by Andrew Beery
“Another day and it would have been a really good idea,” Ben commented with a certain bit of regret in his voice. “Can we really make a go of this?”
Cat sipped the comfortably hot beverage one more time. The temperature alone helped to reinvigorate her. Sighing, she stood up. It was time to get the various players in place.
“It will depend on how long we can delay. With any luck they will pause to regroup and in the process buy us the couple of hours we need.”
“And if they don’t?”
“If they don’t,” Cat said with sadness, “We will be forced to take as many of them out as we can. Nothing they have can touch the Yorktown after Yarin’s help… but I don’t want to destroy the GCP. I want to fix it… return it to what it was… to what it was meant to be.”
Cat pointed towards the diagrams on the table, “Have Thais put this into place on as many of the ships as she can and then send me a list of who she was able to get to. They may be worth their weight in gold.”
***
Two hours and fifteen minutes later the first of the invasion fleet arrived. On one of the ships was a pair of men who had spent more time in a bar than they had an engine room lately. Fortunately they both had access to the best human nano tech available and considerable experience and training in the fine art of ‘fitting in’.
Sam Eddington tweaked the display on his computer interface. He looked over at his friend Rhino. The big man looked decidedly uncomfortable. The BCI uniform he was wearing chafed at the collar. He had been use to wearing open collar shirts while a barkeep on Asimov. He missed his bar… and his wife. The life of a Melbourne Maniac was often one of sacrifice.
Sam nodded to Rhino who took the finger out of his collar and looked at his environmental display. Sam keyed his internal FTL link and sent a subvocal acknowledgement that he and Rhino where ready.
Like all ships within the GCP armed forces, the GCP Liberator was tied into a fleet-wide FTL data net. That data net was designed to allow close ship coordination during combat operations. Unfortunately for Admiral Kimbridge this level of coordination would nullify the effectiveness of the surprise the Admiral had in store for the BCI fleet.
Sam and Rhino had a plan to correct this situation. It involved a high-level hack of the Librator’s computer core. Fortunately that core was fed data from the BCI computer facility on Asimov – a facility now under the effective control of the Melbourne Maniacs.
With the help of a Heshe enhanced AI located on the Yorktown, a special virus had been written that would disable and supplant the data net between the various ships in the fleet. The ruse could not do any physical damage to the ships in question but it would allow for some serious confusion as no ship would be able to positively identify another as a part of its task force.
Chapter 17: Hubris…
Harry’s consciousness sat hidden in the background of his mind. His body was deliberately out of his control as the Heshe medical nanites, at his behest, had shutdown communication between his brain and the rest of his body. This was necessary to feign unconsciousness.
He and the others had been brought into the compound by Sharn Dragos’ medical staff. The ruse had effectively served two purposes. First, the three officers from the Brown Recluse were now inside the target compound. Second, a significant portion of the Pirate King’s resources were being spent chasing ghosts in the jungle and not within the compound itself where their presence might prove problematic for Admiral Melbourne’s team.
As luck would have it, Harry was the first of the three to be roughly dropped on the medical examination table. Harry waited until the doctor had placed various sensors on his temple before covertly sending a stream of command and control nanites down the minute wire. Within seconds Harry had effective control of the medical bay’s computer system.
He commanded the doors to the bay to close and lock. The doctor and nurse looked up at the unusual behavior of the door. This meant they did not see their patient’s hand suddenly move to touch each of them briefly. Within seconds they were as deeply asleep as their comrades in the jungle. Harry swung his legs over the side of the table and stood up.
A moment later Sherry and Honey both stood up as well. In short order they had secured the medical staff in the doctor’s office. Honey fused the old-school physical lock on the doctor’s door so that when the nanites in their systems allowed them to wake they would not be able to cause any trouble for Sherry’s team. The comm systems in the office were likewise disabled.
Honey headed over to one of the computer consoles in the medical lab. Within a few minutes she had pulled up a schematic for the interior of the compound. There were over thirty buildings scattered about the interior. The biggest was a round domed structure in the middle.
“It’s not far from our current location,” Harry said while looking over her shoulder.
“Our security IDs aren’t likely to grant us access,” Sherry observed. “Honey, can you do something about that?”
“On it,” she said in a business-like voice. “We three are now gardeners with access to the dome. Once we get in we will have to defeat the locks on the collection facility through other means. Whatever systems are in use for that structure they are independent from the general network.”
“That makes sense,” Sherry acknowledged. “My guess is it has an independent power and environmental system as well.”
“There is another problem,” Honey added. “Support personal like grounds keepers and gardeners have limited hours of access. Apparently our friend Mr. Dragos does not like to mingle with the staff so they have to accomplish their work while he is sleeping.”
“So if we attempt to enter during the wrong hours we are going to set off alarms. Can’t you just override them?” Harry asked.
“We could,” Sherry agreed but I’m betting the building that houses the collection will run its own redundant security. Since we can’t get to it directly it will flag the anomaly regardless of what we do to the primary security system.”
