Li’s voice turned sour. “It reeks of politics and intrigue. You say I need to loan you a dropship, but you can’t tell me about the mission. And the people operating the dropship will never be able to speak about it. Yet I find it interesting this dropship is to deliver… someone… to the very spot my commanders have been ordered to report for testing.”
Ahura knew the quality that often defined a good intelligence officer was the ability to know when to bluff and went to remain silent. In this instance, his instincts told him to do both.
He stoically stared back at Li, refusing to confirm or deny a thing—though inside, his heart was racing.
After a few moments, Li slapped the palm of his hand against his pants leg. “I’ve had a bad feeling about that recall from the start. You want a dropship?” He jerked a nod. “It’s yours to command.”
As Ahura boarded a shuttle, wondering how the hell an intelligence spook had just ended up in command of a ship, the people he was destined to meet were receiving their own marching orders.
* * *
A little more than two AU away, four Shadow Recon ships floated silently among a sea of stones, deep inside the Akkadian asteroid belt known as the Straits of Sargon.
While their co-pilots commanded fleets of stealthed drones forming protective spheres around the invisible ships, their comm officers were busy trying to unravel a puzzle.
Colonel Tala Valenti, the small battlegroup’s commander, presided over it all with quiet intensity. Of concern to her at the moment was something Mirage’s flight engineer had brought to her attention. Over the past day, no less than fifteen shuttles had flushed from capital ships, inbound to the Akkadian homeworld.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, ma’am,” Will said, “but aren’t every one of these ships coming from an Akkadian flagship?”
Will had configured the ship’s ActiveFiber to form a jumpseat for Tala, so she could review the sensor feed with him. She bent forward to peer at the ident codes as Will backtraced each shuttle’s flight path.
“They are,” she confirmed, sitting back in the seat, eyes narrowing as she considered the display.
“Now, why would they be sending a representative in person, when they have access to Ford-Svaiter nodes?” Yuki murmured, putting voice to the same thought that had formed in Tala’s mind.
“Good question, Lieutenant.”
“Never known a military to spend a credit when they can do it on the cheap another way,” said Taylor, the Marine co-pilot who sat on Yuki’s left.
The Ford-Svaiter tech housed inside the Starshot buoys provided the settled worlds with instantaneous communication. The network of autonomous satellites was spread throughout each star system, a constellation that covered the bulk of occupied space within the heliosphere.
Though communication via Starshot was instantaneous, the buoys themselves were each spaced an AU apart, and latency between them was dependent on the speed of light. It took light a bit longer than eight minutes to travel that distance. That meant the very worst light lag one would experience in any populated area was half that—a fact every military ship knew intimately.
This, in turn, suggested that the people traveling in those shuttles were going to Eridu for more than just a little chat.
“See if you can’t tap into some intraship chatter,” Tala instructed. “That activity’s unusual enough for people to gossip—”
Takeko’s voice interrupted the conversation.
{Incoming from Task Force Blue headquarters.}
Tala rose, holding her hand up to indicate she was listening to a message, and stepped away from the cockpit.
Head down, she paced Mirage’s cabin as Micah Case’s voice came across her wire.
{Colonel, we have a situation.}
Quickly, he recapped the events that had most recently transpired on the Akkadian homeworld.
{Admiral Toland has okayed the fireteams to assist.}
He paused, and when he returned, his voice held an odd tenor.
{As strange as it may sound, you are ordered to rendezvous with an Akkadian dropship above Eridu's south pole. Apparently, my twin has managed to find himself an Akkadian co-conspirator.}
There was another pause. Then Micah’s voice was back to its normal, brisk delivery.
{The admiral also said to remind you that the ship drives’ new capabilities need to remain a secret. It is up to your discretion on how to handle that. Standing by, waiting for your response.}
The recording ended, and Tala instructed Takeko to push it to Will.
