by Daniel Gibbs
“Vigilant,” Sev noted.
“Yeah, I suppose. Same as being in a cockpit, right?”
“With a worse view but better chow,” someone said to his right.
Dwyer’s hand dropped to the edge of his jacket, under which was a pulse pistol concealed behind his belt, but the sudden pressure in his ribcage told him drawing would be a bad idea. “Hey, uh, don’t want any trouble now, friend.”
“I’m sure you don’t, Sparks.”
Sev chuckled.
Dwyer glimpsed their reflection in a storefront as they walked by, their new trio, and did his best to remain startled and dismayed when he saw Captain Adams in his full Tactisar rig. “I’ve never been happier to have the local law flag me, Cap’n.”
“Good to have you both back,” Adams agreed. “But let’s cut the chatter until I can properly shake you two down for my daily graft.”
He escorted them into a side corridor, one lined with doors and crisscrossing catwalks. Four floors up, the door to a loft—unremarkable from the mess—admitted them. Home sweet home.
Jackson made sure the loft hatch was secure before he faced the newly reunited team and let himself relax. He turned in time to see Gina plant a kiss on Dwyer’s cheek—the man could blush with the best of them—then on Sev’s. Jackson realized Sev’s cheek was double its normal size and somewhat lopsided.
“Gang’s all here, Jack.” Gina perched on the arm of the couch. “Does this mean the fun can begin in earnest?”
“I hope y’all are talking about the heist,” Dwyer said.
Brant looked up from an array of schematics spread across his displays. He rubbed his eyes. Jackson handed him one of the five small coffee cups set on an end table. “Thanks. Which heist are you thinking about, Sparks? Ours or theirs?”
Dwyer accepted a cup from Jackson and sipped. “Come again?”
“Brant’s right,” Jackson said. “But before we get started—Ehud, Sevastopol, I’ve come to realize I shouldn’t have put you all in the risky position I did. My actions stepped over the line from focused to selfish in my pursuit of the League. I hope you can forgive me for the lapse in judgment.”
Sev and Dwyer looked at each other. Jackson read their expressions as unsure of how to process the admission—well, Dwyer’s expression, anyway. In watching Sev’s face, Jackson might as well be trying to discern emotion from a destroyer’s hull.
“Shoot, Cap’n, I—we didn’t think you’d tossed us out a cargo hatch. I figured something else came up. It put us in a tight spot, sure, but… no point dwelling on it, sir. All’s forgiven.”
Jackson hadn’t noticed the tightness in his own chest until it eased. “All right, then. Thanks. Sev?”
The taller man watched him for two silent seconds, drank from his coffee, then rumbled, “Do better.”
Brant snorted.
“That is the plan.” Jackson clapped Brant on the shoulder. “And speaking of plans…”
“Right.” Brant worked his console, filling the loft with a smaller version of the plans Jackson had recorded during the meeting Ramsey hosted. Tiny projectors mounted in the corners of the loft allowed anyone to manipulate all or part of the hologram. A bulleted list spilled down into the air off to Jackson’s right. “I’ve summarized the fine points of Detective Moss’s plan.”
“A plan we now know is League sponsored because of him.” Jackson plucked a pair of images from the midst of the data and enlarged them to tablet size. “Goes by Fernand. Gina spotted him at the League consulate on Aphendrika. I’ve gotten a more personal introduction.”
“Hence his bruises.” Gina tapped the last drops of coffee from her cup onto her tongue. “What was the protocol about following potential ESS operatives into dark alleys?”
It was Jackson’s turn to feel his cheeks burn. “Later. In any case, as we all can see, the plan’s basic—use the modified drones to disable the Stalwart security bots. Have me and Desmond Cho infiltrate to steal the project data. Then rely on Ciara Bui’s codes to get us clear of the airlock leading out to an escape craft. From there, Ramsey Moss, Ciara, Cho, and myself are supposed to get to a waiting vessel farther from Bellwether, one chartered by Fernand and his benefactor.”
“Who we’re pretty sure is Vasiliy,” Brant added.
Dwyer whistled.
“League,” Sev muttered.
