“Yes, certainly. I’d say mid-morning. Something like ten-thirty or so?”
Senor Arraya beamed. “Excellent. Excellent.” He made a note in his folder and then turned to another sheet of paper. “Now I have one more topic to discuss. There is an independent system, located Rimwards, looking for well-qualified medical practitioners. I’ve been asked to see if you would be interested.” He reached for a second file and pushed it across the table to Dr. Yi. “There are videos describing the planet, plus an offer from what appears to be a prestigious hospital. It seems they are seeking a senior surgeon. Oh, and first class travel vouchers—the journey would take, I believe, about three months.”
“Why—what’s this about?” She did not reach for the folder.
“Well—yes, well, I believe it—the travel—is a gift, whether you accept the position or not. The hospital offer is apparently because they have been made aware of your professional standing and experience. The posting includes good quality, attractive accommodation, rent free, I believe. Remember—oh, yes, it’s Homeworld—Homeworld is an independent system.”
Dr. Yi slowly reached out for the folder. Perhaps she should view the videos, she thought. Hmm, she reflected. Homeworld. Steg had described the planet as his earlier memories had returned. She could consider their offer.
“I may be taking liberties, yes, liberties—I’d recommend, if you wish to accept the offer, that you do so without delay. There are potential issues—ImpSec—if you know what I mean?”
Dr. Yi nodded her head. “I fully understand, Senor Arraya. I’m inclined towards accepting. I’ll decide quickly.”
“I’ll arrange for your decision—either way—to be conveyed to Homeworld. Confidentially, of course. I can arrange your travel as long as you give me at least twenty-four hours notice.”
“Of course.” Dr. Yi smiled. She had already made up her mind to accept.
*****
Chapter 28
At a distance, the distant starships formed a frozen tableau; only two were discernible electronically and Defender’s bridge crew were making guesses as to the position of the mercenary ship. Its shielding was excellent. The freighter was apparently adrift, although its engine room appeared to be under the control of a small mercenary force. As far as the Tac team could determine, the freighter’s bridge was also controlled by the mercenaries.
“Can you find any evidence of conflict on board Djamu?” asked the skipper of the Alliance destroyer.
“No, sir,” Jessie Brent, Defender’s Tac commander, replied. “We’ll keep trying. The mercenaries haven’t reported to Wasp since they said they’d identified weapons and other military supplies, and that they were arresting the skipper. We cannot detect any fighting. I recommend we dispatch a class Z, and place it close enough to penetrate the freighter’s internal communications and relay back to us?”
“Authorized.”
“Thank you, sir.” Jessie instructed her team to launch the drone. It would be a while before it would be in position. In the meantime Defender was moving closer to the immobile freighter.
“What’s your progress with Wasp’s shield? Aren’t any of our trackers getting signals out?”
“No, sir. We need to get hold of a copy of their technology,” Jessie suggested. “It’s the best I’ve encountered, ever.” She did not hide her admiration of effectiveness of Wasp’s shielding. “They’ve blocked out all electronics. There are no emissions. Our sensors are returning nothing but empty space.”
“Didn’t we learn anything about their shielding when our team was on board?” The question was probably rhetorical; the skipper had read all the reports.
“No, sir. Their shipboard security was far better than we expected, according to the spooks. Wasp was well hidden in the asteroid belt, sheltering behind that mountain-sized rock. However, no one appreciated how effective their shields were. We now know.”
“Hmm. If the merc team on board Djamu make any transmissions, track them. In the meantime, keep searching, you could be lucky.”
“Yes, sir.” Jessie turned back to her workstation. If she could identify Wasp’s shield frequency change patterns…
###
Steg organized a brief conference with Kirby on Djamu’s bridge. Aware that Wasp had raised stealth shields, he was not transmitting to the starship.
“I can handle the bridge once we get some power,” Steg confirmed. “What’s the engine room like?”
