by Daniel Gibbs
Gina could read the disdain on his face from ten meters away, in the dark, but she was more interested in the automatic-fire energy pulse rifles he had slung over his shoulder.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about requesting a transfer,” he continued.
“No way. I’ll stay right here, thanks very much. What, you think I want ESS shoving a microphone up my ass? I’ll make another round, see if Balkus found out what’s up with the drones.” Footsteps started toward Gina.
“They’re crap drones. That’s what’s wrong.” Another set of footsteps followed. “Wait up. I’ll come with you.”
“We’re supposed to watch the lobby, Jance.”
“Relax, Torge, all the refugees and Orbita freaks are out at the landing field.”
“Sure but—”
The pistol’s bark was muted by the suppressor attached to the barrel, but the sound still cut through their debate. Two disruptor rounds caught Torge in the chest. He flopped onto the floor, muscles trembling, eyes wide and unseeing.
Jance had impeccable reflexes. He ducked and dodged sideways, his automatic weapon lifting, but he wasn’t even aiming toward her. She estimated he was staring a couple meters to her right. Gina’s shot breezed over his head. She cursed herself for not anticipating which direction he would go. Two more shots put him down, the automatic limp in his grasp.
Gina hurried across the lobby. She knelt beside Torge, whose tremors had subsided first. Key card, key card—on his sleeve. It rode in a clear pocket, making it easy for the guard to swipe his wrist past a door control panel. Gina plucked the card and ran for the hallway.
Her timer counted down. The stun rounds would keep the men incapacitated but relatively unharmed. Well, there’d been recorded cases of people suffering fatal heart attacks or permanent nerve damage from overexposure. Gina permitted a tight grin. Those outcomes didn’t bother her, no matter how far down the League chain of command these men were. Enemy was enemy.
A reinforced door blocked the end of the hall. Gina held up her wrist. No one in the garage. No drones either. Just a room locked tight.
She swiped the card. Green light. Access granted. She opened the door but didn’t go through, instead using her pistol to keep it from swinging shut. Still time.
With twenty-three seconds remaining, she skidded on her knees beside Torge, shoved the card back into his sleeve pouch, then bolted one more time for the hallway.
One of the men moaned. Fabric rustled against the marble floor.
Gina ground her teeth. She slid beside the control panel, retrieved her sidearm, then slipped into the garage. The door clicked shut behind her. A red light shone on the panel mounted on the opposite side—locked again. Gina exhaled.
“Thank God. Okay, you’re still not showing on any scans. Building alarms inactive. I think you’re set.”
Fine by her. Onto the messy part—not morally disagreeable or anything like that, actual mess.
The garage was large enough to accommodate two elegant, armored hovercraft, both bearing official League markings and diplomatic IDs. Containers stacked along the rear wall framed a pair of double doors. A third vehicle sat ahead of the hovercraft—a delivery truck. Standard civilian markings, though one panel covering its flank appeared paler than the rest.
Gina frowned as she removed a set of vials from her belt. Where have I seen those trucks before? Probably running numerous, sundry supplies across the city. The design had been standardized throughout the Coalition decades ago. Model Nine-Five G. She shook her head and inspected the boxes. They were unmarked. Gina popped the top on the closest one.
Brant’s whistle fed through her earpiece. “Wow.”
“Wow is right,” she whispered.
He no doubt saw what she did via the goggles’ sensory pickups—hundreds of Orbita packets, enough to make a person rich beyond their dreams, perhaps not beyond her dreams. The temptation was there—fake a sensor glitch, kill the goggles’ feed, stuff as many as she could into her belt and the grav harness, which had its own compartments.
Gina smirked. Jack would be mortified if she went through with it. He would find out eventually. He was smart like that.
