Chiral Justice: A Hard Science Fiction Technothriller (The Biogenesis War Book 3)

by L. L. Richman

“I don’t think the words ‘reasonable’ and ‘Akkadian’ go together in any lexicon I’ve seen,” Sam murmured.

  “Ooh-rah,” Thad agreed under his breath.

  Valenti nodded to Alvarez. “You’ll take the lead on the Ceriba op. I’ll be going with Team Two to Akkadia. Admiral Toland will move over from the CID to take over in my absence.”

  Cutter stood. “You have your orders. I want Mirage ready to depart two hours after you’ve completed your briefings. Dismissed.”

  TEAM ERIDU BRIEFING

  Task Force Blue HQ

  Humbolt Base

  The alert appeared on Ell’s wire just as she was grabbing a sandwich to-go from the base commissary. With a regretful look, she tossed the prepackaged meal back into the chiller and headed back toward the special ops sector.

  She cleared the security SI at the first checkpoint, murmuring her apologies to the line of soldiers as the specialist standing guard waved her to the front of the queue.

  Her chrono told her she was still running behind, so she bypassed the lift, racing down the stairwell to where the team was meeting one level below. She came to a stop just outside the briefing room and looked inside. Spying Jonathan and Harper, she was relieved to see she wasn’t the last to arrive.

  The sound of footsteps had her peering over her shoulder to see Thad coming up behind her.

  She lifted a brow and mimed looking at her wrist, as if checking one of those external chronos people used to wear.

  Thad shot her a mock glare. “Don’t go there with me, cher, especially when I can see you’re winded from running here yourself.”

  Ell resisted the urge to smile at his growled warning. She settled for arching a brow in reply as she slipped past him into the room.

  Thad sealed the door shut behind him, and Harper flipped the holoscreen on, launching immediately into the briefing. An image of the planet Eridu appeared, rotating slowly as she spoke.

  “The facility you’ll be breaching is located at the border of the Hohen Savannah and the Aksu Desert.”

  An icon appeared, pinpointing the spot.

  “That’s one of the most barren pieces of terrain on the Akkadian homeworld,” she continued. “The land is subject to both monsoon rains and haboobs, depending on the season, and is not too far from Central Prefecture and their main space elevator.”

  The analyst spread her hands, and the projection’s view exploded, a topographical map of Eridu zooming past as Harper zeroed in on a particular spot. Now the analyst appeared to be standing among a sea of dun-colored switchgrass, nearly a meter tall. She pointed to her right, and the image tracked in that direction.

  Off in the distance, Ell could see a haze of green. She pointed to it. “What’s that?”

  “It’s a rainforest that borders the savannah. Because of Eridu’s botched terraforming, they have a real problem with acid rain, so it’s not advised you spend any time there. Which reminds me….” She tossed a data chip to each of them.

  Ell reflexively lifted her hand to catch it. As the chip hit her palm, she felt it handshake with her wire’s data partition, and a file opened.

  “You’ll all be thrilled to know that you have appointments this afternoon in Medical for a few tweaks to your respiratory system. It’ll allow you to blend in like natives—and breathe their toxic air without the headsets off-worlders need to use.”

  Jonathan grimaced. “Dammit, I hate it when they start tinkering with our lattices. It’s worse than a hundred-g burn, makes me wheeze for days afterward.”

  The lattice was a mesh weave of nanofilaments known as SmartCarbyne, tied to an onboard accelerometer, and connected to a person’s wire. Ordinarily, it was deployed to protect the soft organs from crushing gravities only when the app detected dangerously high levels of acceleration.

  Evidently, it could be modified to filter toxins, as well.

  “Good news, hoss,” Thad drawled, slapping his hand onto the pilot’s shoulder. “Eridu’s a long ways away. You’ll have plenty of time to get used to it.”

  Harper coughed, drawing their attention back to the holo.

  “Our assets on-planet say the best way to breach the facility is here.” She moved her hands again, and the image shifted.

  Ell saw the grasses thin into sparse clumps as the desert asserted itself.

  Jonathan wrinkled his brow. “I don’t see anything. Looks like just a bunch of dried grass and desert sand to me.”

