“Why?” Leenah said through gritted teeth. “Why ‘rescue’ us? Why not just let us get killed?”
Andien bent down in front of the princess. “Because, Your Highness…” The sarcasm was clear. “We can’t lose the little girl. She’s got something we need. And since our team psych officer says she’d be more likely to work with us if you were all safe, we decided, well, why not? Everyone gets to live. Happy?”
Leenah spat in her face. She hissed, “A little happier… now.” Then she smiled and sat back in her restraints.
Andien wiped the spit from her face. “How regal. Let’s try some brutal honesty so we can get everyone’s minds right about what’s going on. The Republic is on the verge of collapse. We know exactly who is attacking Tarrago. And Wraith, I mean Keel, and his team are probably going to have to get themselves killed to deny him his objective.
“This new threat… they’ve found the Republic’s weakness. And this is something no one knows—something I’d have to kill someone for if they found out without a need-to-know. Just so it’s clear to you how important you are to this op. There are no other full-scale battle fleets. There was just the Seventh. It was all a big con.”
“What? That’s incredible!” said Garret. “I mean, the conspiracy forums always postulated that there weren’t as many as the Republic claimed, but the evidence suggested at least eight. To say that there’s only one fleet—”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” interrupted Andien. “There is only one fleet. The rest was a lie. Manufactured by the navy and the House of Reason and codified by the Senate Council. There aren’t enough credits in the economy to maintain fifteen fleets. It was all smoke and mirrors. And somehow the enemy knew that and forced a battle here and now.”
“Why don’t you just say Goth Sullus,” Prisma said, somewhat impetuously. “We all know that’s who you’re talking about.”
Andien arched an eyebrow. “You seem to know a lot, little girl. Your father would have been proud.”
“Don’t talk about my father.”
Andien sighed. “Just because I’m not your friend doesn’t mean we’re enemies. Back at Tarrago, if they capture those shipyards, there isn’t another fleet in the navy to stand in their way. Perhaps a second fleet can be cobbled together by stripping the edge of its local security ships and allowing the rebels to run riot. Maybe a third fleet if good leadership is found for the independent duty ships massing at Samakar. But that’s—”
“Where’s Crash?” Prisma cut in.
“We deactivated him to add in a little programming. He’s fine. If you agree to cooperate and help us get done what we need to get done, you’ll have him back. Now, I understand this—”
“No,” said Prisma. Her voice was cool and calm. Almost deadpan. “No, you don’t understand… Andien. You don’t know anything about me. And yes, I will cooperate.”
Andien seemed taken aback. She appraised the girl. “Okay…”
Prisma continued. “You said the navy doesn’t have another battle fleet. But there is another, isn’t there?”
Andien nodded. “Yes. There is. It’s called the Doomsday Fleet. It was never meant to be used. It was a secret project started more than twenty years ago. Your…” She paused. “Kael Maydoon was part of Project Dormouse,” she said, watching Prisma closely. Prisma didn’t know what the woman was looking for, but she did her best to betray nothing. To feel nothing. “He was one of the keepers of all the information that was never meant to be known. Sort of like… an insurance policy the Republic took out against itself. No one in the House of Reason would ever have more power than any other member. But people like your father… they knew all the secrets.”
“And what does this have to do with Prisma?” Leenah asked, a protective edge clear in her voice.
Andien continued to face Prisma as she spoke. “Over the past few months, one by one, the members of Dormouse have been getting themselves… killed. Accidents. Murders. Disappearances. Kael Maydoon included. Except he left a failsafe. He left you, Prisma.”
Silence. The big man behind Andien, the hulking brute with the heavy blaster, grumbled and shifted his stance.
“You were his most special treasure, Prisma. I hope you know that. And he used your biometric scans as the passkey for his access into the Doomsday Fleet. In essence, he was making sure the Republic would do everything it could to keep you alive in the event of his death. So we need to find the fleet and take you out there, so we can access their command interface. Once that happens, you’re free to go—and we turn the fleet loose on this new menace.”
