Her gaze swept the dimly lit area. Slips ran along the dock, empty but for barnacle covered piers that rose from the sea floor, slimy and green. Somewhere in the distance, a pipe dripped, the steady plop-plop-plop a counterpoint to the slapping of ocean waves.
For every ten slips, one was occupied. The vessels moored there hardly looked seaworthy—certainly nothing she’d trust to take her safely beyond Beryl’s atmosphere.
She began to walk the dock, headed for the wall that separated the commercial zone from the Military Operations Area. Beyond the security fence that separated the two sectors, she saw more of the same: open maws of empty slips as far as the eye could see. It appeared as if the Navy felt the same about this lowest tier as commercial industry did.
Petra stopped well short of the barrier. To her left stood a large shipping container, shoved up against the dock’s rear wall. Sliding doors were inset into its side, and it was toward these that she turned.
She’d ordered the thing delivered two weeks ago. Its metal sides were dented, the lower half showing rust from years of neglect, but it would work just fine as a staging area for the team.
She glanced casually over at the MOA’s barrier. The Navy had an electronic door inset into its fence, the latter ending at the waterline. From there, an ES field extended out into the bay, climbing high above her head as it spanned the four-level structure.
Petra had eyes only for the wire cage, filled with six rugged hardcases, sitting just inside the MOA.
She pulled the maglev hand truck up to the shipping container, the thing little more than a prop to assuage curious eyes that might be watching the feeds. Using an untraceable token to unlock the door, she slid it open and pushed the hand truck through.
“Boss,” a voice greeted her from within. Petra looked up to see Ike rise from a crouch.
He tossed a rag into the air; she fielded it with a nod of thanks, wiping her hands with it. The door’s handles were as grungy as the rest of the place.
“Military transport arrived, I see,” she said once the doors slid shut.
“Yeah,” another voice said from deeper in the shadows. Delia emerged, Kele by her side. “The merchandise is in place; won’t be picked up until late tomorrow afternoon.”
She nodded. “Is Bobby in position?”
Bobby was her cyber geek, the one person on her hand-picked team whose skills no one else could duplicate. He’d be the one to bypass the spaceport’s security.
Delia nodded. “He’ll be down in a bit. Said he had to backdoor in from a node on Tier Three.”
Petra consulted her chrono. “How long has he been gone?”
“About half an hour, give or take,” Delia said after a moment’s thought. “He guessed it’d take about that long.”
Petra nodded, “Good. Then he should be back soon.”
She waved to the boxes loaded onto the hand truck. “Dinner. And a couple of camp mattresses. We sleep in shifts.”
Ike tore into the top box. Pulling out one of the mattresses, he triggered it to auto inflate. He accepted the meal box Delia handed him, then settled onto the air cushion with a low grunt. “Guess there’s nothing left to do but wait it out til the night shift’s last round.”
The hours passed slowly. Finally, it was time to move.
Petra’s crew was in position well before shift change. Kele had left an hour earlier to board the shuttle that would be their getaway transport. Ike, wearing identity obscuring clothing, was lookout. Posing as spaceport janitorial crew, he was emptying recycling bins along the dock, a small sweeper-bot in tow. Petra and Delia remained inside the shipping container, waiting for their cue to move.
At exactly 0630, Ike sent them a heads-up. {Two MPs, inbound.}
Petra held her breath as the Navy’s third shift security team made their scheduled stop at the cages.
{Okay, they’re gone,} Ike reported.
Petra sprang to her feet. {Bobby. Go.}
There was a long pause, then {Security feed’s down,} came the tech whiz’s reply. His mental tone held a nervous waver to it.
{You’re doing great, Bobby,} she assured him. {How about the gate?}
With the level considered low traffic, the only thing installed to guard the electronic gate was a military SI. Bobby had assured her he could easily circumvent it.
This time, the pause was a little longer, and when he replied, he sounded out of breath. {Done. It’s offline.}
Delia shot Petra a worried look.
