Once they'd all piled in, Murph executed his pre-programmed route, and the boxy vehicle made a few warbling sounds as it performed its safety checks, and then smoothly pulled away from the landing pad. Jacob looked back to see Sully standing in the dilapidated gunboat's cargo bay while the ramp jerked upward and closed. He was ruminating as to how they were going to track down one wayward human on an entire world when Taylor began shouting from one of the front seats.
"That was him! Holy fuck, he was just standing right there!"
"I didn't see shit."
"You're imagining—"
"Shut up!" Jacob barked. "What did you see, Taylor?"
"Scarponi! He was just standing there between two buildings we passed two blocks back now!" Taylor was looking around trying to figure out how to open the side door when Mettler grabbed him.
"Taylor!" Jacob yelled again. "Calm down and listen to me. You're certain it was him?"
"Yes, goddamnit! I know what the mother fucker looks like! He was leaning against a building just inside the ally between the two," Taylor said.
"He was just standing there?" Murph sounded skeptical. "If you saw him, did he see you?"
"He…I…he might have," Taylor said. "He was looking out at the road, but he didn't show any reaction. He may have turned his head to follow as we went by, though."
"LT? I can tell this thing to hop off at the next side street and circle around," Murph said. The vehicle was in a center lane and traveling though decently heavy traffic. If Taylor had hopped out as it looked like he'd intended, he would have been flattened by the vehicles behind them.
"No," Jacob said. "We stick to the plan. If he's in this city, then Zadra will be able to track him down again, and then we'll move on him when we're ready and have a proper plan of attack. Just driving around looking for him after a single sighting is too inefficient and a good way for them to spot us, if they haven't already."
"For what it's worth, I agree with Lieutenant Brown," Zadra spoke up. "I can more quickly narrow my search by assuming Corporal Taylor actually did see Scarponi and limit my scope to this city. If he's here and walking about in public, then I'll have his location within a matter of hours."
"So, you believe me that I saw him?" Taylor asked.
"I trust your eyes, Taylor," Jacob said. "If you say you saw him, we'll adjust our planning and assume we'll be intercepting him within this city. Our timetable is still in effect, however. If we don’t have his location within thirty-six hours, Sully has been ordered to make contact with Command and call in our location and status."
"Understood," Zadra said.
The rest of the ride passed without any further sightings of a human or their Ull handlers. Per Murph's program, the vehicle passed by the entrance to the safe house three different times, and then rolled to a stop at the rear of the building next door. They'd detected no sign that the building was compromised, and the NIS agent was able to ping the security system through his com unit and verify it was still secure.
"Taylor, Mettler, you're staying behind to protect Zadra," Jacob said. "Murph and MG are coming with me to check the safe house. I'll come back out to get you once we clear it."
"You know the place is already clear, right?" Murph asked once they were out of the vehicle. "I was able to ping the security systems with my implant when we were within half a klick."
"I assumed as much," Jacob said. "I wanted to talk to the two of you alone."
"Hang on." Murph keyed in a lengthy code into the door's discreet security panel while the other two watched in both directions of the sparsely traveled street. With a final ding, the panel light flashed green and the locks disengaged on the door. "So, what didn't you want to say in front of the others?"
"Damn! I should have taken that offer to go into the NIS instead of staying in the Corps," MG said as they took in the semi-luxurious appointment of the house. "The spooks get plush couches and a full-service food processor while the Scout Fleet slobs get a ship that may or may not hold together while in slip-space."
"Why don't you put that processor to good use and get some coffee started?" Jacob asked. "I actually wanted to make sure I could talk to you about Zadra without her being within earshot. Leaving the others to guard her gives me that chance."
"I'm listening," Murph said as MG rummaged around in the kitchen area.
"Assuming that Taylor actually did see Scarponi, does anybody else feel like it's just a bit too convenient we set down right by where he's at?" Jacob asked. "I know she's supposed to be some hot shit data broker who can slice into secure networks like it's nothing, but this seems like a real stretch for me."
"I've been thinking something along those lines myself," MG said loudly. "The only coffee they have is the nasty canned shit from Earth or the Rocky Mountain Coffee, which says it's from a planet called…S'Tora. Is it pronounced Sa-Tora?"
"That's gotta be a mistake," Jacob said. "Unless that name is pretty common for mountain ranges around the quadrant."
"No, it's legit," Murph said. "Apparently, there are some enterprising humans that are already out here in the wilds of the quadrant and finding ways to make money. Whoever is running that company has managed to get millions of aliens addicted to Earth coffee a few years before the Fleet even officially pushed out of Terran space."
"Back on topic," Jacob said. "What were you saying, MG?"
"I've been running with Obsidian for the better part of two years," MG said. "This job is mostly hours and hours of boring observation and plodding in the Corsair to one place or another and just watching the sensors ahead of a Fleet movement. On the few times we've been sent as a tactical asset to secure an objective, it's never been loaded with so many inexplicable coincidences. I can't really explain it past that. Just a gut feeling that we're either chasing the wrong thing or we're missing something significant in the big picture."
