Should get hazard pay for this, you know, he grumbled back, as his path dumped him into the row of tents where Douglass-Washburn had set up shop.
It was easy to see what Shawna had meant; though there were plenty of onlookers in the vicinity, the sheer number of reporters and news media outlets that were represented was significantly greater than outside any other tent. Interspersed with them and forming a tight ring around the tent itself were men and women who were clearly not mere spectators.
How’s the setup look? his twin asked.
Micah tried to get a better feel for the number of agents surrounding the tent without putting his head on a swivel.
They’re canvassing the area pretty heavily. Several layers of on-duty personnel, all of them carrying and all of them in uniform.
Uniform? Jonathan’s voice sounded surprised.
Micah sent him a mental laugh. You know what I mean. Black suits. No identifiable markings. Expressionless faces. Eyes hidden behind visors. Yeah, uniform.
How many do you think are undercover, either as reporters, or wearing drakeskins?
Micah sent him a mental shrug. Good question. The drakeskins only have enough juice for a set number of hours before they have to be powered down and the heat buildup dissipated, he reminded Jonathan. So they’re probably swapping out every four hours or so.
What about the prime minister? You spot him yet?
The soon-to-be trainer pushed his way past a small knot of cameramen and reporters. Don’t think he’s here. The opening ceremonies don’t begin for another few hours, but I’m sure he’s at the main stadium. He’s involved in the pre-event ceremony, isn’t he?
He had nearly made it to the first line of security forces when a sharp exclamation sounded from behind him.
In the next instant, he was surrounded by the news media, microdrone holorecorders hovering around his face as reporters began pelting him with questions.
Micah growled under his breath, causing Katie to cackle in genuine amusement from where she stood at the tent’s entrance.
{Watch it, Chief.}
{Sorry, sir. I’m just part of the pit crew.} She grinned and then slipped inside, abandoning him to the ministrations of the paparazzi.
Forcing a smile, he turned to face them.
“Are you the same Micah Case who won the Founder’s Cup two years in a row?”
“Is it true the prime minister has been challenged to a race with the president of An-Yang?”
“Are you still active-duty Navy? What does the Navy think about you taking time off to train the prime minister?”
The security detail standing guard in front of the D-W tent to ensure the prime minister’s safety was reinforced by a small contingent of Navy soldiers. Both were there for one purpose, and one purpose only: to prevent anyone with ill intentions from tinkering with the starglider Garza would eventually pilot.
Micah had come dressed in his Navy flight suit, so it would be evident to those standing guard that he was in the same service branch as they were. However, he received no help warding off the horde of hungry journalists from those quarters.
He glared back at the nearest guard who dared to smirk in amusement at his predicament.
Micah was certain the man’s sentiment was shared by the rest, but he was the only Navy soldier whose eyes weren’t covered by shades or a half-helmet, so Micah couldn’t be certain.
Bastard, he muttered silently, only half kidding.
His comment elicited a mental laugh from Jonathan.
Can’t fault the guy for doing his job.
I can if it means not aiding a fellow soldier.
“Mister Case!” The nearest reporter shoved a holorecording microdrone into his face. “How long has it been since you’ve flown stargliders? You’ve been retired from racing for at least ten years, isn’t that correct? What makes you think you can help the prime minister?”
Ignoring the man’s second question, Micah chose to address the first.
“Wow, has it really been ten years?” He looked off into the distance, affecting a thoughtful frown. Plastering an aw-shucks grin on his face, he shrugged. “Well, since I fly for the Navy, I suppose you could say I’ve still got it. Oh, and by the way, it’s Captain Case, not Mister.”
He gave one of the female reporters nearby a wink, and she took that as an opening.
“So, Captain, is it true that you’re going to be the prime minister’s personal trainer?”
“Well….” Micah let his voice fade as he attempted to look humble while still sounding credible. “All I can say is I’m honored the Navy chose me out of all its pilots to be the one to help the prime minister learn the ins and outs of the stargliders.”
