"I'm sending you help," Webb said without any preamble or greeting when the slip-com channel stabilized. Jacob had been startled when the captain answered the call personally. "To be more accurate, I screwed up and mentioned you were in a bit of trouble, and help is now coming to you whether you want it to or not."
"I don't understand, sir."
"That could be the title of your autobiography, Lieutenant," Webb sighed. "You'll figure it out when they get there. The reason I'm giving you warning is that I don't want you moving from Colton Hub until they get there. Also—and this is very goddamn important—keep as much control over them as you can. We cannot afford an incident with these guys."
"I think I know who's coming, sir," Jacob said, exhaling in relief. At first, he'd thought Webb had told his father about his predicament and that Jason Burke was going to come swooping in to save the day again. The last comment by his CO told him it wasn't Omega Force on its way…but someone who could be equally destructive. "Which ones are coming?"
"Three of them. The only one I know for sure is their leader since the others never introduced themselves," Webb said. "Just keep in mind they're there to assist, but you're in command of the ground team. That means you get the blame if they go off script and wipe out an entire deck. Webb out."
The terminal blanked out before Jacob could even tell him what they'd found out about their new contact or what their plan was to retrieve the information Fleet Ops wanted. He realized Webb either knew there were severe leaks in his organization and didn't want the information broadcast through the Kentucky's com system, or Obsidian was so far off-mission that he wanted plausible deniability when the court martials started. There was also the slim chance that Webb was beginning to trust him and allow him to work within the loose command structure the rest of Scout Fleet did, calling his own shots and being largely left alone to get results.
"Ready?" Murph asked when Jacob stepped out of the cramped com room.
"Ready."
After briefing the team about their incoming assistance, the ground team geared up, anxious to get started. MG and Jacob walked down the ramp and into the sweltering, fetid air of the hangar bay. It was a medium-sized public hangar, with only nine other ships currently in it, but room for eighteen more. Sully had already been outside, talking to the ground crews and making arrangements for fuel as well as hooking up external power to the ship. He gave them a casual wave as they rounded the corner of the port engine nacelle and headed for the exit into the station.
The hangar exit dumped them into a wide, crowded corridor lined on either side with carts and booths on the way to one of the six main promenades on Colton Hub, where the bulk of commerce took place. Despite its reputation, there was still a decent amount of legitimate business that took place there, and these were the areas it happened. All of the illegal stuff was still kept out of sight, save for the flagrant narcotic use by the station's citizens, right out in the open in front of an indifferent security force.
"Second stairwell," Jacob said. All of them had a map of the local area, as well as their mission objectives loaded into their neural implants. MG just nodded and moved towards the opening to the stairs while Jacob scanned ahead for any threats. Despite all the laughter and normalcy of people going about their business, there was an undercurrent of danger and tension Jacob couldn't shake. He felt like a mouse in a maze while people watched who had little interest if he lived or died, only that he gave them what they wanted.
Zult Deck was directly below the Promenade Deck and was the first peek for the Obsidian crew at the seedy nature of Colton Hub. Most of the spaces on the deck were meant to support commerce taking place above so there was the expected storage and administrative nooks dotting the passageways. There were also some sights that made Jacob bristle, and he had to remind himself, forcefully, that he wasn't here to save the galaxy, he was here to do a job for his homeworld.
In one of the alcoves, there were aliens being kept in individual cages while someone in charge gave instructions on where each was going. The pair made jokes while trying to guess which were being sold into slavery and which were being offered on the menu later. Jacob looked over and shook his head at MG when he noticed the big weaponeer had much the same reaction he did once he realized what he was seeing.
Some of the other sights included drug dens, narcotic distribution on a scale that went well beyond recreational, and black-market weapons sales where powered carts loaded down with military-grade munitions were tagged for delivery to various ships. Jacob just shook his head and kept walking. The public Nexus access was up ahead, and it only had a few beings milling about, talking over the slip-com system or digging through pages of information.
The specific terminal kiosk they'd been instructed to use was, thankfully, open, and Jacob was able to quickly pay for a couple hours of use and put the data card onto the machine's pad so it could be read. The minutes dragged on with no indication anything was happening, and he was afraid that either the card had been damaged or the contact had been spooked somehow.
"Ah! There you are." The voice emanating from the terminal spoke in unaccented Jenovian Standard, and there was no accompanying image so Jacob could see who spoke to him.
"Here we are," Jacob said. "We gonna make this deal or what?"
"How many are you bringing?"
"Just me and my partner here," Jacob said.
"And you have what I was promised?"
"I have an item I've ferried from Pinnacle Station to Colton Hub…beyond that, I have no idea what it is or if it's what you want. That's between you and the guild master who gave it to me for transport."
"Pragmatic stance for a smuggler," the voice said. "Very well…come to the place displayed on your screen, and I will pay the rest of your fee for the cargo."
"See you soon," Jacob said, switching off the terminal after the location was loaded into his neural implant.
"I like how you said that ominously…like you're just itching to go in there and fuck him up," MG said. Jacob ignored the jab and checked his loadout one more time.
"We need to go back up," he said. "Two levels above the Promenade Deck."
