The Tau Ceti Agenda

by Travis S. Taylor

  I think I have a plan, Kira. First you have to get aboard one of those shuttles at the starboard side of the bay. Then we can hack it to fly the profile we need.

  Okay. Sounds easy enough. Then what?

  Then you have to steal an Orcus drop tank or a Stinger and follow in behind it at the precise moment the shuttle crashes into the SIF, Allison instructed. The field will weaken enough for a few tens of milliseconds so that the mecha can pass through it and survive. At that point, I would recommend ejecting from the mecha, as it will likely be in rough shape.

  Oh, is that all? I just have to steal a troop shuttle, which I might add is waaay the fuck over there. Then we hack it. Then I steal a mecha. Then I fly the mecha through a fireball, where the troop shuttle smashes into the hull with millisecond timing before the SIF snaps back into place crushing me. Oh yes, and then ejecting from the now blown-to- hell-and-gone mecha. All without getting caught, shot, or killed. Does that sound about right? Kira replied. The sarcastic overtone in her mindlink voice resounded like a heavy-metal bass guitar.

  Yes, that about covers it. Allison was unphased by Kira's wit.

  Piece of cake! Well, at least it was a plan, and it would be a damned sight better than staying hugged up against the cold metal coolant pipe she was on. Condensation was gathering on the pipe where her body was touching it, causing droplets of moisture to collect and run down her skin. It didn't help her grip on the thing at all.

  Just one thing more, Allison.

  What's that?

  Let's try to steal me a Stinger, Kira said. They are waay cooler than those damned drop tanks.

  Allison ignored the comment, saying, From what I can tell, the mecha are stored on drop hooks above the shuttles in the high-bay part of the hangar. If we get close enough to them, I might be able to hack in on the QM wireless channels.

  Kira searched the corridor forward and aft for any hint of motion and could see nothing. She strained her hearing to its limit to listen for bootsteps against the deck plating. Nothing. After assuring herself that the coast was indeed clear, she dropped herself down from the overhanging conduit. Her boots clanked to the floor and made a faint echo down the hallway.

  Goddamnit, that was clumsy, Kira thought.

  Perhaps if you'll bang the stunner against the bulkhead, you'll get better results? Allison had been counterpart to Kira for so long that her sour wit had rubbed off on the AIC.

  Nobody likes a smartass, Allison.

  I like you. Allison played a comedic drum roll to follow her zinger.

  Touché, Kira grinned. She made a quick scan in both directions and then quickly began to slink toward the open hatchway into the hangar bay.

  Across the bay on the starboard side were several troop shuttles similar to the U.S. Starhawk SH-102s. Most of the Seppy vehicles tended to resemble the U.S. countersystems but in cheaper, more rugged, and less tech-savvy versions. The Seppy troop shuttles were no exception.

  Kira had flown the troop shuttles before and with Allison's help could fairly easily hotwire one. It was getting across the bay that was going to be the hard part. The ship was locked down, but it was a big ship—nearly a half kilometer long and a quarter of that wide—and just waltzing across the hangar would be risky, but probably the least suspicious approach. Even though there were guards scattered about, there were also crew chiefs and enlisted men and women going about their daily grind of keeping the battle cruiser operational. The daily grind was her best shot. Fit in and look like you belong, she thought to herself.

  Kira noticed a tool rack about ten meters to her right. She casually entered the hatch and pulled a pair of welding goggles and a handheld directed energy cutter from the rack. She flipped the safety and toggled the welder beam a few times, flashing the bright white-pink plasma on and off, and then smiled approvingly.

  To complete her disguise, she also strapped on a set of knee and elbow pads and a reflective vest that was hanging from a hook near the tools. She pushed the cutting visor up on her forehead and started in a straight line across the bay to the nearest unattended shuttle. The forty meters or more to the troop carrier seemed more like an astronomical unit, but after a little less than a minute, she had closed the gap to it.

  So far so good, Kira thought.

