by Daniel Gibbs
Of course, it came at the price of the government monitoring their every move and trying to read their every thought. Gina sneered. League or Coalition, she wasn’t about to let either restrain her. Convenient arrangements could always change. After all, even Jack had proven his loyalty lay more with his country than with her. She resolved not to take it personally.
And yet, you have to keep reminding yourself, don’t you?
Gina shook her head and tucked the Orbita into her belt. She squeezed her sleeve to signal she was exiting.
“Confirmed, Echo Two. Inbound skimmers, ETA eight minutes.”
Eight minutes? Gina sighed. Introspection slowed her down.
She paused at the top of the stairs and made sure the light switch was in the off position, then returned to the breaker box to reenable the power. All that was left was to peer out the front window, making sure the proverbial coast was clear, before stepping back outside. Gina doffed her mask, put on her coat, and made sure her hair was sufficiently mussed.
The few people walking past on the opposite side of the street would have seen a beautiful young woman leaving Salvatore’s in the middle of the night, blowing a kiss as the door closed. No doubt there would be hazy conversation about who she was and how a guy like Salvatore was lucky, but the promise of parties would draw anyone so distracted away from the scene.
Gina fumbled with her comm intentionally, let it hit the pavement, then knelt to retrieve it. The Orbita packets dropped beside the curb.
Four minutes later, two skimmers buzzed down the street, their hover nodules whipping up dust and debris. The two riders dismounted—Jack’s mark, Euke, and a bearded fellow Brant had tentatively IDed as Hans from audio and video surveillance. Euke looked positively ill, while Hans wore a stern, grandfatherly expression, which was incongruous with the rifle slung over his back.
Gina kept the scene in her periphery from across the street as she chatted with the tall, handsome young man whose arm she’d snagged as he walked toward a nightclub on the next block. He gaped in awe at what she assumed he considered his sudden shift in fortune.
Cute, in his own way, but not while I’m working.
“What’s, uh, your name?”
“Brandy.” She winked at him. “What’s yours?”
Euke bent, examining something on the ground. His face brightened as he rose, the bundles in his hands. He pointed, his gestures emphatic as he spoke to Hans, who Gina noticed seemed disappointed.
Poor fellow. I denied him the chance to shed blood. How cruel.
“Retrieval confirmed, Echo Two. Always impressive. I’ll pass notice to the rest. Their salvation is on its way.”
A fine night’s work. Gina glanced at her wrist unit. Enough time, she supposed, for a dance or two.
Jackson didn’t know how much longer he could hold his smile, so he was glad when Euke and Hans returned on their skimmers. He’d been expecting gunshots to drop targets around him. He’d also expected Salvatore to call back in an outrage, but Arvid couldn’t make his signal go through, courtesy of Brant’s handiwork.
“Found the rest of it,” Hans said. “Got dropped by the curb. We found it right there. Guess we’re lucky no one partying on Halys picked it up to add to the fun.”
“Yes. Lucky for Salvatore’s people, especially this one.” Arvid gestured. “You go, both of you. Tell Salvatore we expect less sloppiness next time. And to remind you…”
Jackson saw the punch coming. He had a second to decide whether to dodge, to block, or to take it. As Captain Jackson Adams, he was more than capable of defending himself, especially against a blow as telegraphed as that. But as Jack Avery, mechanic and troublemaker, he knew what he had to do.
He let the punch take him on the jaw.
“No!” Euke caught Jackson before he could go all the way to the ground. “He’s new. He didn’t foul up. It was my mistake.”
“True. Now you see your mistakes have consequences for others.” Arvid kicked the bag of pay chits so they scattered on the grass. “Get moving.”
He and his crew cleared out.
Jackson rubbed his jaw. The bruise would earn him credit. Dwyer would run a medscan on him per protocol. “Thanks. For having my back. Literally, it turns out.”
“It was supposed to be your job to have mine.” Euke’s tone was like a cross schoolteacher, but there was a smirk to his expression. “I appreciate the sentiment.”
“Let’s get the money back to our boss and hope our cut’s better than my last bonus.”
