“Why did you speak up just now?” He turned from the window and saw that she’d glided silently toward him.
“It was necessary to protect you.”
He frowned, not understanding, so he asked the other question on his mind.
“Where did you go this morning?”
Dacina stepped closer. “They know about the tunnel. They know there are additional cylinders.”
Che shook his head. “It is not possible.”
The assassin stared back at him, eyes gone dark. “I have been shadowing Marceau’s team. One of them slipped and allowed himself to be seen entering the tunnel.”
“Why did you not tell me of this sooner?”
“I waited to see what would come of it,” she said evasively. “Our people are good, but so is the team they have sent in to oppose us.”
She looked away momentarily and when her gaze returned to his, he saw an openness there that he hadn’t seen on his Dagger’s face since she was a young student.
“The minister’s plan has failed,” she declared softly. “I have seen with my own eyes the truth of this. But do not worry, my general. I have a plan.”
Che’s heartbeat began thundering in his ears as the implication of her words sank in—and then he realized the pounding he heard wasn’t from within, but from the apartment door being breached.
The look in her eyes betrayed her lack of surprise.
“Dacina, what have you done?”
She pulled him from the window just before it shattered. He reached instinctively for his firearm as Alliance troops dropped in through the opening, but found his holster empty.
They trained their pistols on him, and Che registered with some shock that Dacina was offering up his, along with her arsenal, to the intruders. Never had he seen her willingly part with her arsenal.
{What I do, I do to save your life, my general.} Her words rang inside his head, filled with conviction. {I would do it again a thousand times.}
A woman stepped forward to accept the weapons from his Dagger, her eyes filled with a wary respect.
“Is the Citizen Representative here?” Dacina asked, and the woman nodded.
“He’s out on the street, behind a protective barrier. Once the apartment’s secure, we’ll bring him in to meet with you.”
Che fought to keep an impassive face as his Dagger inclined her head at the other woman’s words.
“Very well, Agent Cyr. Please tell Representative Dent that Citizen General Josza awaits his pleasure. We have all the records he will need to prove Rin Zhou Enlai’s treachery to the premier.”
* * *
Gabe looked up as Ell and one of the Delta operators escorted a man and a woman down the stairs.
{This her?} he asked, and Ell gave a subtle nod.
{She told me the guy with her is Che Josza. Says he has information to indict the minister of state security for this whole operation, and implied it was completely unsanctioned.}
Gabe grunted and stepped back as two Foxtrot soldiers hustled bound Akkadians out the door and into a waiting impound vehicle.
“That’s the last of them, sir,” Quinn said as he stepped from the back room.
“Thanks.” Gabe gave the NCIC agent a nod, and then pinged Sasha. {You’re up. Bring Dent in.}
The apartment door opened a second time to admit Asher Dent, the Coalition’s minority leader. Sasha, flanked by two of her team carrying P-SCARs, stood just behind him.
The man came to a sudden halt when he laid eyes on the assassin. They narrowed when he registered the man beside her.
“Representative Dent,” Gabe said, stepping forward. “This woman claims she knows of an Akkadian plot to release a bioweapon at the summit today.”
Gabe saw shock appear on Dent’s face at the news.
The man whipped his head around. “Is this true?” he asked the assassin.
{You know, that looked like genuine surprise,} Gabe heard Ell say thoughtfully.
Gabe murmured his agreement.
The assassin dipped her head. “It is true.”
“By whose order?” Dent sounded angry.
He took a step toward the assassin, only to be stopped by two Delta operators.
The man turned to face Gabe. “You think I had something to do with this?”
“You could have been inoculated against the viral agent used in the attack,” Gabe said mildly.
Fury blazed in Dent’s eyes. “I would be just as dead as everyone else, I assure you.” He turned back to the two Akkadians standing under guard. “Who ordered this?”
“Rin Zhou Enlai.” The general’s voice was quiet, but Gabe could clearly hear the strain in it.