Kirby nodded. “My guys didn’t do much damage when they forced the engineers to shut everything down. I had to shoot up a workstation, first, to make a point. No one was hurt. Riddell can persuade the engineers to power up when you say go.”
“Get him working on that.” He waited for Kirby to pass on his instruction. He continued, “I don’t want to leave the bridge; I need to get us underway. So you’re in charge of the Xesset search.” He turned to Djamu skipper, who was listening. “Banner, can we secure passage ways from here? Close down airlocks? I don’t want Xesset moving back to areas we’ve searched. I’d welcome any ideas from you, so speak up. If the Xesset sabotage this ship, you’re as much at risk as we are.”
Banner said nothing.
Kirby said, “Come on, man. Don’t you realize we could stuff you out a lock and no one would raise any objections? The Xesset will kill you—all of us—if we don’t find and capture or kill them.”
One of the Djamu bridge crew said, “Banner, don’t be a fool—we need to survive. Tell them whatever they need.”
Banner sat at a workstation, his momentary rebellion at an end. “Very well. Yes, we can close off airlocks from here. Some utility tunnels may be difficult to block. I don’t think the Xesset know about them. When they boarded, they took over a section of D deck, well forward of the engine room, for their quarters. I’ll show you.” He accessed his workstation and displayed a high-level three-dimensional schematic of the freighter.
Kirby sat with Banner for ten minutes, working through the high level and more detailed schematics, assessing the practicality of closing down airlocks and blocking off sections of the freighter. At last he looked at Steg and said, “This may be overkill but the simplest approach is to open the ship up and let its atmosphere go. Perhaps not all over, but in most areas, except perhaps here and in the engine room. What do you think?”
“If we open the ship up we’d be at risk, too. We’ve only got twenty-four hours built into the exo-armor, so we’d need to return to Wasp after say twenty hours to be safe. We could do it in shifts, go to Wasp, replenish the atmosphere, and return. A last resort, I think. Does the ship have a facility to store the air as we remove it from a locked down section?” Steg asked.
“We have scrubbers and tanks for storage. We can pipe air to the scrubbers from each section. It might be more difficult to manage,” Banner replied.
Kirby said, “In that case, I’d like to start with areas near the cargo pod access locks and then move forward, deck by deck, section by section. I can—or the bridge can—close off airlocks remotely and secure them so they can’t be reversed.”
Steg nodded. “Yes, that will be safer, even if it takes longer. Control atmosphere transfers to the scrubbers and then store it temporarily. As each section is cleared, we can release atmosphere back into it—at least the scrubbed air will help get rid of this horrible stink.”
Banner looked as though he was going to object. Steg said, “Yes, Banner? You were going to say something.”
“We’ve survived. It costs money to maintain a starship, you know.”
“You know the air in this vessel stinks. We may be able to improve it, we’ll see.” Steg turned to one of the bridge crew. “You—what’s your name?”
“Rolston, sir.”
“Rolston, do you know how to handle the atmosphere transfers to and from the scrubbers? Do you have high volume pumps we can use?”
“Yes, sir. I can do that. You want me to liaise with your sergeant? Kirby?”
“Yes. Kirby will identify each
section, and you will remove the air, and scrub and store it. Then, as required, you’ll re-introduce atmosphere into sections indicated by the sergeant. No tricks, understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
Steg checked with Kirby, “Is Riddell in complete control of the engine room?”
“He said Djamu now has power. He advised caution—he said not to impose high demands all at once. The engine room apparently needs maintenance, same as the rest of the ship.”
“I’m not surprised. Tell him I’ll try to get us under way as gently as possible. Start your search for the Xesset. Stopping the aliens—I don’t care how—is the priority. All the teams are yours, except if you can spare someone to help me here—Iwao would be good. I have a feeling I’m going to need technical support. Add three or four guards. This bridge is likely to become a hotspot.”
After Kirby and his escort left, Steg addressed Banner, indicating a remote corner of the bridge, away from workstations and equipment, “Sit over there. I don’t want you interfering with anything on the bridge. You understand the Xesset are likely to try to kill all of us, if they think they’re at risk? Also, the ship out there will blow us up, if they think they’ve lost Djamu and its freight?”
