“Look,” she said, “Cadet...”
“Call me John. I'm not a Cadet any more. Technically I'm AWOL, but that converts to out and out desertion after forty days, and I don't think I'm going back to the Academy any time soon.”
“Cadet,” she said. “I don't bother learning the first names of people trying to commit suicide. If you want to go after those bastards, you aren't going to do it alone.” She reached into her pocket, pulling out a datapad, and said, “The ship that took your girlfriend...”
“She's not my girlfriend.”
“Whatever. The ship was the Thomas O'Dell. Had to be. I already ran the registry, and it's the only ship that left that day. Half an hour after the attack, actually. Unless those people you were with are complete fools, they'd have found her. Every other ship was searched.”
Nodding, he replied, “Then that gives me a place to start.”
“It's back,” she said. “A little under five days ago, which is why I pushed your recovery as much as I did. I've got business of my own with that ship, and I can use the help.” She looked over him, and said, “I thought you were with Triplanetary Intelligence.”
“Triplanetary Intelligence?” he said, shaking his head. “I'm just a Cadet, as I said.”
“You sure?”
Raising an eyebrow, he replied, “Positive.”
She reached over to a shelf, and picked up an ident card, passing it to him. “One of the people in that firefight was. The man who followed you into the bar.”
“Technical Officer Daniel Singh,” he read. “Triplanetary Intelligence, Operations Division. What the hell was an intelligence agent doing following us?”
“I was wondering if you were going to tell me that. Look, Cadet, if you're on some sort of special mission, that's fine. You can have your secrets, and so will I. But we both want to get on board that ship, and I think we're going to need each other to do it.” She gestured at his arm, and said, “That shot I gave you is good for about three hours. You won't feel the pain, and you'll get a nice energy boost while it lasts.”
“Then what?”
“You'll probably be out cold for the better part of a day. I might have given you a rather high dose.” She shrugged, and added, “The O'Dell leaves before then. We've got to move.”
He struggled to his feet, and said, “I don't think I should go out in uniform, should I?”
“Flight jacket,” she replied, tossing it to him from a shelf. “Put it on, and watch your side. You might not feel it, but you could still do yourself a lot of damage.” She started to cram her pockets full of supplies from the shelves, and said, “I guess the dreggers can have what's left.”
“Dreggers?”
“Our wonderful community down here. You think anyone actually wants to live in this dump?” Shaking her head, she added, “Either you're the best actor in the galaxy, or you've lived a hell of a sheltered life, Cadet.”
“Go with the second option,” he replied, shaking the jacket over his shoulders. He patted down the pockets, pulling out a knife. “A present? I didn't know it was my birthday.”
“Ceramic,” she said. “Won't show on a detector, and non-conductive, just in case. No point even trying to sneak a pistol on board. We'd never get through the security screen. It's going to be tough enough as it is.” Walking over to the door, she turned her head, and said, “You coming?”
“Yeah,” he said, still feeling an ache in his side. “Give me a minute.”
“You've had eight days. You ought to be raring to go.”
With an effort, he forced himself to his feet, his vision blurring for a second as he struggled to focus, his muscles weak from his time in bed, and followed her through the door, back out onto the street. It was different than before, quieter, far later in the night cycle than the last time he had walked the concourse. Now the crowds had dissipated, and those walking around seemed determined to ignore everyone else, making a virtue of minding their own business.
Blake set a fast pace, and Clarke struggled to keep up, his side still aching. His mind flashed back to the night of the attack, seemingly only a matter of minutes ago, the bullet lancing into his body, blood spilling out. He'd thought he was dead, that had only seconds to live, that the next breath would have been his last. He rubbed his side, feeling the scar where he had been shot.
Academically, he'd always known that wearing the uniform was a risk, but if he'd ever seriously thought of dying on duty, it had been on the bridge of a starship, or engaged in a pitched battle during a boarding action. Something heroic. Not a brawl in a bar over a woman he barely liked, who had guilted him into acting as her bodyguard while she happily killed their careers.
A hundred furtive eyes tracked them as they turned towards the loading bays, then down a side corridor towards a maintenance airlock, a solitary guard slouched by the side, his hand resting on the pistol at his belt. As they approached, he straightened up, and Blake walked towards him, a smile on her face.
“Diego sent me,” she said. “He thought you could use a break.”
Returning her smile with a leer, the guard said, “He your muscle?”
“Sure,” she said, walking up to him, running her hand over his top. Before he could move, she slipped a hypodermic down from her sleeve, jabbing it into his neck, and the man crumpled to the ground, his eyes wide. Clarke turned back, waiting for the sound of his friends racing towards them, alarms blaring, but the few people who had seen them simply walked on, minding their own business, doubtless engaged in dubious activities of their own.
“Come on,” Blake said, gesturing at the keypad. “Get us in.”
His eyes widening, he walked over to the controls, replying, “They didn't teach me to crack locks at the Academy.”
“What sort of intelligence agent are you?”
