Standish

by Donald B McFarlane

  The line cut out, and Lovia took the flight controls in her hands. “Doors.” She requested.

  Standish performed her only task as part of the launch, opening the doors that led out of the station. It wasn’t much, but then again, she was new at this. “Open.” She said once she got a green confirmation light.

  “Launching.” Lovia applied just a tiny splash of power to the engines, and the Swift Boat slowly started to slide out of the launch tube and into open space.

  Standish could clearly see the Swift Boat piloted by Jae and Avi lingering not far off. After a few comms checks with control, they were cleared to dock putting Standish and Lovia officially on patrol.

  “Plot us a course to the moon of Mango, then back to the station via Trazana, then let’s swing around Sandura, then a fly out to Goldrun, then back to the station.” Lovia instructed. “That should be enough for today’s patrol.”

  “On it.” Standish had already flipped down her blast shield before they had launched and was able to plot their entire course into the ship’s computer using her Heads-Up-Display. “Course plotted. Speed?”

  “Two fifths should be fine.” Lovia replied.

  “Done.” Standish replied.

  While on patrol the duo spent their time doing one of two things: looking over incoming data or being bored. Lovia and Vaz had told Standish that it was like that on patrol. Ninety-nine percent boredom, one percent full-blown terror.

  Switching the view inside her helmet to an image provided by one of the ships external cameras, Standish settled herself in for a four-hour cruise, surrounded by the darkness of space, with a hint of light coming from the other side of Sandura where the systems red dwarf star could be found.

  After four hours and hundreds of thousands of kilometres travelled, the Swift Boat pulled back into the station. Once Standish had removed her armour and stored it, she looked over to Lovia who was still undressing and walked over to her teammate.

  “First patrol done.” She said with a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

  “I know. It was a thrill a minute.” Lovia replied.

  “Want to help me celebrate?” Standish put her hand on her partner's shoulder.

  “Sure. Why don’t you freshen up, then we can go grab a drink. I’ll check in with Vaz and submit our mission report.”

  And it went on that way for five months. There was the occasional dramatic episode when some idiot conducting maintenance on the exterior of the station would find themselves floating off into space, or a freighter would lose hull integrity. All of it was a good experience for Standish, but nothing too dramatic.

  Vaz was sitting in her command chair, Standish was on duty with her along with Lovia. It was a slow day. Drog and Skrill were on patrol when an unregistered freighter jumped into the system broadcasting a mayday.

  “Anyone on this channel. This is the,” The line cut out.

  “Standish!” Vaz was already on the case.

  “Single ship, Esso class waste freighter. Just jumped in danger-close to the planet. They’re going in.” Standish answered. “Confirmed. They are heading down to the planet’s surface.”

  “Lovia, alert planetary defences, and get Drog and Skrill to that ship now!” Vaz ordered.

  “Looks like an escape pod just jettisoned from the ship.” Standish added.

  “Drog and Skrill are reporting that they are at max speed, but they’re still more than five minutes out.” Lovia reported.

  Vaz shook her head. “Understood. Tell them to secure that escape pod when they arrive on scene.”

  “Planetary defence is responding.” Lovia reported.

  “Understood.”

  It took three hours to fully understand the magnitude of what had happened. Four hours after that, representatives from Jarosis, the capital of the Empire, were arriving at the station and using the Rescue Tech Operations Hive as a base of operations.

  It turned out that the cargo was biological contaminants and contagious biological warfare agents. All illegal and all black-market.

  The System Prefect, Min Arturo, sat at a table across from members of the Royal Council, Elders, the commander of First Fleet and other senior politicians and senior members of the various departments of the Empire.

  “Where is the pilot?” Arturo asked.

  “He’s aboard my ship.” Replied Admiral Haven C, the First Fleet commander, replied.

  “And what has he said?” Continued Arturo.

  “He was told to pick up the ship on Hold 6 and transport it to Tro Vaco IX. That is all he claims to know.” The Admiral replied.

  “I want you to use any and all methods of persuasion to get the truth out of him.” Arturo shook his head and looked around the table at the Rescue Techs. “Nothing you could have done, Senior Tech.” He said to Vaz. She didn’t reply, just nodded her head once.

  “What is the status on the planet?” Elder Jrr Bak asked.

  “Containment is impossible.” One of the admiral’s aides answered. “The contamination is spreading from the northern hemisphere in a counter-clockwise pattern. Everyone that has come into contact with it is dead within hours. The drones we sent down to the surface were left on station, as we were unable to decontaminate them.”

  “What about bringing civilians off the surface?” Bak asked.

  Haven C shook his head. “There are several difficulties there. The first is that we have to screen everyone before they are brought off the planet for any symptoms of the virus. That takes time. The other delay in getting civilians off the surface is the number of ships available.”

  “Recommendations?” Jrr Bak asked, while not in a position of authority, he was a direct advisor to the powers on Jarosis, making him the most influential person in the room.

  “Quarantine the planet at once and put a force barrier in place to contain the virus on the surface.” Haven C replied.

  “How many estimated civilians are still alive on the surface?” Arturo asked.

