The Syracuse Deception

by T. S. Williams

  “Body guard” she replied cuttingly. “Don’t Laurentians learn the classics anymore?”.

  He ploughed past the taunt “Can we copy it?”.

  “Probably not in the time available. Take them down with you. They hardly need to guard me Dreadnought”.

  “Thank you” Magnus said suspiciously “I’ll take you up on that”.

  Magnus left Hecate to be escorted back to the diplomatic suite and headed directly for the conference room. Enroute, he pinged a message via mind’s eye direct to Armstrong, Cartwright and Athena, “Please meet me in the conference room, with celerity”.

  He arrived first took a seat at the head of the table and waited. Armstrong strolled in next. Seeing as not everyone was present he grabbed a coffee and a snack then sat down. He placed a plate on the table with green chopped vegetables with some cream cheese. Cartwright followed. For the first time in days, she’d changed from duty uniform into ship’s overalls. Fresh grease and grime streaked across her. She grabbed a tea and biscuit before sitting down.

  “Sorry Skipper” she gestured at overalls, “You said, with celerity”.

  Armstrong piped up “Yeah, keep your greasy mitts off mine…………… respectfully, Lieutenant”.

  “I’m sorry, your what?”.

  “Celerity. I prefer cucumber myself, but rank has its privileges”.

  “Thanks Jack. And moving swiftly on……Ah! Thanks for joining us Athena”.

  Magnus paused as Athena retrieved a tea from the extruder and sat down.

  Then he gestured at the plate in the centre of the table “Please. The celerity is excellent……… I need a shore team. I can’t go myself. I want you three to with Cartwright to lead, take Thresher and Lincoln”.

  “Skipper, that’s not many to infiltrate past a Blight attack”.

  “Our Lakedaemian guests are offering four more and a device that mimics blight emissions”.

  “I’m leaving now. Show me a plan before we arrive in high orbit”. He got up and walked out to two acknowledgements of “Aye, Skipper” and a much quieter “Oh fuck”.

  Dreadnought fell into synchronous orbit over Socotra three. Directly above the Lakedaemian research base. Her gamma cannons lashed out repeatedly at the Blight shipwreck and constructs moving on the surface, vaporising the Blight.

  In the hangar bay, the transport shuttle was prepped for launch. Her nine-strong human payload sat quietly, strapped to their acceleration chairs. All present were in full powered armour. In the case of the Hippeis, four chairs had been extended specifically for their battle suits.

  In the cargo hold, Cartwright’s heavily personalised tool-mule was loaded down with explosives, cutting equipment and an oversized hacking module.

  It had been impossible to duplicate the Lakedaemian Blight jammer each Hippeus had built into their battle suits. Instead, electronic warfare modules had been attached to each Laurentian in addition to standard equipment and set to repeat transmissions from the Hippeis. A chancy solution, but no worse than the normal risk of combat.

  Corporal Armstrong had requisitioned a pack of dog drones for himself and his Paratroopers. Each could copy the Hippeis, but were rigged for stealth. Cartwright set her tool-mule up as a comms relay for both halves of the shore party. Everything their differing systems saw was translated through her.

  The transport shuttle departed from Dreadnought and spiralled down through the atmosphere towards the base. Over the short flight, Dreadnought struck out at targets on the ground fifteen times with her gamma cannons.

  Due to the transport shuttle’s vulnerability, it didn’t set down. Instead, nine pairs of armour boots leaped off her cargo ramp with their equipment.

  Over the last fifty metres of their fall, para-gravitic packs slowed them down to the equivalent of stepping off a curb. The four Hippeis showed no fear using unfamiliar equipment from their great rival. That could be they were brave, a more cynical mind might have other thoughts.

  They landed on the camouflage runway in battle order. The dog drones fanned out around them. The Hippeis Ypodekaneas, Jason Andreou, was in charge of the rear guard. Armstrong and his two Paras for the vanguard, whilst Athena and Cartwright moved in the middle of the formation.

  The group approached the hangar doors, set low under an overhanging cliff face. They had already been brutalised by the previous attacking force. There were no signs of survivors, no distress broadcasts. A lot of people had died here at the hands of the Blight. Or worse.

