They must be desperate, Glen realised. Federation Marines were hardly Dragon stormtroopers, but they were outsiders. Even colonial troops would be considered outsiders on a colony world. Inserting them into the situation, even at the request of the local government, risked setting off an explosion. But he’d already promised himself that he would do everything he could to help.
“Check the ROE, then deploy the Marines,” he ordered, finally. “We will operate under the government’s regulations.”
“Understood,” Sandy said.
Glen scowled down at his desk, then paged Cynthia. Intelligence would have to be informed that there was a possible leak, but ... he felt his scowl deepen. Cynthia would accuse Sandy and anyone else with colonial ties, no matter how weak or insignificant. The witch-hunts for Dragon spies had been bad enough; thankfully, the Dragons had never been very good at intelligence-gathering. Looking for colonial spies – or even sympathisers – might tear the TFN apart.
“I need to talk to you,” he ordered, when she answered. “Come to my office, now.”
***
The attack pattern was precisely the same as the one the raiders had followed on Tyson’s Rest, Sandy noted, as the shuttles came into land. Government buildings, military bases, communications centres ... everywhere that could help keep order after the attack had been ruthlessly blasted from orbit. The population still seemed largely stunned, although she’d picked up messages suggesting that there was looting and rioting in some parts of the city. Lumpur was old enough to lack the social cohesion of Landing City on Tyson’s Rest. Instead of pulling together, the population was turning on itself.
She braced herself as the shuttle settled down on the grassy park. It wasn't an ideal landing zone, but the Marines had landed on worse. As soon as the shuttle had touched down, the Marines scrambled out and took up defensive positions, carrying stunners rather than their heavy assault rifles. The local government ROE were, it seemed, very lax. Sandy had made it clear to Jess, who had made it clear to her people, that lethal force was to be used as the very last resort. The media would quite happily take a single incident and blow it out of all proportion.
“All deployed,” Jess reported, as the Marines fanned out. “Where is our liaison officer?”
Sandy shrugged. The local government seemed to be hanging by a thread. Clearly, they'd had at least one bunker that had remained undiscovered by the raiders, but most of their communications were gone. She looked over at the remains of the Presidential Palace and shuddered. The ruins were still smouldering after the strike. If the President had been in there at the time, he was dead. It was highly unlikely that there were any survivors.
“Hey,” a voice called. Sandy turned to see a young man wearing a militia uniform. “You the Marines?”
No, we’re the Dragons, Sandy thought. She didn't say it out loud. The militia command network had to have been shattered too, leaving junior officers in command – if, of course, their units hadn't disintegrated when the planet had been attacked. In her experience, planetary militia formations were always a mixed bag, even in the colonies. And this world had actually been invaded and ground under by the Dragons. It was a marvel that they’d managed to rebuild as much as they had.
“Yes, we’re the Marines,” she said, quietly ignoring the fact she wasn't a Marine. Jess chuckled faintly through the communications link. “Where do you want us to go?”
The next hour proved nightmarish. Lumpur’s population was larger than Landing City’s and the number of dead or wounded were consequently higher. The hospitals hadn't been targeted deliberately, but they were utterly overwhelmed by the sheer weight of casualties, forcing them to conscript people from the streets and press them into service as orderlies. A number of doctors seemed to have gone missing or simply couldn't make their way to the hospitals. It was all a ghastly mess.
Sandy tried to speak with the local government, but the sole surviving senior official seemed completely overwhelmed by the crisis. He kept muttering about investment, as if it mattered in the aftermath of the attack. Sandy couldn't blame him for being shocked, but there was no time. He was the man in charge, even if he’d never expected to be promoted to supreme power. Her father would probably have shot him by now.
Instead, she found herself helping in the nearest hospital. The mood of the crowd outside was ugly, despite their shock; if it hadn't been for the armoured Marines, Sandy suspected that there would have been a riot. She’d seen people hurt before, in fighting or even training, but this was different. This was as horrific as the sights she’d seen during the war. She caught sight of a young boy who would be lucky to ever walk again, unless he received expensive regeneration treatment. It was unlikely to be available in time to save his life.
“Put him in stasis,” Doctor Foster ordered. “We will have to keep him frozen until we can treat him properly.”
There was no alternative, Sandy knew. But she wondered if there was a stasis pod left on the entire planet. The people responsible for the attack, whoever they were, had to be stopped before they blighted many more young lives. And yet, she knew it would be hard to find them. They had the entire sector to hide in, including the lawless regions along the borderline. As long as they took care, they could ensure that they were never found.
Slowly, an idea started to form in her mind. Maybe there was a way to locate the raiders. It would be risky, but after what she’d seen ... it was worth any risk, just to stop the bastards before it was too late.
Chapter Twenty-One
Sandy looked terrible, Glen saw, as she came into his office and collapsed on the sofa. Her bearing suggested complete exhaustion, so complete that he almost called the doctor to insist that she be given something to help her sleep. But there was a light in her eye that made him stay his hand. Instead, he poured her a cup of tea and watched as she sipped it, gratefully.