“Ah, come on now, Captain, no need to be modest here. You would’ve won three Founder’s Cups if that spar on your ship hadn’t broken back in ‘36, am I right?”
Micah played to the opening the reporter gave him. “I’m surprised you remember that. Yeah, that kind of burned, but life’s made up of moments like that… times that change your destiny. That’s when I decided to fly for the Navy. Besides, winning isn’t everything. Safety always comes first—especially when you’re talking about one of the leaders of this great star nation.”
“So it’s true, then? The president of An-Yang challenged the prime minister to a friendly race?”
Micah nodded. “He has, and the loser has committed to donate a generous amount of money to the Wounded Warriors Project. So not only is it a friendly race, but in the end, everyone wins.”
By the time he managed to extricate himself from the press twenty minutes later, his cheeks ached from smiling, and the tension running down his spine was no joke.
He quickly ducked inside the tent—and came to an abrupt halt when he found himself on the receiving end of a deadly firearm.
DEPARTURE
Shadow Recon Hangar
Humbolt Base
Ceriban orbit
Back at the base, Humbolt’s main hangar bay was hopping. Jonathan pulled up short as he stepped from the lift, nearly plowing into Daz as she rushed past.
The pilot, who’d flown the drone-scouting mission prior to Sam’s rescue from the Akkadian lab, called out a quick “Sorry!” as she raced for Wraith’s cockpit.
Ordinarily, the woman flew second seat on Wraith’s sister ship, Katana, but with Mirage now in service, the ship Jonathan had flown for years had been reassigned.
“This place is busy,” observed Thad as Jonathan and Ell stepped up beside him.
“Yup.”
They’d only had time to get four of the Shadow Recon Helios and a dozen of the specially outfitted Novastrikes upgraded with the new Scharnhorst drives. Colonel Valenti had pulled them all for this mission.
Jonathan could see two more flight crews loading up from where he stood; Johnson was at Scimitar’s controls, with Ryan piloting Eidolon. In addition, four fireteams from SRU Three and Five were spread evenly between the Nadir and the Helios ships.
The small fleet would leave within the hour for Leavitt Station. They’d travel at three times the speed of light, the Scharnhorst drives’ maximum accel. However, even at those speeds, transit time would still be nearly five hours.
On the other end of the hangar, a light cruiser and three destroyers were busy rearranging their boat bays to make room for the stealthed Unit vessels that would shortly arrive. Once secured, the small battlegroup would transit the gate to Alpha Centauri, ostensibly to relieve the garrison on the other side.
“Guess we’d better move if we don’t want to be left behind,” Jonathan chuckled, breaking into a jog and arrowing for the corner that held Mirage.
Nina looked down at them as they approached. “Perfect timing,” she called out, using a handhold above the aft hatch to pike herself off the top of the Nadir and drop into the cargo hold. “We just finished our walkaround. Yuki’s in there, pre-flighting her.”
She turned to Thad after flashing Ell a quick smile of greeting. “Colonel’s inside, said
to tell you to come find her when you arrived.”
Thad slapped Jonathan on the shoulder as he passed. “Duty calls.”
“For you and me both,” he nodded, turning on his heels and following the Marine inside.
* * *
The trip to Leavitt was a bit of a letdown after the rush of preparations leading up to departure. Comms didn’t work in Scharnhorst space, so the crew and passengers were left with several hours of downtime as the ship, enveloped in its Casimir bubble, crossed the Procyon System to its heliopause.
Thad glanced at the woman seated beside him before reaching over and laying his hand on her knee—the bioidentical replacement for the one she’d lost in the Straits of Sargon so many years ago.
When Ell met his eyes, he gave her leg a squeeze and then dropped his hand. The contact had allowed him to initiate a private, peer-to-peer connection with her.
{You doing okay, cher?}
Her inscrutable eyes met his unblinkingly.
{Ell-o-dieeee,} he coaxed, drawing her name out as he had so many times in the past.
