The Tau Ceti Agenda

by Travis S. Taylor

  "Yeah, well, tell that to Saw." She pitched up the fighter-mode plane and pushed forward on the HOTAS with her left hand and yanked along the vector to the presidential limo.

  "Roger that."

  "I've got a vector on the limo. Who's on me?"

  "Jaw, take the point. We're with you, Lieutenant Strong."

  "Heehaw, DTMs showing incoming on the limo's tail." Delilah checked her QMs for better resolution on the incoming. They appeared to be airplanes. Very old airplanes.

  "Roger that, Jawbone. I've got 'em in view," Heehaw replied. "Want to go fishing?"

  "I call worm!" Jawbone quickly added.

  She slapped the throttle forward and bounced the stick left then right as her mecha dipped below the tree line. The Florida pines stood well over thirty meters tall, giving the presidential limo some cover. She nosed down and rocketed between an opening in several of the trees, finding a driving lane from which to approach the limo. She was fairly sure that the SIFs and the modern armor of the marine mecha could withstand a fly-through of one of the trees at the velocity she was traveling, but Delilah really didn't want to test them. After all, she was only fairly sure. One of the trees ahead of her began to fall toward the limo, and she had to back off of the throttle even more, so as not to hit the tree's top as she vectored in on the attack planes.

  "BIL, we've got company!" Alexander shouted. There were several red dots in his DTM careening toward them at a fairly hard clip. The visual sensors showed that they appeared to be ancient, propeller- driven biplanes from World War I. Three of the plastic planes zoomed through the pine trees, hot on BIL's tail on collision trajectories. BIL juked and jinked through the Florida pines, barely keeping the planes off his tail.

  Four more of the planes dropped in on them and apparently had railguns, as trees in front of them were being chewed up. One thirty- meter-tall pine's trunk exploded from the cannon fire and started falling toward them. BIL managed to duck under the tree and spring upward through its falling branches, mostly unscathed. But then one of the planes got the angle on the armored garbage truck and peppered the front end of the vehicle with several rounds.

  "BIL!" Dee cried out. The ringing of the railgun rounds against his forward hull scared her.

  "I'm okay, Dee."

  Sir, I cannont evade these things forever.

  Don't give up, BIL!

  Yes, sir.

  "Motorcade One, Motorcade One, bank hard right!" a female voice came over the com-net.

  "Do it, BIL!" The president could see the blue dots in his mindview forming rapidly on the red ones. The marines were coming.

  Through the visual sensors, Alexander could see one of the marine mecha fighters screaming through the pine trees, going to guns and splattering two of the amusement park airplanes. Then it turned nose-up and accelerated into a transfiguration, flipping over into bot mode, never missing a shot with its directed energy weapon.

  Several of the planes took aim on that one marine, who was running and jumping and flipping and firing its weapons in a flash of maneuvers that left many of the enemy attackers in flaming pieces. Three more FM-12s flashed by firing guns at the things. With hindsight, Moore realized that the first marine had been bait to draw the enemy planes onto her, while the other marines formed up on them, taking them out.

  At one point, the bot-mode mecha ran directly toward BIL at very high speeds. The bot-mode feet pounded the Florida sand, flinging dust in a rooster tail behind it. Then it leaped forward in a skyward roll over the limo so close that Moore could see the armored helmet of the pilot in the sensors and could read "Lieutenant Delilah 'Jawbone' Strong" painted just under the canopy.

  "That marine deserves a promotion," the president said to himself.

  Chapter 11

  October 31, 2388 AD

  Sol System

  Oort Cloud

  Saturday, 6:15 AM, Earth Eastern Standard Time

  Separatist drop tanks poured in seemingly infinite supply from the north and both sides. Warboys pressed the Warlords forward, deeper and deeper into the line. The red dots in the colonel's DTM were thick in front of him, but not insurmountably thick. The Demon Dawgs had softened the line all the way north to the first tower of the teleporter complex. Mason was certain that his tankheads could create a corridor in the enemy position and push the AEMs behind the front to wreak havoc as only the AEMs could do.

  Brenda, plot the best vector for the Robots in the DTM, he asked his AIC Major Brenda Bravo One One One Mike Hotel Two.