{Slow down, Bobby. You’ll just draw people’s attention if you start rushing around.}
There was a laugh on the other end, Bobby’s words tinged with anxiety. {I’m not running. I’m hyperventilating!}
Petra gave Delia’s shoulder a small shove. “Go. I’ll talk him down.”
“You’d better,” she muttered. “There’s no backing out now.”
As the other woman strode toward the gate, crowbar cylinder in hand, Petra retrieved one of two maglev carts stored inside the shipping container and motioned Ike over.
{Breathe for me, Bobby. No need to panic.} She pitched her voice soothingly when what she really wanted to do was slap him upside the head and order him to grow a pair.
She heard a gulp. A friggin,’ honest-to-stars actual gulp, she thought to herself with some irritation.
{I’m… okay.} He did sound steadier.
{Good. Kele’s on the way with the shuttle. All you need to do is get down here, and get onboard. We’ll do the rest.}
Petra reached back inside the dented, rusty container, retrieved the second maglev cart, and moved to join Ike at the gate. Delia made a pleased sound, pocketed the crowbar, and with a small flourish, swung the gate open.
Petra sent her a stern look. {We have five minutes, folks! Move it,} she ordered tersely, keeping to the private channel they’d set up between them.
They swarmed through the opening, Delia and Petra moving to the cage, while Ike ran ahead and stood forward guard. Petra maintained contact with Bobby while Delia applied the crowbar to the cage’s lock.
{No indication anyone suspects,} came Bobby’s report. His voice sounded increasingly steady the closer he came. {And no one’s remotely near your location. All clear.}
“Hsssst!” Petra sent the sibilant call audibly to Ike. The man abandoned his post and trotted over to help unload the empty cases they’d swap for the legit ones. They’d acquired the cases from a Navy surplus store a week earlier, then given them a facelift, adding current Geminate Marines holo decals and fake seals.
As Ike began offloading, Petra upended the bag slung over her shoulder. Out slid six Faraday-weave sleeves. She and Delia each grabbed one and began working them over the armored Navy cases. As soon as each case was sealed inside the weave, it was hauled over to the empty cart. Five minutes later, six Navy surplus cases sat in place of the six Petra’s team had stolen.
Bobby had arrived while they were making the exchange; he was currently pacing nervously on the commercial side of the dock, his attention split between watching their frenzied activity and monitoring the airspace for Kele’s arrival.
His head jerked back toward them when he heard Petra’s {Go! Go! Go!}
Petra and Ike rushed the gate while Delia paused to secure the lock on the cage. She caught a flicker of motion to her left as they passed through and let out a silent, relieved breath when the snub nose of a delivery shuttle floated down to the slip where Bobby stood.
{Get inside!} she barked to Bobby as the transport settled against the dock.
He jumped at her harsh words but wheeled, arrowing for the hatch, which Kele had just unsealed. Petra was pacing on one side of the maglev, Ike on the other. They skidded to a halt in front of the open maw of the shuttle’s cargo space and reached for the top case, their actions perfectly in sync. Just as the last case was shoved inside, Delia came running up, flashing the ‘okay’ sign. Slapping the side of the shuttle, she ducked inside with a gruff, {Move your ass} to Bobby.
Petra and
Ike rounded the passenger side, Ike taking shotgun, Petra sliding in, sandwiching Bobby between her and Delia. Doors sealed, the shuttle lifted off.
“Hang on!” Kele said from the pilot’s seat.
Petra looked at her chrono. Fifteen minutes had passed from the time they’d left that dank, rusted-out metal box of a shipping container to the time they departed the spaceport, stolen cases securely loaded. They’d beat their best time estimate, and now they were bound for Searcy Sky Park.
Petra reached behind them, her hand coming to rest on the nearest armored case; with a smile, she traced the symbol of the Geminate Navy embossed into its tough hide.
Damn, but we did it!
“How’re we looking on scan?” she called up to Ike, seated in the co-pilot’s seat.
