I was glad enough when, after about an hour, we settled somewhere. We waited in silence for a while before the doors finally opened. A pudgy, middle-aged man stood there. “Out you come,” he said.
We obliged, finding ourselves in an underground parking garage. He pointed to a large, dark aircar parked in the opposite aisle. It blinked lights at us briefly and we walked over. A man got out, looking in all directions and opened the door for us.
Candace sat inside, her buxom form covered in a conservative business suit. We slipped in next to her. The beaming smile in her attractive, dark-skinned face did not reach the chocolate-brown eyes.
“Good to see you,” she said.
“The area is secure,” Maauro said. “I have done a cybernetic scan to supplement your own efforts.”
“Thanks. I find that quite comforting,”
“You should,” Maauro said.
“Uneventful landing?” Candace asked.
“No complaints. Couldn’t see anything unusual in how we were treated.”
“Good.” She leaned forward and opened a small cabinet. “Drink, Wrik?”
“Sure. I understand that something called a gin and tonic is a local favorite.”
“What about you, Maauro? I may have some motor oil here somewhere.”
I looked at her, wondering why she needled Maauro. It occurred to me that she was afraid of the android and that Candace couldn’t stand being afraid of something. So she poked at Maauro to prove something to herself.
“Gin and tonic will be fine,” Maauro said.
From the expression on Candace’s face, she hadn’t expected that and wasn’t sure if Maauro was exhibiting a sense of humor or quite what.
Candace whipped up two G&Ts and followed with a scotch on the rocks for herself. We sipped our drinks in silence for a few seconds.
“You said that the ISM has the bodies and the lifeboat,” Maauro began. “Have you confirmed the location and that they are still there?”
“Yes,” Candace replied. “Aporek tried to get them moved off-world a year ago but we forestalled that.”
Maauro sipped her drink and it struck me that she had never looked more human.
“But I couldn’t stop him from removing everything from Globalis to a remote ISM facility.”
“Where?” Maauro asked, swirling her glass so that the ice clinked. I wondered where she’d learned that gesture then realized I’d been doing so. I smiled to myself and took a sip from the drink before setting it aside. Maauro was often a mirror for habits I did not know I had.
“There is an old base in the Pacific. Ironically it dates from the time of the original expedition. Amami Island was an old United Nations Ocean Patrol Base before the last of the Resource Wars brought down the World Government and began the Tyranny. It’s been used by the ISM for decades.”
“Odd,” I mused. “Why would the ISM want such a place?”
“They claim it’s for training, storage and quarantine. It also allows them landing rights on a base exclusively used by their personnel. Why wouldn’t they want it? Half the time he lands on Earth, Aporek comes in through there. He’s had the base expanded and refurbished, even touts the expansion as proof that he’s not anti-human.”
Candace passed a chip to Maauro, who touched it only briefly to transfer the information. “That is all the data we have on the base.”
“I congratulate you on the completeness of your intelligence,” Maauro said. “Your information is excellent and recent, according to the time stamps. Let’s hope Aporek does not have similar files on your operation.”
“Amen,” Candace said, draining her Scotch.
“How do you propose to get us access to the evidence stored there?” I asked.
“Don’t look at me, Honey. You brought the quantum computer. I was hoping she had some ideas.”
Maauro nodded. “I have a plan. We will need an automated fishing trawler and some reliable operatives, ISM uniforms, the most recent codes—”
“Already?” I said.
Maauro looked at me. “The logistics of the plan are simple. The execution will be complex.” From inside her jacket, Maauro pulled a chip and handed it to Candace, who popped it in a scanner and examined it for a few minutes.
“I’ll be damned,” Candace said finally. “This might just work.”
Chapter 6
I activate from sleep mode and immediately scan the area with my sensors and cybersystems. There is no immediate threat, nor any nearby biologicals. The crate I am in is the rear of a warehouse, behind some other stacks. This is inconvenient. Slowly I break my way into the adjacent two crates, pushing their contents behind me, until I reach an area from where I can safely emerge into the warehouse. I must hope that we can complete our assignments before anyone looks at the damaged crates, or that they assume it is due to an unloading accident.
The security systems I feared are not present inside the warehouse. I had already passed through multiple layers of security before coming here. Given that the crate I was in came from a secure Confed facility, I was spared the physical search that would have penetrated the fake packing that made me look like a collection of high-pressure piping and servos. As I straighten up, I shake off that camouflage and repattern my outer casing to look like an Interstellar Ministry First Lieutenant’s uniform, complete with hat and crossed belts. As I stand, I begin to infiltrate the base’s primary AI with the codes that Candace provided. Even with my skills, I could not defeat the military security without being detected by the base’s defensive software. With the codes provided, it is simplicity itself to upload the false history for my persona, Lieutenant Ilsana, assigned to base logistics. Her assignment will be to meet and admit Wrik, posing as Second Lieutenant Alec Latham, nine hours from now, who is to pick up a classified cargo container and remove it from the base. The container will hold me, again in an inactive state, with the samples and records that we will obtain here.
