Mok walked away as Syodo continued to hiss and thrash at his bedding. He left the detention area and made a direct line for a small alcove that would allow him to access one of the slip-com nodes.
"What's up?" Kage's voice came across as the video resolved and he could see the Veran's face. He wasn't familiar with the phrase so he assumed it meant hello.
"Tell Captain Burke that Arx has some sort of contingency prepared and ready to deploy in the event he failed to gain control of my resources," Mok said. "I'll keep working on him, but he's slippery. Anything he gives me could be a false lead, but I think this was genuine. You might not have an easy time of it when you get to Khepri."
"I'll let him know," Kage said. "We're still a few days away from Khepri. Anything else?"
"Not until you can give me access to whatever Arx had in his head," Mok said. "Any progress on that?"
"Some." Kage squirmed. Mok figured he must have already cracked into the contents and they would go through it themselves before sharing with him. It was exactly what he would do. "We'll keep you in the loop on that."
"Of course," Mok smiled indulgently. "Until then." He reached over and terminated the channel before stepping back into the corridor.
"Your ship is ready, sir." Similan walked up and did another of those half-bows. "The captain says we can undock and be underway at your command."
"Then let's get to it," Mok said. "Inform the captain I wish to go to Eshquaria."
"I'm sorry, sir," Similan said. "I could have sworn you said you wanted to go to Eshquaria."
"You heard me. I know the dangers … just make it happen."
"I obey." Similan bowed fully this time.
23
"That makes three full-strength battlegroups," Doc said.
"Damn! I've never seen the ConFed concentrate that much firepower in one area before," Jason said. "They're taking this threat seriously … whatever it is."
"They're not setting up a picket line or even harassing approaching ships yet," Kage said.
"They won't," Jason said, tracing the ConFed's formations and deployment on his tactical display with a finger. "This is just a show of force for now. They either have intel or are assuming that any threat to Khepri will come from outside and in the form of a large war fleet."
"And you're not?" Crusher asked. "The only real way to take a strategic target on a Pillar World is with overwhelming force."
"Perhaps," Jason said. He'd read both of Kage's summary reports and, in addition to agreeing that the hidden Lot 700 was still somewhere on Teludal's property, he was also convinced that the threat to the central banking AI was already on Khepri. He looked around at his crew as they lounged idly and felt a pang of guilt for withholding information from them as he got it. That wasn't how he normally ran his crew, so why was he doing it now? He could argue it was to spare Lucky's feelings, but didn't he rage around for the better part of a year because the Browns didn't tell him about his son for the same reason?
"Kage, we have about ten hours to kill before we're even allowed into an approach orbit over the planet," he said. "Why don't you go ahead and brief everyone on what you've found so far."
Kage gave him a strange look but didn't argue. "Which do you want me to start with?" he asked.
"Let's start with the issues in order," Jason said. "Tell them about Lot 700."
"We believe we know the location of Lot 700," Kage said, casting a guilty glance at Lucky as he did. "The most likely location is, believe it or not, buried on Krunt Teludal's property. After analyzing the imagery we have of the property from our previous trip here, Vulban's records, and public records data the Kheprian government graciously left unsecured, I think I have even pinpointed where it might be."
"Where?" Tauless said. "I've been to Teludal's home many, many times when I was younger and I don't remember anything that stood out. A facility underground that would safely maintain a battlesynth in stasis would still require a substantial above-ground presence, to say nothing of the power requirements."
"Right you are," Kage said. "That's actually where I started. The equipment needed to keep them alive generates a lot of heat, and that heat has to go somewhere. The usual method would be a cooling stack that vented out into the atmosphere, but a huge, unexplained thermal plume isn't really the best way to keep something hidden.
"Teludal and Vulban had to know that eventually someone would realize that thirty-six battlesynths were unaccounted for, so they wouldn't have done something as obvious as excavate down near the existing buildings on the property." As he was talking, Kage had projected imagery up on the canopy that had been marked up with pointers to illustrate what he was saying.
"Look along the back property line. What do you see?" he asked.
"A stream?" Crusher asked, squinting at the monochromatic image.
"It's more of a small river, actually," Kage said. "And if you look just to the west in the corner there"—he highlighted what he was talking about on the projection—"you can see what is most definitely the remains of an artificial structure. Probably what's left of a foundation from a building that's been gone for centuries."
"So they used the river to pump in cooling water for the machinery?" Jason asked. He'd not really understood this part in Kage's brief summary.
"There are issues with that," Doc said. "You'd have to either clean and filter the water coming in or risk pumping in whatever is suspended in the river water. The easier way is to sink heat exchangers into the water and allow the current to carry the heat away."
"Doc wins," Kage smiled. "From public records I found a survey image taken when the river was down and the weather had been unseasonably cool. If you look just south of that old ruin you can see six slightly warmer patches of water. I think that in this instance the volume of water was low enough that the satellite image actually picked up the thermal signatures of the heat exchangers. It's so subtle that if you didn't know what you were looking for already you'd completely miss it."
