by Daniel Gibbs
Two? Dwyer shared a look with Sev, who shrugged. The latter was ready to draw his pistols, especially as they neared the arch and the crowds thinned out.
Then the huge corridor’s lights blinked off. The cries and shouts of two hundred or more people rolled over Dwyer like a wave. Emergency beacons popped on within three seconds, but it took only that long for clumps of panicky folks to run in all directions. Mostly newcomers. The regulars were the ones who froze in place. And visitors should know better than to try to run in an unfamiliar station.
Dwyer saw one of the guards had disappeared. A hazy silhouette hurtled toward the next one. He dropped to the deck, obscured by the crowd—but Dwyer glimpsed his arms and legs flailing out of control before going limp.
“Make or break, Severino.” Dwyer waved them forward.
The trio wove through the thinning crowds and the arch as the other two disguised officers opened fire at the shape already twisting out of their reach.
On the upside, stun rounds wouldn’t lethally injure the bystanders screaming and ducking. The downside, those fleeing pedestrians made it more difficult for Dwyer and his companions to break through—and mired them in a heap of twenty scared travelers.
“Get out of there! Patrol drones inbound!”
Dwyer glanced back and hoped to God Gina had something fantastic up her stealth-camouflaged sleeves because he didn’t want to shoot into a crowded civilian area—and he would prefer if Sev didn’t either. But the drones must have pinged them because the remaining two guard shouted and aimed their automatic weapons his way.
Sev was fast. He shoved Dwyer so hard the next think Dwyer knew, he was on the floor, shielding his face from being stomped on. Sev’s pulse pistols flashed, and for a horrible second, Dwyer thought they would have dead officers—corrupt, yes, but dead civilians, nonetheless.
But the blasts were aimed wide, not only missing the officers but causing the drones to zero in on Sev. Their mounted stun projectors whirred into position.
Pulse flashes stabbed from the shadows beyond the guards. One of the drones exploded. Garza shot down the second one.
“You’ve got a ten-second window coming up if I can trigger another power surge—go!”
Before Dwyer could ask the LT what in the blazes he meant, it turned out blazes was what he meant, because every light fixture that had gone dark shone at the max end of its brilliance capacity, some so bright they hummed.
That time, Sev got their group moving.
Here we go again, Dwyer thought as he staggered and ran on a twisted ankle.
Kiel scowled as the drone feeds went dead. Again. At that rate, he would have to requisition more from his supplier before the heist unless he drew others off their preprogrammed patrol routes. “Are you certain the interference is recurring?”
“Very. It’s not the same signal frequency they used on Aphendrika but within a matching range.” Yahanotov tweaked one of his controls. “You were right to suggest jamming throughout the range earlier. I’m definitely getting pushback.”
Which meant whoever the Coalition had sent was using similar signals interception and disruption methods. Kiel smirked. He’d suspected CDF Intelligence was behind Nels’s actions, but this intervention confirmed it—to great effect. He spun back through his comms device, searching for the recording he’d made months ago, the one in which he’d taunted the person designated Echo One.
“No good on visuals,” Yahanotov muttered. “The feeds from stationary posts near Soar East were disrupted. Drones couldn’t give us faces either—though the runners did discard their masks.”
“A bold risk,” Kiel said. “Keeping them secures their identities but also draws suspicion. Blending into crowds was the right move. Where are they—”
An alert flashed on Yahanotov’s monitor. He swore in Russian. “First an outage, now a surge? Their tech is good, sir. He’s in and out of the power systems before I can react, which means Bellwether’s doing no good at all.”
“I’m shocked, really I am. Give me the link when you’re ready.”
“One moment… all right, sir, you’re up.”
Kiel reached for his mug. He blew steam from the tea and sipped. Adding honey soothed the sore throat the damnable filthy conditions seemed to render. “I know you’re listening,” Kiel began. “Perhaps you’d like to know I’m listening too.”
Ponder that. He watched the screens and waited for his enemy to stumble.
