by HR Ringer
Sammy talked about it with Buchanan during their dinner break; they were each sitting on a small bench that was part of the fold-down table in the tiny galley. “I don’t believe Lang will attempt a ‘hit’ on Ursivus,” Sam said between mouthfuls of beans and steamed rice. “He has a number of bodyguards around him at all times, all turian, all intensely loyal. No chance in ‘ell that a lone human could get within 70 or 80 meters without being stopped.”
Griff took a drink from his glass of beer. “Can Lang use a sniper rifle to take him out?”
“While he’s traveling, I suppose, but consider this: the docks are littered with containers of every size, preventing easy shots from ground level, and the kinetic barrier around the ship would deflect any shot from a higher vantage point around the docks. Lang would have to be quite close for a kill shot. How does he pull that off and escape capture?” Sam replied. “I also cannot envision a lone human gaining easy access to a turian passenger vessel.” Chewing her rice as she thought about murder for hire, she asked, “How would he eliminate Ursivus and get away? There’s nowhere on a ship he can hide, even if he’s electronically cloaked. No way to get off while in flight… and once a body’s discovered, the turian crew would tear the ship’s insides out looking for the guilty party.”
Buchanan finished his beer and carefully stood, not fully trusting the low ceilings and close quarters in here. Picking up his dishes and glass, he set them in the sink beside him as he mumbled to himself, “How would you murder someone and get away?” Looking back at Traynor, he asked aloud, “How would you murder someone and get away, Sam? Put yourself in Lang’s place. How would you get the job done and live to collect your payday? We need to think in broader terms! Cerberus isn’t beyond killing innocents to achieve their goals… case in point, Holden and Walsh. To them, your chum on Mars was simply collateral damage.”
“Don’t remind me. Never did find out who their handler was, and the Alliance dropped the effort to find out as soon as those two were dead in their cells.” Traynor went silent as she continued to ponder their dilemma. Buchanan reached around, took her empty plate and glass, added them to his own dishes and began washing up. ‘Collateral damage… no big deal… collateral…’ “Sonovabitch, Griff! They don’t give a vorcha’s ass about innocents if the end results meet their goals!”
Traynor got up from the fold-down table and moved towards the hanger. “How would you destroy a vessel without actually being on it?”
Griff looked at Sammy as if she’d just turned green and sprouted horns. “It would almost certainly require an explosion, but that would leave a cloud of debris. Someone would surely be able to discover the cause and trace it back to its source.”
“In normal space, yes. But what would happen if a ship exploded while transiting a relay pair? It always seems instantaneous to our senses when we’re inside the ship, but the reality is a transit between relays takes two, maybe three seconds. Blow up a ship while it’s in the time/distance corridor, the cause, the debris, all the bodies, simply vanish.”
Buchanan was skeptical. “Has that ever been proven, Traynor?”
“Not to my knowledge… It’s only a theory, but it makes perfect sense. Ship moving at FTL explodes – the entire mass drops from FTL while still in the T/D corridor, but the debris is contained and spread along this tight little tunnel until the field collapses… nothing arrives at the receiving relay. The debris is scattered over billions of kilometers of space, becoming nothing more than cosmic dust.”
Still the skeptic, Griff said, “Explosion would have to be perfectly timed, then. No margin for error at either end… Rules out someone triggering it remotely. Have to be done with a precision timer.”
Traynor entered the hanger as she called back over her shoulder, “I’m going to begin looking at Ursivus’ scheduled trips for the next two months. He’s visiting and revisiting turian colonies and the turian dominated wards on the Citadel. Soon as I have a pattern to his movements, I can plot which ships he flies on regularly.”
Traynor had changed the parameters of her searches, tasking one of the computers to find and correlate the schedules of the major turian owned and operated passenger vessels operating out of Palaven. She reset the second system – originally monitoring comms traffic between the Apien Crest and the Citadel – to look for all the travel reservations made either on behalf of or by Raherix Ursivus during the past six months and two or three months into the future.
