Critical Asset

by Ian Tonnessen

  “What is it that Aydin is doing now?” Dilara asked. “Can you tell me? He refused to tell me much.”

  Oz gazed blankly out the window at the sea and gave a weak smile. “I’m sure you’ll know soon enough. I wish I could say more, even now, but I can’t until we’re safe.”

  Dilara studied his face. His kind eyes betrayed nothing, but Aydin had already hinted at enough of what was going to happen. “He really isn’t coming back, is he?”

  Oz looked into her eyes and softly shook his head.

  She tried to look for a hint that he meant probably not instead of definitely not, but she already knew the truth. Semiha reached across the small table and held her hand.

  “He told me I’d be proud of him. I hope that’s going to be true.”

  “I believe you will. He’s a good man,” Semiha said.

  They heard footsteps coming down the stairs on the other side of the bulkhead, followed by Borakan, the boat’s captain, opening the door.

  “Everyone, quickly! We need to move you back down to the hold. We may have a coast guard visitor. Quickly now.” All five of the refugees went down to the boat’s hold and hid behind a false wall inside one of the compartments. The “wall” was made of fish and crushed ice, packed to the ceiling, to make the hold look as though it was full. But the wall was less than a meter thick. Oz and his family had just enough room to sit on their luggage while they waited.

  Five minutes went by. In the dark of the hold they could hear by the muffled noise outside that the engines had stopped. Above their heads were footsteps and indistinct voices. Oz whispered to the others that random Coast Guard inspections of commercial ships were common, and for a boat this size it would only last a few minutes. Finally the hold opened and the false wall of fish swung out on its hinge.

  An Iron Wolves officer stood staring at them, his eyes as intense as a hawk’s. On either side of him were two sergeants pointing submachine guns at the group. Borakan stood freely in the back, looking at the floor.

  “Dr. Ozcan and family,” the officer said. “You are all under arrest.”

  Dirac Station – Labs Dock

  1741Z, 24 December 2065

  While her captain watched, Chief Sandoval updated the map of Dirac Station with the movements of supplies from the Molecular Dynamics lab to the Lincoln crew spread out around the Labs.

  This gear would suit any light infantry company in the world, Pierce figured. Heck, the designs must have been taken exactly from Defense Department specs, uploaded to the Sleipnir SAI. Her crewmembers received submachineguns designed for close-quarters action, three hundred armor-piercing rounds for each, adjustable graphene-durium body armor plates, a few complete armor suits, lightweight transparent riot shields, spare headsets configured to the Lincoln frequencies, flashbang grenades with handheld launchers, and so on.

  It’s a devil’s bargain, but nothing has more strength than dire necessity. The crew received their gear, along with the explanation of where it came from, with a mixture of awe and gratitude. In a matter of minutes, the outgunned teams of career officers and enlisted technical specialists became as well-armed and well-protected, albeit not as well trained, as any special forces outfit on Earth.

  All these guns, and nothing we can shoot. Now it’s a waiting game… waiting to see what they do once they realize they can’t fix what they’re trying to fix.

  The port-side doors slid open, and Yates entered the dock with Waters, Groves and Lynch. All were armed and wore body armor vests and other plates strapped over their clothes. The two Dirac men rolled bins filled with weaponry and other gear for the Lincoln crew stationed in the dock. The XO carried a submachine gun in his hands and a grin on his face.

  “Captain, this is for you,” Yates said, handing Pierce the weapon. “And I may have some real options for us, besides equipment to defend ourselves.”

  “I don’t know if anything else is an issue right now, but go ahead.”

  “First, while we were generating these batches of gear, I uploaded a recording from my contact lens into the SAI there. It was amazing. In an instant, Sleipnir analyzed the conversation you had with the masked man over the comms screen. Ninety-five percent likelihood that he’s Turkish, and eighty-eight percent that he’s a military officer. Also, a ninety percent chance that he was being sincere, about both his threats and his promise to release more people if we cooperate.”

