Battlecruiser Alamo: Into the Maelstrom

by Richard Tongue

   “You wanted to see me, sir?”

   “I did indeed,” Marshall replied. “They're up to something over there, Pavel, and I need to find out what. As far as I can see, you and Harper are the best chance we have of finding out.”

   Nodding, Salazar said, “You want me to put together a team, sir?”

   “Under the cover of shore leave, and I'll be sending half a dozen shuttles across to make sure that you are well-camouflaged.”

   “I'll see to it right away, sir.” He paused, then added, “I will need Lieutenant Harper, Sub-Lieutenant Scott and Ensign Rhodes included in the leave parties, sir. As well as Midshipman Clarke and Technical Officer Blake.”

   Raising an eyebrow, Marshall replied, “Harper, Scott and Rhodes I understand, but why the others?” He paused, then said, “I take it this is one of those matters that I'm not going to find out about, isn't it.”

   “You'll just have to trust me, sir, when I tell you that both Clarke and Blake come highly recommended for this sort of operation. Especially as there is a chance that Harper and I will have to serve as decoys, assuming United Nations Intelligence is on their usual form. I take it the requirement is for as low a profile as possible?”

   “Assuming Frank Rhodes feels capable of such a mission profile.”

   “He's changed since you knew him, sir.”

   “I hope so.” Marshall paused, then said, “Any progress with the saboteur?”

   “No, sir, though I agree with you that there is a strong chance of a connection. It seems too much of a coincidence, otherwise.”

   “Watch yourself, Pavel. Remember that Leonov Station is neutral territory. If you get yourself in trouble over there, my options for intervention are extremely limited.”

   “Let's hope that it doesn't come to that, sir.”

   “Quite so. Good hunting, Lieutenant.”

   “Thank you, sir.” Salazar snapped a salute, and walked out of the room, leaving Marshall alone in his office. He looked back at the strategic display, shaking his head. Something strange was going on out here, and he couldn't shake the suspicion that Harper and Salazar knew more than they were telling.

   Tapping another control, he said, “Marshall to Doyle.”

   “Science Department here, Captain.”

   “Our target star, Lieutenant. I want all long-range sensors focused on it at once. If there's been any change, anything we missed in the original sweeps, I need to know immediately.”

   “Will do, sir. Science out.”

   That star was the answer. It had to be. Though right now, he didn't even know the question.

  Chapter 7

   The shuttle settled into position by the docking port, the double airlocks sliding open to reveal the station's concourse beyond. Harper glanced at Salazar, and the two of them walked through the security monitors, quietly hoping that their concealed equipment would pass undetected. Triplanetary Intelligence sometimes went for the primitive; obsidian knifes hidden in their heels, bamboo blowguns under their epaulettes, tranquilizer darts already in place.

   A nervous, surprisingly junior guard waved the sensor wand over them, refusing to meet their eyes as he completed his work. With a curt nod, he dismissed them, sending the pair forward into the docking concourse, hastily permitting Rhodes and Scott to join them. The rest of the passengers were nominally listed as maintenance technicians, though Harper had carefully gone through the personnel files to find the half dozen crewmen who had excelled at unarmed combat training, and their communicators were linked by a secret web, designed by the brightest engineers the Confederation had at its disposal.

   Leonov Station was one of the wonders of explored space, a tangled network of tunnels and corridors, where tens of thousands of years ago an alien race had dug deep into a small asteroid in search of minerals, for reasons the best archaeo-geologists had yet to discern. Along the way, they had carved an intricate network of pictograms along the walls, with experts still arguing over their meanings, decades after their first discovery.

   Whoever the aliens were, they'd left no trace over than the empty tunnels and their enigmatic writings, scattered across the walls for their heirs to see. Countless years of research had led precisely nowhere, but the station had become the first major extrasolar tourist attraction, and the gathered crowds were testament to the lingering appeal of the alien, the unknown.

   Countless eyes followed their movements as they made their way through the first layer of tourist traps, stalls selling garish representations of unknown species, novelty items sold for infinitely more than their true worth, scattered smells from the fast food of a hundred cultures assaulting their senses as vendors called to the visitors, urging and demanding that they sample their wares.

   Harper knew that they were being monitored, both by local station security desperately attempting to keep the peace and by undercover UN marshals, hidden in the crowd. Not to mention the local criminal gangs, hoping to reap some profit out of the confused situation. Turning into the main thoroughfare of the station, the group split into two pairs, Rhodes and Scott gamboling off in one direction, making maximum effort to attract attention, and she and Salazar taking another, down a side passage laced with exotic odors and clashing music, a confusing mass of rhythmic beats that pulsed through their ears, pounding into their heads. The others had simply drifted into the nearest bar, seamlessly merging into the crowd.

   Despite the decor, Leonov was no different than a dozen other stations one jump from Sol, a combination of corporate headquarters and tourist trap, close enough that the long arm of interstellar law could restrict criminal activities, but sufficiently distant that the underworld would still be in full swing, often surprisingly close to the surface.

