by Terry Mixon
The man rose from the command console and allowed her to take her seat.
“Captain Vitter is overdue. I tried calling her, but I haven’t received a response. I rerouted some of the drones to cover the area around her. There are a number of Pandorans setting up what certainly looks like an ambush. I found her on a hill nearby. She’s pinned down but undiscovered.
“Also, it seems the man you wanted to meet must’ve eluded the drones we had watching the town. He’s traveling alone on the road and moving slowly, but I think he’ll reach the ambush point at about dawn. Assuming, of course, that the camping area is his true destination.”
Kelsey quickly checked the information he’d gathered. It certainly did appear as though someone had set up a very slick ambush, and the fact the man had felt he needed to sneak out of town was very interesting.
Whom had he offended? His discreet departure and the large number of people sent to kill or capture him meant there was more going on than met the eye.
“Gather the marines,” she said. “I’m heading down to the surface shortly. How much danger is there that the ambushers will find her?”
The man shrugged. “I don’t know. She’s still close to their area of operations, and they have forces between her and her fighter.”
She reviewed what the drones were seeing in real-time. There were several dozen aliens concealed in the woods around the camping area. From the way they were moving around, they could see just fine.
While a few of them were taking up positions watching the road, most were building concealment around the camping area. None of them was particularly close to where Annette was hiding, so Kelsey didn’t have to come rushing in guns blazing.
The tricky part of this was going to be extracting the pilot without alerting the aliens to her presence.
She called Angela while she considered her options.
“What’s wrong?” the marine demanded after only a moment.
“Aren’t you supposed to be asleep?” Kelsey asked. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“Marines learn to sleep with one eye open. You’re up, so there must be trouble. Fill me in while I get dressed.”
Kelsey briefed her on the situation. She concluded with an overhead map of the area around Annette with little red dots representing the potentially hostile aliens.
“I’m not quite certain how we’re going to extract Annette,” Kelsey concluded. “This is something you’re better suited to figure out.”
The doors to the lift slid open, and Angela strode onto the bridge. The com link between them terminated.
“That was quick,” Kelsey said. “I think you’ve pretty well adjusted to your new legs.”
Angela sat at her console and brought up several displays. “It’s amazing how motivated one gets when a crisis occurs. From what I can see, Annette is safe for the moment. We’ll want to get her out before dawn, though.
“The more interesting challenge is our human friend. He’s going to walk into an ambush if you don’t go tell him. He doesn’t seem like the trusting type, so I’m not sure how open he’s going to be to you just popping out of the dark.”
“That’s actually the easier of our two problems. I’m going to have the marines drop me off on the road in front of him. He’ll see me when he comes to that stretch. Humans are curious creatures. He’ll look around for a trap, but he’s going to talk.”
Angela gave her a doubtful look. “You’re going to meet him all by yourself? Don’t you think that’s a little risky?”
“I’ll be armed. If he gets froggy, I’ll stun him. With drones all around us, I’ll know where he is at every moment. With my enhanced vision, I’ll see him more clearly than he can see me.”
Kelsey smiled coolly. “And let’s not forget that I’m a Marine Raider. If he wants to fight, I’ll be moving a lot faster than him, and I’m one hell of a lot stronger. This isn’t nearly as dangerous as it seems at first glance.”
Her executive officer nodded reluctantly. “Are you going to have that conversation at the same time we’re rescuing Annette?”
“If you can come up with a good plan, yes.”
The marine smiled. “That’s actually an easy one. The forest canopy is solid, so the aliens won’t be able to see the sky very well. We’ll take one of the pinnaces over her position and lower a line. It looks as if there’s an opening in the trees a few dozen meters from her position. That’ll work just fine.”
Kelsey had to admit that was a neat solution. “Perfect. Once they get her out of the area, they can join the marines guarding me.
“Just in case the man proves more resourceful than I anticipate, the pinnaces can swoop in and drop marines on top of him in thirty seconds. They’ll be in unpowered armor, so I don’t think he’ll be much of a threat.”
That seemed to suit Angela better. “I like it.”
“Good. Let me know if the situation down there changes.”
Kelsey stepped into the lift and headed down to the tiny part of the ship set aside for marine country.
Finally. A little action.
While she hoped this didn’t turn violent, she’d felt as though she’d been boxing at shadows for the last week. She couldn’t do anything to resolve the problems besetting them. She’d felt helpless.
That changed now.
28
According to Raul’s implants, they had four hours before the sun began lightening the sky. As expected, there wasn’t very much happening at the landing field.
That wasn’t to say that everything was quiet. A number of people were up and performing various tasks as he and Veronica slipped from the edge of town and into the jungle bordering the area.
Half a dozen people clustered around one of the cutters, performing some kind of maintenance. Everything around them was well lit. That meant they’d be unable to see anything in the darkness beyond the reach of the light.