  The dog drones now sprinted ahead, set to self-terminate if infected. They disappeared into the hangar, stringing themselves out to act as relays where line of sight transmissions would otherwise be blocked.

  The Lakedaemian forces holding this facility had fought hard. Blight constructs littered the hanger and the corridors leading away from it. Armstrong experienced a perverse relief that the remains of each Lakedaemian soldier they found had died facing their attackers. When there was enough face left to determine that anyway.

  The group stopped at the first intact security terminal they could find. Ypodekaneas Andreou tried accessing the security terminal via a communications block. The block was compromised by Blight hacking routines the instant after handshake. Andreou threw it at a wall in disgust. It shattered like china on impact.

  Cartwright opened a private channel to Andreou through her mind’s eye and the tool-mule. “Lance-Corporal, I’d like to try some Laurentian tech before we give up here”.

  There was a pregnant pause “The Yponavarchos explained my cooperation with you was not optional Lieutenant. Take your best shot. Even a simple soldier can see this base is a write-off”.

  Cartwright pulled a large hacking module off the tool-mule. The joy of Laurentia’s powered armour was how little it interfered with work. The molecules of the armour could flow from her hands back up her arms in an instant, or return just the same way. For this job, her fingers had only a thin film of protection she could barely feel.

  The hacking module wirelessly fought for dominance for over a minute, with no success. Via mind’s eye, Cartwright received a warning that a hard connection was necessary to breach the base’s cyber defences. Andreou reached under the terminal and began bashing his armour fingers into the casing. After two blows the case gave out. He pulled back with a handful of alloy, leaving a data port exposed.

  The hacking module’s universal dongle quickly adapted itself to fit. It ran an intrusion sequence whilst the assembled soldiers nervously looked up and down the nearby corridor. The dog drones had disappeared into air ducts, false ceilings, maintenance spaces, whatever they could find, letting them reconnoitre the local area for hostile Lakedaemians or Blight constructs.

  After a few more nervous minutes, the hacking module dropped a simple map into Cartwright’s mind’s eye, with known Blight positions marked with red. Cartwright’s experienced eye could pick out power relays, security systems and access ways indicating further undocumented areas off the grid.

  Cartwright spent a few moments explaining her intended route to her team then Armstrong directed the dog drones to sweep ahead.

  The small band moved out, heading much deeper into the base.

  Chapter 12

  Inquisitor Dardanus had been enjoying his posting to Naval Station Archimedes. Working in the great heart of Principality’s defences had a sense of permanence he’d lacked until now. He had been a roving Inquisitor across the six other systems in the Principality for twenty-five years. Fourteen months ago, he was moved to a Customs task force on Archimedes. The station was very spacious after so long in one cramped ship or another. But in the last week, he’d been assigned the most dangerous case of his career.

  Dardanus stood in an observation blister watching the flow of traffic over the civilian dock and letting his wandering mind be guided by the flickering lights. He was close enough that his naked eye revealed even the smallest thruster lighting off.

  Blisters like this were virtually unused across the station. In mor
e peaceful times, the public had thronged for such a view. But the Empire was more paranoid now, than when Archimedes was first carved out of a convenient asteroid. The blisters were off limits now.

  The sun light this far out into the Syracuse system was weak and hours old by the time it got out to Archimedes. Despite that, far off in the darkness he could just make out the spinning blades fondly known as the egg beater. That was just the nearest one of three, known collectively as the jump shield. Together they prevented ships arriving via FTL from coming too close to or worse inside of Archimedes. Or at least they should have.

  Someone had interfered with the operation of the egg beaters on a several occasions in the last two years. Poor maintenance was the local story. But that didn’t explain why Proconsul Kreon had received orders from the very top, the Central Inquisitorial Directorate on the Imperial capital, for the Syracuse Inquisition Office to open up a case file on the matter. The choice of case officer had been dictated from CID too. Enter Dardanus.

  A full cargo container of the most illicit of substances wouldn’t be worth the price of hacking the jump shield. If a defendant was caught risking the Principality’s security, Imperial justice would not be merciful.