As it turned out, Ursivus traveled frequently on ships registered to Aequitas E’defit Transitus, which made regular runs between Palaven, The Citadel, Invictus in Minos Wasteland and Illium. A subsidiary company made bi-weekly runs between Illium and Omega Station. Ursivus had made only four trips to Omega in six years, indicating the station was of little interest to him; on the other hand, he’d traveled to the Citadel on a regular basis, most often on either the MSV Anixara or the MSV Arcus Pluvius.
As both ships were courier class vessels, travel past the Citadel required a layover and change to a bigger vessel. Apparently, the turian seldom needed to travel beyond the Citadel; most of the flights booked for him included a same-day return trip to Palaven, again, on either the MSV Arcus Pluvius or the MSV Anixara.
Sammy felt she had enough data on Ursivus’ travel habits, which made her rather nervous. Michael Moser Lang undoubtedly had a similar database on the turian; the implication being he would strike sooner rather than later. What she needed now was a bit of luck intercepting communications between Lang and his handler within Cerberus.
Resetting the computers to search for any mention of Lang’s presence, either on the Citadel or in the Apien Crest, she returned to the living quarters of the Spirit’s Rage; entering the small sleeping space, she was startled by a fleeting glimpse of Buchanan’s nude backside. “What the ‘ell, Griff?” she called after him as he entered the lavatory.
“Just going to take a quick shower before I hit the rack, Sam.”
“How about letting me use the head first?” she called. As the shower stall surrounded the toilet, it was impossible for one person to use it while another showered.
Griff came out, towel wrapped around his mid-section. “Have at it, Sammy,” he said in a cheery voice. Speaking slightly louder as she went in and closed the door behind her, he asked, “Any leads on Ursivus or Lang?”
“I have a pretty solid record of his travels between Palaven and the Citadel,” came the muffled voice. “I’m searching for Lang on the Citadel and in the Apien Crest… need to locate him, and fast,” she replied. The sound of the toilet cycling was followed by water running in the sink, then the door opening and Traynor coming out, still drying her hands. “Okay, Griff… it’s all yours.”
Buchanan carefully moved past her and entered the tiny space. “You’d think…” he said as he closed the door, “… General Park could have put us in a bit bigger ship. There’s not enough room in here for me to even turn around,” he finished plaintively.
Traynor shook her head without answering, as the sound of water falling in the shower would have drowned her voice out. Entering the galley, she rooted around in the refrigerator, finally extracting a pre-packaged cup of yogurt. Sitting at the small table, she wrote her report on the day’s activities between spoonfuls of the synthesized dairy product, then moved into the small cockpit, downloaded and transmitted her report to Park.
Their next move would involve docking at the Citadel, where she hoped to discover some clue on Lang’s whereabouts; she felt if he was going to sabotage a ship on which Ursivus would be traveling, he’d have to do it during the Citadel layover. It would take careful planning and meticulous timing, and she would have to discover how, exactly, Lang intended to bring the ship down. Checking her Chrono, she decided to leave the ship’s VI in charge for the night – she entered the small sleeping compartment, stripped out of her uniform and climbed into the top bunk. She stopped thinking about Lang, turning her thoughts instead to those of her lover. Lying on her side, she
gradually drifted off to sleep.
* * *
Rising before Griff was awake, Traynor carefully left her bunk and slipped into the head, where she stripped out of her sleep shirt and panties, voided her bladder, then turned the shower on. She washed her hair before soaping and rinsing her body as fast as she could; she wasn’t sure how much hot water was available, and didn’t want to have the water go cold before she finished.
She was drying herself when a light tap on the door told her that Griff was out of bed; she wrapped the towel around her torso, grabbed her supplies and opened the door. “Good morning,” she said. “How’d you sleep?”
“Rack’s a bit tight for someone my size – of course, most of them are, no matter how big the ship is.”
Traynor moved past Buchanan as he entered the space she was vacating. “Soon as we have some breakfast, I’m going to take the shuttle to the Citadel, Griff… I want to take a look at the docking facilities for the turian transports in which Ursivus travels, maybe get a sense of the kind and amount of security around the area.”
