by Chris Hechtl
“Sir, you can't do that. I did nothing wrong,” Captain Clayton insisted over the open channel.
“Don't feed me that crap, Captain; you should know better. The charges and specifications will include mutiny and attempting to destroy naval property among others,” the admiral's voice said. It came out with a robotic inflection since it was a conversion from text to speech, but everyone who heard it could still feel the snarl in the tone just from the wording. More than one person winced at that.
“Lieutenant Essay, Chief Bailey, get Ilmarinen squared away now. I'll contact you when I have something more. Irons out.”
“Aye aye, sir,” the XO said. He turned to the marine. “You heard the admiral,” he said, indicating the captain. “Confine the captain to quarters. Not his own, use a junior's.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Not his own?” a tech asked softly to another.
“There are remote controls in his quarters,” the other tech replied.
“As you were,” the XO barked as the fighters formed up around the factory ship. He zoomed in to see them and grimaced. They were indeed Cobra fighters.
“There is going to be hell to pay over this,” he murmured. Captain Clayton looked over his shoulder to see the image of the fighters and the shuttles coming in to dock with his ship and his shoulders slumped in defeat. All for naught, he thought as he passively let the marine lead him off the bridge.
@
Antigua
“Now what?” Captain Sprite asked as they all sighed a collective sigh of relief at the news that Ilmarinen was secure.
“Now we find a way to end this,” Admiral Irons stated.
“How do you propose we do that, sir?” Commodore Montgomery asked carefully.
“You aren't going to like the answer,” Admiral Irons stated.
“You’re right. If you are even considering what I think you are, I'm not going to like it a lot.”
Chapter 31
Special Agent Felix Brudigan kept his face impassive as he played his part. He was in uniform, this time of a naval commander, but he didn't like it. Of all the asinine plots, this one took the cake, not that anyone higher up was listening.
There was no escape plan for him if things went sour. Which was why, after careful consideration, he'd gone in under cover as an ONI commander by the name of Felix Lopez. That would piss a few people off he knew, but they should have known better than to try to hang him out to dry.
Not that he expected anything less. This was one of those missions where he was considered a loose end. He hated those missions; they haunted him sometimes. He much preferred to be the one tidying up such loose ends than being one.
Still, it might work he thought as the package made its way through the lock. It was in the back of the load, something he'd also insisted on. Having it come in all on its own would have set off alarm bells in the crew of the station after the incident. Hell, just having him on hand to walk it through should set off alarms in any halfway decent security officer. He wasn't certain of the quality of security these days, however. There had been a lot of shaking up, and well, some people that were left were dregs.
The package was massive, a cylinder five meters long by two in diameter. It looked like a missile. They'd tried to dress it up in a crate, but no food crate looked like that. He fought to keep his head still and from shaking from side to side in annoyance. Damn armchair quarterback nitwits who came up with the jackass ideas and left the field men like himself stuck making it work!
He grimaced. The bomb plot had most likely been hatched by Admiral Childress himself. He wouldn't put it past the man; he had been sadly mistaken in the senior officer for some time now. It was a good plan in theory he knew, but pulling it off … this time his head did shake slightly. He saw a Veraxin's eyestalk swivel in his direction at the slight motion. He grimaced and then flicked his fingers and closed his eyes as he rested his head on the headrest behind him.
It was best not to think of the mission, to get in character and stay there he knew, but he couldn't help but worry about it. There were too many holes in the plan, too many places where it could go wrong, which was why he was on deck, to paper over the cracks.
Commander Felix Lopez of ONI was on the scene and on record to get security to leave the package alone and let it through. He owed Omar a favor, and this was supposed to wipe the slate clean. He hoped so because his career was on the line. Hopefully, someone was smart enough to back him up and get rid of any inconvenient recordings.
He felt a bump as the shuttle shifted slightly, then opened his eyes. They had to unload the cargo, so he got up and walked out to stretch his legs. He kept off to the side as workers moved in and out with pallet jacks and other equipment.
He knew what the bomb was supposed to do; it was a plasma container packed around a cylinder of explosives. Just getting the damn thing engineered had probably been a feat he knew. The plasma had to be in a special container, one with magnets to keep it from touching the sides of both the inner chamber and the outer. The plan was to use the plasma to simulate rogue nanites destroying the place.
A Neodog security tech scanned a package that came off the shuttle and then sniffed the contents. Felix watched him warily.
When they got to the package, he watched the Neodog as he sniffed at it and then scanned it. “Hey, can we get the lead out here?” he said testily, pitching his voice enough for the dog to hear him. He saw the ears twitch his way anyway.
“We're almost done,” a tech said when he protested again.
“I don't care. I'm already behind schedule, and the admiral's going to be hissing pissed at me,” he said. “Can't do you that some other time? That's just an ice sculpture anyway!” he waved a hand.
“Ice?” the Neodog asked. “Says here we've got electronics inside.”