  “It’s good to have some confirmation about what we suspected, but does this help us?”

  “Probably not much, but here’s my next bit of news,” he said, grabbing a small container from Lynch’s bin. He opened it to reveal rows of miniscule aerial drones embedded in the case’s foam backing, fifty in all. “These are JL-9 miniature drones, nicknamed Vespids. A government contractor designed this model for CIA use, and Sleipnir had the specs! Pea-sized, near-silent at ten decibels, with both optical and infrared zoom lenses. They broadcast both video and audio at 500 MHz. We checked, and these are just small enough to fit through the holes in Dirac’s ventilation duct screens. We can get any number of these into any spaces we want. They’ll give us a better look at who we’re facing.”

  “Impressive. It’ll certainly help if we can get away with them not being seen. I like this, but will it amount to much if we can’t do anything about the hostages?”

  “Here’s my idea. This model I selected also carries a neurotoxic dart as small as a bee stinger. It delivers a concentrated dose of triprenorphine, a tranquilizer. They can fire accurately up to eight meters away from a target, and they’ll work as long as the dart makes contact with flesh. They’re silent and feel like a slight prick, but within seconds the target becomes sleepy and loses some muscle control. They’re unconscious within ten seconds tops. After a bit of recon, we can drop all these guy at once before they can set off the gas.”

  Pierce held the case in her hands. “Yes… let’s definitely use these for recon. As for firing the darts, I’ll make that decision based on the intel we get from these drones. These guys are wearing full helmets with faceplates. Not much exposed skin to target. No one fires unless I say, no matter what we see.”

  Yates hesitated for words, and then his voice was tight and louder than normal. “Of course we’ll need to coordinate, ma’am, but this looks like the best option we’re going to get to take these people down.”

  “I agree. But it’s all based on gaining good intel, Robert. That’ll take time. We probably still won’t know their total number, or all the spaces they’re in, or if any of them besides ones in the cafeteria also have detonators for those bombs. And if we’re only aiming for their wrists or their necks? That’d take some damn good shots.”

  “I reviewed the video of the masked-man conversation. He said his people there have detonators. He didn’t say that all his people did.”

  “Would you really want to risk it over a detail like that?” At least part of him sure as hell would, she thought. A small part of me also would, for that matter.

  “Not exactly, ma’am,” he replied. “But if we can take down the ones in the cafeteria, we should be able to evacuate people out of the space before any of the others learn about it.”

  “Should be able to…”

  “Yes, should be able to,” Yates replied quickly. “Captain, we’re not going to win here without taking risks.”

  “I’ll take that risk, and I’ll take it if and when I feel it’s warranted,” Pierce said. “For now, let’s get these things ready to fly.”

  Yates, Sandoval, and others used the dock's huge wall screen to set up an arrangement of video displays, each one tied to an individual Vespid drone. A single 500 MHz receiver sat on the counter by the wall, plugged into the wall's data port. As the group worked to bring twenty of the drones online, Jake Waters sidled up to Pierce.

  "Captain, do you have a minute?" he whispered. Pierce nodded and the two walked out of earshot.

  "Ma'am, there's something you ought to know about the replicator and the SAI. I think
you ought to know, anyway. It's way above our pay grades, but I just want to report this up the chain of command...”

  "Cheng, what is it?"

  "The whole project is US-government funded. When I was in the lab I got a look at the inception dates for Sleipnir. Construction began in late November last year, on order from the Department of Science & Technology."

  "Thirteen months ago?" Pierce said. "We had a different administration, including the S&T secretary. Richardson had just lost re-election last November. Do you think President Loughlin knows about this?"

  Waters shrugged. "I have no idea. Or the current S&T head, what's his name... Adams. But they've been in office for eleven months now. A project with implications like this, how could they not know?"

  Pierce looked around at her people in the dock, all equipped with new weapons and protective gear. Commander Yates was setting up micro-drones and recalling people from around the station, leaving one-person sentries so the spares could become drone pilots.

