“Preparing to engage cloak,” Estelle said, returning Dodds to reality.
“Think it'll work?” Enrique asked before their wing leader activated the system; it was obvious he was leaving Estelle out of this particular conversation.
“I heard about the last time they tried something like this and how it all went horribly wrong,” Kelly answered.
“It did?” said Dodds.
“If it does, then she'll either end up several hundred miles away from here or she'll travel into the future.”
“That doesn't sound too bad,” Enrique said.
“Before coming back a few minutes later having either gone mad or become one with the ship.”
Dodds said nothing and just swallowed hard as Estelle activated the cloak. He found, however, that there was nothing for any of them to fear: the cloak worked just as Parks had described, and Estelle's fighter faded gracefully from view. Whilst his ATAF's radar could still detect and report the presence of an object in place of where Estelle once appeared, he could see nothing else.
After each of them had tested the system for themselves, Estelle confirmed to Parks that they had blanketed themselves from detection. Then, as one, the five invisible ATAFs slipped out from beneath the carrier and set off towards Arlos.
XVIII
— Of Daggers —
Sitting amongst a huddled group of blanket-wrapped men and women, Daniel Sullivan's suspicions that he was being watched and followed had been confirmed. A woman - he assumed it was, by the way she carried herself - also wrapped in a blanket against the small chill of the starport, had been hovering just out of sight for the last hour or so. The blanket rested on the top of her head, the folds enclosing her and hiding her face from sight. He was now aware that she had been tailing him as he walked around the port, whilst he had been attempting to find someone who was interested in his wares; his efforts so far having been met with disinterest and the occasional outburst of anger from those wishing to be left alone.
Usually the massive central hall of the starport was bustling, filled with all kinds of people: miners, resting from their labour; traders and couriers seeking work and contracts; and many, many travellers. Bright, animated signs, and warm inviting lights from coffee shops, pubs, various food bars and trading posts lining the walls created a welcoming ambience. Even in the most backwater star systems, the familiar branding of intergalactic corporations provided the port's guests with a sense of home and comfort.
Laughter and chatter no longer filled the port, the signs of the shops were inanimate, and the doors were locked, never to be reopened. Many of the windows of the stores had been smashed and the contents looted. The central hall had been transformed into a sea of people, settled on the floor, bags and other personal belongings surrounding them. Young children lay asleep, cuddled up to their parents.
Sullivan found that, though the port was not bitterly cold, it could have been warmer. Keeping warm could be achieved either by wrapping up, consuming hot food and drink, or by moving around. The scarred man opted for latter.
Standing up, he began to stride away from his stalker, partly to put distance between the two of them and partly to get away from the place. Though he had only arrived at the port hours earlier, he'd already had enough of Arlos starport. It was time to move on and find another place to sell his spoils. Perhaps he'd have better luck in the inner systems of the Imperium; the frontier systems that he had visited so far had been almost devoid of life.
In the grand scheme of his chosen career he could be considered a petty thief. He found smuggling, weapons trading and gang associations too much like hard work, and there were too many risks involved. The boarding of the vessel within Confederation space had been one of his biggest jobs in recent years, working alongside an ad-hoc group of others he had met in a dingy bar sometime ago. They had been useless, some succeeding in getting themselves killed even before boarding the ship. He had decided to cut his losses there and then, putting a round into the back of the heads of the survivors, before rigging up booby traps and fleeing with what he could.
That had not been a venture he had enjoyed; not something he was used to. Instead he preferred to focus on the things that were easiest to carry and dispose of, mostly stealing to order. The trades were quick, for the most part effortless and low-key. Starports were his greatest outlet, travellers and entrepreneurs being his best customers. Today, however, Arlos had been a waste of time.
He started back toward the docking port he had left his ship in, with the intention of heading to the nearest jumpgate and departing the system for greener and more lucrative pastures. Although, for some reason he was having difficulty making headway deeper into Imperial space. The navigation buoys were oddly reluctant to provide him with the necessary data. He would dig through his ship's databanks and see if the previous owner, from whom he had so violently separated it, could be of any more help.
Glancing over his shoulder, he noticed that his pursuer had also risen and was once again tailing him, although not as subtly this time as before. It was not the first time he had been followed when he was trading, but judging from the way the woman had kept her distance and her profile low, she was not one of the usual suspects. At first, he had thought her to be in the same line of work as he was, himself: some found it easier to let someone like him do all the hard work and then pounce on them in the middle of a transaction, relieving them of their hard-earned goods. Parasites; he hated them.
But this woman was far too cautious for that. He had dismissed the possibility that she was a bounty hunter, chasing the reward money for either his head or something he had stolen from the wrong person. If she had been, then the pursuit would not have been such a slow, quiet affair - more noisy, violent and very quick. No, this was a new one to him and he could make few assumptions; though one thing he knew he could be certain of was that the woman had decided it was time to come out of hiding and was about to move in for the kill.
