“And if you fail it will be my head on the block” said the ISS Chief.
“That is not going to happen but your head will be served on a platter if you cross me.”
“Very well then, have it your way. My team is already on its way. The flyby data is now available. You had better hurry.”
A minute later Torine was watching the movie taken by the surveillance drone of her target’s apartment building. Conscious of the time she stood up and said out loud “piece of cake.” She grabbed her wind jacket and put it on over her running gear, secured the pistol in the jacket’s inner pocket and left her room.
Ten minutes later Aras was still wiping out his data records when the front desk rang to inform him that ISS officials had arrived demanding all staff assemble in the front foyer.
He told the receptionist to delay them for as long as possible. He set his computer system to reformat all memory and threw a few of his effects into his bag and made his way down the internal elevator to the basement car park. From there he would make a quick dash to his apartment before going to the spaceport.
Torine decelerated from her brisk jog and entered a fast walk as she approached Leptude’s apartment building. The gold plated sign out the front proudly announced its name as the Amatailon. It was a good 130 storeys tall but Torine knew she would only have to go down and not up. She entered the public foyer and placed her communicator next to the security node that controlled access to the elevators and was rewarded with a slight ping sound and the doors opening.
She knew from the schematics that Leptude would be entering via the underground carpark, where he had a reserved space on level P2. She hit the corresponding button and rode the elevator down. As she did she received a call from the ISS chief that Leptude had just left his office.
She exited the elevator and the lights automatically lit up the area for her. As she walked to Bay 14, two cars entered on the access ramp. Torine felt the reassuring presence of her pistol inside her jacket pocket. There was no way either of these could be her target’s vehicle. She knew it would take him a while longer to arrive. But she did not want to be seen. So she ducked in between the two cars parked in Bays 10 and 11 and pulled the hood of the jacket over her head and pretended to fiddle with the car door. The drivers exited their vehicles and struck up a conversation together as they made their way to the elevator.
She waited several more minutes and watched another vehicle park and its occupant leave via the elevator. The sound of another car coming down the access ramp made her focus yet again on the new arrival. It swung around and drove into Bay 14. She withdrew her pistol.
Aras Leptude checked the sensor light that flashed on the device he had recently affixed to the car’s dash. It was linked to the motion sensor that he had installed. He flicked the thermal sensor switch and noted a heat source three bays to his left, between him and the elevator. He withdrew his pistol and toyed with the idea of confronting whoever was there. But he felt a moment of real fear and thought that discretion was the better part of valour at this stage. ‘To hell with it’ he said to himself as he opted to stay in the car and reverse out.
The sudden movement of the car surprised Torine but she recovered quickly realising that somehow she had been detected. She stepped forward towards the driveway with her pistol held extended out in front of her. She fired once, twice and a third time at the vehicle before it sped to the exit ramp, turning hard and accelerating back up the ramp.
Torine pumped her legs fast to try and close the distance so as to get another shot. As she rounded the ramp access she shot another two rounds into the vehicle. The vehicle careened and sideswiped the railing but regained control and sped around the next bend.
“Fuck” yelled Torine. She knew she should ask for backup from the ISS chief to reacquire her target, but her pride won out. She ran back to the elevator and rode it to up to the foyer where she exited in a hurry. She flagged down a passing taxi and gave as her destination the spaceport. The taxi’s AI driver confirmed the destination and advised her of heavy traffic ahead. “Fuck it” cursed Torine.
“There is no need for abusive language” responded the AI.
“Oh shut the fuck up” barked Torine and sat back in her seat fuming.
Also trying to negotiate the heavy traffic was Aras though he was now a good five minutes ahead. He hailed the spaceport desk and was surprised to hear that the ISS had not yet arrived there. Ten minutes later he met one of the staff at the corporate loading dock and a couple of minutes after that boarded the already prepped shuttle. He was delighted when Control gave him permission to launch and he wasted no time in taking off.
As he climbed above the planet he sent a message to his fellow conspirators which simply said ‘Confirm, new objective is Cheklin. Timetable must be advanced seven days.’
In a flash he warped away.
At the same time Torine was cursing the fact that he had already taken off. She knew she had cocked this up big time. She sat down in a chair on the concourse her head in her hands trying to come to terms with her own failure. Her communicator rang and she could see it was from the ISS Chief. She hit ignore but before she could refocus a message came through from the ISS Chief requesting advice on Leptude. She slammed the communicator into the ground.
It took her a few minutes to regain her composure. She took a shuttlebus across the spaceport to the private terminal. Ten minutes later she was lifting off in her own craft. As she began exiting the atmosphere she received several messages. Two stood out and she tapped the first from the head of the ISS. To her astonishment she was being recalled. She could not believe it. She knew there could be no way that her failure here was known at ISS HQ. There just wasn’t enough time. ‘Interesting’ she thought.
Her craft was approaching her designated warp out location. If she was being recalled time was not that critical, so she tapped the other message of note. It was from the head of Foreign Intelligence Agency, acting under direction from the First Consul. To her amazement she was being tasked to eliminate the head of the ISS. “Very interesting indeed” she said out loud.