Brant’s fingers froze on his console. For a second, his mind, usually filled with procedures and counteractions to enemy stratagems, was blank. Fear chased his plans away.
But he forced himself to think by reminding himself he could rely on God for salvation and could wield prayer—something the same enemy thought a foolish waste—to real effect.
“Echo Home to all.” He kept his tone neutral, his words clipped. “Enact comms burn. Repeat, enact comms burn.”
The instant he sent the warning, Brant executed an emergency dump of all saved data and his herd of algorithms onto a portable drive attached to his setup. He yanked it free with one hand as he pried open a panel on the left side of the largest unit. A red switch inside was secured by a black strip of binding tape. Brant ripped the tape off and flipped the heavy switch. All his screens died. All lights on the myriad units crammed into the tiny loft went dark.
Brant scooped up his bag, pocketed the drive, and slipped out the front door into his neighborhood’s main corridor. He breathed deep and regular, offering up a prayer not only for his protection but that of his team. Anyone who came looking for the origin of what had been Covert Action Unit 171’s primary signals range would find cooling lumps of melted plastics and wiring, the sophisticated works reduced to an elemental mess.
Easy, Brant urged. They’ll know what to do. The backup’s in place.
And that time, they would make sure the enemy could never find it.
Gina caught the two officers in their rib cages with her last two disruptor rounds before she needed to reload. Which, of course, was when the lights blazed on. She sighed. Did the boys not realize the whole point of a stealth suit was negated in blinding illumination?
But when the signal burn message came through and Brant’s constant commentary went silent, she forgot her complaints. Dwyer and Sev were on their own.
Gina had to disappear, so she slipped into a side corridor and stripped from her suit, revealing a form-fitting civilian one-piece. In a few minutes, she ran into the crowds, which were still surging around the terminal, and made for an emergency exit like she was just as scared as another tourist.
Jackson stopped as Fernand entered a passageway. Without comms, he would have no backup. And the signal burn order was one he couldn’t ignore, not without putting the entire team in genuine peril.
He could almost hear Harry laughing at him. He was sure that bastard Vasiliy was.
He still had time before the rendezvous. He couldn’t catch up with his team, which left him on his own. Operationally, he was at the moment of greatest risk.
But it was twice now the League had latched onto their supposedly encrypted communications—once to flaunt, once to interfere. He had to stop them. Jack ground his teeth and stepped into the passageway.
14
Shuttle Bay Golf Sixteen West Eight
Bellwether Station—Caeli Star System
22 November 2464
* * *
Sevastopol Rast could not imagine a more chaotic scene, what with pilots and passengers scrambling for their ship throughout the hangar bay, and he had lived through riots on his homeworld when the League had brutally suppressed the impoverished citizens. So-called social equality mattered little when one side had the weapons and the other had rocks.
His objective, though, was clear—get Warrant Dwyer and Lieutenant Garza safely to Novabird and secure their exit route off Bellwether Station. Hiding aboard the massive space habitat was no longer an option. Tactisar was aware of their presence, and the League agents
continued to hunt Garza, so Sev doubted they would have a moment’s peace.
Peace. “Guard yourself against fear, Sev.” Mother’s voice was as soft and fluid as if she’d been standing beside him. “Let peace remain in your heart.”
I will, Mother. Peace.
His shoulder collided with another man’s.
The squat brute glowered at him. “Watch it!” His spittle sprayed into Sev’s face.
Peace.
Sev swung his pistol, the barrel catching the man across the nose. Blood spewed onto his shirt, but the man had no time to react before Sev swept his legs out from under him. A quick stomp to the chest left the impolite spacer gasping on the deck.
There. Peaceful.
Warrant Dwyer shouted a warning or an order—the latter of which Sev figured didn’t apply to him, since he was a civilian—but he respected the deliverer. Garza had fallen. The man seemed exhausted, possibly due to malnourishment, though that would be up to Oxford’s medical staff to determine. What Lieutenant Garza needed was help. Sev holstered his pistols, hooked his arms around Lieutenant Garza, and hoisted the smaller man over his own shoulders in a fireman’s carry.