  Yes, sir. I'm on it. The AIC began running wargaming scenarios and simulations at blinding computer speeds. A few seconds later, she had several solutions and chose one. The vectors highlighted in green across Warboys' virtual battlescape.

  Thanks. I'll pass that along. Maybe they can use it. Warlord One dropped to a knee and took up a firing position with his DEG. Enemy tanks were everywhere, giving him plenty to shoot at.

  "Two, watch your right flank!" Warboys warned his second, Major Glenda Freeman. An Orcus drop tank pounced from above and to the right part of a squad of bot-mode enemy tanks running down the side of a crater rim. "Shit, guns guns guns!"

  "I've got him, Two!" First Lieutenant Sam "Warlord Five" Cortez responded from tank mode, blasting one of the enemy with his DEG. The directed energy beam tore through the enemy mecha at the knee, spinning it off balance and flailing backward in an uncontrolled spin in the low gravity. In response, Warlord Two leaped over Five into a swan dive and tackled the mecha beside it, punching a mechanized fist through the cockpit and tearing out the pilot, tossing him aside like a dead rag doll and making him fall limp in the low gravity against the icy planetoid forty meters away.

  Colonel Warboys serpentined through the terrain with his cannon firing auto, his AIC controlling it and using it to spread out the advancing line, forcing them to either duck and cover or turn and run. This gave Mason time to target individual enemy tanks with his DEG. He picked them off like an experienced sniper. The blue-green DEG blasts punched across the desolate Oort Cloud planetoid, punctuating the dust clouds and debris scattering from the battle.

  "Move, Warlords! Keep pushing through this line!" They would get the Robots through the line. But Warboys knew that once they did, the Warlords would be on the wrong side of the enemy, with very little support.

  "Move, Robots! We have to stay with the Warlords." Major Roberts dove for cover behind what appeared to be the edge of an impact crater that had probably been formed during the joining of the four little planetoids with the Seppy hauler. The crater was fairly new and didn't look anything like an astronomical phenomenon. The marine major spent little time contemplating the issue.

  "Major." McCandless slid belly-first up beside Roberts. "This is a hell of a storm, sir." Tanks were going at each other on the ground and taking the occasional shot at mecha in space, and vice versa. The AEMs had yet to see any Seppy ground troops and were glad of it. "QMs got no sign of foot traffic."

  "I noticed that, Gunny. Bother you at all?"

  "For the moment, no, sir. You think that means that they didn't detect us in the tubes with tanks?"

  "I was thinking the same thing." Roberts checked his team vitals and placement in the DTM. All ten of his forward unit were accounted for and in good shape. And as far as he could tell, the Seppies had no idea they were there. Major Roberts liked that element of stealth. After all, they were a forward recon unit, and they didn't need to get in the mix just yet if they could avoid it.

  Carol, have you found any other points of entry yet?

  Still looking, Major, his AIC, Carol Eight Eight Mike One One Hotel Lima, replied. Colonel Warboys has sent us some possibilities.

  Keep at it and keep me posted.

  Yes, sir.

  "Sir," Lieutenant Johnny Noonez buzzed in.

  "Go, Johnny."

  "The line seems to split around this crater and then over that mooring point at the crater's two o'clock position on the other side of it. The crater is about six hund
red meters across, and the southern tower is on the mooring point between the six o'clock and nine o'clock planetoids." Noonez paused for a breath.

  "Yeah, so?"

  "Well, sir, if we split off from the Warlords at the crater's nine o'clock and then take to the inside rim of the crater, we might be able to slip into or onto the moorings. If we can slip around this crater to that mooring point, we might be able to get into this thing and make our way to the south tower."

  "A lot of ifs, Lieutenant, sir," McCandless said.

  "Yes it is, Gunny."

  "What the fuck, we got no better plans, sir," Gunny replied, shrugging her oversized, armored shoulders.

  "I like it," Roberts nodded.

  Carol, this sort of matches what Warboys sent. Connect with him and tell him to support us to the nine o'clock on this crater rim.

  Yes, sir.

  And tell him thanks.

  I will, sir.