Chapter 33. Kiev over Chelora 1730, 24 August
Dave had brought along a kernel of his planning team, comprising Ivan, Chase, Jim and Julian. They had spent the last hour explaining the way they intended to secure the space station. It was a much more positive Jim who outlined the new force restructure.
Julian managed to keep his report on the analysis of the simulation results to just the key points. Dave had to give him a look twice when he looked like he was going into too much detail. But to Julian’s credit he delivered his points well. The differences in the estimated casualties was profound, in a positive way for the marines but not so for the droids.
“If you can pull this off” said Phil “I don’t give a fuck about the droids. We can keep churning those out. I like it, but I want to see a demonstration. How long would it take to put one on? Just a single integrated company. I want to get some feedback from your marines Jim on whether they think it will work. Cause if it doesn’t then it’s got to be the old way.”
Jim nodded. “We’ll need a few days just to iron out some of our procedures. The 28th?”
“OK the 28th it is then” said Phil.
Chapter 34. Aspliar to Nilsun2 1745, 24 August
Arras Leptude was still sitting in the pilot’s seat of his shuttle a few minutes after entering warp. His heart rate was up way too high and he knew it. He was breathing in short gasps. ‘Too much stress’ he said to himself. He closed his eyes and tried to slow his breathing.
Then he felt this burning sensation on the left side of his face. “Aagh!” he screamed. He put his left hand to his cheek but quickly pulled it away. He stared in shock at the pieced of bubbling flesh stuck to his hand. He flicked the detritus away with his right hand, unbuckled his harness and quickly made his way to the small medbay.
He entered the bay in tremendous pain, but he knew what he had to do. He hit the con
trol on the wall to commence the treatment assessment process. The AI voice directed him to lie down on the treatment table which was rising up out of the floor. He did so but another burst of intense heat made him fling his head over to the right side in agony.
The AI activated a head restraint that, despite his almost violent gyrations, managed to secure his head in a fixed position. The scanners went to work while Arras’s body transferred the gyrations down to his arms and legs. Further restraints were applied and Arras found himself unable to move any limb. Yet the pain was maddeningly intense. So he screamed at the top of his lungs - but only once. The injection worked its magic in short order and Arras lost conscience.
Chapter 35. Slidwon 2000, 24 August
“I don’t see why you have to go in person” argued Jebna. He was carrying Angina’s luggage out to the hopper. It had been a hot steamy day and finally a coolish breeze was sweeping across the landing bay outside Angina’s office. It was welcomed by Jebna but it did not appease his concerns.
“They will not believe an envoy. It has to be from me” said Angina emphatically. “We’ve been through this already Jebna.” Jebna reluctantly nodded and handed the bag over to the pilot as he waited outside next to the hopper. As the pilot stowed the bag Angina added “Now you make sure you keep a tight rein on things while I’m away. If you need to contact me, use our special channel.”
“Don’t worry I’ll keep the wolves at bay. Good luck” said Jebna.
Angina took Jebna’s hand and held it between her own. She looked into his eyes. “Thank you Jebna. We can do this. We will prevail. I’m sure of it.” She leaned forward and kissed Jebna on the cheek.
The gesture took Jebna by surprise. Never before in all their dealings had she shown him such affection. He smiled and she turned and boarded the hopper. It lifted off and zoomed away into the night sky.
Chapter 36. Resolute over Chelora 0730, 25 August
Julian and Gunter were in intense conversation in the officers mess. They had been there for the last twenty minutes. Both had woken early unable to sleep because their minds had been in overdrive since the previous night.
It had been Gunter who sparked off the proceedings the previous night at the conference to nut out the droid integration issues. Dave had expressed doubts about their ability to train enough operators for the command droids. He also worried about their vulnerability. Julian had to confess that both mastering the command software and the handling of the droids were serious issues.
It had been then that Gunter had asked “why don’t we integrate the droid and marine comms nets and then have the droids respond to the same commands that the marine leaders use. That way the marines don’t need to learn a new system. We just need to implement a voice parser and a limited set of keywords and commands for the droids.”
Julian was blown away by the simplicity of it and between the two of them shot down every obstacle proffered by the others at the conference. Even Ivan had to admit that the failings in the past when it came to voice command systems for the earlier synth bot programs had faltered because they were primarily too ambitious.
Dave in the end gave them the go ahead to work on a system that would focus on basic commands like fire, move, clear and defend. More complex commands like secure, delay etc were off limits for now. He set them a deadline. They had two days to get it ready for a test that would decide if they would adopt it. It was a ridiculously short deadline and Dave knew it but he saw no other option. In the meantime just in case they failed to deliver, Jim would press ahead with the training of the operators.
But both Julian and Gunter were convinced they could do it. They had the conviction of zealots. They also had the volume of zealots and their discussion could be heard above all other conversations at the breakfast tables. Dave was trying to have a conversation of his own with Ivan when finally he raised his voice “Mr Rapperberg and Mr Smythe we don’t all need to hear so loudly how you’re going to pull off the synthetic system of the millennium!”
