by Ryan Krauter
Avenger was oddly quiet at this hour. The overnight watch had just started, eight hours of nothing interesting since the ship was tied up in orbit over the Confederation capital. Normally while underway the third watch was less staffed than the regular daytime shifts, though not extremely so. The ship still needed to be kept up and steered, maintained and tested.
Now, though, safely in orbit over Delos, the third watch was a skeleton crew, and it showed. Loren saw only a handful of crew as he walked through the ship toward the Captain's quarters.
Loren arrived at Captain Elco's hatch and tapped the button that would signal his presence inside. It only took a few seconds for a reply.
"Captain Elco here," was the response.
"Captain," Loren began, "it's Commander Stone. I have some very important information to discuss."
"You must be very excited about it considering the time of day and your fun filled evening at the detention facility. Come on in." The hatch clicked, the sound of the locks disengaging. Loren tapped another button and the door slid sideways into the bulkhead, allowing him entry.
Captain Elco was sitting at his desk in the day cabin, tunic jacket hung neartly over his seat back. He beckoned Loren over to have a seat, and as his XO did so he tried to arrange the clutter on his desk to give him a place so set his arms.
"I take it you found something when you went back into the facility?" Elco asked curiously.
"I did, Captain, and it's a biggie." Loren paused a second to gather his breath, then let it all fly. "We weren't attacked by Drisk; they were Primans wearing prosthetics and using a very advanced biosign spoofer."
"Well," Elco stammered in response. "I suppose I can honestly say I didn't see that coming."
"We didn't either, but then we noticed all the bodies had one of these." Loren pulled the ring from an inner jacket pocket and held it up between thumb and index finger, staring at it as if it were the most beautiful diamond in the cosmos. "This little thing was concealing their life signs. With them on, the bodies all showed as Drisk; with them off, they all came up Priman, no doubts." He set the ring on the desk in front of Elco, who could only stare at it.
Elco was recovering, gears turning in his head. "How many people know about this?" he asked.
"You, me, Cory, Merritt, Web, Captain Romica- the military police detective in charge of the investigation- and the coroner. Captain Romica seemed to understand the need for secrecy; she's having the coroner classify and put all the bodies on ice for now. I can't claim to know when the people of the Confederation at large need to be told, but for now we need to keep this as quiet as possible, because we have an advantage."
"Having an advantage usually implies we can do something about it," Elco continued. "What can we do? I assume by the shifty look in your eyes that you have a plan."
"Of course I do," he replied with a grin. "You know who else has one of those rings? Ms. Tana Starr, advisor to Senator Dennix himself."
Elco reacted immediately. "That's quite an accusation. But for the sake of argument, if she is involved, perhaps we need to move in and put her in chains right away. She could be a danger to the Senator."
Loren held his hands out, palms up. "I thought of that, but it doesn't make sense. She showed up, the Senator started getting odd in his positions and policies, then Velk somehow gets transferred right here, and the prison break had an inside source. I think she's using the senator. But she can't know that we know yet, which means we can watch her to see if she leads to either the Priman operatives that rescued Velk or some other intelligence windfall."
"It's a consideration," Elco allowed, "but look at it from the perspective of somebody who's a big fan of the Senator. To them, we're allowing an enemy agent direct access to him, and effectively using him as bait to keep Starr out in the open so we can track her in the slim hopes of finding Velk."
"That's about it," Loren said with a straight face.
"Ok, let's keep playing the game," Elco continued. "What would you do?"
"Simple," Loren said. "I'm assuming Starr had something to do with the breakout. If she did, then sometime very soon she'll probably be in contact with the operatives in some way. They'll need help getting out of the city and off the planet. We watch her. In turn, we probably find these operatives. Then we go in, make a mess of them, and recapture Velk. After that we go arrest Starr at noon in the capitol building in front of the whole planet."
