Spoils of War

by Terry Mixon

  The system defense boats were responsible for herding the merchantmen to various inspection points if that was what the customs officers decided. They seemingly picked ships at random, but Kayden told them that it was a more complicated process than that.

  Each ship that came through the system had a reputation. Ships that kept their noses clean and whose crews never caused any problems were rarely searched. Those with issues were examined more often. Captains whose reputations were poor got the most attention.

  Thankfully, Bright Passage made it through the border system without anything more than basic contact with Control. They made their way from one flip point directly to another and headed deeper into the Singularity.

  Kayden said that this was normal. Depending on the speculative goods one picked up, a particular world might not be the best location to perform their trades. If there were better opportunities for profit in systems farther down the line, a ship would continue on.

  Each flip after that brought them closer to the target system and also raised the tension level aboard the ship to a fever pitch by the time they made that final flip.

  While they weren’t technically restricted to passive scanners, they’d decided that using active scanners had a greater potential to draw unwelcome attention. That meant hours of poring over data to find out what was waiting for them in the Aponte system.

  With the upgrades that Imperial Intelligence had made to the ship’s passive scanners, they pulled in a lot of information. The concealed equipment had an incredible amount of processing power built in to massage the data and draw useful tidbits of insight from the soup they were picking up.

  The first thing that they needed to be worried about was warships in the system. If there were flip-capable destroyers, then they’d have to move along rather than strike. That would be annoying, but sometimes that was just the way the coin toss went.

  According to Kayden, the Singularity based its warships out of an asteroid that they’d be passing close to on the way to the gas giant. That was where their passive scanners would come in handy.

  She wondered why the Singularity kept their larger ships stationed further away from the habitable world but decided that it didn’t really matter. Perhaps they wanted a location that would be more responsive to issues in other systems. Or maybe they just wanted to make sure that there was no possibility of ambush.

  The reason didn’t matter so long as the outcome served their ends. It was just interesting trivia for someone in her line of work.

  Anders and the bridge crew were bent over their consoles, examining every piece of information that they could pull out of the passive scanners as they closed range with the Singularity base. Judging from the tenseness of their shoulders, she knew they hadn’t gotten the answers that they’d hoped for yet.

  Kyle eventually straightened from his console and grinned at the rest of them. “I’m not seeing any destroyers. There’s a couple of system defense boats there, but that’s it. I suspect they’re pretty quick, but so long as we can make it to the flip point before they catch us, it’s not going to make much of a difference.

  “Also, the few that I can see aren’t going to have enough weaponry to take us down. We might look like a freighter, but we can deal with a couple of these boats pretty handily. About a third of the cargo containers are really missile launchers. We don’t have any reloads, but we can deal with a bit of trouble.”

  “So, we’re go to proceed?” Grace asked, hardly daring to believe it.

  “You’re go,” Anders confirmed. “You should head back and finalize everything with your people. I’ll keep you informed about our progress and let you know when we’re ready to make our move.

  “We’ll be able to adjust our speed of approach somewhat, but I’d appreciate a heads-up about any glitches that you experience. Good luck to you and yours, Grace. Go kick some ass and bring us back some juicy cargo that we can trade in for a lot of money when we get back to the Empire.”

  She grinned at the man. “You’ve got it.”

  “Remember,” he cautioned her. “Our timetable is going to be tight. I want to be done before the system defense boats get here. We can win that fight, but it’ll be a lot better for us if we never exchange missiles with them at all. Take care of business as quickly as you can.”

  Grace nodded to him and exited the bridge.

  The trip down to the cargo containers they were using to launch their assault only took a couple of minutes.

  From the outside, those containers looked like every other container the freighter carried, but inside, they were completely different. The one they were using to launch the assault had a large airlock that could be used to get them out onto the hull a squad at a time.

  It was a hive of activity by the time she arrived. All of her marines were in armor and finalizing their loadout. While they didn’t have powered armor available for the assault, they were still pretty well protected in the mercenary gear that Imperial Intelligence had picked up for them. It would have to do.

  Thankfully, being a mercenary out here meant that one might have to do work in a vacuum or under bad atmospheric conditions. Each suit of unpowered armor came with a life-support system that was more than capable of getting them across to where they needed to be and a thruster pack that could get them there quickly.

  The attack plan called for them to detach from the freighter and make their approach with just the velocity imparted by the ship herself. When they were close to the transshipment center, they’d use their thruster packs to decelerate and make their way to potential entry points.

  Their preference would be completely bypassing some relatively unused airlocks and getting inside without notifying the residents that they were there. Na would lead the way to the engineering section and begin setting up everything they needed for overloading the fusion plant.

  Grace’s mission was more complicated. It was up to her to make sure that Kayden got to the cargo management area so that he could help them seize whatever valuable containers they could get their hands on. That was a riskier proposition, and there were a lot of things that could go wrong.