They mounted their skimmers. Jackson glanced back at the hangar concealing the barge, the one into which people had been loaded. Engines whined as they fired up.
“Send to Salvatore we’re on our way back.” Euke gunned his engine.
“I will.” Jackson tapped the message onto his wrist comm then sent a second on a different, secure frequency. E1 to EH. Task E3 shadow barge. Ship data to B1.
“Ready?”
“Sure. But…” Jackson frowned. It was easy to put on a concerned face. “What’s the deal with those people?”
“One of those things I told you we don’t speak about.”
“To others. Between us though, where’d they come from? Off that freighter?” Jackson blew out a breath. “I read on the networks there’s a whole bunch of people up in orbit—those dirty Leaguers—and I saw some at the Kolossi Landing Field.”
“They’re not League anymore. They’re nobody.” Euke gripped the skimmer controls. “Which is why they’re taken.”
“Man. Those guys out there with Orbita and stolen people…”
“Drop it. That punch was a nice, kind warning compared to how they deal. Keep your mouth shut, and forget about everyone but yourself, about the jobs.”
Euke raced off. Jackson followed, avoiding his dust cloud. The barge’s engine roared overhead as the craft cleared the hangars.
“Sparks is waiting on Deadeye, then they’re airborne,” Brant said. “They’ll hang back. I’ve transmitted everything we have on the ship to Base One and their units. Want Echo Three to force the target down?”
He could authorize it. Dwyer would stalk the barge, find a way to disable it, but that would be risky for the people—the youths—being trafficked. The subtler option was to call the local LEOs anonymously and give them the landing coordinates when the barge arrived at its destination. Risks. A lot of them.
Jackson lowered a visor to keep the grit from his face as he raced back toward the city.
Sev jogged up the ramp, but Dwyer didn’t wait for him to take a seat—hell, he didn’t even wait for him to get all the way inside the cargo hold. The stealth shuttle was already ten meters off the ground by the time Sev stowed his gear and strapped into the copilot’s seat.
“Where?” Sev asked.
“North by northeast.” Dwyer raised the ramp and pushed forward on the throttles. He lifted the shuttle into the cloud cover, where he could disguise their flight path while scanners tagged the barge. “Cap’n wants us to keep our eye on it.”
“Then?”
“Nothing. Not a damn thing.” Dwyer scowled. “He’s worried about tippin’ our hand too soon with the League, lettin’ them know what we know and that somebody’s on their six. I don’t like it one bit.”
Sev nodded. “Bad. But smart.”
“Yeah, I s’pose. Doesn’t make it any easier to swallow.” Dwyer turned the shuttle onto a new vector then locked in a pursuit course. “And here I was hopin’ we’d get to burn a few Leaguers out of the sky.”
14
Kolossi
Aphendrika—Terran Coalition
23 July 2464
They met early the next morning at Gina’s apartment.
The loft was spacious, clean, befitting her personality. No clutter, furnishing with simple, spare pieces. A trio of houseplants added needed color splashes to the dull décor.
Jackson sat on the couch opposite Brant and Dwyer, leaning toward the holographic display emitting from Brant’s tablet.
It was a 3D recreation of the secret field they’d visited last night, complete with miniature hangars, ships, and people.
“I ran everything we got on the five possible Leaguers past Oxford. Zip.” Brant flicked his fingers inside the holo then poked at all five men. Their hazy green figures turned red. “They’re going to send the details up the chain to Intelligence back on Canaan. Those men might have been used in prior operations, but if they were, we don’t have anything yet.”
“How about the freighter?” Jackson asked.
“I kept her on scanner until she broke atmosphere, but Sev and I were busy doggin’ the barge you had loaded with people.” Dwyer sipped a cup of coffee. He had dark circles under his eyes. Not a lot of sleep. Not a lot for any of them.
Jackson rubbed at his face. “If you’ve got a problem, Warrant, I expect to hear it.”
Dwyer grimaced. He glanced at Brant.
“Don’t look at me, Sparks. You know the drill,” Brant said.
