by T J Mott
“Do what now?” asked Angel 3, sounding confused.
Nic grunted in frustration. Those Angel guys could be quite dumb for as smart as they were. “I thought you guys were good at this! I don’t want anyone going to jail!”
“Hey, we had to use someone’s user account to get things started! If it makes you feel better, I’ll change it back so you show up in the logs!”
He reached for the datachip and unplugged it from his desk’s reader. Angel 1 immediately protested. “Whoa, the file copy errored out. What’s going on?”
“I’m not comfortable with this.” Nic tried to force the saliva back into his dry mouth. “I’m backing out.”
“You can’t back out now! We were almost done! Whatever you just did, undo it!”
“No!” Nic protested. “I thought this would be untraceable! I can’t go to jail, but I won’t let anyone else, either!” He couldn’t let their operation send an innocent man to prison. “There’s got to be a better way to do this. Let’s regroup and think about this.”
He and the Angels bickered back and forth for a few more seconds and then Iva cut in. “Hey, Nic, listen to me. I just ran a search on the user account they’re spoofing. That employee is cleared for the hangar.”
“What?” He paced back and forth within his cubicle a couple times, thinking. “You mean…he knows what’s in there?”
“That’s affirmative.” Iva paused. “Maybe worse. His username is on some of the data we took. He might even be a designer.”
He looked at the datachip he held in one shaky, sweaty hand. So this coworker, at the very least knew about the secret antimatter weapons. He knew Calco was violating Imperial law, and he’d done nothing to report it to the authorities on Norma. And at worst, he could be one of the weapons designers. “He’s one of them,” he finally concluded with a sigh as he plugged the datachip back in. He sat down in his chair and suddenly felt tired and deflated. “Okay, I plugged it back in.”
“Thanks,” said Iva. “You’re doing the right thing. Calco owes you for this. You’re a hero, even if they never find out what you’re doing for them.”
He nodded to himself as Angel 1 reported that he’d restarted the file copy. Nic tried to breathe normally, idly watching the holographic display as the file copy resumed.
Minutes passed. “It’s done copying. I’m starting the upload to the remote sites. Hang on Nic, we’re almost done.”
He swallowed and nodded. It would be a stain on the Empire’s honor if we were caught with antimatter. This is the right thing to do. He wondered if he’d ever be able to tell his kids about this. Maybe, in a decade or two, if they could leave Calco first. Despite their common loyalty to the Emperor and to Norma, many of the Imperial states didn’t get along with each other. Although they rarely went to war with each other, oftentimes there was a frightening amount of backstabbing and political infighting. Maybe another state would even thank him for shutting down Calco’s weapons plant.
“I think we’re done,” Angel 1 said. “Go ahead and shut down, Nic.”
He unplugged the hackers’ devices and returned his system to standby. “We have the files uploaded,” he said nervously. Only one thing left to do, if I can get near the hangar. He eyed the briefcase, fearful of what was inside. I still can’t believe I'm about to place a bomb…
***
“We have the files uploaded,” Nic’s voice nervously reported over their encrypted comm channel.
“Good work,” Fletch replied, noting the amount of nervousness in the man’s voice and hoping he didn’t have any major undiagnosed heart problems. “Now can you get a closer look at that hangar?”
“It looked pretty busy when I drove in.” Nic paused. “But I’ll take another look. Can the hackers find anything out?”
“Angel 1. There are a lot of cars in the lot. Must be something big going on tonight. Usually the place is cleared out except for a few security guards. Hey, kid, would you please hold still with that camera?”
“I’m sorry!” answered one of the younger gang members in their ring, who was manning one of the long-distance surveillance setups for the night. He was situated on the roof of an apartment complex at the very edge of the city, just a couple klicks away from Academy Engineering’s plant outside city limits, and his Angel-provided cameras and sensors had a good view of the facility. “It’s cold and windy up here!”
