Mindspace - Complete Series

by A. K. DuBoff

  He crossed his arms. “Nice speech, and maybe you do have a point, but that’s not the issue at hand. Why are you so insistent about these upgrades?”

  “Safety and security,” Trisha replied. “I can’t say more than that right now, but I give you my assurance as a citizen of this system that the Empire’s intentions are honorable. Please, assist the technicians with this installation.”

  “What happens if my crew and I refuse?”

  Trisha folded her hands on the tabletop. “Then you will be removed from your posts by force. I don’t want it to come to that, because I feel that would be the start of a civil war. Our people don’t need to be torn apart—we need to be united.”

  He eyed her. “I know there’s something you’re not telling us.”

  “I guess we’re acting like a real government now, then.” Ellen smiled. “You wanted your new chancellor? Well, Trisha here is as close to a political head of state as we have right now. Are you going to listen to her, or do you want to resist and put the people of this world at risk?”

  Bernard sighed. “What choice do I have? Install your bomaxed equipment.”

  “Thank you.” The tension went out of Trisha. “You won’t have any reason to regret this.”

  “I hope not.” Bernard rose from the table. “I guess we have a lot of work to do.”

  “Yes,” Eric agreed. “Gwen, let us know how we can help.”

  The video feed ended as the team at the polar station got to work.

  “Well done,” Ellen told Trisha.

  “Me? You did a lot of the talking.”

  More than I intended. So much for keeping my mouth shut. Ellen smiled. “You closed the deal.”

  She lit up. “I guess I did, didn’t I?”

  “I knew you could do it.” Ellen glanced toward the door. “You have everything under control. I need to attend to some other matters.”

  Trisha’s face drained. “What’s going on?”

  “Oh, that new tech we just convinced them to install won’t do a bomaxed thing unless we devise a new interface between the software systems.”

  “What?!”

  “Hey, I never said this would be simple.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Jasmine informed Kira in her mind.

 

  Kira felt energized after the sparring session with Jason and her subsequent practice of the new skills he’d taught her. Getting to stretch her legs, both in a literal and figurative sense, was a welcome change from being cooped up in her cabin.

  She tried to keep her mind off the mission ahead by thinking about how powerful her new abilities made her feel. Dashing across a cargo bay in a split second made for good fun, but getting to fight back against an enemy threatening her home would bring an even greater sense of satisfaction.

  Jasmine asked.

 

 

 

 

  Kira countered.

 

 

  Jasmine chuckled.

 

  While a shuttle from the Raven docked in the Conquest’s hangar, Kira made the trek to the belly of the ship so she could greet her team.

  Kira entered on a mezzanine at the midpoint of the room. Rows of fighters covered a third of the massive hangar’s deck, and racks of spare parts were suspended in a complex storage scheme near the overhead. Technicians were locking the shuttle’s final docking tethers into place. Two dozen additional workers were standing by at various stations throughout the hangar.

  Seeing them at their posts, Kira realized that the ship was on alert—ready for battle. She’d been almost exclusively in her cabin or training in the empty cargo bay, so she hadn’t noticed the preparations taking place around her.

  If I fail, those fighters and this ship are the last line of defense for the Elvar Trinary. With the thought, the reality of what she was about to do really set in.

 

 

  Kira frowned in her mind while she descended the stairway to the hangar deck.

 

 

  At the bottom of the stairs, Kira jogged to the shuttle.

  The side hatch opened, and Ari poked his head out. “Wow, this place is fancy.” He spotted Kira. “Oh, hey!”

  “Welcome aboard,” she greeted with a wave. The uneasiness in her stomach settled a little seeing a familiar face, but not enough to relax her again.

  Jasmine offered.

 

  Nia, Kyle, and Major Sandren followed Ari down the exit ramp. They took in the cavernous hangar with reserved wonder.

  “Ma’am, you’re out of your mind,” Ari said as he approached her.

  “Missed you, too.” She smiled back. “I know this plan is a little out there, but that’s how we roll.”

  “Aside from the part about you going in alone,” Kyle replied, crossing his arms.

  “I still don’t like it one bit,” Nia added.

  Behind them, Sandren cleared his throat. “I believe we have a briefing to attend?”

  “Sorry, sir.” Ari headed for the hangar exit on the deck level.

  Kira fell into pace next to Sandren at the back of the group as they headed for the door. “Thank you for believing in me, sir,” she said.

  “You really shouldn’t be thanking me. My endorsement of this plan doesn’t mean I like it. But, I respect any soldier who would volunteer to put their life on the line like this. We have a high bar for what constitutes the call of duty, but you’re exceeding even that.”

  “I kind of have to. I’m the only one who we know can go in there.”

