He’d inserted SRU Team Five into some of the more dangerous sectors of settled space on more than one occasion. Back then, Thad had been a sergeant, just like Ell.
Rafe had changed jobs. Thad had moved on to captain his own team.
Movement had her looking across the ship to where Boone sat, on the bench opposite hers. His eyes captured hers, darkening as he raised his brows in a silent question: you okay?
She smiled and nodded, knowing he saw past the lie. He knew, better than anyone, what she’d given up when she left and he’d taken up her mantle.
Being a sniper for the Unit was more than being a sharpshooter. There were an equal number of missions where the sniper played the role of overwatch, as was the case today.
It was the edge of the spear. It was exhilarating.
It was also where she’d been unable to stop her teammate from triggering an IED that caused explosive decompression, blasting Mike out the jagged hole of a habitat service hatch before she could reach him.
Thad’s gauntleted hand had been the only thing that kept her from meeting that same fate. He’d pulled her back, carried her to the ship where Asha triaged her ruined leg, severed above the knee by a jagged metal spar.
Rafe’s voice jolted her from her memories. She blinked, breaking eye contact with Boone and letting the reassuring pressure of Quinn’s shoulder beside her anchor her to the present.
Looking toward the cockpit, she played back Rafe’s last words in her head.
“Think your schedule can handle a brief detour, on your way back to Ceriba?” he’d asked the Helios pilot.
She saw Micah shoot Yuki a glance, but his co-pilot just shrugged, seemingly as clueless as he was.
“Got a mission for us, Major?” Micah inquired, but Rafe shook his head.
“Priority request to deliver a civilian contractor to a secured location,” he explained. “The guy’s at a symposium in Midland, but they need him back, stat.”
Midland, Hawking’s second largest city, was located in the middle of its four-thousand-kilometer-long span. A quick half-hour shuttle hop between Portsmouth’s spaceport and the Midway docking ring, it was one of three major populated areas within the cylinder.
Micah nodded slowly. “I’d have to clear it with Major Snell back on Humbolt, but I don’t see a problem. Where’s he need to go?”
“It’s on your way back. Well, close enough, anyway,” Rafe amended, causing Ell to wonder what secured location he was talking about. “I’ll send you the coordinates. It’d save one of my pilots the round trip.”
Micah shrugged. “If the brass says it’s okay, then sure, why not? I suppose he’s used to military transport, if he’s working out of a Naval base. When do we need to leave?”
Rafe thought a moment. “Anytime tomorrow or the next day is fine. They’re not going to be ready to…go wherever they’re going…for another few days.”
Ell noticed Micah didn’t comment on Rafe’s vague response. They all knew how these things worked; he’d be given his destination soon enough.
Rafe grinned abruptly, straightening. His gaze swept the ship, encompassing Thad’s team and the flight crew.
Slapping a hand on the back of Micah’s chair, he added, “Which means….” His eyes lit briefly on Ell, laughter dancing in their depths. “There’s plenty of time for the Marines and Shadow Recon to pay up. You guys owe my Navy crew a round of drinks.”
“Now, hold on there, ami.” Thad folded his arms and lowered his head, shooting the major a one-eyed glower.
Rafe’s brow rose. “The bet was that you couldn’t get in and out undetected.” He leveled a finger at the Unit leader. “My people detected you.”
Just like that, everything snapped into place with crystal clarity.
“That’s because you gave us up to them!” Ell cut in accusingly, shouldering her way forward. “The handcuffs. The fact they knew we’d escaped. You were a ringer!”
Rafe smirked at her, his gaze flipping from Ell, to Micah, and then back to Thad. “All’s fair in war, folks. I never said the pirates wouldn’t have a plant hanging back with the hostages, now did I?”
Ell saw Micah stifle a grin as Thad stood glowering at the major before shaking his head and stomping aft.
“Damned fuckin’ pissant Navy pilots,” they heard him mutter, the words a cadence matching his every step.
“Oooh-rah,” she heard Rafe murmur under his breath, eyes pinned to Thad’s retreating back. “Gotcha.”
