by H. M. Clarke
“And you think this same group organized the attack on me last night?”
Richard nodded his head,
Katherine finished what was left of the brandy in her glass and pushed it across the table. “You know that I think the Alliance was definitely involved in the Federation House incursion today.” Katherine ran a hand through her hair and settled back in her chair. “Which means we look to have two groups up against us. We know what the Alliance wants but what is this new group after?”
“And does the NHSIO already know about them?”
“I think we may need to have a private meeting with Director Prockter.”
“I think we should keep this to ourselves for the time being Skipper.”
“You don’t trust the NHSIO?”
“Let’s just say that I would like some more concrete information before we run and report it to the NHSIO.”
“Very well. Steve should brief the crew who are going on shore leave about the possibility of being tailed. And on what to do if the situation occurs.”
“Yes Ma’am.” Richard gave her a lop-sided grin.
“The Ambassador will definitely need to be informed of your suspicions Richard.”
“Does he? I thought his mission was a purely diplomatic one. What we are discussing is military and should only be given to others on a ‘need to know’ basis.”
“Do you trust anyone Richard?”
Richards grin grew wider. “I trust you and our crew.”
“And no one outside the Service.”
Richard placed his glass on the table beside Katherine’s. “Have you spoken to Tom yet?”
Katherine shook her head. “He is still on the bridge. I’ll speak to him tomorrow morning.”
Richard gave her a look laced with meaning but Katherine shook her head. “I can only take so much of Tom’s ‘big brother’ attitude in one day.”
The exec sat silent a moment before rising from his chair with a heavy sigh. “The weight on my chest is lifted now, so I think I’ll leave you to your rest.”
“Thanks Richard.”
As he turned to leave he said, “Val Myra surprised me. I would never have pegged him for a Combat Wombat.”
“No, neither did I. But you can’t always judge a book by its cover can you?”
“No Kath, you can’t.”
“Goodnight Richard.”
“Goodnight Captain.”
The comm beeped again and the hammock swayed as Katherine slipped out from it to pad across to the terminal on her desk.
“Captain here. What is it?” She asked as she caught sight of the clock on her desk. It was barely one in the morning.
“Sorry to wake you Kath,” John’s voice crackled over the comm link. “But I’ve just had some news that you should hear in person.”
“Hyde?” Katherine suddenly lost her crankiness at being woken.
“Yes.”
“I’ll be there shortly.”
Katherine quickly threw on her uniform and made her way through the nighttime quiet of the ships corridors to the officers’ quarters. She pressed the chime and was admitted immediately to the room by her brother who was still dressed in his pyjamas and dressing gown.
“Where is he?” Katherine asked as soon as the door was closed.
“Here on Junter Three.”
“What!”
John handed a datapad across to her. “Read this.”
Katherine took it and quickly scanned through the information. She raised an eyebrow when she saw the source. “Internal Intelligence? Isn’t that Tolbot’s department?”
“It is, but this did not come from Tolbot. It came from Prockter.”
“They found his hiding place this quickly after the attack? The bastards took it from us when they stopped us going into those tunnels!”
“No. I had them looking for it before we arrived. I told you that on the journey here.”
Katherine said nothing but continued reading through the report.
“It seems that Internal Intelligence has been sitting on this piece of information for a week. Hyde’s name was buried in surveillance recordings on the JUF.”
“Prockter as good as told us before that meeting that there were problems within his ranks.” Katherine briefly considered telling John Richard’s concerns but decided against it. After what happened with her brother last night, she had ‘trust issues’ as well. “How do we know if this information is accurate?”
“Prockter thinks it is and I respect his assessment.”
There was a map at the end of the report and Katherine scrolled around it eagerly. Hyde’s ‘supposed’ location was marked with a red dot on a position north of the City of Val Myra. She remembered Joshua saying that he came from an enclave around there.
“And what of Daniel?”
Tom shrugged. “I have not asked the local’s to look for Daniel. That’s a little too sensitive for them to know about and we cannot be certain that the Alliance have not placed informants in their ranks. But our own intelligence says that where you find Hyde is where you’ll find Daniel Val Myra.”
“And we have been given ‘authority’ to action this information? After all, I will be taking armed personnel through New Holland Territory.”
“This is Federation business and Prockter has approved this operation. Not even the New Holland Senate can interfere with that. Not without attracting the ire of the Federation. And bucking against their own security organization.”
“From the looks of this information the local pollies did us a good turn,” Katherine grudgingly admitted. “It would have taken us endless hours to search those access tunnels and according to this,” Katherine held up the datapad, “It would have been for nothing.”
“That pompous bastard!” John yanked angrily at the tie of his dressing gown. “I felt like punching that smug smirk of Chandler’s face when he commed me. Fancy comming me at a time like that! But Scott Applegarth told me that the First Councillor was correct – the Federation had no legal right to enter New Holland with an armed force.” John grimaced. “Apparently there have been ‘words’ passed to Prockter from Chandler about Steve Tran’s passage from the Port to Federation House.”
