"That's sealed juvenile information. The Family agency is where you want to go for that."
"You held the hearing and I know damn well you didn't send her off not knowing where she was going. Call the file up."
Morse did, but still resisted. "Here it is. Eric Holt, 12674 – 110th Ave. NW, Sarasota, Florida 34230," he repeated from memory the address of his deceased great uncle.
"Let me see," the team leader said, coming around the desk.
"I'll print it for you," Morse offered punching two keys. That closed the file and shut the computer down. He reached in the top drawer like he was getting a printout, but his hand came out with a small black pistol.
"Gun!" he warned his team and slapped his visor down. It would stop small pistol fire easily. "Put the gun down or we will fire," he warned. His men had their weapons aimed at the old man's head. "That toy won't get through to anything vital and all you'll do is piss me off if you shoot me in the foot," he warned.
Morse just laughed at the fool. He'd almost done this last night anyway, when it hurt so bad and then put it back in the drawer. Let these goons sweat to explain how it wasn't their fault. He stuck the gun in his mouth and fired without hesitation. The window behind him had a starred hole blown through it at the report and a nasty pink halo.
"Shit!" He froze shocked, then thought a moment, dumped the judge out of the chair and sat down. He turned the computer back on, retrieved his helmet cam recording and watched the judge key in his password.
* * *
The first watch returned to the Retribution's flight deck. Few had slept, except a few who forced themselves to electronically. Most had enjoyed a light meal and walked around, anticipating a long time in their seats. They switched off crews with little conversation.
"Any ideas you armchair strategists want to run by me or Thor? Speak up now, before our tango there wakes up and sees us."
Thor waited a moment to let others speak and looked around. "Gordon, my number one missile gunner had a point I think was valid. You might keep it in mind."
Gordon nodded at him to go ahead.
"We are going to pass each other no matter what fire we exchange. The question then becomes, can we render him unable to run to jump without destroying him? If we damage him bad enough to fail jump, we probably don't have a prize anyway." He looked around again inviting comment but there was none.
"So how could we get him to stay in system and surrender without damage? My gunner said he has been reading the manuals, trying to know everything about the missile systems he could. If you have a defective missile that won't launch you have a system to eject it from the launch tubes, to clear it for loading the next missile. He suggested ordering the vessel cut all acceleration and to eject all their missiles immediately as duds, or face destruction."
"That sounds good, except they might dump all or most of their missiles and then when we are crossed out of range still make a run for it and go home with empty magazines."
"That was my first thought too. But add this idea of mine. What if we demand he dump his missiles and launch all lifeboats, or we will destroy him? You can't launch a lifeboat except from inside one. Most hold four to six. He's not going to run home with empty magazines and a quarter of his crew abandoned to privateers. If he did his own crew might stuff him out the lock in his shorts and if they didn't he'd never have another command again anyway, when he took that tale home to a board of inquiry."
"I like it. It beats the heck out of just blowing him away. No profit in that. A double share to both of you if we can pull this off."
* * *
They went to a fancy big mall in Troy. There were three different banks. Two with machines in the lobby and one with a machine outside their front door on the mall. John told her to use the one on the mall first, while it was early and uncrowded. He still stood beside her back to the wall, guarding her as she used the teller. All three machines had a ten-thousand dollar limit. That must be standard to keep the machine from being cleaned out. She got twenty-five thousand dollar bills and the rest in hundreds from the three. Gordon had made sure their cards had no daily limit. She wasn't sure if another machine for the same bank would disperse to her today, or if she'd need to find a new bank.
It was a nice mall, so she wanted to get a two or three changes of clothing too. Clare showed a little more enthusiasm. She wasn't given to big displays of emotion, Lee noted. There was a woman's shop with clothing displayed in the windows. A slim middle aged women in pants and matching belted tunic, stood in the door to greet customers.
"Does your store have styles and sizes for somebody of my age and build?" she asked the woman. The woman looked them over and her face said she dismissed them.