“Ok,” Harry said. “What if rather than trying to bypass the security system; we make it work for us?”
Honey’s perpetual smile deepened. “I knew I loved you for a reason! We tweak a pressure or two in the watering system and voila!”
Suddenly a soft alarm began to sound. A minute later a general page went out for a hydroponic maintenance team to report to the dome. Honey suppressed the public address system prior to the message going out so that the only people hearing it where the three interlopers in the medical bay.
Harry looked at both Honey and the Admiral. “Ladies, I do believe we have been invited to a garden party.”
***
The dome itself was transparent. It covered a small pond and a grove of about two hundred trees. Various water fowl and small animals moved about the interior. On one side, at the top of a small rise, there was a stately mansion that would have been at home in the American old south on Earth.
Next to the mansion was another structure that housed Sharn Dragos’ collection. It held a massive assortment of art and one-of-a-kind artifacts that represented the unimaginable wealth of the Pirate King.
Harry carried a tool bag that held the usual sorts of things a plumber might use to fix a leak. It was simply a prop. As soon as he and the two ladies entered the dome they proceeded to the hydroponic center and began to work fixing the broken plumbing before it flooded the entire facility. At least that is what the security system reported.
The tool bag actually held a small holographic projector that Honey could control remotely. She, in fact, was the only one in the hydroponics center. She took her time diagnosing the leak and attempting to fix it. All the while, holographic versions of her companions kept her company… occasionally pointing to something and engaging Honey in a heated conversation.
This ruse allowed Sherry and Harry to make their way to the vault building next to the mansion that they believed housed Dragos’ collection. They were fully cloaked. A
person would have to physically run into them in order to determine there was someone present. Special optical displays, constructed by his medical nanites on the interior surface of his corneas allowed him to see a computer generated representation of Sherry as she moved in front of him.
The Admiral moved to the right and pointed at a spot on the ground. Harry peered at it for a second. He saw nothing of interest. Sherry tapped her face next to her eye and pretended to turn a dial.
Harry nodded. He turned up his visual acuity and extended its range to 150% human normal. Now he could see a series of discolored pads in the grass surrounding the structure. Like the Admiral he now took special care to avoid them.
They circled the structure carefully. There were two unencumbered paths to the building but something did not look right. Harry had a sixth sense about such things and his sixth sense was saying these were not the paths to take.
Harry used hand signing to ask the Admiral, ‘How are we getting in? I have a bad feeling about these two.’
Sherry hand signaled back, ‘I agree. I bet the house has direct access. It might be a better bet.’
The two made their way back over to the Mansion. To say it was extravagant was really to do an injustice to the architecture. Harry counted no less than four floors, a series of decorative but fully functional buttresses, enclosed nooks for exotic gardens and a main entrance that made the steps to the American Supreme Court look quaint.
Before Harry was able to approach the actual ornate marble stairs to make his way towards the massive front doors, his enhanced hearing picked up the sounds of men marching. Whoever they were they were approaching the mansion.
Sherry had evidently heard the same thing because she froze in place. Unlike Harry she was halfway up the stairs with limited options for cover should that become necessary.
To the immediate west of the mansion there was a small decorative forest. Harry knew from his study of the dome’s schematics that another entry portal existed on that side. It was not the one they chose to use for their own entry because it was physically located next to the guard barracks.
A group of twenty guardsmen dressed in flashy ceremonial uniforms marched out of the woods. They were headed directly for the mansion and the two covert operatives.
Harry turned to Sherry. All he could think about was the hubris of a man that he should require his own color guard in his private residence. A residence that he barely set foot in for over half any given calendar year.
The Admiral mouthed the word ‘Hide’ and then used her hand to indicate Harry should slip behind one of the marble columns that lined the sides of the stairs. They were fully cloaked and should not be detected by the guardsmen but there was no point in taking changes and having one of the men accidently brushing up against one of the two as they passed.
Sherry moved towards a column on her side of the stairs. As she did her foot kicked a small piece of loose marble that had chipped off of another part of the façade. It was the type of random event that no amount of training and experience could prevent. The independent AI that monitored security for Sharn Dragos’ estate analyzed the noise and reviewed its view of the security footage. It saw the stone move. It evaluated environmental factors like proximal air currents, ambient temperature, seismic vibrations and the like. It could deduce no logical explanation for the stone’s movement. It was an unexplainable event. Unexplainable events near the Dragos Collection vault required a very specific set of security protocols be followed.
An alarm klaxon began to sound. It seemed to emanate from everywhere at once. A grinding sound could be heard from above them. Harry looked up the stairs and saw a massive hull-metal grate start to lower in front of the main doors. If they didn’t get past it before it finished lowering, there would be no getting into the mansion anytime soon.
Sherry looked at Harry and they nodded as if they had the same thought. Abandoning any pretense at stealth they bolted up the stairs. Their Heshe enhancements allowed them to cover the distance a full six steps at a time. As Harry approached the massive doors he flung himself full force at them while instructing his medical nanites to block the inevitable pain and to stand ready to repair the damage to his shoulder that would unquestionably occur by virtue of his enhanced strength.
