“Quit fussing,” she heard Harper scold, as a protesting squeak sounded from within.
Addy smiled her first real smile of the day when she heard a tiny voice sound over her wire.
{Ferrets not need bath. Noooooo! Stopppp! Haaaalp!}
“Well, if you hadn’t used me for a ladder, we wouldn’t be in this predicament. Now hold still!”
A minute later, Addy saw Harper step into the airlock. She was dressed in a set of fresh scrubs from the chamber, and held Snotface in her arms. When the little guy caught sight of Addy, he made frantic scrabbling motions.
{Addy doctor! Harper makes wet! I catch cold! Halp!}
Laughing, Addy motioned for the door. “Go on out,” she said, “I'll join you in a minute.”
She stepped inside decon, and let the chamber seal behind her. Before she ran its sterilization procedure, she sent a pulse of electrostatic energy through the ionic threads of the hazmat suit, shedding all contaminants.
She felt the suit shiver as it activated, dispersing anything it had picked up within the L2 environment. A quick run through the decon sequence, and she was good to go. Picking up the bracer, she slid into the airlock, and then into the hallway to join Harper.
“All right, then,” Addy reached out to steady the other woman, and began walking them back toward the exit and her office. “I think we can assume that the vial Thad and the team are chasing is an L4. I’ll drop you two off and go up to those labs to find out what's missing.”
* * *
Back in Addy’s office, Gabe put Cutter on hold while he transferred their conversation to the more secured comm unit embedded in Addy’s desk. He lowered himself into her chair as the holoscreen performed its handshake with the director’s office.
“When you say she’s off the grid,” Gabe said the minute Cutter’s visage appeared onscreen, “you mean she’s not connected to the university’s private network?”
“No. I mean I can’t find her ID anywhere. Not on the university’s net, and not on any sector of Ceriba’s public net, either.” Cutter’s worried eyes met his. “Dammit. You were right to suggest anyone associated with deGrasse might be targeted. I thought I’d be able to get to her first. I thought we’d have time.”
“You said she was DND earlier. Could she have—"
Gabe cut off when he saw Cutter shaking his head.
“She was on DND, but then she suddenly went dark.” The director looked haggard. “She has me listed as next of kin/priority override. I should always be able to reach her in case of emergency. And… I can’t.”
Gabe’s mind raced as he considered their options. “Have you searched for her out on the Constellation?”
If she’d left Ceriba, they should still be able to ping her ID. The Ford-Svaiter nodes within the Starshot buoy canvassed the entire Procyon System. She simply hadn’t had time to get too far away.
“First thing I thought of, son,” the director replied with a sharp look. “I might be NSA now, but I did my time in the field. I haven’t quite forgotten everything in my doddering years.”
Gabe almost laughed at that. Duncan Cutter couldn’t be more than ten years his senior. The man had been a longtime operator before he’d been appointed to lead the NSA, and was a legend in the intelligence community. Of course he would have checked.
“I sent a few of Valenti’s people over there to pull her out quietly, and they couldn’t find her,” Cutter was saying. “University’s recorded feeds had been scrambled, too.”
He looked down, hooking a hand around the back of his neck. When he met Gabe’s eyes again, his words were much more subdued.
“I thought about what you said in the briefing about people like Sam being targets,” Cutter confessed. “Thought maybe it’d be worth trying to set up another black site where we could outthink the enemy.”
He stood and began to pace, the holorecorder pickups in his office following. “I made a mistake. I should have secured her immediately. Instead, I made a few calls, tried to get some things in place before approaching her about it. Now she’s paying the price.”
“Let's not borrow trouble just yet, sir,” Gabe cautioned, although he privately feared the director was right. “There could be a logical explanation behind this. Sam’s work is so far outside my wheelhouse, I can’t begin to guess the number of reasons why she’d be blocked from the net.”
Cutter chuckled, but to Gabe’s trained ear, it sounded strained. “You’re right about that.”
Gabe rose to his feet. “I’ll have Hyer fly me over to the university now. We’ll get this sorted, sir.”
