by Daniel Gibbs
The cargo tunnel’s hatch issued an alert noise, warning anyone in range about a delivery coming out. Normally, Tactisar would be on duty to protect whatever the lab techs were shipping out. But it served to let Ramsey know his targets were approaching.
He’d propped his rifle across one of the cargo containers and taken aim when a gunshot ripped through the air just above his head. The round tore apart the container wall, spraying him with the shattered remains of atmospheric regulation circuitry. Ramsey turned toward the source of the gunshot. He couldn’t see a damned thing but fired anyway, the plasma blasts leaving bright afterimages in his vision.
Twin explosions, one right after the other, set his hearing ringing again. By then, shouts accompanied them as people came running—technicians, possibly, but Tactisar officers could be among the mix.
Ramsey didn’t figure himself for an idiot. He slipped between containers, not only to put cover between himself and whoever was shooting at him, but to make sure no one else saw him running around. Besides. He grinned. Better to get a clean shot at Jack Arno that way, even if he couldn’t look the bastard in the eye.
Sevastopol Rast frowned. He’d lost sight of Detective Ramsey Moss. Captain Adams’s orders were clear—distract and contain, don’t kill.
Sev didn’t agree with that course of action. It would be far easier to put down each one of the conspirators and be done with them. But doing so would ruin their chance to track League involvement, which stayed his impulse to shift his aim toward Detective Moss’s head just as much as the captain’s order.
“Four, this is Three. How’d the fireworks display turn out? Scanner readings ain’t the same thing.”
“Worked,” Sev grunted. He had recordings of the explosions, of course. Warrant Dwyer would have to wait until the rendezvous to admire them. They were quite clear, almost cinematic, if Sev said so himself.
“Super! Word from Echo Home—got a passel of guys on the way who ain’t in uniform and, judging by their assorted weapons, have mayhem in mind. Keep Ramsey busy until we can figure out if we can redirect them. I’m warming up our ride.”
“Confirmed.”
Sev waited until Warrant Dwyer cut the link then sighted down his scope. There. A shadow on the floor, down a gap no more than five centimeters wide. He took a breath, held it as the shadow grew darker, then fired. The round sparked off the metal deck plates. A surprised intake of breath, barely audible from Sev’s nest twenty meters off the hangar floor, followed the muffled crack from the rifle.
A new message appeared on his wrist device. So, Fernand was on his way with ten men and women, all bearing automatic plasma weapons.
Sev slid deeper into the shadows and moved toward a better firing position. Perhaps he would get the chance to do more than scorch boxes if they came any closer.
Jackson was painfully aware of how little cover the cargo tunnel’s outer airlock offered as red light from the hangar bay spilled through the opening between hatch halves. He knelt as far against the right wall as possible, down on one knee, ready to shoot.
Gina was on the opposite side with Ciara poised in front of her, Gina’s gun aimed a few centimeters from Ciara’s ear. “If your friends decide to kill us, I’ll be happy to oblige them with a different target,” she whispered to her captive.
“They won’t hesitate.” Ciara’s voice was firm. “I don’t mean that much in the grand scheme.”
“I think Ramsey sees it differently.” Jackson frowned.
Brant had warned him about the explosives. Judging by the smoke and emergency klaxons, they’d done their job. But was Tactisar security really rerouted far enough away that they weren’t flooding the area with officers?
Ciara chuckled. “Ram? He’d never have the balls to pull the trigger, the sop. No, he won’t shoot me, but my friends will.”
Plasma blasts shrieked into their midst. Jackson returned fire with his pulse pistol, staying low, moving swiftly out and right into the hangar. The blasts tracked after him, giving Gina time to shove Ciara ahead of her. They were near the cover of a dormant loader bot when Gina added her pistol to the assault.
Jackson glimpsed Ramsey, his expression one of fury, as he shifted his position between the crates. A rifle’s report sounded just as the new shot took a blackened chunk out of a box above Ramsey’s head, making him duck out of sight again.
“One, this is Home. We’ve got you on internal scans.” Brant sounded breathless, as if he’d been running. Jackson couldn’t make out the new sounds behind him, but he swore he heard someone whistling. “ETA six minutes.”
