Critical Asset

by Ian Tonnessen

Toprak slowly moved forward, holding his tactical knife in front of him and waving it up and down, waiting for the tip of it to be cut off. He didn’t make it as far as seeing behind the archway when the sealer hatch beyond it to the right abruptly opened.

  “There!” a Lincoln crewman yelled from the door to the antiparticle research labs. He flipped the five-second switch to trigger his battery grenade but didn’t get a chance to throw it before Sergeant Kervan shot him through the chest.

  “James!” came an unseen shout from inside the lab. Another voice then screamed, “No! Don’t shut–” as the sealer hatch closed again.

  The MAKs felt a powerful bang from behind the door, and they cringed and as ragged streaks of lightning sparked out from its edges.

  Thirty meters ahead, another of the Lincoln crew jumped out from around the corner from the port-side corridor long enough to hurl his own hydro-bomb down the hall. It clanked along the floor towards the intruders, stopping half the distance away.

  “Get back!” Toprak shouted before the charge had even stopped bouncing. “Fall back to blue team!” He, Kervan and Demirci didn’t have enough time to round the corner before the bomb went off with an ear-piercing clap, filling the aft corridor with its bright static discharge. The electrical burst caused the men to jump and stumble into each other as they ran, but they stayed on their feet and got back around the corner a few seconds later.

  * **

  “Dock secure, ma’am,” Lieutenant Clark said, looking up the ladder and waving his hand for his captain to enter. He held onto the side of the ladder to keep himself upright, and his voice was as uneven as his balance. His captain already knew why.

  Jaana Pierce climbed down into the Labs dock, and with one look her stomach twisted into a knot. Six of her crew were dead, all shot multiple times. Nine others, including Commander Yates, were alive but shaky on their feet, some of them trying to tend to their dead shipmates by dragging their bodies off to one side. Trails of blood streaked across the deck where they were moved.

  At the side of the starboard hatch, Chief Sandoval knelt in front of the access panel. She kept one hand there, keeping the hatch shut. All around the interior to the hatch right next to her, three hydro-bombs traps were set, the charges stuck to the floor and the walls.

  Captain Pierce swallowed hard as she walked up behind her XO. “Commander…”

  Yates didn’t hear her. He was still half-deaf, looking at a schematic of Dirac Station on a counter against the aft wall. He pressed his fingers against his headset earpiece as he received reports from crewmembers who had spread out around the Labs.

  Jaana Pierce walked over and stood next to him. He leaned with his hip against the counter, trying not to fall over from the dizziness. “Copy, team three,” he said as if he were out of breath. “Hold position there, and don’t move into the control room yet. I’ll have people come to you to bring back their bodies.”

  Robert Yates looked up and saw Pierce next to him. “Captain, the intruders are probably still on the other side of that hatch even though we haven’t seen them through the window,” he said, pointing towards Sandoval and the starboard side of the dock. “The chief is keeping it shut for now, but they have some means of breaching straight through the doors. We’re ready with hydro-bombs and stun guns if they try to get through again, but these guys are well trained. They hit us with a flashbang before they did this…”

  Pierce stared at the bodies being lined up against the wall. Six of her crew. All of them were in her charge, all bright and dedicated men and women. What the hell did we stumble into here? Keep it together, Jaana…

  “What areas do we control? How far have we made it?” she forced herself to ask.

  Yates explained the pen-marked schematic in front of him. “We have multiple bombs set on wires, and they’re manned with our people nearby at chokepoints all around the port and center sections of the Labs. We’re forward as far as the Hub access but no further, and aft through the antiparticle labs, but nobody has gone inside the accelerator access rooms yet. It looks like that’s where these people were heading when they were stopped just short of it.”

  “Stopped how? By us?”

  “No, ma’am, we’re not sure by what. Two of their men are lying dead in the aft hallway, and they’re literally cut in half,” he said, motioning his hand across his abdomen. “On the other side of the door from them, just inside the antiparticle lab, we have two more crew casualties. Moskowitz was shot, and Hughes got killed by one of our own bombs. Plus the six in here, that’s eight dead for us.”