Cutter’s pacing stopped as he turned to face the screen. “She’s like a daughter to me, Alvarez.” His voice was low. “It nearly killed me, what she went through in deGrasse, and then on Leavitt. If they’ve gotten their hands on her again….”
They exchanged a silent look, and Gabe could see the other man’s pain painted on his face.
“I’ll get back to you as soon as I know something,” he promised.
Cutter nodded. “Thanks.”
STAKEOUT
Lower Warehouse District
Mercer Mining Torus
Micah didn’t dare breathe as the blade wedged against his neck moved from behind his ear to rest against his carotid.
“Don’t bother, soldier. I’ve got you dead to rights.”
The words were subvocalized, but he recognized the voice instantly.
Shit, he muttered to Jonathan. Why didn’t you tell me Thad was about to get the drop on me?
He heard his mirror twin laugh. Where’s the fun in that?
A short vibration inside his skull alerted him to an incoming com.
{You’re AWOL, hoss.}
{I can explain—}
{Save it.} The Marine’s mental tone was uncharacteristically amused. Micah was at a loss as to why, until Thad added, {Boone caught sight of our friend skipping out on our meeting, so he followed. Imagine his surprise when he saw you playing Spiderman with a maglev.}
Micah felt his face burn with embarrassment. {Hey, that guy’s our only connection to the chiral material and Akkadia. You’d gone dark, and I couldn’t risk them getting away.}
{I’ll file your reprimand for ignoring protocol in the same place I post your commendation for finding the target, ami.} His tone turned dry. {In the circular file.}
{Say what?}
At his blank look, Thad snorted and clapped Micah on the shoulder. {Nevermind. We’ll take it from here.}
{You’ll be wanting these, then.} Micah sent Thad control of the two microdrones. {The one that followed them inside did a passive perimeter sweep. Recording’s attached.}
Thad nodded, then turned to study the maglev spur line that ran from the trainyard to the docks. He pointed down the tracks. {Tell you what. How ‘bout you see if you can’t find an unused dock over there for Wraith to belly up to. Word on the street is that a passel of people is headed this way. We’ll drag this cochon out of his lair, but we may be comin’ in hot. Call it half an hour.}
Micah’s eyes shot to the time stamp on his overlay. He nodded and backed silently away from the warehouse.
You got all that? he asked Jonathan.
His twin sent him a mental nod. Will’s been apprised. Yuki can float Wraith your way. Just feed me the coordinates once you find a slot for her.
Copy that.
Micah took off at a ground-eating jog toward the spur line and the smaller dock that the line fed into. From what he could tell, it was currently unused. He vaulted over a cleaning bot and jinked around a train of automated maglev pallet-movers bound for a nearby warehouse.
The dock turned out to be one of the torus’s maintenance ports, currently housing a few out-of-commission tugs that looked like they’d been pirated for parts. To the left, he saw an empty docking berth, the glow of a holo on standby indicating its ES field was functional.
Tell Yuki I found Wraith a temporary home. He sent Jonathan the location. And tell Will I need his magi
c touch. Can he use the heist to backdoor me into these controls? I doubt they’ll open for me.
He plunged his hands into the interface, but his guess had been correct; it rejected his attempts to manually open the bay doors.
One hacker, comin’ up. Would you like fries with that, bro?
Micah mentally flipped Jonathan off and waited for his twin to relay the request to the flight engineer.
Suddenly, into the silence, alarms began to sound, and he went scrambling back when the bay doors suddenly began to open. Loose plas sheets and empty cargo containers went flying, sucked toward the widening void, until an ES field sputtered and then belatedly snapped into place.
{Hoo-eee, Cap. Last time I saw someone hauling ass like that was when my sister’s ex got chased by a gator down Atchafalaya way. Careful now. Be a damn shame if that fine ass of yours got sucked out into space, y’heah?}
Micah smothered a grin as Wraith’s ghostly image appeared on his overlay, the ship’s nose just crossing the bay doors’ threshold. {Get your mind off my fine ass, Nina. And I wouldn’t have been scrambling if this dock’s equipment was functioning like it should have been.}
He felt more than heard her ripple of amusement. He’d bet his next month’s credits the woman had never been within a hundred kilometers of the Atchafalaya Bayou, either.