  "Maybe they do know, but let's not make any guesses right now. Sleipnir's an American crime against the whole world, even if it’s not connected to anything else. I'd incinerate that thing down to ashes if I could, just to be rid of the evidence."

  “We’ll have to be witnesses about this if and when we get back. There’s no way the whole crew can all just forget about all this stuff. Though I guess confirming that our country broke the treaty won’t make us too popular. I mean, it could be the political scandal of the decade.”

  "Well, one fight at a time. Let's just deal with the current mess we're in."

  A dozen of the Vespids were operational, silently hovering above the heads of Yates and Sandoval, their camera views displayed on the dock's wall screens.

  * **

  Demirci stood next to Captain Yazici as the two supervised over thirty Dirac civilians repairing the sabotage done to the accelerator. They would occasionally see some whispering to each other, and Demirci knew what one topic of conversation had to be. Most of them have figured it out: the accelerator is out of commission. Spare superconductors would have to be flown in from Earth. How soon will one of them find the courage to tell us that? Hopefully not too soon.

  Only Yazici, Erdem, and Kervan remained with Demirci at the accelerator control room. Toprak had gone to the Hub to assist Colonel Terzi, short-handed since his team was split between keeping eyes on the ops center and the hostages in the cafeteria, plus Sergeant Cetin still alone in the engineering control area. In the accelerator spaces, Demirci made himself look busy as he waited for the call he knew was coming.

  At last it came. Yazici’s headset pinged, and he listened as Terzi relayed what he and Toprak were seeing in the Ops Center.

  “The station just received a message from the American Space Command. They relayed it through the alliance’s base on Mars. It says that the station’s relay satellite experienced a serious failure and is not likely to come back online.”

  “When did it go offline?” Yazici asked.

  “The message doesn’t say, but I’m looking through some of the other screens in here. Communications cut out at 1313Z. That was only minutes before we docked.”

  “Serious failure? What does that mean?” Yazici looked confused.

  I’m sure Terzi has the same look on his face, Demirci thought. Time to inject the excuse.

  “I can clear that up,” he said, feeling his heart beat faster. “The MGT planned on a cyberattack against the L4 relay satellite, to be timed for just before we arrived. If successful, it would’ve shut down the L4 relay satellite for days, if not permanently.”

  Yazici glared as Terzi’s voice rose over their headsets. “Cyberattack? In coordination with our mission? That was never part of our training.”

  “The team wasn’t deemed need-to-know by the MGT, Colonel. I’m sorry, but there are other levels of this operation besides your team’s phase of it. There are political phases beyond my own need to know, for that matter.”

  The comms channel was quiet for a few seconds. Demirci could hear the gears turning inside the colonel’s head from halfway across the station.

  “For us, it doesn’t matter,” Demirci added. “If we need to communicate demands to Earth then we can do it through Arcadia Base. Let’s just be thankful the cyber strike worked. We got aboard the station on time.” Or close enough to on time.

  “Alright. Continue your repairs there. The message asks the station for a response, but I’m not going to send a reply. And Doctor, if there’s anything else we ought to know, it would be helpful to know about it beforehand.” Terzi abruptly switched off the link, and Captain Yazici turned back to watching the accelerator repairs, shaking his head.

  Thank goodness for the MGT, Demirci thought. A perfect cloak of mystery and authority, and these men believe I’m part of it. And thanks to General Candemir’s contacts in America, whomever they are, for holding up their end of the plan. Now, it’ll be another fifty-five minutes, minimum, before the second message arrives with what I need. Ten little digits to save the world.

  There was little to do now but feign interest in the accelerator repairs and wait to begin Plan B. Demirci allowed his thoughts to drift to his family. It was after nine p.m. back home, and by now they should be safely in Greece.

