by Daniel Gibbs
They discussed the operation, of course, but never to the extent of explaining what they were doing. It made sense for them, since the participants were fully briefed, but it made Miri's job all the harder.
"I thought CIS was paranoid," al-Lahim said. "It's almost as if the League knew we'd take the station."
"It's not prophecy, it's Hartford. It appears he will go to any measure to prevent the possibility of his plans leaking. He must have laid out the operational plan somewhere else, with non-electronic communication to facilitate everything." Miri didn't let herself laugh at the realization that this was her fault. Her success at Lowery had made Hartford paranoid about sharing information.
"Well, we can at least prove the ships in question were seized by the League."
"That won't stop them from completing whatever it is they're up to." Miri shook her head. "And the League's always had a silver tongue. I don't want them weaseling out of this." She focused her attention on a recording nine months old, near the start of the operation. An African-descended officer was with Hartford. Aristide, given the names mentioned. They were speaking about the progression of events on Lusitania.
As Miri watched, Hartford was distracted by a call. Moments later, the door opened, and two figures entered. One Miri already knew from prior records: Commander Chantavit Li, the League External Security Officer who attacked Captain Henry in Gamavilla and Vitorino's contact with the League. On the screen, Hartford addressed the new arrivals sternly for interrupting him.
Miri wasn't quite paying attention to that. Her eyes were on the man who accompanied Li.
Light years away, in an empty solar system, the same figure was on Li's screen. "Everything is in order, I assure you. As soon as the fleet is in combat range, the code gets sent."
Li spoke with a cold tone. "See that they are. The fleet's losses are already going to make this difficult. If they have to fight a proper battle with the Lusitanian military, it will ruin everything. Li out." He said the last two words curtly, not wanting any more discussion. Anger and frustration filled him like never before. More than a year of careful work might be undone in the next several days. Indeed, they were already on the cusp of failure. After months of everything running smoothly, the operation hung by a thread. All because of Hartford's obsession with Miriam Gaon.
He uttered a resigned sigh. There was little more Li could do now. He would keep jumping until he linked up with the Marat, and from there, he would oversee the rest of the operation. For now, he still had a couple of hours before he could safely jump again. He lifted himself from the chair and turned.
Fire exploded through his right knee and leg, forcing Li to the ground. The sudden agony shocked him so thoroughly that he failed to reach for his weapon right away, indeed, failed to do anything but cry out from the blow. By the time he started to recover, a shadow was already cast over him.
He glanced up and saw a human face with the eyes of a monster.
"Well, well." Allen Kepper grinned at the sight of his quarry on the ground, wounded. "Nice to meet you in person, Commander." He kept his gun up while kicking Li onto his side. He intentionally set his foot on Li's wounded knee and applied weight, drawing an even greater cry of pain while he reached down and plucked the Leaguer’s sidearm from the belt holster. He tossed the pistol to the other side of the cockpit.
"Kepper." Li's voice was hoarse. "What… what are you doing here? How…?!"
The smile on Kepper's face betrayed the anticipation filling him. His urges were begging for release and anticipating the same. Expectation almost made him shiver. "Leaguer computer security isn't all it's cracked up to be. It wasn't hard to slip into your nice ship. As for what I'm doing here… we call it payback, Li." He crouched down to the fallen League officer. "The insults were bad enough. Trying to have me killed like I was a trusting moron? That made it personal."
"You failed," Li retorted. "And you made excuses!"
"Valid reasons. Had you not tried to kill me, had you worked with me, I'd have gotten you the Gaon woman on Lusitania instead of what I actually did." Kepper felt a thrill as he said, "Which was to plant a tracker on your ship."
Li's eyes widened. "No. You—"
"Micro-QETs are a bitch to find, Li. Requires close visual inspection of the hull. You people really should consider that." Kepper chuckled. "So yeah, I gave Captain Henry and all the other privateers your location. I wasn't sure what they'd find, of course, but I figured it'd be good, and it'd hurt you. More importantly, I knew it'd lead me to getting a chance for some one-on-one time." Kepper stepped past Li and leaned over the controls. "Hrm. Looks like you've loaded coordinates to meet with some League military ship. It'd be an awful shame for the privateers to find out where, wouldn't it?”
