Harry shut down the AI comlink, raised his signal pole again, and waved it in a figure-eight motion.
The reply was immediate. The ground-shaking bang of the first Bangalore torpedo was followed by several more that announced Ferghal’s crude mortars sending their explosive grenades toward the buildings. The explosions brought the occupants streaming out, looking for the attackers. They took shelter again as more of the bombs burst in the air, on the ground and behind them.
With a deafening roar, the first of Mr. Winstanley’s demolition mines detonated, then two more simultaneously, and finally the rest. The conveyor collapsed, the final section falling onto the processing unit, just as another, larger explosion tore that building apart.
The Coxswain chuckled as he joined Harry. “Had a spare charge, sir, so we put it on the conveyor as soon as we fired the other fuses. Looks like it hit the right spot!”
“So it does.” Harry fired the rocket flare to signal. “Time to go, Swain. I’ll wait for Mr. O’Connor. Get the rest of our people to our tunnel, please.”
Harry was feeling resentful. Their raids had brought the disruption he’d wanted, but not as much as he’d hoped. His twelve men and women — he didn’t include Rasmus because he was not a warrior — could only do so much, and they were outnumbered and outgunned. Their mines and Bangalore torpedoes were too difficult to position and use with ease, and the shoulder-launched rockets were inaccurate and unreliable. They needed a more accurate mortar and an improved rocket launcher; something against the aerial craft as well. But he lacked the people, the equipment and the means to do everything he knew they needed to succeed in this miserable conflict.
His resentment was in part a reaction to his feeling guilty for the damage and injuries the Consortium had inflicted on the Canids because of his attack on them to free Ferghal, and the response to his attacks on their installations and mining outposts.
On top of all that, it was his twentieth birthday. What a wretched way to spend a birthday, he thought grimly. If only I could be with Mary and not here in the middle of all this. He really missed their regular holocalls. He wished he could find a way to talk to her. But no, as usual I’m stuck on some godforsaken outpost with no way to communicate with her or anyone back home.
He let himself fume for a few minutes then pushed his angry thoughts aside. His crew needed his attention, and moping wouldn’t solve anything.
His men had suffered in the attacks and raids on the enemy, and that didn’t sit well with him. Ranji Singh was out of action and needed more medical attention than they could give him. Even Ferghal’s birthday greeting and his gift of a small forged replica of the Fleet insignia had barely lifted his blue mood.
His resentment was fed by the knowledge that everyone looked to him for leadership, and he was feeling very unequal to the task. The recent attacks had shaken his confidence. He’d turned in on himself, searching his soul and wondering whether he should give himself up to the Consortium to put a stop to this madness.
Despite his brave words to the Canid leaders, he knew the continued conflict would be costly in terms of lives and injuries — yet the alternative no longer seemed to be an option either.
He felt very alone as he considered their situation. He was unable to stop the Consortium’s attacks on the living nodes of this strange life form that had provided him and his team with food, clothing and shelter through the ferocious winter.
His anger made him determined to find some way to make them pay for their assaults on the Canids.
He looked up with weary eyes as Ferghal entered the small room Harry used as his personal retreat. “What new problem have you for me, my friend?” he asked.
“None I am aware of — save you, Harry. Your mood concerns us. This assault on our host is not your fault. They have been trying for a long time to discover the technology they believe is hidden in the Canid cities, and they have made many attacks upon our friends to secure that tech. This latest assault was inevitable as soon as they realised how we’ve survived this whole time, and where we’ve been hiding — not to mention your bombardment of their Base to set me free, for which I am eternally grateful.” Ferghal grinned with his usual good cheer.
“However you want to frame it, I must accept responsibility for this. When I attacked their outpost, I did not consider the possibility of reprisal — and I have visited their AI, thanks to our host, and learned that they have ordered our destruction. We are, it seems, a greater threat than the Fleet itself to their operations here.”