Skrizz yowled and seemed to lose it. He fought with the restraints violently, and one claw actually cut through a manacle.
The big man with the blaster stuck the barrel right against the giant cat’s whiskers, pushing it into Skrizz’s fangs.
“Calm down, kitty cat,” rumbled the giant.
In the silence that followed, Andien spoke. “This is Hutch. He leads the TAC team that’ll be providing security on this. I do operations. If you agree to work with us to get Prisma out there, and to keep her safe no matter what, we’ll let you out of these restraints. And once the op’s over, we’ll let you all go. Everyone agree?”
Prisma saw Leenah’s lips preparing to respond—probably with a vulgarity that would make it clear what Andien and her gorilla could do with themselves. Prisma quickly answered instead.
“Yes,” she said. Her voice was very serious. “We’ll go with you… but it’s going to be very dangerous. The galaxy is on fire, and there are dark times ahead.”
19
Hutch Makaw had gone down the Nether Ops rabbit hole long before the pretty-but-tough brunette who called herself Agent Broxin took over operations. He and the seven others who made up the tactical infiltration team known as Ghost Squad. Taylor, Crutchke, Maas, Reeco, Enda, Wonkeye, and Divitts. They’d gained a rep in the shadowy world of Nether Ops. They were the best at getting in and out with a minimum of fuss. They killed people, too, but not in mass quantities. Usually just one. That was considered the pitch-perfect op.
All of them were still technically Legion. They existed somewhere at some duty station where no one would ever come looking for them, or maybe they had been declared missing in action, but never presumed dead. That was just for record-keeping.
In real life they operated off the Forresaw, which looked like any one of a thousand light freighters of the dropship atmo-entry variety. Forward two-man flight deck. Main hull with two bunk cabins for up to thirty. A TAC room. An arsenal. And not much else.
After the briefing with the kid and her people, Hutch went aft to the TAC room, where he sat down and went over the op again. Tomorrow morning they’d hit the galactic comm node at Dissaron. They’d go in disguised as a freighter making an unannounced supply run, take the little girl inside the node, hack the core network beneath the station, and get a line on the current position of the Doomsday Fleet. They’d exit the station with no one the wiser.
And then they could get rid of the girl, and the rest of the civilians.
That probably didn’t mean killing them. But if it did, what did it matter? He’d done worse. Hopefully they could drop them with a penal freighter en route to the edge, and they could be disappeared safely for about twenty years until all this had blown over.
That was fairly standard.
He didn’t realize it at first, but for a few minutes he’d just been staring at the comm node’s schematics—at the hatch access on the landing platform they’d use in getting down into the facility, and the route down where they’d cut into the sub-basement and access the deep core. But he hadn’t been seeing any of that. He’d been thinking about the reports he was hearing from the battle on Tarrago, and all the other stuff across a dozen worlds that was shaping up to be some kind of full-scale war, with the MCR out there acting in support of this new menace.
Should he be getting out of this spooky stuff and back into legit Legion armor? He’d like to be back
in the fight. Back on the line.
But maybe he was needed here.
Maybe this was as important as the pretty little Miss Broxin said it was.
Maybe.
***
“I don’t like this one bit,” said Leenah.
She was talking with Garret and Skrizz in one of the rooms they’d been assigned. Crash was standing near the door, as a lookout. He’d been told to loudly greet any of the military types who tried to get near the door. Prisma sat in one of the bunks, back against the hull, eyes closed, large boots barely hanging off the bunk’s edge.
“Nochu scrabba erustenda?” Skrizz yowled.
“No,” whispered Garret. “I’m sure. My datapad has a serious jammer. Nothing electronic is eavesdropping on us. But what I really need is comm access. To reach Captain Keel.”
Leenah looked around, her eyes wide and cautious. “Once they no longer need us… what then?”