“The one who contacted me on Aphendrika, yes, and the same one who breached our comms here.” Jackson took a pair of wrist units from Brant’s desk and handed them to Dwyer and Sev. “These are tuned to our new frequencies.”
“Roger that, Cap’n.”
“So, the plan.” Jackson dragged the list closer. “It should work. The problem is I’m also fairly certain the goal is for Ramsey and Ciara to fly off with the data. I doubt they want to split the proceeds with me—or even poor Desmond.”
“You’re both disposable. What?” Gina shrugged when everyone looked her way. “It’s how I would play it. Fernand is the benefactor’s rep—without him, there’s no money. And he won’t be anywhere near the action anyway. As for the rest, they need Cho to plant explosives for a distraction plus any tech obstacles that get in the way. Jackson has to bluff through and use his supposed Ranger training to fight or intimidate. After that…” She pantomimed twin doors opening and flicked something imaginary out. “Spaced.”
“Not the synopsis I was going to give, but more memorable.” Jackson lifted his cup in salute.
“Isn’t that why I’m here?” Gina winked. “To be memorable?”
Jackson smiled. “One of us has to be.”
An incessant beeping interrupted their verbal sparring, much to Jackson’s disappointment.
Brant’s face brightened as soon as the annoying sound started. “That’s a bit of good news for us, lady and gentleman.”
Jackson leaned over his shoulder. “Care to share with the whole squad of trainees?”
Brant tapped his console with a flourish fit for a concert pianist. The holographic wireframe schematic of a patrol drone leaped into the center of the displays.
“Lieutenant Garza gave us this gift,” he explained. “The complete analysis of the modified drones the League’s been supplying Tactisar, the same ones that they plan to use in disabling the security bots around the Nosamo lab.”
“I knew we saved that fella for a reason.” Dwyer held out his open palm to Sev, grinning at Jackson as he did so.
Sev clapped Dwyer’s hand in response, also without breaking his stare.
“So, this is our ticket inside the heist.” Jackson’s heart raced with the welcome anxiety he experienced before a new operation. “Nice work all around. Remind me to buy the lieutenant drinks when we make it back to Canaan.”
“Back to the plan, Cap’n?” Dwyer asked.
“Simple. We hijack Ramsey’s heist. Gina’s right—Cho and I are likely dead men, which is why she’ll infiltrate the lab at the same time Ramsey’s people disable security”—Jackson enlarged the map, brushing aside the drone schematic—“here, at these maintenance shafts. Brant will commandeer a modified drone to make sure the relevant systems are shut down, allowing Gina access. She’ll join up with me as Cho is planting the explosives so we can make sure he gets disabled and caught.”
“What about the escape route?” Dwyer pointed at the cargo tunnel with its twin airlocks. “You’ll get stuck in there with Ciara what’s-her-face calling the shots.”
“That’s where you and Sev come in,” Jackson said. “If the doors fail to open, you’ll already be in the hangar bay, ready to blow them to pieces.”
Sev grunted.
“Knew we came back for a reason.” Dwyer chuckled. “Bad news—we left our ride hitched to Oxford. They’ll be looking for her.”
“Not a problem.” Jackson grinned at Brant. “Not according to our last comms messages from Oxford, right?”
“Right.” Brant activated another schematic, one of a short but wide craft with an angular hull. Jackson though the engine cowlings an
d sharp edges made it look angry. “Anybody in the room familiar with Saurian courier shuttles?”
Dwyer raised his hand.
“Yes, definitely more fun than droid repair dirtside.” Gina raised her glass in salute.
18
Sector B Seventy-Six, Bellwether Station
Caeli System
25 November 2464
* * *
Jackson made sure to tell Ramsey most of the truth at their next clandestine meeting to plan the heist. It wasn’t the first time he’d selected bits of what really happened and separated them from the rest.
“You see?” Ramsey stalked across the apartment—a new one recently registered under the name “Boyd.” Ciara leaned against the far wall, watching Ramsey as he stormed around looking for something to break. “This is what happens when you let a guy call the shots. I wondered how long it was gonna take before he started pushing my people around.”
