Renegade Patriot

by Oscar Andrews

  O’Shea swallowed uncomfortably. “Yes, sir.”

  It was usually so easy to project the image of a warrior. Her own subordinates certainly thought of her that way. So did her comrades, she was sure. But this woman, her boss’s boss – she made Xena feel somehow weak. CIC Loiselle was just so severe. O’Shea made an effort to pull herself together, but only made the situation worse by repeating herself. “Yes, sir!”

  Loiselle introduced just the tiniest hint of sympathy into her voice. “Trust me, Captain, you do not want to be involved in that operation. In any way.”

  “Why is that, Commander?”

  “We aren’t entirely sure that the order to steal that technology didn’t come from someone within your team.”

  By “we,” CIC Loiselle meant herself and some of the Council members. There was no one more powerful on New Atlantia.

  O’Shea ducked her head a little. Her voice went unusually quiet. “Am I under suspicion?”

  Loiselle said nothing, confirming that she was indeed suspected. It made her angry, and the anger gave her some of her confidence back.

  Her eyes gleamed angrily as she looked up at the CIC. “I would have had no reason to steal that device. I didn’t even know it existed!”

  Loiselle’s expression remained as flat as her voice. “There’s no need to get emotional, Captain.”

  “I think there is! This week has already been bad enough. Do you know how many times I’ve had weapons locked on my location from orbit in the past few days? Trouble with the Council is the last thing I need!”

  The CIC gave her a disapproving look, like a teacher glaring at a naughty schoolgirl. “Even so, it’s best not to stir things up with the crew of the Troy by complaining too loudly. You’ll only bring more suspicion on yourself. No matter how innocent you’re convinced you are, someone always has to pay the piper.”

  O’Shea had hardly any time to think about the ominous implications of that last remark before the door slid open with no warning and Zahra Hidalgo walked unceremoniously into her office. O’Shea instinctively bit back what she had been about to say. Ever since the two of them had stopped seeing each other – if not before – Zahra had started to seem increasingly pushy to her. She couldn’t say exactly why, but something had shaken her trust in her former confidant.

  Hidalgo cleared her throat. “Am I interrupting something?”

  Loiselle frowned. “Is there someone else in your office, Captain?”

  “Just one of my Flight Sergeants, sir.”

  “Do Flight Sergeants normally address you without calling you sir?”

  “No. No, sir.”

  Hidalgo mouthed the words shit, I’m sorry!

  Loiselle’s frown deepened. “I certainly hope not. I’ll make this brief. You need to be very careful from here on out. Give the Feds whatever they want on this. Your career depends on it, and much more than your own career. The consequences of any mistake could be severe for the whole colony. Do you understand me?”

  “Absolutely, sir.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  The CIC glanced down at the time-stamp. “I have to go. Make sure that Flight Sergeant of yours learns military discipline. Loiselle out.”

  The holoscreen image disappeared, and Hidalgo put both her hands up apologetically. “I know I shouldn’t have done that.”

  “You’re right, Flight Sergeant. You shouldn’t have. All pending leave is cancelled.”

  Hidalgo winced. “Okay, I deserved that. I understand. But is everything well, Ery…I mean, sir?”

  O’Shea’s voice was cold. “Everything is fine. Now what can I do for you?”

  Seeing that her ex was in full “Captain O’Shea” mode and in no mood to be called Eryn or even Xena, Hidalgo did her best to restore a professional demeanor.

  “I have those reports you asked for, Captain.”

  “Very well, Flight Sergeant. Leave them here.”

  Hidalgo felt angry and rejected, but she didn’t say anything. She knew she could never win the argument that had been brewing between them no matter what she did. Eryn was, after all, her commanding officer. The fact that the two of them had once been more than that was now irrelevant. She would just have to learn to accept the change in their relationship, no matter how wrong it felt or how much she hated being frozen out.