"We do," she said seeming to hesitate to say more. It was supposed to intimidate.
"I don't have time for bespoke," she told the woman. "If you have a body scanner and can auto-tailor two or three outfits for me. I have time for that today."
The woman's expression changed subtly. "Please follow me," she requested and slunk away. She put her feet one in front of the other, like she was walking a rail and her buttocks were tight like she had on high heels instead of flats. Lee wondered just what could be the purpose of such an obvious affectation?
* * *
The Retribution was under a light minute from the unsuspecting ship. "Stand ready to fire close in anti-missile missiles manually," he ordered. He wished he had the battle management software that the crew had trashed. "Ready conventional nukes in three launchers and one ship to ship and go to tracking condition for manual release, but safe," he emphasized.
"Thor, we want to hail him loudly. Show him me and McKenzie on a split screen, so he sees both Human and Derf. If he doesn't answer in light lag plus thirty seconds, ping him hard with the radar in targeting mode, so he knows what he is playing with. Not hard enough to do damage but enough he knows we are bigger. If he doesn't acknowledge the hail and ping, we will tell him to identify himself or be fired upon."
"Unknown ship, identify yourself. You are in a sensitive area. This is the Nation of Red Tree Privateer Retribution, repeat – identify yourself."
They waited, Thor thoughtfully put a counter on the main screen. There was silence as a hundred and forty seconds ran out. Thor pinged him.
"I'm pinging him tight, just short of what should burn his antennas off. I think forty percent power at this range will do it. That would scare the crap outta me," Thor advised. The counter on the ping lag was already up to 22 seconds when he finished speaking,
The screen opened to a surprisingly young officer on a cramped bridge.
"Retribution, this is the USNA destroyer Twelve Palms, on a – holy shit what just painted us?" The video showed multi-colored confetti and then blacked out. "Well get it back up, the audio continued. "What do you mean right out of the star? How the hell would anything get under us here? Well evacuate the compartment until damage control can get the fire out and clear the air. Who frigging ordered you to dump the Halon, Howell?"
"Oops, maybe twenty percent would have been better," Thor said embarrassed.
"Well open the cable gallery to vacuum," said the voice on the radio. "It can't be the busses, if they lost superconductivity we'd be fried , it's just the antenna leads. Calm down and think people. God that stinks. Somebody manually drop the masks."
"No, somehow I think this works just fine," Gordon said, smiling.
"Twelve Palms, you are ordered to stand to and cease acceleration. The nation of Red Tree is in a state of war with the USNA. You will surrender or be destroyed. You will eject your unfired missiles and all lifeboats and start decelerating to come back and rendezvous with us. You will then be allowed to recover your life boats and we will put a prize crew aboard." They waited as that message raced away. The radio continued to paint a picture of chaos.
"Or what?" the voice asked suspiciously. "Just a second. You there, Erickson, don't open that panel. Yes I can see the paint is blistering. What makes y
ou think I want to share the compartment with what is on the other side causing that? You were saying?"
"Well I was going to nuke the crap out of you with a full spread," Gordon said cheerfully. "We're a heavy cruiser by the way. But given the effect a ping had at forty percent power, I think I'll just run the power up full and hold it on you long enough to cycle through the full frequency range if you don't stand to. What do you think that would do?" he asked. They waited…
"Cutting drive," he said angry. "It will take a minute because I have to send a runner to Engineering. The miserable com is not working that far back either. You, Erickson, put on a p-suit and go tell Chief Adams to cut the drive. Then I'll start jettisoning."
"What did your ping show by the way?" he asked Thor.
"No, I don't want you to come back here. Go man a friggin' life boat," the speaker said. "You don't launch until it is full," he felt necessary to order him.
"I could cut that," Thor offered.
"We might need to talk," Gordon said. "Besides it is sort of entertaining. I think he is muting his mic and doesn't know it's not working. It was probably surge damaged too. It keeps them honest. And for some reason it's more amusing without the video. In fact we have to keep a copy of this transmission. Poor Erickson must be a total screw-up."