He hit the door with the strength of twenty men. It shattered and fell in. Unfortunately it was not the only thing that shattered. His clavicle broke in so many places the medical nanites immobilized his body for a few seconds while they worked to reposition the bone fragments. Thankfully Harry felt none of this.
Sherry must have realized what the medical nanites were doing because she grabbed the frozen form of her compatriot and dragged him further into the building. As she did so the hull-metal grate ground into place thus separating the two from the ornate color guard even now running up the steps.
Harry imagined it must be quite a sight for the guards. They were not able to see the two cloaked officers. To them an alarm sounded and the front door to the mansion exploded for no apparent reason.
The medical nanites finished repairing his shoulder a few seconds later and he was allowed to move again. As he got up he saw the admiral make a few quick hand gestures. He had missed the beginning of it so he signaled her to repeat what she had signed. The admiral sighed and repeated her hand movements. ‘The day is going to come when your little friends are not going to be able to help you fast enough. If you had bounced to the other side of the gate when they immobilized you, you would be waking up with twenty guards hovering over you.
‘Yes but they are very pretty guards,’ Harry signed back.
Sherry sighed.
Unfortunately for Sherry and Harry the residences’ security AI was not as easily fooled as the guards. Harry was never sure what the system was using to track them but as they moved from room to room the security system would throw up roadblocks. Fortunately the doors that would suddenly close in front of them were easily defeated with the use of dedicated construction nanites that could readily dissolve metal hinges.
The process took time however and time is never your friend when trying to break into a heavily guarded building.
They rounded a corner of a hallway they had been working to enter for the better part of ten minutes when they came face to face with a large contingent of soldiers. These men were not dressed in colorful ceremonial garb. The man in the lead was a sergeant whose nametag said: Wachter.
Chapter 18: Faragon’s Ghost…
Harry watched as the sergeant tilted his head to listen to a message coming in over his ear plug. Suddenly he smiled and raised his rifle and began spraying the hall with bullets. A good number of them hit Harry in the chest. For a brief second the pain was excruciating. Then his Heshe medical nanites blocked the pain centers as they sought to repair the damage.
Unfortunately his cloaking failed every place a bullet hit. Rather than waste energy trying to rebuild the cloak which was apparently not working anyway, Harry instructed his Heshe systems to focus on repairing the damaged tissues.
Harry was surprised to see he had fallen to his knees. His first clue was the smug look Sergeant Wachter had on his face as he looked, not over, but down at him. It had seemed odd at first because he hadn’t noticed the Sergeant being so much taller. Harry knew he was mildly confused. His head was light and it was hard to focus. The nanites worked to stabilize his blood pressure which was dangerously low due to blood loss.
The sergeant came over and placed a booted foot on Harry’s shoulder and pushed him down… all the while keeping his rifle pointed directly at Harry’s head. What the sergeant didn’t notice was the fact that his men standing behind him were slowly collapsing in pairs.
Harry’s eyes began to clear as the nanites began to make headway with his repairs. His enhanced vision could see Admiral Melbourne working her way, still unseen, through the men starting in the rear. As she touched each one he would stiffen briefly and then slowly collapse. She would then move her way forward. The
last several men finally noticed something was happening but before they could react the Admiral had them.
Sergeant Wachter turned and started to raise his weapon to spray the hall behind him but Harry reached up a hand and grabbed the leg that held him down. In a moment it was over.
A rumbling sound filled the mansion and Harry wondered what the security system was throwing at them now. A moment later Honey came racing around the corner and collapsed on her knees at the side of Harry who was still on the ground but getting ready to stand up again.
Before he could say a word, she kissed him passionately and held on to him tightly.
“Are you alright,” she asked, as she inspected him for damage. When she was sure he was ok she hit him lightly in the chest. “You idiot! Do you know how badly you scared me? Standing in front of an armed man with a rifle.”
“How did you get here?” was all Harry could say.
“I came through the front door. Why?”
By this time Sherry had de-cloaked and walked over to the two of them. “There was a hull-metal gate blocking that door.”
“Not anymore,” Honey admitted. “I tore it down.”
“That must have been the noise we heard,” Sherry noted.
“You tore through a hull-metal door?” Harry asked incredulously.
Honey looked sheepish. “It was in my way.”
***
“Bring the aggressor fleet up on the overlay,” Cat barked from the Yorktown’s command chair.
Captain Kirkland had yielded his command chair to the Admiral for the duration of the battle. Her enhancements meant she could respond to the fluidity of the battle far more rapidly than he could. He had moved to her Admiral’s chair where he continued to manage the operations of the Yorktown itself.
“Now bring up our cloaked decoy network.”
The holographic display in the front of the Yorktown’s bridge began to fill with different colored icons representing the different players on the field. As new ships emerged from the hyper-field jump point they would appear on the screen.