After the extra-dimensional lights faded from the ship’s main holoscreens, Thad could see the vessels ahead of them engaging thrusters to move away from the gate, clearing the way for the ships behind them to transit. They maintained their loose formation and, once they cleared the area, lit up their fusion drives.
Jonathan tossed a glance over his shoulder.
“That’s it, folks. We’ll jump the minute we hit the fifteen-million-klick mark, about another two hours or so.”
“And then?” asked Valenti.
Jonathan made a humming sound as he made some sort of mental calculation Thad likely couldn’t follow. “The customs clearance station’s a good thirty-three AU from here. That puts us at about an hour twenty in Scharnhorst space before we arrive.”
“Thank you, Captain.” The colonel turned to Will. “All-call to the task force. Tell them to stand down. Take a nap, grab some grub. And be ready to go again at…” she paused to check her chrono, “thirteen hundred, ship time.”
The flight engineer nodded and turned to his console.
Jonathan swung around once more, his gaze bouncing between Thad and the colonel. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to take one more look at any fresh data Invictus might have managed to capture, before they dump us out into the black.”
Valenti shot him an inquiring look. “Any particular reason why?”
Thad saw a look of unease cross the pilot’s face, but then he shrugged it away.
“I’d like to take a look at the task force’s disbursement once Mirage departs. I know we’ll have Micah as a communications conduit to them, but just in case something goes wrong and I can’t reach him, I want to know for myself exactly where they’re going to be hiding within the Straits, in case we need to call for an evac.”
Thad hoped like hell nothing happened to Micah, but he could see the other man’s point.
Valenti nodded her understanding. “I’ll ping the captain and set something up.”
REGATTA
Douglass-Washburn Tent
Founder’s Cup Fairgrounds
Bezier Foothills, Ceriba
Micah lurched awake to a piercing sound that hammered through his mind like a bad hangover. He gripped his head in his hands, croaking out, “Alarm off!”
With a groan, he rolled tiredly to his feet. Operation Ferret had put a significant dent in his sleep schedule. By the time the Unit team had returned with Snotface, it had been well past rack time and he was feeling it today.
Cracking one eye open, he looked blearily around his quarters, his optics automatically cycling to night vision. Other than the boots he’d left by the door, and yesterday’s discarded flight suit, the room was Navy-neat.
“Good,” he muttered. “Least I won’t break my neck on the way to the lav.”
The chrono on his optical overlay informed him he’d better hustle if he intended to make it down to the fairgrounds before the prime minister arrived.
With a sigh, he ordered the lights in the room to full strength, wincing under their bright glare.
A message from Major Reid was sitting in his inbox, flashing silently at him. He scrolled through its contents while he showered, skimming through last night’s after-action report.
According to the assets that had stayed behind to monitor those guarding the fairgrounds, the rest of the overnight had been unremarkable. Nothing to suggest they might have discovered a tracker planted on the starglider.
“Let’s just hope things stay that way,” he murmured.
Half an hour later, Micah found himself in the queue for the space elevator, waiting for the next car to arrive that would whisk him down to the surface. He checked in with Jonathan while he waited, but quickly discovered his counterpart was in the middle of a planning session.
Deciding to leave his twin to his work, Micah boarded the elevator car when it pulled into the terminal, and then sat back to wait while they dropped to the planet’s surface.
The shuttle ride to the fairgrounds was equally uneventful, and Micah soon found himself flashing his ID token at the security SI staffing the event’s entrance.
Only a smattering of reporters greeted him, calling out quick questions as he passed. He guessed the rest were covering the regatta’s progress, given that today was the first official day of the race. Micah scrubbed through the newsnets to see how the Alliance teams he’d picked were faring.
He paused when he came to a live feed hosted by the reporter who’d first waylaid him outside registration. Popping it up onto his overlay, he listened to Provo’s play-by-play description of the ships’ progress as he turned down the row of tents that led to his destination.
The rich aroma of freshly brewed coffee arrested his motion, and he detoured by a vendor’s cart to get his morning fix.
Well, morning for me, at least.
Today, the number of Navy personnel and security agents far outnumbered the journalists outside the Douglass-Washburn tent. It made sense; Garza was scheduled to arrive for his first training session in a few hours.
Ducking inside, Micah found himself once more subjected to intense scrutiny. Like the day before, he stood perfectly still, though now with a hot cup of java in hand, while waiting for the protective detail to scan him before allowing him entrance.
A quick glance over at the mechanics’ pit showed Katie was already there. Since she hadn’t been involved in last night’s escapade, it was likely the chief warrant had been here for hours. She was currently buried elbow-deep inside a piece of equipment.
Make that head-deep, he thought with some amusement, as Katie’s voice echoed eerily from inside a carbon composite tail section.
“Try it now,” he heard her say, and the chief mechanic obligingly moved the control surface she was studying up and down.
The head mechanic looked up as Micah passed, giving a quick two-fingered wave. Micah lifted his coffee in silent response to the man, and then turned toward the simulators.
He spared his wrist a quick glance, the Faraday cuff encircling it hidden under his flight suit’s sleeve. Inside was the DNA sampling nano it was his job to deploy before Garza arrived.
