by T J Mott
Thad nodded, still feeling a bit off-put that he was letting himself get involved. He’d come to Ailon for some quiet time to think about his life and do some good, away from the distractions of his search for Earth and his group’s combat contracts. But what would happen to Ailon if he stayed away from the new rebellion? He’d learned so much during his years as a mercenary, and if the rest of this new insurrection was as inexperienced as the members of Ria’s clinic, they needed him.
“First, training. From what I’ve seen with Ria’s clinic, nobody has any real combat experience, and she believes the rest of the ARF is similar. I can teach proper weapons usage and maintenance, small-arms tactics, battlefield movements and communication, basically how to be a soldier.
“Above that, I can help you organize your resistance. How to identify natural leaders, set up lines of communication and supply and a chain of command, and how to isolate things enough to prevent exposing the entire insurrection if a group is captured.
“Next, I can train you in intelligence. How to observe the enemy, deduce their movements and plans, and how to mislead them into misunderstanding your own movements and wasting their own resources.
“Finally, I can help figure out a broader strategy. Identify the enemy’s weaknesses, in particular, anything that if lost would greatly reduce their holding power over Ailon. All while picking targets that move Ailon towards freedom without hurting the civilian population or leaving a political mess that will make it difficult to consolidate your hold of the planet after Avennia has withdrawn.”
Abram seemed angry…and quietly intrigued at the same time. “And you are actually experienced in these things? Able to train others?” Thad nodded. Although he’d been involved in a few ground campaigns, the bulk of his combat experience was in space, between warships. But years ago, when hiring Colonel Halle to take command of his own private Marine force, Thad had attended their basic training and leadership courses after realizing just how little he’d known about infantry. And the things he’d learned there would be vital on Ailon.“Where have you worked like this before?”
He gulped. “I’m sorry, I must decline to answer that.”
“And yet you expect us to trust you.” Abram sighed. “How can we believe you without any examples of your previous work?”
Thaddeus mentally shrugged. But he couldn’t provide them any examples. If he did, they’d find out who he was. During his time on this planet, a number of people had mentioned his pirate raid of the Rebel convoy from the Ailonian point of view. He knew that the name of Thaddeus Marcell was truly hated on Ailon, and there wasn’t a chance in hell of them accepting his help if his identity was exposed. “Let me help train and organize your rebels, and you’ll soon see that I know what I’m talking about.”
Abram narrowed his eyes. “And what’s in it for you, Mr. Messier? You’re an outsider with no links to Ailon, and you haven’t even been here very long. Why offer to help us at all?”
Because the enslavement of your world is my fault, and now that I’m here and I’ve seen it with my own eyes, I can’t leave things this way. “Because it’s the right thing to do,” Thaddeus replied flatly. “In my short time here, I’ve seen too many slaves killed while trying to escape. I’ve seen too many mistreated and malnourished slaves, and I’ve met many free Ailonians who lost so many family and friends in the war. I think I have the power to help here, and if I do, then it’s my duty to do what’s right.”
Abram furrowed his brow, seeming unconvinced. He was probably so self-centered, Thad thought, that he was automatically distrustful of any acts of charity, believing there must be some hidden ulterior motive for personal gain. Because that was the type of person Abram clearly was.
“You’re dismissed, for now. I want the Council to move into a closed session. Stay in the building and we’ll call for you later.”
Thad nodded and left the Rebel Council to their deliberations, and set himself to wandering around the mostly-empty hallways of the Foundation headquarters. So many questions circled around in the back of his mind. Some with answers, but most without. Would Ailon have won the previous war, had he not pirated their convoy? Probably, he realized, just based on some of the conversations he’d had with Ria and the others about the war and the previous Rebels’ fighting spirit.
Would Ailon accept his help, even if he was only a trainer? The Ailonians were so distrustful of outsiders. Was he even capable of helping them? He had no idea what they had for weapons, or equipment, or comms, or bases of operation. The best training in the galaxy mattered little if you had nothing to fight with.
Could he even trust the Ailonians to go to war? Maybe he should just leave now and return with a fleet and his Marines. Liberating Ailon would be simple with his own well-equipped and highly-trained men. But would it cheapen Ailon’s freedom if it was provided by outsiders? And if Ailon didn’t fight their own rebellion, if they weren’t trained and didn’t learn the consequences of battle, would they be able to defend themselves once he left?
How long would it take to free Ailon? Weeks? Months? Years?
If it took that long, what would become of his Organization without him?
What should he do about Ria?
His mind went in circles and circles over all of this, and yet he still felt an unusual sense of peace at knowing that, for once, he was trying to do the right thing somewhere. The young and naive Thaddeus Marcell from Earth could be pretty selfless. But Thaddeus Marcell the mercenary, definitely not. Not until recently. If he never saw Adelia Devaux again, he realized, she’d never know just how much his mission to rescue her had changed him.
He didn’t feel any closer to understanding anything when the Council summoned him again nearly two hours later. “The Council has made a decision,” Abram growled angrily. Thaddeus wondered what had been said during the closed portion of their session, because he was definitely highly agitated. “All planned attacks have been called off. You will work as a trainer and consultant. But, you will have no authority on your own. Everything you do must be cleared by me. If we are satisfied with your work, you’ll be given a role in the war when it starts.”
