Long Shot

by Christopher Williams

  Russell grimaced. “Don’t you have anything newer?”

  Smiling, Morgan shook his head. “You’re too hasty. You didn’t let him finish. The Solarflare was built at a time when the Nancia Republic was just starting to decline. The Republic was spread across a huge number of systems and they simply couldn’t keep the remote systems supplied, as revolutionaries were wrecking havoc with their shipping.”

  “It was well designed, but what made it stand out was its hull,” Aaron added, “it was solid emethium.”

  “Solid?” Adam asked, looking surprised.

  Aaron nodded. “The hulls of most ships are made from a composite blend that includes a small amount of emethium. Anymore, it would cost too much to build the hulls from solid emethium, but since the hull is solid, it would be damn near indestructible. ”

  “True, and that’s why I bought the Solarflare,” Morgan said and leaned against the edge of the desk. “I basically gutted the ship; the only thing original is the hull. It’s not ready at the moment, it still has a month or so until the refurbishment’s complete.”

  “And it has smuggling compartments and the like?” Aaron asked.

  Morgan nodded, and then spoke with emphasis, “You won’t be disappointed.”

  Aaron dropped his eyes to the ground and then glanced to his right. He could just make out Susan’s nod. After a moment he nodded his head. “Deal.”

  “What do you mean deal?” Russell demanded looking surprised. “We can’t break someone out of a Unionist prison.”

  “Agreed,” Aaron replied, “which means we have to get him after he leaves the prison on Karbarsh but before they reach Upsellata.”

  Russell looked thoughtful for a moment. “The transport,” he muttered, still looking less than happy.

  Aaron nodded and turned his attention back to Morgan. “We’ll need some things.”

  Morgan nodded. “Everything I have is at your disposable.”

  “Well then, we got some planning to do.”

  “I suggest you do your planning on the ship. You’ll have plenty of time to work out the details,” Locke suggested.

  “True,” Russell agreed, “but once the ship takes off, we won’t be able to add any equipment or personnel. We need at least a basic outline of the plan.”

  “All right,” Morgan said. He pushed himself away from the desk and returned to the chair. As if it was a signal, Locke and Aaron’s group took seats as well, everyone except Russell, who remained standing. All eyes turned to Aaron.

  “We need more intel,” Aaron said. “Is the prisoner transport capable of landing?”

  “No,” Locke answered, “the ship can’t enter an atmosphere.”

  “Okay, then we need a way to get on the transport at Karbarsh, any ideas?” Aaron said.

  “Well,” Susan began, “they’ll probably take on supplies, which will mean a supply shuttle.”

  “And they’ll have to ferry the prisoners up to the transport,” Adam added.

  Aaron nodded and looked at Morgan. “We’ll need you to get that information for us and transmit it to us while we’re in transit.” Morgan nodded and Aaron continued, “Be careful though. We don’t want your guys accidentally alerting them.”

  Locke snorted. “We have done this before.”

  “You have?” Aaron replied, “because this is my first time.”

  “Well, not this exact thing–” Locke started to say, but Morgan interrupted.

  “We’ll be careful. What else?”

  “Fake ID’s,” Aaron said, “we don’t want to show up on any Unionists records.”

  Morgan nodded. “Locke had some new ID’s created for you yesterday. Next.”

  “Weapons, computers, explosives, spacesuits,” Russell said, ticking each item off on a finger, “and let’s don’t forget lots and lots of credits.”

  “We’ve anticipated most of these things and they’re already on the ship. If you find you need something else, then we’ll have to make arrangements to have it waiting for you on Karbarsh.”

  “One more thing,” Aaron said slowly. “I think we need a computer programmer to go along with us on the trip. Preferably someone who knows computer security and how to get around it.”

  “Why?” Locke asked.

  “If we manage to get on the transport, then we’ll have an enormous amount of security to deal with. I need your programmer to create some computer viruses for me. I want to upload them as soon as we get to the ship to help us by turning some of that security off.”

