by Daniel Gibbs
The charges blew half a second apart from each other. The miniature but powerful explosions forced the doors of the hatch apart half a meter.
Rucuk and Harrell took point, relying mostly on the Saurian’s superior strength to wrest the doors open wide enough to admit more than one man at a time.
“Three, get me eyes inside,” MacDonald ordered.
Rostami freed a tiny bot from his belt—an orbit studded with sensors and thrusters. It hurtled ahead, four brilliant beacons sweeping the dark interior with light as it transmitted visual and scanning data to all the team members. A few seconds later, the answer came through.
“Clear.”
Rostami and Mata floated into the broad space with the rest of the team right behind. Three transport shuttles were parked at odd angles. Beyond that, windows allowed glimpses into a quiet, abandoned workshop. MacDonald couldn’t begin to catalogue all the gear stashed inside—that was what the techs aboard Tuscon and Oxford were for. Airlocks also stood on either end of the wide hangar bay.
Something drifted on the other side of the glass.
“Got movement!” Ahmad snapped up his rifle.
“Hold.” MacDonald swept the scanner mounted to his suit’s belt toward the object, but he didn’t need the cold results of the readout to tell him what they all saw.
A dark-skinned woman, eyes wide, dead. The gouges burned in her chest and torso by plasma blasts were clear enough. Rostami’s spherical drone hovered by the window, lights shining as deep beyond as they could. MacDonald shivered at the several sets of unseeing eyes.
“Shit,” Harrell said. “Got to be five, six in there.”
“Give me a complete scan workup,” MacDonald ordered. “And secure a link to Tuscon. The cake eaters aren’t going to like it any more than I do.”
Mancini shook his head. The scans from PO1 Rostami’s apparatus and his surveillance bot were comprehensive—thirteen bodies, all killed by plasma weapons fire. The workshop Alpha Team found them in was rife with tricionite signatures. And Tuscon’s sensor room had gotten near enough to determine the power fluctuations were emanating from the shuttles, likely because they had been left on standby.
All the while, Tuscon’s pilot had done a phenomenal job shadowing the oddly behaved freighter as it circled the cometary fragment in a reverse spiral, without giving away the stealth boat’s presence.
But the discovery of the dead people—civilian technicians, by their initial appearance—changed everything.
“Comms, give me a tight band signal to Sierra Two,” Mancini said.
“Conn, Comms. Establishing a signal, aye.”
“Pilot, accelerate on matching vector. Sensor Room, active ping—let them know we’re here.”
“Conn, Pilot. Matching vectors and accelerating, aye.”
“Conn, Sensor. Active ping commencing, Skipper.”
Godat gazed at the tactical display. “Hoping to flush them out?”
“Hoping for answers.” Mancini emptied the last dregs of his coffee. “Comms, any forthcoming?”
“Conn, Comms. That’s a negative. Nothing but—”
An alarm sounded from TAO at the same moment Olesen reported, “Conn, TAO. Sierra Two is showing comprehensive hull failure.”
“What?” Mancini knew his blurted question was unnecessary as soon as he saw the tactical display because the speck that was Sierra Two had come apart into an expanding cloud of debris—but not the fuzzy cloud of an explosion’s leftovers. These pieces were roughly the same size, almost symmetrical in their distribution.
The eight tiny engine flares didn’t belong among debris either.
“Missile launch detected,” Olesen said. “Eight, repeat eight anti-ship warheads inbound.”
“TAO, activate point defense in automatic mode.”
“Locked and confirmed, sir.”
“Activate.”
The Close in Weapons System’s mounts rattled Tuscon’s hull from bow to stern, the vibrations setting Mancini’s teeth on edge. Even as it sprayed projectiles into the intervening space between the stealth boat and the incoming missiles, Tuscon rolled on her centerline. CIWS shots shredded the missiles as they swept in, reversing the outward race they made from the disintegrating freighter.