“I don’t know about this,” Nic said. “I think there’s too many people here. I’m just not comfortable…”
Fletch glanced at his wife as they sat next to each other in the cockpit of their Gray Fleet-issued yacht, itself an Academy Engineering design heavily modified with additional sensors and equipment by their employer. They were in low orbit above Calco III, though as far as the rest of the group knew the two of them were still in their house in the city.
Nic was definitely afraid to approach the hangar. He didn’t have access to enter the building, but briefly stopping outside the door for a few seconds really shouldn’t arouse anyone’s suspicion. But they hadn’t expected anyone to be working late there.
But Nic now had possession of 0.2 grams of antimatter. The bomb didn’t really have to be that close to the hangar to achieve the desired destruction. “Yeah, it might be too risky,” Fletcher said. Nic’s nervous demeanor was the very definition of suspicious. What would happen if he took longer than the few seconds it should take, and someone came out and talked to him? Fletch could be forced to set the bomb off early, and they’d been specifically instructed to avoid casualties on this operation. “Can you find the main server room? I think that would be a good alternate target.”
“Hmm. Yes, I can get to the door, but what good did it do to upload all that bad data if we turn around and destroy the computers?”
Iva reached forward to the ship’s console and muted the comm channel. “If the bomb isn’t set off at the hangar, he won’t be led to believe the hangar was full of antimatter weapons. He’ll know that bomb was bigger than what you told him.”
Fletch shrugged. “We’ll still achieve our mission goals, we just lose the benefit of him spreading crazy conspiracy theories.”
“But it was such a perfect cover!” she protested. “It would have been beautiful! The local conspiracy nuts would be accusing Academy of building illegal antimatter weapons for the next fifty years!”
“Hey, babe, we’re about to die. It doesn’t matter to us how all the details end up.” He stood up from the yacht’s pilot seat and stretched his arms out with a yawn. He stepped up behind his wife where she sat, leaned over, and gave her a hug from behind, wrapping his arms loosely around her shoulders and neck, resting his chin on the top of her head. “Let’s get this done so we can leave,” he said softly.
“Hang on!” one of the criminals suddenly said through the comm. Iva reached forward and unmuted their unit. “A bunch of people just left the hangar!”
“What?” said Nic. “Is the hangar door open? Can you see what’s inside?”
“No,” the criminal replied. “They’re leaving through a side door.” He laughed. “I think they finished for the day. They’re all getting in their cars and leaving!”
“Stand by,” Fletch ordered. “Let’s let things quiet down a moment and see if we can proceed. How’s the office look?”
“I’m the only one up here,” Nic answered. “Nobody works the office at night.”
“I see it too!” the first criminal said excitedly. “Yeah! All the cars are leaving the lot! I only see one staying behind!”
“This is Angel 2, that’s the security guard’s car,” explained one of the hackers. “Everyone else is gone. I think we can proceed. Hey, is the Distraction Squad in position?”
“Yeah, we’re here.” The Distraction Squad was a group of misfit teens they’d recruited from the lower ranks of a local gang, in case they needed to redirect security’s attention. It was probably unneeded…then again, as Fletch always said, one can never be too careful in his line of work.
“Standby,” Iva said.
“You got it, Boss Lady. Just say when.”
She reached forward and muted the comm again, and leaned back into Fletch. “We’ll give them a few more minutes for things to quiet down,” she said.
“Sounds good.” He sighed. “It’s hard to believe Gray Fleet has us blowing out our network and bailing like this. I know we got them some really great technology, but it almost seems a waste to throw everything away now.”
“The Commodore thinks it’s worth the trade. We do this and disappear from Calco, and the Organization will have exclusive access to the fastest hyperdrives in the galaxy for several more years at least. We could get promoted, and they’ll find us another job. Besides, this world’s too quiet for intelligence work. Nothing really happens here.”
Nic’s anxious voice came through the comm again. “I’m in the car, waiting for the all-clear to proceed.”
Iva and Fletch left the comm muted and didn’t respond. “So where did you put the bodies?” he asked her, referring to the pair of corpses they’d left in their home as evidence that its owners had died in the fire that would soon occur.