  “Makes sense,” Morgan said after a moment. “Anything else?”

  “Yes,” Aaron answered without hesitation, “we need a second ship.”

  Morgan tilted his head, looking confused. He wasn’t alone, most of the people in the room were watching Aaron now. “Why is that exactly?”

  “Well,” Aaron began slowly. He was trying to put the whole plan together and pieces of it kept changing; it was rather like trying to grasp water in his hand. “The first ship is basically getting us there and then we’re on our own. The second ship will meet us in space, once we free the prisoners.”

  “Prisoners?” Morgan repeated. He put emphasis on the plurality of the word.

  “Yes, prisoners,” Aaron said again. “If we break into this ship and free just one man, then the Unionists won’t stop until they figure out who he is, but if we break out twenty or so prisoners, I’m betting they’ll assume the primary target is one of the other prisoners.”

  Morgan nodded his head slowly. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

  “It’ll have to be a fast ship and I want it to have some soundproof cells.” That caused some eyebrows to go up, but Aaron pushed right on through. “I don’t want the prisoners to know anything more than they need to, but you’ll have to give them each a fake ID and a handful of credits.”

  Once again Morgan nodded. “Alright, what’s next?”

  “I want Adam to fly the second ship,” Aaron said, “and you won’t have much time to get that second ship ready to go.”

  “We’ll handle it,” Morgan said, “do you have any other requirements?”

  “We absolutely have to have the specifications of that transport ship and we need them yesterday. We also need to know where its next stop is. We’ll have to break your son out before the ship reaches its next pickup.”

  Morgan nodded. “You’ll have them within twenty-four hours. Anything else?”

  “Not that I can think of,” Aaron said after a moment’s consideration. “If I come up with something else, I’ll have you arrange for it on Karbarsh.” He spent several moments furiously trying to think of anything he might have missed. He couldn’t come up with anything, but he had only begun to think about the possibilities, surely some things would come up. “How soon can we leave?”

  “Your ship is ready to go. We even have spare clothes onboard for you.”

  Chapter 16

  Aaron and the others were somewhat surprised when little more than an hour after barging into Locke’s office, they were boarding a small freighter called the Robert Perry. Though small, the freighter was extremely fast, trading cargo space for speed. It wasn’t exactly a pretty ship, not with the triangular crew area sticking out in front of the spherical cargo bay.

  Adam stayed behind to pilot the second ship, the one that was supposed to rendezvous with them in space. Aaron was concerned about them splitting up, but they were committed now.

  They were met at the entry hatch by Xim and a middle-aged rotund man. Xim watched them through sleepy-looking eyes.

  “What are you doing here?” Aaron asked surprised. The question sounded rude, but he didn’t intend it that way, he was just caught off-guard.

  Xim smiled at the cool greeting. “Locke asked me to accompany you and provide any assistance that you might require.”

  Aaron wasn’t sure he liked that idea but there wasn’t much he could do.

  Xim motioned to the man standing to his left. “This is Captain Franklin. He and his
crew have worked for Locke for many years. You can trust them.”

  Captain Franklin looked to be about sixty years old and maybe fifty pounds overweight. His hair was graying and he had a thick bushy mustache. He didn’t smile but he did nod his head at the newcomers. “We’ll get you there just as quickly as possible, and we’ll try not to get in your way. I ask that you stay off of the bridge. If you need something, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.” He paused and looked around at the group. “Any questions?” They all shook their heads and the Captain continued, “Good. Come with me and I’ll show you where you’re sleeping and then we’ll get this ship off of the ground.”

  “Uh, Captain,” Xim said quickly, “there’s one more person who’ll be joining us.”

  Captain Franklin looked surprised. “Really? How soon?”

  Xim shrugged, “He should be here within the hour.” The Captain looked less than pleased with the delay and Xim hurried to smooth things over. “I do apologize, but I just found out about it moments before they arrived.”

  After a moment, Captain Franklin nodded. “Alright. Well, let’s get you stowed away while we wait on our last passenger.”