Glancing quickly over her shoulder to make sure she was out of Griff’s line of sight, she dropped her towel in favor of high-thigh underpants and a sport bra; once inside the shuttle, she’d put on her under-armor mesh, socks, boots and armor, along with her weapons. Moving into the tiny galley, she found that Griff had already made coffee; she gratefully poured herself a mug of the steaming beverage, grabbed a couple of breakfast bars and moved to the ship’s bridge. Taking the pilot’s seat, she entered several commands on the VI interface, instructing it to move the ship closer to the Citadel and establish a close orbit of the facility.
Leaning back in her chair, she sipped her coffee and ate one of her breakfast bars as Spirit’s Rage complied with the instructions she’d entered for the VI. By the time she had finished her second breakfast bar and drained the last of her coffee, the ship was in a new, closer orbit about the Citadel.
Traynor rose and went back to the galley, where she ran into Buchanan pouring a cup of coffee for himself. As she rinsed and dried her mug, she told him about her plans for the day. “I’m going to take the shuttle to the Alliance docks. Once there, I’ll begin searching for Lang… I believe he’s on the station, staying out of sight, but if he is eating and sleeping, he has to be using chits. Once I find him, it should be a simple matter to track him.”
“Looks like you’re a bit under-dressed for an excursion,” he snarked. “So, what do you need me to do while you’re ashore?”
“Monitor my comms channel,” she responded, ignoring the dig. “I’ll spend some of my time actively using the search programs, but anytime I can leave the shuttle for a couple of hours, I will. Who knows – maybe we’ll get lucky, find him before he can move on those turian transports.
Griff chuckled as he asked, “Think you can stay outta trouble for a day?”
“Me?” she asked innocently. “Trouble? There’s very few batarians on the station, Griff – I don’t expect I’ll have any difficulty avoiding trouble. See you this evening.” With that, Traynor left for the passageway to the hanger deck, where she unplugged the shuttle’s systems from Spirit’s Rage before entering the small craft; after closing and sealing the hatch, she pulled equipment from her locker: under-armor mesh pants and overshirt, socks, boots, armor plates, kinetic and cloaking generator, mass reduction generator, sheathed butterfly knives and heavy pistol. After donning it all with practiced ease, she signaled the ship’s VI to erect the kinetic barrier and open the main hanger doors.
From the pilot’s chair, Traynor initiated the startup sequence for the ME generator, turbo-fuel pumps, navicomputers, inertial dampeners and environmental systems. When all the gauges and sensors indicated the shuttle’s systems were operating within specs, she had the onboard VI take the UT-47 out of the hanger; once clear of the ship, she took over manual control and set course for the Citadel.
* * *
Wearing her dark-grey, calf-length hooded overcoat, Samantha stayed in the shadows as much as possible as she approached the turian commercial spacecraft docks. With her electronic cloak engaged and only having to avoid physical contact with the turians moving around the ships, she drew as close as she dared, knowing the proximity sensors would detect her presence, cloaked or not.
In addition to the proximity sensors, security around the mostly empty docks consisted of armed C-Sec guards. C-Sec’s patrols were designed to appear unscheduled, with guards appearing randomly at the various access points within the perimeter. The guards themselves were regularly rotated out of the station’s complement in order to keep them from gaining any familiarity with the turians charged with servicing the ships between trips.
By carefully walking the perimeter where the Arcus Pluvius and the Anixara regularly docked; it didn’t take long for her search to pay off. There was a pronounced gap in the security coverage that would allow a cloaked individual, such as herself, to stroll right up to the boarding ramps of both ships. Traynor had no doubt Lang would employ a personal cloaking generator just as she was doing now. She documented all this with her omni-tool in order to have proof that clandestine access to the ships was possible, then rechecked the schedules for both ships; the Arcus Pluvius would be arriving within the hour. A nearby passenger lounge that catered to non-turian travelers would provide her a good place to observe the ship’s arrival and docking procedures.
After turning off her cloaking generator, she boldly entered the small lounge and took a seat near enough to the front window so she could watch the docks; additionally, the reflections in the window allowed her to observe the area behind her – always a concern when she was supposed to remain unnoticed.
