“Jack..? Jack!”
Steele sat bolt upright in the darkness, chilled, feeling a presence near him. “What's happening..?”
“You dream – bad I think.”
“Lights!” called Jack. “Lights!” The illumination grew steadily, Fritz sitting on the bed next to him, watching over him. The vision and alternate reality still burned into his mind's eye, he failed to recognize his surroundings. “Where are we?”
“Quarters,” annunciated Fritz, his head tilting to one side. “You sleep long.”
Jack swung his feet off the bed, staring at the floor, breathing deeply, working to clear his mind. “How long was I out?”
Fritz jumped to the floor and shook his head to settle his fur, “Long time...”
“TESS...”
The eGo-h lit up; the holo-screen popping into view, hovering above his arm, TESS' animated face appearing on the screen. “Good morning, sir. Are we back to Jack Steele and Admiral?”
“Yes, TESS. How long was I asleep?”
“You mean coma?” she smiled. “Just kidding. You were in a sleep state for nineteen hours, twenty-three minutes. Are you feeling fully rested now?”
“I think so, a little disoriented...”
“That does occur with extremely deep REM cycles like you were experiencing. You also need nourishment, your bio-levels suggest you are experiencing a near-hypoglycemic state. I suggest eating some fruit or drinking some juice as soon as possible.”
Steele rose, slightly lightheaded and picked a piece of fruit out of a bowl as he passed the minibar on the way to the shower. It looked strangely like a cucumber but tasted much like a banana...
■ ■ ■
Lisa let herself into the Admiral's quarters, a small tray in one hand. “Jack... Jack?” She set the covered tray on the desk next to the computer and set down her e-Pad. Having heard his name, Jack stepped out into the bedroom from the shower. “Holy crap!” shouted Lisa, spinning away and shielding her eyes,“how about a freaking towel?”
Jack stood there, his hands on his hips, “What? I can't be naked in my own damn quarters?” He noticed the covered tray on the desk, “Ooh, is that an omelet?”
“Towel! Towel!”
“OK, OK,” he waved, ducking into the bathroom. Jack reappeared wrapped in an oversized towel. “Better?”
Lisa peeked cautiously before relaxing. “Better.” She handed him the tray as he dropped himself onto the sofa. “Yes, it's an omelet, sausage and some potatoes... DUDE!” She slapped her hand over her eyes, “What the hell...”
“Sorry,” Jack crossed his legs and pulled the towel around his knees. “So what's our status?”
“Captain Ryan has us back on course for Ossomon; the yacht was stripped of information and dumped overboard and the Remora is still undergoing repairs.”
“What about the girls? How are they doing?”
“Fed, housed and all thawed out. Nina's girlfriend...”
“Ruby?”
“Yeah, Ruby's in recovery, she's doing fine. The other girl who was injured is in the ICU. She was in a pretty bad shape. The surgeon said it's up to her now.”
“Did she lose her leg?”
Lisa's mouth tweaked crookedly, “The surgeon said it was too badly damaged...”
“Dammit...” winced Jack. He needed to push past it to fleet business but the thought of the young girl fighting for her life in the infirmary never left his mind. “Have we started the work on the stasis field emitters for the launch system?”
Lisa's mouth tweaked crookedly again, “Hmm, yeah about that...”
Jack raised an eyebrow, “What...” he said suspiciously.
Lisa bit her lip, “Um, well...”
“Spit it out.”
“The factory new stasis emitters we got from Deep Black are as clean and perfect as the ones we got from Resurrection Station...”
“But...” prompted her brother.
“But the factory rebuilt units aren't. During the parts inspection, the Chief Engineer noticed an extra module installed on the emitters and broke one down to diagnose its purpose. He said it's got two functions; part of it is a short range tracking unit, with a system-wide reach. The other function is a remote control receiver wired right into the emitter package.”
Jack paused, a forkful of omelet suspended above his plate. “Son of a bitch,” he hissed. “I wonder if Deep Black knew... Can he tell if it the module was installed at the factory or after?”