Thor shrugged, "It's a destroyer all right, SantaFe class, less than two T-years old. A hundred-twenty-two meters long. Likely worth eight to ten billion dollars USNA. And it has a light shuttle grappled on its back too. That class doesn't have internal bays for landing craft, just scooters, but the shuttle will be carried with locks matched."
"Very good Olson," the radio squawked, "get all the life boats manned. Those with untenable duty stations first, then idle hands like galley. Might as well have them safe and out of the way of damage control. Dear me, the political officer seems to be locked in his cabin. Please have two Marines stationed outside his door, in case he is smart enough to cut the bulkhead open and power up the hatch. Or you can have a damage party weld his damn hatch shut if they are handy to it."
"I hope we have a lot of wire somewhere on these ships," Roger on Systems said. "Worse comes to worst though, I think we are big enough to grapple the whole ship and jump it somewhere for repairs, because it looks like we burned the crap out of her."
"Retribution, I officially strike my colors and am complying as quickly as possible. I have damage and may need aid recovering the lifeboats. I am instructing them to assemble in close formation to aid recovery. I'll eject the missiles immediately after and self destruct them to remove them somewhat as a hazard to navigation."
"Negative Twelve Palms, we will have a tender to recover the missiles."
There was a extra pause, "Roger that, they will be ejected inert."
"I don't think he liked hearing we have a tender in system," Gordon mused. "They were here to find dispersed Derf or Fargone assets and never saw us or anything else. I'm betting he's wondering what else he didn't see here, since Goliath would be a great fuel mine."
"How is Red Metal going to recover the missiles when their holds are full?" Thor asked.
"I may not have to use them as a tender. Wait and see how the recovery goes. Could be we can just load them back up after we have it secured. No need to make Red Metal empty their holds until we know."
Chapter 42
"FBI?" The door security looked at their ID. "I had Naval Intelligence come back down through the lobby not five minutes ago. Is there something big going down in town?"
"To see the judge? They still up there?"
"To see the judge, yeah. Was only up there fifteen or twenty minutes and they hauled out of here in a big black off-road."
"How do you know they were Naval Intelligence?"
"Well they stopped and showed me ID, just like you are. I wouldn't know Naval ID from my barbershop discount card, but then I don't really know that is the real deal either," he said, pointing to their open ID. "I mean, I got a bunch of guys with guns, do you think I'm going to say you can't go up? If I do that to you right now, will you tell me you aren't going up and leave? I don't think so."
"Yeah I hear you. We're going up, it's true."
The sixteenth floor was quiet. There were six condos and the judge's door was closed. He knocked and got no answer, drew his weapon and used it to pound on the door. Nothing. He checked just to be sure. It was locked.
"You think you can kick this in?" he asked his driver. He was a beefy big guy. "I hate to go down and get a breaching round and it's a discharge report."
"It sounded pretty solid like a fire door. Maybe not kick it in but I think I can bust it."
"Give it a go."
The hall was generously wide . He checked to see his pockets on the left were empty, braced against the opposite wall and did a three step sprint to the door. He hit it with knees bent and pushed against it with his legs. It didn't bust.
"I'll go get the twelve gauge and breaching rounds."
"I felt it move, hang on."
He hit it again and the door was visibly pushed in. It was tilted and the frame holding it was pushed back in the wall a couple centimeters.
He went back stretched and shrugged his shoulders. When he hit it this time the entire door frame ripped out of the steel stud wall and went flat on the floor. He went down with it and slid until the carpet stopped him. They searched it hot.
When they got to the study Morse was on his front on the carpet. They looked at the ruined back of his head, the window and the gaping hole in his computer where the memory module was ripped out.
"Yes, this looks like military intelligence," Harrigan agreed.
