by J. L. Curtis
The director looked quickly through the schedule and nodded. “I see you’re saving feeder three until last?”
“Yes we are. That site is the largest and that is where we will place the maintenance module, which requires a separate trip, since the shuttle can only carry two modules at a time.”
“Why there and not here?”
“It’s a large enough area to place the additional module, and also large enough to land the shuttle. At the other locations, the shuttle can only tractor items up or down.”
The director turned to the colonel, “Will this be a problem? This won’t restrict any traffic?”
Colonel Zhu shook his head. “No, ma’am. It’s on the outskirts of Kwamaine, and the area does not include any roads, tracks or paths. We don’t have room here for an additional module and an additional shuttle, unless we move a shuttle outside the containment. And we’d prefer not to do that.”
She turned back to Fargo, “Where will you be operating from?”
“Colonel Zhu has been kind enough to give us office space in the GalPat area. I and Jiri will work from there, along with the medic, and our shuttle pilot will also be in that office when she is not doing lifts. She will also assist the GalPat detachment as necessary.”
“Very good. Now, what can I help you with?”
“Intel, ma’am. All we really know is from the TBT techs, that someone is attempting to sabotage the feeders.”
Director Vaughn glanced at them in turn before saying, “That’s hard. The patrollers have not been successful in tracking down who is actually making the attacks. And GalPat is so limited with their other responsibilities…”
The colonel interrupted, “We’ve provided forensic support to the director, but have not been able to determine anything unusual about the attacks. None of the feeders have video circuits tied to them, so no video of any attacks. Or at least none since the sonic fences and videos have gone in.”
“If there haven’t been any more attacks, why are we here?”
Director Vaughn replied, “We are hearing rumors about more attempts to strike a blow for freedom as they are saying. The patrollers are picking up some low level chatter in the lower quarter housing, but nothing that can be tied to any one group. The corporation would prefer not to have wide scale destruction take place, if at all possible.”
“Why not have GalPat step in, if you’re taking it that seriously?”
“The corporation would prefer it be handled at the lowest level of force possible. That is why Grey Lady was contacted, and why you are here. We believe your force will be the deterrent that will stop this mess.”
A functionary stepped in, “Ma’am, Landholder Perez is here.”
The director said, “I’m sorry, I must meet with him. Colonel Zhu can give you any additional details you may desire. I look forward to working with your company.”
Fargo and Jiri rose, as did the colonel, “Thank you for your time, ma’am. We will do our best.” They followed the colonel out of the office, past the functionary and a scowling potbellied Latino man, who glared at them as they walked by.
Colonel Zhu turned toward his office as Fargo and Jiri continued toward the canteen, “Coffee?” Fargo asked and Jiri nodded. After getting their bulbs of coffee, they sat at one of the small tables off to the side of the canteen, “Well, what did you think?
Jiri glanced around, “Lot of hiding going on. This is some of the worst BS I’ve ever seen. The colonel is in the dark, but I don’t understand why. And that director… she’s probably been told what to say by the corporation, which is effectively don’t say anything.”
Fargo grimaced. “I think you’re right. Let’s finish the coffee and go see if the good colonel is any more forthcoming without her in the room. We’ll talk more once we get back aboard.”
***
Colonel Zhu glanced up as Fargo knocked on his door, “Yes?”
“Colonel, I think there is more happening than the director is telling me. Do you have anything from Intel that might give us a clue?”
Zhu leaned back, steepling his hands, then rubbing his moustache. “Come in. Sit.” Fargo and Jiri took the straight backed chairs facing Zhu’s desk as he continued, “What little we’ve picked up seems to be some low level, possibly long term, ongoing conflict between what they call Firsties, those that were in the first wave colonization, and the latecomers from the second and third wave.”
Fargo tapped his data comp, then looked up. “So ninety years, there can’t be many of those left alive.” Glancing down, he continued, “Sixty and thirty years for second and third. So most of them are alive.”
Zhu nodded. “Second gen on the first wave. The young ones think their shit doesn’t stink. Mainly large landholders. They raise the majority of the edibles on planet. Lot of them use autoag machinery or tenants.”