“Fernand probably didn’t like being followed,” Ciara pointed out. “You did choose a man who’d been in the same meeting with him minutes before.”
Ramsey faced Jackson. “What happened to your vaunted Ranger skills?”
“You’re kidding, right?” Jackson scowled. “It’s hard to tell. Ranger doesn’t mean invincible or perfect, and it sure as hell doesn’t mean I can track a guy like Fernand without being spotted in a station where I’m still the newbie. I did the best I could. It’s not my fault his thugs got the drop on me.”
“You’re lucky they didn’t shoot you,” Cho muttered.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
Ramsey shook his head. “We gotta move this up, the whole plan. The sooner we get the goods and get paid, the sooner we part ways with our pain-in-the-ass benefactor.”
“Not too soon.” Ciara put her hands on his shoulders. “I told you, I’ll have the last codes soon, and once I do, we’ll be ready. You and your boys should concentrate on the escape route—preferably by touching base with Fernand and making sure he’s not mortally offended.”
“Oh, he’s already sent me a signal.” Ramsey rolled his eyes. “A lot of bluster about being disappointed but still willing to go ahead, mutually beneficial deal, blah, blah.”
“Just don’t discount his concerns. We’ve come too far and taken too much risk for hasty action to blow our chances.”
“What she said,” Jackson muttered.
Ramsey glowered at him but sagged a bit, yielding to Ciara’s ministrations as she kneaded his neck and shoulder muscles. “Okay. We’ll steer clear of Fernand. Desmond, what about the bombs?”
Cho gave him a double thumbs-up. “Secured and ready. I’ve got them locked in a storage unit shielded from scans—you know, one of those smuggler boxes we confiscated. I told you they’d come in handy.”
“Good thing they did, because they took up way too much space.” Ramsey exhaled. “Right. Jack, stick to your schedule for the next few days up at Nosamo. I’ll get you in the right place at the right time.”
“Copy that.” Jackson grinned. “Looking forward to my chance at bluffing past a bunch of those clean suits upstairs.”
“They might be clean from corruption, but don’t mistake them for pushovers. They’re still Tactisar, which means they’re good.” Ramsey smirked. “They’re just not smart enough to work for me.”
“A few days.” Ciara abruptly crossed her arms. “So, we are accelerating the timetable.”
“Only by a hair. I want us inside the lab within seventy-two hours at the latest.” When Ciara opened her mouth, Ramsey held up a hand. “You said your piece, babe. This has gotta go faster. Especially since Nels’s partner got away. That’s gonna cause us a real mess if he blabs all over local space about what he saw or thinks he saw when Nels died.”
“It was a reckless move, by both of you.” Ciara’s mouth compressed into a thin, hard line, like an airlock slamming shut, before she added, “You never should have done that.”
“I didn’t have much choice. We can deal with it later.” Ramsey glanced at Jackson. “We good?”
“Depends.” Jackson grimaced as he walked toward the hatch—an easy fake because his hip still ached from the beating he’d sustained. “Are there more guys out there to slap me around if I step into the wrong place?”
“Don’t worry about it. Like I said, Fernand and I agree—we do this deal and part ways. The benefactor doesn’t want to draw any more attention than we do, not with Tactisar busy watching the ports for the people causing the latest ruckus. Keep your eyes on that Gianna woman, too, like Ciara said.”
Jackson shrugged. “Not a problem. She certainly makes it worth the look, but I haven’t seen anything odd yet. She goes to work, goes to her apartment, goes to dinner—solo and with rich clients, about half and half. Not jealous, are you, Ciara?”
“Not in the slightest.” Her tone was smooth enough Jackson had a hard time telling whether she was, in fact, envious of Gina’s position inside Nosamo—which made Ciara one cool customer, indeed. “Keep in mind, you should do your work and leave the analysis to me.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Ramsey clapped his hands. Cho jumped in his seat. The guy had looked half asleep up until then—probably why Ramsey had made the obnoxious sound.
“All right, people, just a few more days, then we’ll be rich enough to go wherever we want in the galaxy and do whatever we want with the money left over,” Ramsey said.