“Yes, sir. We should’ve helped those people, dropped in Sev—he could have taken everyone aboard who wasn’t a refugee without a fuss.”
Sev perched in the corner of the room, watching through slit blinds at the League consulate across the street. He peeled skin from an orange, one thumb-sized portion at a time. He nodded at Dwyer. “True.”
“I don’t doubt you’d have succeeded, Sev, but anything we do to draw attention to ourselves now ruins our chances at exposing the League’s involvement in the refugee crisis. That’s why I didn’t send us in and why we didn’t contact authorities.”
“I know, Cap’n. Doesn’t mean I like it.”
“Fine. Your complaint will go in the after-action report.” Jackson steepled his hands in front of his face. “Anyone else?”
Brant shook his head. “Back to the freighter, Captain.”
“Right.”
“It slipped orbit not long after. I sent the scans on to Oxford and from there to Tuscon. They passed word to TCFE, who was supposed to keep a closer eye, but they lost it.”
Gina snorted.
“It’s not funny,” Brant muttered. “It’s criminal. I don’t care how many ships are in orbit. Border should be able to track a single freighter when we give them the precise scan data. Even worse is Oxford and dropping the ball. How are we supposed to—”
“Hold on, LT. This isn’t a disaster.” Jackson scratched his chin as he gazed at the holo of the freighter. “It’s just another piece of the puzzle.”
“Always the optimist, aren’t you, Jack?” Gina asked.
“I’m serious. If all three parties lost the freighter on their sensors, we have to assume it was because of the freighter itself and its controllers rather than incompetence on the part of two CDF Intelligence vessels and TCFE, which means we’re not dealing with a stock cargo vessel.”
“Stealth tech?” Gina pursed her lips. “A bit high budget for League, but they’ve done it before.”
“At Van Sant.”
Gina smiled. “Our first mission. How nostalgic.”
Brant blew out a breath. “The ship they ran at Van Sant was a modified gunboat, adaptable to stealth. This is an old tramp freighter, not much younger than the Lucy Lee scow Tuscon picked up. You’d have to put it through a major refit, strip it down to the struts, just to incorporate the hardware.”
“Which points to the League’s long game.”
“What’re we lookin’ at here?” Dwyer drained the rest of his coffee. “From what I saw on our replay of greatest hits, there’s all kinds of drugs, money, and people changing hands. Who’s getting what?”
Jackson tapped a command into his tablet. A chart of circles appeared in the air over the scene. “I’ve been working on that.”
“In between fixing skimmers,” Gina said. “Which, by the way, I saw the work orders on Salvatore’s desk. There are quite a few with your name on them.”
“What can I say? My skills are in demand, as were yours. Thanks again for bailing me out.”
“Not at all. Can’t wait for the next opportunity.”
Jackson grinned then indicated the chart. “Here’s what we have. Demir cartel—they run local drugs, covering most of Kolossi with tentacles out to a dozen other settlements on Aphendrika. Up until six months ago, they peddled everything except Orbita. The latter started showing up not long before the influx of refugees, but Demir isn’t the supplier. Salvatore’s is one of the businesses running as couriers—bringing Orbita to Demir. Demir pays up then marks it up and sells it on the streets. Kudos to Gina for confirming.”
“It’s not a problem to spot, not if you know where to look.” Gina leaned back and crossed her ankles on the table. Her bare toes wriggled the holos. “West Halys isn’t the only place to party. I’ve scoped out most of them. Orbita’s spreading. But I haven’t yet seen anyone moving product out of the consulate—which has been my prime target for a source point.”
“You’re thinking the delivery trucks. Any luck with facial recognition or other scans?”
“Not according to our resident tech.” Gina winked at Brant.
“Well, it hasn’t been for lack of trying. I found one possible…” Brant swiped a close-up photo. “This guy.”
Jackson squinted. The image was fuzzy, but the bare, dour face didn’t ring any bells for him from around the shop or Salvatore’s customers. The dirty face and scarred features weren’t anything that would stand out in a crowd. The cybernetic eye would draw a bit more attention, but only marginally so.
“Mark him as Case One.”