She laughed lightly. “I set them up cuddling in our bed.”
He frowned. Then he leaned around and kissed her on the cheek. “You’re sick,” he spoke quietly into her ear.
“Hey, Boss Man?” said one of the Angels. “I’m watching all the camera feeds. Nothing’s moved in several minutes now. I think we can move on.”
Iva unmuted the comm. “Nic, stand by in the car. Distraction Squad, you are go, repeat, Distraction Squad, you are go.”
“Whoa!” exclaimed one of the criminals from his observation point several seconds later. “What was that? You guys light off fireworks or something! At the perimeter?”
Someone laughed hysterically into the comm. “Oh yeah! I got them set up with fireworks and beer, and they’re lighting up a bonfire now. Right next to the fence. You better pay me good for this, these kids aren’t ever going to work for me again!”
“Well it’s working!” said one of the hackers. “A security guard just left the hangar and got in the car. He’s driving to the perimeter now.”
“Nic, it’s all on you,” said Iva. “Make your move.”
“I’m on it.”
“Well Boss Man, Boss Lady,” said the criminal who was overseeing the so-called Distraction Squad, “It’s been fun but it’s time for me to go. I’ll catch you at your headquarters tomorrow, right?”
“That’s right,” Fletcher answered with a smile. “Come by tomorrow evening. We’ll give you your final payment for this job.”
“See you then. Out.”
“Hey Nic, the security car is a klick out from the hangar now. I think you’re clear to move.”
Iva muted the comm again. “Those ‘Angel’ hackers really want to run the show, don’t they?”
He smiled. That group definitely watched too many cheesy spy holodramas. “Eh, we’ll let them give some orders, as long as the mission goes as planned. It appeals to their vanity.”
“Alright,” said Nic. “I’m driving to the hangar now. Hey, are you sure this little bomb is going to work with the hangar door in the way? I mean, it’s only a briefcase.”
“If Boss Man says it will, then it will,” one of the hackers said sternly.
“Nic’s not half as smart as he thinks he is,” Iva noted. “It never occurred to him that security is way too light for the hangar to be full of secret antimatter weapons.”
Fletch chuckled. “He’s just a half-witted office drone. But he’s got a hell of an imagination. I actually like working with him. It’s entertaining.”
“At least he had enough access to get our software in.”
“True.” Fletcher loosened his grip around his wife and straightened up behind her, leaving his hands resting gently on her shoulders.
“I’m at the hangar door. Ready to place the briefcase.”
Once again, one of the hackers cut in. “Hurry up! I see cop cars on their way to the kids! The security guys will probably head back once the police show up!”
“What do I do? Just set it on the ground here?”
“I don’t know, Nic. Maybe prop it up against the door? Near the middle?”
Fletcher laughed. “It’s antimatter, you fool!” he mock-shouted at the muted comm console. “Just put it within a quarter klick of the hangar and it’ll all work out!”
“I guess.” They heard shuffling and breathing, and a gust of wind over the comm, all coming from Nic’s hidden earpiece comm as he stood outside the car. “Okay, it’s in place. Oops, hang on…” He grunted a couple times like an old man trying to bend over. “It fell over. I straightened it out again. Is this all right?”
Fletch took a hand from Iva’s shoulder and motioned at the console, and she unmuted the comm. “Nic, that’s perfect,” she said, even though they were not actually monitoring the video feeds from the ground. Iva was a master manipulator. “Leave it there and head home.”
“You’re sure? This door looks pretty tough! I better reposition it.”
“Look, we managed to get a few security cam images from the inside,” his wife added, an outright lie. “Right where you have it now is perfect. The stuff we want to destroy is stacked up right on the other side of the door, less than a meter away.”
“I don’t know. The door’s that thin?”
Iva muted the comm again. “I should just put it on Push-To-Talk,” she remarked, and then flipped a switch to do so. “There. He better get moving quick. I don’t really want to set it off with him standing there, but if he doesn’t get going, we’ll have to.”
