The Justice received an encrypted message from Colonel Dennier as the Wing left the planet behind. It contained just two words— 'mission complete.' A few minutes later, the Justice received another encrypted message. The later message was from Blade. It was almost as simple as the first message, but not as positive. It read— 'No movement, preparing to stand down.' The message meant that the APCs hadn't been ordered to abandon their vigil at the embassy compound and that the people aboard the shuttles would soon disembark and return to their beds.
* *
"They didn't fall for it," Sydnee said to Dennier as the two women talked in the captain's small office.
"That doesn't make sense. Could there be a spy in our midst passing information to the Triumvirate's secret police?"
"That doesn't seem very likely. The Dakinium sheathing guarantees that the only communications possible from this ship must go through our bridge communication system, so any outgoing messages would have to be sent by our com chiefs. And the embassy is fully shielded to prevent eavesdropping, which also blocks outgoing signals not sent from the communications center. The only people allowed outside the bunker are Blade's Special Ops people. I suppose one of them could potentially transmit a message from the roof of the embassy, but that's unlikely in the extreme."
"So why didn't the plan work?"
"I wish I knew," Sydnee said. "Perhaps one of the Yolongi caretakers is a government spy or informant. Or perhaps we're not as clever as we think we are. The question is: where do we go from here?"
"Well, summing it up once again, we know that if the people at the embassy simply ignore the APCs, leaving the embassy will reveal the presence of DS shuttles there, and that means alerting the Triumvirate to the fact that we had landed in the embassy compound with ships they can't detect. That would then lead them to believe that the raids had been carried out by GA ships because we were also black and undetectable. I agree that we absolutely cannot allow that to happen. So, it will be far better to leave the people at the embassy where they're safe and head back to the GA. As you've said, we can't remain here for more than a few more months or we'll run out of food again."
"Yes, but I hate to leave people behind, even though I know they're safe and well provisioned."
"That's an admirable quality, but right now you need to think about the welfare of the almost one thousand slaves and crew we have crammed into the Justice. The Marines at the embassy will watch over the two hundred five slaves and their children. They'll be fine until we get back."
"You're assuming we'll be allowed to come back."
"You don't think we will?"
"We can't take anything for granted. We're operating undercover in hostile space, and we shouldn't really even be here now. And when you factor in that I may be responsible for starting a war between nations, nothing is certain. I might be sent to a ground base somewhere for the rest of my Space Command career. If there was another Perry around, that might have been my next destination and my final ship posting."
Dennier smiled. "I'd almost forgotten you were posted aboard the Perry. What did you do to earn that ship assignment, by the way?"
Sydnee hesitated before responding, but then decided to tell her. She took a deep breath and then released it before saying, "It was my first posting following graduation from the Warship Command Institute."
"That must be some kind of record. What did you do, kick the Institute Commandant high up between his legs?"
"No. I've since been told it was a clerical mix-up. Someone with a similar name, which appeared right next to mine on the Institute's Class Roll, received my intended posting aboard Admiral Carver's battleship in Region Two. I was sent to his intended posting aboard the Perry. But I don't regret my time there at all. I made a lot of great friends and I learned a great deal. Mostly I learned that many of the crew on the Perry didn't belong aboard a ship that had a reputation for everyone being a screw-up. They were there simply because they were a constant reminder to someone with pull of their own embarrassing actions or limitations."
"Thank you for telling me. I've been wondering why someone believed to be a screw-up had been entrusted with a mission of this magnitude and how that individual had managed to garner the support of everyone around her."
"Does that include you, Colonel?"
"Yes, it does. You've had my full support for some time. Now— what's your decision?"
"We go back to GA space and unload our passengers, and hope they allow me to come back here and finish this mission. But before we go, we have to recover Winston."
"How can we? We have no idea where he is."
"I know where he is."
"You do? How?"
"He contacted me by encrypted message. I responded and told him to remain where he is. I told him we'd come get him as soon as possible."
"But we have no shuttles."
"I have an idea for recovering him that doesn't require a shuttle."
"I can't wait to hear this plan."
"It's fairly simple. How much room is there in the weapons bomb bay of an SF4?"
"The rack that holds the eight missiles doesn't leave room for anything else. We'd never be able to squeeze him in unless he's lost more than a hundred fifty pounds, is as skinny as a broom handle, and is as flexible as a Boa constrictor."
"And if we remove the missile rack, how much room is there?"
Dennier smiled as she considered the question. "There should be enough to hold an adult male in an EVA suit. But it's going to be a very rough ride. That area certainly wasn't designed for passenger travel, so there no inertial compensation. He'll be in complete darkness once the bomb bay doors close, then squeezed like a lemon for its juice while being shaken like a mixed cocktail until we're out of the lower atmo."
"That'll have to do. I can't think of any other way to recover him. Can you have your mechanics fix us up? There will have to be some kind of harness to keep your passenger from being slammed all over the bay."
"I'll get them working on it right away. We should be ready to go in a few hours."
