Riley couldn’t argue with that last point. Kumara would have to work hard if she wanted to replace Jason as the navigation officer. On the other hand, Riley felt as if every fiber of her being was screaming that she had to report Kumara.
“Sorry, ensign. I can’t let you endanger the ship and its crew. You’re on report.” Riley turned around and walked to the exit, having forgotten why she’d come to the washroom in the first place.
“You’re an insensitive, heartless regulations zealot,” Kumara yelled at her back.
Riley turned around and glared at the ensign. “What did you just call me?”
“C’mon, get on with it, destroy my career!” Kumara’s lips were trembling, and her eyes filled with tears. “You’re so perfect, you’ve never bent the rules, you’ve never made a mistake in your entire life. But we, normal people, aren’t like you. You’re a bionic machine, as efficient as you are heartless.”
Riley stared at her subordinate in silence. Deep down, she knew Kumara had a point.
“You’re a competent officer, ensign,” she finally said. “Be patient, and you’ll get your promotion. But I can’t let you take regulated substances without authorization and medical supervision. I’m willing to give you a warning instead of putting you on report, but you’ll have to do something for me. Give me the name of your dealer.”
Kumara took a deep breath and wiped her tears with her hand. “I’ll do it,” she said in a more composed tone. “I promise I’ll never touch any neuro-enhancers again.”
* * *
The dealer turned out to be one of the ship’s petty officers. The term petty officer took a literal meaning in this case. Riley found him in the cargo bay and confronted him.
“Mankind is fighting for its survival, and you’re profiteering from the war.”
The petty officer jumped, turned around, and snapped a clumsy salute. “What do you mean by that, ma’am?”
Riley showed him the transdermal syringe. “This thing has your fingerprints on it. No point in denying.”
The officer’s face turned pale. “I… I have authorization. I’ll show you the requisition form.”
“Drop the act. I know you sold neuro-stimulants to Ensign Kumara. I want your supplier. Then I want you to turn yourself in to Fleet Security.”
“I… I can’t do that,” he babbled.
Riley drew her blaster, a WBP 12-mm handgun, or Wells-12, renowned for its high stopping power. “I’m giving you a way out. The only other option is to take a spacewalk without a suit. Right now.”
“Please don’t make me testify against my suppliers,” he begged her. “They’ll kill me for sure, and they’ll make it slow. I don’t know their names. They’re on the Dionysus. The next drop is tonight. I’ll give you the cash, all that I’ve got. Please don’t throw me to Fleet Security. Their boss, he’s a homicidal psycho. The Bloody Colonel people call him. The president named him Chief of Security, can you believe that?”
“The Bloody Colonel? You mean Colonel Kor?”
The dealer nodded. Riley mused over the implications of this. Like Adrian, Talia, and Jason, she had a history with Kwan Kor. Two years back, he’d almost got them killed. She had no desire to involve him, but she had no authority to investigate drug trafficking on a civilian ship.
“Tell me,” she asked the petty officer, “do you think this stims traffic has anything to do with Multan’s organization?”
He shrugged. “How’d I know? It’s possible, yes. Multan’s followers pretend to have visions. Visions of divine origin, they claim. I bet it’s the stims that give them those visions.”
“Good enough for me. Give me the cash and sit tight. I’m not reporting you for now, but if I catch you again, you’re done.”
If Multan was somehow involved in drug trafficking, Riley had probable cause to investigate without involving Kwan Kor. After all, she was taking orders directly from the president, and her mission was top-secret.
She called Captain Hunt to inform him that she was on a classified mission for the president and took a shuttle to the Dionysus.
* * *
The shuttle docked to the Dionysus, a half-a-klick-long Hermes-class freighter. As the airlock doors slid open, Riley walked into a dimly lit corridor. It smelled of mold and engine lubricant. From the stains on the floor, it was obvious no one had bothered to clean the ship for weeks.
She scanned the corridor using the bionic sensors implanted in her eyes and detected a hidden cam. She hoped the traffickers wouldn’t see through her disguise. She was using a military-grade holo-projector that was making her look like the petty officer the supplier was expecting.
