by TR Cameron
But Jax had no opportunity to follow up. The sound of the second one switching his pistol into a different mode alerted him, and he dropped to the floor with a yelp. A broad beam stun blast crackled past him and caught the other, but his armor quickly absorbed it. Right, they’re stun-proof. I have to get my head in the game here.
Athena announced, “I’ve got you,” and muffled cries came from both opponents. They simultaneously reached up and ripped off their helmets and threw them aside. Jax moved before they’d finished. He drew his pocket stun gun, jammed it against the uninjured one’s neck, and pressed the firing stud. The man fell. The other soldier was a woman, and she was still trying to return to proper breathing. She tried to shoot him, but the blast went awry as he ducked and dodged. Then she was out too.
“Damn, Athena, good work. What did you do?”
“I’ve been working on cracking into their systems. The comms turned out to be most vulnerable, so I put a feedback loop in it, increased the volume, and locked out any other changes.”
“Nice. Took out these two effectively.”
The AI sounded smug. “Actually, assuming no variables I’m unaware of, it should have affected all the attackers.”
Jax chuckled. “Even better.” He picked up both stun pistols since helmetless opponents were vulnerable. One went into the back of his belt, and the other stayed in his hand. He looked down at the crossbow with a reluctant frown, stripped off the cuffs with the remaining bolts, and dropped them with the historic ranged weapon. He grabbed the mace and turned back the way he’d come.
“Jax, you’re no longer heading toward the safe room. Did you hit your head?”
“Nope. Circumstances have changed. If they’re helmetless, they can be stunned. And that’s something I’m probably much better at than the rest of the castle staff. Keep trying to get me some cameras, will you?”
“Unlike you, I can multitask without losing effectiveness. I’ve been doing so since they went down.”
He reached the top of the spiral staircase and crouched to listen. Not doing a great job of it apparently, oh supreme multi-tasker. He heard a noise from his right and peered around the corner. Two soldiers without helmets stood there, and he jumped up and pulled the trigger on the stun gun.
Naturally, it failed to discharge. Dammit, what the hell is this? It had no biometric sensors to prevent him from using it; he’d checked that. And he knew it was operational since he’d almost been shot with it. They stared at him and brought their weapons up, and he threw the pistol at the one on the right as he dove into a forward somersault. It caused the man to flinch, and the laser blast missed. The other one’s shot singed Jax’s back as he went to the floor.
Oh, hell, guess they’ve decided capture is no longer a priority. Okay, that ups the ante. As he rolled to his feet, he drew one of his long knives with his right hand and tightened his grip on the mace in his left. His enemies’ heads presented such an inviting target, especially since they were now trying to kill him. Still, they were allegedly on the same team, more or less. He whipped the spiked club up at the left one’s rifle, knocked it upward, and hopefully damaged the barrel. If it had been his weapon, he certainly wouldn’t feel confident shooting it after the impact, that’s for sure.
He dropped to his right knee, chambered the knife across his stomach and reversed his grip, then stabbed it backhand into the right-side soldier’s thigh. It pierced the armor with only a minimal reduction in velocity, and the man went down with a scream as the point came out the other side. If he were fighting an unarmored opponent, he’d have finished the blow by wrenching the blade forward to cut it free of his foe’s leg, but the front leg plate would make that impossible. Instead, he released it and threw himself into a sideways roll to avoid the downward strike of the first one’s rifle butt.
Athena, help me knock him out but not kill him. He leapt ahead, took a blow from the rifle on his flesh and blood arm, and hooked a punch with his left to the man’s temple. He noticed a strange feeling as the AI moderated the impact’s force, and the man went down. Jax repeated the process with the medkits he’d performed earlier, making sure both soldiers were stable for the moment.
Maarsen’s voice was an unexpected gift. “All units, the enemies are retreating. Keep drone coverage on them, but let them go. The authorities have been summoned and will arrive shortly. Students, stay in your safe locations. Staff, conduct a sweep and ensure we’ve got them all. We expect to have full systems operational within the hour, so be vigilant until then.”
Jax sighed in relief. “Let’s get down there and make sure Juno and her colleagues are okay. Then we can move on to the problem at hand.”
Athena replied, “The soldiers’ source of information inside the castle.”
“Yep. No doubt the Professor is doing his best, but you and I need to put our heads together and figure it out, fast.”
She snorted but skipped the obvious joke about them only having one head. He cleaned and sheathed his knives, rested the mace on his right shoulder, and headed for the medical lab.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jax, Maarsen, Stephenson, Juno, the Academy’s weapons master, and the Academy’s quartermaster were seated around an oval table in a rectangular chamber he’d not seen before. Located behind the control room for the training space, it was undoubtedly the most modern thing in the castle. Even the chairs looked high tech and had proved to be so when he sat, and the seat and back conformed to his body with a brief whir of motors. Each of the walls except the one with the door had a single large curved display mounted on it. The long ones held an array of paused images from the castle’s security cameras.
