With that the Chief’s face went white. “You have that sort of equipment?” Lovell asked, first looking at Mattie, then at Red.
“On my ship, sir,” Red said.
Then he motioned that the Chief move over out of earshot of the other offices with him and Mattie.
She knew what he was doing and it was a risk, but one they needed to take at the moment.
Red, in hushed tones, quickly described to Lovell the basics of what Carson had found and how an attack was probably due soon.
“A fleet of ships in The Emptiness?” the Chief asked. “I thought they were only a myth.”
“You know something about them?” Mattie asked.
“Just a little,” he said. “Nothing solid at all.”
Something still wasn’t adding up to Mattie. But at least they were another step closer.
The Chief’s face went pale. “You think that’s one of their scout ships?”
Red said, “We need to find out, don’t you think?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MATTIE WAS JUST AS STUNNED at Red’s ship as she was with the suite he had rented. It was sleek and just sitting in the dock looked fast. And it was much, much larger than it looked.
“Wow,” she said as she entered and saw the plush blue carpet and light wood walls in the wide hallway that led through the middle of the ship toward a wide recreation room in one direction and toward the front of the ship in the other.
It had a fresh meadow smell. There was faint jazz music playing in the background. “How big is this ship? It feels more like a liner. And do you keep the music playing all the time?”
Red laughed and turned toward the front of the ship and she followed.
“Music and lights come on when I key in my password on the door. It can hold thirty people comfortably with everyone having their own bedroom.”
“But you travel in this alone?” she asked. “No crew, no help?”
“None needed,” he said. “This is basically my home and normally in port I stay here on the ship. But I had heard about the nebula views and wanted to be closer to where Carson was staying this time.”
With the mention of Carson’s name she didn’t say anything more and neither did Red. But there was no doubt she felt comfortable in this ship. Completely.
Her entire home back at the Sector Force headquarters was close to the size of this ship and, when there she loved it, loved being able to be alone and yet have room to move around. Clearly she and Red were alike in more ways than she wanted to think about at the moment. She had a hunch that would be both good and bad if they survived this coming fight.
He turned and went into what looked to be an equipment room of some sort, only without any windows. This was not the room where this ship was flown, she knew enough about ships and how to pilot one to know that. This room with walls of different machines and control panels and large screens was more like a defense room of some sort.
And more than likely the main communications room and research center. She had seen a room similar to this in the research wing back at headquarters.
He dropped into a chair near a control board and his fingers flew over the panel.
On the large screen in front of him the ship they had targeted appeared. It was clearly a design she hadn’t seen before, with swept wings of some sort pointing forward. Spaceships did not need wings, only ships entering or leaving atmospheres in glide mode needed wings.
“Strange design,” she said. “Weapons on the wing tips?”
“Designed to be there clearly,” Red said. “But not on this one. This is a planetary attack ship modified to be a transport. I’m sending these scans to both my people and Sector Force for our people to analyze as well.”
“Good idea,” Mattie said. Clearly Red had the two of them completely working together. If she had thought a year ago that Innocence Inc. and Sector Force would both be working on the same thing on the same side, she would have said there was no chance.
She liked this new world much better than her old one. Both organizations had top resources and research and weapons departments. Together they made an impressive force.
Red continued to scan the strange ship. Finally he turned around and smiled at her. “No one on board and no explosives. Just locked up tight, but by the time we get to the ship my computer here will have figured out the lock code for us and the passwords to get into their computers, including navigation.”
“Chief Lovell will be happy to hear that,” Mattie said.
And he was.
By the time Mattie and Red got every detail of information they could scan about the ship sent off to their respective headquarters and they had walked the short distance to the strange ship, Chief Lovell had pulled up the security vids from the area around the ship. It showed the first five attackers leaving their ship and then earlier in the evening the next three attackers leaving.
He showed the vid to Mattie and Red, then asked, “Is that everyone in there? My port scanners show no more life on board.”
“No one left,” Red said. “And no explosive traps. These people did not expect to fail, so they just locked up and went about their business.”
“Could the ship have a recall autopilot feature?” the Chief asked.
Mattie studied the heavy-set man and suddenly gave him even more respect. This man had clearly served in some special forces and knew many, many of the tricks used by those who worked between the systems.
“It might have, Sir,” Red said, “But my ship’s computer is now in charge of the computers on board this ship. It is slowly dumping all the information from this ship to both Innocence Inc. and Sector Force for study. It won’t allow a recall feature to trigger at this point.”
“Great,” the Chief said. “And great having your two forces working on this together. Kind of odd, but great to see.”
“It’s that special a case,” Mattie said, giving Red a sly smile.
Chief Lovell nodded. “So let’s get going.”