Gunter felt the reproach but it was Julian who responded. “Of course Sir and thank you for reminding us that we will need to handle a wide volume range on the parser.” Julian then lowered his own volume but hardly took breath between one idea and the next.
Dave shook his head at first in annoyance but then with a smile and went back to his own conversation. But before too long Julian’s volume increased back to its previous level. Dave rolled his eyes, downed the rest of his orange juice and suggested to Ivan that they continue their discussion back in his office. Dave left without further ado but Ivan made his way to Julian’s and Gunter’s table and bent down so his head was level with theirs. They stopped talking. Ivan said in a quiet voice “This had better work Julian otherwise I fear the boss will see you leading the first charge. You’ve got to learn to take a hint! Now get out of here.” Ivan waited for a response but Julian was, for the first time since he woke, lost for words. So Ivan added “Now!”
Julian and Gunter rose and left and it was Ivan’s turn to smile.
Chapter 37. Aspliar to Nilsun2 0745, 25 August
Arras regained conscience slowly. Through the grogginess he finally recalled why he was strapped into the medbay table. The left side of his face felt like someone had scraped a razor over it peeling away the skin. It was a pretty close assessment. He tried to get his eyes to focus on the screen on the ceiling. There was a yellow flashing light that begged for his attention. He tried hard to focus but couldn’t make it out clearly enough. Exhausted by the exertion, he closed his eyes and fell back to sleep.
Again he awoke. He remembered. ‘Yes the light’ he thought. His head felt a little clearer. He thought it must have been ages ago that he had first regained conscience but in fact it was only forty minutes earlier. He opened his eyes and gradually focussed on the screen above him. The yellow flashing light proclaimed that the operation had been successfully concluded. He breathed a sigh of relief. He tried to scan the stats also displayed on the screen but it took too much effort. He closed his eyes and fell back to sleep.
An hour later he woke up again. This time he asked for the removal of the restraints. “Further rest is recommended” said the AI.
“To hell with it” said Arras “release now.” The restraints were duly released and Arras gingerly sat up. As he did so he realised that he had a bandage covering the better part of the left side of his face. He raised his left hand to feel it. It was an instinctive thing to do but it was a bad idea. His own touch sent a huge spike of pain from his cheek right up into his head. He grimaced and swore he would not do that again.
“Procedure details?” he queried. The AI displayed them on the screen above and the other one on the wall. He lowered his feet onto the floor and took his weight gently. He was reassured enough to stand erect and then to walk to the screen.
He read the diagnosis first. As he suspected the stress he had undergone had caused his body to reject the plastic surgery he had received and in particular the skin replacement he had undergone to the left side of his face. “But why just the left side?” he queried.
“Unsure” came back the AI.
“Well that’s not bloody helpful” said Arras. The AI ignored his statement and felt none the worse for doing so. In fact it never felt anything at all. And that fact slowly dawned on Arras as he watched the AI present the procedure steps. “So you have essentially stripped away all the skin that has been rejected and replaced it with new skin produced from my own stem cells?”
“Correct.”
Arras read further and could see that over the next few days his new skin would progressively take to his facial structure and stabilise.
“And what will I look like?”
“Exactly as you did” replied the AI.
“Exactly as I did when?”
“Your skin is based on your DNA and will be exactly as proscribed in your DNA.”
“Oh terrific” said Arras as he realised that this meant his left side would be like his
old self prior to his surgery back on Cheklin. “And what about the right side?”
“Your right side is stable at present. It does not warrant any procedures.”
“So you say. I’m going to look like some deformed monster. I want the procedure done on the right side too.”
“That is not recommended.”
“I don’t care.”
“You have undergone considerable trauma and my protocols dictate that you must wait at least 48 hours before undergoing any further trauma.”
“Damm your protocols. Just do it.”
“The probability of permanent disability would be 60%. Probability of death would be 12%. Do you still wish to proceed?”
Confronted with this assessment all Arras could do was scream “Why don’t you just fuck off.”
“Procedure schedules for 0900 27 August” responded the AI in its usual matter of fact expression.
Chapter 38. Neeblo 0930, 25 August
“He’s a good rogan” assured Bakun. “Anyway, we’ll know for sure this time tomorrow.”
Felis adjusted his posture in the chair next to Bakun. They were sitting in a large warehouse on the outskirts of Neeblo. Neeblo was a small city some 200km from Lewista. It had once been much bigger but with the collapse of its manufacturing industry large tracts of industrial land had fallen into disuse.
Bakun had pulled out all stops once he had been advised of Yomoto’s timetable. He leased the current complex through a broker and brought Felis here this morning to show him what would become the Resistance command centre.
To this end he had recruited a former employee, Soma Casus. Soma was a fixer. He got things done. Bakun was hoping he could arrange for the relocation of the equipment from a command centre facility at an old decommissioned fleet base.
Audacity (Warner's World Book 5) Page 33