In any other situation, the wait Brant described would be a minor inconvenience. With plasma blasts flying and a number of Ciara’s compatriots on their way—not to mention the chaos of the emergency responses triggered by the demolitions set by Gina and Sparks—he could have been asking them to wait for days. “Happy if you could shave some seconds off that estimate, Home.”
“Jack!” Ramsey sounded hoarse. “I’m gonna shove your face down an engine cone while they light it up and watch you melt!”
“How nice of him to remember you on this occasion,” Gina said sweetly as she fired three more rounds at Ramsey’s hiding place. The pulse blasts burned three neat holes into a container.
“I’m memorable like that.” Jackson tried to estimate Sev’s sniper perch, but there was no use trying to mark the precise location, even though he’d ascertained from where the last shot had come. Sev would already have relocated. “He’s pulled out all the stops.”
A clattering noise built. It sounded like tank treads, only in miniature—too familiar a sound, Jackson realized.
Two Stalwart security bots rolled into view, flanked by a few handfuls of people. Jackson recognized Kami and Sasha, a pair of Tactisar enforcers he’d seen only on his first day aboard Bellwether. A couple of others had shadowed him while on his first patrols. The rest looked too rough even for corrupt Tactisar staff, with glowing tattoos, shaved heads, and cybernetic implants—either on their faces or replacing entire limbs. He thought he saw Fernand at the rear.
“Last chance, Jack!” Ramsey sounded considerably more upbeat than when he’d first threatened Jackson. “Toss out your guns, and let Boyd go.”
“Or what, he’ll space us instead of resorting to torture?” Gina rolled her eyes. She poked Ciara in the ribs. “Please tell me you did all the negotiating with the benefactor, not this oaf.”
Ciara smirked.
“Home, this is One,” Jackson murmured. “Could really have you step up your timetable. Four? New targets for you, Deadeye—the Stalwart bots. No need to exercise caution around them, but leave people alive for the proper authorities.”
Neither party made any moves nor discharged weapons. Even Ramsey shut up, though Jackson thought he heard the detective speaking in hushed tones into his commlink. Then the Stalwarts resumed their approach, their mounted plasma cannons rising up from the sides. Jackson sighed. The ballistic rifles, the ones attached to their frames and loaded with stun rounds, stayed stowed. So much for negotiating.
They didn’t get a chance to fire first, though, because the left-most bot’s head blew up in spectacular fashion.
The hangar filled with the barks and screams of weapons blasts, both ballistic and energy, as the attackers not only unleashed toward Jackson and Gina but went after wherever Sev was hiding.
Best thing we can do now is pray Brant gets here in time. Jackson put pulse bursts into the remaining bot’s torso. Hopefully, knowing him, it’s a redundant request.
Yahanotov winced as the gunfire resumed. “Meng Po’s physician says my hearing is too sensitive to weapons discharges.”
“No doubt your flesh is too.” Kiel shoved him and growled, “Get to the pods. Have it ready to leave when I order.”
“Where are you going?”
Kiel glanced at the flashes of light from the other end of the bay. “To make certain our people don’t fail in their objective again.”
“Fer
enc won’t like that, sir.”
“If I cared, I’d ask Ferenc his opinion.” Kiel zipped the front of his bright-orange emergency technician’s jumpsuit and jogged around the corner toward the smoldering wreck that was the nose of a slender cargo courier. He waved at the assembled group of other techs and indicated the case he shouldered. “Hey! I’ve got E-Seal!”
“Man, finally!” Another tech motioned for him to hurry. “Boss wants these breaches shut ASAP. Thanks.”
“No problem.” Kiel smiled. “Happy to help.”
23
Freighter Meng Po
In Orbit of Bellwether Station
Caeli System
26 November 2464
* * *
Captain Zhou tried not to pace. It wasn’t the press of ships around Bellwether that worried him, as they closed to within ten thousand kilometers of the station. Meng Po was designed to hide in plain sight, after all. No, it was the flurry of messages from Kiel that had him unable to remain seated.
