Zander snorted. {We’ll keep that under advisement, Lieutenant.}
Micah took a deep breath, held it, and then slowly let it out.
{Engaging fusion drives on my mark,} he informed them.
{Mark.}
The habitat began to spin beneath him as he brought the drives online and the tugs began to slowly accelerate, circumnavigating the cylinder. One rotation, two.
Over the shipnet, he announced, {Starting plasma run in five seconds.}
{Three…two…} Yuki’s voice chanted.
{Let’s do this thing.}
On ‘one’, eight ships with massive fusion drives lit up Hawking’s skies, arcing around the cylinder in a precision pattern only fools—or those out of options—would fly.
TWENTY-THREE
Mercy Medical Center
Midland
Dawn was still two hours away.
Ell and Rafe had compared notes; she’d shared her revised theory that the danger wasn’t to possible eyewitnesses, but to those who had been tendered the offer to work on deGrasse. He’d agreed.
Watchful observation during the past hour seemed to bear that out. Samantha Travis remained safe, with no attempts made to breach the City Center complex.
Clint Janus had left around ten last night and had made it into Portsmouth around midnight. Quinn had put security around his hotel without bothering to wake the man.
The good news was that he appeared to be safe for the moment. Base security was on the lookout for the woman connected with Peres’s disappearance and would ensure Janus got to his ship safely, though it would not be Micah Case’s Wraith, since Rafe needed him for something else.
The bad news was that the suspect seemed to have chosen Linnet for her next victim. Quinn had flagged three different reports from officers in the vicinity of the hospital, each a sighting of someone who matched Sam’s description of the woman.
All three had lost the suspect within moments of spotting her.
* * *
The woman found herself uncommonly out of sorts at the timing of the evacuation. The fact that it was inadvertently of her own making annoyed her further. That tube was not supposed to have failed.
Her line of work relied upon fading into the background as life flowed seamlessly around her. That was difficult to do during an emergency such as this.
After the foiled attempt at the Institute earlier that day, the woman had decided to wait until late that night to eliminate Linnet Thompson. She’d traced her to a hotel when all hell broke loose.
Police had begun pounding on the hostel’s doors, causing the woman to gather her go-bag and slip out the building’s emergency exit. She initially assumed that somehow they had discovered her presence and were there to apprehend her.
She quickly revised that assumption when she saw police shepherding people from nearby buildings and heard the words ‘emergency’ and ‘shelter’. A quick query of the pubnet filled in the blanks.
It changed nothing. She still had a mission to complete.
She slipped into the shadows while working to find Thompson’s current location. It was just possible the confusion might make her job easier.
The woman found Thompson at Mercy Medical Center, four and a half kilometers away. Since maglevs had been commandeered for the exclusive use of law enforcement, she would have to make it there on foot.
Current conditions didn’t bode well for such a thing. Under normal circumstances, she could simply blend in with street traffic. Now, anyone found outside would be intercepted and forced into the nearest shelter.
That, she could not allow. The buildings that abutted the alley where she hid were modest, three-story structures. She scaled the nearest one, taking to the rooftops.
Traveling this way was by no means a sure bet. Drones were sweeping the area, looking for those in violation of the emergency evacuation ordinance. Should she be spotted, law enforcement was sure to follow.
It was a complex choreography of dash-and-hide, but half an hour later she reached her goal.
Peering over the edge of an adjoining building, she spied an orderly entering from a side door. A ladder ran the height of the building she stood atop, and she raced toward it.
Wrapping hands and feet around its outer rails, she slid rapidly down, nano embedded in her gloves sloughing the heat generated by that action. She landed with a soft thud, and then sprinted for the door before it had time to seal behind him.
The man turned, startled, and she dropped him with a shot of tranquilizing nano she’d loaded into her glove while on the run. An injection of breaching nano followed, gaining her access to his hospital identification and the use of his personal token.
She grabbed him under the armpits while pulling up the hospital’s layout, searching for the nearest place in which to stash him.
A nearby supply closet loomed; that would work nicely. A quick glance inside revealed a maglev cart full of supplies. Dropping the orderly to the floor, she divested him of his medical scrubs, and then grabbed the cart.
A search over the medical center’s net garnered her Linnet Thompson’s exact location. Locking the supply closet behind her, she exited and strode purposefully down the hall toward the hospital’s emergency wing.
Voices up ahead alerted her to the fact she was nearing her destination. Pushing the cart to one side of the corridor, she lifted a box filled with nanoinjectors and stepped inside the busy room.
The woman hadn’t been idle as she’d walked the halls of the med center. She’d pulled up a detailed map of the emergency ward, memorizing its layout. She knew where the injectors were stored and walked confidently toward the cabinet, as if she belonged.
No one questioned her. No one glanced her way.
She kept her eyes down and her ears open, listening to the chatter around her as she went about loading up the storage cabinet. Most of the conversation revolved around the assortment of various contusions, breaks, and sundry small injuries usually incurred during a fast exodus like this one.
Interestingly, very few were radiation-related.
Her eyes sharpened as she heard Linnet’s name mentioned.