  “That’s because the prison is thirty meters below ground. There are entry shafts here, here, and here.” As she spoke, areas on the screen lit up. “But they’re monitored by both human and SI guards, and the surrounding area is heavily seeded with sensor arrays and listening platforms. Again, our local assets will have worked out a way to insert you into the prison, so for operational security purposes, we will defer to them. They’ll give you the specifics once you’re on site.”

  “What’s this?” Jonathan pointed to a flat, rectangular space in the sand, several meters away from the shaft.

  The indentation’s straight lines confirmed that whatever was buried was of human origin.

  “Those are hangar doors, very heavily guarded,” Harper said. “The hangar bay serves as their main entrance. Supply shuttles run in and out of there once a week.”

  “Hangar doors, huh?” Jonathan leaned forward, expression focused.

  “Yes. The doors retract to reveal an underground runway.”

  Jonathan nodded absently, fingers drumming a light cadence on the table’s surface. His tone turned musing. “I could think of a few ways to get in there, maybe....”

  “Take it up with the agents on site once you arrive,” Harper cut in. “They’ve approached the prison to test defenses twice this past week. They’ll know if something can or can’t be done. Just know you’ll need to approach with extreme care.”

  “Any idea of the layout inside?” Thad asked.

  She nodded. “Our agent sent us a basic diagram with his last report, but it’s a bit sketchy. They’ll refine the data and have it ready for you when you get there. We do know the prime minister’s being held on the fourth level, and the report indicates he’s not alone. He has a cellmate.”

  Harper paused, and the expression on her face made Ell’s gut tighten.

  “Who?” she demanded of the analyst.

  “Rin Zhou Enlai.”

  * * *

  Thad saw Ell stiffen at Harper’s mention of the name.

  Enlai was the woman who’d been behind the viral attack against the Defense Summit on Hawking Habitat eighteen months earlier. That same woman was responsible for the kidnapping of Samantha Travis, and later, the death of thousands of citizens vacationing aboard a cruise ship when the virus slipped its leash.

  Ell wasn’t a bloodthirsty person. Years spent as a Unit sniper had trained her to be deliberate and methodical, so when she approached an assignment, it was with cool calculation.

  But she’d been there, up close and personal, during the entire Hawking op; she’d helped apprehend the small terrorist cell Enlai had dispatched to carry out the deadly mission.

  The expression that crossed her face now told Thad that the former sniper would have no trouble taking out the Akkadian woman—with extreme prejudice.

  Come to think of it, neither will I.

  “Orders?” he growled, turning to face Harper.

  The sheet in the analyst’s hands made a crinkling noise as she fiddled with it, causing Thad’s eyes to narrow.

  He had a bad feeling he knew what her nervous shuffling portended. If his guess was correct, he couldn’t honestly say he blamed Cutter for wanting to keep Enlai alive, considering the vast wealth of information the former State Security Minister was likely to have.

  “Your discretion,” Harper said, confirming his suspicions. “If you can extract Minister Enlai without compromising the operation, then you’re authorized to do so. If not, Garza remains your primary objective.”

  Thad’s jaw worked as he turned Harpe
r’s words over in his mind. Slapping his hand down lightly on the table’s surface, he nodded in reluctant acceptance.

  “Copy that. So what’s the plan for getting us to Eridu, and then sneaking us onto the planet?”

  The image of the savannah disappeared entirely, to be replaced by a stellar landscape. A label appeared, identifying it as a region of space four AU from the Akkadian homeworld. A tiny dot grew in size until it resolved into a space platform.

  “This is a first-stage customs clearance station, privately-held companies from every star nation have local office branches here. You’ll be traveling with an Alliance freight company for the last leg of your transit. Their ships berth here,” she said, dropping a pin on a section of the wheeled station, “and one of them in particular knows that a cloaked Navy vessel will rendezvous with them within the next few days.”

  Ell’s startled inhale was echoed by Thad’s immediate response.

  “Whoa, hold on now, cher.”

