by Rachel Aukes
New Sol, Darios
Hatha strode into the command room where Reyne and Sixx were currently going over the final Silent Night plans. One of her guards followed and stood behind her.
“Have you seen the news?” she asked.
“No,” Reyne said, motioning for her to take a seat at his table.
“Parliament was bombed,” she said. “Tell me that was your doing.”
Reyne nodded. “It was. We needed to give the CUF something else to focus on rather than hunting us down.” Even though Seda and Critch had done all the planning, he considered the three torrent leaders had full accountability for every major operation they undertook.
She looked at him and then laughed. “I like your style, but have you considered your fireworks could have the opposite effect? Because Willas James says that, at this very moment, Corps General Laciam is leading the Unity and its complement of frigates and destroyers to the Space Coast to finish off the torrent rebellion. They’re now coming at you with everything they’ve got.”
“I figured taking down Parliament would get them all fidgety.”
“Hey, boss,” Sixx said softly. “Hari made it.”
Reyne looked out the window just as the Razor’s Edge settled onto the ramp. He suddenly felt a little better about the plan now that she was there with the best small fighter ship they had on their team.
Hatha continued speaking. “How many refugees are at Nova Colony? If Laciam bombs it, he could kill hundreds, if not thousands.”
“Not without Gabriel Heid giving the order, he won’t.”
She frowned. “How’d you know Senator Heid is missing? They just announced that he is believed to have been killed in the blast.”
Reyne smiled. “He’s not dead.”
She fanned herself. “Oh, my, you are trickier than I thought.” She thought for a moment before leaning forward. “But, how do you know the corps general won’t attack Nova Colony?”
“Laciam is hotheaded, but I’m guessing he doesn’t have the guts to take such a direct action if he learns Heid is alive and being kept there. And hopefully, that will keep the Unity there long enough for us to reclaim Sol Base.”
She eyed him directly. “So, does that mean we’re ready?”
Reyne grinned. “Tonight’s the night.”
Vapor had been waiting for the signal. She typed her passcode to open the program. Hardly anyone used keyboards anymore, but she found them harder to hack than comm screens, which she used only for communicating with clients. Keeping herself off-grid was how she stayed alive.
The screen before her populated with thousands of lines of code. Near the bottom of the screen was a cursor. She typed:
>>EXECUTE PROGRAM CLUSTERFUCK
A second later, the code began scrolling and then disappeared from her screen. A single response replaced it:
>>PROGRAM SENT
Several more seconds later, another message posted:
>>PROGRAM ACTIVATED
She smiled. Of all her programs, this one had been one of the most fun to write. It wasn’t complicated. Rather, it was a combination of eighty-eight viruses sent via a backdoor Trojan. A simple design, yet it would take a team of techs weeks, if not months, to decouple and evict the program, one virus at a time.
She rolled her chair over to her comm screen, scrolled through her client list, and placed the call. He answered on the first chime.
“Your little warship should have its hands full in exactly eighteen minutes,” she said.
“Excellent,” Seda Faulk said. “The credits have been transferred to your account.”
She checked a small window of her screen to verify her account. Seeing he was true to his word, she sent him the packet. “I sent you the antivirus. All you have to do it run it on any computer on board the warship, and everything will be as good as new. Pleasure doing business with you.” She reached to disconnect.
“I have one more job for you, Vapor,” Seda said.
She paused. “What do you need?”
“For you to take a look behind you.”
Her breath caught, and she spun in her chair, only to have it stopped. A black bag went over her face. She fought to get free, but her assailant tied her hands far too quickly.
“Vapor, I know it was your program that killed Gabriela Heid,” Seda said.
She froze. “It was just a job.”
The next words came from the man right by her ear. “Then you’ll understand that you’re just a job for me, too.”
With that, she felt a sharp, stinging slice across her neck. Warm wetness soaked her skin and poured down her chest. Then, the burning agony came. She sucked in a breath but couldn’t find air. She reached for her throat, but her hands were still restrained. She kicked and fought for breath.
