"We can let you ride along, but I can't risk putting you in the middle of the action if we find him," Jacob said, wanting to reassert control over the situation. "If you're caught in the crossfire, this whole thing is for naught, and Commander Mosler will have died for nothing." That last line seemed to hit home and any argument Zadra was about to offer died on her lips.
"Agreed," she said.
"Can I talk to you a minute?" Murph asked. "Alone?"
Jacob followed the NIS agent out of the cramped galley and into the cargo hold, closing the hatch behind him. He watched as Murph disabled the hold's intercom and security surveillance at a control panel on the far bulkhead.
"What?" Jacob asked when the other man didn't say anything.
"Assuming we find Scarponi, and assuming we're in a position to get near him, what are your plans?"
"I don't follow," Jacob admitted.
"We're not assassins, Jacob," Murph said. "We're not a strike team with orders, nor are we law enforcement pursuing a fugitive. We're glorified forward observers, and we're way, way outside of our mandate with this. If you track and kill Scarponi, it's likely you'll be brought up on charges…probably the rest of us too."
"You're suggesting we capture him?"
"I'm suggesting we abandon this absurd idea and go home, but yes, barring that, I think we have to consider the fact that capturing Scarponi and dragging him back to Terran space is our only viable option," Murph said. "You're so far off the reservation right now that I think bringing him back still breathing will be the only thing keeping you out of the brig."
Jacob carefully considered what he was being told and had to concede that Murph made a solid argument against just blasting Scarponi on sight. No matter how unique Scout Fleet's mission was, they still operated within the confines of the UEAS charter and its laws. He was not given carte blanche to terminate anyone, and even being this far off-mission would likely have serious consequences no matter what the outcome was.
"You're right," he said. "This is getting complicated. I felt like Zadra's refusal to cooperate unless we get Scarponi would put him within our mission parameters of securing her, but Command likely won't see it that way."
"Not a chance," Murph agreed. "Listen, I know you're trying to do the right thing. I want Scarponi dead for what he did, too, but is it worth your career and the risk that we get someone else on your team hurt or killed?
"Ezra Mosler was a highly skilled and respected commander within Scout Fleet. It's why he was given a mission as important as trying to discreetly pull Weef Zadra out of the Reaches and bring her to Terranovus. You're not him. You're so fresh out of the Academy you squeak when you turn too fast and you've skipped a hell of a lot of training. Mosler saw some potential in you and opted to put you in the field early, but that doesn't change the fact that your inexperience could end up getting more people killed."
"Let's compromise," Jacob said, unable to refute any of Murph's points no matter how much he'd have liked to. His training at the Academy aside, he had no real-world experience for the situation he found himself in.
"I'm listening."
"We put eyes on Scarponi, determine what he's doing on Theta Suden and what strength the enemy might have there, and then we call it in. That keeps us still on the right side of that fuzzy gray line but gives Captain Webb the option of either ordering us off or to engage."
"Now you're thinking with a clear head," Murph said, grabbing Jacob's shoulder and shaking him. "I like it. Now, how do you want to deal with Zadra? Assuming she's not overridden the intercom and isn't listening right now, of course."
"We keep her in the dark for now." Jacob shrugged. "She seems a tad irrational about this, and I don't think we need another argument. In the end, if she wants to get away from whatever is chasing her and into the Avarian Empire, she's going to have to play ball one way or another."
"Agreed," Murph said. "I'd suggest that you go brief the others so they at least know we're heading to Theta Suden and we'll be infiltrating the area looking for Scarponi."
Jacob led the way out of the cargo hold, smiling at Zadra as he passed on his way to the bridge. He'd tell Sully to get them moving in the right direction and brief his team on what they'd be doing. The trick would be to hide the fact he wasn't planning on executing Scarponi from their VIP who would almost certainly be listening in.
Chapter 21
Captain Marcus Webb paced the reception area of his office like a caged animal.
A Jumper had just landed at the base's airfield, and he had been given a heads-up from an old friend in Fleet Ops that the VIP it carried was coming his way. The small craft had been given clearance right from the top to come directly to Taurus Station.