“I'm not…,” he sighed, then pulled down the controls. “Hold on. This might take a minute.”
“We don't have a minute,” she said. “If they're pulling out soon, someone will be coming to collect this moron any time now. Hurry.”
“I can talk or work. Not both.” He frowned over the controls, struggling to recall his electronic warfare classes, his brain still fogged from the cocktail of drugs in his system. Part of him wanted to lie down and go to sleep, and he had to force himself to reach for the panel, entering a series of pass-codes, trying to crack into the system. “Hold on. Almost there.”
“Fine. I'll tell the gang of murders to wait for a few minutes.”
“Got it!” he said, and the hatch slid open, revealing a dark corridor beyond. He peered into the gloom, reaching for a flashlight hanging from the wall, setting it as dim as he dared. “Follow me.” He took a deep breath, his vision briefly blurred again, and said, “I thought those things were meant to work for a couple of hours.”
“Only if you don't do something stupid like throw your stress levels into orbit.”
Clarke reached into his pocket, and cursed under his breath. If he'd had a datapad with him, accessing a complete schematic of the ship would be a simple matter. As it is, all he could do was try and dredge what little he knew of the layout from his ship recognition training.
“That way,” he said, without much certainty.
“Really?” Blake asked, looking down the corridor, indistinguishable from the others.
“Attention,” an overhead speaker barked. “Attention. Prepare for departure in ten minutes.”
“Come on,” Clarke said, racing in his chosen direction, taking a turning to the right on instinct alone, the medic following him after a second's hesitation. He pulled out his knife, hefting it in his hand, gathering a measure of comfort from the weight that was almost worth Blake's disapproving stare.
Footsteps echoed down the corridors, a sort murmur of conversation heading in their direction, and he frantically looked for a way out, somewhere to hide, una
ble to find anywhere suitable. Finally, they came to an access hatch, and he pulled it open with a grimace, the recalcitrant mechanism fighting his efforts. Without waiting, he climbed down, taking the ladder three rungs at a time, the flashlight hanging from his wrist by the strap, clattering against the wall. Blake followed, blocking the light from above, and pulled the hatch back into position with an alarming report.
“You realize their lifesystem computers will register two extra people on board, right?” she said, scaling the ladder, struggling to keep pace. “Give any competent technician half an hour, and they'll be able to track our location with ease.”
“Not if I can find a terminal,” he said, dropping down to the maintenance shaft below, crawling to his knees. The impact of the landing made him dizzy again, and he panted for breath, Blake easily catching him, holding him clear of the floor. “Just a minute.”
“We don't have one,” she replied, and he felt the second injection enter him, running through his blood. “Based on the rate you're burning these things, I'd say you've got about fifteen minutes before you lose consciousness. For at least forty-eight hours.”
“Better hurry then,” he replied, moving on down through the tunnel, working his way through the bowels of the ship. As far as he could work out, they were in the hendecaspace drive accessway, not a bad place to hide. During transit, no sane engineer would risk anything that might hinder their return to normal space, and the horror stories of failed dimensional transitions were the stuff of nightmares for any starfarer.
He looked up and smiled, an access terminal resting on the ceiling above him, currently running a maintenance cycle. Glancing back at Blake, he reached up to the controls, bringing up the life support system matrix, and started to call up the systems parameters. The security was minimal, the password a simple series of numbers, and he guessed the combination on the third try.
“Need to have words with their Sysop,” he said. “They're pretty slack for a group of kidnappers and criminals.” He paused, then asked, “What will they do about the guard?”
“If they just find him, well, the drug I used looks an awful lot like he got drunk on duty. They haven't got time to check the records, so my guess they'll just leave him behind.” She frowned, then said, “Admittedly, we're still trusting to luck a little.”
“I think we're trusting to luck a lot,” he replied. “All we have to do now is pick a spot to wait out the transfer.”
Looking down at the corridor, she said, “Follow me.”
He looked after her, then scrambled to keep up, struggling as his limbs refused to work properly, the energy seeming to leech away into the deck as he traveled. The world seemed to swim around him as he struggled to keep pace. She turned another corner, then started to pull at the deck plating, working her fingernails in between the joints.
“Lots of these old ships were built with little hidden compartments. Space underneath the decks. For smuggling.”
“Why do I get the idea there's a story in there somewhere.”
“We'll have a lot of time to talk about it later. I hope. Give me a hand.”
With the two of them working at it, they rapidly pulled clear half a dozen floor plates, exposing a grimy hole underneath, pipes dripping with condensation onto a cold, gray panel, the only light from a broken fiberoptic cable.
“After you,” she said.
He looked into the gap, but his head was swimming again, and he reluctantly nodded, sliding into the space, slime running down his back and oozing into his fingers. She dropped in on top of him, pulling the panels after them, sliding them into position. With a roar, the freighter's engines fired as it detached from the station.
Clarke yawned, and said, “Damn, I'm tired.”
“You will be,” she replied. “Tell me you don't snore.”
“Sorry.”
