Virago One: A Hard Science Fiction Technothriller (Ace of Space Book 2)

by John Triptych

  Stilicho nearly gagged as he stepped inside. “Jesus H Christ.”

  Darian had seen dead bodies before. Walking over to one of the shelves, she took out a pair of brand new latex gloves and put them on. Tyler walked out of the room to check the rest of the house.

  Holding his nose, Stilicho continued to scan the place with his smartglasses while activating the button on the frame. “Maia, talk to me.”

  Maia’s voice came through his earpiece. “Hello, Stil. We have an apparent homicide, and the victim is most probably Dr. Serge Cuo.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Based on the height of the body and the skeletal structure,” Maia said. “If you could open the deceased’s mouth and scan it with your smartglass, I could probably run a dental match to confirm it.”

  Stilicho exhaled slowly. “Eww, too gross. I’m not gonna do that.”

  Darian looked at the surgical bed. Based on the indentations, it was clear it had been used. She turned to look at Tyler, who had just come back to the doorway. “Call the police, tell them to get forensics out here in a hurry.”

  Tyler nodded. “I found another body in the bedroom that’s gone putrid too. Looks like an adult male. Hands, feet tied up on the bed, mouth gagged, and took a bullet in the head. I couldn’t find the shell casing though.”

  Darian looked away. “A double homicide? For what?”

  “Looks to me like the good doctor was doing private facial alterations on the side,” Stilicho said. “He had just finished one job, and they killed him for it.”

  Darian grimaced. “Who is they?”

  “Herbert Eng Wu and the redhead, I believe,” Stilicho said.

  “Cops are on the way,” Tyler said to Darian before looking at Stilicho. “Why would they kill him? They couldn’t pay?”

  “It wasn’t about money,” Stilicho said. “It’s to cover their tracks. They didn’t want to leave a witness. I’m guessing the other body in the bedroom is the doctor’s wife?”

  “The one upstairs was wearing a man’s boxer shorts,” Tyler said.

  “So the doctor was gay then,” Stilicho said. “Probably held his husband in as a hostage while the doc was forced to perform the operation. Once he was done, then Herbert Eng Wu, Vlad Utkin, and the redhead executed them both.”

  Darian walked over to the side of the car. The street was filled with police vehicles and forensic vans. The sun had set over an hour ago and the once peaceful neighborhood was inundated by flashing lights and cops putting up yellow tape. Her phone app started ringing and she answered it. “Hello.”

  The voice belonged to her supervisor, Martin Ballast. “Darian, what the hell is going on? I just got a complaint from the FBI in Nevada, stating that you took Stilicho Jones with you and didn’t report back in. They are steaming mad over this, and now I just got a call from the LAPD that you are smack dab in a crime scene? What gives?”

  She took a deep breath before answering him. “Okay, Marty. I know this sounds implausible, but we got a lead on Vlad Utkin and Herbert Eng Wu. It looks like they contacted a plastic surgeon who does a lot of clandestine face alterations on the side, took his husband hostage and forced him to alter either the face of Herbert or Vlad, or both of them. Then the poor doctor and his partner were killed to cover it up.”

  “That’s an absurd theory, Darian,” Martin said. “Why would they do this?”

  Darian rolled her eyes. “Isn’t it obvious? To avoid detection by biometrics, of course.”

  “How did you figure all of this out, Darian? Where did you get the lead on this doctor?”

  “I think it’s better if I don’t answer that part for now,” she said softly.

  Martin’s voice became softer. He liked to whisper threats. “I read the briefing on Stilicho Jones, and if I find out you somehow helped him get his illegal AI back in any way, then this will end your career, Darian. You could also face criminal charges, you know.”

  Tyler walked over and stood beside her. Martin had apparently added him into the chat. He placed a reassuring hand on her elbow and winked at her.

  “Marty, I know this is trouble for us, but something big is happening,” Darian said. “You’ve got to trust me on this.”