She picked up her pace as she crossed aft to the cargo bay, where the fireteam aboard Mirage had holed up. Alert eyes landed on her when she appeared at the bay doors.
“We’ve been greenlit for a mission,” she told the soldiers. “Gear up.”
Tala wheeled, retracing her steps to the cockpit and replaying the message for herself as she went.
She considered the mechanics of the situation they faced. They were hiding inside a densely populated asteroid field, deep inside enemy territory. Despite the fact they’d bolstered the existing constellation of comm buoys by seeding the area with their own stealth military ones, there was still fifteen seconds of lag—too long to comfortably hold live conversation.
My discretion, indeed.
Stopping behind Will’s station, she silently instructed her SI to send Micah’s message to the man’s console. Aloud, she added, “Takeko, what is the least-time intercept to Eridu?”
Her words elicited a startled sound from Yuki, who twisted around to stare at her.
“Something going on, Colonel?”
Tala nodded to Will. “Specialist Morris?”
In response, the flight engineer pushed Micah’s recording to the cockpit’s speakers. “Colonel just received a message from Humbolt,” he explained.
The recording played. Once it came to an end, Tala looked around at the flight crew. “Okay, you heard Captain Case. How are we going to hide these new drives?”
Nina made a troubled sound. “That’s not going to be easy, Colonel. These drives don’t have the same Casimir flare the old ones do. We appear from out of nowhere, whoever’s looking will notice something’s different.”
“Mirage’s strike plate has been upgraded, too,” Yuki reminded them. “If we retune to visible, they’ll know exactly how good our stealth is. They’ll pick it all up on scan, which means they’ll study it and try to reverse engineer it.”
“What if….” Will’s voice faded, his expression one of concentration. “What if we take the jump uncloaked?”
Nina turned, frowning. “Did you hit your head or something? How does that help us?”
“Hang on, hear me out. What if we tell Micah to have Jonathan suggest that we’ve been hanging out around Eridu this whole time?”
“Not following,” the Marine co-pilot frowned.
Tala held up a hand, and said slowly, “I think I am.” She turned to Will. “Are you suggesting that we purposely misdirect them?”
He nodded. “Everyone knows that when a ship leaves Scharnhorst space, the Casimir bubble lets off a pretty decent flare. But like Yuki pointed out, there’s no visible flash with these new drives. If we imply we’re already above Eridu, then when we shed the bubble, it’ll mistakenly be attributed to the energy we use when coming out of stealth.”
“So… they’ll naturally associate their readings with our stealth technology, and not our drives,” Tala clarified, and Will nodded.
“That’s the idea. Seed a bit of confusion and misdirection within the intelligence community.”
Yuki’s face creased into a grin. “Dang, Will, you’re devious. I like it.”
Tala nodded. “I’ll contact Micah, get him started on your disinformation campaign. You work on bringing the other ships up to speed on the plan.”
“Hey, Colonel? What happens once we arrive?”
“We’ll be rendezvousing with an Akkadian dropship. The fireteams from Mirage, Wraith, Katana, and Eidol
on will transfer over, and from there, they’ll be transported down to hook up with the team already in place.”
Will frowned. “How are they going to hide this from their own military?”
“Under the pretense of a drill, conducted jointly by the Junxun Cadet Academy and the Akkadian home fleet.”
The Marine copilot shook his head. “Not sure I want to know how they managed to pull that one off.”
Ignoring his comment, Tala turned back to face Yuki. “ETA?”
“From here to Eridu’s south pole? Eighteen minutes and some change.”
“Very well. Since this was your idea,” Tala waggled a finger between Yuki and Will, “record a detailed explanation of your plan, and have it ready to go in two minutes. I’ll append it to my reply.”
They nodded, and Tala retreated to her cabin, leaving them to their work as she crafted her own response to Task Force Blue.
Half an hour later, using coordinates Micah had assured them were exact, four Shadow Recon ships jumped into Scharnhorst space. Eighteen minutes after that, they reappeared… a scant fifty meters from an Akkadian dropship’s starboard docking collar.