"That's a lot of cooling capacity to just maintain thirty-six stasis pods," Tauless argued.
"That's because there's also a miniature fusion powerplant there," Kage said and brought up another document, this one a handwritten sheet listing the specs of a proposed reactor. "This would be something widely available for research purposes. Miniature fusion reactors are used frequently for temporary setups where grid power is unavailable and batteries won't cut it. They're compact, safe, and reliable."
"The simple answer is usually the correct one," Doc pointed out. "This makes the most sense. Teludal would want to keep them close, but not something as foolish as in his basement. Putting aside how they managed to even construct something like this in secret—"
"Oh! I found that too," Kage said and began flipping through documents so fast that Jason looked away from the screen to keep from getting his eyes crossed. "Here! There's a group called—"
"The Xerneen Society," Lucky finished for him. "It is a Pruvian word that loosely translates to 'self-determination' or 'free will.' The society is a political activist group that led the fight in declaring synths a free-thinking people with the same rights as the pru themselves. That was the legal side of things. They also had a more militant arm that would act forcibly when necessary to protect synths that were being misused, most notoriously the battlesynths serving in combat roles they did not volunteer for."
"Thanks for stealing my thunder," Kage griped. "He's exactly right. The Xerneen Society is mentioned repeatedly in Vulban's writings, so I would suspect that any logistical help the pair needed would have come from them."
"How do you know so much about that, Lucky?" Crusher asked.
"They are the reason I am standing here with you, and not buried in a hole with my lot-mates," Lucky said. An uncomfortable silence prevailed as he didn't offer any further explanation.
"Is there any way to get in touch with these people?" Doc asked. "Maybe they can help."
"They don't really exist anymore except
as a public relations office that will spit out awareness campaigns every once in a while," Tauless said. "With synths roaming around freely throughout the quadrant, there wasn't any real mission for them anymore."
"That's our first goal," Jason said, reasserting control over the impromptu meeting. "Lucky, Kage, Tauless, and Twingo will work on the particulars of getting to Lot 700 and see about reactivating them."
"What are your plans with my lot-mates?" Lucky asked.
"I'm hoping they can be convinced to join us," Jason said. "If they have the same unique ability to ignore the inhibitor signal that you do we'll probably need their help."
"If they refuse?"
"They refuse," Jason shrugged. "Then we'll be no worse off than we are right now and we'll have at least got them going and on their own again. I'm more than a little insulted at the insinuation that I would try to force them … as if I could even if I wanted to."
Lucky just stared at him, but offered no apology for the perceived slight.
"Get going." Jason jerked a thumb towards the bridge entryway. "You have a few hours to come up with something workable."
"What was that all about?" Crusher asked after the others had filed off the bridge.
"He's pissed because I kept that information back for a time," Jason said.
"He'll get over it." Crusher yawned.
The Phoenix, flying under a registration that identified her as a high-speed courier, plodded through the system with the rest of the traffic. Jason could have requested a direct route and have a decent chance of it being granted, but it would also draw undo attention so for now he was content to file in behind everyone else and wait his turn.
"What was the other thing Kage was supposed to brief us on?" Crusher asked.
"Where we are with tracking down who might be orchestrating all this," Jason said. "Nothing that won't wait. There wasn't much there anyway."
"DIRECTOR PAVON, thank you for seeing me."
"Are you out of your mind, coming here?" Subdirector Ursic Pavon of Eshquarian Exterior Intelligence hissed. "There's a detain-on-sight order for you, Mok."
"Then you can just imagine how important what I have to say is; I couldn't risk sending it through the com system nor trust it to a messenger," Mok said.
They were sitting in a safe house on Eshquaria Prime that few knew about, even within the intelligence community. It was in an affluent outlying suburb of the capital and was usually used as an offsite meeting place for intelligence agents of different sovereign powers while the politicians preened and posed for pictures during official visits. Mok remembered sitting in the very same room negotiating for the return of hostages that had been grabbed during a border dispute, doing the real work behind the scenes while ambassadors and ministers took the credit later.
"If I were you, I'd get to the point quickly," Pavon said. "I owe you much, but there are limits to that. I won't risk my entire career or the safety of my family by being seen with you."
"Have you been noticing any unusual orders for fleet movements lately?" Mok asked. "I know about the tension with the Protectorate so nothing to do with that … anything to do with possibly deploying a force to the Core?"
"Where at in the Core?" Pavon said. "That's really a misnomer anyway; the 'Core' encompasses hundreds of worlds and not all located near the galactic center."
"Pillar Worlds, then," Mok corrected himself.
"You're running out of time, Mok," Pavon said, but the tightening of his facial muscles let Mok know that he'd come close to something.
"Okay, let's lay things bare," he said. "Do you remember Third General Maasch?"
"Your mentor? Of course," Pavon sneered. "If anyone is wanted more by the intelligence community than you, it's him. You've been left alone because you were smart enough to use your new … enterprise … to provide us with enough useful information to keep you in place. Him? We'll kill him on sight if we can ever find him."
