by Daniel Gibbs
Bhatt looked up, dazed. “Colonel…Doctor…”
His eyes rolled into the back of his head and David shook him. “Stay with me, Doctor,” David said hastily.
“Barrigo attacked us…” Bhatt got out quietly. “She drugged both me and my nurse.”
While Bhatt spoke, Calvin and several Marines jogged into the medical bay. “Sir, reporting as ordered,” Calvin said.
David looked toward Calvin. “Captain Barrigo attacked the medbay personnel a few minutes ago and fled.” David’s face hardened. “I have reason to suspect she is possibly acting as a saboteur for the League.”
Calvin’s face twisted like someone had shoved a knife into him between his ribs. He quickly hid the expression, however, and answered, “Understood, sir. I’ll order my squads to break out combat armor and begin a deck by deck search of the ship.”
“Use the ship’s internal security personnel for the search. I need the rest of your Marines ready for a boarding action.”
“The POW transport,” Calvin answered immediately, “getting it in one,” as David liked to say. “I’ll bring up what we know of that ship type from our database and put together a boarding plan.”
“Very well. Move out, Colonel Demood.”
Calvin braced to attention before departing with the Marines who were with him in tow.
David could feel Dr. Tural’s piercing gaze sinking into his back. He turned around to face the man. “Something wrong, Doctor?”
“You’re a little quick to judge, Colonel,” Tural said. “It’s not unknown for rescued POWs to suffer psychological episodes due to a trigger.”
“Maybe so, but given the circumstances, I’m just trying to be on the safe side,” David stated before softening his tone and words. “No matter what happened, she’s one of us, and I want to give her as much leeway as I can.”
“Bridge to Colonel Cohen,” Sheila’s voice called over David’s comm.
He raised the comm on his wrist and spoke into it. “Go ahead, Major,” David said.
Sheila’s voice continued. “Internal sensors haven’t found her yet. I’ve got Hanson and Merriweather working on fine-tuning the system. We’re not sure if it’s messed up or we just don’t quite understand its quirks yet.”
“Understood. I’ll be joining the search teams.” David tapped a button and cut the call. “Doctor, I’ll have the sergeant-at-arms post men here in case she doubles back. If you see her...”
“Call you and security immediately,” Tural finished.
David nodded and walked out of the room, pausing at an emergency security panel long enough to input his command code and retrieve an energy pulse sidearm. He forced himself not to consider the implications of the situation, and instead solve one problem at a time. The problem now was Captain Barrigo; He hoped against hope that there was an explanation for the events of the last thirty minutes that didn’t involve the League staging the entire thing.
The League’s peace delegation consisting of half a dozen ambassadors, aides, and diplomatic ministry officials boarded a specially outfitted shuttle that had been stripped of all weapons in the cavernous flight bay of the Destruction. Admiral Seville strode in through the nearest doors and made his way over to Jenner; in tow as always, was the political officer, Colonel Strappi.
“Greetings, Minister,” Seville said.
“Admiral, Colonel,” Jenner replied.
Strappi remained mute as Seville continued, “Are you preparing to head to the surface, Minister?”
“Yes, Admiral, I am. Have you reconsidered joining me on the initial shuttle down to Canaan? The Saurian delegation has requested your presence again.”
“I don’t think it’s wise for me to join you, Minister. I represent fear and terror to these people. I came in the night with my fleet of a thousand ships twenty-seven years ago. I took their invincibility away from them, along with their safety.” Seville paused and pursed his lips. “They need to see someone new; a man of peace, such as yourself. From there, we can work toward a common goal to end this senseless slaughter. I will come down on another shuttle once you have begun your important work.”
“Of course, Admiral.” Jenner glanced toward the shuttle as the last of his team boarded. “I will take my leave of you now, then, and see you shortly.”
“Good luck, Minister.”
“Same to you, Admiral.”
Both men quickly made the salute of the League—the closed fist pressed to the chest—as Jenner turned on his heel to depart. Seville watched Jenner as he entered the shuttle, the hatch closing behind him. Once it was securely shut and the shuttle began to depart, Seville glanced at Strappi.
“That is a pity. I actually like him.”
“I worry he suspects.”
Seville fought down the desire to openly sneer at Strappi. “Of course he doesn’t suspect. He believes we all want a just peace. You worry far too much, Colonel.”
“That is my duty, Admiral.”
“Of course. Now run along and check up on the crew’s morale, then join me on the bridge to watch the Terran Coalition’s death throes.”
29
Striding onto the bridge, Sheila made a beeline for the CO’s chair. Ruth had been standing watch as the command duty officer. “I relieve you, Lieutenant Goldberg,” she said curtly, approaching the CO’s chair.