It took three minutes for the fireteams, poised inside the ships’ airlocks, to launch themselves across the void into the open maw of the enemy ship.
Another three minutes after that, the four ships jumped back into Scharnhorst space, their collective crew numbers now decreased by sixteen warriors.
PAPERWORK
Defense Ministry
Central Prefecture, Eridu
Serae Etesav was more than just Dacina Zian’s sister in combat. Like the ‘Fierce Dagger,’ Serae, too, had been abandoned to the Junxun as a young, nameless girl. Also like Dacina, it hadn’t taken long for Serae to earn her own name.
Serae Etesav, ‘Strikes Swiftly,’ had done more than follow in Dacina’s footsteps; she had become a champion of the killing fields in her own right.
Serae tried to follow Dacina into the Tèzhǒng, but the Ministry of State Security had refused her petition. Deep inside her heart of hearts, Strikes Swiftly knew why; Serae lacked that indefinable something, a quality that bled from Dacina’s eyes. It was the soul of a stone-cold killer.
It hadn’t kept Serae from covertly following her battle-sister’s career, though. She became the Dagger’s most staunch, yet silent, supporter.
When Dacina had asked for the Dozen, Serae gave without question. But when the Dagger had explained why, Serae demanded, by the right of vengeance, that she play a part.
Her request had led her to the Defense Ministry today.
Behind her blank façade, a fierce satisfaction burned. Today’s strike would be swift and brilliant—and utterly unexpected.
She nodded curtly to the ostovars at the entrance, the two soldiers snapping to crisp attention at the sight of the general first-class, who neared.
Her face allowed her entrance into the building; her security token allowed her passage into the antechamber of the offices of Warren Hatami, Akkadia’s minister of defense.
She checked her chrono; the dropship would be making its high-speed burn right about now, which meant….
Hatami’s secretary burst out of his cramped cubicle, a frantic expression on his face.
“Your pardon, Citizen General. I need to see the Citizen Minister immediately.”
* * *
Warren Hatami had been trying to clear his desk of mounds of data cubes for the past two days. He’d had no idea when he accepted the position years earlier that the job came with so much paperwork.
And why, by the ancestors, is it called paperwork, when there’s no paper involved?
He knew his peers had their underlings manage most of the work, but Warren believed in keeping his fingers involved in the everyday aspects of the posting, and endeavored—as much as one could, with the constraints of the empire—to support his citizen generals, admirals, and commanders to the best of his ability.
More than once, his work ethic had been remarked upon, the citizen minister of the interior once even accusing him of trying to run the military as a meritocracy.
He had just signed off on the last file in the data cube inserted into his console when his doors flew open to reveal his wide-eyed secretary.
Or maybe that should be wild-eyed, he thought, his gaze shifting to the woman who stood coolly behind him.
The contrast was so marked, he almost smiled, but then he recalled himself and opted for disapproving instead.
“I explicitly said I was not to be disturbed,” he said in a stern voice.
The man flinched, but forged ahead. “The premier’s office pinged. They demand to know why a dropship is landing in the Aksu Desert without advance warning!”
“A dropship?” Startlement had Warren rising halfway from his chair.
“Are you speaking of the joint Junxun-fleet exercise the citizen minister approved last week?” Serae’s voice sounded amused and slightly bored.
The secretary spun around. “You know of this?”
Citizen General Serae lifted a brow. “Of course I do. I was the one who requested it, along with Admiral Li.”
Warren blinked in confusion, his mind drawing a blank. “I approved this?” He glanced around at the data cubes, scattered haphazardly about his desk.
The citizen general inclined her head. “Indeed. You signed the approval just yesterday, Citizen Minister. I dropped by to express my thanks. The latest cadet class has been a bit… unruly of late, and when I happened to mention it to the citizen admiral, he suggested we combine forces to keep our respective branches on their toes with a surprise drill.”