Thad mentally shrugged. Could be better, could be worse. But I hope that means I’m not attached to Abram. “What about Ria’s clinic?” he asked.
Rhena answered this time. “Obviously, this resistance is a secret and we must maintain all appearances of normalcy. While you are working with the Rebel leadership here, you will continue to work for Ria’s clinic, and her clinic will be recalled back to Orent in order to accommodate this. We will periodically rotate the clinics and bring the others here for your training.”
“And remember this, Messier,” Abram added. “I am in charge of all military planning and operations. And I do not agree with the Council on this decision to bring you in. I don’t know who you are or where you’re from, but you’re an outsider, and I don’t trust outsiders. At the first sign of any trouble, you are gone. Am I clear?”
Thad raised an eyebrow, just slightly, and nodded. “Yes.”
Abram glared lasers at him, which Thad had no problem ignoring. He’d been through far worse.
Rhena broke the silence. “Mr. Messier, please accompany Mrs. Parri back to her clinic near Zhale and help them pack up and return to Orent. We will send for you once you’ve returned.”
“You’re dismissed,” Abram cut in sharply, so quickly he nearly interrupted Rhena.
For some reason, as he walked down the hallways of the ARF Headquarters, the old Earth curse “May you live in interesting times” played through his mind. Interesting, indeed. What have you gotten yourself into this time, Marcell?
Chapter 14
Nic Kent rubbed his sweaty palms across his thigh again, hoping to dry them it, but it didn’t really help. As nervous as he was, the sweat returned just as quickly as he wiped it away. Returning his grip to the steering wheel, he guided the car onto the Academy Engineering campus’s main drive.
The facility
was almost three kilometers outside the Osgood city limits. It was nearly midnight and the only workers on-site would be the security guards. That made him even more nervous. What if they actually stopped him? Sure, he could claim he needed to get some work in the office finished up, but the small briefcase Fletcher and Iva had given him complicated everything.
He swallowed nervously and tried to drive normally. “I’m pulling into the main drive,” he said. Hidden in his ear canal was a tiny comm which securely transmitted everything he said.
“Take it easy,” someone responded. Nic recognized it as the voice of one of the hackers. He didn’t remember their real names, having only interacted with them a few times, but they claimed to belong to some kind of local hacker group called Angel. Working with them made him uncomfortable; Angel had made planetary news a couple years ago after they’d remotely shut down one of Calco’s fusion power plants just to prove their skills. A few of their members had been caught and imprisoned over that, and now he was associated with them.
Currently, they’d taken up position somewhere near the city limits in a van to provide support for the operation. “Don’t be so nervous. You said you’ve worked a few nights before and nobody said anything. Nobody is going to stop you.”
He swallowed again and glanced over at the briefcase that sat in the passenger’s seat next to him. “I’ve never done anything like this before,” he said. He worked in human resources, not sabotage. “I’m—I don’t like it.”
“Nic, you’re doing the right thing,” said Iva, her voice smooth and reassuring and maybe even a bit seductive. “I know it’s hard, but what you’re doing is right for Calco, and it’s right for the Empire.”
He nodded slightly although nobody was with him to see it. “I know,” he said. He still sometimes found it hard to believe the conspiracy he’d uncovered, but after working with Fletch for nearly a year, he knew that something had to be done about it. The Academy Engineering Hyperdrive R&D Division on Calco III was only a front for a secret antimatter weapons factory, and it couldn’t remain here. That stuff needed to be on a space station or unpopulated moon or something, not next to a city where an accident could kill millions.
Calco was a state in the Norma Empire, one of many of the little semi-independent territories with dozens of populated star systems which swore fealty to the Emperor in exchange for economic and military protections. But it was a border state, with no buffer between them and the neighboring Independent Regions. And the Independent Regions were full of savages and barbarians and gun-happy pioneer types. If they caught wind of Academy’s work here, Calco could come under immediate threat from any of the nearby independent systems who might jump to the conclusion that the local Duke was about to begin expanding his territory towards them.
If he had been able to discover the terrible secret here, it wouldn’t be hard for others to sort out the truth, either. He had to stop Academy. Then he’d see about relocating his family. He’d feel much more comfortable about their safety if he could relocate a state or two towards the heavily-fortified Imperial capital.
He wondered how he would report Fletch and Iva after it was all over with. They were doing the right thing, but for the absolute wrong reasons. He knew they’d been stealing Academy’s weapons designs to help their own company get ahead in the weapons industry. And they only thought they’d manipulated him into helping, by appealing to his desire to make sure Calco remained too low-profile to be a target. But he saw right through their charade, and little did they know he’d been manipulating them, too. Once he was safely away, he’d contact the authorities. He still didn’t know who their employer was, but they almost certainly were from another Imperial state which hoped to advance at Calco’s expense. That was the way of the Imperial aristocracy, and the two ringleaders were definitely minor nobles. They had the arrogance, the stuffiness, and high-class connections that could only be explained by knowing people in power.