“I was thinking about ways to tackle them,” Sandy said, once she had swallowed half of the cup. “They’re not likely to stand around and wait for us to catch them, so we need to get ahead of them.”
Glen nodded. He’d had the same thought. But short of guessing the right target correctly, he knew that setting a trap would be almost impossible. The best idea he’d had so far was to lurk in the next system they visited, hoping that they could get into engagement range before the enemy realised that they were there. And yet the enemy would have to expect that ...
“Assuming that they’re the ones recruiting the really unpleasant mercenaries,” Sandy continued, “we have a potential way to get someone into their band. We just need someone willing to play mercenary until they get into the right position. That person would have to join them and ...”
Glen blinked in surprise. “That person might not be snapped up by the right people,” he pointed out, when he had recovered. “There’s too much that could go wrong.”
“It won’t have a hope of working if we don’t do it at all,” Sandy pointed out, dryly. “I’m willing to take the risk. I’d just need to find a volunteer to join me.”
“I see,” Glen said. “You plan to undertake the mission yourself?”
“One of the people involved has to be a colonial,” Sandy said. “A bunch of strangers from the other side of the Great Wall would raise suspicions. Ideally, the other people have to have some good reason for their records. I was thinking about asking Jess to volunteer.”
She outlined her plan, piece by piece. “It isn't that uncommon to have feds serving in the Colonial Militia,” she said. “We’ll talk Independence into helping us; they can dump us on a lawless world, with a record that will make most ordinary recruiters take one look and run for their lives. Being marooned on a planetary surface isn't an uncommon punishment, particularly for non-career officers. Our records will ensure that we don’t get any legitimate offers of employment.”
Glen scowled. “They'd check, surely,” he objected.
Sandy snorted. “With whom?”
Her face twisted into a ti
red smile. “This isn’t the Federation,” she reminded him. “There aren't really any qualification certificates out here, nothing that might help them track us over a dozen star systems. We’ll look like a pair of spacers who hired themselves to the Colonial Militia for a few months. Plenty of those around, Captain. And then we got booted off the ship for gross misconduct.”
“Or so you’ll tell them,” Glen said. He hesitated. The whole plan seemed crazy to him. “But what if they do catch you?”
“Then we die,” Sandy said, simply. “I figure we’ll tell them that we were trying to cover up prisoner mistreatment or something along those lines. No direct evidence, but the CO had enough suspicion to fire our asses and dump us on the nearest world. And enough penalties loaded onto our IDs to make abandoning them a requirement. We’ll look like ideal recruits.”
Glen rolled his eyes. In the Federation Navy, anyone caught committing an offense, as laid down in naval regulations, would be dishonourably discharged, dumped on a penal world or executed, depending on the offence. There was no provision for marooning a crewman, no matter how much he deserved it. He couldn't imagine any situation in which the broad authority of a Captain could be bent to allow it to happen. The fact the colonials could ...
“The Federation Navy is largely professional,” Sandy explained. She'd clearly read his puzzlement on his face. “Even the crewmen who aren't in the Navy for life are tied down for five to ten years, depending on their enlistment. The Colonial Militia doesn't have that option, not really. Taking on someone to serve for a brief period ... yes, it happens.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Glen said. The Federation Naval Reserves could be recalled to duty if necessary, but they weren't so ... unprofessional. “So you believe that you will be picked up by the raiders?”
“Dawson is ten light years from here,” Sandy said. She yawned suddenly, then tried to hide it. “Independence can make a detour there before Dauntless heads to her next destination. No one will really be surprised if we get dumped on the surface and just abandoned, not with the records we’ll have. And we know from ... from the General that the raiders have been recruiting from Dawson.”
Glen accessed his implants, scanning the file. Dawson had been largely abandoned in the wake of the war, creating a power vacuum that had turned the world into a centre of criminal activity. The government didn't regulate anything, beyond ensuring that whatever happened off-planet never touched the surface. They didn't even consider themselves part of the Bottleneck Republic. For one reason or another, the Colonial Militia hadn't done anything about it, just leaving the planet to fester. No doubt the Governor would insist that they did something about Dawson. But with the demands on the militia’s time and resources, it was unlikely that anything would be done quickly.
The thought of sending Sandy there, even with Jess or another Marine as an escort, was chilling. But she was right. If it was possible to get someone onboard a raider ship, it had to be done.
“If you can get a volunteer to go with you, you can go,” he said, reluctantly. Sending his XO into danger bothered him, if only because it would put an inexperienced officer in Sandy’s place. But he could carry out most of her duties himself. “And I’d suggest you told as few people as possible,”
He briefly outlined to Sandy what Cynthia had suggested, when he’d discussed the matter with her. Cynthia hadn't quite abandoned the idea that Sandy was the spy, although Sandy’s willingness to leave the ship suggested otherwise. However, the intelligence officer had made it clear that they had to restrict information as much as possible. Who knew who was leaking information, deliberately or otherwise, to the raiders?