Three warheads made it through the defense, exploding in rapid succession. But Tuscon’s maneuverability carried her to the fringes of the blasts. The shockwaves threw the crew everywhere, slamming them into consoles, flinging them across compartments. Searing pain shot through Mancini’s left arm as he tried to brace himself. Godat doubled over a console, his breath escaping in a ragged gasp.
“Conn, TAO. Shields collapsed along port hull, holding fore and aft.” Olesen swiped blood from a cut on his forehead. His voice shook, but he clung to his console. “Casualty reports coming in from all decks.”
“Get—” Mancini coughed. He spat blood from his lip. “Get Alpha Team. Warn them. Transmit a tight beam to…”
Oxford was his next command, but he blacked out, the bridge combat lighting dimming to nothingness.
MacDonald’s insides went cold with sick as the terse message filtered through the secure link. “Fall back,” he ordered. “Fall back and secure the perimeter.”
“One, the power’s spiking inside those shuttles,” Rostami warned.
“You heard the Master Chief,” Harrell said. “Move!”
Tiny flares lit the shuttles’ hulls—explosive charges, MacDonald realized. He and the rest of Alpha team were already backing out from the hangar bay, thrusters sputtering. The hull seams gave way, the shuttles themselves fragmenting like the very comet chunk they’d searched.
Three Stalwart-Series Mark Five security bots flew out, their own thrusters spinning at randomized angles. Plasma cannons, two mounted to each one’s shoulders for six in all, glowed with threatening brilliance.
“Hostiles. Light ’em up!” MacDonald barked.
All six ballistic rifles peppered the armored bots as plasma blasts answered. Rostami, nearest to the first shuttle, took a burst across his right ribcage, the energy dispersal melting armor at that close range and burning through his space suit. But he maintained his aim, shooting into the Stalwart bot’s optical sensors at point-blank range. Sparks erupted in a silent halo as the combat-equipped robot died.
Ahmad rolled toward the comet fragment’s surface, scooting on his back as he prepped a new set of charges. Harrell swooped up, drawing the second robot along as they exchanged fire.
MacDonald swept to the left of the third bot as Mata went right. Their target picked MacDonald to chase, meaning several of his blasts singed the master chief’s armor but didn’t kill him, not yet. He bracketed the bot as he twisted upside down, the armor-piercing rounds punching into the weak joints where the bot was better articulated.
The distraction gave Mata the opening he needed to alight on the bot’s back long enough to shove his rifle’s muzzle up against a gap in its armor. “Deflect this shit!”
Emptying the magazine gutted the bot’s internal systems, reducing it to a stuttering hulk that crashed against the far wall as Mata pushed away. MacDonald dodged a flailing plasma cannon.
“Fire in the hole!” Ahmad flung his charges through the microgravity.
But the bot Harrell shot at must have detected the new threat, because it swiveled one of its cannons to scorch the twin discs until they detonated. The explosion sent everyone flailing—Ahmad and Harrell out of the hangar bay, Mata and MacDonald into the wall, Rostami’s writhing form into the opposite one.
Rucuk, though, appeared behind the remaining Stalwart bot. His snarl ripped across the suit comms and battered MacDonald’s ears as Rucuk tore the plasma cannons clean off the robot’s shoulders. Then he dug his armored suit’s claws—fitted over his own—deep into its turning neck, rendering it dead as surely as any explosive.
The instant it went limp in space, MacDonald jetted across the hangar bay. “Two! Give me a hand with Three. Check his suit meds—make sure they’re
clotting the wound and conserving air. Five, signal the shuttle for emergency evac. We’re getting the hell out of here.”
17
The White House
Canaan—Terran Coalition
24 November 2464
* * *
The gardens behind the Oval Office were the perfect place both to relax and conduct business in a less-than-formal manner. Justin Spencer had found over the years that, invariably, having the option between two such settings encouraged more honest discussions.
“Your spies are sloppy.” Void Captain Nalax of SATO JSID held out a talon near a bee flitting among the tulips. The insect veered from its intended course and instead buzzed against the Saurian’s claw.