  “You are, but that doesn’t change the courage required to rise to the occasion.”

  “All in a day’s work, sir.” She smiled.

  “You’re a fine officer, Kira. You’ll have a great future here in the Guard.”

  Assuming I make it out of this alive. The thought was intended to be private, but Jasmine must have picked up on her shift in mood.

 

 

  Kira and Sandren caught up with the rest of the team, and she led them to the conference room where Kaen was waiting to brief them with Jason.

  The room was situated on the outer bulkhead of the ship, and an expansive viewport offered a terrifying view of the alien ship.

  Ari stopped in his tracks as soon as he saw it. “Holy fok,” he whispered under his breath.

  “Yeah,
it’s big,” Kira whispered back.

  “That’s an understatement.” Nia shook her head. “It looks like a normal ship from here, but I know we’re nowhere close to it.”

  They team did a second double-take when they saw the young TSS Agent captain of the ship.

  “Jason Sietinen,” he greeted. “Welcome aboard the Conquest.”

  “You’re…” Nia faded out.

  “Please take your seats,” Colonel Kaen stated. He sat in the chair at the head of the table.

  Kira quickly found her seat on the far side of the table next to Jason, facing the door—leaving the side facing the viewport for her teammates. She’d already had her fill of looking at the enemy target.

  “We’ve had a number of teams working on various components of this plan, and it’s time all the pieces come together,” the colonel began. “We are the core team. Kira will be inside the enemy ship, Agent Sietinen will be in command of the Conquest with me functioning as a Guard liaison, and the rest of you will be on the Raven, hacking the alien ship.

  “The plan is relatively straightforward. The Raven, being smaller and with stealth capabilities, will approach the enemy vessel and maintain active signal cancellation to prevent the Trols from gaining control of the ship or crew. Kira will take a stealthed shuttle from the Raven and dock with the alien vessel. She will then proceed inside to plant a backdoor in the first node with ship-wide communication she can identify, which the team on the Raven will use to hack in and disable the alien ship’s defenses. The Conquest will then fire the TK weapon to destroy the target.

  “Of course, executing the individual parts of that plan will be challenging. The purpose of this meeting is to identify and fill in the gaps in our tactics.”

  When he concluded, Kaen looked around the table. “This is an open discussion; please speak freely. The first matter for us to discuss is the point of ingress.” He brought up a holographic model of the alien sphere. “Ideas?”

  “I think it needs to be near that collection of towers,” Kira said. “I’ve been over the model several times, and three potential access points have jumped out. The first is here.” She glided her finger across the touch-surface desktop to rotate and zoom the image, focusing on a shadowed area at the base of the central tower. “You can’t see it very well in this image, but there’s what looks like a hangar bay entrance here in the shadows. There’s a smaller doorway that I could bring the shuttle through.”

  “Question.” Kyle’s hand shot up. “Is there atmosphere in this thing? Are you going in an EVA suit or powered armor?”

  “Uh…” Kira glanced at Kaen and Sandren. “I was going to get to that later, but I think I need to go in some light body armor. There is a breathable atmosphere inside—similar to the dwarf planet. The new abilities I’ve been practicing are better than what I could do in powered armor. It would just hold me back.”

  “You intend to be in the Robus state for this mission?” Kaen asked.

  “Not while I need to do precision work with my hands, of course, but movement will be a lot faster in that form.”

  He nodded. “I suspected you’d suggest as much. Jasmine will need to monitor your vitals for any sign of contagion, but there are distinct advantages to going in without a closed suit.”

  “I’ll be on high alert,” Jasmine acknowledged over the audible comms.

  “So, not having a suit,” Kira continued, “I need a place to set down inside, or where I can get a seal. That first location I pointed out offers a direct way inside, but going into a massive hangar might not be the best approach.

  “That’s why I identified this second option.” She rotated the image again, this time to a recess at the base of one of the outlying towers. “Each of these secondary towers offers direct access deeper into the ship, based on our scan data. This one, though, and the one opposite, also have corridors leading to the central tower. Twenty-three kilometers beneath that central tower is the chamber containing a node like we saw on Gaelon.”

  “With the interface Leon’s team developed, you won’t have to go all the way down there,” Sandren interjected. “But finding a corridor that connects to the central node will almost certainly give you the right channel to tap into.”

  She nodded. “Looking at those design specs is what gave me the idea. My initial thought was I needed to find the most direct route to physically get to the center, but that design should enable me to stay relatively close to the surface.”

  “My concern with the entire plan is that we can’t fire until you’re clear from the alien ship after the equipment is in place,” Jason spoke up. “We may not have a very long window between gaining access and when they figure out how to block us again.”

