by Jay Allan
A few seconds later, he found out that answer wouldn’t be forthcoming, at least not yet. “Lieutenant, Agent Caron…it appears that the mechanism on this door has been hacked. The lock has been disconnected, and we should be able to open it any time. Shall we proceed?”
The lieutenant turned and looked back at Caron. The Sector Nine agent paused for just a second, steeling up his nerve, pushing forward his curiosity, and his lust for the power success would feed so richly, and he nodded.
The lieutenant turned and gestured back to the two soldiers. Caron didn’t know much of the Foudre Rouge’s unspoken battle language, but he understood the gesture for ‘proceed.’
He turned to the side, an instinctive move to lessen his exposure to anything that came down the hall, and he watched as the sergeant poked once at the control panel…and the door slid open without incident.
The two Foudre Rouge turned and looked back toward Javais…and the lieutenant did the same to Caron. “Shall we move forward, sir?”
“Yes, by all means.” Caron had half-expected some kind of imperial weaponry to open fire, and a wave of relief swept over him at lack of any sign of danger.
For a few seconds. Then he realized the door had likely been hacked by one of the previous teams, that they had almost certainly come the way his people were…and that they had never been heard from again. He could feel his heartbeat echoing in his ears, and sweat pooling up along his neck and back.
He continued on, pushing one leg forward after the other, making each step with considerable effort. His hand dropped to his side, to the pistol holstered from his belt. It was a powerful weapon, as handguns went, but against the visions of imperial might beginning to dance around his head, it felt like a pea shooter.
He looked around the instant he walked through the door. It was a fairly large room, perhaps ten meters square, with several workstations, and a series of storage lockers. The cabinets were empty, most of their doors open, and a few broken and laying on the floor. He wondered if there had been anything in them before the previous teams had come through, or it they’d taken whatever they’d found.
If they did, it’s all probably inside somewhere, where they all…died.
He didn’t know they were dead, of course. He’d wondered if they’d just found something and gone into hiding, trying to keep it for themselves. That might have been possible for one group, but he couldn’t imagine three different teams digging up the courage to betray Sector Nine. The spy agency had spent almost two centuries building a reputation for ruthlessness, and it took a special kind of courage to challenge it to its worst.
The room looked like there had at least been some valuable electronics there, but the workstations had all been thoroughly picked over. That, too, was recent work, and again, almost without doubt, he decided that one or more of the previous teams had been through there.
The most interesting thing remaining in the room was a series of doors, two on the far wall, and one off to the right.
“Check the doors, Lieutenant. See if any—or all of them—have been tampered with.”
“Yes, sir.”
Caron walked over to the closest workstation, and looked down at the gaping hole where the electronics had been. The screen was still there, a razor-thin sheet of material—something like glass or plastic, but not exactly either. It had no visible power source, and Caron knew it was centuries old. Yet, it looked almost new, and he could have sworn there was a faint glow inside the thing.
“Agent Caron, the door on the right side is unlocked…again, apparently the result of recent hacking. One of the doors on the far wall as well. The one on the left appears still to be locked. We can connect the portable AI if you wish.”
The portable system was designed for a high-tech version of lockpicking. It was almost certainly more sophisticated than whatever the previous teams had used. Of course, Caron had no idea if they simply hadn’t gotten to the third door…or if they’d tried and failed to get through.
Or if they had gotten through and some active security system had relocked the door after they had passed. That last thought gave Caron a chill.
“See if the AI can work that lock on the third door.” The words came out almost involuntarily. He didn’t know the locked door held the most valuable artifacts behind it, but he intended to find out. And, if the others had not gone through that entry, if they’d gone through the two open ones…well, they didn’t come back from wherever they went, so that made those doors look nearly as sinister. “Lieutenant, send two-man teams through each of the other doors. I want to know what happened to whoever went that way before.
Caron walked over toward the door, standing about a meter behind Javais and his two soldiers. The other Foudre Rouge had fanned out across the room, taking up what looked very much like defensive positions. For an instant, Caron was concerned they had heard or seen something. Then he realized it was just standard practice, their Foudre Rouge training and discipline on full display.
A few minutes went by, and then one of the teams came back from the far door on the side.
“Anything yet, Lieutenant?” Caron was edgy, almost on the verge of ordering his party through one of the other doors.
“I believe we have found at least one of the previous teams, sir. They appear to be dead. The scouts also found what appear to be the remains of an imperial bot of some kind, probably a security unit.”
Caron wasn’t exactly surprised that some or all of those who’d come before his expedition were dead. In fact, he’d have been surprised to discover anything else. But the certainty of it still hit him with a dull coldness. “How about the lock? Any progress?” He turned back toward the forward door, his eyes resting on the two troopers hunched over in front of it.
“Negative, sir. The lock is significantly more complex than the others. The encryption is 32,768 bit. I’m no expert on cryptography, sir, but the AI advises the lock is vastly more sophisticated than anything possessed by our own technology.”
“The other locks aren’t the same?”