Lisa, pursed her lips. “I wondered about that myself. He felt it was too perfect of an install to have been accomplished outside the factory.”
Jack shoveled the last bit of food into his mouth, setting the tray aside. “Have the Chief and senior staff in my office. Ten minutes...”
■ ■ ■
After an hour-long meeting with his senior staff and Chief Engineers, Steele addressed the issue alone, with Task Force Vice Admiral, Vince Kelarez and Fleet Admiral, Warn Higdenberger, on a split screen in his ready room on the bridge of the Conquest. They listened intently as Steele explained the situation involving the sabotaged parts.
“My biggest concern is how pervasive the use of these compromised parts might be throughout our fleet...”
“I share your concern Mr. Steele,” said Admiral Higdenberger. “Considering that those rebuilt parts originated from a UFW approved manufacturing facility, it is very dangerous indeed. We will take immediate steps to cancel that contract and close that facility...”
“If I can make a recommendation, Admiral...” interrupted Steele.
“By all means.”
“Hold off on that. At least until we confirm or not, that any of the altered parts from this vendor are in fleet circulation. I'm not convinced the parts were intended for UFW Fleet consumption. And what we're seeing may not be actions condoned by the facility as a whole, rather by a few key people planted in the facility to produce randomly compromised parts. We acquired these stasis field emitters from a vendor that generally deals with the merchant and transportation trades...”
“What are you looking to accomplish, Mr. Steele?”
“Well, all parts from this manufacturer should be definitely checked, fleet wide... but my hunch is that the UFW fleet is not the target... These stasis emitters are used in ships and facilities all across space. Ports, warehouses, transporters, merchants... Circulate enough of these things and eventually you would have a secret key to the back door of every nook and cranny in the universe...”
Admiral Higdenberger's brow furrowed, head tilted to one side, “Nook and cranny?”
“Every corner and hiding spot...”
“Yes, I see. Go on.”
Steele continued, “If we make overt moves too soon, we will most likely lose the perpetrators in the wind and forfeit a prime opportunity to know who's pulling the strings.” Jack noticed the Admiral's curious head tilt again. “Who might be running this little enterprise,” he clarified. “If we can catch the infiltrators in the act we will have a chance to track their contacts up the food chain, if you get my meaning.”
“I do...”
“Can we get a couple of our own people into the facility? It may be dangerous but it could pay off in a big way.”
“I think we can...”
Steele rubbed his hands together, “Good. In the meantime, maybe we release a fleet-wide service bulletin looking for the emitters in question with their associated part number. We don't want to create any scuttlebutt or an information leak, so maybe we just say there is a general recall. Frequent failures or poor performance. To be replaced with stock units from the UFW Navy plant only...”
■ ■ ■
Sitting on a bench in the Conquest's sizable garden, Commander Dar Sloane sipped his coffee, watching Lisa's German Shorthaired Pointer, Gus, roll in the grass. “So I hear you might be getting a pair of flight wings...”
“Really...” said Lisa unemotionally, her back to him, staring at the birds flitting around in the trees. “You're not the f
irst person to mention it, but I can't imagine why. Jack... er, the Admiral, was not terribly happy about what I did. I disobeyed a direct order. Two of them as a matter of fact. One from Commander Carter, and one from the Admiral himself... Not to mention that I single-handedly destroyed the Remora...”
“Pssh,” waved Dar, “your brother doesn't give a crap about the Remora, that can be fixed, he knows that. What he cared about was your safety. And since you're safe, I think all will be forgotten.” His face flexed in contemplation, “Or remembered – depending on how you look at it. What you did took guts. Lotsa guts... Not sure I would've tried it.”
“You're so full of crap, Sloane,” shot Lisa, ”you wouldn't have even blinked. You're an adrenalin junky. In fact, you guys probably have a special technique...”