   Officially, this was the first time the two of them had visited the station. Unofficially, being on the frontier between the Confederation and United Nations Colonial Territory, a system rendered neutral by the treaties that ended the Interplanetary War, it was difficult for any Triplanetary Intelligence operative to avoid the station for long. Here the Great Game was played, with different rules than the violence of the far frontier, rival espionage networks forced to coexist, at least to some degree.

   Salazar gestured at a vendor selling something that at least appeared to be food, and the two of them walked over to the spitting barbecue, accepting two burgers slammed between grease-laden stale buns, smeared with a spicy, crimson sauce that ran down the side of the patty onto their fingers. A single bite was rapidly followed by a second, as Harper realized that more by luck than judgment, they'd stumbled across someone selling real meat, even if it was almost certainly fattened guinea pig rather than the chicken it pretended to be.

   Wiping her hand down the side of her uniform jacket, she led the way through the tunnels, the shops and stalls growing ever cruder as they descended into the station's underworld, garish neon lights promising to sate all desires, no matter how base, the stores growing more and more obscene as they progressed. Finally, they walked into a bar, seemingly at random, pushing through the crowd as the music played through overhead speakers.

   The barman looked up at them as they approached, and said, “I don't serve your kind here.”

   “You've got to get past that attitude of yours,” Harper replied.

   “My attitude is my own affair.”

   “Not when it interferes with business,” Salazar answered, completing the countersign. The bartender gestured for them to enter a back room, a cloud of chemical smoke pouring from the doors as they slid open, the two officers staggering in as the smell assaulted their noses, the air so thick they could almost chew on it.

   Inside, the room was empty, only two sets of work overalls hanging on a rack by the wall, both fitted to their measurements, all appropriately aged. As they hastily undressed, a pair of local technicians of roughly their height and build entered the room from the far side, pulling on the proffered uniforms
.

   “You clear about what to do?” Harper asked.

   Her counterpart nodded, and said, “Wander through the station at random, and start asking questions about Waldheim. Not to make any references to who we are, avoid contact with other Alamo crewmen, and return here in about an hour to make the transfer.”

   “Good,” she replied. “Keep out of trouble, and don't start anything. If you run into problems, run for it. Don't try and be a hero.” Glancing at Salazar with a wry smile, she added, “That's our job.”

   “I'm not being paid enough to be a hero,” Salazar's counterpart replied, tugging on the jacket. “Good luck.”

   Dressed in their new, distressed clothing, Salazar and Harper walked through the far door, along a narrow, ancient corridor that only the original survey team, all Martian loyalists even decades before the revolution that brought about the Interplanetary War, had known. Only a hundred meters, but it took them into another back room, similar to the one they had left, and into a low-grade diner, serving food that made the burgers they had consumed appear a gourmand's delight in comparison. Pausing only to purchase a pair of coffees from the vending machine, the pair stepped out onto the street, running parallel with the one they had left.

   This time, they attracted far less attention, just two more technicians enjoying some shore leave, nothing to mark them as anything special. The odds were good that the marshals were still tracking them, but local security had far fewer resources as their disposal, and it was disturbing the neutrality of the station that concerned Harper and Salazar most. Getting into a fight with the UN undercover forces was less of a problem, as long as they made sure the other side took the first punch.

   Another series of twists and turns took them into the industrial area, away from the underworld, an oasis of respectability in the sordid environment. The mega-corporations had the grandest facilities, in the larger caverns at the top of the station, but it was the smaller, local companies that were of interest at the moment, specifically an import/export agency specializing in luxury clothing, transshipped from fabrication facilities on Titan to colonies and outposts across a dozen systems.

   Salazar took the lead this time, walking through the double doors, earning a frown from the guard standing at the entrance, his nose wrinkling at the state of their attire. The receptionist on the desk had a similar attitude, frowning at their approach as he walked up to the counter, leaning on the surface with a smile on his face.

   “Vermin control,” he said. “You've got rats in your storage facility.”

   Her mouth widened, and she replied, “I haven't heard anything about that.”

   “Check with your supervisor.” He pulled out a battered, mangled datapad and continued, “All I know is that I have a work order to carry out an inspection and provide a quote for extermination. You don't want us, that's fine, but I want someone with authority to tell me so. Or I've wasted a lot of time for nothing.”

   She looked down at her panel, tapped out a series of commands, then said, “Go on up. Someone will be waiting for you in the warehouse.” Shaking her head, she added, “Rats, now. Could this dump get any worse?”

   “Don't worry, honey,” Harper replied, as the two of them walked into the elevator. “We know what we're doing.” The doors slid shut, and she looked at Salazar, and said, “You're enjoying this.”

   “Guilty as charged,” he said, a smile on his face. “Though I need to have words with my tailor. These jumpsuits itch.”

   “Probably best not to ask why,” she replied, tapping out a ten-digit sequence on the control panel, freezing the elevator opposite a small cave that officially didn't exist. The doors slid open, and they walked down a short corridor, electric-blue spotlights shining on the pictograms, and into an office that could easily be a duplicate of Captain Marshall's, on Alamo, right down to the flag hanging by the wall. A moment later, a harried-looking man wearing engineering fatigues walked in, shaking his head as he looked at the two of them.