  CHAPTER 20

  Iron Wolves Regional Headquarters

  Antalya, Islamic Republic of Turkey

  9:30 p.m. (1830Z), 24 December 2065

  Ozker Ozcan had not tasted alcohol for thirty-seven years, not since he was a doctoral student before the Reawakening, but he could still remember what it felt like to be drunk. He now felt drunker than he had ever been in his youth, though he had not been drinking. And there was a wonderful warmth throughout his body, though he did not sweat, and a blissful, floating feeling that came with it. It was as if half his body weight was gone. It was the drug, he sometimes heard himself think. Someone had given him an injection when he arrived at this place. Only the drug was producing this feeling.

  He had been out to sea, he recalled. He was on a boat, and then there had been another boat, and then a hovercraft flight back to shore. The aircraft landed on the roof of a building, and there were many more uniformed men there with guns. The others from his family were in handcuffs just like him and taken to other rooms, but he was told he would see them again soon. He remembered that he had felt both furious and frightened during it all, even wishing that he’d had some cyanide, but he could not remember why. The last few hours, if it had even been that long, felt very unclear.

  The two men sitting across from him in this comfortable little room smiled and spoke jovially, always asking him questions. They all seemed to have been in there for a while, though Oz wasn’t sure how long. Sometimes a thought crossed his mind that he should not be talking to them. Perhaps it was their names; he kept asking them and moments later forgot what they said. Strange, though, that he could still remember details from days or even decades ago clear as ever. Then he remembered that those memories were drawn from a different part of the brain. Anyway, the two men seemed pleasant enough. Everything seemed pleasant.

  “You were saying about the rocket?” the younger of the two men asked.

  “Yes! I did a lot of work on that. Work that I had never done before in my life, but we had plenty of specs and we managed. It was extraordinary.”

  “You used antimatter to fuel it?”

  “Well, the rocket had liquid fuel for its first two stages. You know what stages mean for a rocket, right? Each stage is–”

  The man chuckled. “Of course we know. But the third stage, the tip of the rocket that lit off in space… that was powered by antimatter, wasn’t it?”

  “Oh, certainly. That’s the key to the whole thing.”

  “Where did you get that much antimatter? There must’ve been a couple kilos of it.”

  “Two-point-two-five kilos. I asked for exactly that much. There needed to be nearly two just to get the third stage to the satellite as fast as i
t did. I got it from Hadim Kazri. Ha! I meant Hazim Kadri. Yes.”

  “Who’s Hazim Kadri?”

  “He’s an associate from Izmir. I had lunch with him yesterday after we watched the rocket launch from my office. We had chicken doners. What was your name again, young man?”

  “I’m Deniz, and this is my friend Bilal. So where did Kadri get the antimatter from?”

  “Some Americans, I think. I never did meet them. But all of it comes from Dirac Station, right? No other place produces it. I heard China is working on a station that’ll produce it, or maybe that was Japan. Or both? Do you know?”

  “I’m not sure. Now, why did you convert a scientific rocket into a missile?”

  “Oh, that wasn’t just me!” Oz laughed. “I had some colleagues in my division at Izmir Spaceport to help me. Some very bright fellows. All of the work secret from the rest of the building, of course.”

  “I understand, but why?”

  “Well, we didn’t want to destroy cities or anything. Do you know how powerful two-point-two kilos of that stuff is? Ninety-six megatons! So, the rocket took down the satellite instead. There was no other way to do it and blame Turkey for it.”

  “Why destroy that satellite?”

  “Like I said, the HM had to take the blame. Or at least Turkey. But also so Dirac wouldn’t know about the attack.”

  “Why wouldn’t they know about it?” I’m sure they lost all contact with Earth when it happened.”

  Oz laughed again. “Gosh, I’m sorry! Not that attack. I meant Aydin and all the men going to the station.”

  The older man lost his smile for a moment but put it back on. “What men? And who is Aydin?”

  “My friend Aydin, from SAGE. He’s a relative now, actually. His daughter Safiye and my youngest boy Kerem, they married a few months ago. Beautiful wedding. I can’t think of what that makes us, though. Parents-in-law? What’s the term for that?”