by M. D. Cooper
“It is. We have a nice shell game planned for any of our friends who might be monitoring your ship’s activity.” The AI glanced over at Jason as he led the way up the shuttle’s ramp. “And I guarantee they’re watching you right now.”
“I don’t doubt it,” he replied, then switched over to the combat net.
“This is it, people. Stow your gear, take your seats. You launch in five,” Landon announced as he strode down the ramp. Clapping Jason on the shoulder, he wished him luck and headed for the bridge.
Jason nodded at Simone and slipped past Tobias and the Marines to join Logan in the cockpit. As he did, he reached out to Comm on the bridge.
The hitchhiker Jason referred to was Mirage. As soon as both ships exited the bay, and while they were still within the Avon Vale’s radar signature, the two ships would perform their own docking maneuver. The fighter would attach itself to the belly of the shuttle and then turn off its universal ident, thus remaining undetectable by scans from Phaethon’s STC.
* * * * *
The Citizen controller monitoring Phaethon’s Space Traffic Control sat up suddenly, the stack of plas films scattering on the console before her as she reached over to tap the icon that would send the feed to the main holo.
“Sir!” she called out, swiveling her chair around to face the commanding officer on duty. “The Centauri ship has launched a shuttle, and it’s headed to our side of the station.”
She nodded toward the holofeed that showed the icons representing the vessels in nearspace around the duty station.
Her fingers flew over the display in front of her as she highlighted the craft that had departed the Avon Vale. Captions scrolled beneath, recapping the interaction between the STC controller and the pilot of the vessel, the Sable Wind.
“What kind of a name is that for a proper spacecraft?” her superior scoffed as he glanced at the glowing ident the STC had tagged to the little ship.
In the next moment, she saw his eyes narrow as he read the text hovering beneath the radar map. Just then, they heard a comm sent from STC.
The unseen man sounded insolent and undisciplined to the Barat officer’s ear, and she could tell her boss had taken an immediate dislike to it.
The controller watching wondered briefly if it was a purposeful gambit. An attempt, perhaps, to try to obtain more information on the whereabouts of their ship’s captain? She’d heard that the woman was currently in their custody, enjoying temporary accommodations inside the Republican Compound’s lockup.
She saw her superior lean back in his seat as he watched the little craft approach, an expression of rapt attention on his face. Should it breach Barat sovereign territory, she rather suspected he’d enjoy the opportunity to have it shot out of the black.
In the next moment, however, she saw his expression morph into a scowl, as a Godel vessel more than twice the mass of the Centauri vessel veered from its flight path to intercept.
As the Baratian controller watched, the icons identifying the two craft did a little wobble-and-dance, the Centauri ship attempting to evade, but the Godel craft snagging it and drawing it into its hold.
Her superior glowered at the screen as if highly offended that his entertainment had been snatched away from him. He waved the holo off, and with a glare at the controller monitoring the STC channels, ordered her not to bother him again with trivialities.
Abashed, the controller murmured her apologies to the citizen officer and went back to sorting the stack of films she’d been working on since beginning her shift late that afternoon.
* * * * *
The tightbeam exchanged between the Godel transport and the Sable Wind included the IFF ident of a few Godel pinnaces known to be in the area, should they need to use them during their operation.
With a final ‘good luck!’ the transport rolled to interpose itself between the Barat section of the station and the two Avon Vale spacecraft. At the same time, it slewed slightly to port, exposing just enough of its engine wash to spike the sensors Barat was using to monitor nearspace. The radiation from its engines would more than mask the two spacecrafts as they became stealthy, turning off all transponders and shutting off their own engines.
As the transport adjusted its heading for the Godel marina, two blacker-than-black shadows—lost to Barat’s overwhelmed sensors—eased down toward the Barat side of the duty station.
* * * * *
Just before the shuttle dropped below the horizon created by the wheel of the duty station, the fission-powered mini sun that controlled its circadian cycle from the center of the spoke-and-wheel assembly dimmed as the station went into official night.
From inside, the view through the thick plas dome revealed the spars that made up the station’s spokes, the far view of the opposite side of the wheel, and the flickering lights of nearby space traffic.
The view from the shuttle’s front holo, by contrast, swelled with the image of seamed metal shielding that comprised the station’s underbelly as Jason piloted them ever closer to its surface.
He tapped the thrusters one last time, matching the Sable Wind’s angular velocity to that of the rotating surface of the duty station. Moments later, they hovered two meters above an out-of-service airlock, an entry point that had been sealed shut decades before, when Godel completed construction.
Simone assured them it would be the ideal entry point, and she’d brought the manufacturer’s override codes to ensure their silent entrance.
Logan’s stealth frame was hovering at the hatch, and Jason could sense a flurry of information pass between him and Charley on the periphery of his awareness as the two coordinated the seal of the shuttle’s collar around the airlock’s frame.
The Godel AI accessed the dormant panel and keyed in an override.
The shuttle sensors registered positive pressure, and Logan triggered the hatch.
The two teams filed off the shuttle and into the low-ceilinged, single-story underlayer that had been used as the foundation of the station.
MOTOR POOL, SLUDGE POOL
STELLAR DAT
E: 03.10.3272 (Adjusted Gregorian) 0330 hours, local
LOCATION: Beneath Barat Sector
REGION: Phaethon Duty Station, Little River
The lowest deck below the inner ‘surface’ of Phaethon’s ring was dimly lit and tall enough for the infiltrators to stand upright.
Well, most of us at least, Khela amended with a mental smile as she saw the two AIs adjust their frames to fit.