"Sir, we've just been alerted that—"
"I already know, Ensign." Webb waved off one of his aides. "Just have the admiral escorted directly to my office, please."
"Aye-aye, sir."
Webb settled in his chair, collecting his thoughts before his visitor arrived. He didn't have long to wait.
"Take your seat, Captain." Rear Admiral Kelly Remey stormed into the office, his aide barely able to get the door open for her. Webb hadn't actually been getting out of his seat so, instead, he leaned back and assumed an even more relaxed posture.
"What a pleasant surprise to see you all the way out here at Taurus Base, Admiral. I hope that—"
"Shut up, Webb," Remey said with disgust, her reputation for abruptness apparently well-earned. "I didn't fly all the way out here from Earth to waste time on small talk. I want to know how you've managed to screw up a simple contact and retrieve mission so completely that the Chief of Staff himself is asking—and I quote—'Just what the fuck is Scout Fleet doing out there anyway?'"
"I assume you're referring to the mission to transport a citizen of Ver back to Terranovus?" Webb asked.
"If that's the mission where an untrained, untested Marine second lieutenant was sent to fetch an ultra-critical intelligence asset that was to be the cornerstone of our Phase III expansion plans, then yes, that would be the one, Captain." Remey's tone was neutral, but her eyes bore into Webb with an intensity that let him know the next few minutes would likely decide the course of his career. He thought very carefully how to respond to the notoriously short-fused flag officer and, in the end, decided the direct approach was best.
"Is this a request to be briefed on the mission, Admiral? Or is this someone from UEAS Command coming out to make me dance for my dinner before I'm relieved of duty anyway?" he asked. Remey's expression was neutral so Webb couldn't tell how his answer was taken. He made a mental note to never play poker with the admiral.
"Fine," she said after a moment. "Yes, there were some decisions made back on Earth regarding your fate before I was dispatched, but I have the authority to supersede those should I deem it necessary. So, convince me why you should remain in command of NAVSOC, and keep in mind this isn't the first debacle your Scout Fleet crews have caused."
Over the span of the next ninety minutes, Webb briefed Admiral Remey on the Weef Zadra mission without bothering to try and paint himself, or his organization, in a favorable light. If he was going down, it would be for the truth. He started by showing her some redacted footage of Lieutenant Brown during combat training at the Academy to explain why Commander Mosler had agreed to take him on before he'd finished his follow-on training. From there, it was a simple matter of laying out the mission failures beginning with a One World traitor murdering a highly respected Scout Fleet commander and his decision to allow Jacob Brown to complete the mission to bring Zadra back to Terran space. Along with Brown's unique parentage, he also left out the fact that Sergeant Murphy was actually an embedded NIS agent.
"Margret Jansen!" Remey spat the name once he had finished his brief. She stood up so fast that her chair tipped over, startling Webb, and began to pace in front of the enormous window that overlooked the base.
"Did you know that I served under her? I was one of the first command
ers assigned a Columbia-class starship. That was back when alien crews were still flying them for us and Jansen was ignoring her mandate to prep Terranovus for civilian settlers and was building a battle fleet to take back to Earth and anoint herself empress."
"I…didn't know that, ma'am," Webb said carefully. The Columbia Program ships were very early in the Terranovus colonization project. Remey must have been in Jansen's inner circle to be given one of the few starships humanity possessed at that time. Did she harbor sympathies for her old boss? "I served aboard the Coronado for a short time."
"Yes, I read all about that mission," she said. "In hindsight, I suppose it's a good thing you failed."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Relax, Captain." Remey seemed to read his thoughts. "I was one of the first to turn on her once we realized what was happening. She apparently never trusted me enough to confide in me her plans for Earth, and by the time we figured it out, the fleet had already made it back to the Solar System."
"Of course, ma'am."
"So, what do we do about our current mess?" Remey picked her chair back up and sat down. Webb idly thought about how imposing she was despite barely being five foot four.