Instead, she slipped the top from the vial and held it at arm’s length. A pale-violet liquid, oily in the way it flowed, dripped onto the packets. A hissing rose as it changed color, turning brown with black spots where it ate through the packets. Orbita turned to mush, the chemical bonds breaking down and radically re-forming into a lumpen solid—like charcoal, Gina realized. Her sensors told her the chemical had eaten its way down to the bottom of the stack, scorching the sides and bottom of the container as it rendered every molecule worthless.
She cracked into the next container and repeated the process. Eighteen more after that. It took time, but when she hit the halfway mark, she’d gotten into a rhythm.
Halfway through, her brain made the connection she’d struggled with when she first entered the garage. The eleventh container’s contents sizzled as she walked around the side of the transport truck. Gina inspected the edge of the pale panel. Not plastic body, an adhesive covering. She peeled back an edge.
“What’s that?” Brant asked. “It’s a logo…”
“Compassionate Stars. One of the biggest aid groups bringing supplies to the refugees.” Comprehension blasted across Gina’s mind like a supernova. She opened the back of the truck and found stacks of supplies. She glanced back at the Orbita before opening one of the boxes.
Dehydrated fruits. Various other rations. Blankets. Clothing. And more Orbita.
“You’re recording all this, I hope,” Gina murmured.
“You’d better believe it,” Brant said. “No wonder drugs keep popping up in camp. They’ve infiltrated the aid groups. Well, that gives me a shipload of surveillance to reexamine.”
Gina closed the box, shut the truck’s hatch, and made sure the sticker was reapplied. Then it was back to the Orbita containers. Only a few minutes had elapsed between her entering the garage and when she’d destroyed the contents of the nineteenth container using her third vial.
Glare seared across her vision. She cringed but managed to keep her mouth shut. Shouting was a bad idea, generally speaking, for the situation. Gina lifted the goggles so she could blink away blobs.
The lights were back, full force.
“They restored power!” Brant hissed. “Their backup generator’s not supposed to be operational. Our intel established they were still waiting for the old one to receive parts.”
“Clearly, they found a way around the inconvenience.” Gina kicked the lid off the final box and dumped the last of the vial. She dropped the goggles over her eyes, making sure she disabled the night vision setting. “Orbita’s done. What about the third floor?”
“Negative, Two. The swarm you sent disintegrated before they could connect to the databases. ESS protocol has sensitive information stored off network.”
Blast. There went half her objectives and possibly the most vital.
“Cameras and sensors are rebooting. Whoever’s running their security is pretty good—I can’t keep them out of there for long. Get out.”
Gina shook her head as she reached the rear doors of the garage. What does he think I’m doing? Straightening my hair? She slapped the lockbreaker against the control panel. It hummed as it worked against the League software. The sequence took longer than she would’ve liked, but the panel blinked green. The doors parted, trundling on a recessed track.
A machine shop lay beyond. Fuel, tools, and various other supplies were stored in neat lockers. Gina couldn’t care less what kind of calibrator League mechanics used on their hovercraft. She was more interested in the ventilation shaft for the air conditioning towers on the roof.
“It’s not wired, Echo Two. And there’s more security guards on the move. They’re checking all spaces. Looks like a couple also examining the guards you knocked down. Fanning out to all floors and rooms.”
Voices, faint at first
, filtered through the hallway door leading into the garage. They faded again as the machine shop sealed up. Gina climbed atop the lockers. Her multi-tool contained enough options for unfastening bolts and cutting screws. The panel dropped loose. She caught it before it could raise its own ruckus.
The voices grew louder again. In the garage. Gina confirmed the presence of three heat signatures displayed on her wrist device. She clambered into the confines of the duct, pressing against its sides to avoid falling out. Not that she had major concerns. Her goggles were mere inches from any side, no matter which way she turned her head.
Okay. She scooted up until there was enough room to reach below, orient the grate into the proper position, and solder it with two quick bursts from the torch. It would never pass close inspection, but in under two minutes, it wouldn’t be her problem.
Gina climbed the duct to the fifth floor, where it opened into a junction the size of a closet. Cool air breezed along. Even without the building schematics, she would have known where to go—toward the exterior vent.
