Darkspace Renegade Volume 1: Books 1 & 2: (A Military Sci-Fi Series)

by G J Ogden

Hallam’s fingers were already burning as he reached the top and threw himself over. The dense fabric of his flight suit prevented the metal barbs on the apex from penetrating through, but it still felt like his body was being used as a pin cushion. He heard Dakota’s boots thud onto the asphalt and quickened his descent, but then slipped and fell. Hallam hit the ground hard but managed to roll through, sparing himself from a sprained ankle, or worse, a broken bone. He heard Dakota’s boots screech to a stop, but he hauled himself up and waved her on.

  “Keep going. I’m fine,” cried Hallam, though in truth, he was badly winded and pain was still shooting through his legs and knees.

  Dakota hesitated then continued over to the back door, pulling out Dr. Rand’s lock-cracker device and applying it to the door mechanism.

  Hallam dragged himself to his feet and staggered on, noting that the ring of light surrounding the metal orb was now spinning so fast that it had almost turned solid.

  “It’s not working…” said Dakota as Hallam finally reached her side.

  Hallam immediately saw the problem and plucked the device from the lock before re-attaching it to the top corner of the door.

  “The lock electronics are usually embedded far away from the handle to foil unwary thieves like yourself,” Hallam said, using the brief downtime to rub his aching knees.

  Dakota’s eyebrows raised up, disappearing beneath the fabric of the balaclava. “And you know this how? From your childhood days spent robbing neighbors’ houses?”

  The device bleeped softly and Hallam reached up, plucking it off the door. “Hey, I wasn’t always a tanker gunner, you know?” said Hallam, handing the device back to her. “Let’s just say I’ve picked up a few tricks along the way.”

  Hallam pushed opened the door and slipped inside, with Dakota close behind, but then she stopped and knelt down. Hallam was about to ask what the hell she was doing, when Dakota tapped her watch, and the spidery legs of the little sphere retracted. Then, as if it had a life of its own, the sphere rolled toward the door, where Dakota scooped it up as if it were a pet welcoming her home after a hard day at work.

  “Something tells me that this isn’t your first espionage rodeo either…” said Hallam as Dakota closed the door.

  Dakota shrugged innocently. “You’re not the only one with skeletons in your closet, Hal.”

  Hallam snorted a laugh, and then watched as Dakota projected a simple wireframed holographic schematic of the building from her watch.

  “The central data core seems to take up the entire basement level,” said Dakota, holding up the last of the mysterious devices that Dr. Rand had given them. “We get inside, head straight to the core, and plug this in.”

  “Really? That’s all there is to it?” said Hallam, figuring that it should have been much more difficult to steal secrets from Damien Doyle’s clandestine offline data bunker.

  “That’s all there is to it when you have a bunch of unique tech gizmos developed over decades by the galaxy’s smartest person, yes,” replied Dakota.

  When Hallam thought about it like that, it made more sense. However, he still had a feeling it wasn’t going to be that simple.

  Footsteps echoed along the corridor and Hallam saw the flicker of a flashlight in the distance. They both quickly diverted down an adjoining corridor, and Hallam chanced a look back, spotting a CSF Enforcer heading their way.

  “Can Dr. Rand’s genius devices stop us from getting shot by the building’s enforcers?” asked Hallam sarcastically.

  “You’re welcome to find out,” said Dakota, moving along the corridor in the opposite direction, following the map on her watch. “Here…” she said, attaching the lock-cracking device to a plain-looking metal door.

  Hallam again adjusted the location of the device, receiving a glower from Dakota for his trouble, and then frowned. “Are you sure this is it? It looks like the door to a storage closet to me.”

  The footsteps began to grow louder, but the device still hadn’t completed its work. Hallam shuffled quietly to the end of the corridor and snuck another look. The enforcer was about twenty meters away, moving from door to door and checking each one diligently.

  Then the device bleeped and Hallam saw Dakota hurriedly remove it from the door. Hallam moved back as quickly as he could without making too much noise, and arrived just as Dakota tried the handle. It twisted and Dakota smiled, pulling the door open. Then her smile faded.