"I take it I'm not being relieved of command just yet?" Webb asked.
"Not yet," Remey said. "The story we've gotten back on Earth about this mission isn't quite what you've told me, mostly due to the nature of information coming out of NAVSOC and Scout Fleet in particular. When I was sent, we didn't actually know that it was Mosler and Team Obsidian that had been dispatched, only that some kid fresh from the Academy had been entrusted with such a vital mission and that it had gone tits up."
Webb contemplated that. His department sent regular updates that were filtered through the communications office on Vanguard Station, the main active military installation on Terranovus, before they were forwarded on to Earth. From what Admiral Remey was telling him, he either had a leak in his own office or someone was creatively editing his reports before they were passed on. Neither prospect was particularly comforting. Before he answered Remey's question, he realized there was a third option: NIS had infiltrated NAVSOC much more thoroughly than Director Welford had admitted and they were passing along supplemental information to the civilian oversight.
"Currently, the only thing we can do is wait for Lieutenant Brown to check in and verify that he has the package and is on the way back," he said. "We've recovered the Corsair but have had no direct contact with Obsidian since they…borrowed…a ship from Niceen-3 and went after the objective. I had expected them to check in well before now, however, so something may have gone wrong."
"Are you still even sure that Team Obsidian is viable? After being attacked on Niceen-3, I feel we must assume Jansen's people are tracking them somehow."
"My hope was that the change to a different, random ship, and the fact Scarponi fled, would mean they'd be able to slip away undetected," Webb said. "I've put Team Diamond on standby, but they're keeping an eye on the Eshquarian situation for us. That's critical intel we need so I'm not pulling them off unless there are no other options left."
"This is…not optimal," Remey said finally. "I hate to do this, Captain, but it looks like I'll be staying here on Taurus Station until this situation is resolved. The Navy Chief of Staff himself has asked that I be kept plugged in so that I can report to him directly."
"Understood," Webb said, unable to keep the weary sigh from his voice. "I'll see that you and your people are given office space and assigned quarters. You'll have free run of the base, of course, but I'm afraid that my duties will—"
"Yes, yes, I'm not here to interfere with you, Captain. I'm merely an observer. Thank you for not making an issue of this," Ramey said, standing and smoothing out her uniform. She nodded to him and walked to the door, pausing just before she opened it. "Just so you're not surprised when it happens, if this mission ends in failure and we lose the asset, someone will have to burn for it."
"And that person will be me," Webb finished for her. "Trust me, Admiral, I'm well aware of that."
"Nothing personal," she said before leaving the office and closing the door behind her.
Webb turned and looked out the window, his calm demeanor belying the storm churning in his gut. How had this gotten so out of control? He'd picked Mosler's unit so that it would be a discreet and precise execution of what was a fairly simple mission despite how important it was. Now, it was an all-out cluster fuck that would likely drag down most of NAVSOC's leadership before it was over, and if he'd managed to get Jacob Brown killed, he could look forward to a slow, agonizing death at Jason Burke's hands on top of being drummed out of the Navy. It was days like this that made him miss the simplicity of being an operator just following orders. His more immediate concerns, however, were how to manage NAVSOC's myriad clandestine ops with some pencil pusher from Earth looking over his shoulder the entire time.
"At least that's something I can control." He jabbed a button on his desk to summon his aide.
"Yes, Captain?"
"Have the Kentucky prepped for immediate departure. Tell Commander Duncan I want to be breaking orbit the moment my shuttle lands in the hangar bay," Webb said, referring to the command and control ship that was reserved for his personal use. "Make sure Orbital Control knows that this is not to be a logged departure, classified on my authority."
"Aye, sir," his aide said smartly before disappearing.
While the admiral would no doubt pester his staff and poke around his offices trying to look for a way to pin Team Obsidian's probable mission failure on him, he would be aboard one of NAVSOC's C&C ships, able to manage his deployed crews while avoiding any direct interference from Earth's two-star lackey.
Theta Suden was a shithole.
