by Daniel Gibbs
8
Stealth Shuttle from CSV Oxford
Aphendrika—Terran Coalition
16 July 2464
The shuttle was more cramped than the spacious passenger hauler Jackson had flown in to round up his team. The stealth model had six seats packed elbow to elbow plus a modest cargo space, which was filled with gear. Nothing about the boxy interior fit with the exterior fuselage, which was as black as the night sky through which they descended. It reminded Jackson of a knife blade.
Dwyer hummed a tune as he guided the shuttle into the forest on the opposite side of Kolossi from the airfield where the refugees had been cordoned off. Cockpit sensors let him make a landing in a snug clearing without aid of visible lights. “How’s that for you, LT?”
“Calmer, somehow.” Brant entered data into his tablet. “Maybe because it’s so dark out I couldn’t see how fast you were flying or how near the ground we were.”
“Didn’t need to skim the grass. Aphendrika doesn’t have scanners that’ll pick up this bird.” Dwyer patted the console. “I tell you what, Cap’n. I wouldn’t mind puttin’ in a requisition order for an STS-Twenty when this is all over.”
“Fingers crossed, Warrant. We might need Colonel Sinclair to intervene if we’re allowed to keep hardware this fancy.” Jackson was used to doing his insertions via beat-up civilian shuttles retrofitted by Intelligence. One such craft was stored up in Oxford’s hangar bay. “All right, people—Gina and I will take the skimmers into town. Sparks will drop Sev and Brant off at the safehouse, designated Echo Home.”
“Whatever you say, Mr. Avery.” Gina slung her bag over the shoulder of her red leather jacket. The tips of her hair had purple-and-blue streaks, matching the false tattoos that had been applied to her skin.
For his part, Jackson had shaved the sides of his head and styled the top. He’d also quit shaving, letting the whiskers provide added camouflage. A few treatments from a follicle stimulator had given him a month-old beard in a matter of days. No wonder my chin still aches.
“Here.” Brant motioned for him to lean back in his seat then applied gray ocular adhesives. “Remember not to fiddle with your nose. It’s your skin, grown right from the mask vat, but it’ll still come off if you’re determined enough.”
Jackson blinked through the contacts until his vision adjusted. He checked his dim reflection in a blanked monitor. Yes, his nose did look sufficiently different—wider, with more of a Roman bump. “Nice work, as always.”
Brant shrugged. “It’s not as if you need a full facial prosthesis. Subtle variations are enough to fool scans. Now, if we were on a League world, you’d get the full disguise, but local security won’t be as picky.”
“It’s worked so far.” Jackson activated his wrist comm. Details of his alias, which he’d spent the last day memorizing, trickled across the screen before fading from view. He wasn’t Jack Aiken, underpaid data clerk. He was now Jack Avery, from New Washington, skimmer mechanic and failed businessman with a string of petty crimes—theft, fraud, public nuisance, slight limp to the right leg. “And the contact is expecting us?”
“Salvatore’s Ground Effect Garage,” Brant rattled off the business name like he’d been answering its comms signal his entire career. “At 30903 West Halys Street, Unit B. I made sure to forward a slimmed-down version of your resumé with just enough hints of your supposed run-ins with the law to intrigue him. Salvatore’s not above letting drug dealers and smugglers operate side businesses out of his place as long as he gets a nominal cut—and as long as his employees still do a good job fixing people’s hovercraft.”
Gina nudged him. “Sounds like your kind of man, Jack. When do I get to meet this paragon of humanity?”
“Eventually. When the time’s right. For now, you’ve got your orders.”
“Yes. Lounge about in my lovely apartment across the street from the League consulate.” She sighed. “Imagine waking up every morning to a gorgeous Aphendrika sunrise over their skyline only to have it ruined by dreary communist building blocks. I wonder how many varieties of gray they used on this one.”
“You’ll get enough of a chance to sample their opulence. Don’t worry.” Outwardly, Jackson projected calm, but inside, his heart accelerated like a fighter’s engines. This was the moment, right before deployment, when he couldn’t help but let his enthusiasm take over. His team had worked together before, so he knew he could expect the best from them, and he knew they’d taken down criminals and foreign enemies alike.