The man checked something on his holodisplay and then gave her a thumbs-up. “All clear, boss. Only traffic in sight’s on final approach to the spaceport. Nothing unusual there.”
“Good. Let’s keep it that way.” Petra dropped her hand and turned back around, her voice calm and confident for the benefit of the man seated to her left.
She’d always known Bobby was their weak link. The man could sometimes behave as if he was afraid of his own shadow, but his skills at accessing networks and bypassing security protocols were the best in the cartel. She knew there was a very good chance they’d need his skills up on Searcy as well.
Jay had been right about how much time they’d need to scrub the weapons of any identifying marks. The guns were keyed to activate only when presented with an ID from active service Geminate Navy personnel. She’d acquired codes off the splinternet that should break past the weapons’ military lockouts, but Petra wasn’t willing to rely on ‘should’s. If they didn’t work as promised, it would be Bobby’s job to bypass them and make them serviceable for the buyers she’d lined up.
She understood Bobby’s nervousness, to a degree. Mastai usually only trafficked in white collar crime, things like fine art, gemstones, and rare metals. Munitions was a major departure from the norm.
Despite his nervous habits, she knew Bobby was trustworthy. Everyone on the team was. Her cadre of five had practiced for weeks to prepare for this heist. They’d proven themselves today.
“What do you think is in there?” Delia’s low voice sounded from the far left.
Petra let a thin, satisfied smile crease her face as she leaned around Bobby. “Oh, I don’t think. I know.”
When she didn’t elaborate, Delia lowered her chin. “And?”
Petra’s smile deepened. “You’ll see soon enough.”
“I still don’t understand why we have to take them up to Searcy to launder the goods,” Bobby said.
Delia elbowed Bobby in the side. “We’ve been over this. Jay laid out all the reasons with the boss.” She hooked her thumb Petra’s way. “If the boss is cool with it, you should be, too.”
“Yeah, but… a sky park, for stars’ sake.”
Petra understood where Bobby was coming from, but she was getting tired of hearing it. Besides, his reaction was the very reason no one would think to look for them there. It was what had landed Petra in a shuttle altered to resemble a food and beverage supply company, on final approach to an aging amusement park in the sky.
Bobby opened his mouth to complain some more, but the look on her face must have convinced him not to push his luck. He cut off his words with a mumbled, “Just saying.”
Searcy had not been her first choice, either. Jay had made a compelling case for it, though.
“More than fifteen thousand people pass through the damn park every single day,” Jay had told her. “That’s a goldilocks zone.”
When she’d arched a brow at the odd phrase, he’d explained. “Plenty of people there, so it’s easy to get lost in the crowd. Yet it’s small enough, and old enough, to be considered a low value target.”
“And that means?”
“That means there aren’t going to be any eyes looking in our direction.”
He’d been so taken with his plan that he hadn’t complained about her stipulation that he be the one to infiltrate the park ahead of time, posing as an employee.
“Five minutes out, boss.” Kele’s voice came from the pilot seat, up front.
Petra nodded. “Ike, you heard from Jay yet?”
“Hang on a sec, I’ll ping him,” the man in the co-pilot’s seat responded. A few moments passed, then Ike turned and gave her a thumbs-up. “Jay says we’re green. Swamper’s been installed. He’s even disabled the cameras for us, down at the loading dock.”
“Good.” Petra peered at the forward holoscreens, the sky park growing larger as they neared. Kele’s heading would bring them in at an oblique angle to the platform’s main approach vector. It kept them beneath the stream of traffic that brought park-goers to Searcy.
The loading dock was located just beneath the topside shuttle pad where park visitors landed when they arrived. As the shuttle crossed beneath the lip of the upper deck, Petra could see the bay was wide but shallow, with enough room to comfortably fit no more than four transports at a time. Other than theirs, there was only one other vessel currently at the dock.
Four sets of landing rails connected to loading ramps, to facilitate the transfer of goods. Kele angled for the far side opposite the other craft, bringing the vessel to rest on the rails with a click and a soft thump.