{Dare you to talk that way around Thad,} Micah said.
Nina laughed. {Sir, no, sir. I value my life, thank you very much. Standing by to crack the seal. I hear we’re in a hurry?}
Micah checked his chrono as he circled around the ES field to the airlock where the field terminated. Nina already had the hatch open. He gripped her outstretched arm and nearly went airborne as the compact, muscular woman hauled him inside.
He regained his footing, leaving her to reseal the ship’s side hatch as he closed the distance to the cockpit. Sliding into his cradle, he webbed up.
“Welcome back,” Yuki murmured as he interfaced with Wraith.
As the Helios’s sensor web registered his biosig, his overlay instantly populated with data: weapons, fuel, spaceframe health, and sensor feeds.
{Heads up,} Will called out. {I have visual. They’re coming in hot!}
{Sealing her up,} Micah sent as he closed the doors between the ship’s cabin and its cargo hold.
He grunted as Yuki juiced Wraith, sending the Helios skidding along the rails, getting the ship as close to the ES field as she could manage. At the same time, she lowered the aft ramp, venting all atmosphere from the cargo area.
Five figures were running toward them, their drakeskin suits sealing automatically as they crossed through the ES shield that held atmosphere in.
Boone and New Guy had the drug runner slumped between them, while Asha and Thad provided cover. Micah saw Boone slap a temp helmet meant for emergency EVAs onto the prisoner’s head as they raced up the ramp.
Both Will and Nina were weapons hot, ready to engage any tangos who might be following on the heels of the inbound team. Their neural interfaces kept the ship’s RAU-19 railgun barrels on a steady back-and-forth, while a surveillance drone hovered above the shadowed dock.
{…two, three, four—and one scumbag. All clear to raise the ramp. Go, go, go,} chanted Will.
{You have the controls,} Yuki’s voice sounded in his head as she confirmed positive seal on the back ramp.
{I have the controls,} he responded, and then called out, {Brace for maneuvers. Will, we still flying under Mercer’s radar?}
{Negative. Someone’s noticed activity at the dock. They’re sending a ship to investigate.}
Micah pushed thrusters hard, getting them as far away from the torus as possible before engaging drives. He really hated to light up inside the no-wake zone, but he would if he had to. {Talk to me, Will.}
{We’re fully stealthed. No one’s going to be picking us up on scan,} the flight engineer replied. {I’ve gone in and erased the feeds from that dock, so they won’t be able to identify us, but nothing’s going to hide the fact someone was there.}
{Let ’em wonder, hoss,} Thad interposed. {We got what we came for, but the man didn’t have the stolen vial. Spool up the drive as soon as you can. I want us back at base ASAP.}
{Copy,} Micah replied.
At the no-wake boundary, he gave them all a warning heads-up and then drove the ship hard, pushing thirty gs. He felt his SmartCarbyne’s accelerometer automatically engage the nanofilaments threaded throughout his body, encasing his organs in a protective shell as the agile ship sent them hurtling away from Mercer.
The mining torus’s five-kilometer-wide profile was silhouetted against the bright blue-white of Merki as he pointed Wraith’s nose toward the white dwarf and the planet orbiting it.
{Prepare for Scharnhorst jump,} he warned. {Engaging in thirty seconds.}
BACKUP
Center for Infectious Diseases
Montpelier, Ceriba
Gabe’s conversation with Cutter had him worried. His gut was pinging him pretty hard, telling him that Sam had been targeted. He decided to make a quick detour before he ran up to the shuttlepad on the roof.
On his way, he reached out to Hyer. {Chief, you still in the building? Need a lift. Rooftop in ten.}
He kept his words brief as he pulled up the Center’s map to locate its security division.
{Sir?} Katie’s voice sounded distracted and a bit worried.
Gabe paused. He hadn’t considered she might be involved with the containment breach.