I walk out of the cargo area. Security systems detect me as I exit the warehouse, but with the false history I provided the base AI, it logs me as base staff having entered there hours before.
As I walk on, it occurs to me that I have one great advantage over a biological life form with time to kill: I can walk the halls and corridors of the base with complete assurance, as if I walked them every day, using the downloaded maps in my brain. I do not have a billet to return to, but I can pass time in the cafeteria and the base library. If needs be, I can simply stand still in some little-used base section for hours.
Two enlisted men pass me and snap off crisp salutes, which I return. As I walk on, I notice that both men turn to give me a speculative look——apparently I do credit to the severe dark gray uniform I am wearing. I find this amusing.
“I’ll be damned,” Candace had said, but I was the one who felt he was standing in hell as I exited the ISM Transport for the base on Amami Island in the Pacific Ocean. Once again, I wore a Confederate uniform I wasn’t entitled to, only this time it was the gray and red of the ISM. Humidity struck right behind the heat. Despite my summer-weight uniform, cap and sunglasses, I was sweating in a few steps. The other occupants had trooped off the transport ahead of me. Most of them had been enlisted, or civilians, and hadn’t bothered an officer, especially after I pulled my cap’s visor down over my eyes. Silence was always good protection.
I continued to lag behind the others as they walked over to a bored-looking guard standing in a gatepost. She at least had a fan as she scanned our ID and laconically asked questions. I saw a line of drone helicopters sitting on the blazing coral of the airfield. One of them was warming up and lifted into the bright, blue sky. It carried a torpedo behind the chin turret. Overhead another transport circled upward. Higher up, a bright circle showed from the engine of some spacecraft climbing for altitude over the broad green ocean.
I tried to keep my breathing lev
el as I handed her my card. She barely looked up at me. If she saw me sweating, she’d put it down to the Pacific summer. The card cleared and the base AI upgraded my order and authorizations. I was careful not to blow out my breath in relief. Maauro was inside and operating or my falsified orders would have caused an alert.
I walked in and checked my personal com with its copy of the base map. I knew there would be no message from Maauro, but I checked the time. If she was on schedule, Maauro would be on her way to the cafeteria where I’d meet her. Leaving the environs of the airbase, I hopped on a bus heading for the main building. I studied the structure, over seven hundred years old. The building had vast white wings that tilted upward, looking like a crown on the glass and steel body. It was an ostentatious place, built with pride by the forces that had once patrolled the seven seas before war brought on a dark age.
The bus pulled up and we hurried from its air-conditioned comfort to that of the main building. I traded salutes with other ISM personnel as I walked toward the cafeteria. I grounded my equipment at some lockers provided just outside. Fortunately, having landed at a secure base, there were no additional stations in the common areas for me to pass.
I walked into the officer’s cafeteria, which buzzed with idle conversation. I picked up a tray, grabbed a drink and some food, hardly caring what I took. I scanned the room and saw Maauro seated alone at the back. I walked up to her—she looked up at me. I put the tray down and snapped a salute.
“May I join you, Lieutenant Ilsana?” I asked. Maauro’s gold bar ranked my silver one and merited a salute.
“Yes, Lt. Latham. By all means,” she indicated a seat next to her.
I slid next to her so I could watch the rest of the room. “We secure?”
“Yes,” she replied. “There are no scanners in here. No one is close enough to hear us if we keep our voices down. I will notice anyone trying to lip-read, which is impossible with me as my lips are not making the motions congruent with my words.”
“Another nice trick,” I said in admiration.
“Thank you. We will need all our tricks to get out of here intact.”
“So far so good,” I said, taking a long sip of the lemonade I had picked up.
“You should eat some of the food too,” she said.
“Not hungry,”
“That is tension,” she said, spooning up some of her own chocolate pudding. “Press yourself. It may be a long period until your next meal.”
“Yeah.” I forked up some roast beef, just to avoid an argument, as she was probably right anyway.
“I have located the secured sections where the lifeboat and bodies are kept,” she added.
“How tough?”
“The lifeboat is merely secured in a storage area. It has not been visited since it was unloaded there. Getting access to the bodies will be the trick, so we will attempt the lifeboat first.”
“What about files on the base AI?”
“I have downloaded those that are present, my authorization codes from Candace have proved most effective, but it seems there are unnetworked computers in each section that may have files in autistic mode. I will have to access those directly.
“Interesting, someone wants those two to rest in peace,” I said.
“We will not disturb them long,” she replied.
We finished our food and went out, picking up my gear along the way.
It was a long walk to the storage areas in the sprawling base, but fortunately there was a covered and air-conditioned path from the main to the outer buildings. We walked up to the door of the section we wanted. There was a reception area with a mix of enlisted and civilian personnel. An officer was looking at a monitor with one of the staff when he noticed us. Since Maauro ranked him, he saluted. “What can I do for you? We don’t get many visitors over here.”
“Lts. Ilsana and Latham,” Maauro said. “We have orders to inspect the storage arrangements on Room 33A.”