  So here Dardanus was musing over his case, with one of the most beautiful views available in the system. Others preferred the blue skies available down on planet Syracuse, the Principality’s capital and namesake. Dardanus had seen Dion City whilst working a case early in his career. The humidity and the insects had bothered him more than he cared to admit. He didn’t rate life of a ball of mud. He assumed it was something you had to be born to, whereas Dardanus’ own life began on a family run freighter flying interstellar between Syracuse and Lakedaemonia, the Imperial capital world.

  He continued to stand patiently, his smart-com in his hand, as the access hatch back through the hull into the station proper scraped open loudly. He didn’t need to look up. He knew who was coming. His Inquisitorial status granted access to almost all the Station’s security sensors and he used it. Dardanus was a paranoid man.

  He knew his current assignment would buy him deep trouble of the political kind whether he succeeded or failed. Both here in the Principality or CID on the Capital. His best hope was actually to run the investigation out for so long he was moved to a different priority.

  But the path of least resistance was not in his nature. Neither was it in the nature of the person he was here to meet. Tagmatarchis Alexi Halkyone, Imperial Navy’s Office of Strategic Intelligence, was deeply unhappy. Not with the Empire, the Emperor or Syracuse’s ruler, Clone Prince Ptolemy Alexander. No, she was angry at the callous and incompetent nature of the bureaucracy that claimed to serve them.

  Her role in OSI had led her to investigate the ‘unexpected component failures’ compromising the jump shield. She had determined it was actually part of an astro-engineering firm’s attempt to avoid their contractual obligations to properly investigating the faults. She hadn’t been able to push past the Principality’s bureaucracy. Instead she’d engineered an Inquisitorial investigation mandated from the capital.

  Halkyone’s name would be cursed by the lips of Syracuse Principality’s richest families if anyone that found out. Nobody ever forgave calling down the Imperial Eyes upon their interests.

  Unlike most of Archimedes population, her tanned complexion had survived the artificial lighting. Her hair was grown long and normally wrapped up in a regulation bun, though today it was worn long over her shoulders.

  Instead of her regular uniform, she wore a stylish blue dress which complemented her petite build. To casual observers, she gave off the air of someone on a first date. Her black eyes would give her away though. They were hard were like coal. The clandestine rendezvous and mild disguise had been planned to keep secret the identity of CID’s source.

  Halkyone had come to meet Dardanus and provide the evidence she promised. Everyone knew, once you made a promise to the Inquisition, you have better follow through on it.

  The data card she was carrying had two years of raw data for traffic control patterns, jump shield performance, docks security sensors and her analysis of the material. She’d had to beg, borrow and misappropriate to gather it all. Then it took weeks to process it.

  As Halkyone walked Dardanus through her stack of evidence, he formed a picture of significant smuggling activity through the civilian docks. The local security was looking the other way, due to threats or bribes. When the Imperial Revenue wanted to take a cut, there was motive for some to avoid paying it. It wasn’t the real reason though. Something deeper and far more dangerous was at work.

  Someone was misclassifying incoming FTL jumps during the periods the jump shield was down. Unidentified contacts were jumping in close to the station and being written off as false positives in the sensor logs. Halkyone explained the risks to someone with only a limited understanding of naval matters. The real danger was a surprise attack on Syracuse fleet moored here at Naval Station Archimedes. That would put the whole Empire in jeopardy.

  Halkyone’s detailed analysis had found four ships were always present for failures of the jump shield. The Clipper Spirit of Free Enterprise, a mega-freighter, the Jolly Green Giant, the independent trader Seagull and the Asteria. The last was a venerable cruiser, detached from the Imperial Navy, to personally serve Clone Prince Ptolemy Alexander.

  For the civil ships, Dardanus could see some advantages. They were likely picking up contraband goods from secure Imperial space, their documentations would show inspection by customs at Naval Station Archimedes, leaving them as low priority for any other Imperial Customs patrols who came across them. The Asteria was a surprise and harder to explain. As a military ship, she shouldn’t have any interest in the civilian docks and she wasn’t subject to Customs. What could make a Lakedaemian ship master bored of ferrying round a member of the Royal family really see enough profit to risk his career, his income, a long spell in military prison or perhaps his very life? Despite a life time dealing with criminality in space, nothing sprang to Dardanus’ fertile mind, yet.