  He stood, marching over to the holoprojector. He sent Harper a silent questioning look, and she ceded control to him. He zoomed out and then pointed to a spot half an AU beyond the station, toward the Alpha Centauri heliopause. His finger encircled the area, and the holoprojector obligingly highlighted it.

  “That’s an Akkadian defensive screen out there. We can’t just appear practically on top of them and expect to remain unnoticed. They’ll spot Mirage’s Casimir flare when we dump back into realspace.”

  His gaze swung to Jonathan. “Not disparaging your skills, there, hoss, but I’d like for us to have a fighting chance of getting this right.”

  The ghost of a grin creased Jonathan’s face. “With the new drives, we won’t be seen. The engineers at Siderius managed to find a way to dampen the flare of the Casimir bubble when it pops. Wouldn’t’ve believed it myself if I hadn’t reviewed the test footage Siderius sent along with the ship. Mirage appeared from out of nowhere while I was flying left seat on Wraith.” He shook his head admiringly. “That ship appeared from out of nowhere just as pretty as you please, slicker than snot.”

  Thad shot the other man a jaundiced eye. “ ‘Than snot,’ huh? Is that aviator talk?”

  Jonathan winked. “That comes straight from a certain chief warrant who hails from the mining platforms.”

  Thad lifted his eyes to the ceiling and muttered, “Hyer’s not even here, and yet she’s here.”

  “Trust me,” Jonathan’s tone turned serious. “I don’t want to be seen either. That far inside Akkadian space? They get a sniff of our signature, and we’ll be blown out of the black. I wouldn’t do this if I wasn’t confident we would remain undetected.”

  “Fine. So we latch onto a merchie. How do we know that ship’s captain can be trusted?” Thad’s tone remained skeptical.

  Harper gave him a wry smile. “She’s naval reserve and Valenti vouches for her. That’s all I know.”

  Jonathan leaned back, one arm draped along the back of an empty chair. Lifting a brow skeptically, the pilot voiced the question uppermost in Thad’s mind.

  “So we’re going in as crew of a merchant ship? Won’t we be scrutinized pretty heavily?”

  Harper shook her head.

  “You’ll drop inside an Allied Worlds shipment—as cargo.”

  Jonathan shot up straight. “Hold up. As cargo?”

  Harper nodded. “They’re running contraband for one of the ministers. It won’t be checked.”

  She indicated to the holoscreen projector, where the image changed from the Akkadian terrain to a man’s face.

  “That’s Akkadia’s minister of commerce, Vin Khavari. Vin has a real weakness for Cobalt Blue’s Gold Label Reserve whiskey. In exchange for him looking the other way when the next shipment from Allied Worlds Freight arrives, the minister will receive a healthy-sized shipment of his favorite whiskey, duty-free and unreported.”

  “And exactly what does he think is being smuggled inside that shipping container?” Jonathan sounded doubtful.

  “He believes one of the local cartels is smuggling drugs. No one will be allowed to scan the shipping container when it arrives.” Her lips turned up in a wry smile. “We wouldn’t want anyone to discover the minister’s hidden case of gold label reserve. Another indication of how corrupt their system is, but since it can be manipulated in our favor, I’ll take it.”

  Thad grunted.

  Harper waited for follow-up questions; when none came, she continued the brief.

  On the holo, a light haloed over one of the warehouses in the back of the trainyard.

  “Two of our best assets will intercept the shipping container here. Their contact information is loaded onto your data chips, in case something should go wrong.”

  “Oh, that never happens,” said Jonathan under his breath.

  Ignoring him, Harper added, “If at all possible, we don’t want these agents burned, so treat this information with care. Once you make contact, it’s critical that you follow exactly what they tell you to do, even if it may seem to make little sense.”

  Her eyes drilled into each one of them individually, to drive her point home.

  “They’re deeply embedded with the Akkadians. They know the people, they speak the language fluently, they understand all the cultural ins and outs. They are your best hope for surviving this mission without harm.”

  Thad nodded. This was SOP with Unit teams. He glanced over at Jonathan; the man was chewing on his lower lip, expression contemplative. He’d doubtless heard this before, but both men knew this was the first time it would apply directly to him.