"Now you're just fantasizing," Elco said with a wry grin. "Alright, I'll allow that you are probably on to something. The problem is that you can't let anyone in on this for fear of another Priman agent finding out and alerting Ms. Starr, should she in fact be in league with the rest of the Primans here. How will you manage to do this without any support?"
"We'll have Avenger's sensors," Loren said easily. "You can keep an eye on the whole city; video, audio, info feeds, that sort of thing. Nobody on the ground has to know we're doing this."
"There is the small matter of Avenger being ordered back out to the naval yards and away from the planet," Elco added, a look on his face that said he was dreading what Loren was going to reply with.
"We'll just need to come up with a reason to stay right here in orbit for a few days, that's all." He was all smiles.
"You're going to give me an ulcer. Or maybe just make the one I already have bigger." Elco leaned back in his chair, the leather creaking a bit as it stretched. "And you have enough manpower to do this?"
"No; Web is calling in Halley right now."
"Dare I ask why he thinks she'll just show up in our hangar?"
"He's convinced she's in the Delos system," Loren replied with a shrug. "He knows her pretty well; he might be right."
"Five people to watch Tana Starr," Elco mused. "You can't be out in the open because she met you today, so that leaves four. Is that enough?"
"It has to be," Loren stated confidently.
"So, I need to sabotage my own ship. I also need to let Admiral Bak in on this. You know he's going to give birth to a life sized battleship when he hears there are Primans running around on Delos."
"We could use another battleship," Loren replied.
"I'll keep the ring in my safe here," said Elco, "but you get to be the one to show it to Admiral Bak when we talk."
Chapter Twelve
Elco told Loren to report in as soon as he heard from Halley. They also agreed that Loren and the others would leave in the morning for the surface. They'd find a way to start watching Starr tomorrow, so they'd probably be up much of the night planning and gathering supplies.
After that, he put his uniform back on and adjusted everything perfectly. He left his quarters and headed to the Engineering spaces all the way aft. It was a ten minute walk; he figured he needed the exercise so decided to go the old fashioned way instead of taking a lift car.
Unlike the rest of the ship, Engineering rarely slowed down. If the powerful engines were making power, there needed to be plenty of crew there to monitor and shepherd the mighty powerplant along. Elco also knew his Chief Engineer would still be up, not content to turn over his engines to someone else until he was sure they were in top shape.
Elco wandered through the engineering spaces, taking in the sights and sounds. It was a more utilitarian area than the rest of the ship, with fewer cosmetic touches and the faint smells of lubricant and coolant in the air. He eventually arrived at the main compartment, which featured a whole wall of diagnostic displays, a corridor which lead to among other things the Chief Engineer's office, a series of tables and workstations, an arch which lead to a machine shop, and an access hatch to the further innards of the engines and power generation machinery.
"Captain," Elco heard a voice behind him. It was the Chief, a man Elco had come to admire for his ability to break the mold of what a Chief Engineer should look like.
It used to be that Chiefs were large, gruff and weathered folks, men and women, any species who felt the urge to try and master the mysterious process of defying
physics by administering engines that pushed a ship faster than the speed of light. Years back, they were often brawlers, and carried three tools: a can of spray tape, a hammer, and a bigger hammer.
The human in front of him was none of those, and was more representative of the new generation of engineers that served with him. Chief Engineer Andros Fyr was short; a full head less than Elco. While not scrawny, he was definitely smaller, younger, and was more often to be found trying to hack the operating system's software to make improvements than manhandling the machinery. Elco had wondered how the man would do when he'd first come aboard, but had quickly learned to respect the man's abilities, not to mention the fact that, despite his smaller stature, there was nothing he wouldn't try to do if need be.
"Chief," Elco said with a smile as he turned to face the man. "How are the engines?"
"Coming along nicely," he replied. "We're pretty much down to doing routine maintenance again; most of the repairs are done and we're just finishing up testing."
"Wonderful," Elco said, though something about his tone suggested it wasn't.