On the short wall behind Maarsen’s position at the head of the table, the monitor showed a freeze-frame aerial view of the sedan that slammed into the lobby to kick off the assault. The dining hall crew had provided sandwiches and coffee, and as they all finished making their choices, the Professor spoke. “We have three goals to accomplish, none of which will be complete by the time we leave this room, so expect to be busy until further notice.” He smiled at them, and they all laughed softly. Jax imagined the others lacked free time as much or more than he did. “First, to discuss in broad strokes the strategic and tactical objectives behind yesterday’s attack on the castle, and what it means for our future operations.” His face turned hard, and Jax sensed the seething anger hidden within his calm words.
“Second,” he didn’t quite growl, “to identify any lessons learned from their attack and our defense. Third, to discuss the possibility that there is an animate or inanimate traitor in our midst.” Scowls appeared around the table, and Jax felt his lips turn down. Although we all know there has to be one, it hurts to be forced to admit it.
Athena offered, “It will be worse once we share our information with them.”
Yes, it will. But let’s listen to the others first. Maybe we’re too self-centered about the whole thing. No witty comebacks, please.
“No. Not the right time.”
Harrington, the weapons master he’d met while assisting in Kenton Marshall’s “entrance exam” spoke first. Even sitting, he radiated energy from his compact form, somewhere about halfway between Jax’s height and Cia’s. As he talked, the displays slid into motion, showing the scenes he described. “The sedan was autonomous, with a decoy android in the driver’s seat. It was an off-the-shelf model, based on what we were able to recover, and we’re trying to track its source. The vans were local rentals. We are working with the assumption that the soldiers came down in shuttles somewhere within a couple of hours’ drive, and circled to approach from different directions as they reached our outer perimeter.”
Stephenson interrupted, “Which means you think they knew about your drones.”
Maarsen chuckled. “We’ll get there, Anika. Let Harrington finish.” He leaned conspiratorially toward the person on his other side, the quartermaster, and whispered loudly enough for everyone to hear, “She’s always been impulsive. Ever
since she was a student.”
Hellene, the Academy’s quartermaster, nodded. She was probably a decade younger than Maarsen, with hair going from brown to grey pulled back in a bun. She wore the standard black uniform of the Academy’s students. “I remember it well.”
Harrington cleared his throat and continued. “The soldiers we detained had no identifying materials on them, and a facial recognition scan came up empty, both in our databases and in those we can access. That means we’ve never seen them, and someone else has been very good at covering their tracks.”
Maarsen muttered, “Arlox.”
The weapons master nodded. “Almost certainly this is the Intelligence Division’s work. The armor was military standard, but we found no records suggesting the military purchased it. Same with the weapons.”
Jax tapped the table thoughtfully. “So, all of that suggests the op was put on in kind of a hurry, right? Otherwise, they would have done a better job of laying a false trail, rather than a blank one. Maybe Confederacy gear, for instance.”
Harrington shrugged. “That’s my working hypothesis, yes, but it’s far from confirmed. We’re currently sweeping the castle to see if they left any surveillance devices behind, but none of our cameras showed such activity before they went down.”
Maarsen spread his hands. “So, the question of the moment: what did they seek by the attack, why did they want to accomplish that objective, and what was effective against them? Anika, you first.”
Stephenson scowled. “If it’s Arlox, then it could be another move in the damned game the two of you have played for years. But if it had an additional purpose, it’s probably not a coincidence that Jax was here when it happened, given the interest the Intelligence Division has previously shown in him.”
Harrington offered, “I can’t speak to what occurred outside the Academy. What I can say is that their actions weren’t consistent with an intent to take and hold the facility. They would have needed five times their number at a minimum. So it was meant to be a quick hit and fade, which argues in favor of Major Stephenson’s conclusion.”
Hellene added, “The fact that they used non-lethal force until their comms malfunctioned is another piece of evidence supporting an intent to capture someone or something.” Jax and Athena had judged they were best served by keeping her intervention with the enemy’s communications secret. “The sophistication of their gear also adds weight to the notion that it was an Intelligence Division operation. The guns were tied to transponders in their gauntlets, which is why no one could use them against the intruders.”
Ahh, that makes sense. Not biometric as such, but a transponder, or maybe a physical contact in the glove.
Athena sounded annoyed. “I will gather information on defeating that precaution, in case we encounter it again.”
Maarsen asked, “What do you think, Jackson?”
“I agree with what everyone has said so far. I believe the operation was aimed at me, or more specifically, the AI in my skull. She agrees. It explains the numbers, the non-lethal entry, and their lack of a clear objective once they got in. We’ve reviewed the patterns in the camera footage, and it looks like they were searching for something. Probably me.”
He received a round of nods in response. “It’s more likely when you consider how much the intruders knew about the castle to begin with. Public plans are available from various moments in the building’s history, naturally, although I noticed they’re not quite accurate.”
Maarsen laughed. “Yes, modifying them so they couldn’t be used against us was one of our first counterintelligence operations. The physical originals we replaced are carefully stored in a hermetically sealed cabinet. The digital versions are preserved as well, although those are obviously of less historical value.”