Ferghal frowned. “That’s a lot of operations — the manufacture of fuel cells for interceptors and strike craft, projects that examine and attempt to replicate technologies they have seized from others, a listening post for Fleet and other encrypted signal traffic, and one that attempts to interact with the Fleet communications systems.”
Harry considered this. “I wonder if this is the thing they guard so jealously that we must be killed in case we disrupt it. If so, then perhaps that is our retaliation.” He smiled and stood up. “Thank you, my friend. I think we know exactly how to cause them distress! Show me this secret and let us see what we can do to amend it so that it works against their plans.”
Ferghal didn’t comprehend at first, but then a smile spread across his face. “That is the Harry I know. Join me in our host’s mind and I will show you the project, and when we have done that, we have dinner and drinks prepared to celebrate your birth anniversary.” He laughed suddenly, adding, “And now you are officially permitted to take alcohol.”
Lieutenant Clarke stood before Commander Nielsen, his feelings very mixed. “So you want me to supervise the Rates doing this construction work for the Consortium, sir?”
“Correct, Mr. Clarke, and to ensure our people are not being abused. Naturally I expect you to keep your eyes and ears open for any information that might be useful to our side.” Commander Nielsen kept his expression neutral. He suspected Lieutenant Clarke of aiding the enemy, and he wanted to check his suspicions. “This work detail is technically within the Convention on the use of POWs, but I suspect it is also to be used to harass the Canids.”
“I see, sir.” Aral Clarke felt sure there was an ulterior motive to this assignment. Could the Commander suspect him of collaboration?
“You’ll have several Master Warrants actually running the detail, I’m told. You are there purely to ensure the Convention is observed.”
“Yes, sir.” Aral Clarke felt his pulse quicken. It would give him an opportunity to show his captors that not all Fleet Officers were obstructive and bent on sabotage.
Commander Nielsen noted the look of anticipation that his visitor couldn’t hide. “Make sure our people aren’t abused, Lieutenant. You’ll be collected after Roll Call tomorrow morning. Carry on.”
The Commander hoped Clarke lacked the imagination to see through his motive in giving him this assignment. He didn’t trust Clarke, and the two Master Warrants assigned to the group would be keeping a very close eye on the Lieutenant.
“We cannot — indeed we have not the means to attack our enemy directly,” Harry told his companions. “Therefore I propose that we continue to make attacks of opportunity on them and their installations wherever and whenever we can.”
The Coxswain concurred. “Makes sense, sir. If we force them to defend their own places, they’ll have to ease up on their attacks.”
“I agree.” Harry turned to Rasmus and Ferghal. “We will need some new weapons for this, and more powerful mines. I have in mind carrying out unpredictable attacks in small groups at a distance from any of our host’s surface nodes and without direct contact with the enemy.”
“What do you suggest?” Rasmus asked.
“A large mine that might be remotely triggered to disrupt one of their patrol convoys. I would like to have a device that will fire off multiple mortars, as if a ground assault were to follow, but which can be triggered and then left by those that place it so they can make
their escape.”
Ferghal nodded. “It will not be difficult to create one, but that will leave something for our enemy to find.”
“Typically it would, but not if it were to include a final device that destroys it.”
“I will work on it.” Ferghal hesitated. “What of their manufactories? Can we not attack those? Or disrupt their off-world activities with some recoding of their signals to associates?”
“I intend to discover how we might do that, my friend. Leave it with me. If you can give us the means to retaliate where they do not expect us to, that will be a mask for everything else we hope to achieve. I wish to find a means to access their hypercoms emitters to send a message to the Fleet as a backup to what you have already sent.”
Coxswain Winstanley looked across to where Harry sat staring into the distance. “He’s been like that two days,” he murmured to Rasmus. “I’m worried about him. He seems to have shut himself into the AI. What the hell is he doing?”
Rasmus looked up from the device he was working on. “According to Ferghal — Ich meine Leutnant O’Connor — he is studying a project in the enemy’s AI. I think, when he finds a way to turn it against them, it will go badly for them.”