She stayed silent for a beat, and then gave him a small nod. {I’ll be fine. I won’t let you down.}
Thad let out a low growl. {That’s not what I asked, and you know it. I have every faith in you. I don’t think you know the meaning of the word quit.} He tapped his temple. {What about up here? Need your head in the game, Ell.}
He saw her flare of anger, and immediately felt like an ass for bringing it up.
The flicker of emotion was a mere echo of what he’d seen from her that fateful day her leg had been left a mangled ruin. But he’d held her together then, and he would do so now, if she needed.
He knew she wouldn’t; Ell was a woman supremely in control. He’d only seen her break down once, when she’d learned she was one of the few humans whose body rejected the bioidentical nerve implants used to attach cloned limbs.
The utter devastation on her face had wrecked him.
It was then that he’d reached out to Gabe.
He hadn’t seen Alvarez since Basic. Their paths had diverged after that; he’d gone into the Marines, while Alvarez had entered the NCIC. Reaching out to the man so many years after had been an act of desperation on Thad’s part, not knowing where else to turn.
Alvarez had given Ell a lifeline when he’d talked her into changing career paths and joining the Criminal Investigation Command, and she’d grabbed onto it with both hands.
Gabe would never know how deep Thad’s gratitude ran for his part in bringing purpose back into her life… even though it had meant she would exit his.
When Valenti asked Thad to pull together a team and handed him Task Force Blue to build from the ground up, Gabe had been an easy choice as his second. It hadn’t hurt that the man somehow managed to become involved, all on his own, in the events that went down in Luyten’s Star.
And Ell? Just as Thad had resigned himself to life without her, she’d ended up in the center of it once more. Only, she was back under his command for this op, and once again off-limits.
Dammit.
Lock it down, Severance.
The anger he’d provoked in Ell faded from her eyes, and he wondered what she saw in his that caused them to change.
She placed her hand on top of his and squeezed. {I think you know where my head’s at.}
“It’s been nine years, Thad,” she added aloud. “I’m fine, I’ve learned to live with the pain. I might not be able to run the Unit course and qualify any longer, but I can do this. Trust me, I won’t let you down.”
Their conversation was interrupted by an alert from the ship’s SI.
{Transition to realspace will commence in five… four….}
They broke apart, both turning to look at Mirage’s forward screens. A slight tremor ran through the ship, and then Thad saw an alert pop up on his wire’s overlay, informing him that the network for Leavitt Station was now available.
The view in front of them was… unexpected.
Thad let out a low whistle. “Talk about precision flying….”
“I know they said these new drives didn’t need to observe the fifty-kilometer rule, but….” Ell’s words drifted off, and she shook her head in wonder.
Invictus, the light cruiser that would be transporting Mirage, completely filled the ship’s forward field of view. Over the landscape of silvery-grey hull were emblazoned enormous letters—a ‘T,’ a ‘U,’ and part of the ‘S’ from the ship’s name.
Jonathan manipulated the image, tapping into a feed from the space station’s constellation of satellite drones. They could now see that Mirage was snugged up against the light cruiser’s boat bay entrance.
In a low tone, Ell murmured, “I can’t believe how close we are to that ship.”
Thad nodded. “I know what you mean. I feel like I can reach out and touch the surface of the damn thing.”
* * *
Jonathan smiled at their exchange. He didn’t blame them; he felt pretty much the same, and he’d flown them here.
“You should try it from the driver’s seat,” he called back to them. “It’s hella impressive up here, too.”
He sank back into his connection with the SyntheticVision system as the maw of the ship before them began to open. He nudged Mirage a bit to center her, and then eased her over the cruiser’s threshold, careful to match vector and speed with the enormous vessel.
The coordinated dance of thrusters came to an abrupt halt as the ship settled onto Invictus’s deck. Jonathan felt his pilot’s seat right itself as Mirage ‘gimbaled’ the cockpit into proper orientation, but he knew the induced gravity from the cruiser would have their passengers feeling as if they were now sitting sideways.
{Hang on, reconfiguring cabin,} Will called out.
