Rocking Hard, Volume 2 Read online

  "Ah," P murmured as she sank back into her seat. "Building a crono-generator is another thing entirely. But what could it be for? They've never been a particularly peaceful people," she said, referencing 501b's penchant for starting wars over the merest of slights, "but they've never been crazy enough to build a crono-bomb before. That could create a black hole large enough to engulf an entire galaxy!"

  "How long have you had this picture?" Y asked slowly while he carefully studied the crono-generator.

  D sighed. "Long enough that officials on 501b have already captured and executed six of our spies during their investigations of this issue. That's why this task force was called to meet today. We need to find a way to infiltrate 501b to find out if they have any plans to attack."

  "They did threaten the galaxy president two months ago in response to the president's comments against their most recent war," P mused.

  "It's more dire than just that," Y said in his slow and contemplative voice. "As you all know, 501b is not actually a planet. Planet 501 was uninhabitable; only its second moon, known by the locals as Kamura, could sustain human life."

  "Moon settlements are always in desperate need of water resources," P gasped as the full picture finally came clear for her.

  "Exactly," D cut in. "Our planet, 214, also known as Lacustrine, is almost entirely comprised of freshwater lakes, which 501b dearly needs, and our intelligence says they're interested in acquiring. I'm afraid they don't have any qualms about what methods they use either. So the question remains: how do we infiltrate Kamura in order to find more information, and if necessary, destroy their crono-generator before they're capable of building the bomb?"

  P's phone went off, a pop song currently topping the charts sounding into the worried and contemplative silence left after that final statement. Only one frequency could reach through the protections built into the meeting room, and P's phone only went off in an emergency anyway, so no one begrudged her the time she took to walk into the corner and answer her phone.

  She didn't turn on the holograph card to speak face-to-face, which was no surprise considering the nature of her clients, and they all tried not to listen in when she murmured into the speaker. They all had something much more important to think about anyway: the answer to D's question.

  After a few seconds, P returned to her seat. D looked around at the assemblage, waiting for any response.

  L slowly tapped her finger on the table, and everyone's attention turned to the elderly woman. L didn't speak often, but when she did, they listened. This time was no different.

  "We must use an unconventional means to sneak our spy in, and I do believe P's impromptu phone call has given me an interesting idea. Popular music stars are welcomed across the galaxies. Often they are begged to hold a performance on various worlds. We should put together a band, make them famous, and arrange for them to travel to 501b."

  D joined the others in staring perplexedly at L, but a smile slowly began to grow across his face. The idea was extremely farfetched, and D couldn't see much merit in it, yet the very thought of how crazy a plan L had come up with decided him. If he didn't think the idea viable then how could anyone on 501b have plans to prevent it?

  "That …" he paused to savor the idea a little further, "is the most perfect plan I have ever heard." He turned to the other members of the council. "What do we need to do to accomplish this?"

  "A band, first of all," P murmured. "That means at the very least a singer, a guitar player, a bass player, and a drummer if we want something conventional."

  "They'll need a hit song," Y added. "And a full record."

  "And good publicity," P agreed. "I can get them a spot on the Morning Mumble, which will put them into the limelight, but the band has to be capable of proving their abilities or they'll go nowhere afterwards."

  "So first we need a band," D stated. "Any suggestions on who we could hire? We need people with musical talent, so we may have to go outside our regular recruits for this one."

  P nodded immediately. "The Star Slashers recently broke up, and their drummer is pretty good. He also played for the Black-Hole Surfers," she added when she received only blank looks. The Star Slashers had never been destined for greatness, but the Black-Hole Surfers had been legendary up until their singer and lead guitarist had overdosed on poorly cut and excessively laced Star Shine, and the band dissolved. "His name is Kingsley," she finished with a smile, "and he's from this galaxy so he'll probably be willing to work with us."

  D hummed thoughtfully. "We'll start background checks on this Kingsley. Any other suggestions?"