In the faint light, he could just make out a thin smile, and she said, “Sleep well,” as his eyes drifted shut.
Chapter 4
Mallory walked into the conference room, looking at the assembled officers. It was still far too easy to tell the two crews apart. The officers she had brought with her from her last station, Finch and Strickland, were wearing their uniform, but with the exception of Jack, none of the others had bothered, though Cruz had thrown what might have been an old Martian Space Service jacket over her shoulders, the assignment patches lost to the vagaries of time. Even Bennett, their liaison with Triplanetary Intelligence, had opted for a neutral jumpsuit rather than the regulation uniform.
“All of you know the situation,” she said, tapping a control. “You've all had a chance to look over the specifications for the covert radio telescope installation.”
“If you can call something a hundred miles across covert,” Cruz quipped.
Tapping a control, Mallory brought up a rotating holoprojection of the enemy facility, a huge, slowly rotating dish supported by an intricate latticework, a cluster of habitation modules slung beneath to house the staff of the base.
“One missile in the right place would turn that into so much scrap metal,” Finch said.
Nodding, Jack said, “I agree, and you can bet Knight does as well. She'll have that place tightly defended. I wouldn't be surprised if Theseus is permanently stationed there.” Looking around the table, he continued, “That would certainly explain why they haven't tried to use it to catch us. Why they sent Wildcat to do the job a battlecruiser would be far better equipped to complete.” Leaning back in his chair, he said, “Taking out the installation isn't the problem. Taking out the defenses most definitely is, and our plans don't give us any clue about their deployment.”
McGuire looked down at the table, and replied, “I went over the specifications as closely as I could. There are numerous potential positions for hard-points...”
“No,” Cruz said. “That structure is barely stable as it is. Never mind a missile impact. Launching a missile would probably tear it to pieces. Whatever sort of defense network they've used, it'll be independent of the facility.”
“I think we have to assume Theseus will be on station,” Mallory said. “Even it if isn't, they won't simply allow us to fly in and knock it out. I'd have a network of satellites in close formation, maybe a fighter squadron as well on permanent standby. Let's make no mistake. This is the most important facility Knight possesses, and is almost certainly their main base as well. They won't take any chances.”
“Maybe we're missing a trick,” Sullivan said. “We want to find the location of the alien homeworld, and this facility was designed to do just that. I don't for a moment suggest that capturing it would be a realistic possibility, but perhaps we could get an infiltration team on-board, or maybe hack into their network.”
“Sneak on board?” Finch said. “Not a chance in hell. They've got room for a full Espatier platoon, and you can bet their security will be airtight.”
“Then what about their network?” Sullivan pressed, looking at McGuire.
The hacker shrugged, and said, matter-of-factly, “If anyone can do it, I can, but I don't know if it will be possible. They'll have the tightest security you can imagine, state-of-the-art equipment and a full electronic warfare team.” With a thin smile, he added, “I could probably beat them in a fair fight, but my guess is that they've isolated the whole facility.”
“That would be a requirement in any case,” Cruz said. “They'd want to keep the purest possible electromagnetic environment.” She tapped a control, showing a series of circuit diagrams and blueprints. “Lots of shielding, lots of isolated materials, and only a couple of external network access points, and those dependent on comm laser.”
“Meaning it's damn near impenetrable,” McGuire replied. “Sorry, Mo, but I don't think we're going to be able to do anything other than blow the piece into a few billion pieces.”
Nodding, Mallory said, “This has taken a year and a half to bu
ild, with an estimated price tag into nine figures. I'm surprised they were able to construct it once. They'll never rebuild it.”
“What do we know about the system?” Sullivan asked.
Reaching across to a control, Finch replied, “Not a bad place to hide. Dull little brown dwarf star with a single planet, a gas giant. Probably a failed companion. A couple of moons to provide nice options for transit points, a few smaller rocks and a halo of asteroids for raw materials. One around the star, one around the planet. Quite a complicated little system.” He paused, then said, “Surveyed by Theseus, three years ago.”
“Which means Knight will know the system a lot better than we do,” Jack said.
“We've got no way of knowing where in the system the telescope has been constructed,” Finch continued. “My guess would be at one of the smaller moons, at a point of gravitational stability too weak to form an egress point. They'd want it anchored, and if they were putting a defense network in position, they wouldn't want to waste time and fuel dragging them into position.” Shaking his head, he said, “I'm afraid that leaves six possible targets.”
“So we're not going to be able to pick the best location,” Mallory said. “Clayton, I want a course plotted to take us as far as possible from the target sites. If we can't surprise them, we can at least minimize the risk that they might surprise us.”
“Yes, ma'am,” she said. “We can jump at any time.”
“Doctor Strickland, what about our patient?” Mallory asked.
“He's a mess,” he replied. “Four broken ribs, a broken shoulder and hip. They aren't even the worst of it. I can patch all of that together, but he's also got a fractured skull and probably brain damage.” Looking up, he continued, “I was forced to induce coma.”
“How long before he recovers?”
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