“And you expect me to believe this?” Dent scoffed, then turned to Gabe. “This man is Enlai’s puppet.”
The assassin stirred, and Gabe saw a flash of anger in her eyes.
“The citizen general is loyal to the premier,” she insisted. “This action is not sanctioned, and General Josza has taken great care to document his findings. Why else would he send me to warn you?”
Dent’s expression turned thoughtful. “You have evidence?”
“The citizen general has evidence,” the assassin emphasized. “Obtained at great risk.”
The general raised his hand, and the assassin subsided. “What evidence we have, we freely offer, Citizen Representative. The Dagger is correct. There is no honor in an attack such as this.”
The man’s expression was inscrutable, but something about the way he gestured for the assassin to present the evidence made him seem weary.
Gabe stepped forward as the assassin placed a data chip in Dent’s hand.
“We still have a bioweapon to disarm, Mister Representative,” Gabe said. “I assume you have no problem sharing that information with us?”
Dent turned to him. “No,” he said after a moment. “Not at all.”
The general cleared his throat. “You will also be wanting the trigger for the weapon. It is in a clearsteel case in the room behind me. Please. Handle it with great care.”
Gabe turned and nodded to Quinn. The agent stepped forward with a unit to clone the chip, but before his hand closed about it, the room was rocked by a massive explosion that knocked everyone inside to their knees.
{Foxtrot Three, report!}
Sasha’s voice shot across the combat net, but there was no answer.
She motioned to one of the soldiers who had accompanied her, and the woman held her P-SCAR at the ready before triggering the door open.
She darted out, only to come up short.
{Impound vehicle’s been hit. Foxtrot Three and Four are down. No sign of the Akkadians.}
TO SAVE HAWKING
Olympic Park, Midland
Hawking Habitat
The assassin’s sudden appearance, and the data chip she’d left behind when she subsequently disappeared, had been enough to convince the summit’s event coordinators to evacuate the building.
On the heels of that had come the news that Wraith had just transitioned from Scharnhorst space just outside Hawking’s no-wake zone, and docked at the Belly Band. Thad had the task force and all four SRU teams on standby, ready to deploy.
Micah sent Jonathan the feed from the combat net, and they all watched as the raid on the Akkadian safehouse went down. Because they were monitoring all the feeds, they saw a lone Akkadian—one the raid had missed—step out from behind an adjacent building and throw the grenade at Foxtrot Three.
Micah was on his feet and running right before the rumble from the explosion several blocks away made itself heard. Another soldier’s combat HUD showed the Akkadians overpowering the stunned operatives as the terrorists made good their escape.
{We’re on our way down,} Thad’s voice rumbled in his head.
{Copy. I’ll meet you at the elevator.}
Micah pushed through the crowd until he found a familiar face within the Protective Services detail. He waved Ginder forward.
“That explosion
—” she began.
“Akkadian terrorists,” he told her. “Make sure that no one goes back in that building!” He pushed an address to her wire. “We need medical support. There are soldiers down at this location.”
“Wait!” she called after him, but Micah just raised a hand as he raced through the city streets.
Thad’s voice sounded on the combat net. {Alvarez. Sitrep.}
Micah listened with half an ear as Gabe updated them. He pushed past an ever-enlarging crowd as curious and panicked people streamed from nearby buildings, all wondering what had caused the big boom they’d just heard.
Gabe’s voice came back onto the net. {Our friendly Akkadian assassin tells us that the ostovar leading the terrorist cell had instructions to sow as much chaos as possible and then slip away in the confusion.}
{Any idea what is meant by that?}
There was a pause.
{There is some disagreement,} Ell chimed in, {but the assassin believes they’ll head inland instead of to Portsmouth.}
{Inland,} Thad repeated.
{That’s habitat-speak for away from the end of the cylinder.}
Micah’s attention sharpened at that. {What kind of chaos could they create? What would be big enough to cover their retreat?}
An alert came over Hawking’s public net, overriding every other EM signal.