  Hallam felt his stomach sink as he peered inside at the rows upon rows of shelving racks filled with cleaning products. There was also a low-level sink and tap, and a small army of cleanerbots.

  “Damn it, I hate it when you’re right,” said Dakota.

  Hallam might have found her outburst funny, had it not been for the flickering flashlight creeping ever closer through the darkness. Then he had a thought, remembering back to one of his CSF training sessions, which had covered smugglers and the various ways they hid contraband from CSF patrols. Hallam smiled as the idea took form, then stepped inside the closet, beckoning Dakota to follow him.

  “This isn’t high school, Hal,” Dakota said, looking at him like he was mad, or about to make a move on her, or both. “And this is hardly the time...”

  Hallam shook his head, taking Dakota’s hand and pulling her inside. Before she’d had a chance to protest, Hallam had closed the door, pitching them into complete darkness.

  “If you try to kiss me, I’ll punch you really hard where it hurts,” said Dakota, leaving Hallam in no doubt as to her sincerity.

  The footsteps grew louder outside, and Hallam could hear the rattle of door knobs as the enforcer continued his rounds. Hallam activated the torch on his watch and pressed a finger to his lips to stop Dakota from uttering any further protests. He then crept to the back of the room, shining the intense beam at the floor and walls.

  “What are you doing?” whispered Dakota as the rattle of door handles grew louder.

  Hallam kept quiet and continued to scour the closet before he found what he was looking for – a seam in the wall. It was only faint but definitely visible under the powerful white light of the torch, and as he ran a finger along it, he could feel it too.

  “Give me the lock cracker thing,” Hallam whispered back to Dakota, who was holding it in her hand. Dakota handed over the device, still looking like she’d been trapped in a lunatic asylum and locked inside with the inmates. Hallam moved the device over the wall, following the seam, all the while watching the indicator for any flicker of activity. Then he saw the lights pulse briefly, and he smiled again, locking the device in position, and watching as it set to work.

  Suddenly, the door handle of the closet rattled, and Dakota jumped, knocking into the shelving rack. A bottle fell from a high shelf, but incredibly, she caught it – a pure reflex catch that may well have saved their lives. They both froze, and Hallam even thought that his heart had stopped beating.

  The silence persisted for a few more seconds before a voice said, “Is anyone in there?”

  Hallam grimaced and peered up at the device, which was still flashing chaotically.

  “Damn cleaners left those infernal vacuum bots on again…” the voice grumbled from outside the door as chains rustled and keycards jostled.

  The device bleeped and Hallam snatched it as the seam widened and a hidden doorway revealed itself. Sliding it open, Hallam waved frantically to Dakota to move inside. She did so, but then forgot that she was still holding the bottle she’d caught, and doubled back, placing it on the shelf.

  The door knob rattled again, but the door itself remained closed. “I can never remember which one of these damn cards is the right one,” the voice muttered.

  Dakota sped past Hallam and he was about to follow her inside, when he had another thought and stopped.

  “Hal, what the hell!?” Dakota called out to him in a hushed but panicked cry.

  Hallam moved up to one of the cleanerbots and quickly examined it, finding the master power switch. He flipped it on, and th
e little robot began to scuttle out of its stow. Hallam darted back into the hidden room just as the lock to the closet clicked open. He slid the false wall back, closing the gap at the same instant that the door opened and footsteps fell inside.

  Hallam could hear the little cleanerbot buzzing around and getting to work on the tiny space it had been allotted to clean.

  “Damn cleaners,” protested the voice of the enforcer, so loud and clear that he couldn’t have been more than a meter away. Then the cleanerbot fell silent and Hallam heard footsteps again, but this time growing quieter. A door slammed shut, and the sound of footsteps quickly vanished into the distance.

  Dakota threw herself against the wall of the hidden room, the back of her head pressed against the smooth metal panel. Then she seemed to notice that Hallam was smiling at her – or at least his eyes were.