“I should warn you, Seda; Mason has sent me to kill you,” she heard the man in the room say.
“Ah, I see,” Seda said. “Thank you for letting me know.”
They continued to speak, but a frigid darkness overtook Vapor and gelled the men’s words into black ice.
Sixteen
Silent Night
Sol Base, Darios
The Littorio’s lights blinked and then went dark.
Sixx chuckled. “The bigger they are, the harder they fall.”
“The warship’s dead in the water,” the tech confirmed.
“Let’s hope it stays down,” Reyne said.
“It’d be great if we could load the virus onto every CUF ship across the Collective. Then, this war would be over,” Sixx said.
“I wish that were the case,” Reyne said. “Even Vapor couldn’t send it out to all the ships at once. Unfortunately, as soon as the CUF learns how Vapor got through their firewall, they’ll have a patch loaded onto all of their ships.”
Reyne sent out a ping to the wrist comms of twelve thousand torrents and two thousand resistance fighters involved in the operation. The next step began as softly as a toddler’s snore. From his video feeds across the city, he watched as people bled out casually onto the streets. The scattered dromadiers performing their security walks didn’t seem to notice the colonists; after all, it was in between work shifts and they wouldn’t have received any warning from the Littorio.
It wasn’t until colonists were on the streets by the thousands that the dromadiers figured out it wasn’t another, ordinary evening. Reyne scanned the feeds to see pairs of dromadiers raising their blasters and yelling at the crowds to disperse. Fortunately, none had fired yet. The fighters weren’t supposed to reveal their weapons until the dromadiers drew first blood. That way, Hatha would have a clean video of what looked to be a peaceful boycott ending in the CUF bringing violence. Reyne knew the video wouldn’t change the outcome of the war, but videos had the power to create doubt in the minds of citizens over who was really in the right. And when it came to peace negotiations, the more support the fringe had, the better.
Reyne hoped the dromadiers wouldn’t fire upon a crowd, but he knew better. Something would always happen when someone with a twitchy trigger finger found himself in a stressful situation. It was as guaranteed as finding a card game in Devil Town.
The plan was as straightforward as possible. Reyne couldn’t afford complex maneuvers when working with fourteen thousand relatively inexperienced fighters who were at as much risk from friendly fire as from the CUF.
The Littorio would be out of action as it dealt with a virus across all its systems, which would also prevent it from launching its gunships. That left four destroyers; however, Reyne assumed they would be impacted to some extent by the virus by being linked to the warship. How badly impacted waited to be seen.
He was confident they could take Sol Base from the ground. A few dozen dromadiers against a horde of armed colonists made that result inevitable. Holding on to Sol Base was another story.
The sky was an uneven match, heavily tilted in the CUF’s favor. The destroyers carried many times the armament. A single shot could annihilate a ship, while a destroyer could
take dozens of critical hits. What helped the specters, however, was the fact that they were small and nimble. They could change direction in seconds, while destroyers were slow and moved like icebergs.
Reyne tapped the comm channel. “Specters, you have a green light. Go sting some CUF ass.”
Reyne watched his video feed. Seconds later, one dozen dots appeared over the horizon and quickly approached the colony. When he could make out the individual shapes, the ships changed direction and shot upward toward the complement of CUF ships sitting above Sol Base.
A destroyer fired photon blasts. Reyne swallowed. “Damn. I was hoping the virus would’ve taken out the destroyers’ weapons systems.”
“The specters can hold their own as long as that warship is out of commission,” Sixx said from the chair next to Reyne’s.
“Let’s just hope they can hold their own long enough for that CUF commandant to surrender.” That was the critical unknown piece to the operation: the success of the operation depended on if and when the CUF commandant would surrender. Otherwise, it was simply a matter of who won the battle in the air.