* * *
Clare Barber swept between the groups of people settled on the floor around her. She watched her step as she did so, though she did not take her eyes off her target, who walked now with a greater purpose than just the wish to sell his haul and leave.
He still had the card, though. She had heard him enquire a couple of times in the past hour as to whether anyone would be interested in buying information. They weren't, of course; these people only wanted to get away.
It seemed to her that the man was either far too ignorant or far too arrogant to appreciate the terrible fate that had befallen the Imperium, and so it had come as little surprise to her that he was having difficulties in offloading his stock here. She thought it likely that he had, until sometime ago, only operated in Confederation and Independent World star systems, returning to Imperial space now after attracting too much attention and needing to disappear for a while. If that was the case, he was not having much luck escaping unwanted attention here, either.
He stopped walking and Barber, anticipating his next move, calmly reached inside the jacket she wore beneath the blanket and removed a pistol from within. Her finger clicked the safety off.
The man turned around, his and Barber's eyes meeting for the first time, his scowl telling her that he was not happy with being followed. Many scars covered his face, showing many permanent reminders of the cost of his chosen lifestyle. His eyes seemed to tell terrible stories of all he had butchered whilst in the pursuit of that path. He presented a look that would have had many hastily reaching for their valuables, rather than incurring the pain and violence promised. Barber was immune: she had seen many more terrible things.
He sighed audibly before speaking. “” a woman pleaded as she tried to move further back than the wall would allow.
“What did she say?” Dodds asked Enrique.
“Sounds like she was speaking some sort of Imperial,” Enrique said, looking at the woman.
“Either of you guys understand any Imperial dialects?” Dodds asked of
Estelle and Kelly.
“Just ignore them,” Estelle said, striding around the corner and through a set of doors. She stopped in the doorway, where Chaz had also stopped.
Dodds walked up behind the pair and peered around them. “Ah. We might be here a while.” A sea of people lay before them, occupying almost every inch of floor that could be found.
The five pilots stepped into the central main hall of the starport, many heads snapping around to take note of the new arrivals. Dodds noticed that the White Knights received the same reaction from the groups of people in the hall as they had done in the corridor, with many of those close by pushing themselves further back. Some sprang to their feet and moved away, appearing to not trust the new arrivals. It was obvious that the man who had fled the corridor had passed through here already, putting everyone on edge.
“You're right, Dodds. Something's spooked these guys pretty bad,” Kelly said as they began walking aimlessly between the huddles, the search for Barber temporarily forgotten. The people gathered about did not take their fearful eyes off the Knights for one second.
“What's this all about?” Dodds asked, looking all about the huddles of people. “Are they all waiting for transit or something?”
“Yeah, and what's with all the bags? They look like refugees...” Enrique said. He stopped walking.
Dodds stopped and turned to him. “Just like that guy said last night...” The realisation of what he was looking at dawned on him. Links were beginning to form from the conversation he now remembered. Refugees, secret projects, genocide... “Didn't he say that the Empire had been completely wiped out?”
“What are you two talking about?” Kelly asked.
“Last night, whilst we were playing poker, this guy said that the Empire had been destroyed, that the civil war actually ended years ago, and that all that was left were a load of refugees.”
“But... we just went up against Imperial forces when we attempted to take back Dragon,” Kelly said, appearing a little concerned.
Dodds shook his head. “Those weren't them.”
Estelle's irate demeanour appeared to have all but abandoned her for the time being. She then scowled. “Wait, what are you talking about? Kelly's right. Pay no attention to him. The Empire hasn't been wiped out!”
“Estelle, you were there! What happened in that battle wasn't... well, it wasn't normal. I don't know who they were, but those were not Imperial pilots in those fighters. None of us would have survived that battle if we'd not been in the ATAFs.”
Estelle folded her arms, but did not argue with him further.
Dodds couldn't shake the feeling that he had his head in the lion's mouth. He looked again at the groups of people on the ground, some meeting his eyes before turning away, even those who looked as though they could handle themselves. “We'd better get on with this and get out of here,” he concluded.
“How?” Enrique said. “How are we going to be able to locate Barber amongst all these people. She doesn't know we're coming, and like Parks said she's hardly likely to be jumping up and down, waving to us.”
Dodds' eyes swept over the groups and huddles, then turned back to his team mates, seeing none of them looking very optimistic. Even Chaz, who had been the first to step forward, seemed taken aback and a little out of his depth. There must have been hundreds of people in the main hall alone and, to make matters worse, a few sets of stairs at one end led up to another floor above. How many more floors were there? How many pockets would they have to search?
“You know what? How about we just ask someone if they've seen her,” Dodds suggested. He broke from his team mates, making his way over to a man he had singled out at random.
“Dodds...” Estelle started.
“Estelle, it's cool, I've got it,” Dodds said. “I'm just going to ask if they've seen her.”
“Be careful,” Estelle called after him.