“The old lifeboat? Is there a problem?” he asked with a trace of anxiety.
“No,” she replied. “Just routine.”
“You know what is in there?” I asked.
The officer shrugged. “Just what it says on the manifest, one old Model Three, 21st Century lifeboat they found in a dockyard on the periphery. It’s supposed to go to a museum someday, I hear.”
“Yeah,” I reply. “Same thing they told us. They probably want to make sure the parts don’t get lost.”
Maauro handed over the chip with our orders. He ran it into the computer and it cleared once again, thanks to Candace’s codes and Maauro’s hacking.
“OK,” the officer said. “Akina, take these two down to 33A. Here’s your code key.” He handed Maauro a small box with a tag dangling from it.
One of the civilians, a pretty Asian girl, nodded. “Sure thing.” She gave me a friendly smile and waved. We walked past two Moroks who were grumbling about something on one of the monitors.
Akina seemed inclined to chat as we walked back. I related the cover story of my journey here. Fortunately we reached 33A before she asked me what I was doing later.
“No need to walk us in or wait for us,” Maauro said. “We’ll check in at the front when we are done.” Akina nodded and with a last, somewhat wistful, smile at me, headed back the way we’d come.
The door opened to the code key and we entered the storage room. In the center of the windowless room sat the partially stripped lifeboat. Looking at it, I wasn’t sure that lifeboat was the right term. The vessel was nothing like the rounded types we used today and it resembled an aerospace craft meant for maneuvering in atmosphere. Tables stood about the room, filled with plastic tubs and plastic wrapped parts. A fine covering of dust confirmed what we’d been told. No one had been in to look at the craft in a long while.
“Keep watch by the door,” Maauro ordered. She moved quickly around the room sampling and recording with her onboard instruments. The samples disappeared into her body for storage and later analysis. She hooked into the stand-alone computer in the room through her finger filaments, copying all the information.
Maauro disappeared into the shuttle itself. I watched the hallway outside through the sliver I’d left in the doorwayway. Once I heard footsteps and froze, but they did not come closer.
“God,” I muttered. “Is she rebuilding the damn thing?”
When I thought I couldn’t stand it anymore, she finally reappeared. Maauro made a circuit around the room and seemed to be spraying something from her finger. It took her two minutes to work her way back to me.
“Dust,” she said in answer to my unspoken question. “I covered our footprints with it. They will find no evidence that we moved beyond the doorway. ”
We slipped out, resealing the door behind us, “now for the bodies. They’re in high security storage in the middle of the base, lower down.”
Ten minutes later we again approached a reception area, but the tone was totally different. This area was devoid of civilians. A metal desk stood at the junction of four corridors, manned by a first lieutenant, behind him stood two unsmiling guards with sidearms. Several techs sat watching screens, inputting information and handling communications. The officer looked up as we walked up. As he ranked me, I saluted, which he tossed back crisply.
“Lieutenants Ilsana and Latham,” Maauro said. “We’re to inspect and examine the bodies in Section X-1a chambers 8 and 9.”
“Our orders.” She handed him a chip. He put it to his screen and studied the download.
“News to me,” he said. “Nothing on my schedule.”
The officer’s computer spits out an inquiry to one of the bases intermodal AI’s. I intercept it and reroute it to me, then respond. This is more of a struggle than I anticipate, despite the codes Candace provided me with. Security in the network is robust, especially as I must remain undetected. The officer sta
rts to frown at the delayed response, but I then get a confirmation to appear on his screen.
“Cleared,” he says. “It says here you are to perform some noninvasive scans.”
“Correct,” I reply. I lift a suitcase full of instruments that Wrik brought in on the transport.
“Open the case, please.”
“As you wish.” I place it in front of him and open it. He removes each item and looks it over, asking me about one scanner he does not recognize.
“Alright,” he finally says. “Corporal of the Guard will take you there and wait with you—”
“Recheck those orders,” I interrupt. “We are not to be observed while conducting our inspections and tests.”
“I can’t see why,” he returned, his face showing clear disapproval. “I’m in charge of security here.”
“And I’m responsible for carrying out my orders as given,” I reply. “Mine came from ISM Regional on Saturn. You want to query them, go ahead, but you’re holding us up for minimum of four hours and we have transports to catch.”
He grimaced. “Present your case on leaving and my man will wait directly outside.”
“No problem,” I say.
The corporal is a Drisnian, a slender, blue-skinned humanoid with gray hair. He doesn’t speak as he walks us down the right hand corridor. The place is quiet and empty of traffic. We pass a few rooms where workers in lab coats go about their business, but no one pays us any attention.
This time, the corporal opens the large windowless steel door, retaining the key. He leans in and switches on lights. “The door will open from the inside,” he says in the lisping way his kind manage Standard. The door seals, I examine it and satisfy myself that its thickness is ear proof, even against a Drisnian with their excellent hearing.
The Lost (The Maauro Chronicles Book 3) Page 5