“What?”
“He bought an armed force through New Holland territory without authorization.” John raised a hand to forestall her outburst, “Don’t worry about it Kath, Prockter knocked that on the head.”
Katherine soured at her brother’s use of her nickname. “I’ll start arranging the extraction team now and we’ll go and get this bastard before he can disappear again.”
“And before Chandler gets it into his head that he can interfere with Federation business – This is an Australian colony for Gods sakes, they should be acting on our side, not playing into the hands of the enemy.”
“John, the Earth Federation is not at war with the Alliance – at least not yet.”
“No. But we will be.”
Chapter
Fourteen
“Come on Mark, I thought you a better helmsman than this?”
Mark Hunter turned and grimaced at his Captain. “I’m used to piloting a starship, not one of these weevilly planet huggers.”
Turbulence buffeted the cruiser again and Katherine silently gave thanks to the engineer who decided to install inertial stabilizers into planet bound aircraft. Things could have been messy in here otherwise. She watched Mark finesse the controls as he steered deeper into the storm.
"I will not have the William Light maligned as a 'weevilly planet hugger'!"
"I'm sorry skipper," Mark tweaked the controls to take advantage of an updraft, taking them up to ride above the storm. "It’s been a while since I've flown this."
"As long as you lose those Hollander tails, I won't fault you."
Mark gave a firm nod as the William Light broke above the raging cloud cover into clear, blinding light. "I'll tack along this course for thirty minutes and keep an eye on what pops out from the clouds."
> "Mark, if it comes up all clear, turn back to our original heading."
"Aye aye Ma'am."
Katherine's lips twitched as she unbuckled herself from the co-pilots seat and moved back into the passenger cabin and flopped back into the first vacant seat.
"What's happening Katherine?"
She turned as she heard Joshua's voice beside her. John is going to be pissed when he finds the Val Myran missing. That thought caused a grin to spread over her face.
"Mark thinks he's lost our shadow but we'll just move around the head of this storm front just to be sure."
"Just as long as he doesn't go back into that storm. I don't think my stomach could take it!"
"Come on Steve, you wouldn't have felt a thing," Mark's voice came through from the cockpit.
"You wouldn't say that if you were sitting back here-"
A loud snore rumbled abruptly over the compartment.
"How can he sleep?" Steve said looking at the figure spread over three seats at the back of the cabin.
"Tom hasn't had much sleep in the last forty eight hours. I pulled him straight from a watch on the bridge to come here."
"Poor dear."
"Let him sleep, though the only thing that would wake him at the moment is the red alert siren."
"Or a woman!" Mark's voice drifted in again from the cockpit.
"I just hope that those New Hollanders or the JUF don't try anything while we're away." Steve turned that conversation back to a serious note.
"Richard's a big boy, he can handle it. And he has Magyer if things really hit the fan."
"It’s not the XO I'm worried about," Steve replied. "It’s your brother and that aide of his."
Katherine felt Joshua move beside her and she gave Steve a pointed look to keep silent. Joshua maybe on her team at the moment but he is still a foreign national in negotiations with the Federation. Steve took the hint and sank back into his chair. Katherine looked down the rest of the cabin. Sitting past Tom were three members of Steve's Alpha Squad, one of which was clearly asleep as well. They were a silent sleeper unlike Tom whose internal chainsaw still echoed around the cabin. Maybe sleep is a good idea. Katherine made herself more comfortable in her chair and was soon fast asleep.
"Katherine." She opened her eyes at the gentle shake on her shoulder.
"Tom," she said pushing herself up from the seat of the chair and rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
"We are twenty minutes out from the enclave."
"You let me sleep all that time?"
"Hang on. I only woke up myself not long ago. Steve decided to let us both sleep."
"Steve should have woken his CO."
"Steve should have done a lot of things, but waking you up wasn't one of them." Steve had just come up from the cargo hold and was already kitted out in full power armor though he had yet to clip in the power packs to run its kinetic shield and the inboard HUDs.
"Mark lost the tail then."
Steve nodded. "We saw nothing of them once we popped out of the storm."
"I hope the poor bastards didn't follow us in there. It would have been suicide," Tom said as he sat down beside Katherine.
"Those 'poor bastards' shouldn't have been following us in the first place." Katherine glanced quickly around the cabin, noticing that the three of them were the only one's here. "Where's Joshua?"
Steve jerked his head to the rear of the cruiser. "Kitting up with the others."
"Good,” Katherine turned to look at her two officers. "I hope Richard is coping well with handling both John and whatever the New Holland government is up to."
"What you mean is that you hope Richard is handling that horrid woman," Steve cut in.
"She's not that horrid."
"Come on Tom. Look with your head for a moment." Steve looked at the Second Officer in disbelief. "You've seen the slights Hayes had given Richard. She can't stand to look at him much less be in the same room as he is."