* * *
Damage control was able to keep environmental functional. They continued restoring function to the destroyer, but grappled it and kept power on while the Retribution carried it. They split the crew about half on each ship with the flight crew safely removed to the cruiser and physically unfastened the power leads to its two beam weapons to remove temptation.
Commander Hart kept his word on surrender. However the political officer not only tried to dump the computers, but assaulted the technician working there, trying to transfer a copy of the battle management software over to the Retribution. The man was in sickbay with head injuries and might lose an eye. They had no facilities to regenerate one and would have to take him to a modern world for treatment if he lost it.
"What am I to do with you?" Gordon asked the political officer. "Your Captain surrendered, of which you were well aware, yet you attacked an unarmed tech." His own Captain and XO were seated for the mast, as were Gordon's second and third officers and two crew for security.
"My Captain is a traitor. I did not give my surrender and I won't."
There was no reaction at all from the North American officers.
"You realize your ship was pretty much helpless? Your radar was out and you had spotty internal communications. You were in no shape to defend yourselves and we could have destroyed your ship easily? Would it in any way have been moral, for him to throw all your lives away in an empty gesture?"
"If we'd tried, we might at least have damaged your vessel. As it is we accomplished nothing. Better to self-destruct than giving you the ship as a prize."
"Your crewmen might not appreciate having their lives held in so little regard, Mr...." Gordon stopped and checked the papers in front of him for the name, Joe Buckley. He got squinty eyed and examined him again. Wavy black hair, heavy five o'clock shadow, medium height..."Do you have a older brother, or cousin named Jerry?"
The man twitched very definitely, but he straightened and repeated: "I'm Joe Buckley, Lieutenant USNA Space Navy, Service number 299424993."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I heard that already. Well, apparently you don't feel your Captain can surrender for you and has a duty to die no matter how pointlessly. Since you don't accept his surrender, I have to ask you for yours individually. You are familiar with the concept of parole?"
"I have a duty to escape," Joe re
plied.
"There is no realistic hope of escape. You damn near killed my crewman and didn't come any closer to escaping. It's not relevant."
"The very best escape would be one that involved killing you all. If I die too, that is my duty, no more or less."
Gordon looked at him. He was glaring at Gordon with hatred. The man was a fanatic.
"My judgment is this man is too dangerous to have aboard. He will not give his parole and he is a danger to our crew and his own, who he regards as traitors. It will take more resources than we can afford to hold him in guarded isolation and provide his meals and medical care under stringent security arrangements. Even then there is risk."
"Mr. Newman, take the prisoner to the smallest personnel lock and give him the escape he desires. If he requests it he may kneel in the lock and be shot in the back of the head to avoid any discomfort. Do not pump the lock down, we are not cruel, over-ride and flush it at full pressure," he instructed.
"I'm sorry to do that," he told the USNA officers as Joe was led away. "I may be charged as a war criminal for it someday, but I could not have slept again in the same hull with him, knowing that mind would be plotting every waking moment to kill us all – both crews – given any opportunity."
The XO spoke when his commander didn't. "I believe you are within the laws of war sir, given he broke his surrender. It was an unearned accommodation, to give him another chance to give his personal parole, but foolish. It scared me clear through when you did it, because he would not have honored it. I can assure you if you'd surrendered, he'd have hung the lot of you," he said with sincerity.
* * *
"Naval Intelligence offed the judge?"
"I would not presume to say that," Hershey hedged. "Circumstantially it looks very bad. We were on the scene about ten minutes after the time of death. It looked like a suicide. He had a nine millimeter pistol in his hand. He was dead of a gunshot wound from his mouth through the brain stem and out the rear of the head. There was a corresponding hole in the window with an aura of organic material. The doorman sent four armed men up who claimed to be Naval intelligence with ID. Do you think the judge suddenly decided to blow his brains out coincidental to their visit? False suicide is a standard intelligence operation tactic. He was sitting at his computer when he died and the memory module was removed when we arrived. Who else would have taken it?"
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