  As she turned around and walked out the door, Hidalgo realized she was intensely nervous. Something about Eryn’s attitude toward her had changed significantly, and it wasn’t all down to the fact that they had broken up. Did Eryn suspect her?

  No, she assured herself. It just wasn’t plausible. After all, she had taken every precaution to leave no trace of what she’d done.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Neffy woke up with a jolt as they dropped out of hyperdrive. The transition back to normal acceleration was always a jarring one.

  Brad was still focused on the holoscreen in front of him. “I’ve already hailed the Troy, and I’m just sending over the verification codes now in preparation for docking.”

  Neffy felt slightly embarrassed to have slept through the entire journey. “Was I really sleeping the whole time?”

  Brad chuckled. “You know it, buddy.”

  A voice came over the holoscreen, “Clearance granted. Proceed to the docking bay indicated on your screen.”

  Brad began the docking procedure. “I’ll take us in. Wouldn’t want you to scratch the paintwork.”

  Neffy’s holo vibrated, letting him know he had a new message. He opened it immediately, but his mind wouldn’t process what he had just read at first. He read it again, and all the color drained out of his face. He clenched his jaw, then swiped Fred’s message off before Brad noticed anything was wrong.

  He wasn’t quite fast enough. Brad glanced over, his breezy attitude as unruffled as ever. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah, sure. You know how it goes.”

  They finished docking, and Brad went out into the docking bay as if nothing had happened. Neffy followed a bit more slowly, deciding to play along for now and deal with what he had just learned later.

  Brad was not who he said he was. So, who was he really? Fragments of Fred’s message ran through Neffy’s mind. Fits the profile of military training…erasing all his footprints…

  A spy for someone other than the Federation? A hired assassin? How could Trent put him in the custody of such a person? Did he not even know?

  Neffy didn’t know which was worse – the possibility that his mentor had intentionally left him under the control of someone so dangerous, or the possibility that someone had just outplayed Trent.

  The docking bay engineer saluted smartly, starting with Brad. “Commander Cramer! Captain Klingerman!”

  One surprise after another. Brad outranked him! But what was a Commander doing on a lowly babysitting job?

  He turned to Brad pitching his voice low, “Commander?!”

  Brad winked and grinned, and Neffy realized he truly knew nothing about the man he was dealing with. Looking around at the FFS Troy, Neffy noted that it was just like every other Federation ship he had ever seen – clean surfaces, state-of-the-art technology, a clinical environment. These ships were almost like modular tools, capable of being disassembled and rebuilt into another configuration at any time.

  The Troy was so clean that Neffy found himself wondering whether he was still presentable, not normally a high priority for him except when it was an official requirement. Neffy looked himself over but concluded that his uniform was good enough under the circumstances although a little bit scuffed-up.

  Even if his uniform wasn’t perfect, at least he knew he had prepared properly for this rendezvous ahead of time like a Peacekeeper should. He had already looked up the profiles of all the leading personnel and had memorized everything from their facial features to their service histories. His first priority would be to meet Commander Grace, the officer in charge of the FFS Troy for the past five years. Looking across the docking bay for any sign o
f her, Neffy noticed a middle-aged woman with a blonde bob – Commander Grace.

  A young man of around 25 or 30 years came up to them and saluted. “Commander Cramer, Captain Klingerman. Commander Grace would like to speak with you.”

  Brad smiled at him like the man had done him a personal if slightly amusing favor. “By all means, lead on.”

  He led them over the blonde woman, then addressed her briefly. “Here they are, Commander. Permission to depart? The ground team has been all through Engineering looking for landing gear and I’d like to clean up after them.”

  Commander Grace smiled at the young man. “Permission granted, Sergeant Hancock.”

  He hurried off, and Neffy decided that his eagerness to go clean up after the ground team indicated a man who loved both his job and the team he worked with. He almost envied the young sergeant.

  Brad saluted. “Commander Grace, I’m Commander Cramer. This is Captain Klingerman.”