"He's been here the entire time," Mok smiled humorlessly. "Maasch had an escape plan that he enacted after Shorret-3 … his name is Sorlotta Arx."
Pavon choked on his tea at the name. "You can't mean—"
"Minister Sorlotta Arx," Mok confirmed. "And I have proof."
"You have my attention now," Pavon said. "What do you want for this? You realize a pardon is out of the question. Too many people in very high places would be humiliated to learn that you'd actually been acting under orders."
"I don't feel like taking the pay cut it would mean to come back," Mok snorted. "Some assurances I'll be left alone by both branches of the intelligence service would be nice. But no, I'm not doing this for personal gain. I think Maasch might have been working some deal with a third party to launch an attack on Khepri."
"What in the Three Sisters for?" Pavon said, his expression referring to the three habitable planets in the Eshquaria System.
"The short answer is the usual: the fall of the ConFed and the glory of the Empire," Mok said. "I'm not comfortable giving you all the details because I have things in motion that I'd rather not put at risk. All I'm asking is that you look into any deployments by our forces—your forces—that would allow them to quickly get to the Khepri System. Finding out why they're there and who ordered it would be helpful as well."
"I hate being put in a position of trusting you, but I have heard some rumors," Pavon said. "Certain members of the admiralty that have been unusually vocal about expanding Eshquarian influence by force and denouncing the ConFed as weak and past its time. These are flagged by Interior Intelligence but nothing is ever done with it."
"I think I'd look a little closer if I were you," Mok said, standing to leave. "By the way … I have Arx and a detachment of his troops in custody after a failed attack on my home. I won't bore you with the details, but if you're nice and keep me informed on what you find I'll turn him over to you personally with the evidence of who he really is."
"Always working the angles." Pavon shook his head. "You never change. I'll be in touch, Colonel. Now please leave discreetly … I'd rather not have to deal with what you've just told me while facing criminal charges of my own."
"Good day, Director," Mok nodded and pulled the hat and mask back. It was a snug, half-mask affair that was designed to keep allergens, pollution, and germs out. Nearly a quarter of all urban dwellers wore something similar in the bigger cities so it would hardly be noticed.
Once outside he quickly climbed into his ground car and patted the driver to get going. After six blocks he ordered a few seemingly random turns before asking the driver to pull over. He paid with a non-coded credit chit and climbed out, throwing his long jacket and hat into a public trash bin and pulling on another hat of a completely different style and color before setting off and backtracking the way he'd come.
As he'd suspected, two ground cars that he'd seen parked outside of the safe house went speeding by, not slowing as they passed him. Once they were out of sight he resisted the urge to break into a run. There was no way to know if there were other observers posted to make sure he didn't pop out somewhere unexpected, and not drawing attention to one's self was the name of the game. Despite the very real danger of being captured and spending the rest of his life in an Eshquarian prison camp he had to admit that he hadn't felt so alive in years. He missed the rush of field operations and even giving a couple of Interior lackeys the slip set his hearts to racing.
"Everything is as I requested, I trust," he said as he climbed into another generic ground car without even a cursory look around.
"Of course, sir," Similan said as he pulled out into traffic.
They drove along the main arteries out of the city until making it to one of the auxiliary spaceports that dotted the landscape outside of every major metropolis. Similan drove out onto the active ramp, and as they approached a large cargo shuttle that sat with its engines running the front ramp yawned open. The car rolled smoothly up into the shuttle and within seconds Mok felt the engines throttle up and they were airborne, fly
ing away from the city and towards their orbital vector.
"Well done, everybody," Mok said once the deck clamps engaged and secured the car. "Now let's hope leaving this system goes just as smooth."
"Do you think you were recognized, sir?" Similan asked.
"I don't," Mok said. "I think those junior agents were posted there and told to follow anybody they couldn't positively identify that came out of that location. Nothing to worry about."
"ANY PROGRESS?" Jason asked, poking his head into the com room.
"If anything I'm losing ground," Kage said, slamming his palms down on the console. "This close to Khepri I'm tied in completely to their local networks, but something is blocking me at every turn."
"I don't want to put undue pressure on you, but we're just a few hours from landing," Jason said.
"I'm trying." Kage's frustration was evident so Jason didn't lean on him any harder. "It shouldn't be this difficult given that the orders have to be coming down through official channels and I've gained complete access to their system. Trying to pin down where they're originating is proving to be almost impossible, though. It's like they have someone much better than me constantly shuffling things so that I can never get a solid hit."
"That's disturbing," Jason frowned. He and the others abused Kage constantly, but there was no denying he was one of the best at what he did. His criminal record proved it. "If someone is blocking you that means they know you're trying to track down a specific target. Maybe we should pull the plug on this and work a different angle. We could wait and see what Mok digs up."
"It may be too late for that," Kage admitted. "Like you said; whoever it is already knows I'm in there and snooping around. I'd suggest we just go for it and see if something breaks loose." When Jason looked unconvinced, he went on. "There's something about this that feels familiar. It could be someone I've had dealings with before, or maybe someone who was trained by someone I know. If I can get a better handle on who it is then I can better form a strategy."
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