  “What the hell is so amusing?” she snapped. “We were almost caught!”

  “I was just thinking how, after how I heroically saved our asses, that you probably do want to kiss me now…” said Hallam cockily. It was meant as a joke – a bit of humor to cut through the tension, in a similar way to how the challenge to reach the building first had worked. However, the swift kick that Dakota delivered to Hallam’s groin suggested that, this time, she hadn’t seen the funny side.

  21

  The hidden room that Hallam had discovered inside the storage closet led on to an elevator. With the help of Dr. Rand’s hacking device, they were able to ride the elevator deep below the Consortium building and into the heart of Damien Doyle’s secret offline data bunker. It was a vast warehouse-like space, with rows upon rows of storage centers and servers, all of which housed the multi-trillionaire’s impressive collection of secrets. Dr. Rand had described the bunker as more than just a repository of Doyle’s critical business data from his thousands of companies, but also a repository of people’s lives too. Every interaction that touched one of Doyle’s businesses or technologies was recorded, analyzed, and stored, and used to make him richer and even more powerful than he already was.

  “How are we supposed to find the one piece of information we need amongst all this?” said Hallam, who was crouched down behind one of the hundreds of data towers that occupied the upper level alone. The bunker extended another two levels below, each with the same number of flashing stacks of technology. It was dizzying to look at.

  “Doyle keeps all his super-secret stuff in the central core,” said Dakota, pointing to a larger, cylindrical object in the dead center of the cavernous space. It was accessed by four gangways, suspended above the lower level. Each entry-point was gated, adding another layer of security, and yet another obstacle for them to overcome. “Once we get to the core, we just need to plug in Dr. Rand’s device, and it will do the rest.”

  “That simple, huh?” said Hallam sarcastically while surveying their immediate location. There were cameras positioned all around them, including one pointing toward where they were currently crouched down. However, since the place hadn’t erupted into a ballad of alarm wails and flashing lights, he assumed that Dr. Rand’s sensor jammers were working as advertised.

  Dakota lifted her watch, and four small objects shot out from each corner before buzzing away into the air above them, like flies. Hallam observed with interest as Dakota’s watch began to display a three-dimensional image of the data bunker, composited from the cameras and sensors built into the miniature devices.

  “That’s a neat trick,” said Hallam, wondering how many other secret locations Dakota had infiltrated in a similar manner.

  “If we zig-zag along these walkways, we can minimize the number of camera arcs we pass through,” said Dakota, highlighting the route on the screen. “Once we’re inside the data core, so long as we remain still, the cameras should just see us as a slightly fuzzy patch of distortion,” she went on before switching off the map and meeting Hallam’s eyes again. “The chances are that no-one in the security office will be looking closely enough to notice.”

  Hallam nodded, though Dakota’s use of “should” and “chances are” highlighted just how much of a gamble they were taking.

  Dakota took the lead, crouch-running along the maze of walkways, lined to either side by seemingly endless rows of flickering towers. Progress was swift and they quickly got within sight of the central core before a heavy thump caused them both to stop and freeze.

  “What the hell was that?” said Dakota, trying to peer through a gap between two data towers to spot the source of the noise. However, they could barely see more than a few meters before the view was blocked by another stack of servers or data towers.

  “Check your watch,” suggested Hallam, pointing to the device. “Maybe your little cameras can pick up whatever made the sound?”

  Dakota nodded and worked quickly, bringing up the image before repositioning the mini-sensors. Hallam watched over her shoulder, but so far, besides the flickering lights of the towers, the bunker appeared to be still. Then Hallam thought he saw something, but in a flash, it was gone again.

  “Wait, go back,” said Hallam. “I’m sure I saw something over toward the west wall, on the top level…”

  Dakota repositioned the mini flying sensors, and the image of a woman came into view. She was carrying a portable computer and seemed to be inspecting one of the many clusters of towers.

  “Damn it, she’s right above where we need to be,” said Dakota, again trying to peek through the data towers to see the woman with her own eyes. “If we move over to the central core now, then she could see us.”