{Alert! Alert!} the recorded voice said. {Olympic Park Forestry reports several fires. Repeat, there are several confirmed fire incidents at Olympic Park. Alert! Alert!}
A string of low curses sounded over the combat net.
{That is not good, Thad,} Ell’s voice broke in.
{I know, cher.}
* * *
The crowd thinned, and Micah broke into a run. He could feel Jonathan’s presence inside his head, a silent companion, standing by to jump in if needed.
{ETA two minutes,} Micah told Thad. {You have any connections with the habitat’s firefighters?}
{Workin’ on it.}
By the time he met up with Thad, Boone had commandeered a skimmer, and the three were loaded and waiting. Boone slid over so Micah could fly.
“Go here.” Thad pushed coordinates to him, and Micah turned the small vessel’s nose toward it.
They overflew a narrow finger-like lake that stretched beyond visual range across the habitat’s cross-section.
Olympic Lake, Jonathan supplied. Goes around the entire circumference.
Beyond that, a long green strip of pastureland ran the length of the cylinder, bordered by acres and acres of woodland. Micah could see smoke billowing up from several places within the dense, forested hills.
Reports are coming in, Jonathan added. They’re saying the fires were started with flash-bangs.
Thanks, bro. I’ll update Thad.
A few minutes later, and Micah could see the coordinates led to a clearing where a steady stream of drones, shuttles, and Firestrikes were departing. Each vessel was laden with firefighters or fire retardant nano, or both.
He brought the skimmer down at the far end of the glade, where they would be out of the way of departing ships. Thad was out the door before the little vessel had fully stopped. Micah powered the skimmer down, set its parking brakes, and followed him out.
“What’s the plan?” he asked.
“If we can tap into the drone feed, we might be able to spot those couyon before they get too far. And when I get my hands on them, I’m going to—”
“Wait in line while I kick the shit out of them,” a new voice cut in.
The woman striding toward them was lean and hard-bitten. The fire chief had the look of someone used to fighting an enemy that had no compassion and took no nights off.
“You the one who asked for the feed?” she barked.
Thad nodded.
“I’m not re-tasking them for you under any circumstances until these fires are under control, so don’t even ask.”
“Understood.”
She gave a curt nod, and with it came an invitation to join the Forestry Service’s feed.
Micah flipped through the various drones that were aloft, familiarizing himself with the terrain from an aerial point of view. He accessed Hawking’s pub net and pulled up a map of the forest, laying the drones’ eyes overtop.
“Look at this.” With a mental swipe, he added a line that showed the progression of the fires.
It wasn’t perfect; the Akkadians must have had the backup plan in place prior to today. But if one discounted the first kilometer or so of forest land that ran along the lake, the later fires did seem to point in a particular direction.
“If we assume the assassin’s not leading us astray, and they really are on their way to the south end, then—”
“Then we can project where they’ll be.” Thad looked thoughtful.
“I have three packages of surveillance microdrones on me,” Boone said, patting his tactical vest. “If we can release them while we’re in flight, we might be able to pinpoint their location.”
The fire chief held up her hand. “I’m sorry. I can’t let you overfly an active fire. It’s too dangerous.”
“We’ll be—”
“Not to you,” she interrupted. “To my firefighters.”
Thad stood straight. “I work Air Attack on Ceriba, cher. I know my way around a fire.”
The woman squinted at Thad. “And him?” She jabbed a thumb in Micah’s direction.
“Best damn Firestrike pilot you’ll ever see,” Thad supplied.
She grunted and waved to a Firestrike sitting on the line. “Too bad you’re not habitat-rated. Fire’s one of the worst things that can happen inside Hawking, and I’m short a pilot.”
Micah stared down at the Firestrike, noting the bladder attached to its belly, and an idea began to form.
He nodded to the large, rounded tank at the end of the small runway. “Is that filled with fire retardant nano?”