Dodds looked back over his shoulder with what he hoped was a confident smile. The man he walked towards was sat crossed-legged on the floor, hunched over a bowl of noodles, two chopsticks clasped in his hand. He glanced up as Dodds approached him, a look of fear spreading across his features. He shuffled backward as Dodds drew closer and began shaking his head before turning his full attention back to his food, not wishing to make eye contact.
“Hi, how you doing?” Dodds began. “I'm looking for a woman... er... girl? You know... not a man?” He gestured towards men and women as he spoke, hoping to make it clear which gender he was after.
“” the man spluttered back at him. His hands started to shake and he tried to continue eating, unable to manipulate the sticks enough to grasp the food in the bowl.
Dodds looked around at Estelle who shrugged with puzzlement, not understanding, either. He tried again, “She's a bit shorter than me, long black hair...”
“” the man spluttered again, before casting his bowl in Dodds' direction. He struggled to his feet, pushing aside those behind him in a bid to escape, his bowl of noodles clattering to the ground, spilling its warm contents across the white marble tiled floor. The Knights watched as he left, other refugees nearby moving closer to one another and a bit further back from the five pilots.
“This isn't going to be easy,” Enrique said. Estelle was in agreement. They were going to have to apply a little more effort if they hoped to locate their contact amongst all these people.
“We'll just have to search for someone who is a little more cooperative,” Estelle said. “Split up and see if you can find someone who is more willing to talk. We'll try this central area first and then move on into the other parts of the port. If any of you get into any sort of trouble, shout and we'll come get you. The moment you find out anything, I want to know. Don't do anything without me, that's an order. Let's go, people. The sooner we find the agent, the sooner we can leave and get back to Griffin.”
XX
— Hawke's Ambition —
On the bridge of Ifrit, helmsman Alan Cox stood waiting patiently as an engineer took a look at his console. It was not behaving as it should: the touch-sensitive surface seeming to be off by a few inches. Every time he tapped at the screen, there was a chance that a different control to the one he wanted might be activated. He had started to become concerned when some of the more delicate operations he needed to perform while the carrier continued to search for the missing Griffin became more difficult to execute. For a time, he had traded places with the controller across from him, so that he could continue his duty. But now that the carrier was holding position, pausing in its search, he had taken the opportunity to have the problem dealt with.
“Looks like one of the calibration relay nodes has given out,” the engineer said from beneath the console, pulling out a small circuit board.
“Do you have a spare?” Cox asked, toying with a screwdriver the engineer had used to remove the bottom panel of the console.
“Plenty. I can go and get one and be back up soon. Shouldn't take more than ten or fifteen minutes. Do you need it urgently?”
“So-so,” the navigator replied. “The captain has ordered us to hold position here. According to him, Griffin should be somewhere close by. But so far we haven't detected anything, not even on the long-range scanners.”
The way Hawke had been acting had set Cox on edge. He had voiced these concerns with some of the other crew once his captain had departed the bridge, on his way to his private office to receive a communication that had come in from CSN HQ. Though they did not talk for long, it became evident that the rest of the crew shared his feelings.
Upon his return, Hawke had ordered that they jump to an adjoining star system, in which they would at last find Griffin. But within minutes of Ifrit arriving at its destination, the commodore had once again departed.
Following the allied forces' failed attempt to retake Dragon, and the unusual disappearance of Griffin, Hawke had ordered Meyers to return to Spirit alone. He had then taken Ifrit and begun a systematic sweep of the nearest adjacent sta
r systems to Aster, in case Griffin had become stranded in one of those. But though they had hunted for many hours, their search had turned up nothing, the likelihood of finding Griffin close by diminishing with each system they came to.
It was as they scanned their fifth system that Hawke had received the message from naval headquarters. It had informed him that Griffin had been located and, as luck would have it, was drifting in a star system alongside the one they were currently scanning. Hawke had ordered that Ifrit make that their destination. But upon arriving, the crew had been greeted by nothing except another empty system, the only highlight of the region being the twisted hues of the nebulas that were so prominent in that part of the galaxy. Hawke had returned to his private office to watch the message again, so as to, as he had put it, “ensure that he had not made a mistake”.
After his lack of commitment to the previous battle, the crew were beginning to question his command. Cox was not about to challenge the man's authority, however; the thought of a stay in the brig and a court-martial were not high on his list of priorities.
“Are you sure we're in the right place?” the engineer wanted to know, emerging from beneath and console and looking out the thick glass windows of Ifrit's main viewport, to the empty space beyond. “You could have punched the wrong destination into the console? Wouldn't be surprising the way this thing is so out of whack.”
“I was using that one,” said Cox, indicating the console across from his own.
“Maybe I should check that one, too?” the engineer suggested.
At that moment, Cox heard the bridge lift doors open and looking around he saw Hawke come striding down the long aisle, people on either side turning in anticipation of what Ifrit's captain would say about the situation.
The Honour of the Knights (First Edition) (The Battle for the Solar System) Page 26
