by Terry Mixon
“Commander Giguere,” Jon Paul Olivier said quietly at her shoulder. “I found something I think you need to see.”
His expression was unreadable. This probably wasn’t good.
The man led her a couple of aisles over and she stopped dead in her tracks. Stacked on the deck were at least a dozen flip drives. They came in various sizes and configurations, but this was more than just a fluke. What was going on?
Then she saw what was in the row on the other side of the flip drives and her blood ran cold. Crates and crates of missiles. Based on their size, they looked like Fleet standard munitions.
She walked over and took a closer look. There were several rows of missiles. This cargo hold was filled with weapons.
This didn’t make any sense. It had taken days to load all of this cargo. Probably weeks, if other cargo holds held similar load outs. It couldn’t be related to evacuating before the Clans attacked.
And, with this amount of equipment stored on the ship, there might be more than just a skeleton crew aboard. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise Veronica if there were marines around somewhere and perhaps even a Fleet crew.
The plan called for com silence, but she had to let Princess Kelsey know. The odds were good that there was a lot of trouble waiting just around some corner for them to find.
33
Zia stood in the alley beside the Michael Anderle Memorial Research Center and kept an eye toward the main thoroughfare. Traffic was exceptionally light at this hour, but that didn’t mean they were alone in the corridors.
Carl was working on the card reader, if one could call waving a forged card that he’d printed earlier in front of it and having it click open could be called “working.”
“Are you sure this isn’t going to show up on the security monitors?” she asked in a low voice.
He shook his head. “They’re watching a repeated loop of the last two hours. There’s been no traffic in or out through this door or inside the corridor housing the research labs. I’ve blocked the door from logging our entry, so no one is going to be the wiser.”
It was about an hour after midnight so she wasn’t surprised at the lack of activity. After all, that’s why they’d picked this ungodly hour to carry out their raid.
One of the benefits of having penetrated the center’s security so thoroughly was that Carl had been able to watch the guards. “Watching the watchers,” he’d jokingly said.
It hadn’t taken long to figure out the pattern of patrols. At roughly half hour intervals, a single guard left the security center and tested the exterior doors. Once that was accomplished, the guard returned directly to the security center.
While they could see the long corridor of doors leading to the individual labs in the restricted area, there were no cameras inside the labs themselves, so it was always possible they’d run into unexpected people, but the lack of overt traffic did present them with an opportunity to get in and out without being seen.
Being able to monitor the comings and goings inside the building also allowed their recovery specialists to see the custodial crew in action. They now knew exactly where the cleaners stored their carts and wore coveralls that were identical to the ones in use by the regular workers.
They’d cobbled together a cart of their own to move the small transport ring. It had gotten them a few glances as they’d made their way through the station corridors, but no one really paid them much mind.
Talbot led the way into the research center, his stunner at the ready. Several marines followed him in. Carl was using his implants to monitor all the security feeds, so he’d be able to warn them if security became concerned.
This was Zia’s first time on one of these adventures and she had to admit her adrenaline was really pumping. Her heart thumped in her chest as she led the follow-up group with the cart.
The side entrance to the research facility led into an employee only area that was deserted at this hour. Security had their own break room to make certain no one could easily breach their area at any time. As the rest of the employees were off shift, this section of the building was deserted.
They made it to the single door leading into the research area without incident. Carl’s falsified identification got him through. That one door led into a long corridor with four doors on each side that gave no indication of what lay in the labs behind them. Each of the doors had a number on it. Odd numbers on the left, even numbers on the right.
The walls were an unbroken dark gray, as were the doors. No windows. Beside each lab door was a card reader and keypad. Gaining access to an individual lab required both a card and a code, according to Doctor Lipp. Zia was certain that a failure to enter the correct information more than a few times would signal security to come running.
The one they were looking for was lab three. Only once they were certain they had access to the lab they absolutely needed and had set up the large transport ring would they go looking for the second target.
They had Doctor Lipp’s identification card and she’d given them a code, but Zia didn’t trust the woman. Carl would probe the system to see if he could get in without it.
Her young friend had brought along a specialized tablet with a series of cables that could plug into various sockets inside this kind of equipment. He carefully pried the keypad apart and examined what he’d found.
To Zia, the electronics would’ve been indecipherable. If it had been up to her to break in, they’d have been doomed.
Thankfully, Carl was made of sterner stuff. Less than sixty seconds after opening the panel open, the secure door slid aside to admit them. He hadn’t entered the code Lipp had given them.
She raised an eyebrow at him as Talbot and his people moved in to sweep the lab. “You’re handy to have around. I’m wondering exactly how secure this thing is if you’re able to break in so easily.”
He grinned at her. “I cheated. Since Doctor Lipp gave us her access code, I was able to double check it without actually entering it. Systems like this aren’t supposed to retain codes, but I’ve discovered over the years that it rarely works that way in practice.
