The Exxar Chronicles: Book 03 - Acts of Peace and War

by Neal Jones

  "What about his bio-net?" Saveck asked. "If he was injected with a drug to induce unconsciousness, wouldn't that have set off a security alarm?"

  Navarr shook her head. "Not necessarily. As advanced as our bio-nets are, they do have some flaws. If Kiran had been attacked from behind, without any prior knowledge that he was in danger, he wouldn't have had time to activate his net's alarm code."

  "But what about using it to track him?" Sikandra suggested.

  "Nope. That's another flaw. The bio-nets can be rendered completely inert by certain drugs. Kiran's attackers would have anticipated this, and I already checked with the security stations between here and Shheck. They've been scanning for his signal, but nothing has registered."

  "All right, then," Gabriel said, motioning for Navarr to sit. "Next item on our agenda is the arrival of the Chrisarii delegation." He glanced at his security chief once more. "Is everything ready on your end?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Good."

  "When are the ambassadors going to have their first official session together?" Decev asked.

  Gabriel shrugged. "It's up to them. Probably early next week." He glanced down at his pad. "Doctor, this next item is yours."

  "Hhmmm? Oh yes, thank you. I just wanted everyone to be aware of a few cases of Sketh influenza that have been reported in sector seventeen over the last couple weeks. It's nothing too serious, but anytime we have an outbreak – no matter how small – it's always good for everyone to review quarantine procedures. We were able to contain the outbreak, and so far, no other cases have been reported anywhere else on the station. I listed the symptoms for you anyway, just in case."

  There were nods all around, and Gabriel said, "Thank you, doctor. Anybody have anything else to add?" No one did. "All right. Dismissed."

  Navarr remained, waiting for the others to leave, before approaching Gabriel. "Sir, I realize that my evidence so far is circumstantial, but I believe it's enough to inform ISD."

  The commodore shook his head. "The first thing they're going to want to know, commander, is how Garrett was transported off this station without our knowledge. You find me an answer to that, and then we'll inform ISD."

  "Yes, sir." Navarr hesitated.

  "Something else, commander?"

  "Have you notified his mother yet?"

  The commodore grimaced. "No. I wanted to wait until we knew more about what happened to him."

  "Sir, it might be best to at least tell her that something's happened."

  "I know," he sighed. "I just hate making these types of calls."

  Navarr nodded and slid a data disc across the table. "His mother's name is Amelia. She lives in Australia – New Sydney, I think. She's a doctor."

  "Amelia Garrett?"

  "Yeah. Why?"

  Gabriel frowned and then shook his head. "Never mind."

  After Navarr left, Gabriel picked up the disc and stared it for a few moments, turning it over and over in his fingers. There was something familiar about Doctor Garrett's name, but he couldn't immediately place where he'd heard it before. He slid the disc into the computer terminal and then keyed the command to launch its programming. After a few moments, the calm, austere countenance of a middle-aged human woman appeared on the screen.

  "Hello?"

  "Doctor Garrett?"

  "Yes. Who is this?"

  "I'm Commodore Gabriel. I'm – "

  "Kiran's commanding officer on Exxar-One. Yes, I recognize you now. How can I help you?" A worried note crept into her tone.

  "I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but your son has been kidnapped. He's no longer aboard this station."

  "I see." Amelia's expression tightened, and her mouth drew into a thin line. "How long ago did this happen?"

  "Probably thirty-six hours, maybe forty at the most."

  "I see. Are there any leads?"

  "We have a couple, yes. That's all I can say for now. I will give you what information I can as it becomes available – and as regulations allow it."

  "Of course. I understand. Have you informed the Internal Security Division yet?"

  Gabriel blinked, surprised by her knowledge of military procedure. "No. My security chief has not yet been able to establish exactly how the kidnappers got Kiran off the station without our knowledge. I expect that she will have answer to that mystery by the end of the day. I plan on informing ISD then."

  The doctor nodded. "Very well. Thank you for letting me know."

