The staff member murmured acknowledgement and spoke even less audibly into a headset.
“Be nice,” Davie asked Alex. “She’s a little frightened of you, and I don’t like to see her upset.”
Zelda certainly didn’t seem either to be frightened or upset when she came in. She looked magnificent in a gown which seemed to be made mostly of gossamer and sapphires. Her hair was an elaborate structure of braids and she brought with her a waft of delicate perfume.
“Thank you, darling,” she air-kissed Davie and then sat down on the sofa beside his, observing hopefully, “Oh, is there tea?”
The steward came over at once, providing a tray, and Zelda thanked him. She too tucked her feet up beneath her, sitting cross legged on the sofa as she poured herself some green tea.
“Zelda is my cousin,” Davie explained. “Six times removed, but still, family.” He smiled, and Zelda waggled her fingers at the skipper, too, in slightly nervous greeting.
“He’s very fierce, darling,” she observed, to her cousin, who grinned reassuringly at her.
“That’s only because you can’t see him laughing.”
This seemed to make perfect sense to Zelda, who laughed too and relaxed, giving Alex a twinkling look, then.
“I was so afraid you were going to arrest me,” she admitted. “I’m not sure which was worse; the prospect of being kept in prison with those awful people, having to wear that dreadful uniform, or being taken to Therik.”
Alex could not in all honesty have assured her that he wouldn’t have done that. If the opportunity had arisen, he would certainly have taken her into custody as a material witness and kept her in protective custody, too. That would indeed have meant her being provided with shipboard rig to wear and, given how full their brig was, now, having to have meals and exercise time with at least some of the other prisoners.
“What’s so awful about being taken to Therik?” he enquired, curious.
“Darling!” she stretched her eyes at him, appalled. “It’s the world that fashion forgot! I’ve never seen more badly dressed people anywhere in my life!”
Alex suddenly found himself conscious of his uniform. He was not a man who thought of his appearance very much, but just then, just for a moment, he wished that he was wearing something a little smarter. He found himself sitting up a bit straighter, too.
“Of course, you can’t help it, darling,” she told him. “Yours is uniform, you don’t have a choice.”
Alex heard a little snurge of suppressed laughter from behind him and to his left, where Jonty Michaels was standing. He did not look round, and he would have sworn that he did not give away any reaction himself, either, his expression under total control. Zelda, however, gave a little crow of mirth.
“You’re right, darling!” she told Davie. “His eyes do laugh – that doesn’t come across on holovision at all, does it?”
“Cameras lie,” Davie observed, with an amused look at the skipper.
“If we could, please, stay focussed on the matter in hand?” Alex was very much on his dignity, his tone slightly repressive. For the first time, he saw some family resemblance between the cousins as they both gazed at him with alert, interested expressions and then broke into simultaneous smiles.
“I thought we’d already agreed,” Davie said. “My people are at your disposal, go ahead as soon as you like.”
Alex nearly grinned at that. “I’m afraid it does need a little more formality than that,” he said. “Official documents, that kind of thing. I also need to get a feel for the abilities of your teams and agree a coordinated plan of action with Lt Commander Murchson.”
Davie tipped his head slightly to one side.
“So… about half an hour, then?”
Chapter Twenty Three
It was just over an hour later that the operation to seize Karadon got under way.
Perhaps the strangest part about it was that it was actually announced ahead of time. At Alex’s request, Kalvin Geovane released a series of statements to the media.
In the first, he confirmed that his presence at Karadon was as a result of ISiS Corps now accepting that their station was being used for drug trafficking. He also announced that he had ordered the complete shutdown of Karadon.
“Durban Jorgensen and the others on board are operating Karadon systems without any right or authorisation to do so,” he explained, “and we have reason to believe that many of them have been involved with drug trafficking. I have spoken with Durban Jorgensen personally and informed him that he and the others must cease and desist from operating Karadon’s systems immediately. I have given them until 1850 to vacate the station.”
