“Patch me through to the Armstrong,” he said. “Now.”
“You’re live Chancellor. They are receiving you.”
“Armstrong this is Chancellor Tomlinson. Stand down. You are in violation of Executive Council orders. You need to cease and desist immediately.”
The ship continued to accelerate away.
“Armstrong we know you’re receiving us. Patch me through to Admiral Nakamiru.” He waited in silence. When he was sure he’d waited long enough he said, “Admiral, I know you’re listening. If you do not stand down and allow us to bring Katryna Roja into custody, you are through. Do you hear me, Admiral? You are through.”
After several seconds, Nakamiru’s voice came over the speaker. “I hear you, Chancellor Tomlinson, but let me assure you of one thing. We are far from through.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Armstrong: Outbound from Galileo Station:
It had taken more than sixteen hours for the Executive Council to figure out what came next. When the Prime Minister’s face appeared on the tactical viewscreen of the Armstrong, flanked by Chancellor Tomlinson and Union Steward Lassiter, her expression said she was more sad and tired than angry.
The announcer came on first, his voice calm and soothing in spite of the gravity of the moment. “This is an official newswave broadcast to all FleetCartel vessels and facilities throughout the Union. Please stand by for Carmen Ambrose, Prime Minister of the Executive Council of the Human Union.”
The Prime Minister looked down at the thinpad on the podium in front of her and cleared her throat. Twice. “As of 0945 hours this morning, Katryna Roja has been removed from her position as Chancellor of FleetCartel. She faces charges of high treason against the Union. She is also under investigation for the deaths of Chancellors Markhas and Ariqat as well as other capital crimes.
“Attempts to apprehend former Chancellor Roja have thus far been unsuccessful. She has escaped custody and has commandeered the FleetCartel vessel, Armstrong. As this vessel requires a substantial crew to operate, it is unlikely she is acting alone.
“Any facilities or ships that have contact with Roja or the Armstrong are instructed to notify the Chancellery’s Office of Special Investigations immediately. Failure to do so will extend legal consequence to you. Further, any ships or facilities that provide aid to the fugitive in her flight from justice will be equally liable under the law.
“Authorities are currently tracking her ship outbound from Galileo Station toward a destination unknown. We are making all reasonable efforts to recover Roja and the renegade crew of the Armstrong as quickly as possible. To this end, civil security forces throughout the system are authorized to use whatever means necessary to apprehend former Chancellor Roja. However, while she is aboard the Armstrong and remains at large, she is to be considered extremely dangerous.
“After the resignation of Investigator General Edison Wentworth last night, I will direct any questions regarding this matter to Chancellor Tomlinson. He has been appointed acting director of the investigation.
“Thank you and please remain vigilant. Through your support and cooperation, the Union will endure.”
Katryna stared at the screen and shook her head. “I guess we should run up the Jolly Roger.” she said after several minutes of silence hung over the ConDeck crew. They’d all been painted with the same brush with which she’d just been beaten.
Renegades.
She sat in an acceleration seat between Jeffers and the admiral. The three of them had the command riser to themselves. At a sustained two-g no one was likely to walk up on them and interrupt.
“If that’s the new banner of the Union, then so be it. I will fly it proudly in your service Chancellor,” Captain Jeffers said.
“As would I,” Nakamiru said, sadness dragging his voice down an octave. “Though I hope it does not come to that necessity.”
“Me too,” she said, “but we have to face the fact that Carmen Ambrose has just cut us off from any free harbor that we might have used.”
“It is going to make resupplying a bit more challenging,” Jeffers said.
“Perhaps,” the admiral nodded. “I find it interesting that the Prime Minister addressed her message to FleetCartel ships and facilities directly. That has to be perceived as a personal threat against our people and it may actually result in some pushback against the council.”
“Good point,” Katryna said. “I don’t know if it will be enough, but it’s something.”
“At least the multicruisers we’ve got can deploy to Mimas. Since they have no official connection to us, they can resupply there without issue,” he said.
