by Kal Spriggs
Alannis grunted as a pair of armed Marines tackled her in turn. She didn't protest, though. She knew both of them, had interviewed them. They were her son's escort and they were here to keep him alive in just this kind of circumstances.
"Rex is inside and covered," she heard over her earpiece. "Purple is covered," another voice said, "we are extracting her and Blue to shelter." Purple was Kaylee and Blue was her adopted sister, Patricia. Their escorts were getting them into an armored bunker... but that left Alannis and her son.
"Green and Red are covered near the north side fence. We'll attempt to extract to the north bunker." Alannis recognized the voice of Staff Sergeant Steven Vought, the head of her son’s team. He was also one of the two Marines on top of her. She was Green, her son was Red.
The two Marines rose off her and Staff Sergeant Vought helped her up, even while he covered his sector. Alannis looked over and saw that a large section of fence was gone, blasted back by the explosive charge in the delivery truck.
Low yield chemical bomb, she thought. Any kind of nuclear device would have been caught as would an advanced chemical explosive. This was probably something primitive, something easily hidden, but in bulk. Ammonium nitrate fertilizer, she thought, mixed with fuel. The scanners wouldn't have tripped on either and the attackers could have mixed the two after the outer perimeter checkpoint...
Which meant they would have known the bomb wasn't going to do more than damage the perimeter fence. That would then act as both a distraction and a method of breaching the inner perimeter.
She looked around, her gaze searching for someone or something out of place, even as the Marines hurried her and her son along. Her gaze caught on a group of armed Marines rushing towards the same bunker. There was something off about them: the way they ran and the way they held their weapons... "Stop!" Alannis shouted, "Infiltrators!"
Her son's escort stopped on her warning. One of them began to bring his weapon around, "Command, this is Red Escort, we've got a team one hundred meters from north bunker, confirm identity?" The second Marine, Alannis thought it was Lance Corporal Bobby Reed, pushed her and Anthony into cover behind a decorative wall.
"We are negative for anyone else in your area," Command snapped back.
"We're going to need support, Command, there are twelve personnel in full military gear and fatigues," Staff Sergeant Vought said. "They're moving in on our position."
"Do you have time to extract?" Command asked.
"Negative," Vought said. "They're too close and we don't have cover."
Alannis drew her pistol from inside her light jacket. Ever since seeing her friend Ashtar shot in front of her, Alannis had begun carrying a concealed weapon everywhere.
Lance Corporal Reed glanced back at her and the weapon, "Don't worry, ma'am, we'll hold them."
Just as he said that, the fake Marines saw them. Vought opened fire immediately and Alannis ducked back as the infiltrators opened fire in reply.
"Cover me, I'll move to a flanking position," Vought said.
"Command, this is Red Two," the other Marine said, even as he laid down covering fire. "We have been discovered. Infiltration team is returning fire--"
A round punched through his visor and he fell limp to the ground. "Red Two is down," Alannis said as she reached for his weapon. Before she could grab it, one of the false Marines rushed around the corner. She stared down the barrel of the man's weapon, yet he jerked the barrel aside and fumbled to draw a stunner.
Kidnappers, she thought. She raised her pistol and fired with her off hand. Her small pistol's light bullet didn't penetrate his chest armor, but as he flinched back, she brought the pistol up and had time to aim. Her next shot caught him at the juncture of his neck and shoulders, just below his helmet and above his body armor. The would-be kidnapper stumbled back, clutching at his throat and Alannis snatched up Reed’s rifle.
The next man around the corner either didn't care about taking them alive or he just valued his own life more than he did his mission. He fired as he rounded the corner, but his aim was high and Alannis shot him, the FMN-3’s rounds punched through the lighter armor on his legs. As the man fell with a scream, she put the barrel under his chin and fired, cutting his screaming short.
To the side, she heard Staff Sergeant Vought open up in his flanking fire, but the amount of return fire suggested this kidnapping team wasn't about to give up. They can't, she thought, they're in too deep; if they don't capture a hostage they've no way to escape.
