It was still active, although most systems were shutting off in the wake of the power-down. As practiced back at the apartment, she zeroed in on the command channel, giving the computer a series of sharp orders to keep it active for another few seconds. As it processed her signals, she took hold of the locator beacon and severed its connection. Then she commanded the beacon to lock onto its current location, and remain static.
A moment later, the computer shut down completely.
Leaning back in her seat, she looked around the small clearing again. The group had gathered their gear and were heading out along one of the trails. She reached out with all her senses and confirmed that there was no one else around, then started her car again and drove slowly back to the road.
How Jack was able to tap into the Centauri Cloud so easily remained a mystery to her, but there was no doubt that Korolev had chosen well for this mission. Mallory might still be a horny, happy-go-lucky kid with far too much forgiveness in his soul, but he’d proven his abilities as they tested the Centauri security systems.
No, she chastised herself, she was being unfair. War had changed him, made him grow up fast. His smiles still came easily, and humor laced most of his words, but there was a deep sadness in his eyes. It was easy to remember the young punk she’d met nearly two years ago, who’d drooled after Breeze and then after Katja herself. That boy was gone, she knew.
And although it was hard to admit, he was already better in the Cloud than she was. She’d always be able to kick his ass physically—the thought brought a sudden smile—but it was good to know that he was there, backing her up.
Driving the car on manual another few kilometers down the road, she finally turned off to follow a narrow path through the trees, just far enough to obscure the car from the road. If questioned, she was a solo hiker out exploring some new trails, and oh my—is there really a military installation so close by? She’d been practicing her cute face on Jack for the past few days, and his reactions told her she was definitely learning how to charm.
Katja stepped out of the vehicle, slipped on her backpack, and hefted the “fishing rod case” in her arms. A small hatch on the underside opened to give her access to the trigger of her assault rifle. A pair of pistols and a cluster of grenades were also inside the case, weighing it down, but at least she was armed and ready for an ambush.
The trail made for easy progress into the forest. After a few hundred steps she paused, reaching into the Cloud. Confirming her position, she stepped off the trail and into the underbrush, moving slowly over the uneven ground, trying to keep the sounds of her passage indistinguishable from the gentle rustle of the wind through the leaves. The odd chirp or hiss reminded her of the small, indigenous animals scurrying underfoot, but she knew them to be harmless. Through the trees ahead, she could see the sunlight beaming down on open ground.
At the edge of the trees, she crouched down and unlatched the fishing case, senses scanning the long line of military fencing. She donned her pistol belt, fastened each holster to her hips, then hooked the four grenades over the base of her back. Drawing out the assault rifle, she checked ammunition and then slipped the harness over her shoulders, snapping the rifle into place against her chest.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so heavily armed, and it felt good. The time for disguises was over.
Suddenly there was chatter between the depot’s main building and a pair of anti-personnel robots hidden off to the left. She shivered as she thought of those silver war machines rolling across the ground on their twin tracks, weapons pods tracking any movement. It had been a long time, but some memories didn’t fade.
Katja rose to her feet and jogged low across the open grass.
Her heavy backpack jostled with the movement and the grenades slapped against her back.
Slowing to a trot as the fence loomed before her, Katja activated the anti-grav pockets on her boots. She pushed off the ground and sailed into the air, clearing the top of the fence by an entire body length and still rising. Cursing, she deactivated the AG and let herself start to fall, then activated again to stop her downward acceleration. She thumped down against the ground, the micro anti-grav field shielding her from the weight of her gear, but not the momentum.
That caused her to topple forward, coughing in the dust as she slid on the hard dirt. Shutting off the AG she hauled herself up and dashed for the nearest grassy mound. The depot was dotted with such mounds, grass and dirt providing additional protection against the ammunition stored in the bunkers buried beneath.
Leaning against the soft vegetation, she took a moment to catch her breath. Here at the edge of the compound she could neither see nor hear the convoy loading up, but routine chatter in the Cloud indicated its bearing.
With a quick scan of the field of hillocks around her, she ran across the open ground and crouched down against the door of her target. She examined the security systems.
The display before her shifted, and she heard a series of heavy clicks behind the reinforced door. It hissed open a crack. She pushed it aside enough to slip in, then slammed it shut.