“That may not be true,” Jeffers said. “The Challenger had to threaten to cut its way loose from a docking stanchion at Ceres Alpha to get flight clearance through local traffic control. Captain Mei got her own ship out, and managed to get the Galen free too.”
“That sounds like Cassandra Mei,” he said. “She reminds me of another captain I once knew.”
Katryna looked around the room in a caricature of innocence.
“Apparently the Jolly Roger fits,” Captain Jeffers said, grinning. “However, after they pointed guns at him, Lukas Rodriguez is howling furious. He’s well respected and his word will push many of the port authorities, who might have otherwise been neutral, in a bad direction for us. Word will spread fast.”
“That does present us with another problem,” Nakamiru said. “We will need to establish logistical support if we intend to have the endurance to press this to its conclusion.”
“The Armstrong is set up well,” the captain said. “But as soon as Tomlinson suspects that we’re getting material support from anyone, he’ll move to take them down. He’ll choke FleetCom to death by using SourceCartel to bludgeon our supply chain. It will be a game of attrition that we can’t win.”
“Unless we get outside the box faster than they can close it,” Katryna said.
Hector: Surface of L-4 Prime:
Alyx spent the night creating an interface that would tie Dutch directly through a com antenna to the sensor kit on the crashed ship. It would be much easier to use the Hector’s AI to link to Dutch, but because they were unable to access the ship’s main computer, that wasn’t possible. To make this work, they needed to tap into the NavCom grid on the Hector. Unfortunately all the com gear on the Hector sat entombed under the ice so they also had to install a new dish on the surface.
Once that was in place, Rocky could hardwire the pieces together inside the Hector and Dutch would have access to the sensors. It wasn’t ideal and the connection would be painfully slow, but it would work better than what they had now.
Alyx had argued to help Rocky in the installation. Although her exosuit made her mobile, the doctor said the risk was too great, so she and Danel worked the upper end of the system with Dutch, Chei and Kiro worked the relay dish, and Rocky did the heavy tech lifting inside the Hector.
Jeph insisted that Cori and Seva also go back into the Hector to see if they could prove that Ian Whitewind was not still alive and hiding. While Rocky worked in engineering to establish the interface, the two of them would do a deck-by-deck search. It meant that until the comdish was set up and Chei could get inside to help, either Rocky worked alone, or one of them searched alone. Neither of those options pleased the captain.
“I work better alone, and is big ship,” Rocky said, stopping to glare at Seva hovering over her, doing nothing more than being a tool caddy. They were working in their EVA suits, but breathing the ship’s air, so the engineer checked to make sure she wasn’t making her suggestion over the open com. “You should join search. I will be safe until reinforcements arrive.”
“Ja, probably, but the boss was pretty solid in his instructions not to leave you alone,” Seva said. “He may be small, but he’s mean.”
Rocky laughed. “Da, but I am armed,” she said, patting the holster where her sidearm hung. “Is safe here and I can close hatches to engineering. Cori is at
greater risk than I.”
Seva sat the tool bag down on a seat. “You’re right, but I should follow orders.”
Rocky sighed, tapping back into the com. “Chei, how long until you have completed your task?”
“Five minutes,” he said. “I’ve already pulled the optic leads and accessed the NavCom buss. I’m stretching the wires now and Kiro can set the dish alone. You need me for something?”
“Negative,” she said. “Am trying to expedite Seva joining search detail and needed your ETA.”
“What are you thinking?” Jeph asked.
“I wish to assign Seva to search,” she said. “I can secure access points to Main Engineering until Chei completes his task.”
“I don’t like it, but it’s your call,” he said.
“I do not need assistance here, but deck layout of Hector is challenging and additional manpower on search will reduce mission duration,” she said, nodding and waving Seva on her way.
“Understood,” he said. “Go ahead.”
Seva paused at the door. “Cori, where are you?”
“I’m on Deck B above the pilot station working my way sternward,” he said.