“I am relieved,” Ruth stated formally, standing from the CO’s chair and retaking the tactical station.
Speaking to the rest of the bridge, Sheila announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a situation. Master Chief, signal an intruder alert to the sergeant-at-arms, but do not trigger the general alarm.”
Tinetariro acknowledged the order. “Yes, ma’am! I’ll have security deployed outside of all sensitive areas. Are we looking for something or someone specific?”
“Captain Adriana Barrigo.”
Tinetariro’s eyebrows shot up. “XO, with respect, what aren’t you telling us?”
“Colonel Cohen believes that the captain is possibly under League influence. She assaulted medical bay staff and has disappeared.”
A dark cloud descended over the bridge. Sheila and Ruth exchanged glances with each other as all eyes focused on Sheila. “We have to find her now and sort out what’s going on,” Sheila said. “TAO, can you calibrate the internal sensors to look specifically for Barrigo?”
“Yes, ma’am! Give me a moment to cross reference her unique signature to our internal sensors.” While she spoke, Ruth was already pulling the proper file out of the ship’s main security library and plugging it into the internal sensor module. “XO… she’s not anywhere on our internal sensor profile,” she reported, not seeing Barrigo anywhere on the ship.
“You can’t just disappear on this ship…” Sheila was dumbfounded at how the woman could have pulled this off as her opinion of the situation quickly moved to mirror David’s. “TAO, run a diagnostic on all weapons systems, specifically looking for sabotage,” Sheila commanded directly, her eyes scrunched together and a frown on her face.
“Yes, ma’am!” Ruth said, her mouth remaining open in shock after responding. Working through the various weapon systems, she called out the status of all systems. “So far, no sabotage to the manual systems, auto-loading systems, energy capacitors all report green. Remote gunnery…” Ruth stopped in mid-sentence, a blinking light catching her attention.
“Lieutenant?” Sheila prodded.
“Ma’am, I’m seeing a remote access to our point defense system,” Ruth said. “It’s not from one of the auxiliary control stations, engineering, or the secondary bridge. Whoever is doing this has set up a wireless connection that is being redirected over an entire section of the ship. This is incredibly skilled hacking.”
“Kick them out now, Lieutenant.”
“I’m trying, ma’am.” Ruth worked through several different commands and security codes before slamming the console with her hands, visibly frustrated. “Whoever it is, is using a high-level override that I can’
t defeat.” Ruth cranked her head around to face Sheila. “Who the heck is doing this, XO?”
Ignoring Ruth, Sheila brought her personal communicator up to her mouth. “Thompson to Cohen.”
After a pause, David’s voice crackled through the device. “Go ahead, XO.”
“Sir, we’ve identified an unauthorized access to the remote gunnery system.”
“I’m assuming that you’ve tried to lock the system out without success?”
“Correct, sir. It’s using a high-level override.”
“Wait one, XO.”
Over the active communications link, Sheila heard David attempt to use his own lockout sequence. “Computer, this is Colonel Cohen. Authorization Code Alpha, Tango, November, Bravo, Three Niner One. Terminate all remote gunnery system access.”
The computer’s reply was immediate. “Function cannot be performed. Gold Level command override in place on existing connection.”
Sheila was stunned by the revelation of gold level command. How the heck did she get her hands on those? David interrupted her thoughts. “XO, we’d need a flag officer to override those codes. I can’t cut it off. Can you tell me where the access is coming from? We can get security units there to stop Captain Barrigo.”
“Wait one, sir,” Sheila responded and muted the communications channel. “Got any aces up your sleeve, TAO?”
“Ma’am, that signal is being bounced off eighteen different wireless access points. She’s using our ship’s dispersed control capabilities against us. I’ve narrowed it down to a section of the starboard side, above the flight deck. Decks 10 through 14, Sections 20 through 30.”
Sheila unmuted the channel. “Sir, starboard side, above the flight deck. Decks 10 through 14, Sections 20 through 30.”
Sheila could make out the frustration in David’s voice as he responded, “XO, that’s a lot of space to cover. Is there any other way to narrow it down? I doubt we’ve a lot of time here.”
Sheila pursed her lips together, trying to run ways to find the elusive woman. Suddenly, a light bulb went off in her head. “Wait a minute, sir. Some of the compartments that house the long-range sensor arrays are completely encased in dampening elements so we don’t receive false positive readings. That’s where she’s at.” She pulled up a schematic of the starboard side section of the Lion on the monitor above the CO’s chair. Quickly, zeroing in on the shielded compartments, Sheila brought up her communicator once more. “Sir, there’s three separate compartments she might be in. D11S22, D11S28, and D13SS25.”
