by Terry Mixon
She had to admit he made quick work of them. They had no chance to stop his explosive attack.
Not that she had time to watch. She whirled and threw herself at his guards. All of her hand-to-hand training came to her rescue with a spinning back kick that caught one of them in the head. He dropped without a sound.
Two of her officers took out the final man just as quickly.
Veronica expected the overhead alarms to begin screaming, but they were silent. The guards had not gotten an alert out before they’d gone down. That was an unexpected bit of good luck. The original plan had called for them to retreat as quickly as possible while the ship searched for them.
Castille shot all four men with the stunner he’d appropriated. They quickly stashed the unconscious marines in a handy compartment. He’d chosen a section of the ship with less traffic, and fortune had favored them with no inconvenient witnesses.
“Where is the Commodore?” she asked.
“She won’t be joining us. She and the rest of the orbital staff will be staying here. Don’t worry. They’ll keep their mouths shut.”
That might mean a number of different things. Veronica hoped it was just mulishness on the commodore’s part and not something more sinister.
Still, she had to admit that she felt some relief at avoiding close quarters with the obnoxious woman. A single visit had convinced her that she wanted nothing to do with Murdock.
Since they all wore Fleet uniforms, no one raised an eyebrow as they headed for the landing bay. She could only barely suppress her paranoia. Everyone they passed seemed to be staring at them.
Castille stepped next to her. “That went well.”
“Better than I’d expected,” she admitted. “I hope we’re able to appropriate a cutter before they discover we’ve escaped.”
“Me too,” he admitted. “From everything I’ve heard they’re busy exploring the planet below us. There are a number of cutters going up and down. We should be able to insert ourselves into the traffic without too much trouble.”
“I love your confidence.”
Unfortunately, she didn’t share it. The odds of them being able to hijack a cutter without the pilot giving an alarm were low. In that case, they’d have to make a run for it anyway, but they’d have other ships in pursuit. There would be no chance to hide themselves on the planet’s surface.
The landing bay was just as large as she’d remembered. It obviously serviced a lot of small craft.
It only took a moment to pick out a cutter that was just coming in for a landing near them. She gestured for the pilot to open the boarding ramp as he settled down, and he nodded.
She led her people up the ramp as if she belonged there. Two marines stood in the center of the cutter, bracketing a well-dressed woman. Based upon the restraints, she was a prisoner.
Interestingly, Veronica didn’t detect cranial implants in the woman. She was obviously of the lower orders. Why was she here? What did she know?
One of the marines pushed the woman a step forward. “We’ll turn her over to you, Commander.”
“Yes, you will.” She shot him with her stunner.
Her executive officer took out his partner before the first man even finished collapsing.
The woman opened her mouth to say something, but Veronica shot her too.
Castille sprinted toward the cockpit and stunned the pilot. A quick search of the cutter verified that no one else was aboard.
Veronica stepped back out to the cutter and looked around. No one seemed to be paying any attention to them. Excellent.
She made her way to the cockpit as they secured the prisoners and closed the cutter up. A query of her implants revealed the cutter wasn’t locked.
“It’s not secured,” she said through the open hatch. “The good luck just keeps coming. I’ve accessed the communications log. I have their call sign.”
With a deep breath, she initiated communications with flight control.
“Control, this is foxtrot seven five two requesting departure.”
“Stand by, foxtrot seven five two.”
For a moment, she worried the man had realized it wasn’t the same person speaking to him. Then he continued. “You are cleared for outbound departure, foxtrot seven five two.”
“Copy that. Thank you, Control.”
She deftly lifted the cutter off the deck and turned it toward the exit. A gentle application of acceleration slid them smoothly outside of the ship. They were in space.
Other cutters were moving back and forth between the ships and the planet. It seemed that their destination was on the other side of the planet. That was good enough for her. She fell in behind one of the other cutters and followed it around.
Many of the cutters headed toward a series of islands, but she saw one rising from a much larger island that was significantly farther away from the first cluster. Perfect.
Based on the level of traffic, that other location would be a much better hiding place. It also had a large volcano near the center of the island. It must’ve been inactive, because there was a large lake filling it.
Even better.
Once the cutter she’d seen departing the island was out of scanner range, she changed course and darted toward the volcano.
It had experienced a significant eruption at some point in the distant past. One side of the caldera had blown out. The lake that filled the interior came up right to the edge.
Her scanners couldn’t detect how deep the water was, but that was kind of the point. Once she submerged, no one would find them that easily. They could hide out at the bottom and wait for their enemies to depart.
The interior of the volcano was interesting. It seemed as though they were not the only visitors. Someone had taken the time to carve a deep ledge at the base of the caldera near the water line.
With the missing side, the water would never rise high enough to flood it. Interestingly, the pocket was deep enough to land a cutter in. With all the stone all around it, no external signals would be able to reach the cutter.
That meant their enemies would be unable to detect or control the cutter remotely. It only took a moment for her to make the decision to change their course.
