Hannah in the waiting area, and gestured for them to come in. "Sorry about the hurry-up-and-wait," she said, "but I don't think I've ever had one pop this big or this fast. I'm juggling about three angles to this all at once." She looked at Kosolov and pointed a finger right at his heart. "And you didn't see anything." The two agents followed her into her office as she shut the door behind them. Kelly didn't move to sit behind her own desk or gesture for Hannah and Jamie to sit. There was no one else in the room. "Agent Kosolov said you had a visitor," said Jamie. "I do," said Kelly. "Two, in fact. They came in the back way, and they're in my inner conference room." She gestured toward a door in the side wall. Kelly used the inner room so rarely that Hannah had forgotten it was even there. "Kosolov only saw one of them," she went on. "Fortunately." "Who are they?" Jamie asked. "That's more of a what question than a who question," Kelly replied. "At least for one of them. But I can't risk keeping them waiting for more than a couple of minutes." She nodded toward the comm panel on her desk. "I've been on the horn with all kinds of brass and UniGov types and diplomatic liaison offices. The short form is that we do whatever our guests ask us to do and give them full, eager, absolute cooperation. I have been specifically instructed to quote, 'relay and emphasize the need for such cooperation to the assigned agents, and further emphasize the utter and grave seriousness of the situation,' unquote. Is that clear?" "Would this be a bad time for me to use some of that back leave I've been accumulating?" Jamie asked. "This is no time for jokes, Jamie," Hannah said sharply. "If he's got any sense, he's not joking," said Kelly, "and I wouldn't mind tagging along with you on that leave. It might be a good time to get out of town. Or even out of the target area." "Target area?" Hannah echoed. "If you thought things were tense with the Kendari up to now, get ready to see what real tension is. And don't think the Elder Races would interfere if things got out of control. If the