1850 came and went with Durb Jorgensen and the others remaining defiantly aboard the station. Shortly after that, Kalvin Geovane issued another statement to the media.
“A state of emergency has now been declared at ISiS Karadon,” he told them. “I have, on behalf of ISiS Corps, requested the assistance of the Fourth Fleet Irregulars in bringing Karadon back under our control.”
A couple of minutes later Alex confirmed that and asked for all ships in the first three orbital rings to relocate to orbits further out.
“I do not consider that there is any danger to shipping,” Alex said, in a recorded statement sent to all ships, “but it is a sensible precaution to clear us plenty of space to work. We will be moving the Heron close to the station at 1900. We will then board the station at multiple points, along with security teams from the ISiS Corp ship, Stepeasy. We will be coordinating operations very closely with Mr Geovane and handing full control of the station back to ISiS Corp personnel, which we anticipate will happen before 1925.”
The Queen of Cartasay got to work relocating ships from the inner rings to the outer ones. All the ships in the first three rings were small craft, mostly yachts with a few whalebelly freighters. Some of their skippers opted to leave the system entirely, but most, assured that there were not going to be missiles flying about, were far too excited to leave. The Fourth, indeed, was bombarded with requests for live footage of the boarding operation to be broadcast.
“Anyone would think we were laying it on for their entertainment,” Buzz observed, as even the Queen of Cartasay called and asked if there was any possibility of live coverage from aboard the station.
“Well, it’s better than panic,” Alex replied, though his answer was no, and remained no, despite all efforts to persuade him otherwise.
“It’s bad enough that we have to announce when we’re boarding,” he said, “without having to show them where we are and what we’re doing.”
Buzz nodded agreement.
“I think we may have to task boarders to prevent the media from following us aboard,” he said, and really wasn’t joking. When Alex had first come back aboard the ship and told him that he’d agreed joint boarding operations with the Shareholder, Buzz had been delighted. Then Alex had told him that the Shareholder was a genetically engineered fourteen year old who already owned a business empire including Vetrix shipbuilding. Buzz had laughed till he realised that Alex was serious. He hadn’t laughed since.
“All right. Let’s give that one to ISiS Corps,” Alex said. Then, as Buzz gave a slightly dubious assent, he smiled at him. “Trust me on this,” Alex requested. “Do you think I would put you, or any of my crew, into any situation I had concerns about?”
“No, of course not,” Buzz said, and as he realised that his doubts had been rather too obvious, gave an unusually formal, “Sorry, sir.”
“No need for apologies,” Alex assured him. “You’re the one in the front line, you have the right and the responsibility to be sure that your orders are sound.”
Buzz grinned at that. It was a statement that would have had any Old School Traditionalist spluttering indignantly.
“Not many skippers would agree with you, dear boy,” he observed. “But thank you, and in that case, I have to admit that I have some concerns about going into a joint operation where the other force
is commanded by a fourteen year old. The fact that he’s genetically engineered, too – I mean, that’s just not something either of us have any experience with, is it? So I can’t help wondering how well either of us might be able to read him, even in face to face meeting, to really get any sense of his ability, integrity and true intentions. How sure can we be of his true agenda, here?”
“You think he may turn on us once we’re aboard, or pull out of the operation trying to make us fail or look bad, somehow?”
“Well, the thought occurs,” Buzz admitted. “It’s a matter of trust, isn’t it? And as highly as I do value and respect your judgement, sir, this Shareholder is such a strange, unknown quantity, and we’re placing such a lot of reliance on him.”
Alex considered that, and nodded.
“Fair enough,” he said. “I’m sure I’d be just as uneasy if you’d met him and I hadn’t. All I can tell you is that I believe he’s on the level. I do believe we share the same agenda, to clean this station up without creating an even bigger political mess, and I do believe we can trust him. Since you are going to be the one in the firing line, however, I will write it into your orders that you are to withdraw immediately if you feel, at any time, that the ISiS Corps forces are not upholding their end of the agreement, all right?”