Well, if I wasn’t a fan of brute honesty, I shouldn’t have invited a Saurian for a chat, Spencer reminded himself. “You’re referring to the news from Bellwether.”
“The news, yes. Fortunately Tactisar wants to downplay this as much as you do. They seem not to have discerned Terran Coalition military intelligence involvement.”
“They have no reason to, and I’ll argue our people are not sloppy, even when they’re forced into a dire situation. The initial reports indicate League interference in their secure communications. That’s a suspicion we can’t overlook. I’d rather they take drastic action to keep themselves safe than continue to expose themselves to risk all for the sake of maintaining low profiles.”
Nalax bared his fangs. “Hiding and skulking. At least they showed their fierceness when confronted, during their flight out.”
“Yes, and Tactisar chalked up the incident to a smuggling operation gone wrong, allowing us to retrieve our missing operative and reunite him with his team. His intel has proved invaluable, from what Colonel Sinclair says.” Spencer shook his head. “This was all in the briefing, Nalax, so why didn’t you bring up your concerns with General MacIntosh?”
“I wanted to do you the honor of offering to have your back in battle, one warrior to another.”
“The general’s career is far more storied than mine.”
“True, and his legends are many.” Nalax clicked his claws.
The bee dove at him a few more times before flying off into the flowers. Spencer wondered if the bee knew, instinctively, that landing a sting through a Saurian’s thick scales was impossible for any insect originating on Earth.
“But you fight the subtler battles—the ones won with words and sly deeds. I am growing to appreciate these methods, given my new role in JSID. As such, you will be happy to know we have heard from our disgraced brethren among the Clawless.”
The pacifists? Spencer recalled Nalax mentioning their being traders in the vicinity of the Caeli system. “Don’t leave me hanging.”
The Saurian glanced up at the lush tree canopy before grimacing in the toothy manner of his species. “Agh. Another Terran saying. Your languages, they baffle me. But yes, as I promised, they have provided us with information about recent shipping activity and suspicious transportation. Much of it matches the reports from your warships in the region. There is, however, a freighter operated by Clawless that arrived in the system three days ago. It feigned engine trouble, allowing it to make a long, wide course around the system’s edge, where it put enhanced sensors to good use.”
“I don’t suppose they can shed light on what happened at the cometary fragment.”
“Only in that they recorded several vessels in the immediate vicinity during a twenty-four-hour period prior to your vessel’s incident there.” Nalax lifted his tablet. “You see the similarities in the drive, even at great distance.”
Spencer frowned at the display. Translating Saurian had never been his specialty, but the data were clear enough—a high likelihood a Tactisar gunship was nearby before Tuscon investigated the booby-trapped cometary fragment. “What about these other readings? They seem indeterminate.”
“Unknown. I should like to forward them to your Oxford for greater analysis.”
“I will do so. Thank you, Colonel.”
“It is my pleasure, Mr. President.” Nalax sneered. “I only hope your warships can sink their fangs into the neck of whatever predator lurks out there, as I long to.”
“They haven’t seen much privateer activity since the first one self-destructed, but it’s possible our stealth boat’s actions put the fear of God into them.” Spencer rubbed the red tulip petals between his fingers. The stems would need trimming soon. “Is that freighter of yours still available?”
“It is making its way toward Bellwether, though slowly. Tarrying longer will only raise suspicion.”
“Indeed it will. Care to make a trade?”
Nalax narrowed his eyes. “Proceed.”
“General MacIntosh tells me the distant probes dispatched by CDF along our nations’ mutual border have turned up recent activity of possible privateers heading for your territory. I’d gladly trade the data for two berths aboard the freighter.”
“Berths? For human passengers, I take it?”
“Our two men who risked their lives to save their brother-in-arms.” Sevastopol Rast wasn’t CDF, but given his affiliation with CAU 171 and his performance in the two most recent missions, Spencer figured he didn’t need to dig into details where Nalax was concerned. “I’d like to reunite them with their comrades, albeit in a quiet manner.”
