Epsilon Eridani (Aeon 14: Enfield Genesis)
Page 19
He pulled the collar of his jacket up around his neck to ward off the spring chill in the air as he nodded politely to two women walking a dog between them. As he approached a sign declaring ‘Kilmorran Loading Dock 3C’, he checked his chrono. Slowing to time his arrival with the blackout Simone had prearranged, Jonesy glanced around. Seeing no one, he stepped behind the sign, shrugged quickly out of his jacket, reversed it, and slid it back on.
Activating the ident embedded in the Kilmorran Warehouse uniform he now wore, Jonesy strode confidently back up the street and turned toward the dock entrance. The security drone operating it passed Jonesy through with nary a beep.
At the same time, nine hundred kilometers away, an airtruck descended through a snowstorm to the roof of a warehouse, where it landed and disgorged a small, automated maglev cart filled with a shipment of supplies. The truck driver passed his token to the security drone at the dock, which accepted it and allowed the AI and his cart to enter.
He unloaded his shipment on one of the pallets that was set aside for incoming packages, except for a service bot that remained onboard. He then pushed his cart over by a row of empty carts of similar make, and then paused to access the warehouse’s database to exchange his token for the bill of lading.
It wasn’t happenstance that his location was in front of the nearest warehouse node. After adding his shipment to the day’s entries, the AI casually laid a hand against the plascrete wall behind him and dropped a passel of nano onto its surface.
Then he approached the row of carts and, ignoring the cart with the bot on it, grabbed the empty cart next to it and then left.
No one heard the private message sent by the service bot as the AI gave it a swift pat.
A quiet chuckle and a
For this op, each of the AIs would be inserted inside a frame that looked like a service bot but was not. Once the DBC unit was identified, each could shed their faux shell casing, revealing a compact stealth frame that Shannon had devised for infiltrations back in Alpha Centauri. Its articulated limbs, supply of reconnaissance drones, and access to nanotransfection units and a healthy supply of formation material made it ideal for disabling threats like this.
Five minutes later, the nano had done its work. After confirming that the sensors monitoring the dock were offline, Logan moved inside Target Two’s food storage area to begin his search.
The process was repeated at a warehouse built into sun-bleached cliffs looming tall above brilliant blue waters. The cliffs overlooked stucco villas with colorfully tiled roofs dotting the coastline of an archipelago of islands just off the equator. This was Target Four, Charley’s responsibility.
Then it was Landon’s turn. Terrance dropped him off at Target One, just outside the Outer Belt maglev line that ringed the bustling metropolis of New Kells. As the executive passed by the cart inside which the AI was embedded, he reached out to give it a pat.
Kodi snickered inside Terrance’s head.
Terrance just shook his head and exited the warehouse, bent on his own destination, Target Six. As he did, he reached out to Shannon.
He grinned. he teased.
She switched over to the encrypted combat net and shared what she’d found with the rest of the teams.
Highlighting a small device nestled against one of the beams, she used the warehouse’s nearest optics to access a closer image.
Terrance heard Jonesy whistle.
Charley sent, tossing an image siphoned from the optics along the far wall. He highlighted a ladder attached to the plascrete, tracing it upward.
* * * * *
From her position at the edge of Farm Target One, Khela stared at the tidy rows of plants, green stalks tipped with shocks of gold and swaying in the fall of a summer rain. She turned in a slow circle, gentle drops pattering on her face as the small, grey-white cloud in an otherwise blue sky passed directly overhead. The rain glinted in the sunlight as it lightly coated the clusters of grain topping each plant.
Lena highlighted a small bot traveling between two rows.
Lena sent her a nod.
Her lieutenant laughed inside her head.
Ramon snickered.
Unlike the farm where Khela stood, his assigned location encompassed vines of various types, both fruits and vegetables, planted along sloping hills. From his feed, it appeared as though he was standing at the mouth of a steep valley, rows of trellised plants rising on either side of him.
Ramon’s avatar waved her query away.
Five minutes later, Khela had ruled out her two bots and was headed toward the farm’s silos when Tama reported back in.
That left all the strike teams waiting on Khela to identify the final threat. She double-timed her approach to the silos.
A CONVENIENT LITTLE RIOT
STELLAR DATE: 03.14.3272 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Verdant Mining Platform
REGION: Inner Asteroid Belt, Little River
The two operatives inserted by Giovanni’s office onto the Verdant mining platform two weeks before had heard through secured transmissions that there had been a leadership change at the top. Both had speculated how quickly that change would bring about the sabotage of the platform. Neither of the men questioned that the escalation would occur; General Jones’s hawkish reputation was well known.
They’d been furnished with spent air filters prior to their arrival, ones well past their useful life. The platform’s air filter sensors had been bypassed early on, just after they’d arrived. All that remained was to arrange for a swap and sound the alarm.
Given Jones’s reputation, the two men had thought a good career move might be to show a bit of initiative, so they’d done a bit of extra work on the water reclamation plant and hydroponics bays, as well. When the order had come to ‘expose the deplorable working conditions’ to the platform’s inhabitants, its wording had emphasized the need to escalate the situation rapidly.
Myron had slapped his partner, Lonnie, gleefully on the back. “We’ll give 'em an Ides of March they’ll never forget,” he sniggered, rubbing his hands together before sending the execute codes to each of the small packets of nano they’d emplaced for their sabotage.
Lonnie had just eyed him warily. Myron’s tendency to quote obscure things was just weird sometimes.