Jackson flicked his gaze to Cho and back again. Even though the Tactisar sergeant had nodded and put on a broad grin, his expression held tension, and he tugged at the chair’s fabric. The man was nervous. Maybe he’d figured out the same thing Gina had mentioned to Jackson’s team—that the show belonged to Ramsey and Ciara. The way they clung to each other even then, lining up for a kiss, didn’t leave room for erstwhile partners.
Cho’s worry will be useful, Jackson realized. Provided I can keep him alive long enough.
Sector D Fifteen, Bellwether Station
25 November 2464
* * *
Vasiliy Kiel held his own war council, so to speak, in the same dank environs he’d called home for most of the month. It was necessary to take inventory of their operations. He was displeased.
Give me the days when dozens of men prepared a faux warship, not me and Ferenc and Yahanotov squirreled away in the Bellwether slums while we rely on Tactisar goons to do our dirty work. Kiel reached for his tea but recoiled when the liquid touched his lips—stone-cold, yet again. “None of what I see could be classified as good news, Ferenc.”
“No, sir.” The prospect of disappointing his boss didn’t seem to bother Ferenc any more than the announcement of a reactor meltdown would—which was to say, not at all. He simply paged through his report, the same one Kiel and Yahanotov were reading. “Whatever ship is out there used stealth tech to get the drop on the Tactisar gunships, and the remote sensors we planted at the cometary fragment weren’t able to get a good look before they were shot to pieces. The combat drones on the surface, though…”
Kiel smiled at the grainy, frantic images of space-suited soldiers firing in zero gravity. “Those aren’t mercenaries. We’re talking about trained soldiers.”
“CDF, sir. I’d bet on them being space special warfare, given the way they fight.”
“Hmm. The presence of a Saurian would seem to indicate you’re right, Ferenc. Our intelligence says the Saurians stick to elite combat units on the rare occasion they share personnel with the Terrans these days. I’d say we’re seeing tangible results of this SATO joke of an alliance.”
“Could be.”
“I take it Nels’s partner eluded us, then? When our mystery phantom ship shepherded them off to the system’s edge?”
Ferenc nodded. He brought up a chart that turned local space into a spiderweb of course projections overlapping in a rainbow of colors. “It’s possible the ship that plucked the fleeing shuttle away from Bellwether was the same one our drones encountered at the cometary fragment.”
“That does prove problematic if the man in question can be a reliable witness to Ramsey’s missteps.”
“It won’t be a problem after the heist, sir.”
Kiel chuckled. “While I appreciate your optimism, Ferenc, let’s wait until we have the technology in hand before we celebrate. Speaking of which…” Kiel swiveled in his chair, facing Yahanotov. “What news from the Nosamo labs?”
“That detective’s been right about a couple of things.” Yahanotov tapped his console. “We got our modified drones slowly filtered among the ranks of the other patrol bots in the vicinity. I’ve been running tests on the security infiltration—no problems anticipated. Simulations show ninety-six percent probability of success.”
“A piece of actual good news. What have you turned up on this Arno character?”
Yahanotov shrugged. “He goes on patrol, stands guard at Nosamo, goes out to eat—solo or with Ramsey. He’s been following a woman, though, like Ferenc said.”
“She’s a new employee with Nosamo’s corporate offices, used mainly for gladhanding customers.” Ferenc added the side portrait of a rather striking young woman to the mix of data. “Ciara has suspicions about her.”
“Ah, the irony.” Kiel smirked. “She has her codes ready for the heist exit, I take it?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve arranged the shuttles we need. We’ll only use one, but I have four standing by until the last minute to lessen the chance of authorities following. Captain Zhou assures me he’ll have Meng Po in position.”
“Good. From the sounds of it, he’s itching for another try at a Terran stealth boat, which given all three incidents we’ve seen if you include the unfortunate privateer, is the likely culprit scurrying about the system.”
“I concur.”
Yahanotov grunted. “Sucks, but yes. It’s probable. I have to say, I’m not happy about taking my chances with a stealth boat and whatever else the capitalists have snuck into Bellwether space.”