It was the one time he would give rein to his adrenaline. If he were any more excited, he would be on horseback alongside Harry, heading into the ranch with the sharp scent of newly fallen rain from a passing storm clinging to the sagebrush. “Sparks, you’ve double-checked Brant’s coordinates?”
“Ten-four, Cap’n. I’ll swing around the northeast so LT and Sev can hire a truck into Kolossi proper.”
“As offended as I am, yes, the coordinates are correct, and yes, I’ve already got the truck rented.” Brant snorted. “Come on now, folks, faking a profile to sign the rental agreement was the least complex part of this operation.”
“Good to know you’re not losing your edge,” Jackson said. “Okay, let’s move.”
Brant caught him in the narrow passageway to the cargo hold and landing ramp beyond. “Hey. Godspeed out there, Captain.”
They shook hands, their pre-mission ritual. That would, after all, be the last time he would see Brant in person for the rest of the operation if everything went according to plan. Which it rarely does. Hence the adrenaline. “You, too, Lieutenant. Keep the comms clear, and watch your six.”
“I leave the latter to the Holy Father, but I’ll spare a glance every once in a while.”
Rucksack in place, Jackson guided the slender skimmer down the ramp. The evening breeze was cool and damp, like there’d just been a rain, or another was on its way. Possibly both. Enough stars peeked through the cloud cover to hint at a dry ride to town. The glittering Kolossi skyline shone in the distance, ten kilometers away. It wasn’t as impressive as Lawrence City, back on Canaan, but there was a scattering of towers along the row of middle-height structures. A handful of construction cranes loomed over the scene, red beacons blinking, as the orange lights from fabrication drones circled them.
Gina’s skimmer hummed to life. She dropped a pair of goggles over her eyes. “Echo Two to Echo One, testing, one, two, over.” Her voice came in as clear as if she were whispering in his ear, thanks to the implanted transmitter. She was more than aware the Coalition banned those devices. How kind of CDF Intelligence to make an exception for its operatives.
“Echo One to Echo Two, copy. You’re five by five.”
“All these numbers. You could just call me ‘Sweetheart,’ and I could call you ‘Darling.’” Her chuckle hid any tension she might be feeling—not that Jackson could prove she was ever tense at the beginning of an operation. “I don’t envy your rules and regs, Jack.”
“You can call me whatever you want, Gina. I might not answer to your pet names, but you can try anyway.” Jack gunned his skimmer’s engine and gave a last two-finger salute to the rest of the team.
He led Gina out of the forest and onto the plains, leaving the stealth shuttle hidden in the shadows. The thrum of its engines rose above the gusting wind as it ascended toward the clouds. Within moments, it had faded from view.
“I’ll send you the consulate highlights once I’m established,” Gina said through their comms. She guided her skimmer with the ease of a pilot who could best the champions at the canyon races if the team stuck around on Aphendrika long enough. “Brant’s initial assessment says three men and one woman are on the External Security Services payroll, but I’ve noticed he usually misses a couple.”
“Yet another reason you’re invaluable,” Jackson replied. “You spot the things other people miss. But don’t let anyone know I used that word. They’ll be jealous it’s not on their evaluations.”
Gina laughed. �
�I’ll call you in a couple of days.” She cranked the controls and sent her skimmer off on a separate path.
Her apartment, and the consulate, were a couple klicks from the garage where Jackson was headed. The two of them crossing paths would be easy to arrange.
Alone with his thoughts, Jackson watched as the approaching lights of Kolossi beckoned. Somewhere among the bustle of a trade city, League agents were doing their best to subvert the Coalition’s handling of what could be an explosive situation. They’d already scored a hit then scuttled under the rocks, like those spike vipers plaguing the Adams ranch. Jackson would make sure they were stomped out good.
