An Airless Storm: Cochrane's Company: Book Two

by Peter Grant

  She nodded. “Some more good news from Fujita. The first two communications vessels from our order of eight, Hermoth and Iris, will depart next week. They’ll go straight to Mycenae, of course, to work up there, far from prying eyes.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not so sure about that. We think the Albanians reconnoitered the system before, and probably after, Mycenae II. I daresay they’ll go on sending spaceships through at high speed, under tight emissions control, to keep an eye on us. They won’t see what we’re doing from day to day, but that’ll give them a regular snapshot view of the ships in the system, where they are, and so on. I hope they spot our new asteroid prospecting site, and try something there.”

  “They’ve already lost one ship trying to collect asteroids in Mycenae. Do you think they’ll be fooled again?”

  He shrugged. “We can only hope.”

  “All right. Fujita also says they’ve started work on the first of our new repair ships, Vulcan II. She’ll be ready in a year. They hope to start the second ship, Hephaestus, in about six months, as soon as there’s an opening on their building ways.” She shook her head. “A billion francs apiece for two repair ships! That still seems like an awful lot of money to me.”

  “It is, but we can’t do without them, so we’ll just have to grin and bear it.”

  “If you say so, darling.” She blanked the tablet screen. “That’s all I have for you this morning. Now, what was that about a long, liquid lunch?”

  He laughed. “All right. Let me finish what I’m doing. I’ll come to your office in half an hour to collect you.”

  MYCENAE SYSTEM

  Frank Haldane looked up from his command console as Commander Darroch was shown into the OpCen. He jumped to his feet. “Angus! It’s good to see you again.”

  The Commander saluted, a broad smile on his face, then shook Frank’s proffered hand. “And you, sir.”

  “How’s my baby?” Frank gestured toward the Plot, where HCS Bobcat’s icon was now shown parked very close to Jean Bart’s.

  “She’s as good as she could be, sir. We’re still running trials, of course, but it looks like the instability you found has been completely cured. She handles like a champion.”

  “I’ll have to make time to come out with you for a high-speed run, to feel the difference.”

  “Any time, sir. There seem to be an awful lot more ships in the system since the last time I was here. I’ll have to be careful not to run into any of them.”

  “There are. Come over to the Plot.” He walked over with his guest. “Operator, who’s doing what, with which, to whom?”

  The NCO on duty grinned, and pointed to icons as he named them. “Around Jean Bart we have Bobcat, the courier ship Agni, and the brand-new corvettes Monkshood and Nightshade, both just arrived and starting their workup period. The arsenal ship Narwhal – sorry, sir, I mean Arapaima II; I keep forgetting her new name – is accompanied by the corvettes Belladonna and Hemlock. The two new warehouse freighters, Bowhead II and Dolphin, are parked next to the original Bowhead, unloading her holds into their own and re-cataloging everything. The new communications ships, Hermoth and Iris, are running around the inner system, working up, and we have three corvettes on inner and outer system patrol, Amanita, Hellebore and Mandrake. Finally, the freighter Pilot is on her way out of the system, heading back to Constanta to pick up the next load of supplies.”

  Darroch smiled. “Seventeen ships! That’s a much better picture than a few years ago, when we had only a single corvette, a few old, outdated patrol craft, and a converted freighter serving as a makeshift depot ship.”

  “It sure is! It’s going to get a lot busier soon. You know about the new decoys?”

  “Yes, I heard. They’ll make it a lot harder for any sneak attacker to know what to shoot at.”

  “They’ll help us shoot back at his missiles, too. We’ve sown a hundred mines around our asteroid prospector bots, and another hundred around this planet, and there are more coming. We’ll let them orbit out to five million kilometers, as soon as we have enough of them to warrant that. We’re going to program a few of them to emit active radar pulses from time to time, then move immediately, so an intruder can’t fix their position. If someone’s sneaking around at the wrong moment, we might get a radar reflection off her hull, and be able to do something about her.”

  “I hope I’m here when that happens, sir. I’d like to have a live target for Bobcat’s missiles.”

  “So would I!”

  The courier ship Saranda scorched through the Mycenae system at her maximum velocity of four-tenths of light speed. Her gravitic drive was shut down, along with every other item of equipment that emitted a signal of any kind. She coasted in complete electronic silence.

  In her Operations Center, Lieutenant-Commander Malaj fumed. At this velocity, Saranda’s sensors were almost overwhelmed by the complications of time dilation, relative motion and the Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction. It was hard to make out exactly what was being portrayed in her Plot display. The recording of her headlong rush through the system would have to be replayed on faster, more powerful computers than her own, to make more sense of it. Even so, he could see that the Hawkwood ships in orbit around Secundus Two had been reinforced. There were several more gravitic drives emitting their characteristic signatures, including many more smaller vessels, corvettes or courier ships.

  The Plot operator said, concern in his voice, “What’s this one, sir?” He pointed to an icon near what they presumed was the local depot ship. “That looks like a destroyer-class gravitic drive, but Hawkwood doesn’t have any destroyers.”