More people yelled. Why do they always have to yell? The sounds became an overlapping cacophony pounding at the inside of Sev’s head. He narrowed his focus—Warrant Dwyer running ahead of him, Lieutenant Garza’s breathing as he held on, his own boots slapping against the deck plates, Novabird resting in her berth like a falcon ready to take flight.
“Drones!” Dwyer’s cry came less than thirty meters from the boarding ramp.
Ten patrol drones swarmed the hangar, at first fanning out to scan for their targets then forming into a two-layer arrowhead when they found who they were looking for. Sev ran the scenario three times in a matter of seconds and knew he would be unable to shoot them all down without being stunned and taken into custody, never mind without risking injury to Lieutenant Garza.
He wished Gina were there to help him. No one would do better in such a situation. But he’d heard the comms burn message, assumed she’d followed the protocol and gone to safety.
Sev was still trying to calculate when he could drop the lieutenant and shoot when the roar of thrusters overwhelmed all other noise. The launching shuttle’s exhaust forced him to his knees, man-made winds whipping at his clothing. A Florio Ionworks Mark Six courier wheeled overhead, variable wings twisting as thrusters sputtered. The pilot was a marvel—more than once Sev was sure the courier would snap a spar when it came too close to the other parked craft or the hangar berths themselves.
Weapons flashes ripped through the incoming drones, turning them to smoldering embers.
Warrant Dwyer had made it to the hatch. He whooped and hollered, the name “Ava” clearest among the words—his pilot acquaintance. Sev grunted. Captain Adams was always going on about human intelligence. Sev could see then the advantage of curating such a resource.
Then he was at the hatch, dumping Lieutenant Garza through. Novabird’s engines already hummed through their startup regime.
“Seal it!” Warrant Dwyer shouted. “I’m puttin’ her on the roof!”
He was not exaggerating. The moment Sev slammed home the hatch, Novabird howled. The sudden acceleration would have knocked Sev to the deck had he not been holding one of the rungs welded by the controls. He could see the hangar berths at an angle approaching ninety degrees. It was a good time to strap Lieutenant Garza and himself in.
“The station keeps the primary hatches open during the initial stages of an emergency, just like they do during normal traffic,” Garza wheezed as Sev helped him to a fold-out seat. The straps clicked into place. “But if Tactisar is in pursuit of suspected criminals, expect them to try for a lockdown.”
“Relax.” Sev figured any instruction beyond that was unnecessary for the moment. He wished he could share his mother’s recipe for calming thoughts, but that was between Sev and her. No one else was worthy of the knowledge.
He fought his way to the cockpit and slid into the copilot’s seat. Warrant Dwyer was a different man when he was at the controls—he spoke with the same inflection, cracked the same jokes, but he never wavered in his concentration. Novabird responded as surely as if the man were taking flight with his own wings.
“Now for the fun part.” Dwyer’s tone had a hard edge to it, but he still managed a sly grin. “How’s about you unlock the weaps console and we get her talons ready?”
Sev nodded. The thought of removing the people aboard Novabird from danger filled him with calm.
Aboard CSV Tuscon, Mancini scowled at the tactical board. As if the normal Caeli system traffic wasn’t bad enough, Bellwether was disgorging shuttle after shuttle. Even some of the big freighters were scooting out.
“Space is filling up quick,” Godat murmured.
“It’s going to make interdicting all the more difficult,” Mancini agreed. “Comms, what’re we hearing?”
“Comms, Conn. I have overlapping signals between freighter captains and private shuttles, with Tactisar security bulletins breaking through every couple of minutes,” the comms officer said. “All approaching craft are being warned to maintain a holding distance of fifty klicks, minimum. They also say main doors are closing soon.”
“We’ll see if that prediction comes through. TAO, what’ve we got on Novabird?”
“Conn, TAO. Reading her drive signature leaving the docks now, through the ‘west’ hatch,” Olesen reported. “Aspect change, Master One, Two, and Three—they’re altering course to intercept Novabird and accelerating.”