  Commander Grace returned the salute, then turned to Neffy with a crisp motion. “Captain Klingerman. You’re the one who was almost killed in the airlock incident.”

  “Yes, Commander.”

  “I’m still unclear on how you survived that, but we’ll leave it for now. I’ll fill you in. After you were ejected from the ship, Sgt. Alice Montgomery walked off the deck to get some air and then simply vanished – or at least that’s what Commander Haafiz is telling us. The Drewdonians are checking and re-checking their teleport transmissions to see if they’ve somehow missed something. If she’s still on that ship, I’m sure they’ll find her. You don’t need to worry about it.”

  Neffy’s voice turned cold. “You don’t seem to be very concerned about it yourself.”

  He knew she was only handling the situation like a professional, but Commander Grace’s no-nonsense attitude about Ally still made him angry. He knew Ally might well have been responsible for what had happened, although he couldn’t imagine why she would want him dead.

  Still, things might not be as bad as they looked. There was still the possibility that Ally was in some kind of trouble he didn’t know about, or that what happened might not have been her fault for some reason. Even her disappearance from the Drewdonian ship didn’t prove her guilt. She might have run away because she was scared of getting in trouble for something she didn’t do, or because she just didn’t trust the Drewdonians.

  Commander Grace cocked her head to the side a little as if she was trying to figure Neffy out. “Frankly, Captain, the disappearance of Sergeant Alice Montgomery is not exactly my priority. If she never turns up again that will just mean one less crisis I have to deal with. The mission priority here is preventing a war.”

  Neffy sighed, realizing that the Commander’s attitude was matter-of-fact, not cruel. She was only doing things by the book just like he was supposed to. It was usually better to work for a Commander with an attitude like that. At least you knew where you stood. In all likelihood she was popular with her crew for just that reason.

  “My apologies, Commander. Sergeant Montgomery is – was – my friend.”

  “I understand, Captain. You must still be in shock from what happened. But still. We’re trying to defuse a potentially dangerous conflict here and have bigger concerns.”

  Neffy nodded. “Of course.” He couldn’t blame her. His own feelings were exactly that – his own.

  The Commander seemed to accept his apology. “Let’s get focused, then. We have a ground team in place on the surface and they’re about to breach the outpost to which you tracked the prototype device before the incident.”

  “Any sign of the inhabitants?”

  She shook her head. “We’ve been monitoring it continuously. No one has gone in or out.”

  Despite Brad’s higher rank, Commander Grace seemed to be willing to ignore his presence and answer Neffy’s questions as if he was the ranking officer. Neffy was pleased. Peacekeeper training definitely gave him an advantage in interpersonal interactions.

  He decided to keep pushing it and see how much he could get away with. “Have the Drewdonians been involved in this operation?”

  Commander Grace shook her head again. “Not yet, and they’re not happy about it.”

  He smiled a little at their pretensions. “The Drewdonians think the technology belongs to them.”

  The Commander looked offended at the notion. “It stopped being their intellectual property as soon as it posed a threat to galactic peace!”

  “I agree with you, but that’s not going to improve their attitude toward me at all.”

  “You’re absolutely right, Captain. They may have turned hostile. You need to be aware of how delicate the entire situation is. If you get into an unauthorized scuffle with the Drewdonians we cannot intervene.”

  “An unauthorized scuffle?”

  The Commander just looked at him in silence, and Neffy chuckled. He realized that Grace must have read his personnel file just as he had read hers. She knew all about his record as a negotiator, his sometimes unorthodox methods…and his reputation.

  She turned away from him after a moment and walked over to a holoscreen showing a bird’s eye view of the outpost on the surface. As Neffy went to join her, she turned and looked back at him briefly. “Do we understand each other?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “Very well. As you can see, there’s nothing anywhere near the outpost except our ground team.”