Lieutenant Brant Guinto wrinkled his nose as he followed Sevastopol Rast into the dank tenement. “I’m going to write Colonel Sinclair to see about expanding our budget for this off-the-books operation. In no way are these conditions sanitary.”
The apartment was a single bedroom with a slumped couch bleeding stuffing and a kitchenette missing half its appliances. A tiny, six-legged rodent scuttled into the bathroom as soon as Brant set down his bags, followed by three more of its best friends. Everything was stained. The evening breeze whistled through leaky seals in the three windows across the front of the living space.
Though “living” is a term I’d use loosely, Brant thought.
“Cozy.” Sev affixed a tiny sensor above the door panel on the inside then stuck a flat, transparent square on the opposite side. He shut and locked the door.
“Thanks. That’ll keep us informed if anyone approaches.” Brant found a three-legged desk in one corner and sighed. He would query a local fix-it shop later. For the time being, the double stack of scanner and comms monitoring hardware served as a decent substitute for the missing leg.
Sev walked into the kitchen and set up a stubby carbine mounted on a double tripod on the counter. He attached the same tiny sensor to the trigger with an added device that could actually fire the weapon. Then he sighted down the small scope.
Brant glanced from the door to the counter and back again. “I assume you have the bio-scan rigged so it won’t shoot me when I come back from getting a sandwich?”
“Yes.” Sev cocked his head, like a dog listening for a sound only he could hear. “Why?”
“I like to be thorough and also not get shot by my allies.”
Sev grunted.
Brant wired together the equipment, pausing only to look back where Sev was unloading supplies. “Are you going to leave it out on the counter? At least conceal it on the odd chance we get local LEOs stopping by with questions about whatever crimes I assume plague this neighborhood.”
Sev seemed to consider the suggestion. He reached for a quilted, mold-riddled cover and pulled it off a food rehydrator. It stretched just enough to cover the gun, with a little of the tripods legs protruding.
“I’ll give you middle marks for effort.” Brant shook his head.
He pushed his irritation at Sev’s sullen, paranoid mode aside, and within five minutes, Sev had the room secure and headed to the roof to find a suitable sniper perch. Meanwhile, Brant tapped into law enforcement comms, government news nets, and every signal he could within fifty kilometers. He streamed the most relevant channels through his portable computer, bringing up video in a collage he was sure would give Jackson a headache but, to him, was as soothing as a rainbow.
Speak of the devil.
The signal from Jackson was clean, as was the link to Gina. Sev’s and Warrant Dwyer’s comms lit up soon after as he routed them all through the main hub. Next up, a test ping to each of the four. Sev’s returned loud and clear, seeing as it was from the roof. Jackson’s followed then Gina’s. Dwyer’s reply ping took another three minutes, but Brant wasn’t concerned—he had to find a decent place to stash the stealth shuttle. They would need it for any infiltration aspects, especially if they uncovered facilities outside the city, and it made little sense to send it a few million kilometers away to where Oxford acted as Base One.
“Okay.” Brant made the sign of the cross and murmured a prayer to Saint Joshua, the patron saint of spies. Brant didn’t consider himself a brave man sneaking into hostile land, but he was on the lookout for enemies. “Let’s listen close for whoever’s out there.”
Colonel Sinclair strolled into the operations center, projecting the aura of a man unconcerned about the start of the mission. It was his job, after all, to exude calm while in command. His mind, however full it was with those very details, still harbored conflicting emotions about their purpose out there. In the end, what matters most is that we carry out our orders to the letter. The League’s interference must be exposed and ended.
Rather than share those nagging concerns, he said, “How goes it, chaps?”
Captain Tamir flashed a smile from his console, where he could oversee the work of the complete line of technicians assigned to monitoring the system-wide transmissions. “We’re getting initial signals now, Colonel. Filters are catching everything they should. CWO Eldred’s new algorithm is running baseline comparisons against known League codes, on the off chance they get sloppy.”
“What’re our odds they’ve not cleaned up their act?”