Three cutters sat in the landing zone, two buttoned up tight. They had small shelters set up nearby. Probably for crew.
Raul stopped behind a stack of crates to observe the workers. Veronica crouched beside him.
He examined the crates with a frown. “What do you think they have inside these?” he asked quietly.
The destroyer commander examined the crates as well as she could but ended up shrugging. “There’s no telling. There certainly doesn’t seem to be any reason for shipping things down here. Perhaps it’s stuff they recovered from inside the town.”
“I suppose it doesn’t really matter,” he said. “Tell me, how difficult would it be to gain access to one of the unoccupied cutters?”
“They can be opened from the outside, but you have to have the right code or be able to bypass the lockout. Graham can do it. Not while people are working on another cutter right next to him, though.”
Raul found it hard to argue with that kind of logic. No matter how they played this, they were running a serious risk. They’d have to sneak into the landing area, break into a cutter, and swap out the transponder without anyone realizing they’d ever been there.
The only way his plan had a chance of success was if the enemy never realized they’d made contact with him and his people. If they had to stun any of the workers, that would send up a huge red flag, and searchers would flood the island.
If anyone realized they’d tampered with one of the cutters, they’d be on the lookout for strange vessels. Only through complete obscurity could they waltz right past the enemy warships and steal the Dresden orbital back from them.
“Let’s slip around and take a closer look at the sealed cutters,” Veronica said. “I know Graham is going to ask me some questions, so I’d prefer to have decent answers for him.”
“What kind of questions?” Raul asked.
“The first one is whether or not those cutters are locked. It’s entirely possible they just closed them up without a code.”
Veronica eyed the workers in their bubble of light and headed over toward the parked cutter
s. She walked slowly but seemingly made no effort to hide herself.
His heart in his throat, Raul walked after her. Amazingly, they made it to the parked cutters without any issue. No one had seen them.
He stood watching the workers while Veronica stepped up beside the forward landing gear. She climbed one of the struts and meddled with something inside the opening the strut normally occupied.
She climbed back down and stepped over to him. “The maintenance hatch is unsecure. They didn’t bother arming the security system, either. I’m going in for a look. Keep an eye out in case anyone comes by.”
Veronica scampered nimbly up into the cutter.
The night was so quiet that he could almost hear what the workers were saying to one another. He pondered the risks and then moved away from the cutter until he could hear them clearly.
Once he was close enough, he knelt on the ground and listened.
For the most part, all they were doing was bantering back and forth. Trash talk, basically. He was about to give up on hearing anything interesting when one of the women asked a question.
“Any word on when we’re going to wrap up work at this site?”
An unseen companion inside the open cutter responded. “We’re supposed to be ready to pull up stakes in forty-eight hours. Word is, that’s the earliest we can leave the system. If they finished relocating all the prisoners by then.”
“You think they’ll really move all those people in two days?”
“Who the hell knows? Once they do, we can get the hell out here. If they can find the empress.”
Raul watched the woman shake her head. Based on her expression, the woman didn’t think very much of Justine.
“Ex-empress,” the woman stressed. “And don’t forget that she snuck on board our ship. She’s a criminal.”
The man inside laughed. “People like her always get away with crap that would land us in prison. She’s not a criminal. She’s a noble. Get used to it.”
The sentiment amused Raul. Apparently, some things were similar in both empires. The rich and the powerful rarely had to face the consequences of their actions.
He was still chuckling to himself when he heard a soft whine somewhere above him.
Shocked, he looked up. A bright star was moving rapidly in the heavens above and growing brighter.
Holy crap. There was a cutter coming in for landing.
Based on the layout of the field, there was a very good chance it was going to land right on top of him.
Annette felt pretty good about her chances. The aliens seemed to have settled into their various positions. Maybe she’d be able to slip away unnoticed after all.
Her flight suit wasn’t the most insulated uniform she’d ever worn, so she was thankful that she’d thrown a jacket on when she’d climbed out of her fighter. It made sitting still in the cooler air tolerable.
Things went well until she heard the aliens between her and her fighter begin moving toward the ambush location. Now they’d pass close by her position.
Annette had pegged them as reinforcements for the people out by the road. If they ran into trouble taking down their prey, no doubt the reserve provided enough force to make sure everything worked out in the end.
She wasn’t certain what had signaled them to move forward. None of the aliens overlooking the road had gone to meet them, yet the backup forces were moving forward to join their friends.
Since they were going to pass very close to her location, she made herself even smaller and got closer to the ground. She had a flechette pistol and a stunner, but she’d prefer not having to reveal herself.
That seemed good enough until she heard someone coming up the hill toward her.
Annette moved to the other side of a large tree. Conscious of every sound she made, she held her breath.
Someone came into the clearing where she’d been a moment before. She could see him stealthily moving between branches in the foliage.
She willed the man to keep moving down the hill, but he stopped. The pause was only momentary. He moved forward and started down the hill on the other side of the tree she crouched behind.