Garret ran a hand through his hair. “She said,” he stated as though he were reciting operating or assembly instructions for the tenth time, “we would be released.”
Skrizz released a catty cackle. They’d all gotten used to his morbid sense of humor as of late.
“Then why’d they take our weapons?” Leenah asked.
Garret shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s not like I even knew how to use mine. Maybe they don’t trust us? But listen, we all saw what’s going on back at Tarrago. And what these secret agents don’t seem to know, but we do, is that the House of Reason is in on what Goth Sullus is doing. Even Admiral Devers! This is serious.”
“Thank you, Garret,” Leenah said sarcastically, then stopped herself. Softly, she said, “I’m sorry. That was rude. I understand the stakes.”
Garret nodded. “It just seems like these people are trying to save the Republic. I don’t see any advantage they have in killing us. If Prisma is some kind of passkey that opens a door—which is really cool by the way—then it makes sense that they’d need to keep her around. And keep her happy. They could’ve killed us already and just tranqed her to the gills with Complidon if that’s what they really wanted. Her biometrics would still read on any system I know of. Let’s—”
“Hello there, sir!” rumbled Crash from the door.
Boots passed, and Leenah watched as a well-built, trim young man with strange tattoos on his biceps walked past their quarters. For a moment his dark brown eyes met hers, and something, some electricity tried to pass between them—from his end, at least. Not from Leenah’s. He smiled and continued on.
“I don’t trust these people,” Leenah muttered.
***
Andien Broxin lay on her bunk. She didn’t like Ghost Squad. Didn’t like this whole thing. All the evidence was leading to someone working against the Republic from inside the House of Reason. Someone was playing all the sides in order to see who would win. And that meant that nothing inside the Republic could be trusted.
Or at least, that’s what X had told her. Assured her.
Promised her.
“You can’t trust anyone, dear girl,” the doddering old man had said as he pushed a cat off his desk back at the Carnivale. “You’ve done fine work with Dark Ops. A paragon of inter-department cooperation, really. Stopping Pride of Ankalore, that was because of you. And you almost stopped Kublar. Almost. You’re a true believer. They have the best interests of the Republic in mind. That’s why we screened for you. That’s why we need you for this, dear girl.”
She waited. Watching the old man. Not believing she’d been pulled out of the best intel section in Nether Ops to suddenly find herself in the sideshow circus of horrors that was the Carnivale.
Who, exactly, had she angered?
“Nothing can be trusted from this moment forward,” X had told her conspiratorially, like they were playing a child’s board game of secrets and misdirections on a rainy afternoon. “Not the base commander at the comm node, not your old contacts in Dark Ops. No Republic officer or any Legion general. We’re in this all alone, dear girl.”
“Why?” she’d asked. And felt the question did double duty. As in, Why can’t we trust anyone? and Why have I ended up here?
But X merely went with the obvious meaning and responded accordingly. Though she suspected he knew exactly what she was asking.
“Because everything’s in play, dear girl. Captains dream of being generals. Generals dream of being members of the House of Reason. Members of the House of Reason dream of being dictators. And the Senate Council, well, they just dream that the gravy train keeps on coming. The deck just got shuffled by whoever this Goth Sullus fellow is, and the fractures have been revealed. Fractures that were there all along. You won’t know, whatever situation you’re going into… you won’t know who you can trust. So trust no one.”
“They why the ghosts?” she asked. “Am I supposed to trust them?”
X smiled wanly and stroked the cat.
“Am I?” she asked again.
He shook his head to himself, almost like it was the answer to some argument he’d been having for years with the cat, or perhaps the tea kettle.
“A year ago,” he said, “I would’ve told you absolutely. But at this moment, with everything in play… no. But that’s what you do, dear girl. You didn’t become a mommy or a hardworking ever-harried deck officer on some corvette out along the edge. You pursued the deep work. The dark stuff. You wanted to play in the shadows. Well, I’m afraid it’s full dark now.”