  “And the deeper I go, the longer it will take to get out. Yeah, I know.” Kira sighed. “That’s what led me to the third option.”

  Jason tilted his head. “Which is?”

  “I take the shuttle in through one of the cylinders. The top is open to space, but the artificial gravity holds atmosphere inside at the bottom, just like on a planet. I can take the shuttle down and be close to the core without having to worry about docking doors and all that. Being closer to the shuttle also means I could make a faster escape after the equipment is in place.”

  “A quick exit is critical,” Kaen stated. “I don’t like the idea of you being near so many of those ‘pits’, or ‘nests’—whatever they are—but the logistics of that location make the most sense.”

  Kira inclined her head. “I agree, sir.”

  “With the access point established, the only remaining preparation is testing the frequency generators for Kira’s suit and the hacking module. Any questions before we adjourn?” The colonel looked around the table.

  “How long will it take us to get clear of the blast zone?” Sandren asked.

  “Based on the planned holding distance from the alien ship and the Raven’s maximum acceleration, you will need a minimum of three minutes and twenty-seven seconds to clear the lethal range of the TK weapon’s blast,” Jasmine replied over the comm.

  The major nodded. “We’ll call it four minutes to be safe. We’ll need to time it just right, so the hack corresponds with the time we’re at a safe range.”

  “That will be nearly impossible to plan, but we’ll do our best,” Nia said.

  “Any other thoughts?” Kaen asked.

  Ari raised his hand. “After we beat these guys, do we get another party?”

  Kira said to Jasmine.

 

  Kaen chuckled. “I think we can arrange something. Dismissed,” he said to the attendees, but nodded toward Kira to indicate she should stay.

  His eyes met hers as the last team member left the room. “I would be remiss in my command duties if I didn’t ask you one last time: are you sure about this?”

  “Absolutely,” she replied without hesitation. “I trained for this. I’m ready.”

  Kaen rose from the table. “Very well. Let’s begin.”

  CHAPTER 15

  “You’re really going in only wearing that?” Kyle asked while eyeing Kira’s light armor.

  She grinned back. “Isn’t it stylish?”

  “Fashion isn’t my reason for asking.”

  Ballistic padding covered her torso, elbows, and knees, but the rest of her was completely exposed, aside from the minimal protection offered by her shipsuit. To freely transform to her Robus state and back, the flexible attire was necessary.

  Kira patted Kyle on his shoulder. “I appreciate your concern, but there aren’t big scary guys with guns inside this ship. The dust particles won’t be able to get me with the charged suit skin, whether it’s powered armor or this stuff.”

  “All the same, you’re bringing your sidearm,” Sandren said.

  She smiled. “I’d never think of going anywhere without it.”

  Nia stood up from the console where she’d been working. “All right. Let’s gi
ve this a test run.” She shooed everyone away from Kira. “I apologize in advance if the intensity isn’t right.”

  An electric shock ignited Kira’s skin. “Ow!”

  The sensation of jabbing needles receded, but she still sensed a lingering charge.

  “Whoopsy.” Nia blushed. “Overdid it there a little.”

  “I take it you weren’t trying to electrocute me.” Kira rubbed her hands along her forearms in an attempt to diminish the strange tingling sensation.

  “The charge needs to be strong enough to flow through the entire suit without being so strong as to do that,” Nia replied. “Getting an even intensity across all zones is tricky.”

  “Ever thought of starting low and ramping up?” Kira looked at her friend from under her brow.

  “Yeah, well, if you’re so tough now, you can take it.” Nia smirked. “Let’s try this.”

  Another charge tickled Kira’s skin, but it was more of a background hum.

  “I can definitely tolerate this level,” she reported.

  “Coverage looks good,” Kyle observed from a station next to Nia’s. “Let’s see how that plays with the module.”

  The device they’d constructed for the remote hack was a black box the size of Kira’s two hands. A prong on one side would serve as a physical jack, which would offer a more secure connection than tapping in through the wireless network. To keep the ship from expelling the foreign device, its shell would be charged with the same frequency as Kira’s suit.

  Unfortunately, they would have no assurances that the countermeasure worked until they were on board the ship.

  Kyle hooked the test equipment up to the device, powered it on, and then returned to his computer.

  “Charge looks to be evenly distributed and holding,” he reported.

  “Fingers crossed.” Nia disconnected the device. She handed it to Kira for her to stow in her cross-body satchel.

  “There’s also this,” Kyle said, grabbing a similar-looking device from his desktop. It was half the size of the main module. “This is a signal booster, of sorts. You shouldn’t need it, but you can place it in a central location as a signal relay if we’re unable to connect directly with the main device.”