Li sneered, defiant to the end. "They're already damaged fighting our Q-Ships. They wouldn't last against a squadron."
"Yeah, well, that's on them. For me, the fun would be that it'd probably still ruin your plan." Kepper fought his urges down again with the promise of eventual release. "You’ve put a lot of work into this, haven't you?"
The sneer turned into a frown. "We'll still win, you know," he said, as if he might yet deter Kepper. "Even if you stop us here. The League will triumph. There is nothing you do that can stop this galaxy from being Socialized. People like you won't have a place in it."
Kepper chuckled. "I like the way you people always use the word 'Socialized.' I can practically hear the capital 'S' every time." He reached over and started tapping at the communications controls. "Do you think I give a damn, Li? I don't care how good you think your people are, the galaxy will always have need of people like me." He returned his attention to the station while he again applied pressure to Li's wound with his foot. He audibly groaned at the increase in pain it caused.
A few moments later, the image of Captain Henry appeared on one of the side monitors. "Kepper? This is a direct line through the League base's interstellar comms. Where the hell are you?"
"I'm aboard Commander Li's personal ship." Kepper glanced down at Li. "I'm not sure why you even care. Our deal is complete."
"What exactly are you up to?"
"Oh, Commander Li and I are about to have a very long conversation about business, pleasure, and why it's best to not make things personal." Kepper's hand went over the controls, accessing the navigational system and triggering it to relay through the commlink. "As a bonus for your work in bringing me to my destination, Captain, this is the system Li was heading to in order to meet with a League warship squadron. They're involved in whatever operation the League's been up to. Please go thwart it." Kepper glanced down to Li, who frowned back. "I want him to know failure before he dies."
Henry's expression was stony, but he said nothing to oppose the idea. "We'll take any information we can get."
"I thought you’d say that. You're a reasonable man, after all. Good luck." He tapped a final key to transmit the final destination in the navigational system. "Kepper out." A last button press ended the call.
Li's wound still hobbled him, but Kepper could see the look in his eye. He was trying to find an angle, preparing to make his move. So he stepped back to give himself space and promptly shot Li in the left hip. The Leaguer crumbled belly first to the floor. Pain was visible in his face. So was rage.
Kepper didn't take chances. His next shots went through Li's shoulders, effectively crippling his arms. This satisfied Kepper that his quarry was ready for the fun part. He set the gun down and put his hands on Li's ankles to pull him into the ship's cabin, or a corner of it anyway. The wounds to the man’s legs drew a series of short cries from the pain.
Once he had him in place, Kepper let out a breath. His mind swam with need as blood filled his thoughts, warm and vibrant and smelling of iron fear and crimson pain. It'd been so long since he got to feel it.
"You're just like all the rest," Li hissed. "A beast."
The remark didn't break Kepper from enjoying the anticipation he felt. After a moment to
savor it, he turned his eyes to Li again and gave the kind of smile that predators reserved for a much-needed meal. "And you hired me anyway," he cooed. "So what's that say about you?" He reached into his belt and pulled out a knife. It was not a small knife. The blade was over twenty centimeters long, curved, and wicked. "You know what happens to people who poke beasts, right?" He leaned in close, as if to whisper into his ear.
He didn't whisper, though. He only sighed in satisfaction as he pushed the blade into Li's belly. A gasp of agony came from the League officer.
That did it. The last self-imposed fetter came off. Allen Kepper let his urges take him over completely.
For his part, Chantavit Li knew pain, felt fear, and then, after a very long and excruciating experience, he died.