"You seem troubled by this happy turn of events," Chief Fyr stated quizzically.
Elco's lips compressed into a thin line. "You are aware that with the engines fixed, we're scheduled to break orbit and head out to the shipyards tomorrow morning."
"Of course, and we'll be ready."
"I need us to not be ready," Elco said slowly, looking around to make sure there were no other crew in sight.
"You will understand if I admit that sounds a bit counterproductive, I hope?" Fyr asked.
"Oh yes," Elco allowed. He put his arm on Fyr's elbow and steered him towards the Chief Engineer's office, then let the hatch shut behind them. They could monitor the main compartment through the large window in the office wall, and Elco stood with his back to it as Chief Fyr leaned against his desk.
"Chief," Elco continued, "Avenger needs to stay in orbit. It's part of a very classified mission that I need to keep compartmentalized, so I can't tell you why, and nobody can be allowed to piece together that it was done deliberately. It's not even officially a mission. The crux of the matter is that we need to stay here, and we need to not be able to move under our own power for a matter of days. What can you come up with that would fit the bill?"
Chief Fyr looked down at the desking, lost in thought, then seemed to speed up as he worked through the options. "Well," he started slowly, gaining momentum, "it can't be software; if there was a problem we'd just reload and reboot. Couple hours max. So, it has to be a hardware problem. But it needs to be something we can fix on our own, not cause permanent or serious damage, put the ship in jeopardy...." his voice trailed off as he did some mental math.
"We could dump the reactor core," he said finally, looking back up to Elco. "Call it a coolant issue, stuck injector, whatever. Back behind friendly lines like this, we'd just open up the access tunnel and eject the whole thing out through the keel and into space where it would cool down or finish consuming whatever fuel is onboard."
"No damage to the core?"
"No," Fyr reassured him. "That's how they take the cores out for overhauls anyway, so we wouldn't tear up any lines or anything real inconvenient."
"And how long to return to service?" Elco asked.
"Three days, give or take," Fyr said with a slight shrug. "It's not incredibly hard, just time consuming, and there's not much that any of the orbital tugs could help with, so we'd be pretty much left alone. It's all hands-on maintenance; getting it back in, cleaning it out, purging the fuel lines, repressurizing it all, that sort of thing."
Elco just nodded, hating to have to order the man to go through with it, but realizing that Loren was right; this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take down the Primans who'd freed Velk. "Can you do it now?"
Fyr only hesitated for a second. "Any time you need, Captain."
"Now is a good time," Elco said in reply without pause.
Fyr nodded and walked out of his office to one of the larger monitoring tables in the compartment and stood over it, tapping in some commands and gesturing over the surface.
"Oh no," Fyr said in a deadpan tone, glancing at Captain Elco, "the reactor's overheating. The safeties are commanding an ejection countdown." He looked at Elco, who simply stared back. A quick warning klaxon blared through Engineering announcing the impending reactor ejection. "Now would be the time to stop me if I've somehow misinterpreted our conversation," Fyr said quietly, but Elco just shook his head. Fyr nodded once in reply, then sent the command the computer was screaming for.
There were a series of bangs, loud and resounding metal-on-metal crashes as blast doors shut closed, severing connections and sealing the reactor chamber from the ship. A second later, Elco watched on the main diagnostic panel as a tiny holographic reactor core popped out of the bottom of Avenger, halfway between the aft hangar bay entrance and the business end of the engines themselves. The lights flickered once, briefly, as the ship's systems transferred automatically to backup power.
"Alright," Chief Fyr said. "We're on the backup reactor, loads are good. Now I just need to send some of my people out there to capture our wayward power core."
"Let me know if you need anything," Elco said, then clapped Fyr once on the shoulder as he turned to leave the Engineering spaces. "And, thank you."