The heist had gone wrong—gunfire between assets, explosions crippling a handful of disguised privateer vessels in Nosamo’s hangar bay, and their operative, Circe—Ciara Bui, or Boyd among her aliases—had possibly been compromised.
He blew out a breath. At least Balland had good news.
“Comp is sixty percent certain we’re tracking the right drive signature,” the tactical officer said. “Not sure of the precise course—it keeps shifting by a thousand klicks or so every time Tactical recalibrates from Sensor’s updates—but it’s as close as we’re going to get, Captain.”
“That’ll have to work. Designate as Tango One for now.”
“Aye, Skipper.”
“Sensor, keep watch. If they make any sudden course changes, I want to know about them. And monitor comms for the high sign from the boss. The moment he wants extraction, we’ll have to make sure our course is clear to burn in and get him.”
“Aye, sir.”
Zhou considered the tactical plot. “Balland, overlay with our in-system asset vessels.”
“Coming up, Captain.”
The indicators for the hundreds of ships in nearby space dimmed a notch as six markers glowed green. Zhou nodded. A decent number. It would have been far easier to engineer Kiel’s extraction had the privateers hidden aboard Bellwether not suffered mysterious sabotage, but Zhou would make do with what he had. After all, he’d gotten a battered stealth freighter through a collapsing wormhole without losing the ship.
He snorted. Terrans would chalk up the incident to Divine Providence. If anyone bothered to ask Zhou, he would argue Providence shouldn’t cut things so close if it—or He, as the Terran superstitions supposed—was serious.
“Get me a coded line to our assets,” Zhou ordered. “I want them aware of our position and reminded they’re to heed our orders if we need them for cover during the extraction. Tell their captains we’re authorized to bump their next payment ten percent each if they comply and, of course, manage to survive to collect.”
“Understood, Captain,” the young woman at Comms answered.
Whether or not Zhou had authority to increase the payments was debatable, but he figured Kiel wouldn’t begrudge him once he pulled the ESS team’s bacon out of the proverbial—or perhaps literal—fire. Zhou glared so hard his nose wrinkled like he smelled something that stank. He would be lying if he said he didn’t miss the days of commanding a warship, hunting the dark for a worthwhile opponent. Meng Po had served him well, and it was his ability to pull her through scrapes that led directly to the kind of leeway he hoped Kiel would continue to allow.
Not that I have much choice, Zhou reminded himself. Serving a shady boss on missions of questionable impact and importance is a step up from facing public execution.
Rather than dwell on painful reminders of the past, Zhou shifted his attention to the drive signature Balland was tracing on the tactical display. Could be a glitch, but it was looking more and more like it was his CDF adversaries. Zhou settled into his chair, waiting.
CSV Oxford
Approaching Bellwether Station
* * *
Colonel Sinclair wasn’t impressed by the messages filtering across his tablet. Rather than the tightly controlled execution of the final stages in Unit 171’s plan, he had the impression the whole affair was becoming a cockup.
The tactical board showed Oxford forming one of three points of a triangle with Tuscon and Bellwether itself at the other two. Ships threaded their way in and out of the station’s vicinity, but everything in one-light-second’s distance of three hundred thousand kilometers was marked.
“Sir, Echo Home reports the suspected privateer vessels aboard Bellwether have been disabled,” Eldred said. “Sounds like they still have a mess on their hands—Echo One and Two are pinned down. Four is lending fire support. Home says he and Three are moving to retrieve, but they’ve encountered obstacles.”
“Haven’t we all?” Sinclair murmured.
“Tuscon’s lander could get their fast, Colonel,” Tamir mentioned. “I know Master Chief MacDonald has a man in sickbay—”
Sinclair cut off the suggestion with a gesture. “No, Butter Bars, the timeframe is too tight, even if we could get Alpha team aboard unrecognized as CDF forces. Using them on system’s edge to investigate the derelict lab was one thing. Inserting a Coalition strike team onto an independent station will only confirm our presence to League assets in the vicinity.”
“I’d maintain they’re already aware, based on the trap set back at the cometary fragment.”