Or so she thought until someone grabbed her by the back of her jacket and yanked her off balance.
She pulled her stunner as she fell, but the alien man knocked it from her hand before slamming her to the ground and jabbing the pointy end of a knife to her throat.
Annette lay there, frozen in shock and sudden fear. The man sat on her torso, pinning one hand with his knee while he held the other one down with his free hand.
“Well, I seem to have found a little bird,” he said softly. “Don’t chirp, or I’ll be forced to hurt you.”
Astonishingly, he spoke Standard as well as she did.
She’d fallen hard, and the night-vision goggles had come loose during their struggle. They lay somewhere off in the darkness. With them gone, she couldn’t clearly see him, but she thought he was the same man who’d been in the clearing.
The two of them stared at one another for what felt like an eternity. She forced herself to relax. There was no way that she was moving him. Surrender was the only option.
“I don’t suppose I could convince you to let me up,” she said softly. “It’s a little hard to breathe down here.”
He shook his head with a small smile. “I think not. There’s too much risk you’d give me away.”
She pondered that for a moment. Give him away to whom?
“You’re not with the people down there, are you?” she asked.
“And neither, it appears, are you. This is indeed an intriguing surprise. If you aren’t with the Kalorian soldiers, then who are you with?”
“I don’t suppose I could plead ignorance?”
He chuckled softly. “You humans. You always think you’re so funny. Tell me how you knew Jacob was coming this way tonight.”
Her mind raced as she tried to think of what to say. In the end, she decided to be honest.
“Actually, we were hoping to meet Jacob away from prying ears.”
“We? Are my men going to find other humans lurking in the woods? I really don’t understand what game you think you’re playing. People are going to die before the sun comes up. Why are you hiding here in the forest?”
She opened her mouth to respond, but he pressed the knife into her throat a little. “On second thought, I don’t think I have time to hear your response right now. Don’t struggle. That will only make this hurt worse.”
He dropped the knife beside her head and reached into his jacket.
She tried to throw him off but failed. He had her pinned and obviously knew how to fight.
He pulled an object from his belt. Annette only had a moment to recognize the stunner before her world went dark.
29
Talbot left the medical center and went straight to Carl’s lab.
As he’d expected, the place was a hive of activity. They were still retrieving equipment from the Dresden orbital, and crewmen were maneuvering much of it into areas inside the massive compartment.
Carl was at the center of the activity, directing where to secure everything. Standing at his side was the former director of research on the Dresden orbital, Doctor Jacqueline Parker.
The dark-skinned woman was still an enigma to Talbot. He couldn’t begin to imagine the life she’d lived. Not from her chaotic memories of Erorsi and the savage Pale Ones as a child, to having the Rebel Empire plant explosives in her head.
Carl spotted Talbot when he was almost to them. He raised his hand in greeting. “I thought you were down on the surface looking for Kelsey’s mother.”
“I was. Hello again, Doctor Parker. Commodore Anderson called me back up to talk to someone.”
The young scientist gave him an appraising look. “Must have been important.”
“You could say that. Am I remembering rightly that you set up a copy of the manufacturing computers for testing?”
Carl’s eyes narrowed. “I did, not t
hat it’s helped very much. Why?”
“Because that means we can check something without risking the real cores. I just left Commodore Murdock. She says that she’s willing to assist us. Not only that, she told me where we might be able to get the second code required for access.”
Parker’s jaw dropped. “Are you kidding me? You got that horrible old woman to cooperate with you?”
“Did you hear about the escape, Doctor Parker?” Talbot asked.
Her expression became guarded. “I heard a little bit. The security bastard and some other Fleet officers managed to get off the ship.”
“But you didn’t hear what happened to Commodore Murdock and the other senior officers from the Dresden orbital?”
She frowned. “No. Why?”
“Because Commander Castille killed everyone except Commodore Murdock. He still managed to paralyze her from the neck down.”
The shock on Parker’s face was profound. “Oh my God. I might not have liked working for them, but most of those people were relatively decent. Castille and Murdock were the ones I couldn’t stand.”
“It’s a horrible thing,” Talbot agreed. “The only bit of good to come out of the situation is that Commodore Murdock gave me her code. Now all we need is the second code to test it.”
“If all of them are dead, who has the code?”
He pointed at her. “You do.”
The woman started laughing. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Major Talbot, they used explosives in my skull to compel me to work for them. And rest assured, when I finally became a liability, they’d have taken me somewhere and set it off. Those people wouldn’t trust me with something like that.”
“It makes a crazy kind of sense,” he disagreed. “No one would ever expect you to have it. Murdock said you had the code in case no one else was available. It’s the same one you use to access your computers as the lead researcher.”
Parker didn’t look convinced. “If you say so.”
Carl gestured toward the side of the lab. “We can verify it easily enough. Let’s step over to the manufacturing computers and give it a try.”