The Coxswain nodded. “Right. And when he does, it will be bloody creative.” His chuckle shook his frame. “God help them if he finds a way to pay back what they did to Mister O’Connor.”
Deep in the Consortium AI, Harry gathered information and forwarded it to Fleet HQ. He knew he needed to be careful, as he had already discovered that at least one ComOP was aware of his intrusion, and was monitoring the emitter logs.
Ferghal joined them carrying a long tube and a pair of shorter metal rods. Behind him, a Canid carried a device that resembled a large drum with three adjustable legs with spikes on the ends.
“I think this will work as a launching tube for our grenades,” Ferghal announced. “But I will need to test it on the surface where we can see how great a charge it can withstand.”
Rasmus examined the tube. One end of the cylinder was closed and somewhat thicker along the lower third. A collar, two thirds of the way up from the base, housed a pair of sockets into which the adjustable metal rods fitted and supported the tube at an angle of roughly forty-five degrees. “The propellant charge will need to be calculated carefully, but I think this will be effective — albeit inaccurate.”
“Aye,” Ferghal agreed. “It will be best used to put down a barrage of fragmentation bombs, I’m thinking. As for this beastie—” he indicated the drum-like device “—if it works as I hope, it will fire twelve mortar bombs then blow itself to pieces.” His grin widened. “But I have left out the final charge so we may test it.”
“When do you want to do that?” asked the Coxswain.
“As soon as possible,” replied Ferghal. He glanced at Harry. “He’s still busy, so I will not disturb him. We can take them to the surface at the city-node the enemy destroyed. They have withdrawn from there to search another site some distance away. Perfect for a test-run among the wreck they left.”
Aral Clarke sat alone in the mess lounge that officers of his rank were allowed, even former members of the Fleet such as himself. An attractive woman came into the room, poured herself a cup of coffee, and glanced in his direction, holding the carafe with a question in her eyes.
“Coffee?” she said.
“Sure, why not,” replied Clarke. Let a woman wait on me for a change, he snarled inwardly, as if arguing with his wife Delle.
She joined him at the table and pushed the steaming cup toward him. “I’ve seen you around here and there,” she said, easing into the conversation with a light tone and a friendly smile. “I believe you worked with Sub-Lieutenants O’Connor and Heron. That must have been interesting, with them bouncing into the twenty-third century from the nineteenth, or something like that! I can only imagine the challenges faced by whoever brought them up to speed on our way of doing things.”
Lifting the cup, Clarke glanced round to make sure they were alone in the room. “Yeah, tell me about it. I worked with Heron, or should I say, he worked for me. He was supposed to be my assistant, but he’s an arrogant little prat and far too clever by half.”
“Bit of a pain to work with, was he?” She chuckled and leaned across the table, eager to hear more.
“Bloody impossible! Always argued with me, and knew better on just about everything, or thought he did.” His resentment burning, Clarke continued unfettered now that the floodgates of his wrath had opened. “Very clever with the maths, and so pretentious with that old-fashioned accent and way of speaking. Really annoying little bastard.”
He finally took a long slurp of his coffee. “That’s good coffee, thanks,” he added, not sure what to say next. He had never been able to make small talk with women, for some reason.
Taking a sip from her cup, the woman, a psychoanalyst and Dr. Wan’s right hand, encouraged him to continue.
Clarke’s resentment boiled over. “I put him on a charge twice for insubordination, but the Commander refused to take it forward. He and the Captain thought the sun shone out of Heron’s — well, you know what I mean.”
“Does he have the same ability as O’Connor?” she asked innocently. She’d been present when Ferghal had got loose in their attempt to trigger his link, but absent when Harry had freed him.
His tongue now loosened by the apparent interest of a beautiful, intelligent woman, Clarke continued his rant. He was on a roll now. “Yes. If anything, Heron’s better. His ability with mathematics and calculus means he gets right into the algorithms. He doesn’t need an interface — just lets the AI read his mind, any AI. And you should see him with the servant droids. They act on his every bloody wish! ‘Yes, Mr. Heron, right away, sir,’ and they scurry off to do his bidding when he hasn’t uttered a damn word.”