The group had spent the evening and night planning, finally taking a break just before the first shift so they could all freshen up before meeting to take a transport to the surface. Loren and the captain were ironing out last-minute details, Cory was setting up Avenger's flight roster for her planned absence, and Merritt was prepping their ride. Web had been given the task of gathering any last-minute supplies he could think of, which brought him to his quarters for some items he possessed which were, technically speaking, not standard Confed military issue.
Standing before the hatch, he carefully crouched down and looked at the tiny blob of transparent adhesive he'd placed in the seam where the hatch met the frame. Anyone who'd entered his quarters would have knocked the tiny dot loose as the hatch opened, giving Web a heads-up that somebody had come calling. He hoped that someone would be Halley. Regrettably, the adhesive was still in place. Oh well, there was one more intrusion detector he had yet to check up on. He was beginning to feel the faint whisperings of disappointment on the edges of his mind; the thought that either he was wrong about knowing Halley's signature or her willingness to get to Avenger quickly, even though she said she'd get there as fast as possible when he'd commed her earlier.
He stepped into his quarters, comm device in one hand as he grabbed some pyrotechnic charges off a shelf with the other. He heard a sound from behind him and spun in place.
"I was wondering if you'd come back to your quarters or if I'd have to just go walk into the hangar bay," Halley said with a smile as she emerged from the shadows. "I would gain so few style points if I did that, so I defeated your old fashioned and very effective door gag and let myself in."
"And here I was beginning to wonder if I'd read you wrong," Web said with a grin that matched hers. He set down the flashbangs and stepped in for a long, tight hug followed by a kiss that hinted at the longing of lost time together.
"I thought I did a pretty good job of using something unconventional on the hatch," he said after they'd separated.
"Oh, you did," she agreed. "I haven't seen something like that in a long time."
"What I want to know is how you got it back on after you were inside," Web prodded.
"A girl has to have some secrets," she replied slyly.
"Oh," Web said, indicating the comm device in his hand. "I did manage to catch you in the act." She looked at him doubtfully, and he showed her the screen, which displayed a series of still images of Halley breaking into Web's quarters.
"Still images?" she said with a look of surprise.
"It seems like you have a great handle on technology," Web admitted, "so I thought I'd use something that only act
ivated for a split second at a time versus the continuous signal a holo or motion capture feed emits." He once again waggled the device, proudly reminding her that he'd actually gotten the drop on her.
"It would have been a posthumous victory," she warned. "You realize I could have killed you and boxed up your parts for shipping in the time it took for those images to come in."
"You have some repressed hostility to deal with," Web joked, and she playfully punched him in the shoulder.
"Well, I suppose there is something I can do to reward your efforts," she said playfully. Surprisingly, Web summoned up a hidden wealth of self-control and grabbed her hands in his. "There's no time," he said quickly. "I will take a rain check on that offer, with interest of course. But we need to get to the hangar and on the way to Delos. Everyone else is there and Loren can brief you on the way down."
"Wow," said Halley, her surprise showing. "You must have something really special in the works."
"It's going to be so much fun."
"I will try to not ask something obvious," Halley said slowly, "such as wondering if you're really really sure about this information." Everyone minus Merritt, who was flying, was sitting in the cabin seats just aft of the flight deck as they rode down to the surface of Delos.
"I wish there was another explanation," Loren said with a sigh, "but no matter how you look at this, those facts all line up one way. Either Starr is a Priman, or a sympathizer working for them. And we haven't even discussed what this might mean about the Senator. Could he have some knowledge of this, be complicit?" The thought was staggering.
"We need to keep this under wraps for now," Loren cautioned. "Everything you know gets reported when you go in for a debrief, right?" Only Loren knew about the true reaches of the detached SAR operative program, of which Halley was a member. Her nanite-enhanced abilities included a form of swarm memory that provided a record of virtually everything she did. It made for bulletproof evidence when necessary. The problem was that when she uploaded some nanites to the storage facility, everything she knew would become part of the database, and Loren couldn't have anyone else knowing about the covert Priman presence yet.