“Tenants?”
“Second and third wavers that work for them.”
Fargo tapped on his desk comp for a minute. “So, second wave was primarily service types, third was tech?”
Zhu shrugged. “Best guess. I’ve only been here a little over six months. Walked into this one cold. The previous GalPat group didn’t leave us a lot of notes or Intel, nor was there a lot in either the GalPat or corporate databases. A lot of these planets on the Rim are strange. We came over from Titan Three, when they elected an autonomous planetary council and petitioned for GalPat to be removed.”
“You never got a handover?”
“No. There was a half company here as caretakers for the facility, but nobody above the rank of lieutenant. He had the keys, but not much else. They were hunkered down here, no patrols, and no shuttles, not much of anything.”
“You didn’t find that strange?”
“Oh, exceedingly. When I FTL’ed the General, I was told to liaise with the Director, and build our own database. Something about the previous one being corrupted.”
“Where did the previous detachment go?”
Zhu threw up his hands, “Not a clue. The only thing in the log was that they were being recalled.”
“Some, but not all. That is odd.”
“Those left were the last replacements, we rolled them in to our detachment, since we lost about that many to orders, pensioning out, and we also had two deaths.”
Fargo got up, “Thanks Colonel, so not a lot to go on, or something buried real deep that the Director and others don’t want us to know.”
Zhu grimaced. “Probably. You have the ROE briefing, correct?”
Fargo nodded. “Given already. Weapons tight unless we are attacked, minimal response if we are, no escalations.”
“Did you bring any armor?”
“Four suits for each feeder site. Locked down to self-protect mode only.”
“Oh deity… Keep those out of sight. I did one training evolution two weeks after we got here, and the director threw a shit fit. She doesn’t want them seen in public at all. We now do our training in remote locations in the outback.”
“Ours are stored. Two in the Hab modules, and two in the surveillance modules.”
“Good, keep it that way. Don’t bring them out, ever!”
Fargo glanced at Jiri, “Well, if there isn’t anything else, Colonel?”
“I don’t have anything else.”
“Then we’ll depart and head back up to the ship. We’ll start drops tomorrow at zero nine, in the order I pinged to you.”
“Very well.”
***
Back onboard the Hyderabad, Fargo sat in the crew’s mess with Captain Jace, Nicole, Jiri, and Boykin running through what they had, and more importantly, hadn’t learned from the director and colonel. “I’m convinced the director is hiding something, I sensed she was nervous, not about us, but something else she was hiding. The colonel is worried, but I sensed that was more of a military capability worry than hiding something. I think he was curious as to what she was going to say, too.” Finally, he turned to Nicole, “Were you able to pull anything el
se out of the systems?”
She shrugged. “Not much. I did find that the previous detachment was recalled and broken up. Most of them were sent back to line units, and the colonel was allowed to retire.”
“Lovely. Just… lovely.”
Nicole cocked her head, “I do have an idea.” The others all stared at her, and she continued. “I could go in under cover,” looking at Captain Jace, “you could send me over to the space station in the shuttle, right?”
Jace nodded. “Yes, but why?”
“I could go down to Endine and get a job in a restaurant. That would allow me…”
Jiri interrupted, “A restaurant? What good…”
“If you’ll let me finish, yes, a restaurant. Preferably an upscale one, of which there seem to be three. People ignore servers, hostesses, and any staff. I’m a trained hostess and certified sommelier. That would almost guarantee that one of the three would hire me. And there is a lot of cross talk among restaurant employees.”
Fargo asked, “But what would you… sommelier, isn’t that something to do with wines?”
Nicole held up her hand, “Be right back.” She jumped up and left the crew’s mess.
Fargo looked at Jiri and the captain, “What can this buy us?”
Jace answered, “More than you know. If she can deploy some mini-mics, we would be able to monitor conversations, and who knows what we might hear.”
Nicole came back and lay a small silver and red pin on the table, “Scan it,” she said peremptorily.