He almost slammed on the brakes as he drove past the facility’s hangar. “We have a problem! There’s activity at the hangar. The lights are all on and several cars are parked outside!”
“Just keep driving on to the office,” Fletch ordered. “Our primary goal is to get those files replaced. We can deal with the hangar later if we need to.”
But that’s where all the weapons are! he mentally protested. Sabotaging their data was all well in his mind, but the actual weapons cache worried him far more than the digital blueprints for them. Antimatter was too dangerous for anyone to have. Officially, it was illegal within the Empire, and for good reason. Some of the barbarians beyond the Empire’s borders still used antimatter weapons, and each time, the results were horrifying. A number of years back, millions of people had died on Tor during some kind of antimatter incident. And several years before that, an entire mercenary company had been wiped out by a large antimatter device in the Sapphire Cluster. Imperial politicians were still arguing about how to handle that event. The Sapphire Cluster was not far from Imperial space and the states on that end of the Empire were understandably uneasy with having antimatter-armed neighbors who had not sworn fealty to Norma.
He gulped. “Okay,” he said nervously as he slowly drove past the hangar and continued on to the main office building. A few minutes later, he reached his destination. That parking lot was completely empty except for one car, and none of the windows in the three-story building were lit up except at the lobby entrance.
He parked, retrieved the briefcase, and stepped out of his car. His palms began to sweat again as he walked to the door and entered the foyer. The guard in the security booth watched him, his bored gaze still feeling deadly to Nic. “Working late today, Mr. Kent?”
“Yeah—yeah,” Nic stammered. He swallowed nervously again. “I’m trying to beat a deadline. You know how it is. Project managers never give you enough time to do things right.”
The security guard smiled and laughed. “Well, good luck.” He leaned back in his seat, and Nic swiped his badge and unlocked the inner door.
He breathed a sigh of relief as he reached his own cubicle on the second floor a few minutes later. As he sat down, he fished a small device from his pocket and plugged it into an I/O port on his desk. “Okay, I have it plugged in,” he said. “I’m the only one here. Well, me and the security guard.”
“Angel 1 copies. Connecting…okay, we have access. Sit tight and let us do the hard work. I’ll let you know if I need you to do anything.” The desk’s holographic surface came to life as the system left standby, and a holographic interface fuzzed into existence above it as the hackers took remote control.
Gulping again, he stood and looked over the cubicle walls, checking the room. The entire floor was dark except for the exit signs and his own desk lamp. He was definitely alone. He dried off his palms on his pant legs again. “How long is this going to take?”
“Shouldn’t be too long,” one of the hackers answered. “Just verifying that our hidden admin account on the site’s main file server is still operational.”
“What if it isn’t?” Nic asked.
Someone sighed on the other end of the comm. “Then I’ll make another one. Look, Academy’s internal network security is trash. I can do whatever I want as long as we have someone inside the building.”
“Well hurry up! I don’t like standing around here like this!”
“Calm down, Nic,” said Angel 2. “Nothing bad is going to happen.”
“I hope you’re right.”
He stood and waited for several long minutes while the hackers operated his computer remotely. “Okay,” Angel 1 finally reported. “Our account is still good, and I have access to the remote backup sites. Nic, you still have that datachip, right?”
Nic searched his pockets and found the other device they’d given him. “Yeah. You want it plugged in?”
“Yeah, go ahead. We have several terabytes of data to copy. It’ll go much faster to read from a local datachip instead of us transmitting it wirelessly fr
om the van.”
“Whatever you say.” Nic plugged the device in.
“Whoa!” Angel 1 exclaimed. “That wasn’t supposed to happen?”
“What?” Nic said, suddenly feeling tensed up. His palms instantly started sweating again. “What happened?” He stood and glanced around the office again. Everything was dark and quiet for as far as he could see. He was still alone, for now.
“Hang on…I think we tripped the antivirus on your computer. Shouldn’t be that big an issue, I’ll try to disable it. Okay, unplug it and try again…there we go. It’s running. Starting the file copy…looks like it’ll take about ten minutes. Angel 3, how’s that backdoor coming?”
“I got it running on the file server now, looks like it’s working. I’ll start deleting the old backups. Things’ll look a bit fishy. But oh well.”
“Oh well?” Nic retorted. “Fishy how? This is my job on the line! Can they trace it back to me?”
“Oh. Maybe. I’m not sure.”
“You’re not sure?” he hissed. “Guys, I want to shut this down as much as anybody, but I can’t feed my family from prison!”
Angel 2 laughed. “He’s just messing with you. We’re spoofing other users. They’ll never know it was you. You might see the guy three seats down get hauled out by security tomorrow morning, though, if they catch on to what happened.”
He let out his breath in relief, but that breath suddenly caught in his throat as he finished processing the statement. “Wait, there could be collateral damage?” he asked.
“Maybe,” Angel 1 said. “I don’t know if your network security guys are bright enough, but just in case, we need to make sure you aren’t compromised. If we lose you, we lose access to the facility.”
He felt a lump form in his throat as he considered an innocent coworker being dragged out for Nic’s crime. “Guys, I don’t know if I can live with that. Can’t you make it more hidden somehow?”