  The call was terminated before Gabriel could say anything more, and he stared at the screen, puzzled, for a minute or two. Not quite the reaction he had expected from someone who had just been informed that her only child was missing and, quite possibly, in grave danger.

  As he left the wardroom, Gabriel made a note to himself to research Doctor Garret later when he had the opportunity. For now, there was a busy day ahead and too many other equally important matters to attend to.

  ( 2 )

  Navarr stepped out of the PTL and marched down the second level of the promenade, her gaze locked straight ahead, her eyes narrowed. Her destination was the corridor outside the herbal shop, the probable scene of Garrett's kidnapping. When she arrived she found Lieutenant Scarvo waiting for her.

  "Hey," Dana greeted her, and then paused. "You look like you're about to kill somebody."

  "I was up all night trying to figure out this mystery, and it hasn't been a good morning so far."

  Scarvo nodded. "I've been looking over this entire area. I even brought a scanner. I can't find anything out of the ordinary."

  "Then look again. Neither of us is leaving this hallway until we figure out how those pricks got Garrett out of here without setting off the alarms."

  "So you're positive they used a portable cardon emitter?"

  Navarr nodded. "There's no other way they could have done it. It would have been the quickest, easiest solution." She walked slowly along one wall, looking up and down. "Our only goal now is to figure out how they did it."

  Scarvo began walking the opposite side of the corridor. When they arrived at the dead end, they paused. Navarr turned back, looking up to see where the vidcam was located in the middle of the ceiling. Then she looked at the entrance to the herbal shop.

  "The camera's view begins just past the door. That means the Xaric had this whole area to operate in, unseen."

  "But they'd have had to be quick. Even during a weeknight this place is fairly busy, and it's not far off the main concourse."

  "Right. We know that there was at least two of them, so let's play this out." Navarr activated her bio-net and tapped several commands into the holo-display on her right palm, bringing up the vidcam's surveillance feed. Then she transferred the readout to Scarvo's bio-net. "Let me know as soon as I'm in the visual pickup field." She walked to the door of the herbal shop and stood in front of it.

  Scarvo stared down at her palm, shaking her head.

  Navarr stuck out her hand.

  "Now I see you. Pull it back a little...a little more...there!"

  "Okay." Navarr turned to the door. "That means they would have had to grab him almost as soon as he stepped out."

  "They're also taking a big risk that no one's right behind him."

  Navarr nodded. "So, for the sake of argument, let's pretend that he comes out alone, they grab him, haul him back here, and...then what?"

  "They activate the cardon field, they haul him through, one of them grabs the portable generator, and they deactivate the field on the other side."

  "All right, simple enough." Navarr frowned, thinking, and then said, "Pull up the surveillance footage again. I want another look at those two." Scarvo nodded, transferring the readout to Navarr's palm a few seconds later. "Garrett is what – five-six, five-seven?"

  "I think so."

  "And he's fairly skinny, so let's say he's around one-fifty, maybe one-fifty-five soaking wet. These two look like they're at least one-eighty, and this one here has got to be at least six foot."

 
; "So you're saying there wasn't much of a struggle?"

  Navarr nodded. "What I'm thinking is that one of them grabbed Garrett and the other activated the cardon field."

  "What I don't understand is why they bothered with all the trouble of concealing the cardon signal in the first place. We already know when they boarded the station because the sensor alarm went off three days ago over in section forty-two. So why didn't they just do the same thing here? By the time we would have registered an unauthorized signal, they'd already be gone."

  "Probably because they weren't sure how easy it would be to subdue Garrett and get him through the field. If they knocked him unconscious right away, then yeah, they'd probably only need three or four seconds. But they also needed time to remove his transponder. And if he put up a fight, or someone happened to be walking by and interfered, or a customer came out of the shop at the wrong time, then they would need at least ten or maybe fifteen seconds to escape. Masking the unauthorized signal from internal sensors was an extra precaution, just in case."

