by Aer-ki Jyr
No, The Word was behind this and they managed to keep it so quiet that neither Star Force nor the Brazilians had discovered it for a full year, and then they’d managed to keep the Brazilians dancing to their tune for another one. How they quietly dealt with an assault force of 500 men was another matter entirely, reinforcing in Davis’s mind that The Word’s agenda was not completely civilian. Why they had been producing firearms had always been a bit of a mystery, given that their previous efforts didn’t seem to require such weapons, nor in such large quantities.
Now he had a partial answer, though he knew this was merely the tip of the iceberg rising up a few meters. He had no doubt The Word was merely running through the first few pages of their playbook, building to something more ambitious down the line, though the quiet takeover of an entire planetoid was certainly a feather in their cap…but it didn’t do anything to seriously undermine Star Force, which was their stated agenda.
Davis knew he’d be spending numerous hours over the next months digging into this, so he put his curiosity on hold for a moment, knowing he needed to get the Archons moving as soon as possible, along with security’s intelligence subdivision, and sent a quick message out to David-441 and Drake-756, calling in both Green and Red teams from wherever in the Solar System they currently were.
2
May 9, 2430
Alpha Centauri System
Glasir
David’s dropship departed one of the massive hangar bays onboard the jumpship Tardis, flying off across planetary orbit towards one of the planet’s 8 starports. Many more dropships were leaving along with it as the old jumpship, now recommissioned twice with more advanced gravity drives, began offloading passengers and cargo onto Glasir, one of seven Star Force planets within the system, all of whose natural environments were uninhabitable.
Glasir was a heavy grav world, registering at 154% of Earth’s gravity and containing an atmosphere of pure nitrogen. Temperatures were cold and the planet rocky, with no plant life whatsoever. It sat 4th in line around the twin stars at the center of the system, reminding David of the scenes of Tatooine from Star Wars. Glasir had such a view, though the pair of glowing orbs in the sky were much smaller, given the planet’s greater distance from them, which also accounted for the cold temperatures.
Despite the frigid conditions the nitrogen atmosphere kept enough ‘warmth’ in the surface to keep temperatures in the -20 to -40 Celsius range, which allowed the Star Force engineers some leeway in their construction and mining efforts. They’d built 3 large cities on the planet to date, with another in the early excavation stages, that housed upwards of 120 million colonists, all of which lived in regular gravity inside the enclosed structures.
Two other planets in the system held larger populations, Ragnarok and Odin, with 270 million and 1.3 billion respectively. All together, the Alpha Centauri System held just over 2.1 billion Star Force colonists, along with another 38 million that were under national jurisdictions.
Glasir had 3 moons, Tyr, Aesir, and Vanir, all of which bore no Star Force presence. Tyr was the sole property of Brazil, Aesir belonged to Russia, and Vanir was split between Australia and Andulia…the latter of which was a nation founded on Luna shortly after World War III that had expanded out to numerous holdings within the Solar System, and one that Davis had trusted to extend interstellar territorial holdings to.
All the moons were small, requiring gravity enhancement for the cities that dotted them. The Russians had colonized Aesir with a scattering of settlements, as had the Andulians, while the Aussies and the Brazilians had opted for building one megacity each on their planetoids that they continually expanded out like a bacterial growth on the rocky surfaces of the airless moons.
What infrastructural approach they took was their prerogative, but all four of the nations relied heavily on Star Force contracts for the construction, and as such the national settlements used almost all Star Force materials, making them look like an extension of the infrastructure on Glasir, though that was not the case.
Of the three moons Tyr was in the middle and not currently visible from David’s passenger dropship, though Aesir was. It made for a large, imposing silhouette in the sky, being half again closer to Glasir than Luna was to Earth. Around it orbited a number of stations, one of which was a Star Force starport, linking the Russian world to the rest of Humanity via the transportation grid. There, however, Star Force’s territory ended, with all transit down to the moon being handled by Russian ships, most of which had been purchased from Star Force.
Vanir and Tyr were the same, and once David’s dropship docked with the starport in Glasir orbit, he and the other passengers went their separate ways. Some remained onboard while most split up to take other flights, more than half of which were down to Glasir’s surface, with the others a mix of orbital stations and the ferries out to the three moons.
David took the ferry out to Tyr, flying onboard a dedicated starship that hauled both passengers and cargo between the two starports. Then came a longer wait for the Brazilian Orbital Transit Service, or BOTS, to dock their scheduled dropship flight with the Star Force station and exchanged passengers. David boarded a converted Dragon-class dropship reconfigured as a passenger liner along with more than 500 civilians transiting down to the large city on the moon’s surface.
David took one of the seats, feeling a bit odd in the surrounding accoutrements, which had been altered to Brazilian design aesthetics. He tried to think back to the last time he’d ridden onboard a non-Star Force ship, then got hung up in the mental conundrum of whether raiding one counted or not, for Green Team had pulled that duty on occasion.