  Nobody seems to have noticed us. Allison began handshaking with the vehicle as soon as she was in wireless QM range. The ship asked for a password. Allison ignored it and set about hacking other wireless weak points in its security system. The exterior sensors on the vehicle had both active and passive capabilities and were perfect entrances to the ship's control systems. Of course, there were firewalls, but the sensors were harder to protect from subtle electronic attack.

  Kira, on the other hand, was less subtle. The troop hatch was wide open, and the ramp sat against the deck. Kira sauntered up the ramp, still unnoticed, and applied the directed energy cutter to the hardwire cables between the command console and the low-level controller AI. The AI was instantly cut off from the rest of the ship other than through wireless, but Allison was jamming that by raising the QM wireless carrier-to-noise level within the shuttle with her own broadband transmissions. Kira pulled the small black AI chassis from the computer rack and tossed it into the copilot's seat. She then set about cutting the box itself open and kept digging into it with the cutter until she found the small sunflower-seed-shaped, plastic-coated casing of the AI. Kira held the beam of the cutter to the small device, vaporizing the artificial life with a quick foul smell of burned plastic followed with a short white flash of light. Kira kept her mind focused on the job and kept only a cold background awareness of the life she'd just extinguished.

  Can you program the shuttle controller?

  Already on it, Allison informed her.

  Can you do it from a distance? Kira asked.

  Why?

  Because, here comes somebody! Shit, too late. We'll have to sit tight. Kira ducked down behind the pilot's chair as best she could manage, trying to stay out of sight. The chair swiveled with a faint squeak as she twisted her body around the flight control panel and into a decent hiding place.

  A man in orange overalls entered the vehicle from the ramp and sat what could only be described as a "big fucking wrench" or "BFW" against the bulkhead with a kachunk beside the heavy-caliber HVAR mounted at the gunner's seat. He pulled a cordless ratchet from a tool apron and went about removing several bolts at the base of the gun. Kira sat quietly and watched cautiously as the tech continued about his work. He grunted a few times as he dug his fingers underneath the panel and pulled. The panel screeched metal against metal and came free. The tech almost lost his balance and he cursed briefly. Once he had taken the front panel off of the gun's ammo housing, he slipped the ratchet back into the proper slot on his toolbelt and reached over for the BFW. All the while between grunts and curses, the man whistled to himself off-key versions of current pop songs. Kira almost recognized one of them.

  Got it. The ship is under my control now, Allison told her.

  What about a mecha?

  I'm handshaking with one in the drop-down rack above us. There are access codes for some of the Stingers in the shuttle's database. Long story short, I hack, therefore I am.

  Good job! How do I get there?

  We'll fly up to it. But we should wait until I've finished hacking it and got it warmed up and ready to go.

  You think we should wait on our friend in there? Kira added, pointing to the tech fiddling with the gunner's station. He dropped something that rattled across the floor of the shuttle. A large bolt bounced on the dull gray metal and continued to roll down the walkway into the cockpit and up underneath the pilot's chair. Shit, Kira thought.

  "Shit," the tech mumbled to himself, only absentmindedly interrupting his whistling. He sat the BFW down and turned to chase after the bolt. Dropping to his hands and knees, the tech tracked the bolt to the pilot's chair. The bolt wasn't there, but a black boot was. To his surprise, and quite unfortunately, he found the
bolt in the worst way. Kira twisted upright in front of him holding it up at face level.

  "Lose something?" she asked, and startled the tech by jamming the bolt through his right eye. Quick, quiet, and very deadly, Kira raked the directed energy beam cutter across the man's throat, toggling the white-pink, hot plasma beam on and severing his head completely from his body. Both of which fell to the deck plate with a thud. The beam cauterized the cuts and there was very little blood. A low gurgling sound came from the man's esophagus, and some red murky fluids oozed slowly from it with each failing heartbeat. Kira looked away. "Sorry, dude. Wrong place, wrong time."

  You know, you could have used the stunner, Allision thought.

  No witnesses and too noisy. Dead men can't testify or be probed.

  Understood.

  Are you jamming his AIC? Kira asked.