  "Okay, that makes sense," Scarvo nodded. "But it still seems like a lot of extra work. If this was a dash-and-grab operation, they would have still been able to make a fairly quick escape, even if Garrett put up a fight or somebody saw it and ran to get help. Once the alarm goes off, it's not as if the station's deflector screens come on line."

  "Yeah, but they don't know that," Navarr corrected. "You're right about this being a dash-and-grab operation. The Xaric were only here for two days, they probably had limited knowledge of starbase operations, and they weren't going to take any chances of failure." Navarr put her hands on her hips and looked up. "Which brings us right back to our original mystery. How the hell did they activate the field without triggering a sensor alarm?"

  "There's only one obvious answer, Chris. They fooled the sensors into thinking that this cardon signal was an authorized one."

  Navarr nodded. "That's what I'm thinking too, but I can't figure out how they would have been able to do that!"

  "Well, like you said, let's play this out. We've just arrived on the station, we picked our spot to stage the kidnapping, and now we need to hack into the station's central computer in order to mask the cardon signal. How do we do that?"

  "Well, we know they didn't use the computer in their guest quarters, and we're fairly certain that they didn't have assistance from anyone on the station's crew."

  "For the sake of argument, let's pretend they didn't."

  "Okay. So if they didn't use the computer in their guest quarters, they would have had to have their own computer, or a compad, or maybe their own version of a bio-net." As she talked, Navarr started to walk slowly along the wall, bending down to peer closely at the large panels that covered access to the power conduits and other wiring stashed behind the wall. Suddenly, she stopped and knelt, running her fingers over a corner of one of the panels. "Dana, look at this. This screw isn't tightened all the way." She stood up and tapped her commlink. "Navarr to Lieutenant Endari."

  "This is Endari."

  "Are you in the middle of something, lieutenant? I need your help."

  "I'll be free in a few minutes. What do you need?"

  "Can you meet me on the promenade, level two, section forty? Bring a portable cardon transmitter and a maintenance kit."

  "Okay. I'll be there as soon as I can."

  "You're thinking that they hacked into the central computer from here?" Scarvo asked, skeptical.

  "I don't know. That's what I want Endari to tell me."

  "I don't think so. There's no com panels on these walls."

  "That doesn't necessarily mean there's no network cabling in there."

  "Even if there was, how the hell would you hack into the central computer without triggering a half dozen firewalls and failsafes? We'd have caught 'em before they got very far into the system."

  Navarr shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine, but obviously they found a way. How else would they have masked their cardon signal?"

  Scarvo nodded, scowling, and crossed her arms as she leaned against the wall. "Oh, by the way," she brightened, glancing up, "I know something you don't know."

  "Huh?" Navarr was kneeling beside the wall panel again, lost in thought.

  "About Sam."

  The security chief stood and turned. "What about him?"

  "There's a friend of a friend of mine who's a nurse in the ER, and she said that Sam was talking the other day about his parents visiting."

  "Yeah, I know. He mentioned it the other morning at breakfast."

  "Oh. So you know they're going to be here in a couple weeks."

  "Yeah. So?"

  "So he's going to want you to meet his parents."

  "Oh, so what?" Navarr gestured dismissively. "We've been dating for six months, that's not such a huge deal."

  "Really? 'Cause it would fucking freak me out. Meeting someone's parents is a big step. Has he ever talked about them with you before?"

  "Yeah, he's mentioned them a few times. His dad's a technical engineer for some manufacturing company on New Mars, and his mom's a..." Chris frowned. "Damn, I can't remember. An administrative secretary, I think. Or maybe an executive. It's something corporate anyway."

  "Uh-huh. And you're meeting them in two weeks."

  "Yes, Dana, we've established that. How did you find out anyway?"

  "One of the nurses in the ER told my friend Zee."

  "Petty officer Varela? From delta shift?"

  "Yeah, that's her. Her friend said that she was in the doctor's lounge in the ER when Sam was talking to Kade – I can never remember his last name."

  "McMullen?"

  "Yeah, him. Sam said his parents were coming in two weeks for a visit."