“You’re not from around here, then, Doctor Thompson?” one voice queried.
“Not originally, no,” Linnet said. “I’m from Ceriba. I’m here on a three-year fellowship with the Merki Institute.”
“Oh, so you’re not a medical doctor, then?” The voice sounded surprised.
“Well, I am,” Linnet explained, “but I’m not currently practicing while on Hawking. I’m focusing more on research at the moment. I actually just got an invitation I’d love to pursue, but it’s come at a bad time.”
“Oh?” the voice asked. “What kind of invitation?”
The woman heard Linnet sigh. “It would be contract work with the Navy. It sounds fascinating, but I still have another three months before my fellowship ends. I’m going to have to turn it down this time around, although I’m hoping they’ll offer it up again in the future.”
The woman loading the nanoinjectors chanced a glance over her shoulder at the two people talking. She saw genuine regret on Linnet Thompson’s face. That, more than anything, convinced her the woman was sincere about turning deGrasse’s offer down.
She looked down at the empty case of nanoinjectors, gathering the box up and taking it over to a recycling station before exiting the way she’d come.
As she pushed the cart back down the corridor, she turned the options over in her mind. Under normal circumstances, she would take more concrete steps to ensure Thompson did not accept the offer.
These were not normal circumstances. Moreover, the doctor was surrounded by a bevy of medical personnel. Waiting for an opportunity to eliminate her would take more time than was warranted.
No, the woman decided, pocketing the nano packet she’d brought along for this mission. Linnet Thompson’s declaration of intent would stay her hand—for now.
If Thompson changed her mind, it would have to b
e soon. A ship would need to leave Hawking within a few short hours in order to rendezvous with the research torus in time.
If she had to, the woman knew she could take the kill shot from inside Nimitz Base, when Peres’s replacement entered the ship destined for deGrasse.
She would head there next, just in case.
The woman found an empty room and deposited the cart in it, sparing the hallway that led to the emergency ward one final glance before heading back the way she’d come.
Linnet Thompson will never know how lucky she was.
That thought was shattered by a shouted “Freeze!”
TWENTY-FOUR
Mercy Medical Center
Midland
Ell had just finished her latest sweep when Quinn pinged her again. {Heads up! Suspect just breached one of the hospital’s side entrances.}
Ell ground to a halt, gesturing to the hospital security guard she’d enlisted to help watch over the area. “We have company.”
The woman’s eyes snapped to alertness as Ell indicated the outer corridor. “I’m going to go investigate,” she told the guard. “No one in or out without badge access, got it?”
The guard straightened. “Yes, ma’am,” she said crisply. Ell nodded and, with a last look around, ducked out the door.
The figure exiting the exam room matched the one in the hospital’s security feed Quinn had just sent. A flash of dull grey at neck and wrists told Ell the woman was armored.
“NCIC! Freeze!” she shouted again as her target broke into a run.
{In pursuit,} she announced.
{Sending reinforcements,} was Quinn’s quick response.
She skidded around the corner, only to fling herself sideways as a flurry of flechettes passed through the space she’d just occupied. A quick glance down the corridor showed the woman’s form slipping through a side exit.
{Tell them she’s armed. Flechette pistol, assume more.} Ell’s words came out in rapid staccato.
{Shit, boss, you okay?} Concern laced Quinn’s mental voice. Ell was too busy dodging shots to give more than a two-click reply.
At least we won’t have to worry about radiation exposure, she thought with dark humor as she realized the woman was fast approaching the edge of the radiation hot zone.
From there, the map on her HUD suggested several possible destinations. The most likely was either a maglev hub to the left, or a small commuter airport on the right.
Given that the two were within blocks of each other, it was impossible to predict the woman’s objective, although the airport clearly offered more flexible options.
The suspect was augmented, evidenced by the speed and dexterity she used to navigate the obstacles in her path. She worked to hinder Ell’s progress at every opportunity.
A well-placed shot at the base of a pole collapsed a shop’s awning. Ell’s palms slapped the metal surface as she vaulted over it. A stack of chairs was next, flung over as the woman flew past. Ell hurdled them without breaking stride.
Up ahead, she saw a holographic police line marking the evacuation boundary. Behind it, she could just make out the tops of tents set up between the maglev lines and the airport, where emergency workers treated radiation exposure and tended injuries.
The woman charged into the crowded throng. Holstering her weapon, Ell plunged in after her.
Reactivating the NCIC holobadge on the front and back plates of her Drakeskin suit identified her to nearby police, though it did little to part the crowd before her. She launched a surveillance microdrone, sending it flying ahead, and saw the woman angle toward the airport.
Quinn’s ident appeared again, followed by two flashing icons with law enforcement IDs. They looked like they were converging on her location.
{Officers, meet Special Agent Cyr. Boss, you have two uniformed police flanking you, Mathieson and Carruthers. They’ve been briefed.}
{Target’s headed to the airport. Contact the tower, have them lock it down,} Ell replied.
{On it,} Quinn sent.
Ahead of her, startled cries erupted, heralding the woman’s progress as she shoved her way through displaced evacuees. Ell angled left to avoid a cluster of angry people forced together in the wake of her suspect’s passing, and then darted through an opening before it had a chance to close.