  “About two-hundred million.” An aide replied.

  “And how many of those are in areas considered safe enough to dropships into to make recoveries?” Bak requested.

  “Fifty-million.” Replied Haven C.

  “Fine. We will continue pulling off civilians while it is still safe to do so.” Arturo said before looking towards the Admiral. “Do you have some kind of force to keep ships on the surface?”

  “I have deployed fighters to ensure no unauthorised ships break orbit.” Haven C replied.

  “Good.” Arturo said, looking across at the Admiral. “I am going to authorise a barrier shield to be put in place above the planet, along with an array of automated defence systems. Once things on the planet have become too dangerous to continue pulling civilians off, we isolate the planet, and ensure that long-term containment is in place.”

  “And the remaining civilians,” There was a pause while Bak looked at some notes, “An estimated one-hundred-fifty million. What happens to them?”

  Haven C shook his head. “We will provide automated supply runs down to the planet as long as there are survivors on the surface, but once the shield goes up, nothing comes off the surface.”

  “What about the station and the rest of the facilities in the system?” The Sector Prefect asked.

  The Admiral rocked his head from side to side. “I suspect that in a few years everything will dry up. The Sandura system, my friends, is dying, and there is nothing to prevent it. We need to find out how this happened, who is behind it, and make sure that they see justice, and that this never happens again.” He looked over at an individual from Imperial Medical. “This virus, how long will it last on the surface once all the civilians are dead?”

  The scientist shook his head and looked down at a datapad. “Once the virus has killed all the Sandurans it will mutate to infect another species, then the next, until nothing is left.” He put the datapad down and looked around the room. “I would estimate that the planet will be safe for recolonisation in a millennium.�
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  Once the meeting broke, Vaz had an initial meeting with both the fleet supervisor for the system, plus the Valalis corporation liaison for the station, and it had been decided that the Rescue Tech unit would stay at full strength for the next half-year, then gradually scale back. No need to keep highly trained personnel in a system where they weren’t required.

  After a few more hours discussion, the senior representatives that had come to the station departed along with the admiral and his staff. While life inside the Rescue Tech base might have gone back to normal, everything changed quickly on the station once word that a barrier shield was going to be put up around the planet. Kiosks, food sellers, merchants, the red-light district, it all seemed to evaporate rather quickly.

  Once the barrier shield was finally operational, things became very quiet in the system. Six massive autonomous weapons batteries had been put into orbit above the shield with instructions to destroy any vessel attempted to enter or leave the planet, and since the buffer was operational, the Rescue Tech’s had very little work.

  27

  The Present

  Porth

  “I know the ship.” The harbour master seemed sure of himself.

  “Where is it?”

  “Over in hangar bay J.” He looked back down at the terminal. “Still here.”

  “Which way is J?”

  The man smirked. “You’re in a hurry.”

  Standish moved her coat just far enough for the harbour master to see the grip of her blaster.

  “Okay.” He put up his hands in protest. “But the ship appears to be under new ownership.”

  Standish reached into her pocket and pulled out her digital credit device. “One thousand credits. For the name.”

  His eyes went wide. “A thousand?”

  “Now.”

  Her wrist-mounted data-terminal beeped with the name. “Thank you.” She sent the credits, then left the office.

  28

  The Past

  Sandura 26G

  It took two weeks for the shield to come on-line and the gun batteries to be put into orbit. Supply runs were still being made by the authorities down to the surface, but they were growing less frequent as the virus made its way around the planet, killing everything in its path.

  “Can I help you?” Davi asked with a shocked look on his face.

  The figure was wearing a cape and non-military issue armour and had just materialised in the middle of the Hive out of thin air.

  “Who is in command?” The figure asked.

  Davi looked towards the command area where nine of Tech’s, including Vaz, were sitting around, all of whom couldn’t help but notice the stranger.

  “I’m in command.” Vaz shouted. “How did you get in here? This is a restricted area.”

  The figure pulled back the hood of his cape to reveal a Sanduran male, and once his eyes were locked on Vaz, he started walking with great strides towards the control area.

  “You are not authorised to be here!” Vaz shouted.

  Davi had shadowed the stranger and walked up next to him. “Can I help you?” He asked in a somewhat sheepish voice.

  “Negative.” The stranger replied.

  By the time the guest had made his way halfway across the room, Vaz had got up from where she was sitting, and along with the other eight RT’s started to form a skirmish line with the control area behind them.

  “I need to borrow three of your ships and your two best pilots.” The stranger said as he continued to stride towards the control area. “And I have no time to delay.”

  Vaz dropped her right hand to her blaster on her hip, as did the rest of the Tech’s when the stranger got ten metres away, but before they could be drawn, the stranger hit a small orb-shaped mechanism on the top of his left glove and immobilised all of the Techs. It was a neurological weapon, and it stunned the entire team.

  The male Sanduran finally came to a stop less than one metre in front of Vaz and leaned back for a moment, then leaned forward until his nose was almost touching Vaz’s. “I am Dynamic Operator Grade One Bender. I am the commanding officer of Dynamic Operations Prime team. You are going to help me with a little problem.” He moved his face closer until his eye was just a fraction of centimetres away from Vaz’s. “Do you understand?”