“Where do you want me to start?”
“Meet me on the ConDeck,” he said. “Rocky’s right, this boat’s going to be tough to clear. It’s got a lot of snake holes and every room I’ve checked has at least two exits. With the home-turf advantage, it’d be tough for a solo hunter to corner a rodent that doesn’t want to be found.”
“That assumes they’d want to avoid detection,” Jeph said. “That possibility bothers me worse than space rats, or the ghost of Ian Whitewind.”
Office of Special Investigations Tactical Center: Galileo Station: Lunar Lagrange One:
“Where the hell is she headed?” Chancellor Tomlinson stood staring at the display of the solar system. A bright red line showed the trajectory of the Armstrong and its current position showed as a white cross.
“Best guess would be somewhere in the Jupiter Gap. Or possibly Saturn,” his traffic analyst said. The woman was one of the nameless bureaucrats that peopled his staff, but never rose to a level where he’d need to know her name.
“She’s still going to have a lot of loyal followers,” Tomlinson said.
“Yes, but they’re going need to put into port somewhere, and when they do you can lock her down,” Paulson Lassiter said. He was one of Chancellor Tomlinson’s closest allies, and his first choice as his chief of staff in the effort to apprehend Roja.
“You mean like we did with the Challenger and Galen?” The chancellor turned back to the table, taking his seat.
“Well … no. Not like that.” Heads were rolling over that mistake, but nobody seemed able to point a finger at a real culprit. Authorization to mount weapons on fleet ships came from somewhere. The inability to find a trail of documentation was giving bureaucrats in every cartel flaming ulcers.
“Our problem is we don’t have a clue what the Armstrong can do,” Tomlinson said. “It might be heavily armed for all we know. It’s a flying mountain.”
“That would be a flagrant violation of the Union Charter,” the traffic analyst said.
The deadpan expression on the chancellor’s face was enough to make his point and send her into therapy for the rest of her life.
“We need to figure out her destination. From the way they’re accelerating, they’re obviously running for the outer system.” Tomlinson sat, drumming his fingers on the table.
“Saturn,” she said again. “The Jovian moons are too far ahead, and Triton is too far retrograde from their current trajectory.”
“That seems too obvious,” Lassiter said.
“She has a potentially friendly port at Mimas,” Tomlinson said. “But I agree. She has to know we’d anticipate that. Is anything else on their trajectory?”
“There are a half-dozen charted centaurs within a few degrees of their heading,” she offered.
Derek glanced at Lassiter who shook his head slightly.
“Saturn has sixty-seven moons and a shit-ton of ice for reaction mass,” she said.
“With so much going on around Saturn, FleetCom could own other bases that might not be on the map,” Lassiter said.
“It’s hard to hide a base,” the traffic analyst said.
“I’ve heard that before,” Tomlinson said.
“The truth is, even if it isn’t their final destination,” she said, “it will have to be a staging area.”
“Off the record here,” Tomlinson said. “Can we get enough firepower assembled to cripple the Armstrong when it pulls into port?”
“Based on their current velocity we’d have four weeks tops,” she said. “Maybe a lot less, depending on how long they keep accelerating.”
“That will be a record-breaking transit time,” he said, “but can we get in front of them and do it?”
She looked at her thinpad to check the status and locations of ships around Saturn. “There are several Hawking Class and, a bunch of Sagan Class science vessels, as well as a few of the mobile Von Braun test platforms out there. Most of them are joint charters with DevCartel. Of course there’s also the flotilla of icebarges that Source runs.”
“We’d have to bring any them out to the Iapetus Maintenance Complex and work fast.” Dexler Moorehouse said. He managed DoCartel shipyard facilities in the outer system.
“All the way to Iapetus?” The little moon was far out toward the edge of the Saturn system and inconvenient as a staging area for this kind of operation.
“Yah, IMC is entirely our facility,” he said, shrugging. “Nobody’s going to whinge if we bend Union law.”