“People will use parts from other types of equipment when designing something and they may not always be as secure as they should be. Basically, I used her code to scan all of the electronics to see if I could find a match. Once I’d located it, it was simple enough to verify that the code would open the door and make it do so.”
Zia nodded, impressed. “Give you another fifty years and you’re going to be a master criminal. Is this flaw going to be useful at the other lab?”
He shrugged. “Potentially. I started out with a lot of information here, including having cloned Doctor Lipp’s identification card. I’m hoping that I can backtrack from a code in the other door to get identification for the user out of the security system. Needless to say, that might be complex and it’s going to take me longer than sixty seconds.”
Talbot came back over to the door. “There’s nobody in here and the description of the equipment matches what she told us to expect. We’re going to have to go through everything with a fine-toothed comb to be sure, but I think this is the place.
“I’m going to have my folks set up the small transport ring and use it to start bringing in the large ring. Once I get it in place, we’ll be able to get everything out of here pretty fast.”
“What about the other labs?” she asked. “Just because this lab is empty doesn’t mean there aren’t people inside them.”
“I looked over the feed starting at about five in the afternoon,” Carl said. “While I can’t see into each lab, I could tally who went into each lab and who came out. If anyone is still working right now, they’ve been in there since before quitting time.”
“I’ll keep a couple of marines here in the corridor,” Talbot said. “If anyone unexpected pops out, we’ll stun them and rush the lab they came from.”
Not the most comprehensive plan, but it would have to do.
Zia stepped into
the lab as Carl began putting the keypad back together. A quick look around revealed no cameras watching them, so she was fairly confident there would be no record of their presence after they left. Well, except for all the missing equipment and files. People were going to tear out their hair trying to figure out how they’d done it.
“I can oversee this,” she told Talbot. “Take Carl and go get what we need from the other laboratory. Be careful. If that project is really hush-hush, there may be extra security measures.”
“Relax,” he said with a reassuring smile. “We’ll make this happen. If you’re going to worry about someone, worry about Kelsey. If she can’t steal the other freighter, we’re screwed.”
“You sure know how to make a girl feel better. Get moving.”
Zia hoped Kelsey didn’t run into trouble. If things went sideways over there, it didn’t matter how well she and Talbot did. They’d probably still end up being caught and that wasn’t a fate she wanted to contemplate.
Kelsey had been severely annoyed with Veronica Giguere risking that transmission. At least until she saw the images that went with the warning.
“Holy crap,” Kelsey muttered.
Image after image scrolled past her view as she went down the message. There were enough missiles in that hold to completely rearm Audacious. There were also a dozen flip drives, not including the special one they’d ordered built.
And that was just one hold. There were plenty of others scattered around this ship. What the hell had they stumbled into?
With the time to reflect on it, she realized Veronica had done the right thing in warning her. With this amount of equipment on board, the chances that there were more crewmembers than she’d planned on were high. They’d be better trained, too. If they weren’t already on the ship, they might show up at any time.
She turned to Bob Noble, Recovery Incorporated’s computer specialist. He’d been working with Jason Young, the company’s security specialist, to gain access to the freighter’s computer system.
“How is it going?” she asked, hoping her growing worry didn’t bleed through into her tone.
“So far, so good,” he assured her. “We’ve got access to the noncritical systems and Jason is helping me hack our way into the critical systems. Once we have a way to control those, we’ll be able to force the bridge hatch open on command and lock down the communication and propulsion systems remotely.”
“How long are you anticipating that to take? Can we access the video feeds from the rest of the ship? I’m concerned there may be a larger crew on board the ship than we’ve anticipated and that they might be more heavily armed, too.”
Considering that they hadn’t anticipated running into armed crewmen at all, even men with stunners would prove problematic. If there were marines aboard, this could turn into a bloodbath very quickly.
“I don’t suppose this ship is equipped with anti-boarding weapons,” she added. “Just about now I’m thinking it would be a good thing to be able to stun everyone other than ourselves and just sort it out later.”
“We won’t know until we get into the critical systems, but that isn’t standard on a freighter of this class,” Young said. “I didn’t see any on the way here, but I’ll admit I had other things on my mind. Bottom line, don’t count on it.
“As far as the timeframe for gaining access, we’re going slow and careful. I figure another ten or fifteen minutes should give me something. That’s for the firewall. After that, each critical system will take more time.”
That wasn’t the news that Kelsey that had hoped for, but it was what they had to work with. At least Veronica and her people were safe in their cargo hold. Even if someone came into it, they had a lot of space to hide in.
Kelsey and her people were a little bit more constrained. They had to be near the bridge and that ruled out the cargo holds. Instead, they’d secreted themselves into one of the maintenance tubes. She made a mental note to have sensors installed in the maintenance tubes back on their ships because these things were far too convenient for hiding in.