  He didn't have one, Allison assured her. It was not uncommon for Seppies not to carry AIs because of the aftermath of the "mind police." A few decades before, Elle Ahmi had used AIC implants to reprogram Separatist cell leaders and to interrogate her people to expunge any who had sympathetic views toward the United States. The effectiveness of Ahmi's brainwashing and cleansing efforts was widely debated by the intelligence community, but it had created enough fear within the Seppies that many of them wouldn't even consider carrying AIs. Many others (the intel community had also learned) thought it was just a silly myth and depended on AICs as much as people in the U.S. did. But the latter were the younger crowd that hadn't lived through the cleansing. But for troops, tankheads, and mecha pilots, AICs were a necessity, and they typically had the implants. Some of them did wear external AICs so that they could discard them if they felt the need. Elle had managed to keep most of them out of command positions. If a Separatist commander wasn't willing to have an AIC implant, he wasn't worthy and loyal enough to serve Ahmi from a leading position of any relevance. And Elle couldn't keep tabs on them as well, otherwise.

  Okay then, he was a nobody. You got me a mecha ready yet?

  Patience, Allison replied. Just as she did, the engines of the shuttle spun up and lifted the vehicle off of the staging platform. The deck plating of the little spaceship rumbled and reverberated from the engine's hum. I'm quite certain that we are attracting attention at this point.

  What makes you say that? Kira felt the ship list sideways and then heard the sound of HVAR rounds pinging against the exterior armor. Shit! Those idiots are firing railguns in the hangar. No telling what they'll hit.

  Yeah, like us. I'd suggest you keep your head down.

  Good advice! Kira ducked reflexively as a hypervelocity round spalled against the forward screen of the cockpit with a brilliant flash of purple and blue ionization. Several rounds followed it, spalling with a thumping sound and leaving a long growing crack in the transparent armor. The rounds ionizing against the armor continued to flash. The armor wouldn't last much longer. Apparently, it wasn't as well made as the U.S. ship's.

  One Seppy Stinger mecha, just as you ordered. Allison yawed the shuttle about and an eagle-mode Stinger pulled up beside the open troop hatch of the shuttle. The mecha's right hand reached out toward the side door of the shuttle and kept formation perfectly. The fighter looked like a hybrid between a bird of prey, with clawed feet and wings swept back ready to pounce, and a large metal beast, with humanlike hands.

  Railgun fire continued to ping and slap against the ship. Several rounds came through the open door just past Kira's head. The rounds sizzled through equipment on the other side of the vehicle, throwing sparks and metal splinters about. Kira flinched and covered her face to avoid being blinded.

  The cockpit of the Stinger cycled open and tilted slightly toward them, giving Kira her cue. Kira took two running steps from the shuttle and leaped across the gap between the door and the mecha's outstretched hand. Her right boot touched the mecha just long enough for her to make another jump like a track and field star doing the triple jump. She dove headfirst, tumbling clumsily into the pilot's couch of the mecha and slamming her healing arm against the control console.

  "Ouch, shit!" she cried out. As she impacted the seat, the cockpit cycled shut, and the mecha pulled upward in evasive maneuvers, bouncing her around violently.

  Squirming into the controls of the mecha while trying to ignore new bumps and bruises, she pulled the fighter away and above the shuttle to use it as cover. The high bay was only about twenty-five meters to the ceiling, and there were mecha and other equipment hanging down that made flying too far off the deck like flying through a maze. Dodging and maneuvering around the maze while being shot at and trying to strap in just added a more exciting level of difficulty to her task. Hell, it was almost fun—except for the small fact that people all around her were trying to kill her.

  Kira pulled the six-point harness straps around her and fumbled to close the buckles. The mag-seal buckles pulled together and sealed her in place in the pilot's seat. The helmet that had been sitting on the dashboard was jostled free and flew into her nose as the plane pitched and rolled upward to keep its cover position behind the shuttle. Kira tried to ignore the wet trickle of blood running down her left nostril onto her upper lip and squinted away the tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

  I suggest you put that on, Allison warned her.

  Right, Kira replied, and rubbed at her nose and eyes with a thumb and forefinger. Okay! Let's go.