Nalax’s chuckle was a harsh rasp. “And so the Clawless become more useful, this time as haulers instead of fighters. Yes, I would have gladly offered their services without a trade, Mr. President, though your data will prove most useful in our hunt.”
“I hope it will.” Spencer gestured toward the office. “Let’s catch up with the good general and see what we can do about helping both our peoples foul up the League’s plans. Then I’ll introduce you to the byproduct of our buzzing friends from the garden.”
Bellwether Station
Caeli System
25 November 2464
* * *
Getting out of Bellwether was a proverbial piece of cake compared to getting back in, Dwyer realized. At least when it came to his stress. The first bad news, they had to leave Novabird behind. Dwyer and Sev had to sneak aboard. He didn’t know how much Colonel Sinclair spent contracting that incoming Saurian freighter to provide passenger space, but it must have been a heap, because the Saurian crew were fairly polite. Dwyer couldn’t remember the last time he’d met one he could even call not growly.
Not that they were much in the way of conversation. The crew ignored Dwyer and Sev, giving them both time to work on updating their disguises. They’d had to improvise, what with the LT still with the rest of the team, but it turned out CWO Sakuri—Vector Two, from CAU 22—had a fair hand at facial prosthetics.
“It’s not top-of-the-line,” Sakuri had told them back aboard Oxford. “But we weren’t expecting to need them for deeper cover. Try to avoid fistfights. A couple good punches will take them right off—even hard slaps.”
“Don’t tell me we’re getting a demonstration.” Dwyer followed her instruction and pressed his fingers to both sides of his nose as the adhesive set.
“Negative. Unless you really want me to work out my frustration with Leaguers.”
Dwyer found himself with a nose that wasn’t going to win him any pageants. That was for damn sure. Sev found it humorous enough he actually chuckled, which made his bulbous cheeks all the more exaggerated. A closer look at the two would reveal their actual identities, no doubt, but both were altered sufficiently to throw off facial recognition scans of the quality Tactisar employed.
Would it work? The question bothered him as the Saurian freighter Grivask circled Bellwether twice more than a usual freighter approach. It sounded to him like Bellwether’s traffic control wasn’t taking chances, given the ruckus he and Sev had created in their escape. The Saurians snarled as their transit credentials got a once-, twice-, and thrice-over.
By the time Grivask opened its airlock at the appropriate berth in Bellwether’s docking ring, momentary fe
ar stabbed Dwyer’s gut. It was one thing going into a new place at the start of an operation, but when returning, the risk level skyrocketed.
Sev nudged him, probably because Dwyer had yet to step out onto the busy concourse, where a customs official waited. “Peace,” Sev murmured.
“Sure thing. Thanks.” It wasn’t much of a reminder, and Dwyer didn’t know where on the scale of atheist to bowing worshipper Sev fell, but he appreciated the sentiment behind it. Almighty Lord, Father of Israel, pass a veil over the eyes of our enemies so we can walk unhindered among them.
Whether it was the hopeful prayer or the six hulking Saurians exiting with them that prompted the short, balding customs man to brush them through with only a cursory glance at their identification profiles, Dwyer didn’t know. But given past experience, he was inclined to think it was a little of both.
He allowed a tight grin as he and his partner separated from the Saurians amidst the humanoids swarming the concourse, heading for the team’s rendezvous point. Time for Round Two with Tactisar and their Leaguer sponsors.
The apartment was deep in a cluster of Sector B100 with lodgings for semi-permanent technicians. Dwyer wondered at the turnover rate, given the frequency with which he and Sev passed glowing green vacancy signs. The crowds thinned there, but the clusters around each food station and shopping kiosk made it harder to spot individuals.
Tactisar officers weren’t as common, either, even those reinforced by patrol drones. Dwyer kept his head down and tried to find something interesting to look at so he could excuse turning his gaze away whenever he spotted one. People brushing by in the opposite direction made it easier.
“How does the cap’n do it all day?” Dwyer muttered to Sev. “Strollin’ around, playing a part, watching his six and his twelve and everything else near and far. It’s exhausting.”