  And without saying another word, Bender tapped the orb on the back of his glove, releasing the Techs from whatever invisible force that had held them in place.

  “Hold!” Vaz ordered.

  Standish was standing three positions to Vaz’s left, and when she looked at her commander’s face, she saw something that she hadn’t seen before, fear.

  “Everyone relax.” Vaz’s voice was weak. It was as if she was out of breath and nervous at the same time. “Grade One Bender, and I are going to talk, everyone go back to their duties.”

  Standish watched as her commander walked to a corner of the vast Rescue Tech area with the visitor for their private conversation, then looked over to the rest of the Techs. They were all doing the same thing she was, watching. But for Standish, it was a special moment, this was only the third time Standish had been in the presence of someone from Dynamic Operations. The first time was back on Nadolo Prime when she had sat in on the presentation from Imperial Fleet about off-world opportunities. The second time was at Tekori when Dat Roser had given her the interview of a lifetime and granted her a slot in selection for Dynamic Operations, but on neither of those occasions had she been in the presence of someone who made her nervous.

  There was something about this figure. This man. He wasn’t dressed in a fleet uniform, he used unconventional methods, and was genuinely intimidating. After a lengthy conversation with Vaz away from the group, the team leader came back to the still stunned members of the Rescue Tech detachment and laid all the cards on the table.

  “Grade One Bender has a wife and two children on the planet’s surface. They are in an area that is still uninfected, and we are going to assist in extracting them from the surface.”

  Standish could tell that her boss was nervous. There was something off in her voice. Something misplaced.

  “Grade One Bender needs two pilots to fly his wing down to the planet, make a pick-up, then get back star-side.”

  “What about the shield?” Jae asked.

  It was an obvious question. Perhaps the most obvious. The shield that was up around the planet was impregnable to spacecraft of all types, not to mention the gun batteries.

  Bender acknowledged the question and smiled. “The energy shield is not an insurmountable obstacle. I have an agent who is going to give me a window long enough to get down to the planet’s surface and back off it.”

  “Someone is going to take down the shield?” Aoki asked.

  Bender took a deep breath. “The shield will be down, and the security trackers and weapons systems will also be disabled.” Bender looked over at Vaz. “We will need to drop down to the surface, collect our cargo, and get back past the safety line as fast as possible, so,” He looked over the faces that were staring at him. “I need your two best pilots. No time for favourites.” Bender said coolly. “Your two best.”

  Everyone looked at Vaz. Standish included. She wanted in on this mission, not just because she’d have the opportunity to work with one of the elite operatives from Dynamic Operations, but because it was going to be a high risk, off the book's, mission that would be of the most exciting variety. She might have been the newest member of the team, but she thought she deserved the opportunity to shine.

  Vaz took in a deep breath and looked back at the faces that were staring at her. “My two best pilots are.” Another pause. “Lovia and Standish.”

  Standish looked over to Lovia who was looking at her. She was smiling. The rest of the Techs didn’t look so happy, but they all knew that the correct choice had been made. There wasn’t any doubt that they were the best pair to fly Bender’s wing.

  “Right.” Bender straightened himself up, arched his back slightly, th
en looked at the faces of the remaining Techs. “Just because your senior hasn’t picked you for this operation doesn’t mean you’re not going to play a part in the mission. I will require excellent communications throughout, along with hyper-accurate information on everything in the system.” Bender reached into his pocket and pulled out a small metallic plate and tossed it in the air, where it froze in place, held in place by a magnetic field, where it rapidly projected an image of Sandura. “What we have here is a planetoid.” Bender stepped towards the picture and examined it for a moment, then stepped back. “The target area is in the southern hemisphere,” He manipulated the image until it expanded to show a group of islands. “This island is the target. There is a population of roughly seventy-five hundred souls on the island, I am interested in three.

  “We will drop down from orbit, hit the Great Southern Ocean, then make a straight-line run to the islands main square, which, as you can see, is a three-sided set of buildings set just off this large cove.” Bender turned his back on the map and took two steps away, then stopped, and turned back. “My family is expecting a primary warning signal once we enter orbit, once they have received that, they will proceed to the island’s main square and await extraction.”

  “How can you be sure that they’ll be in any position to receive your initial transmission?” Steed asked.

  The room fell silent. There was a quick glance from everyone to Steed, then over to Bender. It was a legitimate question. There were no guarantees in this business.

  “Because my man was down there yesterday.”

  “Excuse me?” Vaz asked. “No disrespect, Sir, but no one has been down to the surface since the barrier generator went into operation.”

  Bender nodded at Vaz. “I know, but nevertheless, my man was down on the surface yesterday. He spoke with my wife and children. Everything is ready.”

  Avi crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Why did he go down and not you?”

  Bender looked over to Avi and shook his head slightly. “Because my man is the best. The best there is, the best there was, and probably the best there ever will be, and that is exactly the kind of person you need for a job like this.”