The arrival of the Arcus Pluvius was preceded by an increasing amount of activity about the designated dock, as cargo handlers staged containers for loading, while leaving a path for the anticipated containers that would be off-loaded during the ship’s brief layover. Traynor activated ‘video recording’ on her omni-tool and placed her arm so as to capture as much of the activities around the arriving vessel as possible – she’d upload it to the shuttle’s storage server, after which it could be analyzed be either Griff or herself.
The arrival of the ship as it pierced the atmospheric kinetic barrier and slowly eased itself between the dual walkways was actually anticlimactic. Studying all the activity once the ship was docked and the passengers had disembarked, Traynor realized a saboteur could enter the ship as a cargo handler; once aboard, it would be a simple matter to plant a device of some sort near any bulkhead in the aft portion of the vessel, then leave with no one the wiser. More importantly for her needs, the dock workers were a mixture of races – there were a few humans scattered among the mostly turian crew doing the work; there were even a couple of batarians. Two thoughts occurred to her nearly in unison – a cloaked human might be able to enter and leave the ship’s cargo area unseen, if caution was used to avoid the few batarians among the dock workers, and it might just be possible that Buchanan could get a job working with the ground crew as a temporary laborer, thus enabling them to view the cargo area of the ship.
What was proving difficult for her to fathom was the timing. If the device, whatever it was, was triggered too soon or too late, the explosion would happen in normal space, leaving easily retrievable evidence. She was missing something… an action that Lang could take that would make in-flight destruction of an interstellar passenger ship appear to be an accident… but what?
Her thoughts were spinning in circles – better to stop thinking about sabotage to the Anixara and start looking for Lang. Traynor didn’t believe he’d be staying anywhere near the Presidium; accommodations there were quite expensive, and she didn’t expect Cerberus would be footing the bill for such – that was the Illusive Man’s specialty. No, Lang would be staying in the wards. There were plenty of places close enough to the Presidium for easy accessibility that wouldn’t break the bank.
Activating her Comms unit, she called the Spir
it’s Rage. “Griff, I’m on my way back to the shuttle… think you’re up for a little manual labor?”
The answering chuckle was lacking in humor. “Let me guess… you need me to hire on as a cargo handler.”
“How’d you know? Anyway, it’ll get you off the ship so you can get some exercise. Nothing dangerous. I’ll be back on board shortly.” Traynor left the passenger lounge and made her way back to the Alliance docks where her shuttle was parked.
* * *
Chapter 30: Storm Warning
Girls like her were born in a storm. They have lightning in their souls. Thunder in their hearts. And chaos in their bones. – Nikita Gill
* * *
Inamorata – A woman with whom one is in love; a female lover (Italian)
* * *
* WIDOW SYSTEM • SPIRIT’S RAGE • AT LARGE *
Buchanan and Traynor alternated their forays on the Citadel for several days after Sammy’s initial visit to the docks frequented by turian warmonger Raherix Ursivus. They were following some promising leads concerning Michael Moser Lang, an independent contractor frequently employed by Cerberus for ‘wet’ work; Alliance Intelligence had good reason to believe Ursivus was the target for Lang’s next hit.
Traynor felt they were running out of time to discover the ‘where’ and ‘how’ for the hit they knew was inevitable. She was looking at anything that could tie Lang to a planned hit on the turian, and had actually started to believe there was nothing to discover when an odd purchase caught her eyes.
A significant quantity of liquid deuterium had been purchased from a chemical wholesale importer on the Citadel. D2O was a compound most theoretical chemical researchers agreed could possibly create a cascading, catastrophic chain-reaction failure if injected into a stream of metastable metallic hydrogen fuel being pumped at high pressure and quantities into a reaction engine, as used by commercial interstellar transports. The outcome was not a sure thing, as no legitimate research facilities would build a test facility to test something that had no practical applications, but Traynor wouldn’t put such an experiment beyond the capabilities of Cerberus owned Cord-Hislop Aerospace.