“Yes, I understand. Okay, I won’t do anything stupid.”
Iwao reported to the bridge while Steg was examining the main bridge workstation. He was accompanied by mercenaries, some of Dean’s men whom Steg recognized as capable fighters.
“Sir, Sergeant Kirby said you needed assistance?” Iwao said as he entered the bridge.
“Iwao, yes. I need help with the electronics here. Ulston,” he addressed the senior of the four men sent by Kirby. “You’re in charge of bridge security. Add Cerpio and Jonash to your team. Place a guard on Banner. Shoot him if he attempts to escape or betray us to the Xesset. That goes for anyone else on the bridge. I expect we’ll see some reactions from the aliens. I want you to seal the doors, lock them down. Then take up positions to guard access. You’ll permit people to enter the bridge only if we know them and want them in here. Understand?”
“Yes, sir. The sergeant explained. He said to tell you he’ll send more men if he can or if the bridge is attacked.”
“Good. Iwao, I need a working Astro workstation. Check with”—he looked at the other bridge rating—“what’s your name?”
“Dresk, sir.”
“Tacian?”
“Yes, sir.”
Steg turned back to Iwao and said, “Check with Dresk which is the most suitable workstation for astronavigation. Make sure it functions properly; we’re going to need it. If you can, isolate it so that it can be operated only by us; make sure its security is tight. Once we have a functioning Astro station we can rely on, we’ll be able to start plotting courses. In the meantime, I’ll use this workstation to see what’s happening.”
Steg used some dirty rags to wipe down the skipper’s chair and dropped them onto the floor, unable to hide his distaste. He switched on the workstation and waited for it to initialize. Its controls were standard with the screen labeled for simple touch and display functions. He tried to activate external sensors, and after a minute or two, gray and white shapes flickered across the black backdrop of the screen. He decided to try an alternative approach.
He suspected the Alliance destroyer had followed them—or perhaps had even preceded them—to monitor their interception of Djamu. If he could detect that other starship, there was a possibility he could tap into its sensors, which would be far better than anything available on the freighter. He concentrated, ignored the siren calls, the random traps of circling electrons, the attraction of orphan pulsars, and reached out, seeking the electronic footprint of Defender. At last. He avoided the AV trap; he thought he might have a use for that, later. He slowly dropped into place, immersing himself in the destroyer’s electronics.
###
“Sir, we might have an electronic intruder.” The alert came from the Tac commander. “At least, something odd happened, and I don’t know how else to account for it.”
“Did you run the Scavenger suite?”
“Yes, sir. It returned null. However, the Intruder suite advises there’s an additional resistance across our sensor units. It’s never happened to Defender before, and our research hasn’t found any similar events in our NavRecs.”
“I’ll be there in sixty seconds.”
Montrose was on the bridge in fifty-two seconds. “Anything more?”
“No, sir. Well, the resistance has decreased. It’s a lot less; it’s now way below our normal detection threshold if we hadn’t already found it. It could be something as simple as dust affecting our physical measures. Or it could be a subtle intrusion.”
“I wonder—do you think it could be our mercenary friends? I suspect those on the freighter need to know what’s happening around them. Our sensors would be a hell of a lot better than anything Djamu has and perhaps better than what’s available on Wasp,” Montrose conjectured.
“Captain de Coeur?”
“He strikes me as being far more adept than he lets on.”
“He must have some capable equipment, sir.” The comment was from the Security commander. “My team saw nothing like that when they checked Wasp.”
“We were on board for only a short time.”
“Yes, sir. We’ve always been confident on our prior inspections, when we check out a starship, that we’ve discovered everything. I’d be worried if my team has slipped up this time.”
“Perhaps it’s not your team that’s slipped up. Maybe there’s someone who is far in advance of us.”