  L leaned forward with a groan. "I have a grandchild who promised me he would become a rock god by the time he turns thirty," she said with quite a bit of exasperation in her voice. Her son worked for the agency, and she evidently expected her grandchild to do so as well. That didn't seem to be in her grandson's plans. "Solomon plays guitar and his mother tells me he's quite good. I suppose if the ambition is present, we could give him this opportunity."

  "So we have guitar and drums," D said. "Any suggestions for the other roles? Can you think of any trained recruits we could call in to take the major roles in this operation?"

  "It's not a suggestion," P cut in, "but we have to find a singer who is pitch-perfect without modifications or he won't make it. We can't just pull anyone from basic training and implant electronic vocal cords."

  "This is going to be an interesting search, then," D said with a sigh. Not only did they need a band, but they also needed to find someone who could infiltrate the secret facilities on 501b without getting caught. It wasn't going to be easy.

  The meeting broke up soon afterwards. P was the first person to rush out, her phone in hand. Whatever emergency she was called about must have been important. Considering P's clients … well, D hoped there wasn't a galaxy about to implode somewhere.

  Z was D's colleague from the same agency. He hadn't spoken during the meeting, but Z was notorious for pulling D aside later to voice his thoughts. D wasn't surprised when Z joined him in his walk down the empty hallways of the building.

  "I might have an idea for a bass player," Z murmured in his usual half-audible tone. "She's a spitfire though, barely passed her basic training before she quit, so I've no idea if the girl would like the idea, or if she's what we want for this mission."

  "Submit her name and have a background check run," D replied. "We'll find some way to convince her and …" He paused, his head cocked to the side. One hand flashed upwards to grip Z's arm. "Do you hear that?" he asked excitedly.

  Z tilted his head to listen and slowly nodded. "It's probably a radio someone left on," he sighed. "But it won't hurt to go see."

  They both turned the corner, following the sound of someone singing. The door to the men's locker room was left partially ajar, and D pushed it the rest of the way open so he and Z could walk into the space. D expected to see a holodisk left on inside one of the recruit's lockers, so he was surprised when a young man, fresh from the showers with his back to D and Z, had his head tilted back and his mouth wide open as he sang.

  His tone was pure and clean—perfect.

  He was drying his brown hair with a towel, his eyelids closed so the long strands didn't get in his eyes. His naked back was thin but well sculpted, although the loose pants he wore hid his lower body from D's perusal. A pair of old fashioned coke bottle glasses sat on the bench next to him.

  There were two gyms attached to the locker room, one for the regular staff and one for the special recruits. This far into after-hours, only the special recruits had access. Whoever the man was, he was piquing D's interest.

  D glanced over at Z, saw that Z was just as mesmerized by the beautiful singing, and couldn't stop a small smile from twitching his lips up. Z finally glanced back over and nodded. Whoever the recruit was, he was about to be given a new mission.

  The singing stopped as the young man finally finished drying his hair. He put his towel down and patted his hand across t
he bench until he found his glasses. Then he turned around to find his shirt and jumped when he caught sight of D and Z.

  "Sorry," the young man said, his face rapidly going red as he ducked his head. He got to his feet in a hurry, finding parade rest with his feet even though he was staring at the ground instead of facing straight forward.

  "Not at all," D replied. He stepped closer to the recruit, studying him closely for a long moment, which only made his face grow even redder. "What are your vitals, recruit?" D finally asked.

  "Name: Cole! Just finished basic training two days ago, Sir!" Cole said sharply, even though he still couldn't look D directly in the face. He had been trained well, if not perfectly. "I don't have a vector assignment yet, Sir."

  D glanced over a Z after that admission. Normally recruits knew their vector assignments a good few months before the end of their training. Z nodded discreetly. He would start a background check on Cole to figure out what had prevented normal procedure in his case.

  "Thank you, Cole," D said with a dismissive nod. "We'll be in touch."

  D and Z walked off, leaving behind the man who was to become their lead singer.

