by Terry Mixon
The woman laughed again, not trying to hide it this time. “I can’t imagine what kind of story you’re going to try to sell me, but I need to have some breakfast before I think about it.
“It seems the cooks have wrapped up their preparations, so let’s get something before everyone stampedes them. You haven’t seen how searchers go through food. They’ll eat everything in sight and then come back for another pass. They’re like locusts.”
He rose with her, his stomach already grumbling from the delicious scent of the bacon. The next few hours could go very badly, so he’d eat well and hope for the best.
Chapter Fifteen
Jess floated in space outside the station using her maneuvering thrusters to stay near the access panel Kevin McHugh had identified on the big gate. She’d watched him open a number of access panels on the smaller gates, so she felt confident that she could do the same here.
“Yeah,” he said over her radio. “That looks right. You remember how I showed you to open the panel?”
“I remember. It’s just this one is a little larger than the others.”
That was certainly true. This panel was the size of a hatch on the lifter. If it proved difficult to move, she wasn’t sure how she’d gain the leverage to make this happen.
Well, no time like the present to figure this out.
She found the recessed grip that allowed for movement of the access panel. On the smaller gates, either a screwdriver or fingernail would do the trick. On this one, she needed a pry bar.
Thankfully, she’d come prepared.
First, she used the special tool to unlock the panel. It was a special kind of screw, acting almost like a key. She’d worried that it would be different on the larger panel, but it was thankfully the same as the smaller gates.
With that done, she pulled the bar off her belt slowly so as not to tangle the cable keeping it attached to her. The fit of the head was a little loose when she put it in place. If she ever had to do this again, she’d bring a bigger bar.
Since she was in Zero-G and had no grip, she used her suit’s maneuvering thrusters to apply pressure and the access panel popped open. Like the ones on the smaller gates, this one was attached so that it only swung open rather than flying off into space.
Unlike the smaller gates, the larger version shielded a lot more equipment. She had no idea what most of it did.
“Wow,” McHugh muttered. “That’s a lot of stuff. Look around for a port like the one I showed you. There has to be one that will accept the cable.”
It took about fifteen minutes of examination before she found the small port. At least it looked like the one Kevin had shown her.
“Is this it?” she asked.
“I think so. If it’s not, it should be no harm no foul. Just plug the comp in and see what you see.”
She took the time to reattach the pry bar to her belt before she pulled the comp from its pouch. It only took a few moments to seat the plug into the port.
“Here goes nothing.” Jess tapped the icon on the comp just as Kevin had shown her. A new window opened and a series of codes began scrolling by. They were the same twenty character codes she’d seen on the smaller gates.
“You did it!” he said. “The comp will have them saved in memory once you come back in.”
Jess was relieved, but this didn’t solve all her problems. Having the code that Harry’s family had used was useful, but unless they knew how to activate this larger gate, it wouldn’t do them any good.
She’d already tried connecting to it with a standard hand controller. The device didn’t even see the massive gate. There had to be something else required to link with it.
They’d try to use one of the smaller gates to link with the code Nathan and his mother had used, but she personally doubted the smaller gate would link with the larger one. There had to be some type of safety mechanism.
After all, one wouldn’t want a massive starship trying to come through a small gate. The reverse might work, but it seemed as if the systems would be radically different.
Once she had the codes, Jess detached the cable and put the comp away. She maneuvered herself around to the other side of the access panel and used her thrusters to push it slowly closed.
She couldn’t hear any noise when it sealed, but it didn’t pop back open. She gave it a good thump with her fist just to be sure. Having this come open and be at risk for micrometeor damage was unacceptable.
“I’m on my way back in,” she said. “We can go over the numbers once we have everything in the lab.”
“Roger that. See you in a few minutes.”
Jess jetted back to the lifter that was waiting for her and closed the airlock behind her. As the pressure began rising, she considered her next move. They’d already pulled all the codes off the gates on Freedom Express, the Mars base, the French base, and the gate rooms they discovered on the station.
She was sure there were plenty more gate rooms on the station that they hadn’t discovered, but the exploration was still in progress. The place was bigger than Manhattan. It was going to take a lot of time to look into every single compartment.
Meanwhile, she’d finally spoken with Harry. The delivery of the quantum phone right before she’d gone outside for this job had allowed her to give him an update on the situation.
To her astonishment, they were able to communicate from this great distance with no time lag or loss of signal. These new communication devices were finally going to allow them to coordinate their actions.
The next thing she wanted to do was test how far they’d really reach. Being able to communicate across the solar system was absolutely worthwhile. Yet if it worked at interstellar range, that would be even more impressive.
Once the pressure in the airlock came up and the temperature had risen to the normal range, she popped the helmet off her suit and opened the inner door.
Black Jack McCarthy grinned at her from the pilot’s couch. “I was listening in over the com. Everything went well. That’s awesome.”