Warren relaxed back into his seat. With a casual hand-wave in Serae’s direction, he told his secretary, “See? That’s all it is. Please reassure the premier’s office this is routine, nothing more.”
He returned his attention to his paperwork, his mind already puzzling out the next round of requests, heedless of the private smile that played about Serae’s mouth as the Junxun leader pivoted and exited his domain.
SHAR-KALI INITIATIVE
Shar-Kali Correctional Facility
and Reeducation Center
Aksu Desert
Che had stashed Garza and Rin Zhou in a nearby conference room, leaving Ell, Jonathan, and Joule to protect them. Thad, Morrison, and Aviva—the woman his Dagger had flipped to their side—accompanied Che to visit the prison’s warden.
He’d asked the facility’s overseer to show them to the prison’s security center so that they might watch the ‘joint exercise’ firsthand. Control of this room was critical to their mission’s success; it was the heart of the entire complex, and it was located mere steps from the warden’s office.
A side glance told Che the man still hadn’t recovered from the shock of his arrival.
Still, the same explanation he’d used on the doctor, that of a surprise inspection, had worked on the warden, mainly because it held the ring of truth to it.
He ignored the man, trusting Dacina’s watchful eyes, and turned his focus to the next phase.
The guards working the control center handed it over with little fanfare. Before the warden even had a chance to open his mouth, Che’s Dagger informed the men that they were relieved of duty.
They stood, swapping positions with a mix of Junxun and Geminate off-worlders.
Of course, the warden had no way of knowing this.
Che studied the wall dedicated to the prison’s stream of holographic feeds, the images changing rapidly under the hands of the woman seated at the controls.
Under the pretext of realigning external sensors to better view the exercise about to commence, the Alliance agent the Dagger had recruited was busy severing communications with the outside.
It was their good fortune that Aviva had turned out to be what the Alliance called a ‘signals intelligence specialist.’ Her expertise guaranteed that no whisper of today’s actions escaped.
The man who had been her partner stood glowering beside
the giant Marine, both sporting poorly masked expressions of outrage.
Aviva turned to Che and gave a small nod, studiously ignoring the compatriots she had betrayed.
“The middle feed should give you the best view of the exercise, Citizen Minister,” she said. “The dropship is scheduled to arrive within the next five minutes.”
The warden sucked in a breath, awe painted on his face at the sight of the ship that came in on a hard burn.
It flipped, hovering in the air as it popped its hatches. Invisible bodies dropped from them, equally invisible thrusters halting their HALO descent.
Once clear, the ship climbed in a flare of light from its drives’ energy plume, disappearing into the stratosphere.
“Assets down,” Aviva said.
“Impressive,” the warden murmured.
“This is just the beginning,” responded Che, sending the Dagger the signal.
In a swift move, Dacina stepped up behind the man and, with a sharp blow to the back of his skull, rendered him unconscious. A shackling patch ensured he would remain that way.
One of her Junxun lifted him from the room, returning the warden to his office, until the operation was complete.
The feed projected on the wall showed the Unit soldiers had rendezvoused with their Junxun counterparts and were, even now, infiltrating via the three shafts. Their objective was twofold: secure the hangar and subdue the guards.
That left Clint Janus to the people inside this room.
Che looked over at Thad Severance. “Are you ready?”
* * *
At Che’s question, Thad glanced at Morrison, who gave him a brief chin lift.
Thad ignored Aviva. It’d be a cold day in hell before he trusted her on an op. If he were a betting man, he’d guess the assassin knew this, too, which was why Aviva would remain stationed in this room.
Turning his back on the woman, Thad nodded to Che. “Let’s do this.”
He let the assassin lead. Swinging past the conference room so that Ell, Jonathan, and Joule could join them, they traversed the corridors at a steady clip, weapons holstered so as not to draw attention.
Chiral Justice: A Hard Science Fiction Technothriller (The Biogenesis War Book 3) Page 30