“No need for you to go in, sir,” Red said, suddenly looking a little worried.
Lovell just scowled at Red. “I have nine dead at this point on my peaceful resort station. Trust me, I’m going in with you.”
All Mattie could do was laugh. She was starting to really like this guy. And more than likely he might be of great help down the road. She wasn’t so sure of his men in their bright shirts, but the chief clearly knew what he was doing.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
RED HAD SEEN a hundred ships’ interiors similar to the attacker’s ship from a lot of different system cultures. Pure stark military furnishings.
There were enough bunks to hold forty men in transport, but only eight of the bunks had duffels beside them. Clearly even the pilot and captain of the ship had no special rank, but slept with everyone else.
The place smelled of a slightly-burnt coffee smell and the dishes from a hurried lunch had been left on the large table in the mess area by the last three here.
It wasn’t a large ship, about a quarter the size of his, so it wasn’t going to take much time to search.
One room held a substantial cache of weapons, most standard for this sector.
Mattie moved along the weapons, studying a couple, then turned to him. “These were all bought here in this part of this sector, my guess is from arms dealers. Nothing at all unusual here. Or anything that I haven’t already seen.”
Red nodded. He wasn’t sure exactly what that meant. If these attackers were from someplace outside of this sector, they might have easily gotten weapons here for local attacks like this one.
But it also led him more to believe this was just a local sector political issue and Carson and the Sector Force were being targeted for personal reasons. At least that was his hunch so far. He had another hunch that he and Mattie would know a lot more when they could look over this ship’s data from its computers.
The Chief ordered one of his men to go back outside and get help to unload and secure t
he weapons in the room while Red, Mattie and the Chief headed forward toward the control room.
It was also standard military. Stark gray metal walls and floors and a low ceiling. Nothing at all unusual that Red could see. Three seats in front of major control panels and dark screens, view ports front and on the side, lots of control panels that when activated would show the status of all ship’s systems.
This ship might look different from the outside, but Red had no doubt it was pure standard military inside.
And the military was from this sector. Of that he had no doubt either.
Mattie inspected around one direction while he went slowly in the other direction, looking for any sign that this ship was truly owned by a culture outside of this sector.
At the middle she stared up at him with those wonderful brown eyes and shook her head. Her eyes were all business, not an ounce of flirting in them or her posture at the moment. She was focused completely. “Nothing at all unusual. I would bet anything this ship was built in this sector.”
“I agree,” he said, glad they had come to the same conclusion. He pulled out his data pad and checked to see how the systems download was going.
“By the time we get out of here,” he said, clicking off the pad and putting it back under his coat, “this ship’s computers will be downloaded to both Sector Force, Innocence Inc., and our computers.”
“Mind sending me a copy of that as well?” the Chief asked from where he had stopped near the control room door.
“Glad to, sir,” Red said. “Sorry I didn’t think to do that at first.” He was going to do anything he could to keep the local station authorities on their side. But first he wanted to make sure of the data he was giving to a local authority.
Mattie smiled slightly, just the corner of her mouth rising a little. She understood exactly what he was doing and why.
They headed out of the ship and back onto the port platform. The Chief’s people were already unloading the guns and putting them in a transport vehicle. Three of his men were standing guard over the weapons. To Red it looked like the Chief was doing exactly what he could in the best way he knew how.
“Chief,” Red said, “Would you mind if we stop by the Security Office and give our statements on the lobby shootings tomorrow morning. It’s late. And I can get you a copy of the ship’s information by then as well.”
The Chief nodded. “That would be fine,” he said, looking to Red like he was almost relieved.
“Thanks,” Red said.
He and Mattie turned and strode off toward the hotel area of the station. They walked in silence until they were out of any chance of earshot of any officer. And this time there were no security officers following them. It seemed like the Chief now felt they were all on the same side and didn’t need an escort. That suited Red just fine.
“Well,” he said to Mattie as they left the port area. “What do you think?”
“My gut sense is that this is something personal against Sector Force by someone who is also working to take over a system or two in this sector and has the money and the firepower to do it.”
“I agree,” Red said. “And that person is using the threat of a large fleet coming in from The Emptiness to cover his tracks.”
“Exactly,” she said. “I need to get from the Sector Force every major target we missed or that got away over the last ten years.”
Red nodded, impressed by how she was seeing this. It matched his opinion exactly. “I’ll get my people on it as well. We have a list of those who tried to hire us and that we turned away because they were guilty. Have your people check military targets. From the looks of that ship, the person responsible for all this has military training. It would be how he or she would think.”
She glanced at up at him as they reached the edge of the lobby and nodded.