With careful prompting, she encouraged him to pour out everything he knew about Harry and Ferghal’s ability to immerse themselves in any AI network they had access to. Despite herself, she was fascinated by Clarke’s account, and she was rather sorry when a Fleet Master Warrant Officer came into the mess lounge and interrupted the flow with a reminder to Lieutenant Clarke that he was supposed to be checking on the work of a group of fellow prisoners instead of taking a coffee break.
“You check on them, Warrant!” snapped Clarke. “I’m not a bloody nursemaid.” Clarke caught the expression of contempt the Warrant Officer failed to hide. “I’ll be there when I’m finished.”
The psychoanalyst rose. “I’d better get going anyway. Thanks for the chat, Aral. You’re a very interesting man.” She smiled. “Let’s hope things get sorted out soon, and we can all be friends again.”
She slipped past the Warrant Officer and exited the lounge. Mr. Clarke would get a talking to from his senior officer, but she didn’t care. He wasn’t worth worrying about. Heron and O’Connor, on the other hand, were choice research subjects. There was plenty to examine later and discuss with Dr. Wan, and she had recorded it all.
When Harry emerged from his mental link to the AI, hungry and tired, his head abuzz with ideas for future disruptions, he finally noticed Ferghal and Rasmus, who were laughing at a shared joke with several others of their team.
“Hello, Harry.” Ferghal grinned. “Welcome back to the real world, ceann urra. Let’s get down to it. You wanted a device that would throw our bombs some distance, right? Well, now you have it. Look at this beauty.” He gestured like a showman toward the heavy tube that Errol Hill was cradling to his chest. “Behold, our mortar.”
“Excellent.” Harry studied all of the explosive devices. “You have tested them?”
“Yes, and we have discovered the mortar will throw the bomb a little over two hundred yards.” Ferghal gestured toward the drum. “As for this beast — well, a few of these and our enemy may think the Fleet has arrived!”
“I’ll be honest, sir.” The Coxswain shook his head. “I didn’t think they would
work, but those bombs certainly fly out of the mortars. Just one problem as I see it — the fuses are a bit uncertain. Some burst in the air and some on the ground.”
“But that isn’t such a great problem,” said Ferghal. “Rasmus has an idea to fix it, and he has created a chemical igniter that does not require the use of a match to set the fuse burning.”
“Good.” Harry nodded. “But now I have another idea. We need an aerial shell to deal with their flying craft.” He looked at Rasmus. “A larger rocket will be required for this — one that bursts at the top of its flight and throws fragments into the path of any flyer.”
“Ja, that is possible,” agreed Rasmus. “It requires only the creation of a nozzle to direct the gas stream, and I will amend the powder mixture to give the correct burning rate. The fuse may be more complicated.”
“If you give me a drawing of what you need,” said Ferghal, “I will make them and show the others how to do it. Maddie can—” he caught Harry’s look reminding him to maintain decorum “—I mean ComOp Hodges will get her team busy making them.”
The others dispersed to get in the supper queue, and Harry and Ferghal were alone. Ferghal slipped into the ease of joking with a boyhood friend. “So, now that you’ve crawled out of Alice’s rabbit hole, what have you learned about the Cons?”
“Alice’s rabbit hole . . .?” Harry was so flustered and flushed that Ferghal let out a huge guffaw of laughter.
“Your look was priceless! It’s this thing everyone says based on some book written in the nineteen hundreds that we were born too early to read, and now we’re too late to know what the hell they’re talking about.”
“Right then, I’ll take your word on it,” Harry said, regaining his usual stoic demeanour. He didn’t take too well at being the butt of the joke, even a good-natured one from his old friend Ferghal. “Now, back to matters at hand, I learned a great deal of information that will be useful to our Admirals if I can find a way to send it to them. Since your signal, they have made the separation so complete that the hypercom transmitter is entirely independent of the Base AI.”
Harry Heron Savage Fugitive Page 20