“Theoretically, you could get guns mounted to the ice harvesters at the Hyperion Platform without running into too much in the way of protests,” Lassiter said. “Most of them already have cutting lasers for blocking out slabs of water.”
“Downside is cutting lasers range would be only a couple klick,” Dexler said. “I also don’t think there’s a gigawatt reactor on any of the icebarges, so given their power overhead they’d only be able to support a few on any ship.”
“For that to work, we’d need to set up an ambush,” the chancellor said. “If we can lure them in under the pretext of being sympathetic to the cause, we can cut them up. If they’re coming in for reaction mass, they’ve got to cozy up tight.”
“It only takes one good hit on an engine supply line to shut them down,” Morehouse said.
Tomlinson nodded. “Hopefully she’ll give us the chance.”
Jakob Waltz: Station-keeping Above Hector Landing Site: L-4 Prime:
Jeph sat on the EVAOpsDeck watching the body optic feeds from the landing party and chewing his nails. Or he would be, except he always kept them ridiculously short to prevent that nervous habit from making him appear indecisive. He made a conscious choice early in his career and on a day like this, he wished he had something to do other than sit and stare at the screens while his crew did the real work. Chewing his nails would work.
Anju sat at the adjacent console. Her job was more boring than his, since she was responsible for monitoring the biometric readout from the landing party’s suit systems. She didn’t even have the distraction of changing optic images as they moved around inside the Hector. For her, it was hard numeric data. Heart rate, respiration, O2 saturation, skin galvanic responses and a host of other blood chemistry that gave her a laser focus idea of their reactions, not their actions.
“Jeph, have you got a minute to check out a newswave?” Danel cut in on the com channel from the ConDeck where he and Shona kept an eye on the external optics from the landing site 100 klick below. At this distance, they couldn’t see much, so apparently Danel was watching news to distract himself.
“Not really,” Jeph said annoyed that he’d interrupt for down-system chatter. “Why?”
“You’re going to want to see this,” he said.
“Not likely,” Jeph said, glancing over at Anju who shrugged. “It�
�s crap from a couple billion klicks away. No impact on us.”
“Not this time,” Danel said. “They tried to arrest Chancellor Roja for treason and she’s on the run. She stole the FleetCom flagship, ran a blockade, and there’s an ongoing system-wide manhunt for her. Carmen Ambrose is all over the waves calling Roja every kind of trashbag.”
“Nojo?” Jeph said.
“That doesn’t add up right,” Anju said. “Roja’s got us investigating a weapons operation and scared witless about a war fleet hiding out here, and then somebody drops a smack on her. Sounds a bit contrived to me.”
“Add to that the fact that the Investigator General quit just before they tried to arrest her,” Danel said. “He’s been out of sight ever since.”
“Wentworth’s probably the cleanest name in the Union,” she said. “He turned down the Prime Minister’s job when the Chancellery tried to draft him because he said he hated the politics. If he was sidewise enough to walk out, there’s something burning in Rome.”
“It does stink funny.” Jeph leaned back and rubbed his forehead, trying to massage a realization into his brain. It wasn’t setting well. “That leaves us with a problem. If Roja’s out of FleetCom and somebody wants to bury her, who the frag do we report to?”
“That’s why I figured you’d want to know,” Danel said.
“I thought we were on our own before,” Jeph said, shaking his head and sighing, “but now there’s absolutely nobody on the other end of the tether.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Hector: Surface of L-4 Prime:
“I’ve got a problem,” Seva said. “Cori seems to be missing. He said he’d wait to meet me before he went into the ConDeck, but he’s not here. And the hatch is barred and secured.”
“Crewman Stone, report your position,” Rocky ordered.
Silence answered.
“His body optic is offline,” Jeph said from the Waltz. “Anju’s also reporting we got no signal on his biometrics.”
“Like he’s dead?” Seva said.
Shan Takhu Legacy Box Set - With an Extra Bonus Story Page 25