23
The privateer fleet was enjoying its victory in the manner one would expect: looting everything they could from the League station, "Pluto Base" as they now knew it, while preparation was made to destroy it as a final gesture of defiance to the League. This extended to outside the base as Dulaney's fleet worked to restore the ships crippled by the EMP weapon and take control of the League Q-ships still intact enough to be salvaged. Their legitimate owners weren't likely to appreciate the condition those ships were in—or their crews, for that matter—but there was expectation of some appreciation for their return.
Henry and his crew had other matters to concern them. They weren't in this for loot but to thwart the League. Now, thanks to Miri Gaon and Allen Kepper, they had a shot at it.
Everyone was in the rec room, gathered around the active holovid display. Today, it wasn’t showing movies, but displaying the data Kepper sent. A B4 star within one jump of Lusitania in an empty system, to be specific, labeled TR-209.
"It's a good pick for a system to hide in," Tia said. "Unsettled, rarely used. It has an old derelict fueling station that gathers helium-3 from one of the gas giants. If they reactivate it, they've got free fuel."
"My thought the moment I heard 209 was their spot," Henry said.
"You're sure it's not a trick?" asked Brigitte. "This guy was a piece of work, I mean."
"He is, but his reputation would hint it's not," al-Lahim answered. "He was in this to get revenge, which he is undoubtedly fulfilling at this very second." He shuddered. "I would not wish to be Chantavit Li right now."
"So there's a squadron of League military ships in TR-209," Tia said, clearly not wanting to talk about Li's fate. "Do you think we could beat them?”
"We've got a chance, especially with our remaining missiles," Henry answered. "But what's more important is getting the last piece of the puzzle we needed." He touched the control for the holovid. It came alive with an image of two people entering an office, already occupied. "I know most of you probably didn't see him."
"That's Caetano's aide, isn't it?" Jules asked.
"Former aide, yes," Miri said. "João Carvalho, now working for Prime Minister Vitorino."
"So was he there representing Vitorino?" asked Piper.
Henry responded by playing the recording. They listened to the exchange.
"You shouldn't be here," said the man in the most prominent uniform. "Information must be carefully compartmentalized."
Carvalho nodded. "I understand, Admiral, but I thought it best to discuss this with you personally. The Beja is being brought in for extensive reworking and repair. This gives us a window for the next nine months where the operation can be enacted with even greater ease. Without the fleet's battleship, it'll be even easier to create the image we need. Once we send the shutdown code—"
The admiral hissed, "Do not discuss the operation's particulars aloud!"
At that point, Henry paused the recording. He looked at everyone. "So, is everyone thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Shutdown code." Felix narrowed his eyes. "For the Lusitanian fleet?"
"How would that work anyway?" asked Brigitte. "Are we talking about knocking out their systems? Messing up computers?"
"Well, a lot of ships rely on computer systems," Pieter said. "For regulating the reactors and managing power flows. You need computers to manage constant deflector fields."
"Also for astrogation and thrust control," Henry added. "Some things can be done manually in a pinch, but if you take out a ship's information systems and networks, you've left them in a bad state. No deflectors, likely no guidance for weapons."
"You can also set a computer system to lock down a ship," Felix said. "It takes time to make workarounds."
"So the League's going to shut down the Lusitanian fleet. And what, attack them with the Q-ships?"
"Q-ships armed mostly with neutral and Coalition weapons," Henry pointed out. "It will be made to look like a Coalition-backed effort to overthrow the current Lusitanian government."
"But that's not what they would want as an ending to this." Miri looked at the still image on the display. "However, the scenario is increasingly obvious."
"Aye, I think I see what ye mean," said Cera.
For the sake of the others, Henry spoke up. "Here's how I think it's going to go down. The Q-ships arrive and declare some democracy uprising against Vitorino. The Lusitanian fleet mobilizes to stop them. Ordinarily, this would work, but suddenly, their computers quit, and the squadron is helpless against the Q-ships, who quickly finish crippling them with those EMP cannons since they won't have deflectors. It looks like the invasion will pay off when, boom, here comes the League of Sol to save the day. They shoot up some of the Q-ships, the rest surrender—"
Tia frowned and interjected, "—and it's quickly discovered that the Terran Coalition attempted to overthrow the lawful Lusitanian government. Neutral worlds across this region and others turn against the Coalition, with the League happily playing themselves up as the champions of the neutrals' freedoms. A number of planets, out of fear of the Coalition or support for the League, actively throw in with them."