  The costs in bribes to get that much authority abused would be beyond simple smugglers. Only the largest foreign nations could write that many blank checks. Espionage was beyond Halkyone’s expertise. She could deduce out the capabilities of Laurentia’s latest missile destroyer from a handful of mismatched intel reports, no problem. Counter-intelligence investigation, not so much. No wonder Halkyone had pushed to get a proper investigation started.

  Dardanus stayed a long time after Halkyone had left, staring out at the lights of the docks. He quietly mulled over all the toes this would step on. A lot of well-connected people were about to lose money, power and influence. If he survived all this, it would be time for a transfer. Far, far away.

  When he eventually left, he headed straight back to his alternative accommodation. A tiny one room apartment in the Station’s old quarter was an untraceable hideaway.

  Halkyone’s evidence pack was everything CID hoped for. He completed a case summary to preface the material, along with a request for an Empire wide warrant on the civilian ships Halkyone had identified. No Magistrate would ever consider granting one on the Asteria and Dardanus didn’t want that level of scrutiny.

  Dardanus enciphered the whole package as per the instructions from CID and used his Inquisitorial authority to upload it to an express comms drone. With luck, he would receive a reply in a day or less. After that, the whole Imperial law enforcement community would be on the lookout for his quarries.

  He eventually fell asleep on the fold down bed in his cubby hole. He would have to surface tomorrow, but for tonight, at least he could rest safe.

  Dardanus reported in early the next day to the Inquisitorial Office in the administration quarter of Archimedes station. As he sat at his desk drinking strong coffee, he kept expecting a summons to some senior official’s office with a demand Dardanus explain himself. He worked through days of messages he’d been ignoring, flirted mildly with
the office newbie and generally pretended everything was normal.

  In the end, he did get a call to see his boss, it just didn’t play out as expected.

  Just after lunch, Chief Inquisitor Arborlis strolled up with and a smile on his gruff face. Forty years of experience had left him humourless and unapproachable. But not today. Dardanus found the uncharacteristic good humour vaguely disconcerting.

  The Chief Inquisitor spoke, his growl softened by his mood “Inquisitor Dardanus, I have some good news. Come to my Office”.

  Dardanus nodded his assent and followed, his suspicion warring with his curiosity.

  Once in the office, Arborlis tapped a button by the door, the glass wall looking out over the investigation section darkened. Dardanus found his attention immediately drawn to a figure standing by the desk. The man was dressed blandly, his clothes dark and his visage forgettable. The figure proffered his smart-com with a casual flick of his nearest wrist, though his grip looked stronger than his manner implied. Dardanus brought out his own and tapped the identify symbol. The figure then brought his other hand into view, revealing a discretely armoured brief case secured to him via a cuff.

  Dardanus paused, confused, then a red hand print projected out of the case. Dardanus placed his right hand on the symbol. The symbol turned green and the cuff unlocked. The mysterious courier left the office, and the case, without saying a word.

  Arborlis waved Dardanus into a chair opposite his desk.

  “Looks like your investigation is turning heads in the capital”. The Chief Inquisitor sounded a little jealous.

  Dardanus pursed his lips thoughtfully. He’d not expected all the security melodrama. “My Source has provided some explosive evidence”.

  He opened the brief case, it was empty apart from a bland looking data-stick. He placed his smart-com by the stick and waited. A symbol appeared on the office display indicating local security architecture was being co-opted.

  The Office display switched to the seal of the Office of the Inquisitor General, briefly. Then the woman herself appeared on screen. Hybrysa Anaideia, had been promoted into the role twenty three months ago. To look at her, they’d been the longest of her life. Her silver hair was tidy, but thinning. Her china blue eyes were surrounded by circles. Her skin looked papery. Her robes of office hung loosely off her frame. Not a healthy woman, despite only being in her early sixties. She briefly outlined instructions for Dardanus personally, before the case file structure popped up. The frailty in her voice only added to his misgivings.