   “Just what I need,” he said with a sigh. “More trouble.”

   “It's nice to see you too, Ken,” Salazar said.

   Rubbing his hand on his forehead, Lieutenant-Captain Bailey, local intelligence liaison, replied, “Just answer one question. What are you doing here?”

   The two looked at each other, and said, “We're investigating the disappearance of Monitor. And Pioneer, for that matter. We didn't have any idea that Waldheim would be waiting for us.”

   Dropping down behind his desk, Bailey replied, “Nor did I. There was no warning, no notice, she just turned up two days ago and moved into defensive position. My contacts in Station Administration tell me that they skipped the usual unreasonable demands. Officially, it's just shore leave, though I've seen less disruptive invasions.”

   “How many people have they got over here?”

   “More than a hundred, at least. Including an old friend of mine.” He pushed a datapad across the table, the image of a harsh-faced woman with a scowl on her face, one that looked as though it was a permanent feature. “Colonel Leticia Cruz. The name might be familiar.”

   “The Butcher of Thalassa,” Harper replied. “Personally responsible for the execution of more than a hundred political activists. Even the Security Council blanched at giving her employment, though. I thought she'd been forcibly retired.”

   “So she had, but she's back.” Shaking his head, he said, “For a ship supposedly out on deep patrol, they've got a lot of intelligence types on board, and I'm not talking about the usual political advisers. Pastell, Brooke, Rahe, Kuhrt. Some of their top undercover operatives, and my people are having trouble keeping them away from sensitive areas.” With a sigh, he continued, “What bothers me more are the people we don't know about. With this many people roaming the decks...”

   “As far as we can tell, we managed to get here without anyone noticing, and our decoys seem to know what they are doing.”

   “I damn well hope so. My kids have been wanting to get into the family business for years. First rung of the ladder.” His smile vanished quickly, and he continued, “I don't know exactly what Waldheim is doing here, but I know that they aren't the first UN ship to follow this particular trail.”

   “Oh?” Salazar asked.

   “Three weeks ago, the Conor Cruise showed up. Pocket Cruiser, Peacekeeper-class. Not such a high profile invasion as this one, but they asked a lot of questions, wandered around, then jumped away, supposedly to Barnard's Star.”

   “Let me guess. They never made it there.”

   “Correct. I think they're following Monitor.”

   “Then the United Nations knows about her?”

   “I'm not sure, but they definitely know about Pioneer, which means they know that the Confederation has a special interest in the brown dwarf you're heading for. Certainly they must have heard whispers about that damned ship, though I haven't learned anything more definitive than that. I've got one of my double-agents working with Rahe right now, but he's been out of contact for longer than I liked.”

   Glancing at Harper, Salazar said, “I think we could do with a private chat with one of these top undercover agents. Do you think there is any way an interview might be arranged, on our terms?”

   “Anything is possible,” Bailey replied, punching a series of controls on his desk. “One of my field agents will call in when they've got one out on their own. Though I want it to be clear that you both have to be careful. I'm aware of your reputation for mayhem, and I can't afford it, not on this station. I've spent twenty years building up this network, and I will not have it ruined for one operation, no matter how important it might be.”

   “Understood,” Harper said. “Is there anything else?”

   “Possibly,” the agent replied. “It isn't just the UN out here. A Republic agent was sniffing around a fortnight ago.” With a smile, he continued, “I know they are meant to be our allies now, but old habi
ts die hard, so I put a bead on her anyway, just to be careful. Anyway, she chartered a transport to go somewhere, but I wasn't able to find out where.”

   “Another lost ship,” Salazar said.

   “No,” Bailey answered. “The transport came back, five days ago. Jumped out of the system as soon as they could, out towards UV Ceti. One of my people managed to get hired on, so we'll have a fuller report in a few weeks.”

   “That's too long,” Harper said. “I suppose the Republic operative went with them.”

   Shaking his head, Bailey replied, “No, and they bought a new shuttle, as well. You tell me what happened out there.” Looking up at the two of them, he continued, “I just know that this is leading to trouble we can't handle. Have you seen the latest field reports? Our operation out at Tau Ceti was broken two months ago, primary field agents captured or killed. More patrols on the frontier. I think they're building up to something, and I can't shake the feeling that it all leads to this station.”

   “Or to that brown dwarf, one jump from here,” Salazar said. “I suppose there's no chance that the other major powers haven't found it, but unless we're missing something major, I don't see any significant strategic significance to the system. Except that something out there is eating starships.” Frowning, he added, “I'd like to take a look at the records from that freighter.”

   Sliding a datacrystal across the table, Bailey said, “Be my guest, but you'll need serious computer time to crack the encryption. More than I have access too out here. Alamo might be able to manage it.”

   Taking the crystal, Harper said, “If we're still here, I'll make sure you have a copy of everything we get out of this. At least we now know that one ship managed to get out intact.” Frowning, she asked, “What would you recommendation be?”