She pushed her surveillance drone closer. It spotted the woman nearing the airport’s ES barrier, but then the feed went abruptly dark, apparent victim to her countersurveillance.
Ell reached out to the airport SI, requesting entrance. It was quickly granted. As her ID token came into contact with the ES field, the barrier snapped off and Ell raced through.
Now free of the crowd, she reached for her service pistol once more. As her hand wrapped around its grip, the CUSP connected with her wire, the latter providing the weapon targeting assistance and fire control.
Her head remained on a swivel, optics scanning for a figure in grey armor as she pinged the airport SI once more to tap into the security feed. Frustration ate at her as she realized the feed was being actively jammed.
{Dammit, Quinn! Did you get through to the airport or not?} Ell demanded, but was met by silence. Quinn’s connection was live, but she heard nothing from the man.
Ell slowed her pace as she reached the first row of hangars. She sent a surveillance microdrone around the corner and caught a glimpse of a figure slipping behind the end of a building just as the two officers caught up to her.
“She’s down there,” Ell pointed. “Spread out, but approach with caution.”
She ran between two rows of hangars and the officers paralleled her course, each choosing an adjacent row. As she ran, she tossed out a small cloud of audio chaff.
Her suit’s containment field drew the nano colloids tightly around her, the tiny noise-cancelling machines masking her footfalls.
She slowed as she reached the end, sending a surveillance drone ahead of her. It died, just like the last one had.
She had no choice but to approach the old-fashioned way. Weapon aimed, she made a smooth, fast sweep of the area.
No one was there.
Just beyond the buildings, several aircraft sat parked. That had to be the woman’s objective.
Ell spotted movement just as the two officers cleared their buildings. She held up a fisted hand and they stopped.
Pointing in the direction the woman had gone, Ell gestured for them to flank the suspect. They nodded and spread out, using the parked aircraft as cover.
She was ten meters from the woman and closing fast when the suspect wheeled, side-stepped to clear an airframe as if she knew Ell’s precise location, and then winged a device straight at her. The object must have been target locked, for as Ell dodged, it swerved to follow.
Spreaders triggered upon impact. They tried to latch onto her upper thigh, precisely where cloned leg met real, but the Drakeskin armor denied them purchase.
Ell staggered back as the thing fell to the ground, and then the world around her erupted in a white-hot, concussive blast.
TWENTY-FIVE
Midland Air Center
Midland
Ell came to with a pounding headache and two officers standing over her.
“You okay, Agent Cyr?” one of them asked, giving her a hand and then steadying her as she scrambled to her feet.
The officer’s words were echoed inside her head, Quinn’s anxious voice slicing through her like a hot knife. {You okay, boss?}
She winced, adjusting the volume. Accessing her medical nano, she triggered an analgesic while her gaze swept the tarmac.
One of the aircraft was missing.
Ell shot a look at the officers. “She got away?”
The one who’d helped her up nodded briefly, lips compressed into an unhappy line.
“Sorry, ma’am. That explosion wasn’t the only one she set off,” the other one explained. “We weren’t close enough to be affected, though.”
Ell started forward, wincing as her head throbbed in tim
e with each step she took. “Did you see which way she went?”
One of them gestured to the tower. “No, but they did. Your suspect jammed the frequencies until she left, but she couldn’t do much about old-fashioned radar.”
He tilted his head north. “They tracked her for a few kilometers until contact was lost in the clutter. Looks like she’s on her way to Portsmouth.”
{She’s headed your way,} she told Quinn, who had remained silent as she questioned the officers. {Her next target’s got to be Janus. It’s the only thing that makes sense.}
“What’s the fastest way there, right now?” she asked the officers.
The one named Carruthers glanced over her shoulder and grimaced. “With the evac going on, your best bet’s probably right here, ma’am.”
Ell thanked them, and headed for the terminal.
{I’ve notified base security they’re about to have company.} Quinn’s voice returned. {You sure you’re okay? You went off-grid for several minutes, and then when your token came back online, you didn’t respond.}
{Yeah, I know,} she said absently as her mind began replaying the past few minutes. {She was jamming, and then she set off a few small bombs.}
{Bombs— Dammit, boss!}
Ell ignored him. What was it they’d said about the bombs, that hers was the only one close?
Ell stopped dead in her tracks, her mind replaying those last few moments. The bomb hitting her leg in the exact spot where it had been severed. Spreaders trying to latch on as she frantically backpedaled. The woman saluting her in a knowing way.
In a knowing way.
“Shit! She knows. How the hell?”
{Boss?}
She blinked and realized she’d said that last out loud.
{She knows what, boss?}
Evidently, she’d said it to Quinn, too.
{She knows I was with the Unit,} she growled, feet slapping the pavement as she picked up her pace. {I’m uploading my suit’s feed from the past hour. Study it, and figure out who the hell this woman is.}
The Chiral Conspiracy – A Military Science Fiction Thriller: A Biogenesis War Prequel (The Biogenesis War Book 0) Page 12