"We'll plan on a pickup time of two hours past midnight in the capital. The location for the pickup will be the roof of a deserted factory building about a hundred kilometers from the city and one kilometer from where he's in hiding. I'll get the coordinates ready and notify Winston of the pickup time and place."
* * *
Ten minutes after sending an encrypted message using one of Winston's algorithms, a reply arrived addressed to Marcy from Corny. In the message, the sender acknowledged the pickup time and place.
* *
Colonel Dennier and three of her Wing arrived at the pickup location right on time. There was no indication that the Fleet surrounding the planet, or anyone else, had noticed their flight. Three of the SF4s hovered on cushions of oh-gee waves while the Colonel landed her ship on the roof. Within seconds of Dennier cutting power, Winston stepped out of the shadow of a roof stairway housing and walked towards the ship.
"What's this?" he exclaimed as Dennier sat looking down at him from the cockpit. "Where's the shuttle?"
"You're looking at it. The other shuttles are unavailable. But fear not, Winston. I'll get you safely to the ship."
"How? There's only one seat in that bucket."
"I never said you'd be seated during the trip."
Dennier reached down and pressed something that caused the ship's bomb-bay doors to open. After climbing down from the cockpit, she reached up into the belly of the ship and freed something. As she returned to face Winston, she was holding the lower half of a bulky EVA suit.
"You're kidding, right?" Winston said.
"Never been more serious. If you want off this rock, this is the only way that's going to happen."
"This is Marcola's idea, right?"
"Yep. I can't claim credit for this one. The captain came up with the idea."
"I knew it. That woman hates me because I pressured her to let me return to the planet. She's purposely trying
to humiliate me."
"Winston, that woman has agonized over every detail of this entire mission. She's trying to make sure we accomplish all of our mission objectives and that we all get home safe. She is not trying to humiliate you. This is the only way we have to get you up to the ship."
"Where are the shuttles? There are four of them, aren't there?"
"Yes, but they're not available to us. Look, it's a long story and you'll hear it all when we reach the Justice. Now either start putting this suit on or I'm leaving you here, and I can guarantee no one else will be coming to get you. Make up your mind."
"Okay, calm down, Colonel. I guess I have no choice."
"You can choose to stay here."
"That's not a choice. It's an epitaph."
* *
"Thank you for coming up, Anese," Sydnee said as she welcomed the woman to her office. "I wanted to speak to you about your daughter."
"Oh my, is she okay?"
"Yes. She's fine. She's still safe in the underground bunker of the GA embassy on Yolongus."
"Then why have you asked me to come up here?"
"I'm afraid we're unable to recover the people in the embassy at this time. It's complicated, but basically we have to conceal our involvement in the freeing of the slaves. Presently, the Qummuc forces have surrounded the embassy and are watching to see if the GA still has an active presence there. So our people must remain out of sight. As soon as the Yolongi tire of watching the embassy and leave the compound area, we'll recover our people. I promise you you'll see your daughter again, but not right away."
"I trust you, Captain. If you say she's safe and will be with me again, I believe you and will look forward to the day you reunite us. God bless you, Captain. My family owes you a debt we can never repay."
* *
Sydnee was waiting outside the FA-SF4 habitat hanger when the four ships returned and began their docking. She entered the hanger when the ramps had retracted, the outer hatch had closed, and the atmosphere had been restored. She watched as Dennier opened the bomb-bay hatch beneath her ship and one of the mechanics climbed under the ship and began loosening straps. A few seconds later two legs in an EVA suit appeared as they hung down towards the deck. And after a few more seconds, the lower part of a torso became visible. The upper half still had to be unstrapped before it could move away from the ship.
As Winston got clear of the ship, stood up, and removed his helmet, the smell of vomit was immediately noticeable. He held the helmet in front of him and spewed a bit more into it before wiping his face with the back of his hand. The mechanic who had freed him handed him a clean grease wipe and took the helmet away to be cleaned and disinfected.
"Rough trip, I guess," Sydnee said to Winston as he approached her.
"Ever tried it?" he asked.
"No, I've always been in the cockpit."
"You haven't lived until you've made a trip into space while strapped into a bomb bay. They should have a ride like that at amusement parks."
"I'll pass. And I apologize, but all of our shuttles are stranded on the planet. This was all we had available."
"Stranded? Tell me about the shuttles."
"Why don't you go get cleaned up first? It smells like you could use a shower and a gargle."
"Okay, but then I want to hear what's been going on since I was captured."
"You won't believe half of it," Dennier said as she approached from behind Winston.
"I want to hear it anyway."
* * *
"You're saying we still don't know who was responsible for the second attack?" Gustallo Plelillo screamed at Weislis Danttan, the Minister of Intelligence.
"It was like the first attack. No one saw a thing except the explosions. We know that an hour before the attack, a massive number of messages were intercepted that, after being decrypted, showed plans for a ground assault on the capital. They specifically stated that each of our three residential compounds would also be attacked."
"What? When did we learn this?"
"Not until eight hours after the attack was over. When the communications systems went down, the com center couldn't transmit anything to my Intelligence Center. So the messages sat at the com center until they could be hand-carried by courier. Since everything was so confused during the air attack, the couriers were all swamped with deliveries. Then when we did finally receive the data, we had to break the encryption before we could read the messages."