As Kele powered down, Petra saw a figure detach itself from the shadows. The man lifted a hand in greeting as he began to stride toward the ship.
Petra left Kele and Ike to their post-flight procedures. Opening the transport’s side door, she jumped down to the landing bay’s deck and turned to face the newcomer.
“Boss,” Jay greeted with a brief nod. He stood casually, hands tucked into pockets, his head tilted slightly to one side.
She motioned to the aft hatch, and Jay obligingly ambled in that direction. As she opened the rear door, she shot him a questioning look. “Everything set?”
Jay leaned against the side of the shuttle, still in what Petra privately called his ‘indolent’ mode. One hand finally came out of the pocket to scratch at the side of his neck as he considered her question.
“I guess Ike told you the swamper’s in place,” he said finally. Nodding toward their bounty, he added, “All I need to do is borrow what we discussed, and I’ll be on my way.”
Petra pointed to the third crate. “They’re in that case, there.”
Her words prompted the normally laconic man to move with an energy he didn’t usually demonstrate. He shoved the first two cases aside and pulled the third toward him. He stopped, eyeing the lock doubtfully.
“You have the key to unlock it?”
Petra reached into a pocket and brought out a crowbar cylinder. “This’ll do the trick,” she said, waggling it at him.
He looked skeptically at the piece of metal in her hand. “You sure it won’t cause everything inside to go boom, and us with it?”
Petra blew out an annoyed breath. She wasn’t used to being questioned, especially not by the cartel crew. “Sounds like someone’s a bit nervous.”
His expression hardened. Wordlessly, he grabbed the cylinder from her hand and bent to give the case his complete attention. “There’s a difference between nervous and cautious.” His words were curt.
Petra’s eyes narrowed at his response. This kind of attitude wasn’t what she was used to seeing from the man. His behavior had always been carefully polite and deferential—until now. Something had changed. Something wasn’t adding up, and this job was too critical to her own future to let any suspicions slide.
“Bingo,” he said softly, eyes riveted to the contents inside. His hand dove in and came back out with a handful of small devices.
“Don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone quite as excited to be handling death in the palm of their hands before.” She kept her words low so that none of the others would hear.
Jay laughed at her comment, his easygoing manner slidi
ng back into place like a mask.
Delia’s arrival with maglev carts distracted Petra momentarily as they offloaded the cases. That task complete, she turned back to Jay.
“It’s your show; lead on.”
Jay nodded and headed for the exit. The rest followed.
“I have you set up inside a laundry room on the lower level,” he told her. “It’s down a side hallway, just off the main corridor. The place isn’t used much, only at night or after the park is closed. I recoded the lock to accept your ID tokens.”
They passed silently through the park, Jay in the lead. When they entered the room procured for them, Jay crossed to the back where a portable toolbox was stashed. Petra slid the Navy case that contained the devices Jay would borrow down to the end of the long table that ran down the center of the room. With a subtle nod, she left Jay to the task while she turned to help the others offload the rest of the haul.
With her back turned, Petra couldn’t see what exactly went into the toolbox. If she had, she might have questioned the addition of an item they’d not discussed. A few minutes later, toolbox in hand, Jay stopped beside the case she was helping Bobby unpack.
“You have everything you need?” he asked.
She paused to consider his question, taking a careful look around. “We’re good. Monitor the team channel. If something comes up, or if we’re drawing unwanted attention and feel we need the swamper, I’ll ping you.”
Jay nodded. “I guess I’ll be on my way then.” He turned for the door.
“Hold up.” She closed the distance between them and motioned for him to walk with her.
“I want to talk to you about what’s in that box you’re carrying.”
Jay froze at her words, a wary look crossing his features.
“Stealing military weapons is dangerous enough,” she said in a low tone. “The last thing we need is to get some clueless kid killed, you hear me? If that happens, they’ll slap the term terrorist on us so fast, our heads’ll spin.”
He nodded silent understanding.
Sudden Death (A Military Sci Fi Thriller) (The Biogenesis War Files) Page 5