“We’ll need Captain Goerlich’s assistance,” Sandy said. “He may have to inform some of his crew. Everyone else ... will be kept out of the loop.”
She gave him a rather morbid smile. “With your permission,” she said, “I’ll speak to him and Jess now, then get some rest. And then I’ll rewrite my will.”
Glen winced. He'd be sending her off on her own – or accompanied by at most one other person – and she would succeed or fail without assistance from him and the ship. Indeed, it was quite possible that he would never see her again. Part of him wanted to refuse her suggestion, to deny her the chance to infiltrate the raiders ... but he knew that he had to put his personal feelings aside. He was responsible for her, yet he was also responsible for using her as best he could. And she was right. There was no one else.
She had to carry out the mission.
Success pardons everything, he told himself. The Admiralty would certainly raise eyebrows at a CO who sent his XO and the senior Marine off on a dangerous mission. Even if it succeeded, hard questions would still be asked.
“You may do so,” he said. “And good luck.”
“Thank you, sir,” Sandy said, rising to her feet. “I won’t let you down.”
***
Jess looked thoroughly annoyed when she stamped out of the shuttle, heading towards Sandy with a murderous glint in her eye. Entire platoons could be recalled from the surface with no slight on their honour, but recalling a single Marine was odd. It would probably pass unnoticed among the naval personnel, yet the Marines would notice and ask questions.
“This had better be important,” Jess said. “We were doing good work down there.”
“This is important,” Sandy assured her. She didn't say anything else until they were in one of the privacy tubes, where long-standing custom forbade any kind of surveillance devices. “I need you.”
Jess glanced around at the compartment, then back at Sandy. “What ...?”
“My sense of humour requires work,” Sandy admitted, flushing. The privacy tubes were used by crewmen who had formed relationships with other crewmen. As long as the Navy’s regulations were upheld, what happened in the tubes stayed in the tubes. She pushed her embarrassment aside and continued. “There is a mission that requires someone like you.”
She outlined the idea briefly. Jess was a Federation Marine, which would provide a suitable motive for Captain Goerlich to hire her in the first place. A little fiddling could provide a record that suggested that she’d been told she needed to leave the Marines, which could cover a multitude of sins. Marine records were not available to civilians in any case, so it would be difficult for the raiders to identify Jess, even if they did check.
And Jess did have some experience in undercover work.
“Chancy,” Jess said, finally. “How sure are you that it will work?”
“I’m not,” Sandy said. There was no point in trying to dissemble. “But we have to get ahead of the bastards somehow.”
“Being dumped on a planet,” Jess said, shaking her head. “My reputation will never live it down.”
Sandy said nothing. She just waited.
“Very well,” Jess said. “I will come with you.”
“Good,” Sandy said. She yawned before she could stop herself. “Get some rest, then we’ll report to Captain Goerlich. Independence will take us to Dawson.”
She opened the hatch and stepped out into the passageway, thinking hard. They'd have to come up with a record that gave a believable reason they’d been marooned, rather than simply put out the airlock. Even the Colonial Militia took a dim view of some offences ... and it would have to seem bad enough to merit recruitment into the raiders. Cursing, she headed towards her cabin. They had a day to come up with a record that would ensure the only offers they received were illegitimate. That shouldn’t be too hard.
***
“So our benefactor has money,” Dana said, as the shuttle drifted towards Ford’s starship. “It's always nice to see proof.”
Jason scowled. The encounter with the Federation starship had gone about as well as could be expected, but it had unsettled some of his crew. Who would have thought that the Federation Navy would risk itself to protect colonials? Jason knew better, but colonial propaganda was insidious. After all, they had been abandoned by the Federation Navy during the
war.
He studied Ford’s starship curiously. It looked like an older Federation Navy battlecruiser, a long dagger-shape bristling with weapons and sensor nodes. Jason was experienced enough to tell the subtle signs that indicated that it was actually a fast freighter built on a battlecruiser hull, a design created by a shipping corporation hoping to deter pirates from raiding its vessels. The design had proven popular enough to be duplicated by other companies, although it was actually quite inefficient. There was no way that the ‘battlecruiser’ could be unloaded as quickly as a regular freighter.
“I bet some of those fake nodes are actually real,” Dana offered, wriggling girlishly. “And that the ship is actually armed to the teeth.”
Jason wouldn't have been surprised. The feds charged through the nose for armed freighter licences, but Ford’s backers, whoever they were, had plenty of money. Besides, even the most expensive licence was cheaper than replacing the ship and crew after a pirate attack. He kept that thought to himself as the shuttle drifted into the docking bay and dropped down onto the deck. The hatch opened, revealing a man in an environmental suit, who beckoned for the two visitors to follow him. Rolling his eyes – it wasn't as though he was going to reveal anything to the Federation or the Colonial Militia – Jason allowed the man to lead them into a small compartment. Mr. Ford was waiting, sitting at a small metal table.
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