She brought the cutter inside the large landing area—for that was exactly what it appeared to be—and settled on the flat stone.
She shut down the cutter’s systems and ordered her officers to locate and disconnect the power supplies from all systems. That way no signals would go out, and it wouldn’t respond to remote commands.
The ramp lowered. A minute later, the consoles went dark. They were safe.
She smiled at Castille as she came into the back. “I didn’t think we’d pull it off. Congratulations. Your plan was brilliant.”
He grinned back at her. “I wish I could say that I hadn’t had my own doubts, but I’d be lying. What is this place?”
Veronica shrugged. “The only way to know for sure is to go take a look. Our guests will be out for a few more hours.”
To say the interior of the landing area was gloomy would be something of an understatement. The reflected sunlight cast some illumination inside the hollowed-out landing area, but not nearly enough to see much detail.
She searched the compartments inside the cutter until she found a stash of handheld lights. Once everyone had taken one for themselves, she stepped out onto the landing pad.
It was obviously man-made. The stone was far too smooth to be natural. The scuff marks indicated other vessels had landed here in the past.
The rear of the landing area had a standard Imperial hatch imbedded in the wall. The mystery deepened. What the hell was this place?
“What do you mean they’ve escaped?” Talbot demanded.
He’d barely had time to step on board Audacious to brief the commodore when the marine acting as the head of the carrier’s security element cornered him.
Lieutenant Yvonne Gutierrez shrank a little. “We don’t know yet, Major. Their guards went to
relieve the duty marines and couldn’t find them. An implant search led to a compartment near the officers’ mess. We’re searching the ship. We’ll find them.”
The woman took a deep breath. “They didn’t all escape. Commander Castille killed the senior staff from the orbital. Commodore Murdock was the only survivor. He broke her neck, but she was still alive.
“I called an emergency medical team, and they managed to resuscitate her. No word on if she’ll make it, but someone wanted them all dead.”
He resisted the impulse to curse. It wouldn’t help. No matter how good it might feel. “I want to know the moment you find them. Get more marines to the flight deck too.”
“Aye, sir.”
He headed for the lift. This was just terrific. How in the world had they managed to turn the tables on their guards?
There’d been a risk of trouble when they’d agreed to allow them to access to the ship. Never in his wildest dreams had he envisioned them actually escaping.
He sighed. Well, there was no getting around it. He needed to explain this to the commodore.
Minutes later, he arrived to find the flag bridge in a state of almost chaos. Zia turned to him. “Do we know what happened?”
“Not precisely. It seems they overpowered all four guards without an alarm getting out.”
Commodore Anderson said something not suitable for a senior officer. “I’m looking at the flight logs now. We’ve had a lot of cutters land and take off. With ferrying people away from the Dresden orbital, a lot of boats stop here to pick up things to take down to the surface.”
One of her officers raised his head. “Ma’am, I’ve identified a cutter than never returned to base. It’s not answering any of our calls, and I’m not getting a transponder ping.”
Talbot checked the information through his implants. “It looks like the cutter came from Persephone.”
The commodore frowned. “What the heck would they be doing here? I’ll ping them.”
After a few moments, her face paled. “Oh crap. They were bringing Kelsey’s mother. Apparently, she’d raised hell, so they were sending her over to spend a few days in a real cell.”
He stared at the planet on the main display. “They have her, then. Somewhere down there. Kelsey is going to go ballistic.”
“And with every reason,” Zia said. “We’ll get every boat we have searching for them. We’ll find them.”
Talbot wished he believed that, but he didn’t. They’d underestimated the prisoners. Now they’d pay the price for their arrogance.
18
Kelsey stared at Zia through the communications screen on her desk. “What do you mean they’ve kidnapped my mother?”
Her voice was so calm that it felt as if she were watching her reaction from the sidelines.
Zia’s mouth turned downward. “It seems that our prisoners came up with a grand plan to take out one another’s guards. Commander Castille and Commander Giguere arrived at a certain cross corridor at the same moment. That allowed each group to attack the other’s guards.
“We didn’t foresee this level of coordination. We should have had more stringent monitoring and additional guards.”
Kelsey let out a long, slow breath. “There’ll be plenty of time to lose my temper later. How long have they been gone?”
“Over an hour. Closer to two. All indications are that they’ve gone to ground on the planet. The landing zones were on the other side of the planet from Audacious, so we didn’t see precisely where they went.
“I’ve diverted all available cutters to begin an in-depth search. If it were me, I’d have submerged the cutter in water just off a coast. That would eliminate the possibility that our scanners would pick them up. All they have to do at this point is wait. Sooner or later, we’re going to leave.”
Kelsey felt her lips compress. “I’m not going anywhere without my mother. She might be a huge pain in my ass, but she’s my mother. Deploy as many marines as you feel comfortable with down to the surface. I want every island scoured from one end to the other. Leave no cranny unexplored.”