“Got it!” Brant’s end of the transmission made a muffled thump. He must have pounded his fist on the desk. “Fan’s offline.”
With the barest sliver of space, she shimmied through. The blades scraped the top of the grav harness. Dwyer could critique her damage later, but ahead, light filtered through the vent. Warmer air seeped behind her goggles.
Gina removed the hatch in the opposite order of how she entered the duct—cut it free with the torch then soldered it back into position as she clung to the side of the building. The backside of the League consulate, fortunately, was home to a small courtyard shielded by foliage—with cameras below.
The second the vent hatch was firmly in place, Gina let herself fall back toward the green canopy as she triggered the grav harness. It floated her across the treetops. She spun as she went, angling for the apartment roof beyond.
Not all the leaves were verdant. A third were pale yellow, streaked with blue-green. Gina plucked a stem or two as she cleared the last tree. She killed the grav assist, alighting on the rough asphalt covering that shielded the apartment from Kolossi’s elements.
“Extraction en route, Echo Two. Forty seconds.”
Plenty of time for her to traverse the next two roofs and climb down the designated fire escape to the alley below. She would be stripped to civilian gear when Dwyer arrived with the truck.
“Even Deadeye thinks you outdid yourself,” Brant added with a chuckle. “I think he said two whole words. ‘Very good.’”
Gina glanced at the horizon as she hurried across the rooftops. Sev watched from two kilometers away from the moment she went in until she made her exit. Had anyone followed her, or a drone buzzed her, he would have swatted it down.
I can see why Jack values his service so much. Having a team does make the night oh-so more relaxing.
“Copy, Echo Home. Tell Echo One the mission was a success.” Gina smiled as she twirled the leaves in her fingers. “And let him know I’ve brought him another souvenir.”
18
League Consulate
Aphendrika—Terran Coalition
27 July 2464
Kiel knew his tea would scald his hand if he crushed the cup, but he did so anyway. The pain was cathartic, and it saved him from putting on a spectacle for his people.
The Orbita was ruined, all of it. Enough had been stored in the consulate garage to bring the refugees to ruin and madness, all in the name of drawing TCFE into a deeper confrontation. But a saboteur had left him with piles of solidified gunk, fit for nothing.
“I’m waiting,” he said softly, “for answers.”
Ferenc scrolled through his tablet. “It’s, uh, unknown how exactly the Orbita was ruined. ESS technicians are analyzing the remnants of the compound. It’s a molecular disassembler unlike anything they’ve seen, so it will take time to determine the manufacturer.”
Kiel glanced at his right-hand man. Ferenc’s face was as impassive as ever, yet the hitch in his explanation hinted at his level of disturbance. Good. If he was afraid, it would be Kiel’s first victory in the new campaign.
“You’re certain whoever broke in here did this?”
“Yes, sir. The Orbita was fine before the other night. I inspected a few containers when they were delivered. And I saw the contents again earlier this week, when the newest shipment went out to the refugee camp.”
Kiel knelt by the containers. He wore a pair of gloves, as did all the technicians examining the room. The scorch marks along the containers’ edges were disconcerting. He swiped with his finger. “What about door logs?”
“They were affected by the power outage, but we’re pulling those.”
“Tell me about the outage. It wasn’t the first, was it? I recall a few more in reports filed by our staff, and there were mentions in the local news networks.”
“Correct. It’s been an ongoing problem in the immediate district and surrounding neighborhoods. In fact, there was another earlier this morning. It hampered our efforts to retrieve security footage.”
“Yes, the worst of which was less than thirty-six hours ago, late at night, during which the guards reported being stunned.”
“I’m checking scans from that evening, sir. The outage was a bad one—not as long as others, but it impacted more systems.”