“Valid point. But I’ll hold out optimism for the team. For the moment, our best bet is to be in position to pick them up once they depart. Eldred, I assume you have confirmation that the Saurian gift is in good working order?”
“It helps that it’s not the only such Saurian craft aboard the station, but yes, sir. Echo Three confirms he won’t have any problems behind the stick.” Eldred chuckled. “I’m happy to report he’s giddy.”
“In a professional manner, let us all hope.”
The comms console in the operations center chirped. “Incoming tight beam from Tuscon, Colonel,” the tech at the station called out. “Major Mancini has a possible hostile contact.”
“TAO, repopulate the board.”
“Yes, sir.”
The result was not as clear-cut as he would have liked. A single pip glowed red among the constellation of ship indicators flooding space around Bellwether.
“What am I seeing, Captain?”
“Possible ID on the ghost ship from Aphendrika,” Tamir reported. “Tuscon spotted it with the assist from Bellwether’s detection grid.”
Yes. The one which Eldred had tapped, in a somewhat-legal fashion, and Sinclair, for the good of the mission and the lives involved, had chosen to ignore. “What do we know about her?”
“Moving on a loose spiral toward the station.” Eldred made a face at her displays. “Must be trying to run silently, but the tech’s not on par with our stealth boats. If she’s receiving and sending comms, they’re secure. I think they might be piggybacking local signals among all the skippers out their pinging messages off each other and traffic control.”
“A prudent measure, not so dissimilar from our own.” If that was the same elusive ship that had vexed them on their previous mission, Sinclair couldn’t help feeling a begrudging respect for her captain. “Speaking of skippers, relay this information up to the bridge. I want to tighten the net with Tuscon so we can reel this problematic vessel in whilst putting us on a better course to pick up Unit 171.”
“Understood, sir.”
“Colonel.” Tamir joined Sinclair at the tactical board. “Take a look at this.”
“I have.” Sinclair didn’t like the analysis Oxford’s TAO had produced. Six ships were moving on courses that seemed to have nothing to do with each other but, when extrapolated, could lead them to rendezvous within a hundred klicks of the ghost ship’s suspected drive signature. “What do we make of it? Mor
e privateers?”
“I think so. These drive readouts aren’t far off from the vessel that self-destructed after its brief battle with Tuscon.”
“I concur. Get ahold of TAO on the bridge, too, with this as an addendum to our findings on the ghost ship. I won’t take any chances with us being out of sync.” Sinclair frowned. “And prepare me a response channel to Tuscon—the good major had best know what he’s facing.”
CSV Tuscon
Approaching Bellwether Station
* * *
Major Mancini wished he’d gone for a stronger cup of coffee, but maybe the twinge of a headache developing at the center of his forehead was a message he needed to lay off his caffeine assist. Or the headache could be the result of the encrypted message from Oxford.
“Well.” Godat scratched the back of his neck. “Six ships, maybe converging on Sierra One?”
“Not the best news, but I don’t see any reason to argue with Sinclair.” Mancini put his hand on the back of Olesen’s chair. “TAO, you’ve got the data—paint those new targets as Sierra Two through Seven.”
“Conn, TAO. Designating new marks from Oxford’s download as Sierra Two through Seven, aye.”
“Sensor Room, I want your focus expanded to these new marks but not at the expense of ignoring our immediate vicinity,” Mancini ordered. “Getting the team off Bellwether is the priority. Stopping any known or suspected League assets is gravy.”
“Conn, Sensor Room. Aye. Tracking Sierra Two through Seven won’t be a problem—they’re not exactly hiding, Skipper,” the senior chief said. “But Sierra One keeps slipping off our scans.”
“Well aware, Sensor Room. Conn out.” Mancini returned to his chair. The bridge was quiet, save for the chirps and clicks from active consoles. COB had everyone under the tight leash of silent running, but Mancini knew Tuscon’s crew could leap to action in a heartbeat. Missile tubes were loaded. CIWS was on standby. Shields would snap on at his command. He swore he could feel the stealth boat seething under restraint.