FOUR
Midland City Center
Midland
Hawking Habitat
Geminate Alliance
A little more than two thousand kilometers from Nimitz’s MOA, a trim blonde woman exited Midland’s City Center complex and glanced around to get her bearings.
This part of Midland was especially busy. The habitat’s main maglev line stopped at a station half a block away, right next to the spaceport elevator that connected the cylinder to the Midway ring. The streets were lined with cafes, coffee houses and small shops, all catering to city administration offices and local businesses.
The meeting with the Public Works team had gone well. Samantha Travis had hoped to be able to wrap things up earlier so she could do a bit of exploring, but she knew her time had been well spent.
The people who maintained the magnetic sheath encasing the McKendree cylinder had asked detailed and insightful questions about its proposed upgrade. Cassandra DeWitt, the city’s head engineer, had a razor-sharp intellect and a laid-back charm. Sam could see the deep loyalty she engendered in her crew.
They’ll have no troubles with this refit, Sam thought with some satisfaction. None at all.
Hawking’s magnetosphere was of particular interest to Sam. She’d been one of the physicists behind the new design, had been instrumental in developing the artificial element that generated a more efficient magnetic field. So when St. Clair Physics Laboratory asked if she’d travel to the habitat to manage its first practical deployment, she’d jumped at the chance.
She’d never visited Hawking. She’d been too busy for travel, first with undergrad studies, and then later with her residency at the medical center. After that had come the opportunity to join the university’s Physics Laboratory.
There never seemed to be time for anything else, other than the occasional trip to Humbolt, the spaceport that hung in geosynchronous orbit above Ceriba. She was pretty sure that didn’t count.
It had taken seven long days to get here, cooped up in a cabin the size of her apartment’s lavatory, but Sam had loved every minute of it.
The habitat was an impressive feat of human engineering, with more than five and a half million square kilometers of habitable surface area. She’d spent the better part of a day watching as it grew larger in the observation room’s holo.
Now, she wanted to explore from the inside.
Sam shrugged out of her jacket, the warmth of Hawking’s late afternoon seeping into her bones. She squinted up into blue, cloud-dotted skies, wondering if she had time to sneak off for a few minutes of sightseeing before she met up with a friend.
As if summoned, her friend’s ID popped up on her overlay.
{Are you done yet? Tell me you’re done. How long can a presentation last anyway? Sam? Are you there?} Linnet’s bubbly, energetic personality bounced around inside Sam’s head like a wiggling, hyperactive puppy who’d caught sight of a toy.
{I’m here, I’m here!} Sam laughed.
{Thank the ever-lovin’ stars.} Linnet sighed. {When can you get here? The reception’s about to begin and I’m standing in the middle of a bunch of strangers.}
Sam snickered. {Lin, you’ve never met a stranger in your life.}
{Have, too. And there are about fifty billion of them, right here, right now.}
Sam’s lips twitched. {That’s some feat, considering there are only ten million on Hawking, give or take.}
{Oh, please.} Sam could almost hear Linnet’s hands slap the sides of her thighs as
she dropped them dramatically. {Let’s not quibble, m’kay? Just…come keep me company.}
Sam looked longingly in the direction of the maglev sign that posted departures to Olympic Lake, five kilometers to the south of her location. {Well, I was about to go out to Olympic Lake for a few minutes and look around….}
{Tell you what. The lake looks fabulous under the moonlight. Let’s go after the reception,} Linnet suggested.
Sam snorted. {Uhm, kind of hard to have moonlight when there’s no moon, Lin,} she reminded her friend.
{Potay-to, po-tah-to,} the other woman replied airily. {They do something with the mirrors to simulate it, most nights, I swear. Pleeeeeease, Sam?}
Sam scrunched her eyes closed, trying hard not to cave at Linnet’s wheedling. Abruptly, she turned away from the maglev station.
{Okay, fine. Do I at least have time to stop by the hotel and change?} she asked. {I’m not really reception-ready.}
{You’ll be fine,} Linnet assured her with the confidence of someone effortlessly used to drawing attention everywhere she went. {Just come as you are.}
Sam lifted her hands in a helpless gesture, took in a steadying breath, and then shrugged mentally. It wasn’t like she’d ever see any of these people again.