  The stress in Martin’s voice was clearly heard. “Agent Dvorak, what do you think?”

  Tyler nodded. “Every time Darian has a hunch, she’s usually spot on. She was right about what happened on Mars, and I think she’s right this time too.”

  There was an audible sigh on the other line. Martin’s voice now carried a hint of resignation. “Okay, what is it that you need?”

  “You have got to talk to the Air Force right now, and give us full access to their classified database regarding Herbert Eng Wu’s secret project. Also, you need to give Stilicho Jones access to his ACE Corp contacts regarding this too,” Darian said.

  “What? This is insane!” Martin said. “You’re not only ruining your career in this, Darian, but you’re going to ruin mine as well!”

  Darian’s voice was calm and deliberate. She knew she had to win this argument. “Marty, we’ve got to do this. I know you have contacts with both the military and with the executive branch; you’ve even shown me the pictures with you and the president shaking hands. Right now, I need you to move heaven and Earth to get us that kind of access, and you need to tell them that our national security is at stake.”

  “I’m not going to do this,” Martin said softly.

  “Let me ask you one question, Marty.”

  “What, Darian?”

  She continued her polite reasoning. “What kind of excuse will you be coming up with when a senate committee questions you, after the tragedy that you could have helped put a stop to does happen?”

  “And if there isn’t a tragedy? What then, Darian?”

  “Then you’ll have my resignation and my acceptance of full responsibility over this.”

  There was a hollow silence. Just when she had thought he was going to turn off the com-link, Martin’s voice came back online. “Okay, give me a few hours.”

  “Thanks, Marty. I’ll speak with you later, bye bye.”

  Tyler grinned while turning off the phone app. “Now that was one hell of a sale!”

  Stilicho was leaning by the side of the car, eating a sandwich. His response was partly muffled by the bits of food in between his teeth. “Bravo, Darian. You know you’ve got the makings of a good saleslady. If they do fire you, I can ask Errol to get you a job in ACE Corp’s sales division.”

  Darian scowled at him. “Oh please. I’d rather blow my brains out than work for the likes of you.”

  Chapter 14

  Getting past the front gate of the China Lake perimeter was easy enough. All they had to do was to show their ID cards to the sentries by the guardhouse. The four of them acted nonchalantly as the guards briefly shined their flashlights at their squinting faces before letting them through.

  Knowing that ACE Corp employees preferred to trust the autodrive, Ganz calmly let go of the wheel as the van’s AI carefully plotted a course that took them on a northerly direction before turning east into the mountains. The evening sky was clear and the terrain around them flattened sand, with bits of desert scrub lands all around. Up ahead in the distance was the Argus Range, and there would be a more thorough security checkpoint that they would have to get through when the time came. For now, they could relax, and enjoy watching the parched, desolate landscape that passed them by.

  Vlad Utkin found the desert terrain to be fascinating, but his enthusiasm for getting access to CAIN was so overwhelming that he pulled out a smartpad from a shoulder tote beside his chair and activated it. Almost immediately he started inputting more commands into the AI network while simultaneously marveling at the suite’s architecture. He wanted to absorb as much of the coding as possible, so that he would know what to alter when he got onto the main terminal at the base.

  Kate Sturgis glanced at him from the front seat of the van. “Put that away, Vlad. Don
’t link up with the network until we’re inside.”

  Vlad bit his lip as he deactivated the smartpad and placed it bag in his bag. “I was just doing last minute study.”

  Kate shook her head. “I don’t want the network to detect an outside intrusion at this point. Once we’re inside, you can resume your work.”

  “But we control network already,” Vlad said, protesting. “There is no risk.”

  “There’s always risk,” Kate said sternly. “Now stay quiet and be patient, we’re almost there.”