As he mentally chewed on that thought he observed the crowd, which filled about 3/4ths of the seats. Though he couldn’t read their minds, he could read their body language…and none of the typical agitation of crossing into a dangerous situation was evident. The people were simply going about their regular routines, apparently unaware that anything untoward was occurring down on the moon.
Sitting back in his narrow, but adequately plush seat, David half watched the vid screens that showed their descent down to the surface, though neither he nor any of the other passengers or crew felt the acceleration and deceleration swings, given the inertial dampeners and artificial gravity.
He could, however, hear the rhythmic chomping of gum three seats to his right in the row ahead of him. The young girl was chewing loudly with perfect timing. David counted 23 chomps, each time followed by a break when she’d ball the gum up and roll it out onto her lips, twiddle it about, then suck it back in and start chewing another 23 times before repeating the process.
Before long some of the other passengers began to visibly bristle around her, though none had said anything as of yet. It was starting to get on David’s nerves too, not so much from the noise but by the precision of it. His mind kept getting stuck on the pattern of it, and whenever he started to think about something else the chomping would start again and he’d begin mentally counting the beats.
Annoyed that he was letting it bother him, he forced himself to endure it through the remainder of the short flight down to a spaceport within the Brazilian city. There the dropship landed on an exterior pad before rolling through an atmospheric containment shield and into a pressurized bay large enough to hold a dozen more of the huge dropships. The entire terminal, which was built on a 90 degree ‘V’, was connected to three other bays on the other side of the large walls that were covered in windows where more passengers were waiting to board and watching the flights come in and out.
David’s dropship parked in one of the berths and a gangway stretched out to dock with it, creating a level connection to the terminal that the passengers could walk through without having to drop down to the deck where the cargo transfer was occurring. David grabbed his carry-on satchel, the only luggage he’d brought with him on this mission, and joined the rest of the passengers as they slowly filed out into the gangway…though he did keep an eye on the gum ch
ewing girl, and when she and her traveling companions stepped out into the walkway ahead of David he waited for her to roll the gum back out on her lips, at which point he telekinetically snagged it and shot it up towards the ceiling.
He suppressed a smile as the girl mildly freaked out, wondering what had just happened and where her gum had gone, as he used his Pefbar to navigate a course for the tiny annoying wad through the cabin and over to a trash receptacle.
With his contribution to society for the day done, he stepped into the passenger flow and departed the dropship, making his way into the terminal and onto the observation promenade where he camped out for a few hours, grabbing a bite to eat and just milling about getting a feel for the situation.
Again, nothing seemed out of the ordinary, though this was his first visit to the moon, so he couldn’t completely be sure what ‘ordinary’ was for the Brazilian city, but compared to the rest of the Human interstellar society everything was buzzing along like normal commerce should. People were moving about in a hurry, others were idling the hours away at the entertainment venues and shops. There was no apprehension here.
As David was sitting at a bar, sipping a soda and watching the numerous vid screens along with a number of other waiting passengers an attractive woman slipped onto the stool beside him and favored him with a smile.
“Hey, you’re cute…wanna fuck?”
David jerked, reflexively spitting soda back down his straw and out around the edges, causing it to fizz up. He looked over at her with a comical expression on his face.
“What kind of a greeting is that?” he laughed, feeling some of the soda tickling the inside of his nose where it’d gone up.
“A blunt one,” the Brazilian said with a discernible accent as she slipped her left hand around David’s right and pulled it away from his cup. As she did she tapped the inside of his palm three times.
The tapping caught his attention, with him realizing this was more than a social hookup attempt. Using the skin to skin contact between their hands he used his Ikrid to hack into her nervous system and use it as a conduit into her mind. A split second later he confirmed that this was not a sexual overture. She was wary of something, and wanting his help.
“Well now,” he said, swiveling around on his stool so he could look at her face to face while still holding onto her hand, gleaning more insights as to her current state of emotions and a few surface thoughts. He and Green Team had been practicing this sort of mindreading relentlessly, only to find out that there was so much more that they couldn’t do yet, insanely complex as the structure of the mind was.
“Well what?” she echoed playfully, but repeated the three beat tap into his palm with her middle finger. “Sizing me up?”
David smiled. “Something like that,” he said as he continued to search her mind, finding a growing sense of urgency.
“How about a sample then,” she said, sliding off her stool and stepping up into him, then laying a very gentle and sensuous kiss on his lips before she slowly pulled back. “Anything else you want to check out? I’m willing to submit to a strip search.”
“Are you now?” David said, slipping his hand out of hers and placing it on her waist, only to snake his fingers down the small of her back and dip them in underneath her shorts…and there, out of view, he mimicked the three beat tap as he looked her square in the eyes.
He saw a flicker of recognition, as well as sensing a swell of relief in her emotions.
“In private, if it’s not too much to ask? I’m a shy girl.”
“Well,” David said, glancing around the area as he tried to catch a glimpse of anything suspicious, “I’m supposed to be waiting for my wife, but,” he said, checking his watch, “she’s not do in for a few more hours. I’ll be honest, you’re not really my type, but I’ve got nothing to do but sit here bored so the least I can do is give you a thorough examination.”