“TAO, charge the EMP. Pilot, maintain present course and speed.”
“Conn, Pilot. Maintaining course and speed, aye, Skipper.”
Mancini checked the clock. Six minutes to intercept. “TAO, time until Master One through Three catch up with Novabird.”
“Conn, TAO. Estimated time until their courses converge is four minutes thirty—change in aspect. Novabird, accelerating on a new vector.”
There she went. Mancini allowed a tight smile as he watched the racer’s course alter at a startling speed. Let the gunships chase her heels.
“EMP, Skipper?” Godat asked.
“That’s what I’m thinking, XO.” Mancini reached for his coffee cup. Empty, save for sludge. “Tactisar doesn’t rise to the level of a traditional threat. But if they try to take out Novabird, we’ll disabuse them of the notion they’re in control of local space.”
Dwyer couldn’t help but grin at his displays as he banked Novabird past the hulk of a Saurian hauler as the shuttle entered Bellwether’s main docking ring. It warmed his heart to see how Ava Vardanyan used her Florio courier to sweep the patrol drones off his and Sev’s scents. Granted, he could have used a whole squadron of pilots like her, but he was happy for any intervention on his behalf.
He prayed for a bit more of the divine variety as he spun Novabird over and around a second freighter heading for the west hatch.
Bellwether’s docking ring was the rim of the giant mushroom shape, and with alarms flashing on every display from personal comms to shipboard nav systems, the cargo vessels inside were making their way cautiously but determinedly toward one of the four huge open hatches. Poor word. Dwyer watched their range to the yawning rectangles of star-studded space drop. Monster doorways is more like it. A pair of Audacious-class supercarriers could breeze out side by side with plenty of room for an Ajax destroyer to slip between. It should be no problem for his li’l old racer.
“Gunship.” Sev flagged the incoming mark on the tactical display.
“Sure is.”
Dwyer’s last maneuver had put two huge freighters between Novabird and the berth they’d blazed out of, but he had no doubts about the gunship’s nimble nature. The Trebizond-class was ten meters longer than Novabird, bulkier, with all six small-bore magnetic projectile weapons and a centerline plasma cannon. Dwyer glanced at Sev’s technical readout. It was the four gaping engines and the thruster ports studding the hull that worri
ed him. Novabird was fast in space and equally fast in atmo because of her streamlined fuselage. The latter didn’t amount to a hill of beans without air resistance.
“Private shuttle Novabird, this is Bellwether Docking Control.” The voice pestering him through the station’s channel was female and sounded like his grandma being peevish about Dwyer swiping the last cookie from the jar. “You are not authorized to depart. Decelerate and depower your primary systems. Tactisar Security Solutions will rendezvous to impound your craft and remand you into custody.”
Dwyer killed the connection. “That’s a big nope, Bellwether Control,” he muttered.
“I take it this is a modification of your original extraction plan?” Duncan Garza slipped into another of the seats behind the cockpit.
“You could say that, sir.” Dwyer made himself cognizant of the lieutenant’s rank even as he pushed Novabird’s engines to their maximum thrust. The shuttle’s familiar hum doubled in volume, acquiring a buzzing edge. He’d never had the chance to see just how fast she could get them out of trouble until then. “Ideally we’d have kept you hidden at one of our safe points aboard Bellwether before shipping you out to Oxford.”
“Colonel Sinclair’s in the system?” Garza exhaled.
“Problem, sir?”
“No, I’m relieved, but I don’t think he’ll be as happy to see me as I will him.” Garza gestured to the cockpit windows. “Provided we get clear of this mess.”
Mess was the right word. More freighters were circling Bellwether outside the docking bays, following a counterclockwise orbital path. Emergency warnings were urging all craft to move away onto a fifty-klick course.
A new signal popped through. “Private shuttle Novabird, this is Tactisar gunship Tango One-Niner. Slow up and prepare to be boarded. You pass the hatch, we will open fire.”
“Friendly.” Sev followed up his laconic observation by flipping a row of switches over his head. A set of controls lowered from the cockpit ceiling.