“That's because it's a giant reefer to keep it cold. You're supposed to plug it in,” he said, indicating a port on the side of the container. “I saw them loading it. It's a giant bottle with tubes and stuff inside. There are small bottles of alcohol and mixes inside too, frozen in the ice. There are motors and all sorts of crap. You put your drink under the tap and select the drink and it pours you what you want.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It's for an officer's club party later tonight. They are stashing it here for the moment, or so the guy who delivered it said when he damn near ran over my foot with it,” he said, ad-libbing a little. “It's for one of the admirals who is retiring. Spare no expense,” Felix said scathingly. The Neodog growled slightly at that idea. “They'll be pissed if you screw with it. So, if you do, you do it when I'm not around. I don't want to be called in as a witness,” he said with his hands up.
“Okay,” the Neodog said reluctantly. He frowned. Finally, he grimaced and waved it on through. “I'll take your word for it.”
“Gee, thanks,” Felix said, hiding his relief in his sarcasm. He rolled his shoulders and then climbed back on board the shuttle. “Come on, we've got another stop before mine!” he grumbled loudly.
“Yeah, we're working on it,” the cargo master grumbled as he stowed the tie downs and other gear that was no longer needed. “No changes to the load?” he asked the supervisor.
“No.”
“And no one tagging along?” the cargo master asked, holding out his clipboard for the supervisor to sign.
“Not when you are going to Echo Charlie's way instead of the planet. Maybe on the return trip,” the supervisor said as he scribbled his signature and then handed the tablet back.
“Good to know,” the cargo master replied as he took the tablet and tucked it under one arm. “Okay,” he said, patting the side of the bird as he boarded it. “Time to button up. All aboard who's coming on board,” he said. “Buckle in,” he said to the commander and other passengers.
“Right,” Felix replied. He fought not to lean forward to keep a wary eye on the package as the crew stored it near the dock and then plugged it in. The plu
g-in would start the countdown. Once it hit zero, the explosives would go off. The plasma was tightly packed inside the thing. He half expected it to go off early, taking him out and destroying any inconvenient loose ends. Apparently, that was not to be however.
Once the shuttle was clear of the station, he felt a brief spat of intense relief. His first part was done; they'd actually pulled it off.
Now he had to go to Echo Charlie and wait for the bomb to go off. The plan's success ratio just doubled he knew. They would have to nuke the area to destroy it, and thus any evidence he knew, which was where his second role came in to the plan. The people who had engineered the thing had set up the bomb to spray the area to make it look good. That much spray meant it would eat through everything in the area.
“What was that expression? Omelets and eggs?” he asked out loud. The cargo master looked at him dubiously.
Felix shrugged. “Sorry, visiting the food docks made me hungry for some reason,” he said, rubbing his tummy. The Neochimp snorted in reply.
@
Corporal Jake Foley frowned as he stared at the large crate. It bothered the hell out of him, something like that. And leaving it on the docks didn't seem right either. He frowned and then ran another scan. There was no sign of organics, so it wasn't any sort of Trojan horse. Not that he expected one. Who would want to rob a food storage depot anyway? Such ideas were silly bubkis.
Still, he logged the crate as well as the recording of the commander's assurances. He certainly didn't want to get into any trouble with the brass if it was some sort of damn test or something.
Really, he should follow protocol, he thought as he looked at the thing. By rights he should open it, but it would just be his stupid ill luck if something broke. Or it turned into snow. He didn't want that, nor did he want the headache involved with the paperwork, so he left it be.
Still, something nagged him about the thing.
@
Commander Thistle received a security alert. It was low level, so he wasn't certain why it was going off at all. He frowned as he checked the feed, more out of boredom than any slavish attention to duty. He got such alerts all the time.
He read the corporal's report and then frowned as he scanned the item and then the recording of its arrival. Something didn't add up, he thought as he checked the schedule. There were no parties that he was aware of, not within the next forty-eight hours. That part didn't make sense. He decided to do a check of the food depot in his afternoon inspection tour. And, if the thing was still on the dock when he got there, he'd take the heat for opening it and checking out what it was. And if it wasn't what it was supposed to be, well, it would get spaced and to hell with whoever sent it there to hide.
@
The bomb's timer ticked down to zero and then stopped. Within a microsecond, it had sent a spike of electricity through its circuits to the detonators buried in the plastic explosives while an electronic command went out through shielded conduits to the magnetic containers around the outer hull. They were to suck the power capacitors dry in a brief spat before reversing polarity. Another signal went to the bands protecting the explosives. They too would reverse polarity just as the explosives went off.
The contents were heavily pressurized. When the explosive went off, it sprayed the plasma all over the food docks. Another shuttle had just docked, dozens of civilian contractors and military personnel were on hand to unload it. Those that were not initially killed or maimed by the plasma had only milliseconds before the plasma breached the shuttlecraft's hull and outer skin around the airlock. What air remained in the compartment was more than enough to suck them off into space.
But the plasma kept going, eating into the inner hull of the station like a relentless animal.
@
Two decks below the explosion site, a group of techs were busy sorting through a load. Everything had to be checked against the manifest. The supplier was on the watch list for shenanigans with what they supplied. Two percent of the load was allowed to be damaged as long as most of the damage was minor.
