Trail of Evil

by Travis S. Taylor

  Looking out the long hangar that opened into space, he could see the occasional flicker of dust glimmer against the structural integrity field covering the hangar opening. In the distant star field was the U.S.S. Anthony Blair. Moore knew just who he was going to call on as the backup support ship captain.

  Chapter 29

  November 29, 2406 AD

  Sol System, Oort Cloud

  Tuesday, 3:15 PM, Earth Eastern Standard Time

  There had been a longstanding convention in the Navy to name carriers after great leaders in history. Sometimes those leaders had been military, others political. With the recommissioning of the U.S.S. Sienna Madira to become an expeditionary vessel, the flagship of the fleet had become the U.S.S. Anthony Blair in its latest incarnation. The Blair was still under the command of Vice Admiral Sharon “Fullback” Walker. She had been through most all of the Separatist War as an integral part. The fleet had been in good hands. But Moore needed someone as experienced as Vice Admiral Walker, so the fleet would just have to backfill her slot.

  General Moore walked shoulder to shoulder with the admiral. Well, that wasn’t truly the case. Sharon was a good ten centimeters or more taller than Alexander. And from everything he could tell she probably had him beat on muscle mass too. Her Amazonian size and her smooth brown skin and perfect complexion made her not only intimidating from a physical strength perspective, but there was an attractiveness about her that was pleasing and reassuring. Something about the woman just oozed confidence and competence, and Alexander liked both attributes.

  Moore noted as they passed a portal in the corridor that the Oort Cloud QMT facility was buzzing with its usual activities. Sol was so far away that he could barely make it out from the other stars, but he could tell which one it was as one of the incoming supply ships QMTed into space just out beyond the hangar opening. It was from his team. He had no idea where it had come from by the markings on the ship, but it was a Seppy-style troop transport and it was flanked by two Seppy-style Gnat-T fighters. Had to be his team.

  “Nothing left of her at all?” Walker asked him. She had been astounded by the briefing he had just given her. She had had a hard time believing most of what she was told. Who wouldn’t? Moore had a hard time believing some of it himself. But Fullback was a pro and she got right down to the business at hand. There was a possible pending invasion or at least a hostile force out there, and for decades humanity might have been preparing for it without even realizing. Moore knew that the Goddamned seriousness of that statement alone was enough to spark the fire in the belly of any good career soldier.

  “Not even a screw. Any piece of debris we found nearby we vaporized just to be certain the damned bots didn’t get onto the ships we’d taken refuge on.” He had debriefed the president and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of the Expeditionary Mission’s situation. Fullback had always been at the point of the spear in the past when the Madira wasn’t able to be. Once, when one of Ahmi’s henchmen had kidnapped Dee as a teenager, Fullback came through for him. Moore needed her again.

  There was need for more military presence. Over the last eighteen months, what had been the standard procedure wasn’t enough. The standard approach had been to take one of the Seppy outposts from the bots then report back. Then at each location a QMT team was brought in and a pad large enough to bring in big ships was set up. That process usually took a few weeks, and as it stood there were nine new human outposts scattered about the stars. The farthest from home so far had been over twenty-five light-years away. The newest location where the Expeditionary Force was holding up was at about twenty-seven light-years from Sol. The QMT facility and the planet that had led Penzington and Boland to find the abandoned fleet were at twenty-nine light-years around the star Xi Ursae Majoris. The objective, where the message to Senator Madira had originated, was somewhere out there around thirty-one light-years, and it looked like they might be onto the location. Space was big and they could be wrong, but all the evidence was pointing them towards 61 Ursae Majoris. He’d had Buckley’s teams, the STO, and Penzington studying the QMT addresses in the commandeered ships and all the star maps they could get their hands on, but with QMT there was no way of knowing where the other end of a jump was. It was just the nature of quantum physics. So, Moore’s deductive reasoning and the fact that there weren’t any other stars at exactly that distance from Sol along their present path had led them to an objective. It would very soon be time for another recon mission. He hated to admit it to himself, but he really needed to send his A-team.