“Yes, sir. Although we’re not 100 percent certain there is an intruder.”
“Assume the worst. There’s an intruder. Find it.”
“Yes, sir.” Heads bent low over workstations and intensive discussions broke out as Defender’s team of experts sought answers to critical questions: was there an intruder, and who had the ability to penetrate a stealthed Alliance destroyer? And of course, what could they do to prevent future intrusions?
*****
Chapter 29
Steg cut his link to the Alliance starship. He thought the benefits of the update he had gathered from its sensors outweighed the risk he had taken. He was impressed, though, with the destroyer’s bridge team’s ability to detect a presence in their system. As a twist to their tail, he had activated the otherwise useless AV device to flash a green light every five seconds. The only way for them to stop the flashes was to totally remove the device. He knew it was a provocative move; however, he hoped Captain Montrose would understand the gesture as implying he meant no harm to Defender.
He assumed Wasp had raised its stealth shields so it could move to intercept possible strikes from the Xesset starship. He tucked away for later evaluation the fact that the Alliance sensors could not find Wasp; the technological enhancements provided by Monty were far more effective than everyone had realized. It was a pity the alien had proven untrustworthy. There was future leverage there, he thought, if Gillespie needed to bargain with the Alliance skipper. Assuming Montrose was not too upset with Steg’s access of the destroyer’s electronics.
He was reluctant to reach out to the Xesset starship. He had memories—very painful and unpleasant memories—of when he had done that when Special Forces Major Denke had led his team to board a Xesset ship, with Steg an unwilling team member. The battle between the boarding party and the Xesset defenders had been brutal. The only way Steg had been able to prevent the Xesset from blowing up their own starship was by taking over the alien systems, an experience that had caused him to lose consciousness. The distaste was still in his thoughts, coloring everything Xesset. He shuddered. Perhaps he needed to repeat that experience as a cleansing process.
His thoughts were interrupted by a furious pounding on the heavy protective doors that gave access to the bridge. He looked up, wondering.
“The Xesset, sir,” said Ulston, catching his eye. “We’ve been observing them on video.
Iwao set up some remote cameras for us when we came in. There’s three aliens in the corridor, and they’re firing a heavy pellet weapon at the bridge doors. We don’t think they’ll do more than make a dent in the metal. The doors are well built. I’ve alerted Sergeant Kirby.”
“Thanks. Keep monitoring.”
“Yes, sir.”
Steg checked his workstation sensor display. The gray and white shapes had resolved to a nearly useful image. He assumed the darker gray shape was the Xesset starship; its proximity measure indicated it had moved closer.
“Dresk,” Steg addressed the freighter’s crew working with Iwao. “What external weapons does Djamu have?”
“Only one, sir, a railgun. It runs the length of the ship. It’s powerful—assuming we hit the target. It has problems. The ship itself must be aimed at the target. It’s a one shot weapon. Well, it takes fifteen minutes to re-load, at best, so it might as well be. We fired it once at a pirate and it darn near shook Djamu to pieces. Missed the target. Gave’em a helluva scare, though. Us, too.”
“Well, it’s something, I suppose. It’s loaded?”
“The skipper always kept it loaded, sir. There’s a Weapons workstation I can use to check, if you want?”
“If Iwao can spare you?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Iwao. “I’m about finished. You’ll have a dedicated Astro workstation, secure and isolated, in about another five minutes.”
“Good. Dresk, go ahead and set up a weapons workstation for me.”
“Yes, sir.”
The thumping at the bridge’s main access door had increased in volume and frequency. It sounded as though the Xesset had swapped to a heavier weapon.
“Ulston—update please.”
“Yes, sir. The Xesset have mounted what looks like a pellet-based machine gun. They knocked out the cameras, though, so we can’t see what else they’re doing. We’ve alerted the sergeant and he’s on his way. He said the passageways have been booby-trapped, so he has to clear a path. We’re confident the doors will hold.”
Fracture Lines (The Glass Complex Book 2) Page 19