The dealer had explained the exchange procedure to her, and she followed it to the letter. She walked to the automated dispenser with a red sticker on it, punched a button to open its door, and placed a small briefcase with credit chips into the dispenser. The door closed and the machine whirred for a moment. When the door opened again, the dispenser contained a box of dark-gray nano-plastic.
Riley grabbed the box and carried it back to the shuttle. Then she armed herself with a bot launcher and shot an invisible hacking bot into the ship’s corridor. The bot knew what to do. It plugged itself into the cam and disconnected it. From now on, whoever was watching would see what Riley wanted them to see. In this case, an empty corridor and the closed doors of the airlock.
She displayed the 3D map of the ship on her HUD. A bright dot indicated the location of the briefcase. It was just a deck below in what appeared to be a control room. She deactivated the holo-projector, drew her Wells-12, returned to the corridor, and followed the map to the room, taking the stairs instead of an autopod.
The bionic multispectral scanners implanted in her eyes couldn’t penetrate the ship’s walls, maybe because the gangsters had covered them in some special coating. She felt blind, yet she pressed on.
The door of the control room whooshed open, and two males in their late teens walked out. One of them carried the briefcase.
Riley pointed her blaster at them. “Leaving already?”
They froze. Two other red dots appeared on Riley’s map.
“Drop it, or we’ll drop you,” barked a male voice coming from behind her.
She scolded herself inwardly for having fallen into such a crude trap. On the other hand, this gang seemed to be well organized, and the Dionysus was their turf.
“Not a chance in hell,” she snapped. “You move, I whack your two pals here.”
“You’re alone and on our turf,” the goon growled. “Drop your piece, and maybe we’ll go easy on you.”
Riley detected the smell of cheap body lotion as the goon moved closer to her. She lowered her blaster.
“Smart girl,” he growled. “I’ll have to search you. A full body search.”
His accomplices gave her lewd grins. “We’re all gonna search you, babe,” said the trafficker carrying the briefcase. “We’ll make it extra thorough.”
The briefcase flashed in a firework of sparks.
Riley thrust her elbow into the face of the goon behind her. He flew back with a scream. His accomplice fired at her, but she was already rolling on the ground, and his bolts hit the bulkhead. She fired. Three blue flashes lit the corridor, and the remaining traffickers collapsed on the floor, incapacitated.
She grabbed the injured goon by the collar of his shirt, lifted him, and slammed him against a wall. “Still wanna search me, piece of trash? You better talk, or I’ll break every bone in your body.”
“You can’t do that,” he wailed, holding his hand against his broken nose. “We have rights!”
She threw a punch into his stomach. “Oh, really? I’m no cop, I’m ASF. You interfered with my mission, and I’m authorized to use lethal force, if necessary, to carry it out.”
The goon moaned and writhed in pain. “What do ya want?”
“Everything. Start with the name of your boss.”
The goon spilled his guts. Unfortunately for Riley, he knew no
thing about any connections between his gang and Multan.
Damn. Maybe there’s no connection, after all.
She called Fleet Security and explained briefly what happened, without giving any details of her mission. When Kwan Kor and his people boarded the Dionysus, she was already gone.
25
In the hulk’s bowels
Riley didn’t have time to complete her mission. The next day, Admiral Winsley called the Remembrance to action again. Battlegroup Vega was to carry out a top-priority op and free high-value human captives detained on a Biozi prison ship.
During the first part of the op, the Remembrance and two other ships jumped to ambush a supply bioship, while the Phenix was dealing with a nearby Biozi station.
“Two escort destroyers are protecting the target,” reported Lieutenant Mitsu, technical expert.
“Remember, we need the supply ship intact,” Captain Hunt said. “Battlegroup, formation delta-three. Kumara, stand ready to intercept ordnance. Lance, warm up the ionics.”