He smiled at her. The smile of a sad, lonely old man who’d probably lost his marbles a long time ago. Or maybe he hadn’t. There wasn’t even kindness in his eyes. Pity, perhaps. But no kindness. Not here in the shadows.
“And here you are.”
“And here I am,” Andien repeated, not bothering to cover the bitterness. And not giving voice to her other, darker thought.
If what X was saying was true, there was no way she could trust him.
20
The Forresaw came in over the ice field and approached the isolated comm node known as Echo Station. Most of the polar subterranean base was burrowed into the ice and rock below the central landing platform. Above this, a squat, oblong tower of gray, storm-beaten impervisteel watched over the area.
Located in a lonely system the stellar charts marked as Antilles, the comm node was one of nine master traffic stations that covered the breadth of the Galactic Republic and handled all of the hyperspace communications traffic. The system was designed such that the other stations could pick up the slack if any single comm node went offline. In theory, the stations also tracked ships in addition to communications, but that only applied to ships carrying a standard Republic transponder, as required by Republic law. And of course, pirates and the like ignored that requirement. The transponder was one of the first things they removed from any ship they hijacked, refitted, or cobbled together.
Echo Station’s crypto was considered sufficient enough to guard its secrets—and thus it wasn’t considered by the Republic to be a high-security station warranting a legionnaire detachment. It was instead run by a civilian company working for the military. To Hutch, this meant it would be a walk in the park.
“Feels like a security mission,” Crutchke whispered over an encrypted private comm as Shadow Team stacked around the lower hatch inside the belly of the Forresaw.
Crutchke had made this argument before. Ghost didn’t do security, wasn’t trained for security, and would be in over their heads should they end up having to actually stand up and fight as opposed to sneak and peek.
“It’s an infiltration op, it ain’t a security mission,” Hutch rumbled back.
“Feels like one,” whispered Crutchke.
“Well it ain’t,” replied Hutch over the howl of the engines reversing thrust as the ship slowed from orbital descent.
The plan was to land the Forresaw on the main pad and vent the engines while some bogus cargo was offloaded. The tactical assault ship had been modified to look like just another freighter showing
up with an unscheduled supply delivery.
Shadow Team, half of Ghost Squad—consisting of Hutch, Enda, Crutchke, and Maas—would infiltrate the base via a maintenance hatch located on the pad. Venting the engines would cover the team’s insertion into the network of maintenance tunnels that led down to the sub-basement. Zombie Team, the other half of Ghost—led by Taylor and including Reeco, Wonkeye, and Divitts—would transfer the cargo and oversee surface operations. They’d be dealing with the comm node’s supply chief on the platform and keeping the ground crew busy while making sure there was an exit when it was time to leave. Each member of Zombie was armed with a sub-mini DK blaster configured for concealment and rapid deployment.
Best-case scenario: No one would ever know Shadow Team was even there.
Worst-case scenario: Someone would find out, and they would shut down the whole station by initiating the highest-security profile maintained within the comm node. Deep core access would be impossible at that point, and the op would be blown.
The pilot, a crazy dropship jockey everyone called Scooter, had contacted Approach Control and was apprising them of their “unexpected” arrival. Scooter was a good pilot, but he’d lost all his marbles flying close air-support for the navy in support of the Legion, and was a little to a lot crazy, depending on the weather. Right now, the weather was clear. The ice field below was a blaze of blinding white set afire by a startling blue sky. No storms. Nothing to be concerned about.
Approach Control told Scooter the Forresaw wasn’t cleared for landing. Andien picked up a comm headset as the Forresaw began to circle above the station, waiting for clearance.
“Hey…” she began, falling into her role of ambivalent freighter jockey. “We could care less if you don’t want your steaks and Faldaren scotch… trust me, we’ll make sure it won’t go to waste. We get paid either way. But we’re gonna call it in before we fire up the galley and beat feet for jump. So hang tight.”
Sword of the Legion (Galaxy's Edge Book 5) Page 17