  She raised an eyebrow at Na and took her nod as an acknowledgment that everything was on track. That left her free to focus on her own group and the man they were going to have to protect during the mission.

  He was also the man they’d have to keep a close eye on just in case he decided to betray them. She really hoped that didn’t turn out to be the case, but if he was going to turn coat, this was the worst time for him to do it.

  All it would take was him slipping away from them or using one of the consoles to sound the alarm, and they were cooked.

  Even as she thought that, the man himself stepped into the container, spotted her, and headed over. “What do you need me to do, Grace?”

  She gestured for him to go over to the open packing containers that held their armor and weapons. “We’ll get you armored up and verify that your vacuum gear is functional. Do you have experience operating outside of a ship in zero-G?”

  “Some,” he said with a nod. “I started out as an engineer, so I’ve worked in vacuum before and operated without gravity. I’m probably not as adroit as your people, but I can get the job done and not embarrass myself too badly.

  “What about once we get to the orbital itself? We’re going to have to force our way into an occupied section of the transshipment center, and there’s always the possibility that they’re going to open fire on us. They have security to ward off pirates.

  “Even with a naval base inside the system, piracy is still a concern. If someone thinks that they can just walk in and take a lot of valuable things and get away without retribution, they’ll be tempted, so the people on this asteroid are going to have the ability to defend themselves.”

  “We’ll do what we can to avoid any direct confrontations,” Grace said as she started fitting his armor to him. “I’m surprised to hear that you have a problem with piracy, though. I tho
ught the Singularity was a lot more orderly than that.”

  He chuckled as he held his arms out. “The more authoritarian the regime, the more the people under their heels that want to express themselves. Sometimes that comes out via dissidents disseminating information and at other times as criminal elements that want to make money while sticking it to the ruling caste.

  “Such endeavors never prosper for long, but you can’t completely stop them. As soon as you stomp one group, another one springs up to take its place. Don’t you have a similar problem inside the Empire?”

  She shook her head. “Not so much. We have piracy and smuggling, but they aren’t widespread. Smuggling is far more prevalent, since Fleet actively goes after pirates but leaves smuggling to each system’s customs service.”

  When she had Kayden armored up, she considered adding a weapon to the mix. While she still had concerns about him, he might need to defend himself.

  After a moment’s thought, she grabbed a holstered stunner and held it out to him. “I assume you know how to use this.”

  “I do,” he said as he took it. “I give you my personal bond that I will do everything within my power to make certain that your mission succeeds. If you give an order, I’ll carry it out. If I have misgivings, I’ll keep them to myself until such time as we’re away. Unless, of course, they endanger the mission while we’re there, in which case I’ll speak up. I’ll be a good partner, Grace. I promise.”

  “See that you do.”

  She really hoped that he was as good as his word, because she’d grown to enjoy his dry sense of humor and would hate to have him turn against her. If he did, she’d handle it, but the betrayal would make her sad.

  Getting Kayden into his armor and attaching the thruster pack only took a couple of minutes. By the time she was finished, all of her marines were ready to go.

  Grace went to the communication panel set in the wall and opened a connection to the bridge. Since the ship’s crew wasn’t supposed to have implants, they didn’t dare install any receivers that would allow them to use their implant coms. There was too much chance that a random customs search would find something incriminating.

  Kyle answered the call. “Talk to me, Grace.”

  “We’re ready to go. How close to the transshipment center are we, and what kind of time frame are we expecting before we’re ready to detach from the ship?”

  “We’re still on approach. Control hasn’t contacted us yet, but there’s a fair number of ships loading and unloading cargo. I expect that we’ll get instructions to change course in the next couple of minutes for the final approach.

  “As soon as we get the word, we’ll let you know. It’s probably best if you go ahead and move out to the exterior of the ship and get ready to detach.

  “I want to second everything that Jay said. Be careful and come back to us. Don’t put yourself or your people in any undue danger. I’d much rather have all of your marines come home than have a fat bank account.”

  His words made her feel good. She’d dealt with Fleet officers that didn’t value the lives of the marines under their command. It was nice to have these guys looking out for her and her people.

  “That works for us,” she agreed. “We’ll do the best we can. Give us a call when you’re ready for us to deploy, and we’ll be able to detach in just a couple of seconds. I figure that you can rotate the ship so that our own momentum will carry us away as you change course. Does that work?”

  “Absolutely. Good luck, Grace.”

  She killed the channel and started her people out onto the exterior of the ship. They’d use their magnetic boots to lock on around the airlock until all of them were outside and ready to deploy.

  It wasn’t going to be long now. In just a couple of minutes, they’d disengage from Bright Passage and be on their way.

  She grinned as she watched her marines moving out. It was their job to make damned sure that the Singularity remembered their visit for a very long time. Anders would get them clear once it was all done, but the lion’s share of the work was going to be on her and her people.