The hostile escort destroyers started the festivities with a volley of Gamma-class missiles, targeting the Remembrance. Kumara shot defense bots and ordered the gunners of rapid-fire blasters to create a barrage of suppressive fire. A couple of missiles slipped through the defenses and hit the carapace, but inflicted only superficial damage. Gammas were lighter than deltas and couldn’t punch through the frontal carapace of a Cetus-class destroyer.
As the human ships entered optimal range, Riley ordered the ion cannon gunners to fire at the destroyers. They disabled the weapons first, then the thrusters of their targets. Next, the ion cannons disabled the supply ship so it couldn’t jump, while the ACBs finished off the escort destroyers.
Meanwhile, starfighters from the Phenix destroyed the Biozi supply station. The op was progressing according to plan. The comms jammer worked, and no Biozi reinforcements arrived.
The Remembrance docked to the disabled supply ship. Marines boarded and captured it, encountering only light resistance. Captain Hunt codenamed it Trojan. It could only transport a hundred marines, which wasn’t enough to capture a ship such as the hulk. However, Hunt had no choice. He would have to send his best warriors, and Riley volunteered to lead them.
“Hmm, I don’t know about that,” Hunt replied to her proposal. “I need you on the Remembrance.”
“I’ll be more useful leading the boarding strike team,” Riley insisted. “That’s the most delicate part of the entire op, and I’m the fastest bionic you’ve got.”
Hunt rubbed his chin pensively and finally agreed to let her go. Riley boarded the Trojan and told the marines to inspect their gear, double check and triple check everything.
Now there was nothing to do but wait. Sitting in a room packed with marines, she went through all the technical details at her disposal one last time. Intel on the structure of the hulk was sketchy at best. She didn’t even have the layout schematic of the ship.
As the Trojan jumped to the rendezvous coordinates with the hulk, it launched a stealthy recon drone Riley used to observe the stellar system. It was still in its infancy, still forming. The drone detected no planets, only clouds of gas and dust.
Navigating through such a system presented a significant challenge. The clouds played tricks on the sensors, and the map was full of ghosts. The hulk was nowhere to be seen. Everyone waited nervously, wondering whether the prison ship would show.
Half an hour later, Riley made out a monstrous silhouette emerging from a murky dust cloud. It was shaped like a coffin, one that could accommodate a 2-klick-tall colossus.
The Trojan moved to dock with the hulk. As the dark mass dotted with red lights drew closer, Riley felt her pulse quicken. No escort ships were to be seen.
That’s odd. Prison ships usually don’t travel without escort. There must be a reason the hulk flies solo. But even without escort, the prison ship could prove a formidable opponent in a space fight. We need to disable its weapons before Battlegroup Vega arrives.
The Trojan docked with a muffled thump. The airlock doors parted, revealing a corridor flooded with ghastly greenish light.
Disabling the security systems of the hulk was the priority. The marine specializing in hacking released an invisible bot that dashed into the hulk in search of cams or other surveillance systems.
A minute later, the hacker reported that the security systems in this section of the hulk had been neutralized. A green icon on Riley’s HUD indicated the boarding could start. She gestured to the marines, and they crept forward without a sound. Their blasters were equipped with silencers for this part of the op.
The first two squads secured the area without encountering any resistance. This section of the hulk seemed to be automated, and only a handful of Taar’kuun supervised the operations. The marines had no trouble dispatching them.
Next the strike team needed to find the human prisoners and ensure their safety. They also needed to seize the bridge to take control of the jump drive and ship’s weapon systems.
“Can you locate the prisoners?” Riley asked the hacker, who was working an IT terminal.
He shook his head. “I can’t access the main databank from here. The Biozi never store all the info in one place on a high-security ship like this one. I found a layout schematic, but it doesn’t specify where the cell blocks are.” He showed it to her on the terminal.
“Display the energy distribution grid. Forcefields draw a lot of power.”
The plan lit up with a network of orange lines and curves that resembled the circulatory system of a large living creature. That wasn’t surprising, as the hulk was one artificial organism, as are all bioships.