The ex-Air Force pilot waited until she’d strapped herself in and then turned the lifter to head back toward Freedom Express.
“It did, but that’s only a start. There are so many other things we need to do. Including being able to get someone down to where Harry is in New Zealand. He’s going to need this comp to pull the gate codes.”
The man nodded. “I suppose we can send it through to France and have them fly it out to New Zealand. That’s going to take a while.”
“We could do that, but I have a better idea. One of the biggest issues in travel we’ve had is the fact that we can’t get any of our lifters to the gates. There are ships down there, but we don’t know where to send them.
“There must be some way to get them to the surface. Probably a gate stashed somewhere on the side of a mountain or something. If we could find one of those, we could get the ships out and use them.”
He shot her a considering glance. “And you want me to fly one of them?”
“Do you think you could?”
“I’ve been working with Lindsay Waller quite a bit learning how to fly the big ship. If the controls are similar, I think so. You know, you’ve been pulling codes out of gates but you’ve missed an angle.
“The ships need to open gates that are useful to them. That means they’ve gone places that will accept a fighter flying out. We should get into one of them and see if we can access the codes they’ve used.”
Jess smacked herself on the forehead. “Crap. I’ve been so focused on the gates that I forgot the ships probably act as controllers. If we look for codes that are the same on both the ships and the gates, we’ll find the best potential places to send a ship through.”
She gestured toward Freedom Express, which was growing larger ahead of them. “Let’s get this thing landed and head down to the gate room. I want to start working on this right away.”
* * * * *
Queen wasn’t able to get away from the restaura
nt. Even his high position in the government hadn’t shielded him from having to answer to the police for the violence that had taken place.
At least there were enough people present that no one believed he’d instigated the attack. It had quickly become apparent to all that he was the victim here.
He hated playing the victim card. It made him feel weak. Nevertheless, it got things moving in a productive direction in fairly short order.
All three of his guards had died in the attack. Apparently, the one that had killed the assassin had been almost gone. Queen was genuinely sorry for that. They’d been good men.
He tried to get the police to give him information about the assassin, but they’d kept their mouths shut. He’d have to see about alternative methods of identifying the man.
There were no cameras inside the restaurant, unfortunately. It was well known for its discretion. That meant identifying the woman was going to be difficult.
The police would look at cameras in the area to see if they had an image of her, so it was always possible they’d have another thread to follow.
They’d spent hours questioning him over who might want him dead. He’d laughed.
With his work, there was any number of people that might want him to bleed out on some floor. Nothing he could tell the police would narrow their suspect pool. Only enlarge it.
In any case, he was fairly certain that he’d figured this out. The first attack had come during the investigation on Kathleen Bennett. If he were a betting man—and he was—then he’d wager she’d paid quite handsomely to have him eliminated. He’d proven to be quite the thorn in her side.
With her in hiding, she’d probably thought eliminating him would simplify her situation. She was probably right. Other people in government might make a deal with her. Not him. Not now.
He’d come to see her as the worst actor in this little play. Her ex-husband was no winner, but he wasn’t in her league. Her son Nathan was more like an evil force of nature. Harry Rogers was mostly honorable, which was something Queen could use against him.
Jessica Cook was a mystery. He still didn’t know quite what to think about her. She should’ve been a mousy little scientist, but she had a spine of steel. Harry Rogers deferred to her. That had to mean something.
Brenda Cabot and her group were a wildcard. Still, she’d saved his life the last time the assassin had struck. He could safely remove her from the suspect list on this one.
With the assassin dead and a description of his accomplice spreading across the city, he really needed to turn his focus to dealing with Cabot. Unfortunately, just about all the useful organizations were in disarray due to the search for moles.
Sadly, it hadn’t taken long to find people that had been doing questionable things. Investigators were tugging on strings to see if they connected to Cabot’s organization, but Queen wasn’t sure he could trust what they found.
If it were him, he’d frame other people to take the fall while leaving his own operatives intact. They could still watch everything that took place and direct the investigators to people that would not harm their organization.
That’s precisely what he’d have done in their place.
The investigators would find some people to question, but he doubted anything would come of it. Cabot’s spies would still be in place. After all, they’d already passed every lie detector test required for their sensitive work.
That probably had something to do with the technology they had access to. Some type of alien machine that made it so they could lie their ass off about being traitors.
That annoyed the crap out of him. His only option was to continue the search for people involved with the organization. Eventually, they’d find something.
His phone rang. He brought up to his ear. “Queen.”
“Guthrie here. I need you to call me on a secure phone.”
Oh, that couldn’t be good.
“Give me ten minutes.”
He disconnected and walked over to the detective in charge of the scene. “I have to step out to my car. Something has come up and I need to use the secure phone.”