They headed across the large lobby for the lift to his suite. She didn’t hesitate and he didn’t need to say anything. The restaurant under the trees was long closed and there was only one person behind the main desk and no one else in the lobby.
Around them the lobby had been cleaned up, the bodies gone. Not even any blood on the floor. That was fast.
Maybe just a little too fast.
“The bodies are gone,” Mattie whispered. “No blood, no mess. We’ve only been gone less than an hour.”
“I noticed that,” he whispered back as they kept walking.
“Damn,” she said. “I was hoping for another lap in that wonderful pool.”
“So was I,” he said.
But she knew they didn’t dare stay in their suites now.
Without hesitation they both turned and headed back toward the port.
“Your ship have a pool?” she asked, smiling up at him for an instant before going back to watching every nook and person they approached.
“Nope,” he said. “But it has top security, a massive shower with unlimited hot water, and a large bed.”
“Good enough,” she said, nodding.
He forced himself to pay close attention to everything around them as they walked instead of letting himself get lost in being with her. But honestly, getting lost in her kisses and body was all that he wanted to do at that moment.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
MATTIE KEPT a very close eye on all the security men as they approached Chief Lovell who was still with his men supervising the unloading of the weapons from the ship.
He was clearly surprised to see them return so quickly. She decided to let Red do the talking since he seemed to know how to manipulate someone like Lovell.
“Chief Lovell,” Red said. “We forgot some items in my ship and so we’ve decided to just stay on board for the evening. I can promise you we won’t try to leave.”
He nodded slowly. “Any problems with your suites?”
“They are wonderful,” Red said, smiling a smile that Mattie knew instantly was fake.
She smiled and nodded right along with him. There was something about this Chief Lovell she didn’t like and couldn’t put her finger on, but if he made any wrong move, she would have no problem dropping him where he stood.
“Well, have a good evening, then,” he said, smiling. But Mattie could tell that the smile didn’t come close to reaching his eyes.
“You also,” Red said and they started toward his ship down the concourse that was the docking area. Their footprints echoed in the high-ceilinged area.
Red turned his head to look down at her. “Pretend we’re talking,” he whispered as they walked.
She knew exactly what he was doing. He was keeping an eye on the men behind them out of the corner of his eye.
“Understood,” she said, turning toward him so she could see while he looked forward for a second.
They went back and forth like that until they reached his ship.
With his pad he did a quick scan to see if anyone had entered or tampered with his locks since they had been here. They had not.
Maybe they were being just a little too careful. Maybe the security force really could clean up a crime scene in less than fifty minutes. But she was with Red completely at this point. Carson was dead, they didn’t know who they were up against, so it was a lot safer to be secure for the night.
They would deal with going back to their suites tomorrow if they needed to.
He secured the doors behind them and then led her to the control room. He quickly showed her his controls, his passwords, and how to fly the ship if she needed to.
She paid very close attention until he was done.
Wow, he was trusting her, more than she had a hunch she would have trusted him at this point. It made her feel good, and it made sense. If they had walked into the middle of a major problem on this station, they might need to get away fast.
“Alarms and shields set,” he said, turning to smile at her. “Someone would have to blow up half this station to even make this ship rock tonight.”
She again looked deeply into those wonderful green eyes, then reache
d up and pulled his head down to her height and kissed him long and hard. After a moment they broke.
Her heart was pounding, her breath slightly short.
She smiled at him. “There might be another reason this ship would be a rocking tonight.”
He laughed that wonderful laugh that made her like him even more.
“You promised me a huge shower with lots of hot water,” she said.
“And that I can deliver,” he said.
“You had better deliver a lot more than that,” she said, smiling at him.
He laughed again. “I’ve got to stop giving you so many straight lines.”
Then he realized what he had said before she could answer.
He stopped her with another long kiss and then they headed back through the large ship to the main suite area, holding hands like two kids in school.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MATTIE STARED AT THE SHOWER that was larger than most bathrooms. “You weren’t kidding.”
She started peeling off her clothes, putting her gun on the large bathroom counter and draping her jacket over an empty towel rack. She was going to have to wear these same clothes back to her suite tomorrow morning, so she hoped to at least keep them from being too wrinkled.
“When I saw the plans for the ship,” Red said as he started to undress as well, “I thought the shower too small because of the size of this bathroom. So I told the designer to just make it twice as big and put showerheads every two feet and on the ceiling as well to make it seem like it was raining. He tried to talk me back, but I wouldn’t listen.”
“Glad you didn’t,” she said.
“Problem with a shower that large is that it has its own weather system.”
She laughed as she slipped out of her pants and panties and then hugged him. “You know how cute you are?” she asked him, enjoying the feel of his naked back against her hands and his chest against her face.
He still had on his pants, so she pushed back to help him with those.
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