  Herbert Eng Wu glanced at the two of them before returning his attention to the rolling desert outside the car window. His hands were clasped together, yet they couldn’t stop shaking. He really wasn’t cut out for the physical aspects of the tradecraft, and it felt like they were all heading straight for the lion’s den. He knew there wasn’t much for him to do until they got to the ship, yet all he could think about was what would happen if they got caught, and the endless possibilities of being shot or jailed filled him with nerve-wracking dread.

  They were the only car out on the road, and the autodrive made a leisurely turn eastwards, into an adjoining lane. The once distant mountain now loomed ever closer, and it began to block out the night sky from their forward horizon.

  Ganz glanced back at the others while taking out a small plastic packet from beneath his ACE Corp uniform. “Okay, we’ll be at the checkpoint soon. I want you all to put on your prints.”

  Each of them pulled out a sealed plastic bag from underneath their clothing and activated their smartglass. There were ten small, oval-shaped molds in each container that had a neon identifier on it. They each pressed the bottom their fingertips into the respective casts. The thin film of glued plastic in each mold quickly adhered to their extremities, giving them all a new set of fingerprints that had already been added in the database.

  Twenty minutes later, the van slowed as it approached an inner compound sealing off the mountain pass. The once flat desert had now given way to the looming range around them. The massive strobe lights coming from the tower walls had illuminated the last two kilometers of road up ahead. After arriving at the gate, the vehicle slowed to a stop, and a squad of fully armed Air Force sentries in battle gear and two barking guard dogs quickly surrounded them.

  Herbert tried to appear calm, but the beads of sweat began to drip down his forehead. Vlad smirked as he continued to sit at the opposite side, his cool demeanor unfazed ever since his escape from Russia. Their two companions up front were the calmest of all.

  One of the Security Force troopers walked over to the driver’s side and shined his flashlight into Ganz’s smiling face. “I need you to stick out your hands for fingerprint identification, please.”

  The four of them did as they were told, while the guards standing by the side of the van opened the sliding door and had their sentry dogs go through the vehicle’s interior. Several of the troopers had biometric sensors that resembled black boxes that were half a meter long. Each of them placed their thumb onto the sensor, and the resulting scan was uploaded into the AI database for a match. When all their entries were returned with a green indicator of approval, the four in the car felt a sudden relief. Pulling the dogs back, one of the guards closed the van’s side door shut.

  Just as Ganz was expecting the gate in front of him to open, the duty sergeant walked over to him, holding up a smartpad. “It says here on my schedule that you weren’t expected until eleven hundred tomorrow. Why so early?” the guard trooper asked.

  Ganz shrugged. “Orders from my supervisor. He told me to get the replacement IT staff over here along with the delivery by tonight.”

  The NCO was still somewhat suspicious. He had been stationed at this post for almost three years now, and he had never encountered a late night delivery from ACE Corp. The base personnel officer would have to be woken up in order to set up accommodations for these people, and he wouldn’t be too happy about it. “It says here that you’re also carrying goods destined for the main hangar bay too, what kind of cargo is it?”

  Ganz could at least be truthful for once. “Skinsuits. I’ve been told to deliver extra pairs for the crew.”

  “Well, your bios check out,” the sergeant said, “but we have orders not to let in any vehicles at this hour. Let me contact the ACE Corp liaison about this, just to confirm.”

  Kate bit her lip. If ACE Corp tried to match their order with the outside database, then they would be found out since their identities and delivery order was never encoded from the company’s central servers. She glanced at the rearview mirror.

  Vlad was already on top of it. His right hand slid down to where his backpack was and he discretely slipped on his interface glove. Powering up his personal server, he immediately activated a radio jamming application specifically tuned for the base frequency. The program had a script built into it that would divert the outgoing signal into his personal server.

  The duty sergeant frowned as his com-link was unable to get through. After numerous tries he was still getting a busy signal. “Goddamn it,” he said. “These other ACE Corp guys must have gone to bed already.”

  Ganz nodded sheepishly. “I’m sure this can all be sorted out by tomorrow morning, sir.”