  After closing the main hatch, the Captain led them to a long, but narrow, cramped room. There were eight bunks, four on each opposing wall. One end of the room had eight lockers along one wall and a small table sat against the opposing bulkhead. On past the lockers was a small doorway, which probably led to a shared bathroom. It wasn’t much and if not for their military experience, they might have balked at their quarters. As it was, they didn’t even bat an eye.

  “Locke had supplies delivered yesterday,” Xim said. “Clothing, weapons, ID’s; it’s all here.” He motioned towards the lockers and then he pointed to one of the top bunks on the right hand wall. “I’ve claimed that one.”

  Before anyone replied, a buzzing chime rang out. The Captain stepped over to the wall and pressed a small button. “Go ahead,” he said.

  “Captain, there’s a man at the hatch. Says his name is Michael Long and he’s supposed to go with us.”

  Franklin looked at Xim, who nodded. “All right,” he said as he pushed the button again. “Let him in and bring him toward the forward guest quarters.”

  It was several minutes before a crewman opened the door and let a blurry-eyed young man into the room. The newcomer looked tousled, as if he had dressed in a hurry. His hair was disheveled and his clothes were a bit wrinkly. He was thin and his skin was so white that it looked like he never went out into the sunlight. A large duffel bag was strapped to his chest and he pulled two wheeled chests behind him. He blinked around at the assembled group and then spoke to Xim. “I, uh, was told that I’m going on a little trip.”

  Xim shook his head. “Michael, you had time to pack a bag and two chests, but not enough time to put on clean clothes?”

  Michael grinned in a completely unembarrassed way. “Priorities.”

  “Oh? What’s so important?” Xim asked.

  “My computers,” Michael answered as if it was the most logical thing. “I can’t write programs without computers.” He looked around at the bunks, “Which one’s mine?”

  Aaron and Jessica had the top bunks on the port side with Russell and Susan taking the bottom. Xim had already taken one of the top bunks on the starboard side and that left Michael to choose amongst two bottom bunks and the one remaining top. He chose one of the bottom’s and dropped his bag on the mattress. Then he clapped his hands and looked around grinning. “So what do you need me to do?”

  Susan groaned. “We’ve been up for over a day, we need some sleep.”

  “Agreed,” Aaron said, “but we might as well give him basic parameters so that he can get started while we’re sleeping.” He paused and looked at Xim, raising his eyebrows in question.

  It took Xim a moment to catch on. “Oh, you can trust him. He won’t tell anyone what you have him do.”

  Aaron nodded and turned his gaze to Michael. “Basically, we’re breaking some prisoners out of a transport ship. We’re going to need some viruses to shut down the security and allow us to do our work. Understand?”

  Michael looked flabbergasted. “I hope you have a whole lot more information than that. I mean I could write you some serious applications that could stop an Omney ship cold, but they would be worse than useless against a Lagashian ship.”

  Aaron waved his hand in the direction of Xim. “He can give you the basics and we’ve been promised some very thorough data on the transport ship before the day’s over.” He resisted yawning and continued, “You should able to get started and then we’ll fine-tune once the new info arrives.”

  While Aaron was still speaking, Jessica climbed into her bunk and pulled down the small roll-up cover. The cover was made of a plastic and eliminated most of the noise and light.

  “Xim, can you get him started?” Aaron asked.

  Xim nodded. “Go on and get some sleep. He’ll probably have a bunch of questions for you when you wake.”

  Aaron nodded and climbed into his bunk. He was asleep within moments and didn’t even wake when the ship took off.

  Aaron woke nearly four hours later feeling completely refreshed. Before the doctors had experimented on him, he had routinely slept eight hours a night, but since the experiments he found his body able to make due with much less sleep. He suspected the organic computer in his head was the reason for this change and it made him wonder what other changes would happen to him.

  He pushed the plastic cover up and slid out of the bunk, dropping quietly to the floor. He was the first of his group to wake and he could see Xim and Michael sitting at the small table. They looked up as he approached.