Intel had Calista housed in temporary lockup inside Republican HQ. Godel’s agent was being held in the compound’s long-term detention block. It was far enough from the main building that two fireteams were needed in order to extract them both.
Khela, Logan, and Ramon were Fireteam One. They were to go after the Godel agent, while Fireteam Two—Tobias, Jason, Lena and Tama—retrieved Calista. Calista was the primary target, so Khela’s team would hold back, ready to provide assistance, until the captain was secured.
After a short trek, the two teams formed up one level below the station’s main deck, around a pillar that housed the nearest node.
Lena slung her kit down by the pillar’s base and began to pry off an access panel for Tama to make use of the software toolsets Godel had provided to breach Barat’s network. Logan released reconnaissance drones down the length of the passage, while Khela pulled up the station map Simone had provided.
Tossing it onto the combat net, she highlighted the Republican Compound, then waited for the view to update based on the data Tama had just gleaned from behind Barat’s firewalls.
She suppressed a smile at Lena’s crisp, if distracted,
Tobias nodded, then pushed away from the wall.
Lena nodded to Khela and fell in behind Jason as the three disappeared down the corridor.
Khela consulted her overlay once more and tilted her head in the other direction.
Ramon grinned at her as he followed Logan’s frame into the dim recess.
* * * * *
Ten minutes later, and a kilometer further upspin, Jason raised himself up through an access hatch. It led to an area on the diagram graced with the uninspired label, ‘Citizens Housing Section Twelve’.
Stars, did these people just completely run out of names?
He crouched next to Tobias, taking in their surroundings with a glance, even as his overlay began to populate with data, streaming in from the microdrones Lena had set aloft that Tama now controlled.
The drones carried an array of multi-spectrum cameras and sensitive microphones. These would establish a surveillance perimeter that would warn of any humans approaching as the team infiltrated.
Each microdrone was hidden by its own cloud of colloid nanobots. These weren’t capable of independent motion; they were much too small for that. The cloud, comprised of sound-dampening and light-scattering nano, was there to conceal the drones themselves from any passerby with augments that might catch such things.
The microdrone’s thrusters handled the cloud’s transport, pulling the colloids along in their wake turbulence as the drones slowly rose in accordance with their own mission objectives.
Tobias’s frame cautiously crept toward the alleyway exit. Jason followed, lifting one shoulder in a half shrug.
he allowed.
He looked back toward the recess of the darkened alleyway, then let his eyes sweep up and across the three-story apartment buildings they stood between. The structures were fashioned out of rough-poured, lightweight plascrete. In a time long past, their surfaces had been whitewashed, but the intervening years had not been kind, and the paint had begun to peel, irregular patches revealing the dingy grey of underlaying formation material.
Jason swiveled as a rustling noise behind them caught his attention, and his IR caught something small, a rodent probably, scurrying across from one pile of discarded debris to another. He could just make out a label on the crumpled side of plastic sheeting: ‘beverage base powder—orange’. Its description reminded him more of institutional military rations than the type of refuse discarded by those living in a residential neighborhood.
They followed the drones to their objective, keeping to the shadows—a task surprisingly easy to do. As the service entrance came into focus, Jason’s lips tightened in frustration.
The feed revealed what the purloined Republican diagram had failed to record: the service entrance had been sealed shut.
That, too, hadn’t been listed on the map. The light was bright enough to illuminate the recessed entrance clearly—as well as several passersby—which meant there was no way their tampering would go unnoticed.
Jason shot her an amused look.
She shot him a dark look.
Jason shrugged and followed Tobias around the back of the coffee shop until they were once more in the shadows and could cross over safely.
* * * * *
As soon as the other team disappeared, Khela motioned for Logan and Ramon to take point. Both had their E-SCAR rifles at the ready, barrels describing slow arcs before them, clearing sweeps as they went.
As they traversed the shorter distance to their destination, Logan reached down periodically to adhere packets to the seam where the bulkhead met the station’s deck. These would serve as countermeasures to deter pursuers, should they find themselves under attack during their planned exfiltration.
They reached the access panel that would bring them up through the deck above and into the Baratian garrison’s garage. At a nod from Khela, Log
an released a nanofilament to check the panel for any sensors, and when none were found, he and Ramon began to work the panel free.
It came loose with a soft scraping sound, and the pair carefully rotated the rectangular slab and pulled it down. Above, a troop transport that looked like it had seen better days concealed the greater part of the cavernous garage.
One by one, the three members of the fireteam carefully pulled themselves through the hole, laying prone beneath the transport. Khela updated Simone and Charley, while Logan released a set of surveillance drones and colloids identical to those Lena controlled.
The motor pool appeared to suffer the same fate as most did across the known star systems. It was dark and damp, smelled of ozone and maintenance grease, and was infrequently occupied. It made a perfect infiltration point.
Khela rather suspected the transport had been left to rust, good only to scavenge parts for the occasional repair of other transports. She’d be surprised if it would even start, given its outward appearance.
That was fine by her; something that was in disrepair or obviously not in use was less likely to be monitored; certainly, the area around it would see less traffic than other areas within the garage.
Khela pursed her lips in thought, running the numbers in her head.
A single click was Charley’s response.
As she updated Tobias on their accelerated timetable, Logan cleared the garage of sensors, and Ramon advanced to the outer doors, where he threaded nano to peer out onto the compound’s common grounds.
Ramon announced.
Khela nodded and he slid the door open. Logan directed the drone cloud out into the compound proper; there, they would provide an eye in the sky overwatch.