"I've been with Obsidian for over a year, and MG's gut feelings shouldn't be ignored," Murph said, ignoring the middle finger from the Marine who was still salty about the NIS Agent's double-identity.
"Recommendations?"
"Let it play out." MG shrugged. "We've already flown all the way out here because our reluctant mission objective won't play ball unless we grab Scarponi. We have visual confirmation that he's here. Stick to the agreement, and once Zadra and Taylor track him down again, go ahead and call it in to Command and let them tell us how to handle it. Odds are good we'll be given our usual mission to observe from a distance and wait for an Alpha Team to come in and turn him into a little pile of ash."
"Murph?" Jacob asked.
"I agree with MG. We're safe here and have a chance to grab Scarponi and Hollick without putting ourselves or our package at risk."
"And in the Corps, you never want to put your package at risk," MG added.
Jacob was less confident about his decided course after the discussion than he was when they were flying out to Theta Suden, but he was now committed to at least seeing it through to the point that they had a location for their wayward traitor. A nagging feeling had begun to intrude upon his thoughts that, despite Webb's charge to complete their mission, he had screwed things up spectacularly and would be paying the price for that as soon as he called in their location and made contact with Command.
He just hoped when the dust settled, Captain Webb didn't leave his ass flapping in the breeze and honored his deal to pull him out of the Marine Corps and give him a commission into the Navy.
"Okay," he said. "Let's go get the others and get this search started."
Chapter 22
The Kentucky would never be mistaken for a luxury liner, but she was also much more comfortable than the average frigate. She carried a smaller crew compliment than normal and, despite being designed to resemble an aged bulk freighter, was packed with all the latest and greatest from Naval R&D. From advanced tactical AI computers to deployable plasma cannons capable of limited surface bombardment, the Kentucky's offensive capability stretched the definitio
n of a control and command platform.
Marcus Webb had been heavily involved in the outfitting of NAVSOC's Theia-class frigates, of which only the Kentucky and Oregon had been built and deployed. A friend of his had a philosophy when it came to armament: a lot is enough, but too much is better. It was a mantra he'd repeated often when the engineers complained that all the gear he was stuffing into the hull required they upgrade the powerplant and support systems.
"Incoming slip-com request for you, Captain. It's not coming in through the main com relay station."
"Route it into the captain's office." Webb gestured towards the hatchway that led to the ship commander's office right off the main bridge.
"Aye-aye, sir."
Once Webb had closed the hatch and activated the office's anti-intrusion countermeasures, it took another few minutes to authenticate himself on Commander Duncan's terminal. When the image on the other end of the slip-com channel finally resolved, he was unsurprised who it was that was calling given that he had left Taurus Station in secret.
"Director Welford," he greeted the head of the NIS with a nod. "How can I help you?"
"This is more along the lines of how I can help you," Michael Welford said. "We've had a safe house activated on a world where we have no active operations running. The codes used to get past the security perimeter belonged to Agent Murphy."
"That world would be?"
"It's a moon called Theta Suden," Welford said. "It's in our main navigational database. I'm forwarding the information on the safe house to you. I haven't attempted to make contact with Murphy, nor has he made an official call-in. Just thought I'd pass on Obsidian's probable location as of ten hours ago."
"Thanks," Webb said. "Anything else I should know about?"
"NIS access codes are two-part authentication. The first set of digits is the unique identifier while the second part is a status. Murphy coded in with an all clear status. If they were in trouble, or he was being forced into the safe house under duress, he would be able to discreetly let me know by using a different code instead."
"Clever," Webb approved. "But it doesn't tell me much about what my wayward lieutenant is doing halfway across the damn sector."
"This is an older safe house and isn't set up for surveillance so I couldn't tell you either way." Welford shrugged an apology. "I don't know if they chased Weef Zadra all the way to that moon or if your lieutenant has made some poor choices along the way and is now chasing the rabbit trying to salvage the mission."
"I appreciate the intel either way, Welford. I suppose I owe you one."
"I may hold you to that…soon," Welford said tightly. "We'll talk when you get back. Welford out."
The screen blanked out, and Webb backtracked out of the terminal and re-logged on with a different set of credentials. This new level of access allowed him to view the last known location and status of all NAVSOC ships and personnel deployed outside of Terran space. Theta Suden was well away from any current Fleet operations, and his own personnel tended to mirror the regular Navy's movements closely. Team Cobalt from 4th Scout Corps was available, but he wasn't sure another Scout Fleet team would be any more helpful than the Quick Response Force he already had aboard the Kentucky should Lieutenant Brown have really gotten himself in deep.
He logged out and flicked off the terminal, annoyed at his lack of options. Earth's fledgling space military was already mighty by most measures, but it was still small, and once they covered their obligation to their Cridal Cooperative partners and saw to the defense of their own planets, there wasn't a lot left to go around.