She didn't know who would be desperate enough to launch such an attack, but she wasn't about to let them take her or her son as leverage. Alannis moved to the corner and then flinched back as bullets whined past. She heard someone shout, then, "That's her! Don't shoot her!"
On that cue she leaned out just long enough to get a picture of what was going on and fired off a couple of shots to keep the kidnapper's heads down.
Her son's escort had taken down three of them in the open, but the survivors had moved up quickly. Two of them fired at where she thought that Staff Sergeant Vought had moved to flank them. He didn't return fire, but Alannis didn't know if that was because he was dead, wounded, or just relocating to a better position.
The surviving four or five kidnappers didn't have much in the way of cover, not with how the grounds were laid out. But they did have more firepower than Alannis or Staff Sergeant Vought.
They opened fire at her position and Alannis ducked back as bullets punched through the concrete around her. Apparently they'd decided that killing her was acceptable if it got them to her son... or maybe they just hoped to drive her back. She didn't know which. "Command, this is Alannis Giovanni, we need support now," Alannis snapped into her comm unit.
"Support is en route," Command replied. "Keep your head down, over."
Alannis looked over and saw that Anthony had curled into a ball in the corner. She crawled over and sheltered him with her body.
A moment later, she heard a roar of engines and then a combat aircraft roared overhead. The chatter of a heavy gun preceded a chain of detonations. As the aircraft swung around to hover over them, blasting them with hot exhaust, Alannis felt a shudder of terror as she realized just how dangerous the situation had been. She began to cry, big, gasping sobs as she clutched her son close.
The risk to her own life was nothing... the fear of her son being captured or killed was unimaginable.
***
"We don't know much, yet" Captain James Minton said as Lucius and Alannis gathered in one of the secure bunkers under the house. Crown Princess Kaylee, Princess Patricia, and her son Anthony were also in the room, mostly because neither of them wanted the children out of their sight. "These mercs were hired for this through a set of cut-outs. They specialize in high-profile kidnapping missions. The survivors have confirmed that Prince Anthony and Princess Alannis were their primary targets. What we're still trying to figure out is just how they knew that Prince Anthony would be at the north end of the grounds when they triggered their explosive charge."
Alannis felt her stomach sink as she considered that. "Did they have an observation team?"
"That is part of what we're investigating," Captain Minton replied, "we've cleared the immediate area around the grounds, but there's still the chance of a ship in orbit or drone or aircraft at long range. That still doesn't tell us how they knew the timing."
"Or who put them up to this," Lucius nodded, with a glance at Alannis and her son. It was a cautionary look, but Alannis knew exactly what he meant by it: Don't jump to conclusions.
How could she not, though? Going after Lucius and his daughter would be one thing. This, though... this was something else. Comparatively, she and her son were of far less value and importance. Attacking the substantial defenses here brought extreme risk...
"Sir," a Navy technician hurried in, "we're picking up a data link. It's coming from this room."
Alannis's eyes went wide. She pulled out her datapad and ran a quick diagnostic. "I thi
nk mine is clean, confirm it, please."
The tech scanned her datapad and nodded as he passed it back, "This isn't it..."
Alannis's gaze went to her son. Young Anthony had backed away and his face adopted a serious expression. Oh, no, she thought. She stepped towards him, arm extended, "Anthony?"
He clutched his backpack in front of him, protectively. "Daddy said he was doing this for us, he wants us to be together."
Alannis's stomach dropped. She wanted to throw up. "Anthony," she said in as gentle a voice as she could manage, "give me your datapad, please?"
He adopted a mulish expression, "Why did you send daddy away?"
"Anthony..." Alannis felt tears well up in her eyes, "it's complicated. Your father..." her voice broke a little bit. She could feel the eyes of the Marine Captain and the protective detail. This was not the circumstances that she wanted to explain this all to her son. "Your father became involved with some bad people," she said finally. "I want to keep you safe from them, okay?"
"Bad people like the ones that hurt Bobby?" Anthony asked. The clarity he had as he realized that the attack was linked to his father, that the consequences for one of his escort had been injury, made her heart ache. She didn't want him to have to face these realities, not yet, but the truth was that he had endangered not just his escort, but the Marines at the gate.