Eldred shook her head. “I almost feel sorry for them, sir. ESS is notorious for its arrogance. Leaguers might be professionals when it comes to oppressing their people on their home turf, but when ESS carries the same superiority complex over the borders, I’m surprised they don’t sidle up to the fleet yards and ask us in a whisper to hand over our secrets.”
The comment brought a smile to Sinclair’s lips. While League codes were tough, they were nothing Oxford couldn’t handle. Certainly not as bewildering as Saurian encrypts—which had the added complexity of being based on a reptilian language made up of different hisses. “Very good. What’s the overview thus far?”
“The overview is that the system’s flooded with comms traffic, understandably so,” Tamir explained. “I’ve got Takamo and Hardt focused on TCFE corvettes—thirty are deployed around Aphendrika. As near as we can determine, everybody’s sniping at each other about who screwed up and let all those shuttles dump thousands of refugees on the planet. Turns out another load snuck down earlier, during what’s local night at Kolossi.”
“Heavens. They’ve a rather large hole in their net if thirty corvettes can’t seal it.”
“It gets more interesting when we listen in on the other side,” Eldred said. “I have Dean, Spiedel, and Joyner parsing the freighter communications. It’s quite the mess, sir—overlapping signals sent by subpar equipment. But we’ve been able get an initial indication of foul play. Several captains claim orbital control gave clearance for barge trips to Kolossi Field, which Orbital Control vehemently denies.”
“Vehemently?”
“Yes, sir.” Eldred smirked. “We’re censoring the harsher language for your report, Colonel.”
“No need to sanitize on my account, Warrant.” Sinclair leaned over, peering at the data filling the screens.
“We’re still waiting on your approval to query TCFE and Orbital for their records so we can investigate further,” Eldred said.
“There will be no need for such a step. Continue monitoring all frequencies.”
Eldred glanced at Tamir. “Captain…?”
“You heard the Colonel.” Tamir shared a look with Sinclair. “In this situation, the lines blur fast. We don’t know to what extent Leaguers have infiltrated Orbital Control, or even TCFE. They could have agents inside or have bribed actual officers. Either way, we have to assume any overt questions from us will be intercepted.”
“Quite right,” Sinclair said. “Besides which, our orders explicitly prohibit direct contact with heads of Coalition and local agencies except in case of an emergency.”
“Understood.” Eldred frowned at the communiqués as she scrolled through them. “And that applies to the unit on the ground?”
Sinclair nodded. “A fact of which Captain Adams and his people are all too aware. Fret not, Warrant—this
is how they work. Success means they return to us and their homes with no one the wiser. Failure earns them local incarceration until we can intervene quietly and without ruining their cover. Of course, there are more troubling outcomes, which all involved shall do their utmost to avoid.”
“Yes, sir. I see.”
“Keep up the good work, Captain, Warrant. I should be very curious indeed to see your analysis of the transmissions those freighters received, provided you can find the originals.”
Tamir wrinkled his nose, like the air circulators had failed and he’d gotten a whiff of an unpleasant odor. “If that’s a joke, Colonel, you’ve got to work on your material.”
“A lesson I shall take to heart, Butter Bars.”
Salvatore’s Ground Effect Garage at 30903 West Halys Street was a long, two-story structure that cut across two blocks. The upper floor arched over the alley, providing a walkway between otherwise-separated workshops. Wide bay doors opened on the alley from either side and from both West Halys and West Cooper Street.
Jackson caught the stench of burnt ozone as he settled the skimmer by the curb. A green neon sign pulsed against the dark evening, proclaiming the business name over the logo of a stylized skimmer atop a shooting star. His wrist comm told him local time was 1930 hours, but the shop was still abuzz with activity. He pinpointed three men working on one large hovercraft in the bay, while three refurbished skimmers sat on the sidewalk, sporting For Sale signs.
One of the men caught sight of him standing by the open bay door, shut off his plasma torch, and shouted deeper into the workshop. His alert brought a balding dark-skinned guy with a long, drooping handlebar mustache out of the recesses. He wiped his hands on a canvas apron, which Jackson found peculiar because one hand was a three-clawed cybernetic replacement.