The reception was hosted by the Wyss Symposium on Biochemistry. That was Linnet’s field of expertise, not Sam’s.
Besides, one of the things on her bucket list was to spend time with her college roommate. They hadn’t seen each other in years, not since Linnet had accepted the job with Hawking’s Merki Institute.
{Okay, I’m on my way,} Sam capitulated, prompting her wire to handshake with Midland’s public net. Pulling up a map of the downtown area, she dropped a pin on the Merki Institute.
When a route appeared, along with estimated time, she added, {Be there in ten minutes. You’ll let security know to let me in?}
{Already cleared.} Linnet’s tone was smug. {Thanks, Sam. See you soon!}
Her friend’s icon vanished, and Sam began to push through the gathering crowd of people headed home for the day.
At least I’ll get to see a bit more of Midland this way….
Ten minutes later, Sam shrugged back into her jacket as she exchanged the warmth of the outdoors for the Institute’s cool, shaded interior.
Her first impression of the Institute was one of subtle elegance. Polished marble flooring gleamed in the dappled light that filtered in through large, paned windows. A reproduction concierge station that looked like it could have been lifted straight from Old Earth served as a check-in desk.
Her footsteps echoed on the polished tile as she crossed over to the kiosk.
The Synthetic Intelligence installed to monitor and grant access greeted her as it sensed her approach. “Good evening.” Its voice was mellow and well-modulated. “How may I be of service?”
“Samantha Travis, here for the Wyss Reception as Linnet Thompson’s guest,” she responded, and then waited patiently for the SI to scan her ID token.
With a musical chime, the ES field that prevented people from entering past security winked out. “The symposium reception is being hosted in the Andrew Wyss Ballroom, Level Four,” it informed her. “Have a good evening, Doctor Travis.”
“Thank you,” she murmured, moving toward a bank of lifts.
Live music, played by a small chamber orchestra, greeted Sam as the lift doors opened to the fourth floor. She could tell by the number of people in attendance that she was more than fashionably late.
The reception was just like countless others she’d attended. The room was filled with people who were mostly strangers to each other. They smiled and nodded politely in passing, or stood in groups of twos and threes, talking.
Spying a public lav, she ducked inside and took a moment to reprogram the nanothreads of her blouse and pants into a draped material more appropriate for a reception. After a moment’s thought and a critical look in the holo, she tuned its sensible navy into a deep cerulean.
Pressing the lapel of her jacket with her thumb, she triggered a preprogrammed set of instructions built into it by the manufacturer and then gave it a quick shake. The unstructured jacket easily fell into the shape of an evening wrap.
Combing her fingers through her hair, she made a little face at her reflection and slipped back out into the crowd.
{Lin? I’m here.}
{Oh good! That was fast. Where are you?} Linnet’s voice was flooded with relief.
{Just stepped off the lift,} Sam responded. {Stars, there’s a crush of people here.}
{I know.} Linnet’s mental laugh was mischievous. {Free booze: the eternal crowd pleaser.}
Sam smothered a laugh as she skirted a small clutch of people.
{One of the courtesy bars is set up just to the right of the lifts,} Linnet added. {Let’s meet there.}
Sam angled in that direction, her gaze easily spotting her friend. Linnet stood to one side of the courtesy bar, avoiding the scrum of people crowding in for a drink. She waved, bouncing a bit on her toes.
“About time,” Linnet muttered. “I love my career choice, but I really hate these gatherings. I’d much rather spend my free time at a concert, going for a run, or at a bar with good friends.”
“You’re at a bar,” Sam pointed out with a small tilt of her head toward the nearby queue, and Linnet scrunched up her face.
“Did you miss the part about ‘with good friends’?”
Sam laughed. “Good point.”
Linnet was a rare extrovert in a field that drew mostly introverts into its ranks. She also didn’t sit still very well, a fact that had always amused Sam when they were in school.
The biochemist’s sharp mind and almost eidetic memory were two things that helped the vibrant brunette get through the more grueling aspects of graduate school and, later, medical school.