"Elevators are over there," MG said. Jacob thought it over and saw no particular risk with the station lifts as opposed to laboring up all those stairs.
"Take point," Jacob said before keying in on the short-range team radio. "Form up. We're taking a lift to our next destination, and I don't want us all spread out."
If it wasn't for the fact that they were all human, the two groups looked completely disassociated from each other. The pairs were dressed in such a way they naturally looked like two distinct groups. Murph and Mettler didn't speak to Jacob or MG as they walked into the large cargo lift car since they couldn't be sure how thorough their buyer's surveillance was.
"It's close. This way," Jacob nodded to his left as he and MG exited the car. They would walk slowly while the other two went up one more level, and then took the stairs back down to fall in behind them again. If anyone noticed, it would almost look like Murph and Mettler were tailing the other two with the intent of jacking them.
When they reached the section of offices where their contact was, something seemed…off. The lead team proceeded with caution, MG pulling a sidearm and keeping it by his side while Jacob had his hand inside his long jacket, gripping his own weapon. The door they needed was partially open when they reached it. Jacob nodded to MG, and the pair pulled out their main weapons: short-barreled plasma carbines that didn't have a ton of power, but were great for close quarters combat.
"Go!" Jacob said, shoving the door open and letting MG rush inside even as he cut the corner to cover his partner's back. The smell in the office was pretty bad, and Jacob had suspicions what that meant.
"Clear!" MG called from the back room. "Smelly, but clear."
"Anything interesting?"
"A desk, some weird looking chair, a picture of a planet with a red sky… Oh! And another dead alien on the f
loor."
"Funny," Jacob said, lowering his weapon. "That's it. I'm pulling the plug on this mission. NAVSOC is going to have to send—"
BOOM!
Jacob was thrown off his feet by the explosion, and MG was stunned, losing his balance, and toppling over. Jacob tried to turn his head and see what happened, but when he did, he looked down the business end of someone's heavy blast pistol, a weapon that would evaporate his head if the owner flicked the firing stud.
"Can you hear me?" a voice that sounded like it was at the end of a tunnel called.
"Who are you?" Jacob demanded, stalling until MG could get to his feet. His partner had been a room over and behind a desk when he'd gone down so, with any luck, he'd shake off what Jacob assumed had been a stun grenade much sooner than he'd be able to.
"You can call me Tulden, Jacob Brown. I'm with ConFed Intelligence…and I've been waiting for you."
14
"Terrific."
"Lose the weapons," Tulden said. Jacob did as he was told, tossing aside his primary weapon and both sidearms.
"ConFed Intelligence, huh? How long have you been tracking us?"
"Tracking you? Don't flatter yourself, human. I was waiting here for weeks to see who would deliver the data core to this drop point. So…where is it?" Tulden asked. He had a relaxed competency about him, holding his weapon ready and positioning himself to cover the doors and Jacob at the same time.
"You don't think I'd have been stupid enough to bring it with me, do you?" Jacob asked, now losing hope that MG was in any shape to try and get the drop on the agent. "This isn't my first smuggling gig, chief. That core isn't even on this—"
"You're not a smuggler, Jacob Brown," Tulden said wearily. "You're a member of Earth's clandestine military force that works separately from the Cridal Cooperative. Oh…you probably want to warn the two members of your team you had trailing you to hold off. There's an anti-personnel mine in the corridor I'd hate for them to trip."
"Bravo Team, hold position," Jacob keyed his mic. "Back off and find cover, do not approach the objective."
"Copy," Mettler's voice came back immediately.
"Smart," Tulden said. "No point in wasting men on a doomed rescue charge."
"I appreciate the warning about the mine," Jacob said, deciding that antagonizing the agent would be both fruitless and foolish. "So…now what?"
"You're new to all this, aren't you?" Tulden asked, lowering his weapon slightly but not putting it away. "You seem competent enough as a soldier, but you're not quite as sensitive to the details you should be if you had experience in clandestine operations."
"New enough." Jacob shrugged. He sensed he was treading on dangerous ground. ConFed Intelligence wasn't something to be trifled with, and a wrong move or answer on his part could have bigger consequences than just his brains blown out. "How did you know someone would be coming here with the data core?"
"Got a tip-off," Tulden said. "They had some backchannel contacts through my organization, and I was alerted that a human crew posing as smugglers had obtained the core, slipped the blockade at Pinnacle, and was heading for Colton Hub. It was one of your people, actually…a human." Jacob blinked in surprise at that.
"The fact you're telling me that doesn't make me super confident you're going to let us live," he said. "So, why should I even pretend to consider turning over the core?"
"Let's speak plainly," Tulden said. "I know the reputation ConFed agents have, but I'm not particularly fond of killing just for the sake of killing. In this case, I think we have an opportunity to be mutually beneficial. We both get what we want, we both walk away still breathing. Interested?"
"I'm listening," Jacob said.
"You likely have no idea what's on that data core, but I do…and I need it back. What I think you're after is the location of the rogue fleet that attacked Miressa Prime, and you likely heard it was spotted in this area. Let me take another guess and say you want to know where that fleet is because there are still human ships with it and you don't want any reprisal from the ConFed for their actions. Am I close?"