“Technique?” blurted Dar, nearly squirting coffee through his nose. “For using a fighter like a push tractor, to wrestle a disabled pleasure craft out of a collapsing jump tunnel? Yeah sure,” he added with a touch of sarcasm, “we practice that all the time.” The Commander shook his head, “No, Cookie, you invented that gem all by yourself. The damnedest thing is, it worked.”
Smirking but unconvinced, Lisa watched Gus sniff at a stand of vibrant purple flowers.“I don't know...”
Dar leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands cradling his coffee mug, “Look at the life pilots lead; we take risks, we do crazy things... it's what we get paid for. And we love it. Most of us would probably do it for nothing, for the privilege of playing with the coolest toys in the universe. It all boils down to doing a job most people would never dream of doing. And sometimes it involves making decisions on the fly, pardon the pun; decisions lesser men and women would never be able to make under normal conditions, much less under the physical and mental stresses we endure. Conditions they could not begin to comprehend.”
Lisa chewed the inside of her cheek in reflection, “I guess. But I still don't get the sense that the Admiral is all too pleased...”
“Did he mention anything this morning?”
“No... not in so many words...”
“Not in so many words, or not in any words?” Dar shook his head and continued, “Y'know, orders are a funny thing...”
Lisa turned to face Dar and crossed her arms, “Funny ha-ha, or funny strange?”
Dar sported a mischievous grin, his naturally tanned face crinkling around the corners of his mouth, his slate-gray eyes dancing, “I've seen them both ways; funny odd and funny stupid. The thing is, it's up to us to make sense of them and carry them out. Sometimes we tread a thin line between following orders and doing something to get results. On occasion we need to cross that line to achieve the results they want. If we're successful, we're heroes, if we're not, it's our fault for not following their stupid orders.” He sipped his coffee, “Because as the Gods know, orders from the brass are never wrong,” he rolled his eyes in exaggerated sarcasm.
“Are Jack... my brot... the Admiral's orders ever wrong?” stumbled Lisa.
Dar Sloane shook his head, “Judging your brother's decisions are above my pay grade to question or find fault with.”
“Nice dodge,” she snickered.
Dar shrugged it off. Personally, he liked Admiral Steele. But giving any opinions at all could be a risky venture, especially to a member of his family... no matter how much he liked her.
“Now, Admiral Pottsdorn, that was a man who worked at perfecting stupid...” There was a pause, a moment where they just stared at each other. A moment that was both thrilling and uncomfortable at the same time. Up till now they had been kissing friends, pals, affectionate but not intimate. In his mind's eye he could see them going further with their relationship but was unsure how that might play out. Especially if it didn't work out. He wanted to avoid professional suicide. To break the silence and that train of thought, Dar flipped back to the conversation, “Um, back to Admiral Steele; I think you underestimate his appreciation of the circumstances. I don't see him as an obtuse man, do you?”
Lisa smiled wryly, “Usually not.”
Dar caught her meaning and chuckled. “Then I don't think he's going to miss the significance of what you did. You made an on-the-spot judgment call. And a tough one. You have the guts, the brains and the nerves fighter pilots are known for.” He leaned back against the bench, relaxing, “Don't let it go to your head, but it was heroic. I find it hard to believe your brother would see it differently.”
Lisa blushed, “I don't see it that way,” she shrugged, “I just did what I had to do...”
Dar countered with a crooked smile, “Cookie, that's exactly what a hero would say...”
■ ■ ■
Lisa and Dar Sloane walked around the noseless Remora, examining the work in progress, Lisa feeling more than a little panicked. “Where's the rest of it? Where's the nose? Oh my God, Jack is gonna kill me...”