The next fifteen minutes went by so slowly that she thought an hour had passed. Every time she felt like asking if they had made a breakthrough, she’d check her internal chronometer and find out that only a few minutes had passed. It was maddening.
Finally, Bob Noble gave her a thumbs up. “We’ve got access to the firewall. I’ll start working on getting into the communications and propulsion systems. Jason is working on tapping into the video feeds to see what he can find.”
Jason’s expression was one of intense concentration as he used his implants to invade the system. “I found the video feeds and I’m starting to cycle through them now. They aren’t even locked down. Sloppy.”
Kelsey took a deep breath and forced herself to wait patiently.
“Interesting,” he said after a minute. “We have four people on the bridge and one of them is in a Fleet uniform.”
“Shunt the feed over to me,” Kelsey ordered.
When the image popped up in her implants, she cursed under her breath. It was Lieutenant Commander Don Sommerville.
“What the hell is he doing here?” she asked rhetorically. “This can’t be good.”
“I’ve got more bad news,” Young said. “I can see a number of people down at the cargo dock. It looks as if we’ve got an incoming crew. And that’s not all. I see some marines in unpowered armor.”
Kelsey searched for and found the feed he was watching. There were dozens of crewmen exiting a pair of cargo shuttles. A third shuttle was disgorging what certainly looked like a marine platoon.
What the hell was she going to do now? She couldn’t just call everything off. They needed that flip drive.
She gritted her teeth. They’d find a way to make it happen. She’d come too far to give up now.
Noble cursed softly. “We’ve got another problem. A Fleet all hands notice just came in. There’s been an incursion at the flip point. It looks like the Clans have arrived and they’re attacking the battle station. They’ve come in force.”
Perfect.
They needed to take out an armed crew they hadn’t expected, steal a ship while the area was under a heightened state of security, and evade an invading hostile force. What could possibly go wrong?
34
Once the small transport ring was set up and the pieces of the larger ring were coming through, Talbot gathered Carl and half a dozen marines to make the side trip to the second laboratory.
Part of him wanted to wait until they’d cleaned out the first lab, but he knew they didn’t dare waste the time. If something went wrong on this side mission, they might not complete their primary work before they had to withdraw.
The go to hell plan was to barricade themselves in, evacuate through the large ring, and set off explosive charges to destroy the ring past the point of any analysis. They’d rigged plasma grenades all along its circumference.
The blast would wreck not only the lab holding the large transport ring, but all of the other labs, too. It would probable cause critical damage to the entire building, but the lethal zone should be restricted to the research area.
Destroying the ring would be a terrible loss, but it would get them clear of the station with everything they needed. Security would flip out, but wouldn’t be able to link this back to his people quickly enough to do anything, he hoped. Best case, he wouldn’t need to do that.
He was curious what the medical center could be working on that warranted the level of industrial espionage that Doctor Lipp and her nephew had been engaged in. The woman was either operating under her own name or her organization had constructed a false identity capable of fooling someone who was undoubtedly very careful about who they hired.
That strongly implied that Doctor Lipp was a real person using her own identity to steal something from a company she’d invested two years of her life insinuating herself inside. He had no idea what was worth that amount of commitment, so he wanted to see it for h
imself. It was like something out of one of the movies that Kelsey favored.
He shook his head and led his people down to lab six. Much like the first target, it had a card reader and keypad. That was something of relief as Carl wouldn’t have to deal with unexpected hardware.
With quick, sure motions, Carl took the reader apart and connected his tablet. He scanned the screen and nodded.
“It looks like the keycode is in the same location in this hardware. That’s the good news. Now comes the risky part. I can’t be certain the last person to access this door was the senior researcher. If I guess the wrong identity, I’ll be applying someone else’s code and the system will reject it. At best that will earn us one strike for a failed entry attempt. At worst it could set off an alarm.”
Talbot nodded. “You have access to the security system. If it signals to the guards, you’ll know. Do it.”
The scientist tapped a button on his screen and grimaced. “Access rejected. On the plus side, it doesn’t look like any kind of alarm went out to the security center. The guards aren’t aware of our presence.”
“Do you have the names of any other researchers authorized to enter this lab?” Talbot asked as he looked back up the corridor toward the main entrance to the research zone.
“Doctor Lipp gave me a couple of names. Since we can scratch the lead researcher off the list, I’m going to try his chief assistant.”
Moments later, Carl cursed under his breath. “Second failure. Still no indication that the system has sent any kind of alarm to the guards. I’ve got one more name to try. If it’s not this one, I’m going to have to figure out a new way to break into this lab and that’s almost certain to get us into serious trouble.”
Talbot felt his muscles tensing as the young scientist tapped on his tablet a few more times. This could be it.
Instead of an alarm, the hatch unlocked and slid aside. As he already had his stunner out, Talbot stepped into the lab and took a quick look around for potential threats.