Kiel frowned. “The timing is too suspect for my liking. Examine all door logs and cross-check with employee statements, especially security. I want to know who was where at every second. This act of terrorism has cost us millions and, more importantly, has limited our ability to disrupt the refugee situation.”
“Understood, sir.”
“Where are the two men who reported the intrusion?”
“This way.”
Kiel wiped the now-lukewarm tea on his pantleg and tossed the cup aside. Let sanitation bots clean it up. If he hadn’t been at the concealed shipyard, overseeing the finishing touches on the refit, he could have been planetside. He could have responded to the infiltration report. “I trust we’ve begun interrogating the staff.”
“Consulate security has, yes, sir, but they’re confident it isn’t any of them. None have given any hint of disloyalty.”
“Clearly they haven’t tried hard enough.”
They found the two security guards in a conference room—Jance and Torge. They were in the middle of telling a supervisor some aspect of their story but cut off as soon as Kiel and Ferenc entered. Doubtless they knew the plainclothed men were not regular League officials.
“Mr. Kiel.” The supervisor rose. He offered his hand. “I want you to know we—”
“Get out. I have your report.”
“Uh, sir, but I—”
Kiel slapped him, a powerful, backhanded blow that sent him reeling. “Get. Out.”
The supervisor fled. Kiel turned, his gaze settling on the guards. “You were both shot.”
“We, uh, think they were stun rounds. Torge was hit first.” Jance swallowed. “I, uh, saw a shape move in the shadows.”
“A person or a bot?”
“Person, sir, I think. Too big to be a drone.”
“Yet, your drones were malfunctioning that night, so it could have been.”
“I guess—I mean, it’s possible, sir.”
Kiel strolled the room. “What else did you see? And hear?”
“We didn’t see anything, sir, because the backup generator was on the fritz. We didn’t hear much either because we were, uh, reviewing protocols—out loud.”
Torge glanced at him but remained silent.
“I have a follow-up question.” Kiel leaned over the table. “Where—”
“Sir?” Ferenc looked up from his tablet. “I have the doors report.”
Kiel indicated he should read aloud.
“The hallway entrance to the garage was accessed by Officer Torge at 2234 hours.”
Torge cleared his throat. “That’s not possible. I was conferring with Officer Jance around the same time.
Then we were knocked out for less than a minute…” His eyes widened.
“Yes?” Kiel asked.
“What time was it when we came around?” Jance stared at his partner.
“It might have been around then. My comm said twenty-two thirtysomething when I came out of it. You were still down.”
Door access, yet neither had been conscious. Kiel snapped his fingers, drawing their attention. “Do either of you have family for whom you should be concerned?”
“Sir?”
“I need to know who else will be punished for your mistakes when you’re both executed for incompetence.” Kiel gestured to the door. “Find your supervisor. Consider how best the three of you can make up for this failing.”
The guards scurried out, knocking over a chair in the process.
Ferenc looked up from his tablet as if nothing more interesting than a weather report had concluded. “Executions, sir?”
Kiel made a face. “I don’t have the time or inclination to waste people. Once word of their incompetence reaches the political officer in their home jurisdiction, there will be penalties aplenty. So, the door…”
They examined the control panel once back in the hallway. Kiel cocked his head. “There are scuff marks at the bottom corner of the doorframe. You see?”
It was Ferenc’s turn to kneel. His cybernetic eye whirred as he focused on the scratches. “Metallic paint, used in coating firearms—similar to what’s on League weapons but different composition.”
Kiel rubbed his chin. “Stun rounds are good for hours?”
“Usually, sir.”
“But these men reported incapacity for far less. Something more subtle at play.” Kiel looked down the hallway then back to the door. “A swift person could stun the guards, take one’s key card, unlock the door, then hurry back to replace the card…” He closed his eyes, envisioning an androgynous figure in action. “But the door would shut itself, so he had to prop it open with the very same weapon he used to incapacitate the guards. Replacing the card would leave no one the wiser about the garage until security made rounds a few minutes later, when the lights were restored.”