The man in the rumpled suit turned to Queen with a look of annoyance on his face. “We’ll be done with you in another half hour, Secretary Queen. You’ll just have to wait until then.”
Queen smiled coldly. “That’s where you’re wrong, Detective. I’m going outside right now to take this call and then I’m leaving. We’re done here. If you need any further information from me, you can contact my office.”
The detective scowled. “Don’t try to pull that crap with me. You might be the secretary of state, but you aren’t above the law.”
“We’ve already determined that I’m the victim here,” Queen said calmly. “All you’re doing now is being an ass. You can do that on your own time. Push this and you’ll find out how much of an ass I can be in return.”
The two men glared at one another, but the detective eventually nodded brusquely. “Fine, but don’t think this is over. I’m going to figure out who is behind this. If you’re connected to them in any way, you’re going down, too.”
“I can say with a clear conscience that I had nothing to do with that man. No illegal dealings whatsoever. You’re not going to find anything that worries me. Good day, Detective.”
Queen stalked out toward the parking lot. He wasn’t completely certain the detective would find nothing. It was entirely possible that some of the alien knowledge would seep into this investigation, in which case the federal authorities would have to quash it.
He smiled at the thought that they might have to take the detective into custody. That would serve the bastard right.
New guards surrounded him as he exited the restaurant and saw him safely into the armored limousine he was using for transport. Once he had the door closed, he picked up the secure phone and dialed the number for the general.
“Guthrie.”
“Queen here. What’s the problem?”
“There’s been an incident at the lab. An explosion of some kind.”
The words made Queen sit up abruptly. “How bad is it? What’s the damage?”
“Total. It had to be sabotage. There was nothing in that lab capable of producing that kind of explosion. Someone managed to sneak something past security or rigged something up with materials in the labs themselves.
“I’m afraid that either the explosion or the fire that followed has ruined every bit of technology you brought here, Mister Secretary. Worse, it killed a lot of researchers, including Doctor Wagner and the guy doing the forensic work on the bodies. They’re gone too. Everything is gone.”
Chapter Sixteen
Chen leaned back in his chair, pleased at the report that had just arrived. Doctor Lee had successfully escaped Area Fifty-One before the explosion. One of his remaining operatives in the zone indicated the blast had been even stronger than anticipated.
The odds were very good that it had destroyed everything in the lab. Frankly, based on images of the building, the lab itself was gone. The attack had undoubtedly eliminated many of the researchers as well.
His operative had manipulated the exterior security logs so it was entirely possible the Americans wouldn’t realize Doctor Lee had escaped.
That would be the perfect outcome, but he couldn’t count on that. Chen would settle for a less than optimum result so long as all the equipment was gone.
News from China itself was also good. The Dragon had successfully sunk its claws into the Mars mission. The fact that they would need to contest with armed personnel for control of the Red Planet had finally convinced the Chinese leadership to go with an all-military mission.
That had always been one of the options, so there were suitable personnel already trained. The Dragon had made certain that many of them were already loyal. In the aftermath of the events leading up to the confrontation with America, they had replaced any unaligned soldiers.
The rest of the world believed the Chinese Mars miss
ion would leave in three weeks. He knew that date was a ruse. Much like Clayton Rogers had done with his so-called space station, the Chinese Mars mission would leave early and had engines more powerful than anyone would expect.
Not as strong as the ones that pushed the space station to Mars in a matter of days. No. It would still take them weeks to arrive, but they had a nuclear power source, too. The UN and America would undoubtedly wail. Let them.
Harry Rogers would expect the mission’s arrival. There was no way to conceal the fact they were on the way. What the man wouldn’t be ready for was the level of weaponry they had outfitted the Chinese ship with.
The Chinese had always intended to arm the vessel. They would never allow any other nation to contest with them while they were unarmed. They would take those weapons with them, but the Dragon had used technology of their own—salvaged from ancient Asharim equipment—to create devices that were even more potent.
Chen wasn’t cleared for the details, but those he’d spoken with seemed confident the forces of the Dragon would have no difficulty in securing the Red Planet.
Since they would control every aspect of communication from that world, they didn’t need to worry about leaving evidence behind. They could destroy Liberty Station and every person they’d brought with impunity.
His contact had indicated the mission would depart soon, but he hadn’t known the precise time due to mission security. He also hadn’t been able to shed any light on what steps the Chinese government intended to take against the only other spacecraft in orbit.
If the official government decided not to directly act against the Indian-built ship owned by the Americans, the Dragon would surely arrange some suitable sabotage to remove them from the game. If that sparked a greater conflict, so be it.
The soft rap at his door caused him to frown. He had left strict instructions not to be disturbed.
He secured his computer, rose to his feet, and unlocked the door. One of his bodyguards bowed when he looked out.
“Deepest apologies, Ambassador. Your secretary indicates you have a visitor that you should see without delay.”