“Done and done, Captain. I’ll let you know if anyone else matches up.”
“Okay. So… League provides Orbita to Demir. Demir sells it, but they also pay up, presumably, to the League. We have to prove the connection.” Jackson waved his hand at the holo scene. “The money, though—it’s funding.”
“Makes sense to me,” Dwyer said. “If the League’s skulkin’ about, they’d want a steady source of cash, and getting deliveries from socialist turf would be risky.”
“Even electronically,” Brant pointed out. “All financial transactions inside the League are monitored, tracked, and the Coalition keeps a sharp eye on anything that comes across the border into neutral space.”
“Drug money. An easy cash flow.” Jackson frowned. “Of course, we can also assume if the Orbita is coming from the League to Demir, it’s one of the two who are getting it into the Kolossi camp and the refugee ships.”
“League could be funneling it through another source,” Brant said. “The criminal elements in the camp could be Demir—”
“Or the League could pay an out-of-work young person to drive by in a hovercraft and wing a couple packets over the fence,” Gina said. “With all the protestors lurking around the fences, it’s a wonder TCFE doesn’t clear them out down the street with Active Denial or stun rounds.”
“Forget about Border for now,” Jackson said. “They’ve proven they’re as porous as a strainer. When it comes to the refugees, and the trafficking, we know the League is trafficking. Based on the reports coming from the freighters to Border, they’re either straight operatives or they’re local agents—probably both. Signal Oxford, and crosscheck what we scanned from the scene with what’s come from the refugee ships.”
“We got the coordinates on where the barge landed,” Dwyer added. “Ain’t but a thing to sit on it for a while, see where people get taken.”
“If not us, we’ll get local LEOs to do it. The trafficking is another source of income for whatever the League’s real game is.” Jackson traced his finger through the chart. “Money from drugs, money from human trafficking—for what? I’m willing to bet if we find out where the freighter went to, we’ll get some more answers.”
“What’s the play in the meantime?” Gina indicated the consulate through the windows. “If it’s more answers you want, let me go looking in there. Brant’s been kind enough to help prepare me.”
As if on cue, the apartment’s lights, and everything el
se electronic, flickered and died—everything save Brant’s setup.
He grinned. “Funny. This section of town and a few others are experiencing power hiccups. Usually just for a few minutes, but they’ve been lasting longer.” He checked his wrist comm then tapped a couple of commands on his tablet. The lights came back on.
“Just be sure no vital systems are affected—medical centers, local law enforcement, and the like,” Jackson cautioned.
“Already worked into the algorithm, Captain.”
“Good. For the moment, I’ll keep my ear to the ground inside Salvatore’s. Brant has his marching orders in terms of data. When we’re finished here, everyone leaves by their preassigned exit vectors, staggered.” Jackson deactivated the holo. “Standard protocol. You first, Lieutenant.”
Brant gathered his gear. “Lucky me. Sev, I’ll see you back at the post.”
“Not right now.” Jackson turned around. “It’s time for him to put some pressure on Demir.”
Sev nodded. “Very good.”
The warehouse boasted four thousand square meters of storage. Racks towered four stories with conveyors linking the upper levels. Elevators and even more conveyors could shunt whatever goods were needed from one end of the building to the other. The far third of the warehouse opened to allow shuttles to land. Two were nestled in the northwest corner, leaving ample room for one of the barges that had been part of the secret rendezvous the other night.
Sevastopol Rast watched the warehouse from a broken window in a dilapidated structure across the street. His sniper rifle perched on a tripod, the muzzle aimed into the yawning shutters allowing access. He saw people milling about from his vantage point, each of them miniature figures, like toys.
He’d had toys decades ago. He could still feel their rough plastic forms, cooled from his father’s 3D printer. The printer was supposed to be used for his work, creating replacement parts for the local commissar’s robots, but Father would sneak whatever he could to supplement the Rast household’s dreary existence. When everything around them was endless blocks of numbingly uniform concrete housing cubes, lined up in a grid across the outskirts of Warsaw, the blooms of rainbow plastic were luxury.