  Harper reached for her notes once more, her expression carefully blank. Eyes cast downward, she concluded, “And… everything inside the shipping container is going to be placed in stasis—including you.”

  Thad jerked his head back and shot Harper a stern look. “No offense, cher, but I’m not too keen on the idea of trusting my life to someone on the other end who may or may not have my back, where a stasis unit is concerned.”

  Harper’s eyes met his, and she nodded solemnly. “I understand your concern. All I can tell you is that our senior deep cover agent on site has assured us that he’ll handle this himself. He’ll personally receive the package from Allied Worlds Freight.”

  “And by ‘package,’ she means us,” Jonathan interjected with a scowl.

  Harper shot him a repressive look and continued. “With the minister’s seal on it, the shipping container won’t have to go through customs. The container should be offloaded and set inside the warehouse before anyone has a chance to get near it.”

  Thad worked his jaw back and forth as he thought about what she’d said.

  Ell knew what was going through his mind; trust was earned in this business, and the higher the stakes, the more imperative it was that the people you partnered with could be trusted.

  He shook his head. “Afraid I’m going to need more than that. Names, Harper. Tell me about this agent on the ground, the one calling the shots. Who is it?”

  Without a word, Harper turned back to the projector and brought up a file.

  Thad gave a low whistle when he saw the image of the man on the screen. “Okay, I’m in.”

  * * *

  Surprise suffused Jonathan at Thad’s sudden capitulation. “Just like that?”

  Thad tilted his head toward the image of the man. “Morrison got me out of a jam a long, long time ago. Stuck out his neck and risked burning himself to do so, around a different star, in another deep cover situation. He’s good people.”

  “One of the best cryptologists and human intelligence operatives the NSA has ever known,” agreed Harper.

  Her gaze swung to Jonathan. “So now will you agree to the plan?

  After another long moment’s consideration, he sighed, then muttered, “I still don’t like the idea of traveling from here to Akkadia as a popsicle.”

  Harper cracked a smile. “You won’t be frozen. Stasis isn’t cryo. It simply places you in a state where all atomic function i
s suspended.”

  Jonathan regarded her silently for a beat before he nodded his agreement. “Popsicle it is. Sign me up.”

  “Good, because they’re waiting for you in Medical. Best get going, flyboy. Oh, and, Captain….”

  Jonathan looked at her expectantly, but Harper wasn’t looking at him; she was staring at the Marine captain.

  She had also resumed fiddling with her sheet.

  “There’s just one more thing,” she hedged.

  Thad groaned aloud, and Ell looked from him to Harper, her interest piqued.

  “I’m not going to like this, am I?” the man asked, and Ell saw a reluctant smile tug at Harper’s lips.

  She shook her head. “Probably not, but it’s been decided. We’re adding one more member to your team.” The analyst looked Thad straight in the eye. “You’ll be taking one of the cats with you.”

  TEAM FOUNDER’S CUP

  Task Force Blue HQ

  Humbolt Base

  The meeting with the home team progressed much more quickly. Gabe walked in right as Micah was describing Thad’s response to the news that one of the cats would be joining their mission.

  “Jonathan been ratting out the captain again?” Gabe asked Asha under the sound of Sam and Katie’s laughter, as he pulled out a chair beside the medic.

  On Asha’s other side, Boone tipped his chair up onto its back legs. The move displaced him far enough that he could see around his teammate and make eye contact with Gabe. “Ratting him out and starting a betting pool on whether or not Thad’ll find a way to squirrel out of it.”

  Gabe lifted a brow. “You in on this wager, soldier?”

  Asha laughed. “He keeps his nose too clean for stuff like that. Or at least, that’s what he’d like you to think.”

  She ducked as Boone took a halfhearted swipe at the back of her head. Gabe withheld comment, turning when the briefing room doors slid open once more to admit Harper.

  Major Reid strode in just behind her. Whipcord lean, with dark eyes and hair, the major was Colonel Valenti’s right hand, an officer who had worked her way up the ranks of the Special Reconnaissance Units after several exemplary tours. The woman had distinguished herself as a servant leader, earning the respect of the teams the hard way.