  Pierce winced as if she’d been slapped. “What about Dirac personnel? Our people are bringing them back here?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Until the intruders try something else, we hold more than half the labs. We’ve got the port corridor and the propulsion labs, the molecular dynamics lab, the dock, and the antiparticle research labs. We’ve tossed bombs in the aft corridor, and we’re ready to throw more if they come through there again. They’ve got the starboard corridor and the nanotech and exomatter labs, and the conference areas.”

  “And they have the Hub, and we have to assume Accommodations also. It’s a fair bet that most of the station’s personnel are in those sections right now, rather than back here.”

  Yates nodded. “You were right, ma’am. About that ship. Hijacked indeed.”

  “A lucky guess,” she said, scrutinizing the station schematic. “We need to figure out who they are, how many, and exactly what they want here.”

  “This man may be able to help with that,” he growled. Yates and Pierce walked to the forward side of the dock, behind the vertical accessway leading to the Lincoln. A man dressed in black military clothing lay face-down on the ground, his fingers interlocked over his head. Two of Lincoln’s crew stood away from him, pointing their stun guns.

  * **

  “Yes, he’s captured,” Terzi said over his headset comms to Captain Yazici. “He’s in the dock, held by the warship’s crew. I can see them over the cameras.”

  “Do you see a way we can re-attack and rescue him?”

  “Forget that for now. There’s too many people there. Maintain your priority.”

  The colonel fumed, thinking about how badly it had all gone. Including himself, his team came onto the station with thirteen men. Now, three were dead in a matter of minutes including his own second-in-command, with a fourth one captured. Blue team hadn’t been able to take the warship, though Dogan had killed at least six of their crew before he was taken down and caught. Then red team -or what was left of it- had to retreat from the accelerator control room, retreating from the mission’s goal when they did so. Perhaps, Terzi thought, he shouldn’t have listened to Dr. Demirci’s idea to try and seize the enemy ship. There just wasn’t enough time. Still, Demirci’s suggestion about making sure the Kostroma docked first proved to be a good one. They might otherwise have been kept out of the station entirely. Now the colonel had to improvise, and there were no contingency plans in place for this.

  “Sir, how many are we dealing with in there?” Yazici asked.

  “I counted over thirty that came out of their ship, which should be all but twenty or so of their crew, although several are now dead.” Avci held up eight fingers as he reviewed the other camera displays. “Looks like eight of them are dead. But the rest have spread all over the labs, fortifying most of the accessways with those electricity bombs.”

  “And whatever that was in the aft hall, that cut down two of ours,” Toprak said. “We couldn’t even see what it was. What if they have more of those things?”

  “We’re working on that,” Terzi said. “But I think that was station personnel. The warship crew didn’t make it back that far before you did.”

  Yazici, positioned at the corner of the aft and starboard corridors, looked down each of them. He saw nothing but wide, empty halls, other than the disjointed bodies of Yilmaz and Erkan halfway down the aft hall. “We need intelligence, sir. Whatever you can tell us about where
they are and which hatchways they’re holding.”

  “Copy. For now, you have the starboard side of things. It doesn’t look like they’re going to counterattack – they’re busy cordoning off their areas and bringing station personnel to the dock. And we’ll see them if they get ready to try something. However, sooner or later they may take out the cameras.”

  “What about the labs near us?”

  “They can’t get to the nanotech or exomatter labs, or the conference and training areas. Not with you in that corridor. It looks quiet in those spaces on the monitors, but I think there’s a lot of people in hiding. Hold most of your group where you are and send two men through those labs to look for hostages. We’ll set up our charges and collect some more up here as well.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Which is our priority now?” Demirci asked Yazici. “The warship or the accelerator?”

  “Still the accelerator,” the captain said. It gave Demirci a flash of relief, though he didn’t show it. “We just can’t run straight there like we did before. We’ll figure it out, Doctor.”