The locks on the door clicked shut again and she was surrounded by darkness and silence. Activating infra-red she scanned the black cavern. Most of the material was almost as cold as the air, but through the vague shapes she detected the power units of the micro-torpedoes stored on their racks. Unfastening her rifle from its harness clip, she brought it up to her eyeline and shuffled forward, scanning left to right. Pausing, she switched to quantum-flux and scanned again. The storage racks nearest to her revealed their forms in ghostly clarity, but the rest of the chamber faded from view.
She did a quick count of the torpedoes, then examined the nearest one resting in its bracket. It was nearly as long as her, and with one hand she could grab the entirety of its slender nose. The body of the weapon barely widened down its length, until the bulges of its engines at the end. She absently ran her fingers along its smooth, hard surface as her mind interrogated its electronic innards.
Through the glow of quantum-flux she examined the bracket and the locks around the weapon.
Katja examined the lock again, reaching into its protocols.
She uncovered the trigger to release the lock and examined the signal it was programmed to receive. After a moment she replicated that signal and fired it in.
The clamps snapped open. The torpedo was free.
Slipping off her pack she reached in and retrieved a simple, civilian hover dolly. She switched it on and placed it under the torpedo, feeling the gra
vity-damping field take hold. The dolly indicated a lock, and she gingerly pushed upward, watching as the entire unit rose out of the bracket to hover in the darkness. With effort she pulled it free of the rack. The dolly might have absorbed gravity’s pull on the object, but it still had a lot of inertia and resisted her efforts to move it. Sweat was dripping into her eyes by the time she’d maneuvered the torpedo over to the door.
Katja froze. Around her she could sense the electronic hum of the storage equipment and environmental controls. And… there! A new energy signal on the far side of the dark room. She snapped her rifle free of its harness again.
Amid the gentle rush of air, she barely heard a skittering of metal taps against the floor. Something moved at the edge of her quantum-flux vision. It was low and fast, almost slithering between storage shelves.
Data flooded her brain as Jack transmitted the latest info on the recent addition to the Centauri war machine arsenal. It was nicknamed the “milly,” and it was bad news.
She fired once. The blast erupted in front of her, sending her reeling backward as the shock wave of her explosive round impacted military armor. The milly charged forward, rearing up in front of her to reveal its underside. She dove behind her captured torpedo as darts pinged off the weapon’s hull. Returning fire beneath the hover dolly, she flinched as the dazzling glare of her rounds struck the robot. But as before, they didn’t penetrate its armor enough to do any real damage. She reached back to grab a grenade from her belt. It would be a bad idea in such a small space, but dying appealed less.
The milly suddenly stiffened, the chittering of its legs falling silent. The reared body sagged, then lowered to the floor and remained still.
Jack said.
She jumped up and readied herself by the torpedo again.
The locks released again and a sliver of sunlight blinded her as the door hissed open. Deactivating quantum-flux, she blinked away the tears and forced her eyes up toward the light. It seemed an eternity before she peeked out through the narrow opening at the sun-drenched compound beyond.
They’re investigating, but I’m detecting a general increase in overall alert status—do you want to hold position?>
She pushed open the heavy door and eased the torpedo out into the fresh air. Slamming the door shut she wasted no time turning her cargo to skirt the grassy mound and point at the fence.
Katja ignored her own Cloud inputs and leaned into her steady push of the torpedo toward the fence. It gained speed, sailing along at waist height over the hard dirt, until she had to jog to keep up.
Running under the torpedo she wrapped her arm around its body and activated her anti-grav pockets. With just a tap of her toes she felt herself rise slowly into the air, torpedo and dolly ascending with her. The fence loomed. She curled up her legs and whisked over the top, deactivated the anti-grav long enough to feel her own weight start to pull down the weightless torpedo, then used momentum to touch down in the grass and, with barely a stumble, start pushing her prize at a run for the safety of the trees.
Guiding the weapon at speed over uneven ground tasked her every sense, and she couldn’t focus enough to send Jack a message. He’d be panicking within moments, though, and she didn’t want him to do anything overt to distract the Centauri guards. So she activated her entanglement test signal. A second later she felt the warble in her chest as he responded. Now he knew she was still alive.
Gasping for breath she crashed the torpedo through the underbrush and dug her heels into the soft, loamy dirt to slow her cargo’s rush into the forest. Finally coming to rest, she looked back at the broken branches and twin heel-troughs. Leaving the torpedo on its dolly, she quickly smoothed over the troughs and snapped off the few small branches that hung limply. While she couldn’t remove all evidence of the passage, she could at least erase the most obvious signs.