"I'd prefer not to confirm or deny anything at this point," Jacob said. "But I'm still listening."
"Of course," Tulden laughed. "So, instead of poking around in the dark, you give me the core, and I tell you the last known location of the fleet?"
"If you knew where they were, then the ConFed fleet would have already been here in force," Jacob scoffed. "I'm not that new to this."
"The small fleet that attacked the capital is immaterial," Tulden said. "We're trying to find out who supports them, who is backing them. Logistics wins wars, Lieutenant Brown. More than ships and soldiers, being able to outspend your enemy and keep pumping materiel into a fight is what wears them down, breaks them. We find their backers, we stop a civil war before it even starts without wasting our own ships."
"You're an intel spook and a professor of military doctrine?" Jacob said, slipping into old habits with the sarcasm. "I'll go so far as to confirm we’re looking for the rebel fleet that attacked the capital system, but for reasons I won't divulge to a foreign operative. The thing that's bothering me is that this is all a little unorthodox. A single agent lying in wait, ambushing us, and then immediately trying to cut a deal? What's your angle here?"
"Let's just say that, if I can accomplish my mission where others have failed miserably, I would be in a very good position within my division," Tulden said. Jacob had to suppress a laugh…bureaucratic back-stabbing was, apparently, a universal trait, and Tulden just outed himself as a glory hog. He wanted the big prize all to himself so he could move himself ahead in the game.
Jacob was at one of those crossroads Commander Mosler had warned him about before his untimely death. There was no manual, no operational instruction, and no specific orders to fall back on to tell him what the right choice was here. If he screwed it up, however, the Navy and the Marine Corps would throw him to the wolves. He'd likely see prison if this went badly.
Taking stock of what he had, he had to concede that the data core wasn't useful to him despite its importance to others. He couldn't access it, had no idea what might be on it, and didn't even know specifically who it was supposed to go to. The ConFed agent already knew about human ships in the rebel fleet, had already known they were coming, and he apparently got the information from one of their own. On the surface, this seemed like a reasonably safe risk despite the fact he didn't trust Tulden any further than he could throw him. The agent coughed up just the information he needed too quickly, and at a time where he held all the advantages. He didn't even try to squeeze Jacob for the core, just came out offering a deal.
"Any chance you could tell me what's on that core that's so important you're offering me such a sweet deal for it?" Jacob asked.
"No chance at all," Tulden said. "If you're in, you need to decide quickly because, if you're not—" he waved the weapon he held meaningfully, "I'll need to get to work on getting that core the hard way."
"Just to be clear, I give you the core, you give me the fleet location," Jacob said. "I'd also like to toss in the human's name who gave us up, as well as assurances from you that human involvement in this insurrection will be erased or severely downplayed." Tulden seemed to think it over for a few moments.
"Not unreasonable," he said finally. "The fact that there were a couple human ships in the Cridal strike force is already common knowledge, but I can spin that to your advantage. I also can't give you the name of the person who sold you out because they never gave it to us. What I can do is go back through the dispatch I received and give you the slip-com node address they sent it from."
"That's better than nothing, I suppose," Jacob said. "How do you want to do the trade?"
"I'll be at your ship in three hours," Tulden said. "Is that sufficient time for you to retrieve the core and have it there?"
"Barely, but I'll make it work," Jacob said, keeping up the ruse that the core was masterfully hidden somewhere clever when the truth wa
s, he had just left it sitting on the ship.
"No tricks," Tulden warned. "I'm no fool, and you won't be able to take me by surprise."
"Got it," Jacob said. Tulden turned and left without another word, walking through the door and turning left, taking him away from where Murph and Mettler were posted.
"Bravo Team, Alpha Two is down. Close on my position but move slow and scan for any explosive devices." He assumed Tulden had deactivated the mines when he left, but he hadn't said anything about it before disappearing.
Murph and Mettler appeared in the doorway a moment later, both looking confused. Jacob just pointed over to where MG was just stirring, waving them away when they tried to help him up. The pair picked the weaponeer up after righting the desk, sitting him down on it so Mettler could examine him.
"He got his bell rung," the medic said after a moment. "Likely mild concussion, nothing serious."
"Feels serious," MG slurred.
"It would be for someone with a normal brain," Mettler said. "But you'll be fine."
"Douche."
"What happened, LT?" Murph asked.
"Ambushed. ConFed Intelligence was waiting on us—and they knew it was us coming—and we just walked right into the trap," Jacob said, groaning as he climbed to his feet. He'd not had time to fully heal from his previous misadventures before the stun grenade scrambled his insides again. "I really need to get a new hobby besides having my internal organs damaged by blunt force trauma."
"ConFed Intelligence was here? As in, an agent was here? And you're still alive?" Murph asked.
"We cut a deal," Jacob said. "He knows roughly where the fleet is, but ConFed Intel is chasing the money backers before hitting them. They want that data core back really bad, and he's willing to give us the location and downplay Earth's involvement if we hand it over. He seems to be a bit of a pragmatist and isn't keen on torturing all of us if he doesn't have to."
Boneshaker Page 12