"So the League gets new bases and reinforcements to launch attacks on us." Felix shook his head. "And it allows the League's fleets to hit Coalition-held sectors they couldn't easily reach before. Hell, those Q-ships would make for excellent commerce raiders."
"It also dramatically undermines the peace talks," al-Lahim said. "Assuming they're not a deception operation as well. My superiors won’t hear of such talk, but I suspect this is all part of a larger game."
"If they are, then it's a one-two punch." Henry frowned at the image. "One the Coalition might not come back from. At the same time, Vitorino gets to consolidate power and set himself up to become a leader of the neutral worlds. He lets the League weaken itself trying to break the Coalition and then assembles the neutral worlds to finish both off."
"Except… I don't think that's how it would go." Miri walked up beside the display and tapped at Carvalho's image. "I doubt he authorized this. Hartford was right to be upset Carvalho came personally; it was sloppy. And Vitorino doesn't strike me as the sloppy type."
"No, he's not," Henry agreed, still frowning. "But he's arrogant enough to miss the obvious."
"Carvalho's working for the League," Felix said.
Al-Lahim nodded at Felix. "It would fit their usual methods. They put people in place with their allies on other worlds, to keep watch."
"Well, either way, we can guess what they're doing. The question is how to stop them."
"We stop the Q-ships," Tia said. "They can't afford further losses, so they'll be cautious going to Lusitania. Single jumps. Even with the time we've lost, just one double jump should put us into a position to catch them."
"We'd have to catch them in Lusitania's system. It's the only place we know they're going."
Henry nodded at Felix. "At the same time, I'd rather not have to fight the League ships too. Even letting the Leaguers show up at Lusitania is too big a risk. We need to stop them. Or at least delay them."
"Well, from what the records say, they've got a squadron of sorts. A cruiser and four destroyers," said al-Lahim. "It would take all of the ships w
e have left to even hope to fight them. And that's assuming the privateers would do so."
"They wouldn't," Henry said. "The Tokarevs are the only ones I know will go for a fight. Dulaney may want to finish this, but some of his ships are hurting. He won't go against the military ships. The way it looks, it'll be just us."
"Which is suicide," Tia pointed out. "A destroyer would be a hard fight for us to survive. Four of them and a cruiser is way too much."
"Ordinarily, you'd be right," said Felix. "But we've still got sixteen Hunters. If we task them right, we can probably take out at least half that unit. Maybe even the cruiser itself."
"So… we'll go up against this squadron. Alone?" Samina's voice squeaked a little at that.
"Yeah, I think we're really pushing our luck now." Brigitte's voice betrayed her own fear. "Even if we take down the cruiser, we'll never defeat those destroyers."
Henry looked to her with sympathy, although his voice was firm in a way to try and get confidence from her. "We wouldn't need to. We task the Hunters to make them secondary targets. I'm betting we finish the cruiser off enough that at least six of them go for the destroyers. Just one would overwhelm deflectors on a destroyer and do some damage. It might be enough that they call off the op. Even if they don't… it'll make their scenario laughable. Twenty-plus Q-ships surrendering to a bunch of damaged League destroyers doesn't make a lick of sense. It'll be too transparent, even without the records and eyewitness testimony to confirm what we already know."
Henry surveyed the room. He could tell they weren't sure about this. It seemed foolish. And he couldn't dispute it would be tremendously dangerous.
But the League had to be stopped. Nothing about that changed. If they executed the attack, then even the eyewitnesses recovered from Pluto Base might not be enough to counter the League's propaganda on some worlds.
And even if the League's gains were dented by the witnesses, they'd still have Lusitania, one of the wealthiest neutral systems. That alone could turn the tide against the Coalition and the forces assembled here.
