“Camber, Captain Lougheed. My name is Amanda Camber, and I believe I can help you,” she said briskly. “May we speak in private?”
“Miss Camber, I am a very busy man and have an appointment to keep,” he told her. “I suggest you get to the point very quickly; I do not have time for games.”
“Captain, please,” she told him. “I represent certain parties that are prepared to make you quite wealthy if you are willing to cooperate, but these aren’t matters that should be discussed in public.”
A string of mental curses ran through Andrew’s head as he glanced around. For all that Camber was calling this “public”, there was no one around to see or overhear them. He doubted that was unintentional.
“Miss Camber,” he repeated, “I am an officer in the Duchy’s militia. I cannot think of anything I can do that would incline anyone to make me ‘quite wealthy,’ as you say. I think we would all benefit if you and I simply forgot we saw each other and moved on.”
While he spoke, he was sidling as subtly away from her as he could, opening the distance while he triggered a panic button on his communicator. His current best guess was “corporate espionage,” but whatever it was, he was very sure he did not want to get involved.
“I’m not asking you to do anything to betray your oaths, Captain,” Camber insisted. “I represent a group of…patriots who think it is not in Earth’s best interest to have all of our technology in the hands of one company!”
There should have been MPs rallying to the panic button within moments, and a chill ran down Andrew’s spine. Something was not right. Something more important than corporate espionage.
“Miss Camber, I will not participate in any kind of betrayal of the Duchy’s militia, even corporate espionage against our contractors,” he said flatly. “Unless you want to explain how you knew I would be here to the station’s military police, I suggest you disappear. Fast.”
“The cameras are down in this section, Captain. Stop mugging for them,” Camber said sardonically. “You haven’t called the MPs. I’d have been warned.”
“I haven’t?” Andrew asked, pulling his communicator out and showing it to her. “I suggest you check again.”
Camber stared at the flashing panic icon on the communicator screen, then yanked out a device of her own.
“Clever, Captain,” she told him. “It appears I am being jammed.”
Andrew checked the status of his communicator and swore.
“Not just you, Miss Camber,” he admitted. “So, if you don’t mind, it appears I have bigger fish to fry than a corporate spy. Don’t let me see you again.”
#
Chapter 40
“What do you mean, we’ve lost contact with BugWorks Station?” Jean Villeneuve demanded.
The nervous-looking tech, a squat noncom with a nametag identifying him as Q. Shang in Defense One’s command center, shook his head quickly.
“I don’t know, sir,” he admitted. “All telemetry and military communications just went down two minutes ago. It could be a transmitter issue.”
“It could,” Jean agreed. “Or it could be something worse. See if you can ping anything.”
“Already on it, sir,” the tech replied. “We have an auto-ping sequence running that should get a response from something, but so far, we’re drawing a blank.”
“Keep on it,” the old French Admiral ordered. He turned to walk over to the holotank, studying the presentation of Earth’s orbital space.
“This is up to date, correct?” he asked one of the other techs.
“Yes, sir,” she confirmed. “Being fed with visual and radar details up to the minute. There’s speed-of-light delays, but that’s it.”
Jean nodded his thanks and continued his study of the display. At least that meant that BugWorks Station was still there, even if the Nova Industries research base was being suddenly uncommunicative.
There were a number of tagged spacecraft floating around BugWorks and its attached yards, he realized, and a possibility struck him.
“Shang,” he snapped, gesturing the first tech back to him. “Can we reach any of the shuttles near BugWorks? There’s at least two dozen interface-drive small craft there; one should be able to swing by and check on the station.”
“We’ll try, sir,” Shang replied. “That’s funny,” he continued a moment later, studying his screen—then looked up at Jean in horror.
“Admiral Villeneuve,” he said formally, “BugWorks Station is being jammed. There’s a field extending at least one hundred kilometers from the station hull that we can’t reach any of the shuttles inside.”
A chill ran down Jean’s spine. He wasn’t surprised, somehow, but the timing couldn’t be worse.
“Confirm the locations of Washington and Beijing for me,” he said quietly.
“Both are docked with BugWorks,” the scanner tech, her nametag showing K. Lamb, reported. “They’re inside the jamming field Shang identified.”
And Tornado was a minimum of a week from Sol, even if they’d failed to find Tortuga and just turned around. Every warship Earth had was inside a field of impenetrable jamming emerging from their current main shipyard.
“Take the defense network to Status One,” he snapped. “Standing orders: any vessel that attempts to depart BugWorks station is to be locked in and challenged. If they fail to provide Alpha-level confirmation, they will be fired upon.
“Declare a twenty-thousand-kilometer no-fly zone around the Lunar Yards,” he continued. That single refit slip, barely three-quarters assembled, was the only facility that could handle the new super-battleships.
“Any vessel, including the destroyers, that approaches within that no-fly zone is to be fired upon without further warning,” he ordered coldly.
“Sir?” Lamb asked slowly.
“Do it,” he snapped. “The only reason to jam BugWorks, Chief, is to steal the Capitals. I will not risk the Lunar Yards—and I will destroy those ships myself to keep them out of the wrong hands!”