  Five minutes later, she stood outside next to Kayden and watched the growing speck of light in front of them that was the asteroid housing the transshipment center. She could see dimmer dots moving around that must be ships maneuvering, but she really couldn’t get a scale of the place.

  Not that she needed one. The raw data that Kayden had supplied had told her that the place was huge. She didn’t know how much cargo was moving through here or how many people were inside the massive structure, but she was looking forward to seeing it completely and utterly destroyed.

  Grace hoped that the people working there could evacuate in an hour. That was the amount of time they’d decided would be appropriate. The place should have enough escape pods to get every single person clear, and an hour was a lot of time to make that happen.

  “Grace, this is Anders,” the Fleet officer said over the short-range com in her suit. “Control just gave us an approach vector, and we’re rotating the ship. Stand by.”

  “Copy that. Go for rotation.”

  Moments later, the ship rotated and then stopped again once the stars had realigned.

  “You are clear to detach,” Anders said. “Be bold and be careful.”

  “Will do. Keep a light on for us. Tolliver out.”

  She switched to the general marine channel on the short-ranged suit com. “Heads up, people. We detach in ten seconds.”

  Without prodding from her, Na took over the countdown duties, and Grace cut the magnetic latching system in her boots right on zero. She was pleased to see that Kayden did the same.

  They drifted slowly above the hull of the freighter for a few seconds, and then the ship changed course and began pulling away from them and accelerating slightly. Moments later, they were floating alone in space, still headed toward the transshipment center.

  They were utterly committed now. All that lay before them now was victory or death.

  13

  One Twenty-Four was pleased to see that turning the tables on Thirty-One had unnerved her over the next several weeks. Whatever the girl’s plans had been, she seemed to be reassessing them. Every time One Twenty-Four stared boldly at the girl, Thirty-One looked away.

  Of course, this would only be a temporary setback for her enemy. One Twenty-Four had no doubt the girl would strike soon enough. With that in mind, she made it her business to watch everything that was going on around her.

  If someone was working with a piece of equipment, she paid close attention to that. If any of Thirty-One’s lackeys seemed to be manipulating how people were doing things, she took note of it.

  And her attentiveness eventually paid off.

  About three weeks after she’d confronted Thirty-One in the dorm, she found another bit of sabotage. In this case, it was something in their advanced chemistry class. Some of the chemicals in her mobile cabinet had been tampered with.

  How did she want to play this? She could tell Keeper that something was going on. Keeper would have no trouble determining that the chemicals had been altered.

  Some had been relabeled and were different colors than they should’ve been. If anyone was paying even the slightest bit of attention—or bothered studying chemistry—she’d notice the substitution.

  As assassination attempts went, it was clumsy. That made her smile.

  One Twenty-Four took the time to look at all the chemicals and then began assessing her equipment. Some of it had also been modified. The burner, for example. When turned above a particular setting, it would create a flame that was significantly hotter than anticipated, and it would do so with little warning.

  After she conducted an experiment that proved that, One Twenty-Four realized that she’d made a mistake. Thirty-One could easily have rigged the equipment to simply explode. If flaming wreckage had landed all over her, she’d have been badly burned. Perhaps enough so that she’d be expelled from the crèche. She needed to be more ca
reful.

  In the end, she came up with a straightforward solution to her problem. It would take too long to sort through everything in the cabinet. So she wouldn’t.

  The cabinets were heavy but had wheels allowing them to be relocated. The chemical containers inside the cabinets were well secured, so unless she accidentally dumped the entire thing over, she should be able to move it without difficulty.

  Needless to say, when she began rolling her cabinet to one of the unused stations, that garnered a lot of attention from her line sibs. Particularly Thirty-One and her cronies.

  Keeper also observed her move the cabinet but didn’t say anything. She simply watched passively, her expression neutral. Once One Twenty-Four had finished moving the cabinet, she took Seventy-Three’s cabinet and rolled it back to her lab station. Her dead line sib wouldn’t be using it, so it hardly mattered if she took it.

  Thirty-One looked as if she wanted to leap to her feet and accuse One Twenty-Four of wrongdoing.

  But she didn’t. After all, what exactly could she say?

  Keeper! One Twenty-Four is getting rid of all the equipment that I sabotaged! Make her put it back so that she can die!

  No, that wouldn’t have looked good for the girl at all.

  Once One Twenty-Four had her new cabinet of chemicals and equipment back to her work area, she now had to overcome the challenge of the cabinet’s lock. Thirty-One or her lackeys had managed to bypass her original cabinet’s lock, but they’d had time and secrecy to aid them.

  She quickly decided that boldness was her best option.

  Once she had the cabinet of chemicals and equipment locked down so that it couldn’t move, she walked up to Keeper’s desk and stood impassively, waiting to be acknowledged.

  “Yes, One Twenty-Four?” Keeper said, one eyebrow raised. “Is there something that you desire?”

  “Keeper, I’m unfamiliar with the combination of my new cabinet and don’t wish to damage Line equipment. Would you open it for me?”