{Sorry, Chief. Should have asked. Are you helping Addy? I can ping Valenti for another ride.}
{No, sir,} Hyer responded. {I’m down in Harris’s office, shutting down that damned SI and keeping the code open for the doc. Can it wait?}
Gabe grimaced as he pulled to a stop in front of security. {Hang on. Let me get back to you on that.}
He entered, flashing his Unit credentials to the officer in charge.
The woman stood, surprise morphing quickly to professionalism. “What can I do for you, agent?”
“Do you have any spare weapons I can borrow?”
His unexpected request only threw her for a second. She nodded and waved him over to a secured room. As he stepped inside, he was gratified to see more than the standard operational security loadout.
Pointing to a CUSP sitting in the rack, he asked, “May I?”
She waved a hand and stepped back. “Take whatever you need, sir. Just sign it out with your badge, and we’re good.”
He saw a link to the Center’s security node appear on his overlay, the checkout form highlighted. He nodded a wordless thanks and began to gear up.
He grabbed a CUSP and a pair of spare batteries. After a moment’s hesitation, he found his palm wrapping around the grip of a ballistic handgun rated for safe use within both ships and space stations. Out of habit, he checked the chamber, safetied it, and fastened its holdout holster around his calf. A spare set of magazines went into his pocket.
He looked up and gave a brief salute to the woman. Nodding toward a dark office, he said, “Mind if I impose for a bit longer? I need to make a secured call.”
She smiled. “Not at all. Let me know if you need anything else.”
Thanking her, he stepped inside the room as he reconnected with Hyer.
{I assume Harris had a secured console?}
{The best,} the chief warrant confirmed.
{Good. I’m setting up a hard-link now with HQ. As soon as I get Valenti on the horn, I’ll loop you in.}
He took a seat in front of the comm station, established an encrypted connection, and then pinged Valenti. As he waited for the comm to connect with the colonel, his gaze landed on what he could see of the Center’s security division through the room’s window.
The scene wasn’t much different from an NCIC bullpen, and it reminded him of his life prior to being recruited to Task Force Blue. He’d been with Navy Criminal Investigation Command for fifteen years. For eight of those years, he’d been a special agent. During that time,
he’d investigated mostly internal issues, crimes committed by military personnel inside the Alliance's borders.
There’d been plenty of spillover, though. He was no stranger to outside influences from other star nations. He’d handled his share of espionage cases, situations where Navy personnel allowed greed to trump their convictions. It seemed there was no end to the organizations—both private corporations and government entities alike—who sought the Alliance’s secrets.
Still, nothing had prepared him for deGrasse. The scope of the operation the Akkadian Empire had unleashed to obtain the samples still boggled his mind.
So, are you truly surprised that they’d try again? he asked himself.
His attention snapped back to the holoscreen when the colonel’s image appeared. She was down in the hangar, and he could see Jonathan and Major Snell, Shadow Recon’s CO, standing in the background.
The two men must have been reviewing one of the ships. Jonathan had a grease-stained rag in his hands, which he was using to wipe them clean.
“Alvarez,” Valenti greeted.
“Colonel,” he nodded. “Wait one; let me bring the chief warrant in on this.”
The moment her face appeared on the holo, Gabe started talking. “The director just told me Sam’s missing.”
Valenti nodded, confirming she’d already heard the report.
Her comm line must have been open, because Gabe saw Jonathan’s head snap up, the rag he was using frozen mid-swipe.
The man’s gaze swung to the holo. “Run that by me one more time?”
Gabe’s eyes flicked back to Valenti, letting her take the lead.
The colonel looked from Gabe to Jonathan.
“We sent a team to retrieve Doctor Travis. When they arrived at her last known location, she wasn’t there.” Her eyes met Jonathan’s as she added, “And she’s not coming up on any ID sweeps, either.”
Valenti held up a restraining hand as Jonathan stepped forward. “Do not tell your twin,” she demanded. “That’s an order.”
The Chiral Protocol – A Military Science Fiction Thriller: Biogenesis War Book 2 (The Biogenesis War) Page 15