  “General, I will have my full crew roster completed within the hour for your AIC to vet. I plan to pad my personnel roster just in case you need an extra hand on your skeleton crew,” Fullback hinted to him.

  “Good plan. Hell, we might have to run triple or quadruple shifts, Admiral. You might plan on having backups in each position one or even two deep,” Moore agreed with her. While they might have been able to get more funding and troop assignments from the president, much more than a full supercarrier crew coming up being reassigned would raise eyebrows in Congress. But Walker had ideas how to game the system to pad the numbers they needed. Moore had been on a skeleton crew for so long, that a little extra help wouldn’t hurt his feelings one bit.

  General, DeathRay and Apple One were the escorts of the supply run.

  Understood, Abby. Moore smiled inwardly. I want to see them.

  They are landing in the hangar now, sir.

  Good.

  “Admiral, I’ll leave you to your work. I’ve got a few other things I need to check into. And Sharon,” Moore paused to offer her his hand. “It’s damned good to have you on my team.”

  “Proud to be on it, sir.”

  The hangar of the QMT facility was a constant flurry of activity. Ships popped in from all the seven major colonies, the few minor upstarts, plus the nine other outposts that the Expeditionary Force had taken. There were also many snap-backs and sling-forwards coming from elsewhere within the Sol system. The Oort Station facility was the major transportation hub of humanity in the galaxy. Moore shook his head in amazement at how mundane the teleport facility had become. It hadn’t been but twenty years prior that nobody even knew it existed.

  “You two are quite a ways from home, I’d say,” Moore said with a smile as he stepped up behind a Gnat marked on the tailfins with a menacing looking black archangel wearing a powered armor suit and wielding a sword. Across the empennage of the nearest plane was marked “USMC Major Deanna ‘Apple One’ Moore.” The other one had “USN Captain Jack ‘DeathRay’ Boland” written on it.

  “Hello, General.” Deanna looked down at her father with a smile. He had been back in the Sol system for more than a week briefing and arranging for their next step. While he had brought Sehera with him, the main crew of the Madira was his “family.” Alexander had missed his family and there was no telling what he’d missed out there in deep space.

  “Sir,” DeathRay saluted him.

  “Jack, Dee, good to see you two. We have a lot to discuss,” Alexander said. “How go the base preparations?”

  “Well, sir, the tankheads and the AEMs have completely stomped on every square inch of the planetoid at least four times. The place is a huge dustball now. It’s worse than the Martian desert in the dry windy season,” DeathRay said. “If there were any bots left on it they aren’t there now. We’ve about got the place fully supplied and manned. Ships are coming in and out constantly.”

  “Good. What is the status of the new Madira?”

  “The crew has settled in and they seem to be getting into a routine with the new, uh, rather old, equipment and stations. I will say from the CAG’s perspective we are looking like a pretty good fighting machine, sir.”

  “How are the pilots taking to their new mecha?” Moore turned to his daughter. “Any troubles?”

  “None, sir.” DeathRay elbowed Dee. “Just have to watch out for some of these upstart and upwardly mobile new majors. I just hope that promotions an
d medals don’t go to their heads.”

  “Understood, Jack.” Moore laughed and then turned to his daughter. “Did you hear that Major Moore? Don’t let it go to your head.”

  “Yes, sir,” Dee nodded.

  “Good.” Moore recalled how he’d been when he had just been pinned as a major. Hell, the history books talked about “Major” Moore specifically. He hoped that didn’t add to the pressure on his daughter.

  “Begging your pardon, General, sir, but would it be too bold to ask for a hug, sir?” Dee looked at Alexander seriously. Alexander never in a million years wanted his little princess to have to ask if it was alright to hug him, but military protocols sometimes required at least the appearance of formality. Alexander looked around and then back to his daughter.

  “Not on your life, little girl.” He held his arms out. Alexander squeezed his daughter like he hadn’t seen her in years. “I missed you.”

  “Me too, Daddy. How is Mom?”