  So close, Demirci thought. The door is right there, past their bodies. Thirty meters away.

  He realized Terzi was right about the adrenaline. The rush of power was incredible, but it was beginning to fade now. And for a few terrible moments, it was replaced by a new fear. If I die here without succeeding, will I be remembered as part of this phony mission? Will the truth of what I’m really doing here ever come out? Will my family even know that much? What happens to the Arrows if I fail? If I were religious, I would pray for this: God help me from serving the greater of these two evils.

  The White House – Situation Room

  Washington DC

  08:07 a.m. (1307Z), 24 December 2065

  “Detonation confirmed, Madam President,” Admiral Martin said over the teleconference screen from SPACECOM. “We’re estimating fifteen megatons. Radioisotopes confirm the source as antihydrogen.”

  “And the satellite?”

  “The blast occurred within ten thousand clicks from the relay satellite. That should be plenty close enough to fry it.”

  “Madam President, the very presence of antimatter on that rocket is an act of war on Turkey’s part,” Defense Secretary Stendahl said. “We should deliver a response that is both immediate and proportional. But combined with the loss of two key cables in the Med, these actions may be precursors to a larger military attack by the HM. I recommend increasing our defense condition from Four to Three, and the Space Command’s readiness condition from Three to Two.”

  “Do it,” President Loughlin said. “And I’m sure General Garrett at MILCOM will agree as well. Get me retaliatory options. We’re absolutely going to respond to this.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Diandra Stone managed to refrain from giving Eli Drennan a quick look, knowing he wouldn’t return it. He never betrayed his thoughts, certainly not when everything was going according to plan.

  Four minutes later, the supreme commander of the Military Committee of the Democratic Alliance increased the coalition’s defense readiness posture from Four to Three. Across all forty-two nations of the alliance, ground forces were ordered to make themselves deployable within six hours, with special forces units mustered and placed on one-hour standby alerts. Naval units in forward areas were ordered underway, with all others instructed to make themselves deployable on command. Routine maintenance on hypersonic missile batteries was suspended, keeping the missiles ready to fly on a moment’s notice. Nuclear-propelled airborne early warning drones were sent to loiter at high altitudes over international waters near HM coasts. The Space Command’s readiness condition jumped from Three to Two; within minutes, all warships in Earth orbit were underway and ready for strike orders.

  Presidential Complex

  Ankara, Islamic Republic of Turkey

  4:25 p.m. (1320Z), 24 December 2065

  “It is confirmed, brothers,” the HM’s top general said to the twenty men on his screens, all of them heads of state surrounded by their own military advisors. “The Democratic Alliance has raised their readiness posture another level. I remind everyone that their escalation from level Four to Three is far more substantial than from Five to Four. This move affects all of their military units – ground, naval, air, space, and cyber. Israel and Iran have already followed suit.”

  “We expect India will do the same within the hour,” said the president of Pakistan. “Or faster, once we raise our level to match. I think we will have to do so.”

  “We expect a similar reaction from the Kinshasa Pact,” the chancellor of the United Caliphate added. “But the Alliance will focus on Turkey. President Celik, my advisors here tell me that we have also detected the acceleration of this rocket. Please tell us about it.”

  “As I mentioned at the onset of this meeting, Chancellor, this was not authorized by my government,” Celik said. “None of us are capable of producing a weapon like that, though the Alliance will surely claim otherwise. I expect they will use this as an excuse for a military response very soon.”

  “And what will you do when they respond?” the chancellor asked.

  “If, and I stress if, their response is reasonable like we’re assuming, it is my intention to do nothing. Nor will I invoke the mutual defense clause in our coalition. They will see me as backing down and then see the situation as an even exchange rather than an escalation. We can de-escalate from there. Then we will discover the traitors behind this deed and make them answer for it.”

  “You must find those answers quickly, Mr. President,” the chancellor said. “There is a stench of subterfuge here. Only the Alliance could have produced that weapon. I believe they are responsible for all of this. They’re trying to start the war they’ve always wanted.”