  “They have not had any up to now,” Malaj agreed, his voice grim, “but that does not mean they cannot get any, does it?”

  “Ah… no, sir, it doesn’t.”

  “Mark that one for future reference. We must alert Captain Toci as soon as we get back. He will want to analyze that signature in as much detail as possible.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Trouble is, Malaj thought, it will take us two and a half weeks to get back to base. They should have sent another ship to Constanta, instead of making us do the round trip. We could have got back much faster, if not for that. They should not have to wait that long for this intelligence… but there is no help for it. I think I shall slow down to half this speed to survey the Constanta system, and see whether our sensors get better results. If they do, next time we come back here, we shall do the same, and learn more. Speed is safety, but we came to collect intelligence, not run a race.

  17

  Kill team

  PATOS

  As he turned into the driveway leading to the farmhouse, Agim dragged his mind away from the latest reconnaissance report submitted by Captain Toci. It certainly looked as if the damage they’d inflicted on Hawkwood had been speedily put right, and new ships had replaced those they had lost. He ground his teeth in frustration. Not only was the enemy’s fleet growing, but their sabotage attack had damaged the Brotherhood’s fleet as much as theirs – proportionally more, in fact.

  As he got out of the car, he thought of the briefing he was about to give. He wished beyond words that he did not have to deliver it… but wishes were dust and ashes in the face of hard reality. He shivered as he remembered the desolation, the torment, on the face of Pal Sejdiu as he had told him of Ilaria’s loss, and the supposed death of his son, and the explosion of grief from the young man’s brother and sisters.

  “Have you told Jehona?” her husband had demanded brokenly.

  “I… I have sent word to her. She will get it as soon as possible.”

  “I must see her!”

  “That is not possible. She is already deployed. It would destroy her cover, and imperil her mission.”

  “Do you think I care? Do you think she will care? Alban was our firstborn!”

  “I am sorry. It cannot be done. As soon as she has succeeded, I shall bring her back. You will have to wait until then.”

  Despite the family
’s entreaties, he had remorselessly stuck to his position. Their calls and correspondence were now all under rigorous surveillance, in case any of them tried to do anything foolish, or sought to blame the disaster on Agim or any of the Brotherhood’s other leaders.

  The head of the training school met him at the door. “Good morning, sir. The team is assembled and ready for you.”

  “Good. Let us begin right away. I cannot stay long.”

  “Yes, sir. This way, please.”

  The team, four men and a woman, were in one of the classrooms at the rear. Agim greeted them as he walked to the lecturer’s podium.

  “You know why you are here,” he began without preamble. “Yours is one of the most vital missions I have ever had to entrust to a group of our agents. It is a measure of our trust in you that you have been selected for this task.”

  He displayed an image of a young officer on the screen behind him. “This is Sub-Lieutenant Alban Sejdiu. He was a junior officer aboard our armed freighter Ilaria. Despite our instructions to our spacers that they should fight to the death, Sejdiu cravenly chose to surrender rather than die. As a result, the enemy learned much from him. What is more, he is preparing to help their propaganda efforts against us. They can produce him, in uniform, along with other proofs of his service, including the lifeboat he used to escape his ship before she was destroyed. He will be a powerful tool against us in their hands.

  “Worse, his mother is one of our most distinguished agents. She is presently in the field, engaged in a most sensitive intelligence operation on the very same planet where he is being held. Tragically, she cannot help but be affected if she learns of her son’s treachery. No matter how professional she is, she is his mother. We all know the depth and power of that bond, from our own experience.” His audience nodded.

  “Your task is threefold. You will go to Constanta, and find out where Alban Sejdiu is being held. You will find a way to infiltrate that place and kill him, so that there is no possibility that our enemies can use him against us, and to punish him for his treachery. Do not interrogate him, do not even speak to him – just kill him. He deserves nothing more.” Nods of agreement, bitter anger in their eyes at their comrade’s betrayal.

  “You will also try to locate his mother, Jehona Sejdiu.” He threw her picture onto the screen. “She is on Constanta, using the cover name of Antonia Funar. If she has not learned of her son’s treachery, all well and good. However, if she has heard about his defection… that may change things. You will have to assess the situation for yourselves, because I cannot anticipate what you will find. If there is even the slightest chance that she may be cooperating with our enemies, for the sake of her son, then she must die too. Her son has damaged us badly enough. She could damage us far more, with all she knows. If there is any doubt at all, kill her.” More nods.

  “Those two are your top priority. Kill Alban Sejdiu, and if there is any doubt at all about her loyalty, kill his mother. After that, if it is possible – and it may not be, if the enemy’s security for its leaders is as good as ours – you should try to locate their leader, Commodore Andrew Cochrane.” Another picture appeared on the screen. “He is a very intelligent man, who has been able to respond to all our efforts against him and Hawkwood with telling blows of his own. If you can find a way to kill him, or those closest to him, particularly his advisers and staff, do so. The more of them we can take out of the picture, the easier it will be to move against their successors when the time comes. However, as I said, that is secondary to disposing of Alban Sejdiu and, if necessary, his mother. At all costs, those two are your imperatives!