Buzz smiled. He would do that anyway if he felt that the ISiS Corps force was working against them, but it was reassuring to have that option written into his orders beforehand. Nobody could say, then, that he’d defied his skipper’s orders.
“Thank you, dear boy,” he said.
They had a final meeting with Lt Commander Murchson shortly before 1900, confirming that all was in readiness for the operation. Then they went ahead and did it.
The Fourth had practiced any number of ways to seize Karadon and had run hundreds more simulations with every possible variation of forces and strategies. With the numbers of people aboard and the strength of opposition expected, Alex went with plan K-392, now officially logged as Operation Karadon.
On the Intel side, that meant slamming into Karadon’s systems, not as silent observers any more but actively hacking their systems. Viral programmes swarmed through the station’s computers, overriding security and auto-repair software to force a cascade of events.
First, all the station’s emergency alerts went off, shrieking that Karadon was going into freefall, that life support had failed, that the hull had been breached, that there were fires and toxic gases. None of that was true, but the alerts screamed everywhere and could not be turned off. Three seconds after that all the lights went out, even the emergency backups. The station was now blacked out, leaving those aboard it with nothing more than their suit lights to see by. Since it had been publicly announced that the Fourth was about to board the station, it was a pretty safe bet that everyone aboard had spacesuits on.
Two seconds later life support kicked back in throughout the station, air pressure surging back up in the deactivated sections. As soon as it equalised, every door and hatchway on the station opened and locked open, not even command codes able to override them.
Then came the crowning glory of the hacking attack. The station went briefly into freefall and then gravity came back on line, but in reverse. All loose objects would land on the ceilings, including people. In pitch black, surrounded by howling alerts, they would now have to cope with everything being upside down.
It was a classic hacker prank, often played on starships though strictly forbidden in the Fleet. Elsa Nordstrom and Jok Dorlan, aka the Juvenile Delinquents, were crowing with glee as they accomplished it. Up in the lab, Dan Tarrance was grinning broadly as he added his own finishing touch, imposing a programme that would whoosh air around the station at high speed, creating the impression of multiple blowouts.
“Go,” Alex waited till he saw the confirmation that the hacking was successful, then gave the go ahead both to Buzz and Lt Commander Murchson.
A swarm of shuttles launched; seven from the frigate and eleven from the Stepeasy.
Karadon itself was not armed, either with missiles or cannon. It was a sublight structure, mostly built of steel with only a thin coating of duralloy here and there. That made it so fragile in starship terms that there was no way it could engage in combat with even a small superlight ship. There was also no realistic way for a sublight station to be able to target ships moving around it faster than light.
The shuttles formed into waves, and moved in. Decelerating so that they went sublight within seconds of the station, they peeled apart, all heading for different airlocks. Many of the airlocks they targeted were away from the section of the station Durban Jorgensen had kept functional. According to the intel they’d picked up, he wasn’t guarding from attack from either above or below the active section, apparently believing that the fact that those levels were deactivated, depressurised and hatch-sealed was protection enough.
Now, however, none of that was the case. Fourth’s boarding parties poured through the airlocks. Duralloy boots clomped rhythmically on the ceilings as each team ran together. They were entirely at home in the dark, upside-down station. They had done some of their training with the simulation the right way up, just in case the gravity reverse didn’t come off, but most of their practising for this boarding had been done in darkness, upside down.
Durb Jorgensen and the others, however, had never experienced the station in full blackout or upside down. They were just not prepared for anything like this.
They did have a plan. As futile as resistance might seem when the Fourth had already demonstrated their ability to catch and arrest even the Pallamar, neither Durb Jorgensen nor Hale Ardant was ready to give up.