“No, sir…the lock we came through was 4,096 bit. Still extremely sophisticated, but on a level with our own most advanced systems.”
Caron wanted to pull away from the door, to give up on it at once. To not even look in its direction again. But he knew that wasn’t an option. Whatever the original imperial occupants of the facility had placed behind such sophisticated security, it seemed inconceivable to leave without investigating it. “Can you get in?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but I really don’t know. The AI is doing all the work, and its reports…” Javais put his hand over the small earpiece connecting him to the device. “…are all vague and non-specific. A machine’s way of saying maybe.”
It was the closest thing to a joke he’d ever heard from one of the Foudre Rouge, and if he’d felt anything except fear and tension, he might even have laughed. Instead, he said simply, “Proceed.” Then, a few seconds later: “Anything else from the other corridors…besides the bodies?”
“No sign of hostiles, sir, but as reported, there are remains of one or more imperial security bots of some kind. It appears that the parties were able to destroy or repel their attackers, but that they were all killed as well. Perhaps several survived with wounds, and were unable to escape.”
“Very well, Lieutenant. Carry on.”
Caron turned and looked back toward Bissel. His number two looked as nervous as he suspected he did…and she was trying just as hard, and unsuccessfully, to hide it. They’d both served in dangerous roles, and both had killed, and narrowly escaped death themselves. But the ancient imperial ruins were somehow…different.
Haunted.
He wasn’t sure if it was the centuries they had lain dormant or the incredible sophistication of humanity’s lost technology. Or just the realization of how little anyone on the Rim understood about their roots, about where humanity had come from. But something made the feeling of danger bite deeply, like a frigid sensation in hi
s bones.
He was about to ask Javais for another status update—a waste of time, he knew, but he was going to do it again anyway.
Then, the door slid to the side with a scratching sound that spoke of centuries since it had last opened. And, a second later, the door his people had used to enter the room slammed shut, and the lights went out.
Caron reached down and pulled out his pistol, even as he heard the sounds of the Foudre Rouge sliding their rifles from their backs. A light appeared in the center of the room, and then one directly ahead…the soldiers lighting their portable lanterns.
Caron stared straight ahead, and down the corridor past the newly opened door, he could see something in the flickering fringes of Javais’s lantern. Something moving.
Something heading toward his people.
Chapter Twenty
Free Trader Pegasus
Somewhere in the Endless Sea
Planet Aquellus, Olystra III
Year 302 AC
“We’re picking something up, Andi.” Barret was leaning forward at this station staring hard at the sporadic scanner data coming in. With half her scanning dishes and antennae stripped away, Pegasus was partially blind. But partially blind wasn’t blind.
“I see it.” She moved her hands over her own controls. She switched and cross-routed the data flow. “Let’s see if we can get the AI programmed to estimate location based on water movement.” Andi’s experience captaining the ship—serving on it in any way, for that matter—had been limited almost entirely to operations in space. Ships moving through near vacuum didn’t displace anything, but vessels moving through the water did.
And that difference might just save her people.
“Water displac…” Barret suddenly turned and nodded. “Yes, of course. We’ve got a good read on our depth, and the pressure levels and water movements just come down to mathematical formulas.” Barret spun back around, and his hands moved like blurs. Andi was staring at her own screen, following what her shipmate was doing. It had been her idea, perhaps, but as an ex-naval gunner, Barret knew his way around the scanner suite better than she ever could. Andi believed in taking charge when it was called for…and stepping aside when that was the right call.
She diverted her attention toward what to do if Barret could track whatever was coming—and she had no doubt it was Sector Nine. For an instant, she was afraid the ship that had chased them down through the atmosphere had pursued them into the sea as well. But it didn’t take long to confirm that the likely size and mass of whatever was back there wasn’t close to large enough.
Which didn’t mean it wasn’t dangerous.
“Everybody…get in your suits, now.” Just in case. Andi was hopeful she could deal with whatever threat had emerged, but she wanted everybody ready in case the hull was breached again, worse than it had been before.
And what will they do in their suits? Make it to the surface somehow, and float along on an endless sea with no hope of escape, no chance of rescue. Even assuming decompression sickness doesn’t kill them before they can make it up to the sunlight?
It didn’t matter. If Andi could keep her people alive for another hour, another minute, then she was damned well going to do it.
“And, Gregor…get down to the hold. Make sure everything is secured.” A pause. “Except one of the torpedoes. Make sure one of them is loose, and as close to the hatch as you can get it.”
“On it, Andi.” It wasn’t clear if the giant understood what she was planning or not…but then, she wasn’t sure it mattered, as long as he did what she told him to do.
She turned toward Barret. “I don’t imagine your gunnery skills extend to dumping a torpedo out of the hatch and into the path of…whatever that is out there. But that’s just what we’ve got to do.” It seemed desperate, but Pegasus’s lasers weren’t going to get the job done, not with the scanner suite a mess of twisted junk. Andi would never get her ship close enough to target the enemy, not before the presumably fully-operational vessel on their tails opened fire and obliterated Pegasus. She couldn’t even imagine what the ocean currents and the density of the water would do to the power and accuracy of a ship’s lasers, but it wasn’t an exchange she wanted to try without her scanners in top condition.