  “Their response should give us insight into that,” Celik said. “In the meantime, my security services are already investigating this incident. Nevertheless, are we all in agreement that we must increase our own defense posture from Green to Yellow?”

  All of the other participants voiced their agreements, though in practice a unified decision in the Hrąs al-M’umnyn meant whatever Turkey, Pakistan, and the United Caliphate agreed upon. The “big three” represented over ninety percent of the military budget of the HM. The coalition’s twenty-three weaker powers followed their lead. The HM’s commanding general sent out his orders, and the alliance braced itself for retaliation.

  Arlington, Virginia

  9:08 a.m. (1408Z), 24 December 2065

  Prep Order 727-30 against Target 23. Initiate only upon receipt of codeword confirmation.

  The two men already knew about the HM setting Defense Condition Yellow. That was on the news before their order came in. Now, they read their order in silence before it vanished from their secure comms screen. Though they didn’t say so to each other, both felt their stomachs tighten. Even though they were encrypted, the orders didn’t explain what 727-30 meant or what Target 23 was or what was the codeword for detonation. The two men had long ago memorized such things. When you’re trusted enough by Turkey’s MGT intelligence service to be posted to an overseas sleeper cell, you don’t need to be reminded the details of your highest duty.

  The men didn’t have much preparation to do. Their residence in the Lyon Village section of Arlington included a garage, within which sat a work van that hadn’t moved since the men first arrived there years ago. In the back of the van sat a D-48 two-stage radiation-implosion tactical nuclear device. It had a yield of 0.3 kilotons, enough to level a dozen city blocks. The bomb spent all of its time hidden inside a lead casing, keeping it undetectable to radiological scanning. Once a week the men made sure the van was in good working condition, as was the bomb’s control panel.

  If attack orders came through, they’d have thirty minutes to position their bomb next to Target 23. Protocol stated they were to continuously verify clear traffic routes between their location and their target, but that was hardly necessar
y. Their house was only a ten minute drive from the Pentagon – more than enough time to place it, and probably ample time to drive their other car onto a highway and make a getaway before the bomb went off.

  CHAPTER 14

  Dirac Station – Labs Dock

  1413Z, 24 December 2065

  “Forty-seven,” Jaana Pierce said, counting the Dirac personnel assembling in a gaggle in the dock’s cargo area.

  “Yes, ma’am,” replied Yates. “Whoever was hiding inside the three labs we got into. And unless we take these invaders out, that may be all we’re going to get.”

  “We should get them up into the ship in case we have to leave here in a hurry. If I were the intruders, I’d attack us all here right now.”

  “Agreed, Captain. But I think we’re ready.” Chief Sandoval was still keeping the hatch to the starboard middle corridor shut. She stood staring through the window in the middle of the hatch, waiting to see the intruders again.

  “Let’s see if we can get some information first,” Pierce said. The captain climbed onto the counter they had been using and faced the crowd. A few were in tears and held each other, and every one of their faces was strained from anxiety and confusion. Her own crew looked the same.

  “Everyone, can I have your attention please! Can everyone hear me?” she shouted. The group responded with yes. “Like the crewmen who came into your workspaces explained, we’re from the ship USS Lincoln. We managed to dock here just a few minutes after a supply vessel reached the Hub’s dock–”

  “Who are they?!” someone called out.

  “We don’t know yet. We do know that they were heading into the aft corridor when they were stopped just short of the accelerator control spaces. At least two of them are dead back there, but we still don’t control that corridor.”

  “Do you know where they are now?” another asked.

  Pierce pointed towards the starboard hatch. “Somewhere on the other side of that door,” she said, which was followed by gasps and murmuring through the crowd. “And we only control the parts of the station where we found all of you. They control the other areas of the Labs and everywhere else. For safety’s sake, I’d like to get you all aboard our ship until this situation is resolved. First I’d like to ask if anyone here can tell us anything that might help us out. Means of communication around the station, access, environmental controls, anything.”