Like all Alliance Navy ships, Mirage’s interior was made from ActiveFiber. Coating surfaces with the self-assembling nanomaterial was a system the Navy had worked out ages ago. With a simple command, Will reordered Mirage’s modular walls, seating, and even the ship’s plumbing to reflect the new orientation.
As a cruiser, Invictus’s boat bay was roomy enough to accommodate Mirage without losing any of its normal complement of Novastrike fighters, shuttles, and the lone pinnace ordinarily found within its bulkheads. It was a bit of a squeeze, though.
Jonathan tried not to hold his breath as the cruiser’s boatswain’s mate in yellow coveralls directed the flight deck’s blue-shirted tractor driver to slot Mirage into an impossibly tight space.
“Captain’s compliments, Colonel,” Will’s voice cut in, drawing Jonathan’s attention away from the accident just begging to happen.
He saw the flight engineer turn to face Valenti.
“He’s extended an invitation to join him on a tour of the ship, and has offered temporary billets for the teams and flight crews.”
The courtesy was appreciated. The plan was to maintain a steady two gs, a believable rate of acceleration within the Navy’s ‘hurry up and wait’ mentality. That put Invictus—currently fifteen million kilometers from the gate—at a little over fifteen hours away. It also meant they’d be on board Invictus overnight.
Though everyone on Mirage had endured worse than being stuck in the Nadir’s cramped quarters for that amount of time, they’d all be much more comfortable bunking with the cruiser’s crew.
Jonathan glanced over his shoulder in time to catch Valenti’s quick nod.
“Tell him we’ll be there as soon as Mirage is parked.”
“They’d just better not scratch the new paint job,” Jonathan muttered under his breath, just loud enough for the flight crew to hear.
It pulled a smothered laugh from Yuki, but it was Will who responded.
“No paint to mess up, Cap.”
“Fine. Carbon nanotube woo-woo shit, then,” he tossed back.
A boot slammed into his cradle, rocking him forward.
“What was that for?” He spun his seat around and glared at Nina.
“We have
guests, sir. Behave.”
Jonathan coughed. “Hello pot, meet kettle.”
They were interrupted by the squeal of a sharp object against metal, sounding from aft of the cabin. More precisely, it was the scrape of claws against metal, applied to the door of a crate. The noise was accompanied by an annoyed mental voice.
{Are we there yet? Need out.}
Thad groaned and shot Jonathan a look.
Jonathan gestured to his pilot’s console. “Don’t look at me. I’m working.”
Thad turned his glower on Nina.
The gunner kicked back in her seat, stretching her legs out in front of her. She cocked her head at Thad and gave him a wicked grin as she interlaced her hands behind her head. “Don’t tell me the big bad Marine’s afraid of the widdle kitty.”
“Kitty? That’s a damn extortionist—”
{Not my fault you owe Pascal steaks. Now let me out.}
“Joule’s right,” Jonathan pointed out. “She’s not the extortionist. You have a clean slate where she’s concerned.”
Thad groaned once more, rising to his feet and stomping down the aisle toward the crate that held the hunting cat. “I’m sure that won’t last long.”
Nina snickered quietly as she and Yuki exchanged knowing glances.
“What’s the betting pool up to now?” Ell asked.
Jonathan looked from Ell to Nina. “Wait. There’s a pool? And you didn’t let me in on it?”
Nina frowned. “You’re disqualified. So is she.” The gunner waved a hand in Ell’s direction. “Since you’re both on the mission, you’d be able to influence the outcome.”
“But the pool?” Jonathan repeated.
“Oh, that. I think they’re laying odds that he’ll owe Joule more steaks than he currently owes Pascal by the time you guys get back.”
Chuckling, Jonathan turned back to monitoring the forward screen just as the tractor shut down and Mirage stopped moving.
Letting out a relieved breath, he unwebbed. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have arrived.”
The scrabbling of claws sounded alongside booted feet as Thad returned from the aft compartment, Joule in tow. At his appearance, Valenti, who had remained quiet during the crew’s ribbing, stood.
Chiral Justice: A Hard Science Fiction Technothriller (The Biogenesis War Book 3) Page 12