Zia nodded. “Already in progress. Kelsey, I’m really sorry.”
The princess sighed. “The precautions sounded reasonable to me too. It’s easy to forget that we’re not the only people that can pull off miraculous escapes. They didn’t hurt their guards, so it’s unlikely they’ll hurt my mother.
“We’ll find them. It’s just going to be a matter of searching for a needle in a haystack. Do the best you can and keep me informed.”
“Aye, ma’am,” Zia said. “Audacious out.”
Kelsey buried her face in her hands. Oh God. How could one little woman cause her so much trouble?
Intellectually, she knew that her mother wasn’t to blame for this particular incident. That didn’t stop her from blaming her emotionally. That was unfair, but it was going to take Kelsey a long time before she saw her mother differently.
Her implants chimed with another incoming call. This time from Carl. She put him on the screen.
“You better not have bad news,” she said bluntly.
He raised an eyebrow. “Why? Are you getting lots of bad news right now? Anything I should know about?”
“You first.”
“Okay. We think we’ve got the flip tuner worked out. I have a prototype installed on a regular probe that we can test. If, of course, you think that’s okay.”
She sat up straighter. “That’s good news. The probes we left in the other system say it’s empty right now. How do we need to do this? How does this even work?”
The young scientist seemed to consider for a moment how to phrase his answer. “In a general sense, the flip tuner focuses the energy put out by the flip drive into a narrow band of frequencies. With a regular flip point, that’s not necessary. It only has one destination.
“With a multiflip point, there are alternate paths that—supposedly—a ship can transit. We have to fine-tune where the energy resonates. The frequency of the vibration is what I believe makes one path more likely than another.”
Kelsey didn’t pretend to know much at all about flip-point physics. “If you say so. Are we even certain that there are multiple destinations available to us?”
Carl shrugged. “Theoretically, yes. Practically? We won’t know until we find one. At this point, I have no way of scanning a multiflip point to determine how many potential destinations it has or even what frequencies would work to get us there. The science is too immature. Perhaps once we’ve used this one, the process will become clearer.”
“We’ll double check with the probes on guard in the other system first. We absolutely do not want to transit something they might detect through that flip point.”
“Got it,” he said. “Now, what bad news is raining on your parade?”
“The senior officers from the destroyer and Commander Castille from the orbital escaped. They’re somewhere on the planet. Worse, they got their hands on my mother, two marines, and a cutter pilot.”
Carl winced. “Okay, that’s bad news. Do you think they’re in any danger?”
“Realistically? No. Of course, all that changes if my mother won’t shut up. They might just shoot her to keep her quiet.”
The young man laughed a little. “They may not be our Fleet, but I think they have the restraint to avoid something like that. Particularly since they’re probably worried we’ll find them.”
“Do you have anything in your bag of tricks that might allow us to find them more easily?”
“Nothing springs to mind, but I’ll give it a little bit of thought. Also, I have one other bit of good news. The researchers that we liberated are working with me to help bypass the lockouts on the manufacturing equipment. No guarantees, but they’re a pretty smart bunch. We might manage to get everything working in spite of the lockout.”
“If there’s anything that I can do to help, just let me know,” Kelsey said. “What about an AI? Did they have enough equipment on the orbital to actually bu
ild one?”
“I sent some of the engineering people from Audacious to look, but they didn’t find anything. Well, not AI hardware like we’ve seen before anyway. They did find some equipment that might be connected with the AI project, but I’m not ready to talk about it until I’m sure what I have. It might prove useful, but it might just be a curiosity too.”
“Understood. Great work.”
The young man smiled. “Thank you. Which ship am I going out to the flip point on? Persephone or Audacious?”
As much as she wanted to stay close by, Kelsey knew that Zia could conduct the search more effectively than she could.
“I’ll take you out there. I need something to distract me. I’ll call the bridge and get us moving.”
Once Kelsey finished talking with him, she got the ship under way and leaned back in her chair. Why did life have to be so complicated?
Annette brought her fighter into a flat arc over the island Talbot had found. The scanners registered a number of ships and people, but tagged them all as friendlies. The missing cutter was nowhere in sight.
That meant it was either somewhere under the water or on another island entirely.
Frankly, “island” was the wrong word to use in describing this place. It might be smaller than a continent, but it was certainly larger than what she considered an island. If they had to search it closely, they’d be working for months.
The escaped prisoners had an entire planet to hide on. There was no way they were going to discover them unless they got lucky.
With a sigh, she brought up a plot of the general area and looked at how the squadron was deployed. Some of the fighters were covering other portions of the island, while the rest scanned as deeply into the water as they could, looking for any anomalies.
She made a wide circle around the volcano at the center of the island. It was a little too prominent to be the escaped prisoners’ chosen hideout, but it paid to be thorough.
The scanners penetrated the rock deeply enough to be certain that it was natural stone. A few lava tubes were large enough to show up on the scans. No unusual metals.