  “I will not hide it from you that yours is a high-risk operation. You have all volunteered for this mission, knowing and accepting those risks. For that, for your courage and commitment, I honor you, and I thank you for your dedication to our cause.” He bowed to them, and they bowed back in mutual respect.

  “Without men and women such as you, we should not have got as far as we have, and the triumph of our cause would not be as near. Rest assured, thanks to your efforts, and those of others like you, we shall triumph, and soon!”

  As Agim drove away from the farmhouse, Pal Sejdiu entered a small shop in a suburban mall. His face was still tight with the pain of his grief. The shopkeeper hurried forward to greet him, but stopped short. “Pal! What is wrong?”

  “It is… I cannot speak of it yet, Afrim. It is a personal matter.”

  “I am sorry, my friend. How are things at the ship?”

  “They are as they should be. I am back here for another regular administration session. Did you get that module for me?”

  “Yes, I did. It is in the back.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  The two men walked companionably to the rear of the store, and through a door in the back wall. The agent watching unobtrusively from the mall outside wondered for a moment whether he should go into the shop, to keep a closer watch, but almost instantly decided against it. Pal came to this store regularly, to buy components for his youngest son’s hobby of amateur robotics. This was surely just another routine visit.

  The shopkeeper showed Pal a box containing a control module. “I am sorry it took so long, but I had to order it from off-planet.”

  “That is no problem. Let me pay you for it.” He fumbled in his pocket, and pulled out a slim chip case. “Oh, damn! I forgot I had to upload this file for my daughter. It’s a copy of some study material she wants to send to a friend. May I please use your shop terminal?”

  “Of course.” He waved at the desk in the corner as the front door chimed for attention. “I’ll attend to that customer while you send it.”

  “Thank you.”

  Pal sat down at the terminal and entered a call code. A mailbox was displayed. He uploaded the contents of the chip into it. It looked like a school report about a poem, a line-by-line analysis of text, rhyme and meaning. However, it disguised a carefully crafted message, one that would be intelligible only to someone possessing the necessary key to decode it. He entered an anonymous sender address, and a destination code that would automatically reroute the message to a different system. Coming from the shop terminal, it would be just another anonymous communication, with no easily traceable link to Pal.

  He pressed the ‘Send’ key. The message would now be transferred to the off-planet queue, to be collected by the next weekly dispatch vessel. From there, it would be routed to an interplanetary message repository, copies of which were circulated to all settled planets every week. Within six to eight weeks, Jehona should be able to read it.

  You must think I am deaf, dumb and blind, he mentally snorted at Agim as he cleared the terminal and pocketed the chip case. You forget who and what I am. I routinely monitor everyone’s communications at the refinery ship. Did you think I would not recognize the signs when you did that to me? That is why I insisted Jehona should set this up before she left. I feared something like this might happen. You will not prevent me from sharing our grief with my wife, damn you!

  “No! NO! You ask too much!”

  The speaker glared at Agim. Age had weakened his body, but not his mind, and his voice was determined. “We authorized the use of the patrimony collected for the Fatherland Project, because you told us that spending on our security was spending on the Project. However, today we have less security and less patrimony! One of our new and very expensive warships has vanished without trace, and one of our freighters too, laden with missiles. You blame that on our enemies, but advance not one shred of verifiable evidence to prove it. Furthermore, one of the four armed fast freighters we authorized has already been lost. You claim she destroyed three enemy ships in her last fight, but where is the evidence? Missing gravitic drive signatures are not proof. Those ships may have been damaged enough that their drives were shut down, but not destroyed; or they may have moved off at low power, which cannot be easily detected. No, Agim. I shall need far stronger evidence that what we have already authorized has been well sp
ent, before I vote for even more of our patrimony to be diverted. So far, I have seen none.” There were several grunts and exclamations of agreement.

  Another old man spoke up. “You have said we should trust you because the Patriarch personally selected you for your office, so that to have faith in you is to have faith in him who chose you. That is all very well, but he chose all of us except our three newest members, all of whom we voted for unanimously. It seems to me that the Patriarch would have expected all of us to put faith in each other, because he trusted all of us. Instead, you, Endrit and Fatmir have become a triumvirate. We seldom know where you are or what you are doing. We receive limited reports, only as often as you see fit to make them. This is not what our Patriarch established as our model of government. I believe it is time for this Brotherhood to reassert its authority and govern as a Council, not delegate our powers indefinitely.” This time, the open approval was even stronger.

  A third man raised his hand. Suppressing his anger and frustration with difficulty, Agim nodded to him, conceding the floor.

  “I do not believe the three of you are wasting your time or our money,” the speaker began. “We have known you for too long to doubt your integrity. However, part of the problem for you, and for all of us as a Council, is that we are remote from the reality of this conflict. We sit here on Patos and pull strings, while others dance at the end of them, and sometimes die. That is a problem for all our people. If we lose too many of them for no visible progress, they will come to doubt our ability to lead them. If they doubt that, they will eventually begin to doubt the Patriarch who developed the vision that leads us all, and who hand-picked almost all of us. That would be a disaster.