Riley pointed at a section on the upper decks. “What’s that? Looks like this zone draws a lot of power, but it doesn’t seem to contain any vital systems.”
“You’re right, that must be a cell block. Most of this power goes to maintain forcefields. I see several other locations that are also good candidates.”
“According to intel, there are several hundred humans and a hundred thousand Biozi inmates. Mainly political prisoners from the upper castes Raak’naar put away. We need to find the cell block where our people are detained.”
“I can check the food distribution system.”
“Smart. Do it.”
The hacker typed on the virtual keyboard, and the screen showed the food distribution network. One line appeared in red while the others were white. It led to the cell block on the upper decks.
“Gotcha,” the hacker said with satisfaction. “The red line shows where human food is delivered. What do we do with the Biozi inmates?”
“Nothing. Our orders are to rescue humans, not Biozi. But you just gave me an idea. Can you disable the forcefields in all cell blocks remotely?”
The hacker nodded. “Should be doable. On a bioship, the biosynthetic nervous system controls all equipment on board as the human nervous system controls the muscles of the body. As any system that relies on exchange of information, it can be hacked. For that, I need to get to a control room. There’s one just a deck below the human cell block. I can plug myself into the ship’s nervous system from there.”
Riley divided her company into three platoons. The first one would free the human prisoners, the second would take the bridge, and the last would defend the Trojan. She would lead the first platoon in person.
The marines proceeded to a transport hub where they boarded autopods designed to transport up to eight Taar’kuun, and large enough to accommodate ten people. Autopods would accept mental commands, if the user had proper cerebral implants, which Riley did. However, she preferred to use the control panel of the autopod and enter the destination manually, just to be on the safe side.
“We won’t stay concealed for long,” she said to her platoon while the autopod raced through the bowels of the hulk. “The Biozi will realize something’s wrong. There are two legions of troopers on board, and we don’t have the manpower to secure the entire hulk. We need to g
et our people out of their cells ASAP and escort them to the extraction point.”
The first stop was the control room. The marines dispatched the guards quickly and silently. The hacker found a cable that contained a biosynthetic nerve, and connected his nanocomputer to it. The squad secured the perimeter and waited for him to finish the hack.
“I found the list of all prisoners,” he said. “Our people are two decks above us.”
“Is there a young woman named Ophelia among the prisoners?” Riley asked. “Golden hair, blue eyes?”
The hacker shook his head. “Sorry, commander, your girl isn’t here.”
Riley sighed. That would’ve been too good to be true.
“Our timing has to be perfect,” Riley said to her platoon. “Squad Castor, defend this position. Atlas and Bellum will assault the cell block and free the prisoners. Bellum, you take the port entrance. Atlas, we’ll take the starboard.” She turned to the hacker. “At my command, disable forcefields in all Biozi cell blocks. Do the same in the human blocks two minutes after.”
Riley estimated that two minutes should be enough for squads Atlas and Bellum to reach the human cell block. While the guards would be busy restoring order in the Biozi cell blocks, the marines would free the humans.
“Ready? Go!”
The marines rushed to their positions. Riley led Squad Atlas to the autopod and set the destination for the starboard entrance of the human cell block. The autopod started, but didn’t get far before stopping abruptly.
They know we’re coming.
“Cut through the walls,” Riley ordered.
One of the marines fired up a military-grade plasma torch and cut a round opening in the wall. The squad rushed out of it. Before them lay a dimly lit passageway. The lights had turned from green to red, and a dense fog was crawling toward them.
“Switch to motion tracker and flashlights,” she called. “Our hyperspectral scanners won’t penetrate this fog. Formation sigma ten. Weapons free.”
The squad spread out as much as the passageway allowed, rapid-fire blasters at the ready. The HBR 7-mm, Heinlein-class automatic rifle affectionately called Lenny, was the standard-issue close-quarters assault weapon in the marines corps. Despite its average stopping power, it presented an optimal compromise between rate of fire, precision, and armor penetration. It was the weapon of choice against Biozi troopers during boarding ops.
Battlegroup Vega Page 17