  Cole could sing, they already knew that, but as the band slowly came together and plans began to fall into place, D couldn't keep the cold grin off his face. There had been trials and tribulations, of course. Just getting their drummer to agree to the gig had taken weeks of negotiations, and forcing four totally different people to become a cohesive band was akin to swimming with weights attached to his feet, but D was nothing if not persistent. He was an expert at forcing covert operations to work and all his skill had been put to use to create the band.

  D remembered the day he had introduced Cole to Queenie. Cole was shy, and Queenie was the exact opposite. Once Cole stopped trying to figure out how to vanish through the floor and Queenie stopped trying to dictate how the band would run, they had gotten along well. Introducing Kingsley to Cole was a breeze in comparison, although Queenie's take-charge personality had clashed with Kingsley's leadership role. By the time Solomon was introduced, D had preplanned for the temperament collision and dealt with the aftermath easily enough. Then the band had to sit down to create their record, which was another month of negotiations for D to wade through.

  Despite all the extra effort and three full months of hard work, he was more than pleased with the result. 501b wasn't going to know what hit them if he had anything to say about it. At last, the operation had reached its final stages. The planning team returned to the secure room for a last checkup.

  "They'll go on the Morning Mumble first thing this morning," P's holograph said. She was off planet with another client. "Their single is perfection," she added with a smile, "and I don't know what rock you dug that Cole out from, but he's a cutie. This band is going to shine, or I'll eat my holophone."

  "No need to go that far," Y grumbled. "He'll be fine," he added firmly.

  "Then let's begin," L stated with a grim smile.

  *~*~*

  "Welcome to the Morning Mumble, where every star is discussed, debated, and debased!" Belinda Slate, the perky blonde hostess, chirped as she took her place center stage in front of the cameras. "We have a great show for you today; something unusual," she added in as ominous a voice as she could manage without losing her wide smile. "Instead of highlighting a band that has already made it big across the galaxies, we're highlighting a band that is brand new and, in my opinion, is sure to become the next big thing. Their first single is set to hit the holostores at exactly noon Milky Way Time, and by the time they're done on the Morning Mumble I'll bet there'll be a waiting list the size of the Galaxy Mall! Here they are: The Four Kings!"

  Cole took his eyes off the monitor backstage and joined his band mates as they strode out under the lights. He caught a quick glance of his reflection right before he stepped in front of the live audience and had to hide a grimace behind a small smile.

  They had finally forced him to get eye repair surgery. Cole went through three years of basic training without his faulty eyesight being a problem, but when it came time for his first real mission the surgery had been mandatory, so now his glasses were gone. His light brown hair had been cut into a very fashionable, asymmetrical style with sky blue streaks the same color as his eyes layered in. Cole still wasn't sure how he had managed to go from being a lowly new recruit without his own vector one night to a potential superstar the next morning. He wasn't entirely certain if he should have felt excited or appalled by everything that was happening to him.

  "Now," Belinda Slate said, giving another wide smile and a flip of her hair after they had all settled on the couches positioned center stage. "Tell us a little about how the band was formed. I've heard it's a bit out of the ordinary!"

  Queenie laughed and sat forward. "You could say that." Queenie was their bass player and chief songwriter. She was talented and beautiful with naturally tanned skin, dark hair, and brown eyes with just enough of a slant to make her look exotic. "The company wanted to experiment. They basically chose our names out of a hat. They wanted a bass player, and my name came up first. It's why Kingsley's here when he's already a star while the rest of us aren't." Queenie's loud personality and good looks were clearly winning over Belinda and the audience.

  "Well, if their experiment works I'll expect to see a number of thrown together bands appearing on the galaxy stage in the near future," Belinda said with a giggle. "Now, where did the name The Four Kings come from?"