He took a casual sip, his eyes taking in the starglider as he walked by, before straying past it to the various agents lining the inside of the tent. He turned toward the simulators, the back of his neck itching under the eyes of those watching him.
He set his coffee down and booted up both units, cycling them through a full diagnostics check while he visually inspected the helmet and pair of gauntlets both he and Garza would wear. He deliberately ignored his surroundings, giving the impression he was fully absorbed in his task.
He slipped a hand inside Garza’s gauntlet, ostensibly to test its haptic feedback. After running it through its paces, he reached over to pull it off, right hand casually triggering the Faraday cuff and setting the DNA-sampling nano free.
The small machines were programmed to handshake with his own wire’s data partition once activated. He saw a green indicator light flash briefly on his overlay as they settled, coating the inside of the glove. Satisfied they were in position, he removed his hand, and the light winked out.
He maintained his pretense, testing the other gloves in the same way, settling first one and then the other helmet on his head to confirm their interface. He’d just removed the second helmet when a sound at the tent’s entrance caught his attention.
A pair of agents entered, taking up positions on either side of the opening, their watchful eyes scanning the interior. Moments later, Garza stepped inside.
The prime minister nodded pleasantly to the agents stationed inside the tent before his eyes roamed toward the mechanics’ pit, and then on to where Micah stood.
Taking that as his cue, Micah set down the helmet in his hands and walked over to greet the man, extending a hand. “Mister Prime Minister, it’s nice to meet you. I’m—”
Micah stopped abruptly, dropping his outstretched limb, when the two agents flanking Garza
shifted subtly in front of him, barring his way.
Message received. Don’t touch the merchandise.
Garza pushed the two men gently apart. “You must be Captain Case,” he said with a slight smile.
Micah clasped his hands behind his back and nodded respectfully. “Yessir.”
The prime minister lifted a slightly amused brow and jerked his chin in the direction of the starglider. “Think you can train an old jarhead how to fly that thing? And in time to beat the president of An-Yang?”
Micah grinned. “No contest, sir. It’ll be a walk in the park.”
He gestured Garza toward the back of the tent, explaining his helmet and gloves on the way.
The prime minister accepted the information with a silent nod of thanks, then asked, “So, what’s on the agenda for today?”
Micah looked thoughtfully at the man, his gaze cutting toward the starglider in the center of the tent. “I think the first order of business is to familiarize you with the ship’s controls. What would you say to flying the course for today’s regatta?”
Garza’s eyebrows rose into his hairline. “That’s a bit ambitious, isn’t it?”
“You’ll just be shadowing me,” he assured the man.
Micah gestured to the simulation units sitting passively against the tent’s back wall. “Your hands will be on the stick, don’t get me wrong. But there’s no danger. It’ll give you a good feel for how the ship maneuvers. Plus—” he shot a conspiratorial grin Garza’s way, “it’ll be fun.”
Garza regarded him for a beat, and then nodded. “You’re the boss. What do I do with this?” He gestured to the helmet in his hands.
“Put it on.” Micah pointed to the display. “It’s already booted up and ready to go.”
He donned his own helmet, its hardware depositing him into the system’s wraparound holographic environment.
Garza made a fascinated noise, his voice sounding over the communication system built into the sim’s helmet. “For old tech, this is pretty impressive,” the man murmured.
“Wait until the simulation begins,” Micah said, glancing around at the frozen tableau. “It gets better.”
“This is the first leg of the race, you say?” Garza asked as he took a seat and Micah flipped through snapshots of the course the racing teams were currently running.
“It is.”
“Something tells me there are a few significant differences between what I’ll be doing and what they’re facing on today’s course,” said the prime minister.
Micah chuckled, changing the visual over to the one for the exhibition course. “True. As you can see, your race will be on a traditional oval track. Just turns and straightaways. Pretty straightforward, no pun intended.”
“In other words, I’ll be going around in circles. That pretty much sums up the average day in the life of a politician. I should be an expert in that by now,” he deadpanned.
Micah couldn’t constrain the laugh that escaped; he hadn’t expected the man to have such a dry sense of humor.
“That’s pretty much it, yes.” He cleared his throat, changing the sim’s landscape once more, and calling Garza’s attention back to it. “Here. I’ll take you through the first leg of the race. Keep your hands on the controls so you can feel what I’m doing.”
He began the simulation, taking it nice and easy. After a few minutes, Garza made a pensive noise.
“It’s been a while since I’ve been through this part of the country. I forgot how beautiful it is.”
“One of the most scenic places on the planet,” Micah agreed.
As instructed, Garza’s hands stayed on the yoke, riding the controls along with him. When they entered into the gorge, Micah centered the simulated starglider in the middle of the one-kilometer-wide stretch and then handed the controls over to Garza completely.
“You have the ship.”
The prime minister didn’t respond verbally, as an experienced pilot would. He just grabbed the yoke, wiggling it experimentally back and forth a bit.
The simulated craft obliged, dipping its nose and then yawing left and right.
“It’s… very responsive,” he heard the man say.