Twelve Marines died in the attack at the gate, Alannis reminded herself, and Lance Corporal Reed died in the attack while Staff Sergeant Vought is severely injured. She nodded at her son, "Bad people like that."
He relinquished his hold on his backpack and Alannis took it. She opened it up. Inside she found what she had dreaded: a few precious toys, his childhood blanket, some photos, and his datapad. Just the sort of thing a child might pack if he thought he were going somewhere. He knew, she thought, and he didn't tell me.
She pulled out the datapad and then plugged it into hers and ran a quick diagnostic. She found the tracer program immediately and after a moment she discovered the hacked communications software. Someone on the other end had turned it on for audio but it was easy enough for her to bring it up to a two-way conversation.
"Reese," Alannis said as she stared at her husband. The slight delay in his response was enough to tell her that this transmission probably went through several connections to an ansible station. The expense of hacking through an ansible was staggering, as was the effort and complications of such a hack. She glanced at the tech who nodded and pulled out his own datapad. They were trying to track it to the source.
"Sorry that things went so badly," Reese said, "but I want us to be together, you can hardly blame a guy for trying, right?" His handsome smile was the same one he'd used when he forgot a date or when military duty cut his leave time short. For him to use it in circumstances where good men and women had died infuriated her.
"You stay the hell away from my son, you hear me?" Alannis snapped. "You've killed people."
"So have you... only the people I've killed are those preventing us from being together. Most of them didn't deserve it, but your brother is the one who put them in that position. If he'd just--"
"Stop," Alannis hissed, "just stop." She'd never felt so angry in her life. Even when Reese had hacked her implant... then she'd just felt betrayed. This, though... he'd gone after her child. "I'm coming for you Reese. I'm going to find whatever rock you've hidden under, and when I do..."
"Yes, tell Anthony what you plan to do," Reese replied. "I'm certain he'll be very understanding. While you're at it, tell him what his uncle did to me, how I've lived his entire life on the run, pursued by bounty hunters, with a price on my head! Go ahead, I'm waiting," Reese sneered.
Alannis felt her anger turn into a cold, hard thing. "I'm going to end this, Reese," Alannis's voice was leached of emotion. "I will do whatever I have to do to make my son safe, do you understand me?"
Reese seemed to realize that he'd gone too far. He blanched at her expression, but he didn't waver, "You don't understand --not yet-- Alannis, but you will. One day you and I and our son will all be together. Goodbye for now, my love."
He cut the connection. Alannis looked up and the technician shook his head. "We've traced it back to an ansible station, but it's going to take hours, maybe days to track it from where he's been transmitting and that's assuming he used a listed station." He swallowed nervously, "I didn't even know this kind of hack was possible."
Alannis just nodded. Doing the impossible seemed to be what her ex-husband did best.
***
"Jesus, Ally," Forrest shook his head, "I'm just glad you're both alright." They were sitting at a balcony seat at a restaurant which looked out over one of Faraday's seas. Forrest had recommended the place. The restaurant staff had been very understanding of her security needs and if the squad of Marines around the perimeter stood out of place, well, they added a welcome sense of security.
"Thirteen Marines aren't alright," Alannis grated out. They'd planned this dinner outing a few days earlier, synched between their two schedules, so that he wasn't away from his new command any longer than necessary and she wasn't away from her own duties. After everything that had happened, he'd offered to cancel, to give her time to deal with things.
Alannis, though, refused to allow Reese's actions to cast a shadow over their date. "Anyway, I don't want to talk about it... about him anymore." She reached down and picked up a wrapped package off the floor, "Here, I got you something."
"Really?" Forrest asked. "What's the occasion?"
"Your birthday," Alannis said, "though we're a few days early."
"Oh, thanks," he shook his head a smile on his face, "honestly, I'd forgotten about it."
"You forgot your birthday?" Alannis asked in surprise.