So far, the damage had been limited to a couple components and some packing material, Joe, the PO on the shit detail, thought as he chuffed. He looked over to the supervisor and then away just as they heard a loud thud and felt a jolt in the deck. Dust kicked loose around them to hover in the air.
He wasn't the only one to look up in concern. “What was that? It wasn't a thud. Did something breach the hull?” Andy asked querulously.
“Nothing, keep working,” the supervisor snarled as distant alarms began to go off. “It's just someone docking too hard. Probably a noob,” he said. They were behind schedule, and he didn't need or want any interruptions. He had a big enough headache as it was. They had no authorizations for overtime too. “Come on, we've got to get this load sorted, or it will go bad,” he growled. “Move it.”
“Wait, something's wrong,” a cargo tech said, pointing to the far wall. “I smell something rank. Is that—melting?” slowly she backed away in growing alarm.
The super stopped and turned to stare. It did look like it was melting, like some sort of psychedelic dream. Or nightmare. “What … the … frack??”
Another tech looked up in concern. “Yeah, it's like melting wax. What gives, Joe?”
“Damfino,” a gorilla said, bristling and wrinkling his nose. “Stinks,” he said, plugging his nose with one hand while waving the other.
“Don't smell it!” the female tech said, still backing up until she bumped into a table. “It could be toxic! Is it getting warm in here?” She fanned herself. “I think we need to evacuate. It might be a fire …”
“Fire?!? Did someone say fire? Is it a fire? The alarms haven't gone off. What's going on, Dan?” another tech demanded, turning to the supervisor.
Dan sighed. Their pace had just been ruined, but he wasn't certain if that was good or bad. It clearly wasn't his fault.
“It's melting, how is that even possible?” someone said, staring at the wall.
“No, it can't be,” the supervisor scoffed but then looked closer. He felt the heat and saw a pipe bulging. That got his attention. It was ready to burst. “Shit. Everyone out!” he bellowed, turning and motioning for them to get out just as the pipe burst behind him. Hot steam sprayed the compartment. Yelps and screams erupted from the group as they all rushed for the door, some tripping over boxes and gear in their haste to get out.
In the corridor beyond, he had to keep bellowing to get them out as alarms began to wail. Joe growled and physically pushed people forward as they milled about, asking if it was a drill and what was going on.
“Move people! Something's eating through the hull! Move like your ass depends on it because it does!” he bellowed, showing his teeth. He was exasperated with the looky-loos and people who wouldn't move fast enough and blocked the way until the weight of the crowd forced them to get out of the way or move along with the tide.
@
Commander Thistle was making the rounds of the logistics stations in the area when he heard about the explosion. He checked the damage remotely. The cameras were not functioning near the blast zone, but just seeing what he could see make him instantly suspicious.
He moved into a knot of people near the lock. His short little legs made the distance a pain. There was nothing wrong with his ears however.
“It's nanotech! We need to evacuate! We're going to get eaten alive!” a hysterical voice said.
“Wait a minute! We don't want to spread this, we need to … screen everyone though …” a near hysterical supervisor said.
“We need to get clear! Worry about that later!”
“And if it spreads?” the supervisor demanded. “You want that hitting the planet??!?”
“Well no but …”
“It is not nanotech!” the tiny chimera said. The supervisor turned to him but then turned away as if dismissing him. Weaver's nostrils flared in anger as he climbed a gorilla's leg. The gorilla look
ed down at him, and then held out his arm to allow the chimera to climb up to his shoulder. “Listen to me!” the chimera bellowed, making everyone in the area stop.
“I've worked with replicators and nanotech for over a decade. We have never, ever had a situation like this. There are so many fail safes built in it isn't funny! This is something else.”
“What?” a tech demanded.
“Find me a Geiger counter and I'll prove it is not nanotech. Most likely it is plasma.”
The techs frowned at him as a media team managed to come up behind the group. How they had gotten on board and past security Weaver wasn't certain.
“Let me explain to you something simple to grasp people. There is no nanotech in the area. All of the replicators are in the high security area. This is a bomb.”
He saw the cameras focus in on him. He turned to them and then to the group, using one hand on the gorilla's massive head to steady himself as the gorilla chuffed.
“There is no need to nuke this base. There is no need to evacuate; the spread has stopped. First off, if it were nanites, it would be in the air as well as the walls. We'd all be dead piles of goop. This isn't. I've got alarms built into my implants, and they'd be screaming like crazy,” he said with a shake of his head as the crowd gasped in alarm.
“Who made you the expert?” a voice demanded.
His eyes flickered in challenge. “My name is Commander Weaver Thistle. I am not from Bek; I am from the outer Federation. I was sent here to upgrade your shipyards and industry to modern Federation standards. Before I was assigned to Logistics, I was a yard dog and slip manager. Before that, I was a chief engineer. I came up through engineering, so I know about replicators,” he said firmly. “Nanites are just tiny robots you program to do what you want. You turn them on and off. If they get out of their replicators somehow, they shut off and self-destruct. Period.”
He turned as security came up and began to issue orders for damage control and to secure the scene.