  Kira's hands uncomfortably fit over the hands-on throttle and stick (HOTAS) and searched for fire controls. It had been a long time since she had flown mecha. Allison guided her as best she could and in some cases took control for milliseconds. But each time she had to take control of the mecha, she had to put the shuttle on autopilot, which Kira had torn out and torched to death so that the shuttle would fly uncontrolled with a locked-in vector for those instances. After a few seconds of bumping and crashing and thrashing around, Kira finally got the hang of the mecha. Sort of.

  "Like riding a bicycle!"

  Yeah, one that has a shitload of bells and whistles, buttons, levers, controls, and foot pedals on it, Allison said. We're taking some serious fire.

  "Warning, incoming hypervelocity fire. Warning, evasive maneuvers required," the Bitchin' Betty—the mecha's automated warning system—alerted her.

  No shit!

  "Guns, guns, guns," Kira said, spraying the directed energy gun's blue-green bolt across the hangar. The large directed energy gun in the left hand of the eagle-mode mecha swept left to right, firing bolt after bolt at the Seppy troops and techs below. Impact and secondary explosions erupted with each new energy bolt. "Let's get the hell out of here!"

  This way. Allison illuminated a flight trajectory in the DTM virtual display. The spherical map around her head showed a path for her to follow. The trajectory led them downward and across the hangar toward the aft end of the compartment. See if you can soften the wall right there! A red X appeared in her virtual view on the aft hangar wall.

  Got it. Kira toggled the fighter left and scrolled the weapons list to missiles with her pinky finger on the HOTAS. "Fox three! Fox three!" she shouted, loosening two mecha-to-mecha missiles careening and spiraling wildly through the hangar. The two missiles tracked a purple ion trail across the room and vanished with an orange and white fireball on the hangar blast doors. The percussion wave tossed equipment, vehicles, and Seppies in all different directions, resulting in a reduction of incoming railgun fire.

  More!

  "Guns, guns, guns! Fox three!" She poured more energy into the same spot. "Railgun auto, fire!" The big forty-millimeter railgun cannon on the belly of the mecha began chunking armored rounds at large fractions of the speed of light into the bulkhead SIF marked in the DTM with a big red X. Cannon rounds, directed energy bolts, and missiles exploded against the force field with ripples of blue evanescence across the surface and with the orange and white flames of vaporizing bulkhead.

  Full throttle, now!

  The shuttle zoomed out from underneath the Stinge
r at max thrust and slammed into the already weakened blast wall. The craft's velocity generated whirlwinds in the growing fireball as it slammed through. The impact of the armored troop carrier against the molten metal flung red-hot composite and alloy materials in a violent, deadly splash backward, washing the hangar and setting most of the room ablaze. Large chunks of armor plating ejected like magma from an exploding volcano, pinging against the mecha.

  Kira was right behind the shuttle and could see, and feel, the shrapnel and secondary blasts pounding against the forward armor plating of the fighter mecha, leaving smoldering flames on the nose and wingtips. She rolled and pitched the mecha wildly to avoid the larger pieces of flying debris as best she could manage. The last bit of the shuttle poked through the structural integrity field and vaporized into a violent fiery finale. The SIF separated in a cascade of rippling circles radially across the hull of the ship, putting undesirable torques and squeezes in the alloy surface of the battle cruiser. Armor plates buckled, and weld joints popped free from the stresses and strains of the extremely high electromagnetic fields generated by the oscillating SIF. Smaller explosions erupted, and smoke and gases poured from damage across the exterior hull of the Separatist ship. The SIFs were designed to protect the ship from exterior threats, not interior ones. Fortunate for Kira and Allison, the ship's force field designers had never considered an attack from within.

  The breach in the SIF continued to ripple like waves on a pond, expanding outward from a pebble that had been dropped into it, phosphorescing at each crest and valley. Kira held the HOTAS full forward and plowed through at maximum velocity. If the field collapsed back together, she wanted it to be over with as quickly as possible. The fireball consumed the fighter for a brief instant, and Kira ground her teeth and prayed that the SIF didn't regain strength at the wrong microsecond. She was lucky. Allison was good.