Actually, they had two plans, the one they’d told the others, and the real one. They had set up a plan in which security teams were stationed strategically around the Freight offices they’d made their headquarters, ready to defend them. Everyone else would actually be in the offices, armed and ready to fight. Both groups believed that Mr Jorgensen and Mr Ardant would be with the other. None of them suspected that the defence plan was purely to buy time for Mr Jorgensen and Mr Ardant to make their own getaway.
There were several courier-class vessels docked onto the station – tiny, noisy and uncomfortable, but the fastest ships in space. Once launched, a courier-class shuttle could easily outdistance the Heron and leave even their fastest shuttles standing. It was still a desperate plan. The courier would be vulnerable during the launch and even a Fourth’s shuttle could take them out in boarding operations. If all else failed, however, Durb Jorgensen and Hale Ardant had agreed that they would head for one of the couriers immediately if the Fourth did start boarding operations. Until the arrival of the Stepeasy and Kalvin Geovane’s announcement, they’d believed that they had at least another couple of days before that was even a possibility.
Now they were making a run for it. Telling the people in the offices that they’d be out there helping to protect them, and telling the security teams that they were going to defend Airlock 367, they were already starting for the marina when the alerts started shrieking.
Upside down and disoriented, they could see only a few metres in the dim glow of their suit lights.
Leo Arad, a Subter born and raised, would have had his torch and emergency beacon to hand. People laughed about him always carrying a torch in his shirt pocket, carefully transferring it to a safety clip in space-suit drills, but he had grown up in an environment where power cuts could plunge you into total darkness. Spacers were not prepared for that because there were so many backups and emergency systems that it was supposed to be impossible for every light to fail. It would also have seemed impossible to them that they could get lost aboard their own station and need a geo-beacon to tell them where they were.
Now, though, picking himself up, it took Durb Jorgensen a few seconds even to work out that he was now standing on the ceiling. Cursing, he started to run for the marina, then saw from an upside down sign that he was heading the wrong way,
back towards the offices.
Swearing again, he turned around and saw that Hale Ardant was shouting something and pointing a gun at him. The security chief was illuminated as if by a dim spotlight above his head, casting a pool of light around him. It was clear enough for Durb to be able to see his face, twisted with anger as the other man seemed to be shouting commands. It was also clear enough to see that the rifle the other man was holding had a red “charged” light on it, ready to fire, and that it was aimed at Durb.
Hale Ardant knew very well that he could not get away without Durb Jorgensen. He was no spacer and couldn’t pilot the courier himself. He also knew that Durb didn’t need him. One man could handle the courier and would, indeed, be rather better off without a passenger. Hale knew that Durb had only brought him on in the escape plan because he was too smart to fall for the “stay there, I’m going to protect you” routine. Now, he believed that Durb was attempting to ditch him.
Durb did not hesitate. He did not even realise that suit-comms were down. It wouldn’t have made any difference anyway. He wasn’t about to attempt to reason with someone who was aiming a gun at him. He had a pistol in his hand. It was a percussive pistol of the kind Leo Arad had used to take Chok Dayfield hostage. There was no stun setting on a sixty four magnum blaster. It was designed to do one thing only; to kill.
In the same moment that he saw the red glow of the laser sight targeting him, Durb Jorgensen fired. The crack of his pistol and the dull thud of the bullet exploding in Hale Ardant’s chest happened so fast that it seemed instantaneous. Ardant was dead before his body hit the ceiling.
Durb Jorgensen ran on. He was entirely focussed on the need to get to the courier. In his head, he was doing the mathematics of desperation. If the Fourth was boarding right now, they would be using powerful heatscan sensors to identify where everybody was. The security teams would keep them busy for a little while, but Durb had a realistic understanding of how long even determined fighters wearing ordinary spacesuits would be able to hold out against the Fourth’s boarding party in their adapted hullwalker rig. If the Fourth had boarded on this side of the station, too, they might realise he was running for the marina and race to intercept him.
Karadon (Fourth Fleet Irregulars) Page 38