  “She’s fine. She’s actually in Mississippi right now with some old friends. She is also getting some things from home. Then she’ll be here within the hour and we’ll be ready to move out. We’ll wait around and ride back with you once your supply ship is filled up. If there is room, I mean. We could always just snap back, but it would be good to spend a few minutes with some of the troops.” Moore turned to DeathRay. “Jack, how is Nancy?”

  Abby, send a note to Sehera about the change of plans, he thought to his AIC.

  Done, sir.

  “Fine, sir, and I think we need to find something for her to do before she starts painting the inside of the Hillenkoetter bright colors.” Jack said. Moore hadn’t realized that Nancy had christened her ship. But as the old tradition went a ship had to be christened or it would sink.

  Being a historian by education Moore immediately recognized the name as the first director of the CIA. It was a fitting name for her ship, the U.S.S. Roscoe Hillenkoetter. The ultimate American spy now had her own ship named after the first director of American spies. Moore approved. Not that it would have mattered if he approved or not; when it came to Nancy Penzington, she pretty much did what she wanted to do and somehow or other it always ended up being exactly what needed to get done.

  “Well, don’t worry, I have a mission for the A-team as soon as we can get it underway.” Moore frowned. “Though I haven’t figured out all the technicalities yet.”

  “Uh, sir, you mean the A-team minus us mecha jocks?” Dee said with a frown and a raised eyebrow.

  “Major Moore, while Lieutenant Colonel Francis can choose which AEMs he wants on his forward recon team, this mission will require flight support as well and I want the Archangels covering their asses.” Moore winked at his daughter.

  “Yes sir.” Dee smiled.

  “Technicalities, General?” DeathRay asked.

  “We need to recon a new star system, but I don’t know how to get in there without being detected by Copernicus or whoever else might be there. You two have seen Allison’s and Abigail’s analyses. You know where we are going next. We just need to figure out how to get in there quietly. If we can’t then we have to go in with every ship, every mecha deployed, and all guns primed and loaded. And that is one hell of a first impression that I’d prefer to avoid,” Moore explained.

  “Uh, Daddy, you need to talk to the CHENG or the STO,” Dee said cautiously. She looked around nervously and Moore could tell she was afraid somebody had heard her slip in protocol. Alexander loved that his daughter was a consummate professional, but hated her thinking twice about calling him “daddy” like she had for her entire life, even when he had been President of the United States of the Sol System.

  “Why is that?” DeathRay turned and looked at Dee. Whatever news Dee had was apparently something not everybody knew yet. Alexander guessed she’d been talking to the AEM that Buckley had been seeing. Moore couldn’t recall her name.

  What is the AEM’s name that Buckley is seeing? he asked Abigail in his mindvoice.

  First Sergeant Rondi Howser, sir. Abigail replied. Following her performance on the last mission there is a recommendation for you to file her promotion.

  Okay, read the file. If it makes sense, start the process. I’ll get details later.

  Yes, sir.

  “Well, sir,” Dee was more formal as the mecha techs and engineers had gotten interested in the Seppy-style fighters and were beginning to crawl around the tail-section power plants. “According to First Sergeant Howser, the CHENG had said that he and the Captain Freeman have finally hacked the jamming algorithm the bots have been using. He believes we can start implementing them on all of our fleet vehicles and suits.”

  “No shit?” DeathRay said with raised eyebrows. “Those damned jammers have been a pain in my ass since the damned Exodus over twenty-six years ago. I’ve wondered why nobody has ever been able to crack them.”

  “I’ll have to talk to the STO or the CHENG before I believe it. Those damned codes are quantum-generated random numbers and any attempt to decrypt them makes all the information garbled. At least that is what Abby tells me after the STO or CHENG rambles on about them for hours,” Moore said.

  “Well, it is secondhand, but Howser says Buckley won’t shut up about it. There must be something to it,” Dee concluded.