A quick scan back toward the ammo depot revealed no immediate threats, but the increased radio traffic was obvious. Hopefully, the security stayed focused on the convoy and hunkered down in defensive positions. If she could complete the mission with zero casualties, she knew it would make Jack happy.
It bothered her that she wanted that.
With a few final heavy breaths, Katja took control of the dolly with one hand and gripped her assault rifle with the other. Time for a slow withdrawal.
28
As captain, Thomas didn’t often find himself in the after end of the ship. Moore maintained her low-profile reconnaissance of the Centauri system, and most of his waking time was spent on the bridge.
He’d always imagined that he’d be a more personal captain—strolling the flats and getting to know his crew members in situ—but as always, the war seemed to waylay the best-laid plans. He met quite a few surprised glances as he moved aft to the hangar, but at least he was able to greet some of the crew by name.
Thomas floated discreetly to the side of the hangar as the starboard airlock opened to reveal the dark, angular shape of the Special Forces insertion craft. Slung beneath it was the smallest torpedo he’d ever laid eyes on. The first objective of the mission was complete. A mix of flight and ASW technicians clustered around, eager to examine the weapon which had so crippled Admiral Bowen.
Though curious as well, he was far more interested in the pair of operatives who emerged from the aft door of their craft. Clearly not re-accustomed to the zero-g, they fumbled to hand their spacesuits off to the waiting ground crew.
“Welcome back, operatives,” he said, keeping his tone mild but fighting down the urge to embrace them both in a big hug. Jack and Katja looked healthy and relatively at ease. She gave him a curt nod, but Jack smiled and reached out his free hand.
“Permission to come aboard, Captain?”
“Granted,” he replied, shaking the hand. “Good work on your capture.”
Jack glanced over to the torpedo, and at the technicians extracting it from the insertion craft.
“I’m sure we’ll learn a lot from this little bitch.”
Nodding, Thomas motioned for them to follow him toward the forward door.
“How many did they have in inventory?”
Jack glanced at Katja. She considered for a moment.
“I saw twenty-four. Enough to cripple an entire expeditionary force—and that was just the storage bunker I was in. Who knows how many more they have.”
“So it’s in mass production,” he surmised as they moved into the main passageway that led forward. “It wasn’t just a prototype.”
“No.”
The ship was bustling as it approached watch turnover, and Thomas made to weave his way through the crowd. Then he noticed very quickly that no weaving was required—the throng seemed to part before him. He made sure to acknowledge every crew member who tucked against the bulkhead to let him pass, sensing that their actions were made out of respect, not fear. Maybe he didn’t get out to wander the ship as much as he’d like, but it seemed his crew still felt that he knew them.
The sitting area of his cabin was immaculate, as always, and before he could even make the request his steward appeared with three bulbs of coffee and a clear ball filled with finger foods. Pull
ing himself down to the couch, Thomas hooked in and invited his guests to do the same. Jack joined him in the illusion of sitting, but Katja floated free.
“I need to get used to zero-g again,” she said. “If I try to tell my body that I’m actually sitting when it can’t feel the pull, we’re likely to be dodging balls of puke in here.”
A sharp chuckle burst from Thomas’s lips, even more so as he saw his steward glance back subtly from the servery door.
“Master Rating Stinson,” he called out. “Would you please excuse us for an hour or so?”
The steward nodded politely and exited into the passageway.
“Don’t worry about the gravity,” Thomas said, glancing at his watch. “We’re just about to switch it back on for an hour or so—critical maintenance needs to be done on a few mechanical systems which don’t open well in zero-g.”
As if on cue, the bridge announced the imminent return of AG. After a fifteen-second delay, the gentle tug of the ship’s graviton generator began to take hold. It increased steadily toward Earth-normal. Thomas steadied the refreshments as they slowly lowered to the table. Katja lowered with them, and found her footing on the deck. The relief showed on her face.
“Thank you,” she said.
Thomas smiled and offered the finger foods to the operatives.
Neither hesitated, and Thomas figured it had been a long flight from Abeona.
“It’s good to see you both,” he said. “How was the mission?”
“Awesome,” Jack replied immediately. “The Centauri Cloud is phenomenal, and designed for easy access, so I was able to move through it along multiple lines simultaneously.” Thomas had no idea what a “Centauri Cloud” was, but he gathered that it was something of importance to how the operatives did their job.
“The society doesn’t seem geared for war,” Katja added, looking as if she wanted to change the subject. “Most people are just living their normal lives.”
March of War Page 26