“Soooo…did you see the latest on the newsnet this afternoon?” Linnet asked, giving Sam a nudge and pointing to a spot away from the bar, where they could more easily talk.
“Nope,” Sam said as they moved. “I’ve been up to my neck in refit work today. What’s got you so excited?”
“Well…” Linnet paused dramatically, “the probe the Navy sent to Luyten’s Star has transmitted its telemetry back.”
She paused and shot Sam an expectant look.
Sam hid a grin at her friend’s enthusiasm. “And?”
“Annnnd,” Linnet leaned in, drawing the word out in a manner intended to entice before her voice dropped to a whisper. “Rumor has it that the probe found chiral life.”
Sam laughed in disbelief. “You don’t believe that, do you?”
“Why not?” Linnet’s eyes gleamed with excitement. “Can you imagine? Actually finding right-handed life after nothing but centuries upon centuries of left-handed life would be—”
“Impossible?” Sam interrupted.
It was commonly understood that there was a distinct way atoms were oriented when found in nature. The building blocks of life bonded together in a very specific, ‘left-handed’ manner.
“Just because we’ve been unable to get mirror-image molecules to live outside the lab doesn’t mean nature hasn’t found a way,” Linnet protested. She lifted a hand to deflect Sam’s protest.
“I get that the odds of finding it are next to zero, but what if the rumor’s true? Wouldn’t that be the coolest thing ever? And wouldn’t you just love to study it?”
Sam pursed her lips, considering. “Maybe. You’d have to be very careful with it, though. There’d need to be protections in place.”
Linnet waved a dismissive hand. “Yeah, yeah, of course, but I’m talking about getting your hands on never-before-studied material from an unexplored planet.”
“That would be cool, regardless of its left- or right-handed orientation,” Sam admitted.
“Of course it would. Right-handed life would just be a huge bonus,” Linnet said in a dreamy tone.
“You’re drooling, Lin,” Sam teased. “Kind of more th
an most people would over the sexy new person they’re dating.”
Linnet shot her a look. “Don’t judge.”
“Wait.” Sam straightened, eyes narrowing. “It’s not just the science is it? There is a guy involved. I should have known. Who’s the lead scientist behind the probe?”
Linnet shrugged. “Well, it’s a Navy probe, so I suppose it’s their Chief Scientist.”
“Lee Stinton?” Sam made a face. The man was older, and as she recalled, married. That didn’t sound like Linnet’s type at all.
“Well, he’s got a pretty impressive biochemist working for him,” Linnet added, not making eye contact. “He might be here at the symposium.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere. Name? Rank?”
“Bill’s a civilian contractor,” Linnet protested, “he doesn’t have a rank.”
“Oh, Bill, is it?” Humor laced Sam’s tone. “Spill, sister.”
“His name’s Bill Peres, and he specializes in synthetic biochemistry, and no, I’ve never met him,” Sam’s friend admitted. “He’s the day three keynote.”
“Sounds like a smart guy,” Sam commented, and Linnet nodded vigorously, and then gestured with her wine glass.
“There he is; four o’clock. Dark gray suit, curly black hair, about to be accosted by one of your favorite people.”
Sam looked in the direction Linnet indicated and winced internally when she spied Bill Peres shaking hands with a man they knew from grad school days—Clint Janus.
“Poor guy,” Sam muttered. “Maybe you should go over there and save him from Mister God’s Gift to the Sciences.”
Caught mid-sip, Linnet spluttered a laugh into her glass. “You have to admit, Janus knows how to work the system. He could charm a snake if he tried.”
“He is a snake,” Sam countered hotly. At her words, she could feel Linnet’s gaze swing back to her.
“You’re thinking about the time he almost killed that woman, aren’t you?” Linnet observed.
Sam’s mouth twisted at the memory, but she remained silent. Clint Janus had been a first-year med student, shadowing residents like Sam at the time.
The Chiral Conspiracy – A Military Science Fiction Thriller: A Biogenesis War Prequel (The Biogenesis War Book 0) Page 4