  The sergeant turned to look at another guard, who just shrugged his shoulders. He then turned back at Ganz. “Okay, we’ll let you through. Take the first left turn and drop off the three of them at the Main Lobby, then you take the second right towards Loading Dock Six, got it?”

  Ganz grinned while giving him an awkward salute. “Got it, thanks.”

  There was a droning noise as the automated doors of the base slowly parted, revealing the mouth of a tunnel up ahead. The guards stood aside as the van drove past the main gate and into the lighted passage. Herbert breathed a sigh of relief as he used his left hand to wipe away the sweat on his forehead. Vlad drew a wide grin as he silently savored their triumph.

  The van drove up to the front of the main hall before stopping. Kate, Vlad, and Herbert got out of the van and proceeded past the automated acrylic glass doors. As soon as they ventured inside, Ganz drove off towards the loading bays. There were two more airmen on duty at the reception area, but since they had already passed the security checks, all the sentries did was to check the IDs which hung around their necks, before instructing them to proceed to Level Four. The three of them nodded and walked slowly to an adjoining corridor that housed the elevators.

  Since they had never been inside the base before, it took them half an hour to get to the computer systems level. Using their thumbprints, the three managed to get the security door to open without incident and walked briskly past the rooms filled with server modules until they got to the end of the corridor. After using their fake biometrics to open the final door, all three walked into an unstaffed AI control room.

  The moment the door closed behind them, Vlad threw his hands up in the air. “Zaebis! I am in heaven now.”

  Kate tapped on her smartglasses and sent an encoded message before turning to look at the Russian. “Okay, get to work.”

  Vlad quickly sat down beside the main console and plugged in the jack to his personal server. He preferred to use his interface glove over the physical keyboard in front of him. “Da, okay. What do we need to do now?”

  Herbert sat down beside him. “I need you to bring up the ship maintenance logs and current status.”

  Within seconds, the three dimensional diagram of the spacecraft came into view on the wall monitor screen. Vlad’s voice was now a whisper as he marveled at what he was seeing. “Yebat kopat. What is that?”

  Kate smirked. She couldn’t help but be amused by Vlad’s wonderment. It was like seeing a child’s reaction when the toddler stepped onto an amusement park for the first time. “You are both looking at the Virago. She happens to be the world’s first fusion spaceship.”

  “I-I have never seen rocket that looks like that,” Vlad said.

  “She’s more than just a rocket,”
Kate said. “She has enough weapons on her to wipe out any country.”

  “Vlad, I need you to bring up the fuel status,” Herbert said.

  The Russian shook his head to get back into reality. He typed in a few commands into the console. “Is this menu you were looking for?”

  “Yes,” Herbert said softly. He looked at the readouts for a minute before muttering a curse.

  “What is it?” Kate asked.

  “The deuterium fuel tanks are near empty,” Herbert said. “If you want to take that baby out of here, we’ll have to get CAIN to fill her up.”

  Kate grimaced. She had been promised that the Virago would at least be partially fueled. Now they were vulnerable. “How long until you can get her fully fueled?”

  Herbert checked the fuel inventory and did several mental calculations in his head before answering. “Three and a half, maybe four hours if you want the tanks filled to maximum.”

  Kate knew there was no turning back now. Better to fill the tanks to full capacity because there was no telling how the world would react. Even though every second counted, they had successfully infiltrated the base without sounding an alarm. “Do it.”

  Herbert pointed at a side menu. “Vlad, run the following commands. Adjust the slider on that bar and type this in.” He activated his smartglasses and began sending a preset stream of instructions to Vlad’s own device.

  Kate had carried a shoulder bag with her. She placed it on a table and took out what seemed to be a toiletry kit. Unzipping the small satchel, she began to assemble a plastic gun that had been created using the 3D printer they had in the now abandoned house in Bel Air. Within minutes, she had a suppressed, two-shot pistol in her hands. After placing two bullets into the dual chambers, she locked the bolts back.