"Commander Duncan to the bridge," Webb said into the intercom. The computer would automatically find the Kentucky's CO and pass along the message in near-real time.
"On my way, sir," Duncan's voice came back. Looking at the star charts, Webb could see a friendly system they could park the ship in and loiter that would put them within striking distance of Theta Suden should it become necessary.
Oh, how he missed the days of just being a cog in the wheel. Even when he'd been a US Navy SEAL, and had been approached about detached duty to the colony on Terranovus, it had been a simple mission: track down and kill threats to Earth. Now, as the officer in charge of all NAVSOC operations, his stomach lining was all but gone. He was worried about Team Obsidian, worried he may have gotten Jacob Brown killed when he'd promised his father he'd protect him, and worried that the intelligence asset he'd promised Central Command was either dead or had gone underground because of Scout Fleet's blundering.
"Never a dull moment," he groaned, pushing himself up out of the chair and heading back to the bridge.
"We're tracking two Ull," Taylor told Jacob when the lieutenant walked back into the main room after grabbing a quick nap.
"Already?" Jacob knelt down by one of the monitors and looked at the high-res image of the spindly alien walking around through a crowd. "Source?"
"Public safety net," Taylor said. "Zadra was able to exploit a maintenance access backdoor into the system almost immediately, and then we've had our own computers sifting through the incoming data trying to get an image match on any of our targets.
"The Ull are easy to spot. We've had a seventy-six percent hit on Scarponi and an eighty-two percent hit on Hollick."
"You're not pulling too much bandwidth through that maintenance connection, are you?" Jacob asked. "I'd rather the locals not backtrack us, but we also have to assume the enemy has access to the same tricks."
"We're good, LT," Taylor assured him. "We're only pulling a targeted sampling. The amount of data we're streaming would hardly be detectable."
"Hollick wasn't a tech specialist," Murph said. "If he has access to the Theta Suden public systems it'll be because the Ull have given it to him, and they're not known for being that savvy. Not like our Veran friends."
"Two hits on our human targets, both over sixty percent," Jacob said. "We're in the right place. I'm going to call it in."
"That was the plan," Murph agreed. Jacob paused, looking at the other's pinched expression.
"What?"
"It's just…we don't actually know where they are yet," Murph said. "If we call it in too early, we'll be told to sit tight and the leaks within NAVSOC will have time to warn Scarponi and Hollick before Webb can get anybody here to capture or kill them."
"What exactly are you suggesting?" Jacob asked.
"We wait until we've narrowed it down through Taylor's search, and then we go out and put eyes on the target," Murph said. "Once we've got that level of confirmation about where they are, we can then sit on them until an Alpha Team can be brought in."
"Suggestion noted," Jacob said. "I'll give you this concession: I'll contact Captain Webb directly and not go through the Fleet Ops Com Center. I can patch directly to the slip-com node in his office and bypass any potential OPSEC risks."
OPSEC—short for operational security—was a set of protocols that members of the UEAS had drilled into their heads from the time they signed the papers in the recruitment stations and it never ended, even after retirement. Although OPSEC was a real concern given the sheer volume of security leaks the UEN was fighting, Jacob was beginning to suspect that had little to do with Murph's recommendations.
Murph had been stuck playing Recon Marine within Scout Fleet for over a year. As a young NIS agent, there were likely dozens of better assignments he could have other than sitting on a small ship for months on end, counting ships in orbital traffic around a planet someone at Fleet had interest in. If he grabbed Scarponi and Elton Hollick, then he would be able to write his own ticket. Any cushy or choice assignment he wanted would be his, and likely a promotion to go along with it. Jacob now had to be concerned that his embedded agent may be losing focus of the main goal and concentrating on his own ambitions.
"You have Captain Webb's personal node address?" Murph asked.
"You don't?" Jacob countered, already firing up the safe house's slip-com station. Since the machine had been completely powe
red down when the last person had cleared out of the building, it would take at least fifteen minutes for it to warm up and for the slip-space fields to stabilize. "In the meantime, begin narrowing down potential locations for the target based on when and where they've been spotted on the public surveillance system."
Jacob punched in the com node address he wanted from memory and waited while the terminal attempted to make the connection. At this distance from Earth, the lag in the slip-com signal would begin to be barely perceptible. When the signal finally resolved, he wasn’t looking at Captain Webb but at a woman with a stern expression and a star on each collar point.
"This is Admiral Remey," she declared. "To whom am I speaking?"
"My apologies, Admiral," Jacob said. "I must have entered the address incorrectly. I was trying to reach a Captain Marcus Webb."
"You have the correct address. I am currently monitoring all personal inbound com traffic to this office," she said. "I ask again, who are you? From the clothes can I presume you're one of Webb's Scout Fleet operators? Please identify your—" Jacob killed the signal and powered down the terminal without thinking. Why was a Fleet admiral intercepting incoming com traffic to Webb's office? Had he been relieved of duty? Did anyone even know that Obsidian was still deployed and on-mission?
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