The surprise in his voice caused Micah to grin inside his helmet. “That’s one of the best things about a starglider.”
Micah took the controls back after a few kilometers and headed back to the fairgrounds. From there, he took Garza through basic takeoffs and landings before showing the man what he could expect in certain situations, such as a power outage, or if he accidentally put the small craft into a stall or a spin.
Not that the man would be required to recover from such unusual attitudes; that’s what the Synthetic Intelligence aboard the craft was there to prevent. Still, the aviator in Micah wouldn’t allow him to set Garza loose—even with training wheels—until he’d been given a taste of what to expect should something go wrong.
In the short time he’d spent with Garza, he’d sensed the prime minister was a man whose first instinct was to gather what information he could about a situation, and let that guide his response. As such, knowing what was happening would go a long way toward putting his mind at ease, should his starglider end up in an odd configuration. In such a situation, the SI would take over, wrenching the craft back into normal flight mode, but at least Garza would know what was going on.
The simulation came to an end when the virtual starglider touched down once more at the fairground’s landing strip. Micah took off his helmet and saw Garza sit back with a sigh.
“That was exhilarating.”
Micah bit back a grin. “I’d agree with that, but it’s what I do for a living, so I might be a bit prejudiced. You ready to have a go at that racetrack?”
Garza straightened once more. “Let’s do it.”
The racetrack the prime minister would be flying on the day of the exhibition race was four kilometers long by one and a half wide. It would inscribe a long, narrow oval in the air a safe distance away, above the Bezier Foothills. It would be easily seen from the fairgrounds’ stadium seating.
The oval was defined by a pair of autonomous drones hovering two kilometers in the air at each end of the course. These projected holographic pylons through which the contestants must thread their ships.
Micah took Garza through several laps before allowing the prime minister to take full control of the sim. After he was confident the man could handle it on his own, he introduced him to techniques that would aid him in banking and turning without losing speed or altitude.
After an hour of practice, he called for Garza to return to the simulated landing strip, and brought the rehearsal to a close.
“So? How’d that feel?” he asked, pulling off his helmet.
Garza set his helmet on his lap and reached up to run a hand through his sweaty hair, only to knock himself in the forehead with the thick gauntlets. He shot Micah a rueful smile, and then stripped himself of the clunky gloves.
Micah reached out a hand to take them from him, but was forestalled by a security agent, who intercepted them before he could.
Damn.
In the excitement of the flight, he’d forgotten they were even here.
One of them stepped forward and relieved the prime minister of his helmet, and Micah ground his teeth quietly while plastering a smile on his face and forcing himself to pay attention to Garza’s response.
“I think maybe, just maybe, I won’t embarrass the Alliance after all,” he was saying as he stood. The man gave Micah a grudging half smile. “Doesn’t hurt that I have a former Founder’s Cup winner and one of our top Navy assets to train me, either. “
Micah dipped his head. “It’s my pleasure, sir.”
Another agent approached; the woman who had screened Micah when he’d first entered. She stopped in front of Garza, and the prime minister’s expression blanked.
“Excuse me, sir.” The woman’s voice was cold. “You have a call scheduled with the governor-general in half an hour. We
should really be going.”
“Looks like duty calls,” Garza told Micah, shooting an inscrutable look toward the men who flanked him.
The change that had come over the man caused Micah’s attention to sharpen. He’d lay good credits on these three being Akkadians, if Garza’s response was any gauge.
Without acknowledging the woman who’d spoken—something that struck Micah as uncharacteristic of the PM—Garza turned, extending his hand for Micah to shake.
The gesture caused the two men on either side of him to shift uncomfortably.
As he returned the man’s handshake, Micah silently cursed the fact that he had none of the DNA sampling nano left. All of it had been dumped inside the gauntlet now in the agent’s hands.
“I understand you’ll be joining us for dinner tonight?” Garza looked at him expectantly.
Micah blinked. He’d forgotten that the Founder’s Dinner was this evening, and that Cutter had arranged for him and Sam to be seated at the prime minister’s table for the event.
“Yes, thank you for the invitation.”
“Least I could do to thank you for teaching an old Marine how to fly. I’ll see you this evening, then.” Garza straightened his jacket with a short tug, gave Micah a brief nod, and then turned to follow the female agent to the tent’s entrance.
Micah saw that the agent had set Garza’s equipment beside the simulator. He decided it was worth one more attempt, and after racking his own helmet and gloves, reached for the ones the agent had set aside.
The man stepped forward to intercept him.
Pretending ignorance didn’t work; when Micah shifted to move around him, the agent countered the move, making it clear that Micah would not be allowed near Garza’s equipment.
Micah threw him a pointed, annoyed look as he crossed his arms. “Look, you’re preventing me from doing my job.”
“No one comes into contact with any of the prime minister’s equipment,” countered the agent.
Micah hid his consternation behind a look of derision, and gestured to the sim units. “There is literally nothing there that can harm him. These are all passive-response sims. Hell, the tech’s more than a century out of date. I fail to see the problem here.”
Chiral Justice: A Hard Science Fiction Technothriller (The Biogenesis War Book 3) Page 16