  Chapter 30

  December 2, 2406 AD

  61 Ursae Majoris

  31 Light-years from the Sol System

  Friday, 9:15 AM, Expeditionary Mission Standard Time

  The planetoid facility was at twenty-seven light-years from Sol. The objective system was thirty-one and one tenth light-years from Sol. But the two systems with respect to each other were almost six light-years apart. That was too far for a single sling-forward QMT even with the new technology on the old ships. The best the Madira II could do was a sling-forward QMT of about three light years. While that was still three times what the old Madira could do, it still wasn’t far enough to do it all in one jump. So, the game plan had been to make two jumps at first. The first jump was to stop in the system’s Oort cloud and do visual and signal intelligence gathering from there.

  After the team had found planets and assessed populations, then they would sling forward deeper into the system. At that point, the Archangels would lead a team of six AEMs on a forward recon mission. With the new Buckley-Freeman Switch, as it was being called, hopefully the team could get in undetected, gather information, and then get the hell out. The general could then figure out what to do as the next move.

  The team consisted of all ten of the Archangels in the transformable Gnat-Ts. There were six AEMs, including Lieutenant Colonel Francis Jones, First Lieutenant Jason Franks, Master Gunnery Sergeant Tommy “Top” Suez, First Sergeant Rondi Howser, Corporal Samuel Simms, and Corporal Mike Menendez. Also as part of the recon team were Nancy Penzington, USN SEAL Lieutenant Commander Davy Rackman, and USN Petty Officer Engineering Technician First Class Sarala Amari. DeathRay, being a Navy captain, was the ranking officer of the team.

  The first two sling-forward maneuvers were pretty standard. The second one brought them into the Oort cloud of the 61 Ursae Majoris system. The team popped into real space without a comet or planetoid in sight. Space was big and that wasn’t unusual.

  “Penzington, as soon as you and Amari get the SigInt gear and the telescope up, patch me in on the datastream,” Jack told his wife over the open tac-net. He’d use person-to-person or AIC-to-AIC direct if he had more private things to discuss with her.

  “Roger that, DeathRay. Telescope is coming online now. Give us a few minutes.”

  “Understood. Keep me posted.” DeathRay looked over his shoulder at his wingman. Apple One was right where she was supposed to be. He checked his DTM sensor sweep view for anything out of the ordinary. Then he toggled on the Blue force tracker and the team’s blue dots popped up all around him. “Alright, Archangels, let’s keep it frosty and keep your passive QMs, RF, IR, and eyeballs wide-ass open. We’ll form up in a ball putting the shuttle
at the center. I don’t want us to miss any incoming threats, so keep your eyes peeled!”

  “Affirmative!”

  “Hooyay!”

  “Oo-fuckin’-rah.”

  Jack peeled his mecha to the left and took up the lookout position in the ball looking directly back at the star. Dee was just to the right on his three-nine line, upside-down relative to him, and pitching and yawing her mecha such that the little snub nose of the vehicle moved slowly about a large circular path. The rest of the squadron took up similar positions in a sphere about the shuttle carrying the rest of the team. The various pilots had their own individual techniques of scanning space. Some of the mecha moved up, then down, then left, then right. Some of them moved about at random. Some of them sat still. DeathRay tracked his team in his DTM battlescape view. He preferred to sit still and move his head around. He’d use the three-dimensional mindview simultaneously. They were in a very tight defensive ball and ready for anything. And there was no telling what “anything” might be.

  “Jack, we are getting signals from all over the inner part of the system. There is also some type of very large transmitting structure in the Kuiper belt area about sixty Sol astronautical units from the star. As far as we can tell there is nothing out here near us,” Nancy reported.

  “Signals we understand or something, uh, alien?” Jack asked over their private line.

  “Same type of bot stuff we’re used to at the inner part of the system. The thing out in the Kuiper belt is a little different, but not too different. Could just be some new trick Copernicus is working on,” Nancy said.

  “Anything else?” DeathRay asked as he continued to scan the space in front of him from left to right and then up and down.

  “Well, maybe,” Nancy replied. “There are an unusually small number of comets in this system’s Oort cloud. We have also detected at least three inhabited worlds within the Goldilocks zone. That is highly improbable. But with the missing comets, I’d say whoever lives here has terraformed one or two of the planets.”