Curious, Fargo waved his data comp over the pin, and it dinged as it uploaded the embedded data. LEVESQUE, NICOLE- CERT MASTER SOMMELIER- 27700312 PARIS, EU EU/NA/AS/GAL ALL SPIRITS. MBR- CURRENT. Fargo cocked his head. “All spirits?”
“Wine, beer, hard liquor, any liquid intoxicants. Any continent, any planet, anywhere in the galaxy. It took me seven damn years to get that qualification.”
Jiri asked, “But how could you justify coming here?”
Fargo cut a glance to Jace, “What if you were, say a Star Lines shipboard or maybe star cluster sommelier? Maybe you could be…”
“On vacation or a sabbatical. Taking a couple of months or more off. Travelling looking for more, different, local wines.”
Jiri cautioned, “But you would be, ah, on your own.”
Captain Jace interrupted, “We could put a set of LOs out, give you a discreet for your wrist comp or something else, that only hits them, and have that as an emergency call.”
Fargo added, “Yeah, we’re going to need those low observable sats up. I don’t think they have much for coverage out here, much like Hunter. Corporations tend not to spend that kind of money if they don’t have to.”
Jiri nodded. “Makes sense.” Glancing at his data comp, he said, “I need to get ready for the brief. Meet you in the passenger lounge in a half div?”
“Sure. We won’t say anything about Nicole going undercover.”
“Agreed!”
Jiri slipped out of the mess, and Nicole picked up the pin, “I’m going to hit the fresher while I can.”
After she left, Fargo looked at Jace, “Can you help protect her?”
Jace’s smile was definitely feral, “More than you know. There was a Star Liner in this cluster two weeks ago. I can print her a data chip that says she’s been employed by them for, say, forty years, based out of…” Fargo knew Jace was accessing his network and waited, “Orion cluster. I just inserted her into their system, if anybody wants to actually do a background check.”
Fargo shook his head. “Really?”
“I have access to any system in the galaxy. Something like this is easy.”
Nicole came back into the mess, “Dammit, I’m going to need clothes.”
“Clothes?”
She glared at Fargo, “Yes, clothes I can’t go down to Endine in my grays. I didn’t bring any dresses, or…”
Jace interrupted, “We can fix that. You tell me what you need and we can fab it.”
She smiled nicely at the captain, “Thank you! Now I will go finish my briefing, what little there is.”
Fargo shook his head again, “Women…”
Three divs later, the briefings were complete, people were doing final checks on their equipment, repacking their trunks, and the site leads were meeting with Boykin to coordinate their drops.
Fargo had just finished his repacking, shoved his trunk into the space between the two bunks, and laid down, when there was a soft knock on the hatch. Curious, he got up and dilated the hatch, and was startled to find Nicole in his arms. “What are you—”
Nicole kissed him passionately, and he groaned as she said, “Now. I want you now.”
Fargo started to shake his head, then realized he’d already felt her mind, and he wanted her as much as she wanted him. He closed the hatch, locked it, and carried her back to the bunk. A div later, Nicole lay across his chest, both of them sweating from their exertions, and she said, “I know I said we’d wait, but I may not see you until the detachment ends. I love you, Fargo. Damn your hide!”
He chuckled. “Is that damning with faint praise? Or a statement of anger, or…Ouch!”
Nicole had grabbed him and twisted. “You want to rephrase that?”
He enfolded her in this arms, whispering, “I love you too. And I don’t like this any better than you do. If anything, and I mean anything starts looking skosh, send up a call and we’ll extract you in armor. ROE be damned.”
“I will. And now I need to go hit the fresher and get some sleep. The captain is ferrying me over at ten divs in the morning.” Kissing him softly, she quickly slipped back into her greys and stood at the hatch, “Um, you’ve got to unlock it.”
She went quickly back to her stateroom, and Fargo was thankful no one saw her coming out of his stateroom.
On the bridge, Jace smiled as he scanned the video, and added a notation to his database that paired Fargo and Nicole. He also upped her security classification within his system, and prioritized data collection to support her. He added an extra sensor on orbit, Geostationary over Center, with tracking of her data chip.