  “Didn’t sleep long,” Xim said conversationally.

  “Long enough,” Aaron answered. He stopped next to the table and stretched. The table was covered in papers and several tablet computers. Michael was wearing a set of holographic gloves and goggles which allowed him to write the computer code in the very air around him. Once written, the programmer could test the software, fix any errors, and then save it to one of the tablets lying on the table. “Any progress?”

  Xim nodded at Michael, who was holding his hands out in front of him and seemed to be moving things around. Without goggles on, neither Xim nor Aaron could see what he was doing. “I don’t know how they do it, I’d lose my mind.”

  Aaron grunted in reply and then asked, “Have we received the information on the transport?”

  Xim shook his head but smiled. “Relax. Locke promised you the info and he’ll deliver. It’s been less than six hours. Give him a little time.” He climbed to his feet and stretched his back. “Now that you’re up and can answer his questions, I’m going for a walk.”

  Sighing, Aaron slid into a seat opposite Michael.

  It took another thirteen hours for the information to arrive, but considering the circumstances, it was amazingly quick.

  “How’d that get this so fast?” Jessica asked as they all grabbed a tablet and began paging through the data. “Surely they didn’t have time to send a request all the way to Karbarsh.”

  “No, but they didn’t need to,” Xim answered without taking his eyes from the tablet. “Lagash keeps close tabs on the Unionists’ fleet and it was easier, not to mention quicker, for Locke to get the information from them.”

  As it turned out, the transport was an old escort frigate that had been refurbished after being decommissioned by the Unionists’ navy. Most of the weapons systems had been removed and the engines and ship’s systems upgraded, but that had been a long time ago.

  “Damn thing hasn’t been upgraded in nearly a quarter century,” Russell said in surprise. “They don’t take very good care of their equipment.”

  There was also something else in Russell’s tone and Aaron understood it perfectly. The Unionists had beaten the Commonwealth despite the superiority of the Commonwealth’s ships and crews. It had come down to sheer numbers and that was a bit galling. “Well,” he
said trying to refocus everyone on the problem at hand, “that should make it easier for us to break in.”

  “It’s a Meriwether class frigate,” Susan said. She didn’t seem to notice Russell’s comments. “The rail gun’s been removed, as have the turbolasers, and most of the defensive countermeasures.” She glanced up at Michael. “Does knowing the systems are twenty-five years old help you write code that can break in?”

  “Yes and no,” Michael answered. “The age of the computers and the fact that this ship is a Miram Union vessel both help with the actual coding. The problem is how do you get my programs into the ship’s systems?”

  “Well,” Aaron began, “I thought we would be able to access a terminal once we got onboard and then we could upload them without any issues.”

  “True, but by then you’ll probably already have tripped numerous alarms. I really believe that you need these programs uploaded before you enter the ship.” Michael looked around at them. “And how are you intending on getting onboard?”

  Aaron didn’t answer right away but instead he began furiously scrolling through the data. A possible idea had occurred to him when Susan said the rail gun had been removed, but he hoped to avoid the crazy scheme that was running through his head. He kept scrolling until he hit the end and then he looked up, searching for Xim. “I don’t’ see anything in here about the shuttles.”

  Xim nodded. “You’re right. That information will take more time. Locke sent a request ahead to our guys at Karbarsh and they’ll be gathering the intel.”

  “Damn,” Russell said quietly. “We rather need that information soon.”

  Sighing, Aaron nodded his head. “Russell’s right. Without that information, we have no way of planning a way to board the ship. From what I can see, we have to go up on one of the shuttles.”

  Xim held his hands up in a placating manner. “You’ll get the information, I promise.” He pointed at Michael, “What can he work on in the meantime?”

  Aaron took a deep breath and tried to pull his thoughts together. Planning this rescue was becoming more of a problem than he had anticipated; not having all the details tended to make it difficult to plan a mission. “We’ll need to know where the cells are and we’ll need the security cameras playing a taped loop.”