“First shot’s been fired on the ground. Unfortunately, it looks like we may have fired first.” Sixx pointed to a feed in the lower left of the screen where lights of blaster fire sparkled, and the dromadiers fell. When the firing stopped, several colonists also lay on the ground.
Reyne’s jaw tightened. “We knew that was a risk. I guess that means we won’t be using that video.”
Hatha, who’d been sitting quietly while watching the screens, spoke. “I hope we have at least one good feed to use. The Darions work very hard at keeping a reputation of being pacifists.”
“You’ve got your video,” Sixx said, pointing to another feed. “Another shot fired near the station. Clearly droms this time, and the crowd hasn’t fired back.” He winced as the crowd swarmed the pair of dromadiers. “Though the droms may not survive.”
“That story is easy enough to spin,” Hatha said. “Send me the feed, and I’ll get it sent out to all the news outlets within the hour.”
“Let’s hope they bite.”
“They’ll see that it’s unaltered video. They’ll show it. What they report in regard to it, we have no control over.”
“It’d be nice to still have that hacker around, so we could broadcast it ourselves,” Sixx said.
Reyne nodded. “But, I’d rather have her out of the picture.” There was only one hacker who had the capabilities to broadcast across all the Collective channels, and it was the same hacker who could get a virus loaded onto CUF systems without getting noticed. Unfortunately, it was also the same hacker who’d written the program that caused Gabriela Heid’s tablet to explode, killing her. Once the hacker coded that particular program, she’d switched from a hacker to an assassin, and Reyne understood Seda’s decision to have her killed… by his own assassin, ironically.
The tech managing all the feeds spoke up. “Stationmaster Satine, I’ve sent the video to your second account.”
“Thank you, Sammy,” she said and stood. “I’ll see you all within the hour. Sammy, keep me apprised in the meantime.”
Hatha departed, leaving the trio in the room.
Sixx looked at Sammy. “Did you just call her, ‘stationmaster’?”
Sammy nodded. “Yeah. We all do. Who else is right for the job?”
Sixx shrugged. “True. I suppose we no longer have to wait for Parliament to approve our stationmasters anymore. There’s nothing stopping the colonies from doing it themselves.”
“Exactly.” Sammy winced at the screen. “Ouch. That was a nasty hit.”
Reyne analyzed the battle taking place above through the feeds coming from each ship.
“Our team in the skies is taking a beating,” Sixx said. “Crazy’s Coral’s left engine is spitting juice. Skye Rider has broken off and is limping back to the dock.”
“All the droms on the ground have either surrendered or been killed,” Sammy said.
“Good,” Reyne said. “Broadcast over all speakers that all prisoners are to be brought to the station and that we have control of the ground.”
It became clear when the news was made, because all the ground feeds showed people cheering. He turned his attention back to the feeds of the battle taking place in the sky. One of the destroyers had a gaping hole where one engine was before. The Razor’s Edge made a strafing run down the side, while the Maelstrom fired its cannon at the hole. An explosion began at the destroyer’s back, blowing its way forward and obliterating the ship into a debris field.
“Yeah!” Sixx yelled. “One down, three to go!”
“Marshal,” Sammy said. “One of the prisoners is receiving comms from the commandant, who wants to get in touch with you.”
Reyne nodded, having expected that. “Bring the prisoner in here.” With the virus wiping out the warship’s comms, among everything else, the commandant would’ve been able to communicate with his teams via wrist comms only.
Sammy’s eyes widened. “Into the command room? Is that safe?”
“It’s the only way to keep an eye on the sky to make sure the officer’s not trying diversionary tactics. Besides, Sixx here will keep an eye on the drom.”
Sixx grinned. “It’ll be my pleasure.” His grin fell. “Aw, damn it. The Coral just checked out.”
Reyne turned back to the screen to see Crazy’s Coral broken into halves. He’d met the crew, and shared drinks with its captain, Ten Speed, on more than one occasion. “Were there any escape pods?”
“No,” Sammy said quietly.