“What do I do?” Nic continued, sounding more anxious than ever. “It’s a heavy steel door! And your bomb looks really small!”
“It’s fine!” one of the hackers hissed, sounding as impatient and annoyed as Fletcher felt. “Boss Man said it’s fine, so it’s fine! Now get moving!”
“Well, I hope you’re right. That’s a pretty small briefcase. Can’t be much packed in there.” A few seconds later, they heard a car door shut and Nic’s comm quit picking up the sounds of the night breeze.
Fletch took a step back from her chair and yawned again. “Almost done. Get them out of there so we can leave.”
She pressed the Push-To-Talk button on the comm console. “All done, guys. Pack up, and get clear.”
Fletch looked over Iva’s shoulder at the console to see the time. Then he smiled. “Oh, you’re delightfully sneaky,” he said. “I knew there was a reason I loved you.”
“Why’s that, babe?” she asked playfully.
“I just saw our orbital track,” he answered.
“Oh, you like that, don’t you? We’ll be directly overhead in twenty minutes.”
“Twenty minutes should be plenty of time for them to get clear, and for the police to finish hauling out the kids.” He sat down at the pilot’s seat and unlocked the thruster controls. “Let’s get a better view.” He tapped the maneuvering thrusters, putting the yacht in a momentary roll that left the starboard side oriented to point at where the ground would be in twenty minutes. Then he stood up and stepped to the viewports at the side of the cockpit.
“There, I put it in a timer.” Iva stood and joined him, standing beside him with her arm around his waist and her head leaning into his side. Together, they stared out the starboard window as the surface of Calco III hurled by about three hundred klicks below them.
“Hey, guys?” one of the hackers’ voices cut into the comm again. “Can you leave the cameras set up? I want to see if I can see it when it goes off.”
“But it’s cold out here!”
“Just leave it there for now! Go back and pick it up tomorrow! Nobody’s going to find them on those roofs.”
Iva chuckled. “Everyone within fifty klicks is going to see it happen,” she predicted. “The flash will probably bake the cameras.”
“Yeah. Oh well.” He kissed her lightly on t
he top of her head. “So what’s next?”
“Our orders are to visit the field office in Jio and pick up new orders,” she answered.
“Jio?” He frowned. “They’re pulling us away from the Empire?”
She shrugged beneath his arm. “Who knows? Things are weird since the Emperor died. Maybe they’ll send us back once Gray Fleet gets a new plan together.”
“Hmm. I sure hope so. I really don’t want to leave the Empire. It’s too uncivilized out there.”
“Hon, just remember that a commander in Marcell’s group makes triple what a commander anywhere else makes. We can make do in the Independent Regions for a while.” Something beeped, interrupting her words.
“Was that it?” Fletch asked, studying the planet’s surface. “I didn’t see anything…”
“No, that was the timer for the charges in the house,” she said. “Oh, by the way. I closed up the firesafe, but I’m pretty sure I forgot to lock it.”
“Oh? What’s in it?”
“Nothing too important. Just some documents. IDs, bank account information, comm printouts, and such. And they might make it look like we were working for Grant Munitions, Incorporated.”
“Nice.” She had just named a regional manufacturer of warheads and a supplier for the local vassal’s fleet. Grant Munitions operated in a star system six light-years from Calco. They were not a competitor to Academy in any way…unless one falsely believed that Academy was secretly building weapons. “That will really stir up some regional politics if they find it.”
She laughed quietly. “You haven’t even heard the best parts yet. If anyone actually follows the bank records, they’ll find a money stream that seems to go straight to the Duke of Isler.”
“Ha!” Fletcher laughed. “Isler? You are such a conniver!” Isler was another minor vassal state in the Norma Empire, and it directly bordered Calco. She was good at leaving clues behind…perhaps too good. Sometimes he wondered if anyone had ever pieced together the contrived plots his wife liked to weave. It would be such a shame to leave a trail like that behind and have nobody discover it. This one, he realized with sly amusement, might even lead to a local cold war between Imperial Dukes if it was uncovered.