#
To Andrew’s surprise, the spy managed to keep up with him as he set off for the nearest control station.
“What’s going on?” Camber demanded.
“Frankly, none of your damned business,” he snapped. “Get out of my way, Miss Camber. The last thing I need right now is to babysit a damned spy.”
She still followed him but was silent for a long moment.
“BugWorks is under attack, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Probably.”
“How can I help?”
He glanced back at her sharply, but much of the crisp cheer and warmth she’d been showering on him before was gone. In its place was a calm professionalism, one that was assessing the risk and making a call.
“Get out of the way?” he suggested.
“Like I said, Captain, I’m a patriot,” she told him. “Might have a beef with Nova Industries, but this is something else. Hell, if you want me to play courier, I can do that.”
He sighed. Andrew wasn’t sure he could trust her, but he didn’t have much choice.
“If you’ve got something that might break through the jamming, I’ll hear it,” he told her. “If not, the best thing you can do is run for the Guard barracks and sound an alarm.”
“I’ve got a frequency hopper,” she told him, “but I’m not hooked into the station net, so I don’t have any power behind it at all.”
“Give,” he ordered.
She removed a dongle from her communicator and passed it to him. Hesitating for a moment, she shrugged.
“Guard barracks, you said?”
“Yeah,” Andrew said distractedly, linking her device into his communicator.
“I’ll warn them,” she promised. “Good luck, Captain Lougheed.”
Before he could respond, the spy was gone, moving down the halls of BugWorks Station at a rapid jog. He stared after her for a moment in surprise, then turned his attention back to the communicator.
The frequency hopper C
amber had been using was a slick piece of tech, enough to dance around the jamming. Even with a link into the station’s systems, though, he couldn’t link through to anyone. The Militia network was now completely down, someone having crashed the system based on the old UESF net.
The Nova Industries network was another mess. He could link in, but it was being spammed with garbage data on top of having the wireless portion jammed. Someone had been very careful to make sure that any possible communications even inside BugWorks was gone.
But…
Andrew Lougheed had been a UESF officer, but he’d also been in command of one of Elon Casimir’s survey ships. He’d flown missions for Casimir they hadn’t told anyone else about—and those involved in Casimir’s black recon operation had had their own network aboard BugWorks.
That was still up. It was barely used now, lacking anything resembling routing directories. There were some direct codes he knew, however, and he pinged Laurent.
“Who is this?” she demanded.
“It’s Andrew,” he told his girlfriend. “I’m punching through the old covert network to reach you. Are you all right?”
“Am I all right?” she snapped. “I’m locked in my damned quarters and haven’t been able to reach anybody for at least ten minutes, but I’m fine. What the hell is going on?”
“The entire station is jammed and both the Militia and Nova networks are being hammered on the hard lines as well,” he told her grimly. “We’re under cyber attack, I assume to cover a more direct attack.”
His old XO, now promoted to his own rank given the Duchy’s shortage of interface-drive-experienced officers, thought for a long moment.
“The destroyers,” she concluded grimly. “I don’t know who, but the only thing they can be after is the Capitals.”
“They’re not even manned,” he pointed out.
“But they’re ready to deploy in all other aspects, so if someone has brought a crew or—”
“Or if our ex-UESF crew are Weber infiltrators,” Andrew finished her thought. “Shit.”
“I don’t know where Sade is, but I’m going to break out and head for Geneva,” Laurent told him. “Try and collect at least some crew along the way. We need something in space to stop anyone running.”
“I’m not far from Washington,” Andrew told her. “I’ll get her back into space, then we’ll try and coordinate from there.”
“Good luck, my love.”
“And to you.” He paused. “Wait, how are you getting out? You said you were locked in.”
“And I have a plasma pistol,” his girlfriend said calmly. “I just wasn’t sure the situation deserved it.”
#
When Elon and Zhao had told Annette they wanted to install a high-speed tram line into the underground tunnel between her apartment building and Wuxing Tower, she’d scoffed at them. It was less than half a kilometer’s walk, after all.
Zhao had gone ahead and done it anyway.
Now, that same very short tram line, operational for barely a week, had allowed her and Elon to get from her apartment to the Planetary Crisis Center in Wuxing Tower in just over three minutes, Ducal Guard bodyguards in tow.
“Does anyone have a new update?” she demanded as she strode into the half-assembled Center. It was a partial replica of the command centers in place aboard the orbital platforms, buried in the heart of the massive armored tower the Duchy now based its government in.
Partial because the systems weren’t installed yet. The big holotank was in place and turned on, but it was being run from a single console with cables strewn hazardously across the floor.
When complete, the Crisis Center was intended to hold her entire Council during an invasion, providing the data and communications support to run a worldwide defense. It wasn’t ready…but anything better was in orbit.
“We’re getting a link from Admiral Villeneuve aboard Defense One,” Militia Commodore Uilani Koa told her. Koa was a Hawaiian woman, petite and tanned with a short black braid almost identical to Annette’s own—and she’d been here to oversee installation of the hardware.
The sudden change in job description didn’t seem to have fazed her.