“Easy ma'am” assured the mechanic, stepping away from his tool stand. “The Admiral has already signed off on all the work. It will be factory perfect when we get it all back together. We removed the entire nose sub-frame to rebuild her because it was damaged beyond straightening out. We'll install the nose turret carrier and and all the electronics on the sub-frame before reattaching it to the bird.” The stocky gray man took her gently by the elbow and guided her around toward the rear of the fighter, pausing under the wingtip, pointing up, “As you can see we've already installed the new hardpoints on the wings. They can hold mission-specific rocket pods, missiles, special electronics or even gun pods...” Ducking under the wingtip, he guided Lisa to the rear of the fighter, pointing at the new articulated turret installed on the hull that extending beyond the flanking, twin engine nozzles. “That's the new stinger in your tail, a pair of Argon pulse lasers. I would have opted for Gatlings but there was no fitting them in the turret housing; too bulky.”
“What will go in the nose?” asked Commander Sloane, following along on the tour.
“Mmm,” nodded the mechanic approvingly, “Probably a nice pair of Particle Gauss Guns. We were thinking three, but that would seriously reduce magazine capacity. Since we're scratch building the nose turret housing, we can fit two comfortably with about two thousand rounds each.” He looked over at Lisa, “It's not a true turret like the one in the back, it will track the target about ten degrees in any direction, the rest is going to be up to you...”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
AEGERON PASS SYSTEM, FREERANGER – DD217 : THE SHADOW
The gate in Aegeron Pass exploded with color as it deposited the FreeRanger destroyer, DD217, into the empty system, the sleek gray hull glinting from the system's sun.
Sitting in his command chair, Commander T. B. Yafusco casually sipped his coffee, his legs crossed at the knee. “All stations report.” He really didn't expect to find anything; the yacht had too much of a head start. The lawmen at Rikovik's Reef claimed to have damaged the vessel, but he had his doubts as to what they would find. He made the Primayor agree to a non-refundable deposit before undertaking the mission assignment... something the politician was severely resistant to. Too bad, Tibby's crew wasn't in it for charity. Running a ship was a business and he had bills to pay.
“Picking up debris ahead, Skipper.”
“On screen. Are we recording?”
“Aye sir. Recording.”
The moment the image appeared his heart sank. The yacht was nothing more than an oversized party shuttle, its guts spread out around it, lifeless, dark¸ shot to pieces. He took a deep breath, letting it out slow, “Dammit,” he hissed quietly. “Take us in, let's light her up... Getting any readings at all?”
“Not a thing, sir, no power of any kind.”
“Of course not,” sighed the Commander, “why should anything be easy...” He set his coffee mug on his console. “Just a little break, is that too much to ask?” He wasn't really looking for an answer, just complaining out loud. He leaned forward, as the floodlights set into the bow of the destroyer swept across the small hull ahead,
making it shine in the surrounding darkness. “Hmm, the entry hatch is blown...”
“Think they were rescued sir?”
Tibby leaned back in his chair, picking up his mug. “I don't see any bodies floating around out there, so I'd have to say yes.”
Ensign Grinah leaned over from the second officer's chair, “Think it's worth a walk through?”
Commander Yafusco thought for a moment, his mug paused midway to his mouth, “No... I seriously doubt there's anything of value left behind.” He sipped before continuing, “Look at her, she's a mess. Something crushed the exhaust nozzles” he pointed. “How did it fly like that?” He shook his head. “I don't see how they made it through the tunnel like that.”
“Could of happened here,” suggested Grinah.
“I suppose,” shrugged Tibby.
“The science officer turned in his seat, “I'm picking up Ion wakes at the reach of our sensors...”
“How many?”
“Difficult to tell at this distance, the wake is widely dispersed and quickly decaying...”
“Then guess, Lieutenant.”
“Three to six.”
In a moment of introspection, Commander Yafusco scratched his beard stubble, “Helm, new heading, follow that trail. Let's see if we can determine who's making it. Best speed. Communications, send an update to fleet dispatch, see if this might be one of our groups. If not, see if they have anyone they can spare to meet up with us...” He gestured at the yacht floating in front of them, “And transmit the data recording to the Primayor; tell him we've come to the end of our contract.”
“We have the the mission deposit, what about our balance?”
“Tell him we're even. We were only able to complete half the mission, we're good with half the payment.”
Wings of Steele: Revenge and Retribution Page 23