The remaining destroyers were lining up into an arrow point formation. “They’re getting ready for a coordinated assault. Tell the specters to go into stealth if they’ve still got enough juice. That way, the destroyers will have to manually lock on.”
The door opened, and two of Hatha’s hired guns stepped inside with a bloodied soldier between them. Sixx came to attention and held a blaster.
The dromadier stood straight, so Reyne assumed he wasn’t suffering from broken bones or internal injuries, though it was difficult to assess injuries through the dark navy suit. He glanced at the man’s patches. An Alluvian, tech level, so likely young, but it was hard to tell through the blood streaking his face.
“This drom is in contact with the guy in charge up there,” one of the guards said.
“Good,” Reyne said and turned to the soldier.
“Blue Jay’s been hit,” Sammy said.
Reyne turned to the screen to see the smallest of the specters lit up from inside. He winced. On board fires were the worst way to go. He frowned as the ship turned and reentered the battle. Somehow, someone was still able to fly that thing. The ship increased speed as it headed directly at a destroyer. The CUF ship fired, but not in time. Blue Jay screamed past the destroyer’s nose and crashed into the bridge. The destroyer listed and then broke off from formation.
“Blue Jay’s gone, but she took a destroyer with her,” Sammy said. “That leaves two destroyers against ten specters.”
“They’ll hold their own just fine,” Sixx said, and Reyne knew what his friend meant. As long as the destroyers were distracted, they couldn’t fire at the ground, where they could slaughter a hundred with a single, searing photon blast.
Reyne turned to the dromadier. “Please put your commandant online.”
The man did as instructed. “Sir, they want to talk with you.” He held out his wrist comm.
“This is Commandant Corll of the CUF Littorio. To whom am I speaking?”
Reyne pointed to a comm screen sitting several feet away from the computers on which they’d been watching the battle. “Send the comm to that screen so I can see who I’m talking to.”
The soldier pointed his wrist comm to the screen and tapped to link the two devices.
Reyne stood in front of the screen. The Alluvian officer was young, angry, and, by the sweat glistening on his face, in way over his head. “Hello, Commandant. I’m Marshal Aramis Re
yne of the Fringe Liberation Campaign. We have taken your ground forces, and your ship is dead in the water. That leaves two of your destroyers—”
“We just took down another destroyer!” Sammy said with a whoop.
“That leaves a single destroyer to fend off a torrent fleet,” Reyne corrected. “I’m here to offer you terms of surrender.”
“I will not surrender to you,” Corll replied. “Your victory over the ground is temporary. I don’t know how you managed to get a virus on board the Littorio, but we have rebooted the systems and will rain hellfire on you if you do not surrender.”
Reyne sneered and called what he hoped to be a bluff. “Rebooting the systems will do no good. Your ship is dead, and it will remain dead long after you run out of air to breathe. So, I give you terms. Surrender to the conscripts on board your ship, and you and all citizens will be brought down to the surface, where you’ll be placed in holding cells until peace is negotiated with Parliament. And, if any conscripts are listening who are on board the remaining destroyer, this message is for you: If you place the colonies’ independence in your best interest, we promise you safety and protection.”
Corll laughed. “Conscripts are as much a part of the Forces as citizens are. They will not turn—” He froze as he looked away from the screen.
The video on the screen jiggled as though Corll’s arm had been grabbed. A woman’s face appeared via the commandant’s wrist comm. “This is Chaser Shauna Fields. I’m the senior-most conscript on board the Littorio. I have relieved Commandant Corll of his command, and we are in process of taking the ship now.”
“You will be shot for this,” Corll said offscreen, and the screen shook.
He heard Corll grunt, and the screen became steady again. Fields returned.
“The Littorio’s prior captain was more likeable,” Reyne said.
“Yes, he was,” Fields said. “I want you to know that we are in communication with our compatriots on the Houston. They’re hoping to negotiate, but the captain is still in control. We request that you are true to your word and not let us die up here.”