Insertion
At 0600, the first two modules and Barun’s troops dropped at Feeder One, three divs early, just in case somebody leaked the times. No one noticed, other than a wolf like creature that whined and took off into the brush. It hadn’t liked the noises, and there wasn’t anything to eat up there anyway. Boykin goosed the shuttle back into orbit, loaded the next team on board, eased out of the shuttle bay, and tractored the next two modules. Horse leaned into the cockpit, “Any problems on the first drop?”
“Nope. Clean as a whistle. But number one is out in the sticks. The next three are nearer population centers, so I’m sure there will at least be notice, if not reaction. I’m weaps white, but I can go red in a half a heartbeat if needed.”
“Modules first?”
Boykin nodded as she spooled the shuttle up, dipping toward Endine, “Drop them first, then y’all, just outside the containment. You’ve got the code to shut it down, right?”
“Yes, if there is no action, I will deactivate the containment as soon as the modules are placed.”
Boykin nodded. “Good. Now go away and let me drive.”
Horse smiled. “Of course. Good driving is appreciated.”
Boykin brought the shuttle to a hover over Feeder Two, tractored the Hab and surveillance modules into the spaces designated, as Horse leaned out the back hatch, shutting the sonics down. A few people watched curiously, but not a soul moved toward the shuttle as it touched down lightly outside the containment. Horse and his team were off in ten segs, and inside the containment in another five. “Okay, WO, we’re snug. Thanks for the lift.”
Boykin smiled in her helmet, “You’re welcome, WO. Stay snug.”
***
Nicole stepped up to the check station, handed her ID across, and the rotund mousy woman behind the desk asked in a bored tone, “What is the nature of your visit?”
“Sa
bbatical. I’m touring the Rimworlds, looking at different vineyards.”
“Vineyards?”
“Wineries, people that make wine or sell grapes.”
“Oh, arm please.” Nicole stuck out her arm, and the woman pressed the device against her.
She felt a momentary stab, “What’s that?”
“Verifying you’re human. We don’t allow others here.” She glanced at the readout, “Luggage?”
Nicole placed the trunk on the table and cycled the locks open. “Anything to declare? Plants, animals, weapons?”
She reached in the trunk, pulled out the small bead pistol and cycled the case open, “Only a Ladies Aide.”
“Frangible ammunition?”
“Right here,” Nicole said, handing over the small package of beads. The woman opened the package, extracted one bead and passed it over something behind the desk. Then put it in an envelope.
Nicole asked, “What are you doing with that?”
“Evidence if you shoot somebody and run.” She riffled through the trunk, grunted, looked curiously at the data pod, and nodded to Nicole, “You can go now. Enjoy your stay.”
Nicole repacked everything, then headed for the shuttle line down to Capital, mumbling, “Yeah, right. Enjoy myself. Fat chance.”
Getting in the queue, she slid her chip across and received a data chip for the shuttle, no choice of seat assignment. And it wasn’t for the shuttle leaving in a half div. It was for the next shuttle in 3 divs. She went over and parked her trunk, sat down next to it, and reconfirmed her reservation at the Women’s Lodge in Center, updating her arrival time from the land time of the shuttle.
***
Boykin shut down in the bay long enough to grab a bite to eat, as the fourth team loaded up. Fargo checked with her for any issues. Boykin indicated she didn’t have any, so he went back to herding the cats that were left. Shanni and his team were loaded by the time she got back from the fresher, and they did a quick consult on the aft ramp, making sure they both understood the sequence. Boykin slipped back into the cockpit, picked up the two modules, and drove toward Endine and Feeder Four a little faster than she had the others. Feeder Four was outside Coventry and there were a few people with protest banners but they were well away from the feeder and where the shuttle would be setting down. Boykin warned Shanni and made sure when she landed, it was as close to the containment/sonic as she could stick the tail and not have it impact the troops coming off. Shanni and his team were already doing comms checks before she hit orbit for the last modules, and she laughed to herself, Funny how having people watching tends to speed up the whole security process. At least the modules are secure against anything below a seventy-six.