  Brad followed just behind him, but showed no desire to join in the conversation. Neffy glanced at the screen the Commander indicated, and saw no other structures in any direction except the outpost itself. The heat cluster near the outpost was presumably the ground team.

  “It looks straightforward,” he said, “but I should be down there during the breach.”

  Grace opened her mouth as if to object, but Neffy quietly kept on going, “I’m the only one who understands what this device is capable of. We don’t know what these people have done with the device since they holed up here. We have no way of knowing if they’ve tried to arm it, or if they have access to the heavy-duty electromagnets they would need to do so.”

  Brad finally jumped in. “You mean that device could be live?”

  Neffy nodded. “It’s not impossible. Meaning we could all be dead in seconds if it goes off.”

  Grace paused to consider, clearly uncertain whether it was a good idea to send a Peacekeeper into an active combat zone, yet unwilling to risk the nearly instant destruction of New Atlantia if Neffy was right.

  Neffy could tell she was wavering, so he pressed home his point. “That device was unstable to begin with. If they start probing the Zero Point Field, the slightest error could trigger a tear in space-time. There’s a 99% chance of a black hole in that situation – in fact, it’s a miracle that didn’t already happen during the first test on Drewdonia.”

  Brad looked impressed with Neffy’s skill at persuasion, cornering Grace with logic so there seemed to be only one reasonable answer to his request.

  At last, she sighed. “Alright, Captain. I may regret this, but you know the risks as well as I do. Suit up and go join the ground team. The very quiet Commander Cramer can join you down there.” She turned to Brad. “You’re one of Trent’s people, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, Commander. That’s correct.”

  “Well then, you know what’s at stake? And what to do if it comes to it?”

  Grace’s voice was stern when she said this, like she wasn’t sure if Brad would have the determination to carry out his orders and she needed to remind him of how important it was.

  Neffy got the impression there was something he hadn’t been told here. Probably something above his security clearance. He made a mental note to ask Brad about it later. The man might tell him something he wasn’t supposed to if he approached it the right way. Then again, would Brad tell the truth?

  Grace turned to a nearby Sergeant, who saluted immediately.

  “Commander?”

  “Hail the ground team and
tell them to wait for our guests, who will be teleporting down shortly.”

  “Yes, sir. Follow me please, gentlemen.”

  +++

  In the battered old operations room of another vessel, Second-in-Command Raj-Henry approached his boss with a barely controlled expression of self-satisfaction on his face. The man he reported to was Jesus DeMarques, one of the most powerful men in the galaxy.

  Although the ship they were in was ill-used and dingy, the chair DeMarques sat on would have pleased a president. His heavy brows and dark eyes gave a brutal impression, only somewhat tempered by the expensive cut of his suit.

  Raj-Henry stopped in front of his boss. “My lord.”

  DeMarques signaled for Raj-Henry to speak.

  “Delta Team are on their way to retrieve both packages.”

  “Very good.”

  As always, DeMarques found his trusted lieutenant vaguely irritating. Raj-Henry was just so pleased with himself, despite the fact that he didn’t actually have “the packages” yet. Anything could happen before they succeeded in getting Dr. Sacre and the device safely on board. Anything at all. Raj-Henry’s self-satisfaction was premature.

  He decided that his second-in-command needed to be reminded of how high the stakes were. “Our actions must be untraceable. You understand that?”

  If their involvement was revealed, they would not only lose Goliath Industries but would most likely face prison time. And even worse, exposure would mean failing the Puppet Master. If that ever happened, they might not even live long enough to see the inside of a Federation court.

  Raj-Henry’s face held just a hint of a smile. “Of course.”

  The man was naïve. That was the problem. No matter how competent Raj-Henry might be, his talents had more to do with knowing which boots to lick than anything else. Raj-Henry had risen through the ranks of Goliath Industries on the strength of a lot of toadying and a few well-timed back-stabbings. His skill in dirty politics had brought him far, and he was now DeMarques’s right hand man.