  "Suez, you're up!" Tamara ordered the rookie lance corporal over the net.

  "Oorah, Gunny!" Suez bounced over the side of the crater rim, covering a good seventy meters in the low gravity of the planetoid facility. The AEM landed in a belly slide across the surface to absorb his bounce and to take cover. Dust flew behind him, making a slow, falling arc to the ground.

  "Bates! Go!" Gunny's voice continued.

  Tommy crawled up behind an outcropping of concrete, steel, and other rubble surrounding a giant guy cable. The cable was a stranded material that looked like a cross between steel and some composite and was more than seventy centimeters in diameter and several kilometers long, stretching from one planetoid to the other. There were other smaller cables running from the ground up to the wall of the octagon.

  If the phrase "big fucking cable" is in a dictionary somewhere, I'll bet there is a picture of that goddamned thing right beside it, Suez thought.

  Agreed, his AIC replied. If it's not there, somebody should add it. I'll take a picture and add a wiki.

  Good idea.

  One of the smaller cables led up into the sky above him and fixed to the southernmost side of the outer octagon of the teleporter that spanned the space between the six o'clock and the nine o'clock planetoids. Tommy increased the magnification of his sensors on the cable and followed it up to where it met the construct. There were no entrances on that side that he could see.

  His QMs pinged around him and generated a three-dimensional map in his head of the environment, showing no red groundpounders. For the time being, they were alone and in the clear, more than a kilometer from the center of the fighting. None of the unit had fired a shot yet, and Tommy wasn't sure if he was glad of that or not.

  "Got anything, Suez?" Private First Class Danny Bates took a knee beside him. As he dropped his armored knee crunched and shattered a rock beneath him. The dull gray camo of his e-suit blended into the background so well that Tommy had to enhance his vision with the QMs and IRs just to see him.

  "We're clean, as best I can tell. Don't see a way in yet, though." Suez turned his armored head toward the private and smiled. "We might just have to blast our way in, Private."

  "Would you look at that." PFC Bates whistled. "What the hell kind of cable is that? Look how long that sucker is. It goes damned near out of sight."

  "Yeah, it's a BFC," Tommy replied nonchalantly.

  "A BFC?"

  "Big Fucking Cable. There's a wiki on it. Look it up, Private." Tommy could see the expression on Bates' face. The PFC was obviously having his AIC check it out.

  "No shit," Bates mumbled and laughed.

  "Pagoolas, take your team!" Gunny's voice buzzed the net again.

  Tommy looked back over his shoulder to see Corporal Pagoolas and Private First Class Felicity Kent belly-slide about a hundred meters to their east and slightly up the ridge of the crater, closer to the ten-story-high wall of the octagon. A glint in the sky caught his eye. A small craft crested over another crater rim to the east of them by four or five kilometers and dropped out of sight. Then another one ripped across the deck right after it, firing DEG blasts. The blue-green blast from the pursuing mecha was followed by orange cannon tracers from another plane that must have been the second one's wingman. Tommy zoomed in on the fight and watched as a small detachment of marine FM-12s zigged and zagged over the top of the meteor crater and the facility wall, chasing enemy Stingers. The fighters stormed over the crest of the ridge out of sight, and there was a fireball eruption that followed.

  Hmmm, any idea what that was? he thought to his AIC.

  I'd say the Saviors have finally joined us.

  Then, several low-flying glints caught his eye a little farther south. They were too big and slow for mecha. Tommy watched a little closer and then got a good sensor zoom on one of them. It was the Seppy version of the Starhawk—the Lorda troop lifter. The lifters dropped quickly over the nearest edge of the crater and then vanished out of sight, undetected by any other mecha.

  "Gunny, we're clean over here, and there's no way into this thing that I can find," Suez explained. "There is some some enemy air traffic farther to the east."

  "Roger that, Suez. You and Bates start making your way along the wall of that thing toward Pagoolas."

  "Affirmative." Tommy rose, pulling his HVAR to his right shoulder, and he grinned at Bates, who was still staring at the BFC. "You heard the lady, Danny. Let's get moving."