"That would make Richard's life easier then. It would be good if she could spend the time in hiding in her room. Except that I put her and the rest of John's staff in the crew quarters where she can't hide. Ten percent of my crew can claim Koori or Nunga descent in some form or another." Katherine gave a childlike snigger.
"You'll be glad to know that that ten percent are planning to make Hayes' life hell."
"Tom and I better go back and get suited up. Steve, go and tell Mark to come in low and land about half a klick from the enclave."
"Yes Ma'am."
"Have our sensors detected any sign of the Alliance as yet?"
Steve shook his head. "Not yet."
Katherine frowned. Surely the Alliance was expecting someone to come and take a look at what was happening here. But this way they can again claim a rogue agent if they do anything at all. Val Myra is in Alliance Territory after all. Maybe they thought that would keep them safe. Katherine shook her head and stood. "Go and tell Mark. We'll suit up."
The William Light came in low and landed in a clearing just over half a kilometre from the enclave. The place itself was nestled at the foot of a long mountain range that cut diagonally across the Northern continent of Junter Three. This section of the ranges was not particularly tall when compared to the more famous peaks and ranges on other planets but it was wide and covered in greenery and rocky outcroppings. Mark kept a wide berth from Val Myra and not just because they had Joshua with them. It was too risky in case they were seen, but so far they had seen no sign of the Alliance anywhere, but what worried Katherine more was that there was no sign of any humans anywhere, not even a fire. The people who had reached New Holland were only the ones who could reach transportation when the attack started, logically there should have been small groups of people either waiting until it was safe to return to their homes or trying to make their way as best they could to somewhere safer. But there was nothing here to suggest any of these options and that worried Katherine more than anything else - Where had all the people gone?
Even before the engines had whined down, the loading hatch was open and the William Light disgorged it occupants.
"All right people, you all know what to do," Katherine announced over her helmet's mike as the hatch closed behind them.
‘All locked up tight and ready to leave at a moment’s notice Skipper.’
"Keep the motor hot Mark. This should be just an 'in and out' operation."
Aye aye Skipper
"Let’s be about it."
Chapter
Fifteen
Katherine crawled backwards from the edge of the stone outcropping to where Tom and Joshua waited for her out of sight from the enclave in the valley below them. Steve and his Alpha Squad had just signaled that they were in position and were ready to go when she gave the order.
She crouched down in the easiest position her armor allowed and considered their available options. Katherine had created a hurried 'snatch and grab' operation from the information that the New Holland SIO could provide her along with actual knowledge from Joshua. The Braidon Hills Enclave was supposed to be a small community of nearly two hundred people that spread out along the valley floor. And if Hyde was laired up here, then she expected to see lookouts, guards or at least some form of electronic surveillance. But what Katherine saw from their vantage point on the outcrop showed none of this. In fact the Enclave showed no sign of life what so ever; it was as if the town’s population had all decided to 'up sticks' and move elsewhere and neither Steve or herself had picked up signatures for any type of surveillance or detection measures.
"Steve and his Team are now in position; waiting for my signal to proceed."
"Did you see anything down there?"
"No. Nothing," Katherine said in reply to Joshua's question. "That's what worries me. There should be people down there, either civilian or Alliance, but it looks deserted." She shook her head, "I just feel that there is something horribly wrong here."
"Perhaps Prockter's Intel is wrong. Perhaps Hyde was never
here in the first place," Tom said as he kept an eye on the sky around them. "It is a pretty obvious place to look for him and if I were him, my home town would be the last place I'd go. Especially if I thought there'd be Federation troops after me."
"Tom, Alliance Black Ops went to great lengths to make us think that he was on the run from Battle Group Two. There aren't supposed to be any Federation troops here specifically to find Nigel Hyde." Katherine spat the name out as if she tasted something foul on her tongue.
"The Alliance knew that you were here. I still think you were the real reason for the attack on Federation House," Joshua said with Tom nodding furiously in a rare moment of agreement.
"They want you and Daniel back in their hands for some reason."
"Josh, are you trying to tell me that this is all a big elaborate plot to get 5-" Katherine quickly stopped herself from saying the subject number: But Daniel was still a stranger to her and 56 was not. "Daniel and myself? That's insane."
Joshua gave a weak smile. "Not as insane as some of the things the Alliance has done."
"What exactly happened at Yunga Katherine?" Tom asked.
"This is not the time to talk about it."
"When is it ever the time to talk about it?" Tom pointedly looked at the Val Myran. And at that point Katherine realized that Tom thought that she had confided her experiences with Joshua.
"Tom-" Katherine abruptly stopped mid word as she felt something. She cocked her head as if listening for something and Katherine quickly raised a hand in a shushing motion to stop the two men from talking. Then she felt it again; a pressure on the front of her mind. It reminded Katherine of the first symptoms of a head cold but without the drowsiness.
Then there was a familiar voice in her mind.
'72?' Katherine's body stilled in shock and she suddenly focused her full attention inwards.