She nodded.
“The red goo? The kind that sticks to every surface and is impossible to get rid of?”
Thad looked over at him. “You got an idea, hoss?”
Micah jerked his chin toward the container at the end of the airstrip. “It’d be awful hard to hide, dressed in fire retardant red. Be even easier to find someone covered in it, especially if we add some trackers into the mix.”
The woman shot him a stern look. “Not so fast. You aren’t licensed. Flying to fire on a planet is not the same as flying inside a habitat. Our airspace is limited, and we have at least two plasma tubes that generate our magnetosphere cutting their way right across your flight path.”
We could do it if we gestalt.
Oddly, Jonathan’s words sounded closer. Micah understood why when he heard a second skimmer closing fast.
Thad looked up. “Good. About time.”
Micah just managed to stop his jaw from falling open. {It’s one thing to break protocol when we’re in two separate star systems. Does Valenti know about this?}
The Marine shot him a sidelong look. “Hoss, when boots are on the ground during an op, I call the shots. And right now, we need to stop these couyon before they further endanger the hundreds of thousands of lives on this habitat.”
Jonathan brought the skimmer down beside the first one, and Thad took the woman aside to negotiate their use of the Firestrike. Five minutes later, Thad was back. A second after that, Micah saw an access token for the Firestrike show up on his overlay.
“Load in. I want to be airborne in five.”
Micah sat as pilot, Jonathan copilot. Thad and Boone were webbed into the flight engineer and gunner’s cradles respectively, while Asha was clipped to a tether beside the Firestrike’s port hatch.
Jonathan established a ship’s net and brought the others into the connection.
{How much red goo you got in that bladder, hoss?} Thad asked as he came online.
Jonathan pulled up the specs. {Five thousand liters.}
The Marine grunted. {That ought to be enough.}
M
icah brought the ship online, and with a light touch, pulled back on the controls, lifting the aircraft off the grass strip. From this elevation, they could see the thickening clouds of smoke.
Doesn’t look good.
Micah felt the quick look Jonathan sent his way. Agreed.
He looked down at the controls. The decommissioned Novastrike had the same SyntheticVision system all Navy ships used, though this one
Instantly, his vision became one with the ship. Below, it was filled with the greens of the tree crowns they skimmed. Above, it was the blue of the sky, mingled with clouds and smoke and the plasma tubes the fire chief had warned about.
Crashing into one of those would make for a very bad day.
Along with his expanded senses came the growing awareness of his other self. As Micah slid deeper into his merge with the ship, the clarity of his chiral connection became sharper, more defined, his every sense elevated.
Thad’s voice intruded into their link. {Air Attack is coordinating the fire runs and is on this channel.}
An icon blinked over the ship’s net, and Micah tied the comm channel into the Firestrike, bringing its chatter in low under their own ship’s net.
{They’re running a corridor here and here. Swing to your left and give them a wide berth. Then head for these coordinates.}
The Marine dropped a pin on an area beyond the most recently reported fire, along the estimated track of the Akkadians.
{Copy,} Micah sent, and the Firestrike nosed over in that direction.
* * *
As they flew, Jonathan pulled up the feed from the fire drones. It showed the fires progressing at a rate of ten kilometers an hour, and in places where it broke out into the grasslands bordering the wooded terrain, the fires leapt ahead, racing closer to twenty kilometers an hour.
The first fire had been reported forty minutes ago. It was sobering to see the speed at which the flames spread.
Let’s get these jokers tagged so we can help douse these flames, Jonathan sent.
You’ll get no argument from me.
As they closed on Thad’s mark, a proximity alert sounded. In an instant, Micah’s world shrank to a world of sensor returns, instrument panels, and control surfaces as he and Jonathan sank completely into their merge with the ship.
The Chiral Protocol – A Military Science Fiction Thriller: Biogenesis War Book 2 (The Biogenesis War) Page 31