  "And...what else?"

  Scarvo shrugged. "That's it. Zee's friend left before she heard anything else."

  "And this was when?"

  "Day before last. Sam hasn't said anything to you about this?"

  "Why would Zee be talking to you about Sam?"

  "I was telling her about that concert Sam took you to the other night."

  "And?"

  "And what?"

  "Dana, do you gossip about me with Zee?"

  "Of course. It's what friends do. Oh, don't give me that look. It's not like I told her about that thing Sam has on his dick, that little mole you told me about a couple weeks ago."

  "Dana!" Chris glanced towards the corridor as a pair of shoppers walked into the herbal shop. She leaned closer, lowering her voice. "The only person you can talk about me with is me! Understood?"

  "Okay, okay. Jesus, it's not like I brought up the subject anyway. She wanted to know what concert you guys went to, and then –"

  "– and then you continued talking, telling her more than she needed to know. That's why she told you about the conversation she overheard. What exactly did you say? That Sam and I are serious?"

  "Well, yeah! And then Zee said, 'Yeah, they must be if his parents are visiting in a couple weeks. Maybe they're coming out here to meet her'."

  "Oh my gods," Navarr muttered, shaking her head.

  "I know, that's a big deal, huh?"

  "No!" Navarr yelled. "Not that! You! I'm not telling you anything ever again! That's it! My relationship with Sam is no longer any of your business!"

  "Okay, fine. But you do understand that, since you're a member of the station's senior command staff, your dating life has been the subject of gossip for quite awhile now."

  "Yes, I know," Navarr snapped. "But you don't need to contribute to it."

  "Okay," Scarvo replied, rolling her eyes at Chris' back.

  The security chief turned, hearing the sarcasm in Dana's tone, but, before she could say anything, Endari rounded the corner, a portable cardon generator under one arm and a maintenance kit tucked under the other. She paused, glancing at Scarvo's surprised expression and then at Navarr's scowl.

  "Commander. Lieutenant. Am I interrupting something?"

  "Oh, she's fine," Dana spo
ke up. "She just found out she's meeting Sam's parents in a couple weeks."

  "Oh, yeah, that's a big step," Endari agreed, plopping the generator in the middle of the floor and laying the kit next to it.

  Navarr stared at the engineer. "You know who Sam is?"

  "Of course! Doctor Eppler, right? The one you've been dating for the last few months?"

  Dana's expression turned smug. "See? I told you."

  "Oh, shut up." Navarr pointed to the wall panel. "That one, lieutenant. See the screw in the upper corner? It's a little loose. I'm thinking that Garrett's kidnappers used some network cabling behind there to hack into the station's central computer system."

  "I doubt it," Endari replied as she opened her kit. "There's no com panels in these walls."

  "Humor me," Chris replied dryly, glancing at Dana who was purposely looking elsewhere.

  It was a couple minutes before Endari was able to lift the panel out of its groove and move it aside. "Well, this is interesting."

  "What is?" Navarr asked, kneeling to look over the engineer's shoulder.

  Endari reached into the conduit, behind a thicket of multi-colored wiring, to grasp a small, diamond-shaped object attached to the rear wall of the conduit. She stood, turning it over in her hand, frowning. "I have no idea what it is, but it doesn't belong there."

  Scarvo had already activated her bio-net's scanner, and she slowly passed her palm over the device. "I'm not reading any power signature."

  "Internal elements composition?"

  "Coming through now." She held out her palm so the others could see the readout.

  "Never seen a physical design quite like that before, but I can tell you what those components are. This thing is a signal router." Endari turned it over in her fingers once more, searching for a pressure point. "Should be able to activate it...ah! Here we go." The front of the device suddenly lit up with a series of symbols that flashed in quick succession, eventually settling on just one blue glyph that blinked steadily on the tiny screen.

  "She's right, Chris, this is definitely a router," Scarvo remarked, glancing at the holo-display imprinted in her palm. "And it's already accessing the station's central network."