"So it took nine hours to read of the enemy plans when we already had the data? I told you a wireless intelligence network was a bad idea. I said it was too easy to interrupt."
"I believed it was more difficult to interrupt such a system than a wired system. I never would have believed an attacker could simultaneously take down every single tower in the city."
"That's another splinter in my backside. How did such an attack take place with absolutely no one seeing a single attacker?"
"Like they're saying in the press, the attackers must be in invisible aircraft."
"Invisible aircraft? Preposterous. No one has an invisibility cloak— except possibly the GA. Was there any activity at the GA embassy?"
"None. It's as quiet as a cemetery. No invisible aircraft left the compound or landed."
"How would we know— if they're invisible?"
"I imagine the pilots would have to walk out to their ships. And the ships would have to be fueled, inspected, and armed. We'd see people moving around if such activity was happening there."
"Not if the aircraft were all stored below ground."
"Then we'd see the covers roll back to allow the invisible aircraft out to perform their attack. I tell you, there's absolutely nothing going on at the GA embassy. You're keeping your APCs there for nothing. Did any of your people see anything?"
"They say there was no activity at all at the embassy."
"So you're wasting resources that could better be used elsewhere."
"Where, for instance?"
"Guarding your home, for one."
Plelillo made an angry sound in his throat before asking "Why did the planned ground assault on the city never take place?"
"Unknown. Perhaps the confusion caused by the destruction of the com systems forced them to cancel that part of their operation as well. Perhaps one of the radio stations was supposed to keep them appraised of our movements by using live satellite information."
"Perhaps we should attempt to reconcile with the Rebels and agree to share power," Mewaffal said.
"Don't be a fool," Plelillo said. "They don't want to share power. They want to take all the power for themselves. They're not fooling me. They don't give a hang about the people. They're only using the idiot population to fight their war for them."
"Isn't that similar to what we do?"
"Of course. It's what every professional politician does. The idiot population is too dumb to govern themselves. Without us to run every minute aspect of their lives for them, the planet would fall into complete anarchy."
"Assuming the Rebel ground assault plan has only been delayed," Danttan said, "how are we going to prepare for it?"
"The first thing we have to do is increase the security around our residence compounds," Plelillo said. "I'm also going to station a couple of APCs in my side yard so I can be safely evacuated if such an attack occurs."
"Do you think a couple of APCs for each of our compounds is adequate?"
"Not completely. I wouldn't have believed the Rebels could mount an attack like the two we've seen, but the GA appears less and less likely. I'm going to pull my APCs away from the GA embassy compound. And if it's not the GA and not the Rebels, it has to be the Blenod."
"I'm not sure," Danttan said. "It might be the Kweedee Aggregate."
"Or the Aguspod," Mewaffal said.
"No, not the Aguspod," Plelillo said. "They're too busy fighting the Raiders. They might attack some of our border posts, but they don't have the available resources to attack us here. We're too deep inside Clid
epp space. The Kweedee is a distinct possibility. They hate everybody equally."
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Two
~ April 27th, 2287 ~
"So you were, in fact, responsible for both attacks on the capital," Winston said as Sydnee finished relating the events of the first attack, which was the effort to recover him and the people taken at the time of his capture, and then the failed attempt to recover the people at the embassy.
"I'm afraid so. But SCI ordered me to recover you at all costs."
"I doubt they intended you to start a war with another nation. Not that I don't appreciate your unbridled enthusiasm in the effort."
"Perhaps I took them too literally, but to me 'at all costs' means nothing is off the table and that I throw everything I've got at the problem. SCI is a bit too far away for me to have requested clarification and received a timely response. And when I did later request help, I got the old 'you're on your own, kid' speech. So, yes, I used my own judgment regarding what they meant by 'at all costs.' I assumed they're worried that under torture you'd betray the GA. Congratulations, by the way, on your successful escape."
"Thank you. I was very glad to have the opportunity for a little payback against the two guards who beat me the worst. And I told them nothing, which is why they beat me senseless a couple of times."
"No truth drugs?"
"That probably would have come later. I think they wanted to release some of the hostility they felt for us, meaning the Aleoxlene Reqoppl, making them look like such fools for so long."
"You don't appear to be any the worse for wear."
"You should have seen me when I first escaped. I was one big bruise from my toenails to my scalp. So now you've told me about the attacks on the capital, recovering the former slaves, and finding a whole lot more. I calculate you have about a thousand mouths on board, and yet the corridors are lined with food crates. When did you get resupplied?"
"While we were waiting to recover the people from the embassy and you were healing from injuries sustained at the hands of the guards, we made a little trip to where several heavily trafficked space routes intersect. That pretty much guaranteed we'd encounter freighters on a regular basis. After skipping every freighter that appeared to be transporting mainly ore, we encountered one that appeared to be nearly maxed out with normal cargo. I managed to get them to heave to, although I had to threaten the use of deadly force. We examined their manifest, decided what we needed to procure from them, and had them assemble the food and send it over."
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