* * * * *
Mo Chaudry pocketed his hand pulser and stuck his head carefully out the entrance to the water reclamation facility where he worked, looking both ways before exiting. Distant shouts reached him, and he flinched, reversing his course and opting to head for his quarters via a more circuitous route.
The engineer was profoundly glad he’d sent his daughters back to Godel on that courier ship—although he wished Molly would send him more than a smilingly vague ‘we’re all fine’ response to his queries. He knew her government job kept her busy, but those were his girls, dammit.
When he got back to his quarters, he’d message her and ask to speak with the girls, despite the four-minute lag. He wanted to reassure himself that Lindy was handling the displacement without issues; he knew his youngest tended to have trouble sleeping in new environments.
Slipping behind the water reclamation plant, he stopped in surprise at the sight of two repairmen working on the sewage intake valve. Concerned, he started forward.
“That’s funny; I don’t recall seeing any maintenance on the sched—”
He ground to a halt as one of the men rose and he came face-to-face with a pulser.
* * * * *
Deep within the Presidium, Rachelle Feretti smiled in satisfaction at those seated around the Council table, as General Jones brought up the inner-system public news feeds. Breaking news filtering in from numerous sources featured panicked messages from individuals trapped on the Verdant platform, their optics showing company police being overwhelmed, and executives being dragged from their offices.
Reporters, piecing together the story from different on-site sources, told a tale of catastrophic environmental failure, corporate neglect, and a rising number of fatalities. Interspersed among these were plaintive cries for help.
“Well now,” Feretti murmured, her eyes gleaming with avarice. “We can’t very well stand by and see helpless people fall victim to corporate greed, can we?”
General Jones’s predatory expression rivaled her own. “Our cruiser is on its way,” she announced. “ETA, oh-two-hundred local tomorrow, the fifteenth.”
Feretti looked off into space, one finger tapping her blood red lips as she mentally calculated the time differential. Her gaze dropped back to the general. “And Godel’s response?”
“They’ve warned us away,” Jones admitted. “Threatened to stop the cruiser with deadly force if necessary.”
The premier’s brow rose.
“And are you ready with our response to that?” she queried.
Jones bared her teeth in a rapacious grin. “How many warehouses and farms would you like destroyed, Madam Premier?”
She turned to the Council chambers’ holo and brought up a representation of Godel, with icons over each of the warehouses and the three farms. They were glowing green in readiness.
“And the stasis tech is within our reach?”
Feretti’s sharp question punctuated the tense anticipation that had built around the table. She saw with amusement the startled look exchanged between Coletti and Savin as they realized that the Office of Finance and the Guard had no knowledge of this separate, covert operation.
Jones nodded in satisfaction. “It is indeed. The trap will be sprung at sunset,” she responded, her tone one of confidence.
Feretti clapped her hands once, sharply, causing Coletti to jump.
Her lip curled in an anticipatory smile as she ordered, “Then take them out. Take them all out.”
All across the image on the holo, green icons abruptly switched to a blinking red.
EVENING EXFIL
STELLAR DATE: 03.14.3272 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: outside Gehenna prison camp, equatorial region
REGION: Barat, Little River
This was Calista’s seventh circuit of the camp’s perimeter. She caught movement out of the side of her eye and turned to see Tigan making his way toward her, his expression one of concern.
“You didn’t stop to eat?”
She held up a half-eaten ration bar by way of reply as he fell into step with her. After a moment of silent walking, he tried again.
“It does you no good to wear yourself out in this heat, you know,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets and glancing over his shoulder at the guard station in the distance behind them. “It’s not like they’re going to care or intervene if you drop from heat exhaustion.”
She shrugged silently and continued her measured pace.
“At least tell me you’re drinking enough to keep yourself from collapse.”
In response, she jangled the canteen attached to a belt loop, not breaking stride as he huffed an annoyed breath at her reticence. She didn’t much care that he found her conversational skills lacking. Sadly, they weren’t off-putting enough to deter him, for he continued to keep pace with her.
Outside the camp on her left, the shorn ground cover gave way to meter-tall savannah grasses. Here, the veldt had been allowed to grow practically to the edge of the wire fence that marked its bo
undaries, and the ES field that reinforced it.
Up ahead, the grasses parted around a mound of boulders that rose chest-high. A rustling motion near the base of one of them—something the winds could not account for—caught her eye.
Her training had her automatically reaching for nonexistent augmentation to scan the area for threats; she made an aggravated noise deep in her throat at the futility of the action.
Tigan turned a questioning look her way at the sound, but she didn’t bother to explain.
Her attention arrested by the unexplained movement, she slowed, her eye trained on the spot where she’d sensed movement.
The man beside her noticed, and his gaze followed hers to the pile of rock. His brow furrowed, and he began to turn to ask what she’d seen, when she expelled a soft breath in surprise. She schooled her expression so as to give no indication of what she’d just seen, but it was too late.
Tigan turned, eyes widening in shock at the tawny figure that crouched beside the boulder, golden eyes focused unwaveringly on the two humans.
“Easy,” she murmured as the man flinched. “There’s an ES field separating us, you know.”
“Dangerous, vicious creatures,” the man muttered, and she broke away from the welcome sight of Tobi to send an appraising glance at Tigan. The man’s eyes were dilated in fear, his hands clenched at his sides.
No uplifted animals here in Little River, she reminded herself, just as the suppressor they’d embedded to ward against unauthorized use of her Link tingled a warning.
She shot Tobi a glance and gave a quick shake of her head as the Proxima cat attempted to contact her again.