“We’ll make it work, Andi.” A pause. “The AI’s tracking the vessel behind us. It’s about three thousand tons…my guess is some kind of landing craft.” A pause. “And it’s not having any better a time in the water than we are. If it’s armed, it’s probably just a forward laser, which is useless down here, unless they get up right on our tail.”
Andi shook her head. That was just what the ship was trying to do. But she wasn’t going to let it happen. She’d ram the bastards before she allowed them to get the bead on Pegasus they needed to kill her ship.
“Increase thrust to thirty percent. Make it look like we’re trying to evade…but don’t try too hard. Let them think they can close enough to fire their laser. Then, we’ll drop the torpedo on them.”
Barret turned and stared back at Andi, and she understood the expression on his face. The torpedo was immensely powerful, a warhead designed for use in deep space. The problem wasn’t calculating a drop point to catch the enemy ship within the kill zone.
The problem was getting Pegasus the hell out of the kill zone.
“It’s our only option, Barret…unless you’ve got an idea I don’t.”
The gunner sat still for a moment, and then he shook his head. “No, I don’t have any other ideas…but if Righter doesn’t have the engine ready to blast at full—and I mean full—the second we let it go…” He didn’t finish the sentence. It didn’t need to be finished.
“Just get the drop point calculated. I’ll make sure we’re ready to get the hell out.” She wasn’t convinced she believed that entirely, but she was impressed with the certainty she’d managed to force into her voice.
* * *
“Enemy ship fourteen kilometers ahead, sir. They appear to be damaged, but they are still attempting evasive maneuvers.”
“Continue on our present course. Adjust our thrust lines to match their moves.” Francois Gabine sat next to the pilot’s seat. The landing sled had been designed to bring an attack squad of Foudre Rouge down to the surface of a planet—and the dozen clone soldiers were back in their places, strapped in and waiting for orders. But the landing craft had a different mission at that moment, one born of necessity. To track down and destroy the unidentified ship…assuming it had somehow survived the crash into the sea, something he had seriously doubted, but now knew to be true.
“We’ve got more thrust than they do, sir…or at least what they’ve shown.”
“If they had more, they’d be using it. Increase our output. We’re going to have to get close—and I mean close—to take that thing out with our laser under the water.”
“Increasing to maximum power, sir.”
Gabine felt the ship shaking hard. Full thrust was well beyond recommended levels for operations in water, at least to the miniscule degree that usage underwater had ever been addressed. But he knew the importance of the mission, and the consequences of failure. A lifetime of service to Sector Nine left no doubt about how such things were typically handled.
The ship rocked and shook even harder, but Gabine could see that they were closing on the target. The enemy was making a run for it, but they weren’t going to get away. He would make sure of that.
“Charge forward laser.” He leaned over the controls as he snapped out the command to his comrade.
He could hear the whining sound as the already straining reactor fed power into the weapon circuits. If the ship hadn’t been blasting its engines at full, the laser would have charged in twenty seconds or less. But unless he was going to slack off on the pursuit, it was looking more like two minutes.
“I’m working on a firing solution.” His hands moved over the workstation. Mostly, actually, it was the AI crunching the targeting data, though Gabine was adding all he
could to the process. He really didn’t know just how well-programmed Union targeting computers were for underwater fire, and he was going to do everything he could to make damned sure the thing didn’t miss.
He would do that not through prescient anticipation of enemy moves, nor detailed analysis of water currents and refraction. No, it would be far more simple and direct. He was going to bring his ship right up behind his target and open fire from so closely, missing was almost an impossibility.
He was damned near going to ram the thing.
* * *
“Andi, they’re getting closer.” Barret’s voice betrayed his stress. His hands were fixed on the makeshift trigger mechanism, the controls that would—hopefully—open the cargo hold door and drop the torpedo out behind the ship. It was a deadly dangerous operation, one calling for all the intricacy and detailed planning possible…and having almost none. Gregor and Lex Righter had thrown the rugged apparatus in the hold together with whatever spare parts they could fine, and then the engineer had connected it to the launch control system on the bridge through the primitive and straightforward method of running a heavy black cable the entire way across the lower deck, up along the ladder, and onto the bridge itself.
Andi had just flooded the cargo hold, an initial success for Righter’s machinations. When Pegasus had come out of the shipyard, she suspected the last thing anyone imagined the freighter would want or need to do was fill its hold with tons of water. But Righter had managed to rig the thing to do just that.
Hopefully without this saltwater eating away at half the mechanisms in there.
It was a desperate plan, one that Andi suspected would seem foolish, almost ridiculous, to an outside observer. She also knew it just might work. Assuming, of course, the pursuing vessel got caught in the warhead’s destructive radius—likely enough—and that Pegasus somehow managed to escape from it.