  "Major, the teams are all leapfrogging along the wall, moving eastward," Gunnery Seargent Tamara McCandless informed her boss. Tamara stood back against the facility wall, looking south at the battle that was raging a kilometer or so away on the other side of the impact crater. The line had pretty much stopped any movement forward or backward and was reaching a point of stalemate.

  "Good thing we got through when we did, hey Gunny?" Major Roberts replied with a glance southward himself.

  "Yes sir. I guess so," she said. "Sergeant Nicks is easternmost, sir. She is probably a good three kilometers ahead of us by now, and we still have no good idea of how to get into this thing. Lance Corporal Suez reported that there is air traffic farther up , and Sergeant Nicks has verified that. Maybe there is something on up worth blowing up."

  "Keep moving us east, Gunny. Send the next team twice the distance this time."

  "Yes, Major. Suez, you're up again! Double the gap."

  "Let's go, Danny." Lance Corporal Suez slapped the PFC on the shoulder. Tommy stood and bounced his jumpboots against the ground, which was mostly metal and concrete now. The bounce tossed him a good fifty meters. At the apex of his bounce, he could see over the ridgeline of the nearest crater and he noticed several other vehicles flying in and out. His trajectory dropped, and he bounced again. After a few minutes of bouncing, he and PFC Bates had leapfrogged Sergeant Nicks' team by more than two kilometers and were quickly approaching the rim of the crater.

  "Suez, look!" PFC Bates pointed an armored finger at the edge of the crater where it met up against the ten-story wall of the teleport facility. Below the ridgeline were several hangar doors and Seppy fighters, and support equipment flew in and out.

  "Like following honeybees to a hive." Suez smiled. "Gunny, we've got an entry portal up here. Looks like hangars."

  "Roger that, Suez. Sit tight, we're on our way."

  "Okay, Robots, converge on these coordinates." Major Roberts passed along Suez's position DTM to the unit.

  "Well, Danny, looks like we have a couple minutes to kill. Might as well see what we can see, huh?" Suez put his visor on full zoom and started scanning the hangar opening for a good, covert entry point.

  Chapter 12

  October 31, 2388 AD

  Tau Ceti Planet Four, Moon Alpha (aka Ares)

  Madira Valley Beach Spaceport

  Saturday, 6:20 AM, Earth Eastern Standard Time

  Saturday, 2:20 AM, Madira Valley Standard Time

  On the thirty-minute flight to New Tharsis, Kira and Allison began filtering through the data she had downloaded from the battle cruiser. The biggest issue w
as that all the data were encrypted using fairly state-of-the-art algorithms. Allison was fairly confident that she could decrypt the files using techniques she had learned from other CIA AICs during her training for this mission.

  Allison could easily manage flying the single engine cruiser, the decryption, and DTM the datadump at the same time. The biggest issue was if Kira could stay awake through it. Hopefully, the data would be interesting enough to keep her alert.

  It hadn't been just any battle cruiser that Kira had decided to infiltrate. After four years of spying on the Seppies from a fairly influential family, she had come across the fact that the Separatist battle cruiser Phlegra was special for some reason. Why it was special and what was just so special about it needed to be uncovered. Kira knew that the ship was different because it had received some very interesting visitors over the four years that it had been commissioned at the Madira Valley Spaceport.

  Elle Ahmi herself had made multiple trips to the spaceship and even been aboard during several of the test flights. What would Ahmi care about the test flights of a common battle cruiser? Kira would've understood if it had been a supercarrier or hauler, but a simple battle cruiser? There was something important about the Phlegra, and that is what her trip to the beach had been all for—to uncover the truth about the battle cruiser.

  So, start DTMing anything you get unencrypted. Kira leaned back in the pilot's seat and yawned. She looked out the window at the treetops as they flew by underneath just a few meters away. Then she looked up at the night sky filled by a major portion of the limb of the gas giant that Ares orbited. "Breathtaking," she sighed, and tried to relax.

  Her arm itched where she had been shot, so she rubbed at it subconsciously. The immunobooster had done its job, and the wound was healed nicely. There was little scarring at all. It still itched. She still rubbed.

  Okay, I have several files now complete. Feel free to start in on them, Allison said.