Jax nodded. “Right. But the way they moved suggested they were following maps in their displays, or at least had memorized the layout. They weren’t discovering the spaces as they came to them; they had preassigned routes. That means they had a current map of the layout. It could have come from only a few places. First, someone could have hacked into the Academy’s systems. Second, a past student or employee could have shared information or planted surveillance devices. Finally, a current student or employee could have done either of those things.”
Harrington shook his head decisively. “I’ve checked with the computer people, and with the backup computer people, in case. Everyone agrees that no external breach of our systems occurred. Our security is at worst equivalent to, and most likely better than, anything the Alliance or Confederacy possesses.”
“Athena and I figured that would be the case, but it’s still nice to hear it confirmed. So, that leaves former people or present people as reasonable vectors for information to have gotten out. I mean, sure, they could be drilling under us right now with some fantastical device, but it seems unlikely.”
Harrington muttered, “The seismic sensors would notice that,” but it was clear his concern had moved on to the idea that someone had betrayed them. “Sounds as if we’ll have to investigate our own.”
Maarsen cautioned, “First, I think we need to narrow the possibilities. Are we agreed that we’re proceeding as if Jackson is the target?” More nods, with Major Stephenson’s the most emphatic. “All right. Then we can limit our pool to those who knew about his current visit. I can vet the former students and former employees.”
Jax interrupted, “There’s another factor to consider.” The Professor gestured for him to continue. “It probably has to be a person who knows about Athena. It would explain most simply how Arlox found out.”
The quartermaster offered, “Occam’s Razor in action. Sure. That makes a lot of sense.”
Maarsen shook his head, but it wasn’t a negation, it was regret. “That means it’s someone close. The only potential employees would be the medical staff.”
Jax frowned since unfortunately, the conclusions he and Athena had reached together had held up to the others’ inquiry. “And the most likely students, in fact, the only students, would be those on my team. Cia, Kimmel, Sirenno, Verrand, and Marshall.”
Silence reigned for several moments while they digested that notion. Harrington broke it. “Okay, that’s a place to start. We’ll need to trace their movements and actions. Which of them has been present during this visit?”
Stephenson growled, “All of them, at one time or another. The only ones here for the attack were Cia and Sirenno.”
Athena asked, “Have your suspects changed order?”
No. Marshall, then Sirenno, Verrand, and Kimmel.
“Not Cia?”
It’s not Cia. No chance. “If you’ll send Athena and me the data, we can work with it as well. Multiple sets of eyes will have a better chance.”
Maarsen asked, “Why? That’s the real question here, right? Why would someone do this? Maybe if we figure that out, it will provide insight into who it might be.”
Stephenson’s tone was flat. “It always comes down to politics, money, power, or sex. Not necessarily in that order.”
Harrington nodded. “Unless you’re dealing with a sociopath, in which case no rules apply, but I agree. And the students we bring in often have drives in more than one of those areas. It’s that broad desire for accomplishment that allows them to become successful in the first place.”
Jax hadn’t considered the situation through those lenses yet. He was still in the information-gathering phase and didn’t like to color the data collection by being overly focused on the results. In this case, that was more difficult than usual. Because the betrayal is personal, maybe deeply so.
Athena sounded uncertain. “The others have shifted their attention to your team. I feel that I must remind you that everyone in the medical lab is also a potential subject. Including Dr. Cray.”
I know. The possibility that our relationship is some sort of elaborate honeypot has crossed my mind, but honestly, I think it ranks somewhere pretty close to Cia on the “no way” scale
. But since I will clearly have a blind spot there, I’ll trust you to make your own judgment. You have my express permission to use my comm to send a message to Stephenson if you think I’m irrational.
“I always think you’re irrational. It’s one of your most appealing features. And while I don’t technically need your permission, thank you for the thought.”
Maarsen said, “Okay. Sounds like we know what we need to know to proceed. Everyone get going on your research. I have a party to throw together for Friday, which means we’ll have all the likely suspects here in three days. That’s how long you have to figure it out.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
By the time the night of the party arrived, Jax and the others had narrowed it down to two. Cia was above suspicion for him from the start and was cleared by the investigation as he’d expected. In the case of Ethan Kimmel, Jax thought he was probably too young and innocent to be a double agent. But they’d done their due diligence and discovered that he was exactly what he seemed: brilliant, earnest, awkward, and trustworthy.
Clearing Sirenno was harder since his movements proved difficult to track. Eventually, their surveillance uncovered that he was dating several people who didn’t know about one another, and his shifty moves and secretive ways were attributable to that circumstance.
Everyone in the medical lab had checked out, so that left Maria Verrand and Kenton Marshall. His money was on Marshall, but he wasn’t sure how much he wanted that to be the case since he trusted the man less than Verrand. Athena had pointed out to Jax that he probably had some transference going on, assigning positive qualities to the woman based on his knowledge of Beatrice O’Leary. It was potentially a legitimate blind spot, so she didn’t exit the list.