"Yeah..." Forrest shrugged and he set the package aside. "You may not realize it, but my birthday falls on the same day that Nova Roma attacked Saragossa." He cleared his throat, "The last message I received from my wife was her wishing me happy birthday."
Alannis blanched, "Oh... crap. I'm so sorry."
"It's okay!" Forrest held up a hand. "Really, it's fine. Most people don't connect the dates. Hell, the only reason I do is that last message." He shrugged and gave a sad smile, "What can you do, right?"
Alannis nodded, though she mentally kicked herself for not connecting the two dates.
"Let's see what you got me, right?" Forrest asked. He tore open the wrapping and then opened the box. "A... datapad?" he asked.
"It's a Rocabertti Titanium," Alannis said. "It has all the features: full bandwidth connections, long range transmission capability, and even a solid-state quantum core processor. You could practically run a starship with it. Next time we need to get through a door, I won't need to use an antique to do it."
"Uh, thanks," Forrest said. He gave her a smile as he set it to the side.
Alannis didn't have to be a psychic to realize that Forrest didn't much like his gift. "Um, not much into computer stuff, are you?" She realized then that he hadn't carried around an old datapad because he couldn't afford a new one. It just wasn't something that he much cared about.
Forrest shrugged, "Honestly... no, not really. I appreciate the thought and all, but I don't know how much of the functions on this thing that I'll use."
"Wow," Alannis shook her head sheepishly, "I'm zero for two so far."
"Crap," Forrest said, "look, I'm sorry. You've had a rough couple of days and I've gone and made things worse..."
Alannis held up a hand, "No, I should have put a bit more thought into all of this... so let's just change the subject, right? How's the new command?"
Forrest's face lit up, "Well, great, really. I mean, it would be nice if I'd been given the chance to put together my own command, but Commander Mills left me with good people. The Bowie's has outstanding readiness ratings and we're getting ready for our first cruise. No orders yet, but..." he trailed off as he considered their surroundings. "Well, I'm hoping we'll be a part of the Constellation's a
ssignment."
Alannis considered that. The Constellation's next assignment hadn't been posted yet, but it would almost definitely involve Reese and whatever he and his mysterious patrons worked towards. "That would be good," she said after a moment.
"Yeah," Forrest said. "Now, the really neat thing about the Bowie is that she's an Amalgamated Worlds Kukri-class destroyer that’s been refitted..."
Alannis sat back and let him talk. His enthusiasm was infectious and she felt some of her worries ease as he talked about his ship. Later she would return to the problem of her psychotic ex-husband. For now, she listened to Forrest describe his crew and ship and just enjoyed the evening.
***
Chapter II
Sanctuary Station, Faraday System
United Colonies
August 25, 2409
"Ladies and Gentlemen," Admiral Anthony Doko said, "those of you in this room are aware of the recent attack on Imperial House. You've also been briefed on what we know and suspect about Reese Leone's efforts in regards to Illuari artifacts." He swept his gaze around the room and Alannis sat up a bit straighter as he met her eyes. "What you're about to hear in this briefing is sensitive information, not to be discussed anywhere outside of a secure room."
She knew Anthony was her brother's oldest friend. She also valued his friendship herself, she'd even named her son after him. Even so, the stern look on his face was enough to make her back straighten and her throat constrict a bit.
He seemed to approve of the responses he received. "Now, all of you here are either ship's commanders or senior officers who will join a new command. That command's express purpose is to find Reese Leone and stop him. You will have at your disposal an entire support team operating here from Sanctuary Station as well as a squadron of ships. Senior Captain Daniel Beeson will command that squadron of ships."
Alannis's eyes widened as she heard of her commanding officer's promotion. She looked over at him and noticed the broad disc around his starburst Captain's rank. Squadron command as a senior captain, she thought, that's a significant promotion. The United Colonies Fleet had mimicked Amalgamated Worlds' rank structure in maintaining the position of senior captain for squadron or capital ship commands. Most other nations used the term "commodore" for a squadron command, though it didn't typically have a rank associated with it, most often it was just a captain frocked as the squadron commander.