The others had tried to prepare Jacob for what he'd encounter on the surface of the dingy, dim moon, but the reality was so much worse once the gunboat had touched down on the landing pad. As the boarding ramp lowered from the side of the ship, the smell rushed in and assaulted his nose like nothing he'd ever experienced. He now knew each place had its own unique ambient smell, but this was so persistent and strong he found it almost unbearable, so much worse than Niceen-3.
"I swear you'll get used to it," MG laughed. "The first few places you land it seems like the smell is going to drive you insane, but after a few missions you barely even notice it. Pretty soon, your nose will be so tough that you'll be able to walk into the head after Mettler and barely gag."
"I doubt that," Taylor said.
"Fuck you both," Mettler grumbled.
"Alright, alright, let's get focused," Jacob said, still feeling a bit overwhelmed by the pungent odor that was the pervading smell of Theta Suden's atmosphere. They'd landed the gunboat at an auxiliary pad that was half a kilometer away from the city's main starport and, after bribing the customs inspector to ignore all the weaponry the crew carried, had managed to secure a vehicle large enough for all of them.
There were many logical holes in Weef Zadra's story about wanting to nail Scarponi because he was a security risk to her personally, but Jacob had been unable to pull any more details out of her during the flight to the smelly moon. She remained adamant that she had to eliminate the loose ends before she would be able to make a clean break from ConFed space. Jacob knew Murph had been right and that it was virtually impossible that Scarponi hadn't already checked in with his One World handlers and told them she was the mission objective. Even that assumed they hadn't already known all along. The strike team they took out at her office may have been there for her, not them. He also had reservations about her insistence that she and Mosler were such close friends.
"Are you sure you want to bring her along?" Murph nodded at Zadra as the automated ground vehicle rolled to a stop behind the ship.
"We don't know whether or not the enemy knows about this ship," Jacob said. "For the time being, I think she's safer with us…unless there's something you aren't telling me about where we're going."
"
It's a disused NIS safe house," Murph said. "We still maintain it, but I can't guarantee its integrity given all the fucking leaks in both organizations we work for."
"I still can't believe you're some NIS douche bag sent to spy on us, Murph," MG said.
"Stow it." Jacob waved him off. "We'll hit the safe house first and see if it's still viable. After that, we have thirty-six hours to track down Scarponi before I'll have no choice but to call in our location and status to Command."
The tension between his Marines and Agent Murphy had been simmering since Niceen-3 and had just recently begun to boil over. MG and Mettler in particular seemed to view it as a complete betrayal by someone they had trusted, never mind that Murph had just been following orders like the rest of them. Given Jacob’s newness to the team and his status as an untested, green officer, they had roundly ignored him when he tried to settle things between them. By the time they reached Theta Suden, he'd given up on any sort of unity and had settled on just keeping them from physically assaulting one another.
"I assume you want me staying with the ship?" Sully asked as they loaded up the vehicle with equipment. The pilot had kept to himself most of the flight and seemed content to just fly the ship and not make an issue of the fact he technically outranked the Marine lieutenant walking around barking orders.
"That's probably best," Jacob said. "Keep her ready to fly in a moment's notice since I can't guarantee we won't be running for our lives soon."
"Comforting," Sully said and trudged back up the ramp.
Jacob had Murph program their destination into the semi-autonomous ground vehicle that had pulled up to their landing pad while he and the others began stuffing gear into the back. He'd commented to Mettler that he was half-expecting to see the skies blanketed with flying cars given the level of technology available on most planets rather than so many mundane wheeled vehicles. The Marine had explained that grav-lev and repulsor drive vehicles were used extensively only on the wealthiest of ConFed planets. Everywhere else, it was considered a vulgar waste of resources and was eschewed in favor of the efficiency of wheeled vehicles and mag-lev mass transit. It made sense to Jacob after he stopped to really think about it. While the technology was certainly available, it still required a lot of energy to safely levitate a few tons of vehicle and cargo. In fact, once you got out away from the major port cities, most planets didn't look all that much more advanced than Earth had been before the first alien attack that had changed the course of their history.
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