“We don’t have the channels to link directly into the satellites,” she continued, “so Villeneuve’s people are doing the synthesis and analysis and beaming it down to us. It’s not perfect, but it’ll keep us informed.”
“Thank you, Commodore,” Annette told her. “So, we’re getting data. Has anything changed?”
“No,” Koa said softly. “BugWorks remains inside a powerful jamming field. Villeneuve has confirmed that it is Terran tech.”
“How Terran?” Earth’s Duchess asked.
“UESF,” Koa said flatly. Unlike most of the new Militia’s senior officers, Koa had not been a member of the United Earth Space Force. She’d come to the Militia from the United States Air Force—an organization that had never quite accepted that they shouldn’t be the ones running Earth’s spaceborne defenses.
“Almost certainly from the Weber Protocol caches,” she continued. “So, that bit of brilliance continues to pay dividends.”
“Peace, Commodore,” Annette ordered. “If the Kanzi had conquered us, the Network might have been our only hope. I just wish these idiots would realize we’re better off hiding behind someone else right now.”
“There is no sign of anyone boarding or attacking the exterior of the station,” Elon noted. Annette’s lover had crossed to the holotank and was studying it. “A jammer of this magnitude wasn’t snuck onto my station, Annette. It had to be brought aboard by people authorized to bring heavy equipment on.”
“I know,” Annette admitted. “We cannot afford a witch hunt for traitors, Elon. But you’re right—only my Militia could have set this up.
“I agree with the Admiral,” she continued. “They have to be after the Capitals. Get me Major Salvatore.”
Rank in the Ducal Guard for ex-SSS personnel had been based more on whether Colonel Wellesley trusted an officer than anything else…which had made Major Adrian Salvatore the Guard’s second-in-command.
The Guard Officer answered her com request immediately. His dark eyes were bright and his teeth were bared in what could charitably be called a smile.
“The alert woke me up ten minutes ago,” he told her before she could say anything. “I have two troops aboard shuttles ready to go right now. Give me ten more minutes, I’ll have two companies.”
He paused and sighed.
“I can’t get much more than that without compromising your protection,” he admitted. “We’ve been very careful about who gets into the Guard. I am entirely confident in the loyalty of every trooper under my command, Your Grace.”
“I was going to ask,” she admitted. “Thank you. We don’t know the scale of the assault force, or if there even is one…but I’m assuming at least one company of ex-triple-S, if not more. Can you get reinforcements?”
“The fourth Guard company is already aboard BugWorks, ma’am. Nova has a short battalion of security guards as well. They’re decent for mall cops, better than most troops at this point.”
He paused.
“I can send out a call, Your Grace…but anyone I’d call is Weber and could be involved.”
Zhao emerged from the elevator behind them, the big Chinese man panting heavily and leaning on his bodyguards. He carefully made his way across.
“Zhao, do you have any ex-soldiers we could call in for this?” Annette asked him grimly.
“Space-trained troops, able to keep up with SSS?” the ex-chairman of China asked carefully.
“I’d settle for space-trained,” Salvatore noted. “We don’t know what’s going on up there.”
“Do we have gear for them?”
“I’ve got shipping containers of pre-annexation SSS armor and assault weapons. But to get anyone on a shuttle, we’d need existing intact formations.”
Zhao met Annette’s gaze, then glanced aside and downwards.
&n
bsp; “Those weapons won’t be needed,” he admitted with a sigh. “Load two battalions’ worth of space gear onto shuttles, send them to these coordinates,” he told Salvatore, reeling off a latitude and longitude accurate to a hundred meters. “I’ll contact them before you arrive. You’ll be expected.”
“They’ll be on their way in five minutes,” Salvatore said after a moment of silence. “What’s the plan, Duchess Bond?”
“Pull together those two companies. Meet up with Zhao’s people. Board and secure BugWorks,” she ordered. “It’s entirely possible, even likely, that most of the people on the station don’t even know anything’s going on. We’ll need you to be careful, to be precise.”
“That’s why you’re sending the Guard,” Salvatore told her. “The name has changed, but we’re still SSS-trained.”
Dropping the channel, she turned a dark look on Zhao, who was tapping a message into his communicator.
“Two battalions?” she asked sharply.
“It is the duty of the Party to defend the Middle Kingdom,” he said calmly. “I trust you, now at least, but I remained the leader of the Party and some form of security was necessary. It is going to be useful, no?”
“Just how many secrets are you still keeping, Li Chin Zhao?” Annette asked.
“Many,” he told her cheerfully. “Some are irrelevant. Some you do not want to know. You have my oath that I keep no secrets that will harm you or the Duchy.”
And that, clearly, was all she was going to get from him.
#
Chapter 41
Andrew felt envious of his girlfriend’s plasma pistol as he headed back toward Washington. He hadn’t seen any threat other than Camber—and unless he missed his guess, the corporate spy’s attempt to bribe him had delayed him enough to prevent his being locked in with Laurent.
He hadn’t seen any invaders…but as he headed back to his ship, he didn’t see any of the people he should have seen. The corridors were eerily empty, and the Militia MPs that should have been guarding his destroyer’s hatches were missing.
Duchess of Terra (Duchy of Terra Book 2) Page 27