  Hallam shuffled to the end of the row of data towers and glanced up, spotting the woman on the upper walkway about thirty meters away. He cursed under his breath. Dakota was right, the woman was in a perfect position to see them. And, unlike with the bunker’s digital security cameras, their sensor jammers would do nothing to shield them from her eyes.

  “Should we wait her out?” said Dakota, shuffling up behind Hallam.

  Hallam thought about this for a moment, but then remembered what Dakota had said about the sensor jammers having only limited power cells.

  “We have no way to know how long she’s going to be,” Hallam said, resting back on a data tower and meeting Dakota’s eyes. “And we don’t want to be stuck in here when the cells in these sensor jammers start to die.”

  Hallam looked back at the data core and had an idea. It was a risk, but right now, everything they were doing hinged on the roll of a dice. He pulled his lock-cracking device out of his pocket, switched it on, then removed his boots.

  “What are you going to do?” asked Dakota. She seemed to be intrigued by Hallam’s curious actions, but she was also clearly anxious.

  Hallam readied himself to run at the gate, glancing back at Dakota. “Just some renegade ninja stuff,” he said, turning back to the data core and stealing one last glance up at the worker on the level above. Her back was turned, and Hallam decided to take his chance.

  Running out on tip toes, without making a sound thanks to the soft fabric of his socks compared to the hard rubber soles of his boots, Hallam attached the lock-cracker device to the gate. He turned and headed back, stealing another quick look up at the woman to check that she was still facing away. However, averting his gaze, even for a second, caused him to veer off course, and he walked into the end of the row of data towers. Stifling a cry, he felt a hand grab his arm and yank him out of view of the woman.

  “So much for being a renegade ninja…” Dakota whispered, but then the sound of shoes clacking on the hard flooring prompted both to fall silent.

  “Hello?” a well-spoken female voice shouted. “Is there anyone down there?”

  Hallam held his breath and didn’t move a muscle. He even closed his eyes, as if he was an ostrich and the act of blinding himself to the outside world would make the woman go away. Then the footsteps clacked away again, and Hallam exhaled before resting his head back against the data tower.

  “Maybe leave the renegade ninja stuff t
o me from now on, you great klutz,” said Dakota, though it was said with warmth and no small measure of relief.

  Hallam heard the faint bleep of the lock-cracker device completing its task and the gate clicked open. He glanced up again to where the woman had been, but she’d now moved elsewhere, out of view.

  “After you, renegade ninja master…” said Hallam, opening his palm toward the data tower before pulling his boots back on.

  Dakota crept through the open gate with Hallam close behind, though he was now watching where he walked with an almost obsessive attentiveness. Wasting no time, Dakota removed the device that Dr. Rand had given her and inserted it into a data access port in the core.

  “Any idea how long that thing will take?” said Hallam, resting up against the massive cylindrical column.

  “No,” said Dakota, her tone as stiff as her body. “And stay still, will you? Remember that there are probably a dozen cameras on us right now.”

  Hallam did as Dakota said, but over the stillness of his body, he picked up a faint sound. It was a low tone, repeating about once every second. What the hell is that? Hallam asked himself, but he was afraid to move his head to locate the source of the noise, for fear of being spotted by the surveillance devices now honed in on their location. Then he cast his eyes down and saw that a tiny LED on the rim of a sensor jammer attached to his knee was blinking. The rhythm of the pulse matched the beat of the sound exactly.

  “Crap, I think my sensor jammers are losing power,” said Hallam, being careful to only move his lips.

  In his peripheral vision, he saw Dakota cast her eyes down at her legs before she too cursed under her breath. “You’re right; mine are too.”

  The clack of footsteps on the upper level snatched back their attention. The woman came into view, computer still in hand before she began working on a different cluster of data towers. The tension was almost unbearable. If the woman so much as cast a glance toward the data core, they’d be seen.

  “Just keep perfectly still,” Dakota whispered, causing Hallam to roll his eyes.