“And if I pass?” she said, smiling even more.
“Big ‘if’ there,” he said, throwing a little cold water on the moment. “Is there somewhere around here you’re comfortable taking your clothes off?”
She slipped her hand back inside his. “Follow me.”
David grabbed his satchel with his free hand and let her lead him away from the bar, leaving the nearby occupants, all ‘older’ men, with wide eyes and open jaws.
The woman walked quickly, almost giddy, dragging David along though he had no trouble keeping pace. They got halfway down the promenade before a voice thrust its way inside the Archon’s head.
What the hell are you doing? Assad asked comically.
I don’t know, he answered back telepathically. She’s putting on a show and gave me a recognition signal. Whoever she is she’s not interested in playtime.
You’re not being followed as far as I can tell. Want a shadow?
No, I’ll handle this. Worst case scenario I called it wrong and I have to disappoint her.
Don’t think that’ll be the issue here, Assad said, his mental voice altering slightly. Mental communication carried with it far more information than vocals did, and right now Assad was pinging ‘warning’ along with his words. You’ve got a lazy tail. Thin, scrawny guy. Doesn’t seem to be in a hurry.
“This way,” the woman said as they got to the exit archway and she pulled him to the left, accelerating up into a near run.
Later, David said as he and Assad were reaching the maximum range of their effective telepathy.
“Where are we headed?” he asked, still being led by the hand.
“Not far,” she promised with another smile, though David could see some cracks in it. Her adrenaline was also spiking a bit, and he was fairly sure it wasn’t because of him.
They moved through the crowds in the hallway, then broke out into the terminal’s interior, which functioned as a miniature resort city with shopping, food, lodging, and entertainment that travelers could access without moving into the rest of the city, allowing the tourists their own area while keeping most of them out of the normal flow of pedestrian traffic, for both parties’ concerns.
David’s new girlfriend dragged him off into one of the resorts, producing a keycard that let them access the customer only areas, whereupon she led him up a couple of flights of stairs, across a long hallway, then back down a flight on the far side before pulling him inside a hotel room and locking the door behind them.
When she did she sagged backwards against the door for a moment, breathing heavily as she let go the façade.
“Thank you,” she said gratefully.
“For what, exactly?”
“Letting me pull you away from the bar. You were about to disrupt a carefully choreographed handoff.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Milla.”
David raised an eyebrow. “What are you, and what do you think I am?”
“You’re Star Force, obviously,” she scoffed. “Even without the uniform, your trim physique is a dead giveaway. People who wear those kind of civilian clothes don’t work out…at all. You really need to find better cover.”
“I thought the baggy look was cover,” David argued.
She shook her head slowly. “Those chiseled cheeks aren’t hidden. At first I thought you might even be an Archon, then when I kissed you I dismissed the idea, because you obviously liked it, so I’m guessing Star Force Security?”
David rolled his eyes. “And you are?”
“Your Brazilian counterpart.”
“I assume we’re safe to talk in here?”
“As far as I know, unless they have every room tapped, which I doubt.”
David frowned. “Sloppy,” he criticized.
“I’m improvising,” she deflected. “We didn’t expect you to show up anytime soon, let alone today. You stumbled across our drop and I had to get you out of there.”
“What kind of drop?”
“Data,” she said simply, not offering any more detail.
Something about that bothered David,
not the fact that it was a data drop…but because she wasn’t being more forthcoming, almost as if…
Suddenly he sensed a mind approaching and stopping outside their door, and he knew that their tail had finally caught up with them.
David stepped over to the door and pulled Milla away from it with a yank on her arm just as the lock clicked open and a thin man stepped inside and pointed something in the Archon’s direction…only to drop it and fall to the ground as if the floor had suddenly become quicksand and he could no longer keep his balance.
David stepped forward and grabbed the man’s wrist, pulling him inside while using his Ikrid to render him unconscious, then he closed the door again as Milla got to her feet, having fallen over the side of the bed when David emitted his Fornax disruption field and her equilibrium was lost.
She scrambled to her feet, only to fall down again as David hit her with a select blast. He caught her by the waist halfway down and tipped her up onto the bed and placed a hand on her neck, rendering her unconscious as well, then he went back over to the man and rolled him over, finding a small holdout pistol beneath him.
David picked it up and gave it a quick glance, recognizing it as a tranquilizer gun, then he set it on a nearby table and began going through the man’s pockets, finding amongst other things a personal comm device and several keycards, none of which had any room or door markings, making David suspect they were master access duplicates, which would explain why he was able to unlock the hotel room door.
“Hello,” David said, pulling off the man’s watch and exposing the tiny trapdoor in the side that held a familiar ‘kill pill,’ one that Green Team had come across many times over the past decade, though usually they didn’t get to them before the operatives ingested it. The fact that it was the same make, as well as being located inside a custom, but identical watch to those they’d recovered from other operatives marked this man as a member of The Word, confirming that the Director’s suspicions had been spot on.