  Kingsley laughed this time, overpowering Queenie's sigh of disgust. Kingsley was black skinned and thickly muscled, but his frame was still slim enough to fit comfortably behind a drum set. He had brilliantly colored holographic tattoos covering his arms; the ink looked three dimensional and occasionally appeared to move and ripple above his skin. His deep voice as well as his history with the Black-Hole Surfers made the girls in the audience squeal when he spoke.

  "It's a play on our names," Kingsley explained. "Mine's obvious. Cole over there," he gestured towards Cole, who glanced upwards and blushed at the sudden attention, "is Old King Cole from the Earth Generation nursery rhyme. Solomon, for those of you who have any Old Earth religious memories, is named after one of the greatest Kings of Israel. Hence, The Four Kings."

  "Um," Belinda began, but she was cut off by Queenie.

  "The three kings," Queenie snapped, looking so irate and beautiful as she spoke that even her anger endeared her to the crowd. "And one queen. But that doesn't translate into a good band name, and I got outvoted anyway." She sat back in her chair with a pout.

  Belinda quickly moved on. "Solomon, you play guitar. What experience do you have on stage?"

  Solomon laughed awkwardly. "I'm the grandson of one of the stockholders of the company," he said with a wide grin and a tilt to his chin that made his green eyes and vibrant red hair look even more appealing under the stage lights. "So my name didn't so much as get picked out of a hat as placed in the organizer's hands. I play in my mom's garage, and the squirrels rock out with me every morning until my mom turns off the electricity."

  "Interesting," Belinda said, her smile not faltering even though Cole could see she was starting to think that having the band on her show was perhaps not the best of ideas. "So, Cole," she said, turning towards where Cole was seated in a corner of the couch. Cole had been dreading this moment from the second he heard they would be going on the show. He had passed all his sneaking and spying tests, but public speaking wasn't anywhere in his training. "What is your role in the band?"

  Cole looked up, and his gaze caught on Belinda's plastic smile and then the avid eyes of the audience. He could feel his cheeks turning even redder and he wished yet again that when they clipped his hair he had been allowed to keep the long bangs to cover his face.

  "I sing," Cole forced out, glad when he didn't stutter.

  "Right," Belinda said, and her smile looked visibly strained now. "We have to go to a commercial break. When we come back, The Four Kings will play their s
ingle on our stage!"

  The cameras dimmed, and the stage came alive as the band moved off-stage to get ready. The couches were removed, and their instruments were carted in from backstage.

  "You're doing great!" Misty said happily. She was their manager and the one responsible for the blue highlights in Cole's hair. "The audience loved your feminine anger, Queenie. And Kingsley, you do know how to work the crowd."

  Misty strode over to Solomon to straighten the thick chain necklace he was wearing. She barely came up to his chest, and her mousy brown hair only gave her an extra inch of height. Solomon still looked shocked whenever such a tiny woman spoke to him.

  "Sol, you played the homebody to perfection. Now you just have to prove that your mother was an idiot for stopping your practice times. And Cole," she spun around and fixed Cole under her brown eyed gaze. "You could use a little more backbone, but the audience ate your shyness right up. You were adorable out there. Now, go out there and sing! You'll wow them."

  Cole may have been overwhelmed and seriously out of his depth, but they were giving him the chance to sing, to really and truly sing his heart out. Everything they did to him after basic training, from clipping his bangs to the eye surgery and everything in between suddenly became perfectly acceptable the second a microphone was put in front of him.

  The band took their places, and Cole clutched the microphone stand with one hand as the lights and cameras came back on.

  "And here they are: The Four Kings performing their soon to be hit single Love's Devastation off their album Lover's Lament!" Belinda introduced them with her usual over-the-top level of excitement.

  Kingsley tapped out the beat. Solomon pulled off a guitar riff with a flash of fingers that showed just how much skill he really had. Queenie found the downbeat, and then Cole opened his mouth and sang.

  Tearing me down, breaking my soul, and I can't see it.

  I can't see you, manipulating me, destroying me.

  'Cause I love you, and all that you do;

  but you just want me, want to control me.