“Understood, XO. I’ll take it from here.”
As David’s communications link ended, Sheila looked toward Ruth. “TAO, stand by to disable the remote gunnery system as soon as control is restored.”
“Yes, ma’am!”
On the bridge of the Destruction, Seville looked quietly at a clock. Strappi was nearby, still nervous, while an officer reported, “Minister Jenner’s shuttle is away, sir.”
“Well, it won’t be long now,” Seville said with satisfaction. “Put the crew on silent alert. Just in case we have... unforeseen complications.”
David killed the communications link and addressed the security personnel with him. “Sergeant,” he said, gesturing to one of the security teams. “Take Section D11S22.” Gesturing to the other team, he continued, “Corporal, take Section D11S28. I’ll handle D13SS25. Remember, Captain Barrigo is one of our own. Use non-lethal force if at all possible. Move out!”
David took off at a run to the section he left for himself to cover; it took him several minutes to cover the distance. Finding the right passageway and then quickly locating the service panel that opened to reveal a very narrow engineering space, he crawled through, pulling out his energy pulse sidearm and pointing it forward as he traversed the crawlspace. After what seemed like an eternity of crawling through the bowels of the ship, he sighted a small workspace area directly ahead. Taking pains to be quiet but still move quickly, he saw Barrigo staring at a control screen.
Back on the bridge of the Lion, Ruth called out in alarm. “Conn, TAO. Forward point defense batteries are coming online under remote control!” She watched in horror as a targeting display came alive. “Ma’am, they’re targeting Minister Jenner’s shuttle!”
Sheila stood up from the CO’s chair. “Lock down those weapons, TAO!” she barked.
Ruth shook her head. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I have no control.”
Meanwhile, David was trying to slip into position to ambush Barrigo when his communicator activated. Sheila’s near panicked voice came through. “Colonel! She’s trying to blow up the League’s shuttle!”
This day just keeps getting better. David jumped into the engineering workspace area where Barrigo was set up. Noticing that Barrigo had a small tablet device plugged into one of the ship’s data lines with crosshairs on top of a shuttle showing on its screen, he wasted no time. “Barrigo!” he shouted at her. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing but put that control down now!”
Barrigo looked at him with a blank stare on her face. “I must fire the guns,” she said as she turned back to her screen and brought her fingers up to it.
David quickly brought up his energy pulse sidearm and fired a shot into her shoulder. Barrigo cried out in pain, dropping the device to the floor while screaming at the top of her lungs. “I must fire the guns! I must do what my father says!”
David turned up the power to his weapon as she reached down to pick the tablet back up. He fired again, the blast hitting the tablet and incinerating it as well as part of her hand. Screaming, Barrigo fell down to the floor, holding her charred and burnt hand.
On the bridge, Ruth’s targeting screen suddenly went black. “Conn, TAO! I’ve got gunnery control back!” Quickly disarming the point defense systems, she powered down and secured the Lion’s weapons suite. “System secure, ma’am.”
“Conn, communications. The Destruction is warning us to shut down our weapons immediately and explain what is going on,” Taylor said.
Sheila allowed herself a sigh of relief. “Communications, tell them that we had a problem when running a diagnostic, but everything has returned to normal.”
Back in the crawlspace, David knelt beside Barrigo. Quickly checking her vitals, he found her pulse to be strong, and the wound on her hand cauterized due to the heat of the energy pulse. He pulled his communicator to his lips. “I need a medical team to D13S25, the lateral access space, now!”
David did what he could to make her comfortable as she whimpered in pain. “Barrigo, I need to know who told you to do this?” he asked as non-threateningly as he could.
Her eyes looked as if they were staring right by him to a point hundreds of miles away. “I must do what my father says,” she cried. “I must be a good girl!”
David tried consoling her instead. “Barrigo, your father is waiting for you. Just a little while longer.”
“No!” she cried out again. “He won’t let me come home if I don’t do what he says. He says to fire the guns! Fire the guns! I must fire the guns!”
30
A few minutes after the medical team arrived to tend to Barrigo, David exited the gravlift to the passageway leading to the bridge. Exchanging a quick salute with the two Marines guarding the bridge door, he made his way through the hatch and onto the bridge. He had requested that Amir and Calvin join him on the bridge to discuss the situation; he was happy to see that they had made it there ahead of him, as time was a very precious commodity.
Master Chief Tinetariro announced his presence on the bridge. “Colonel on the bridge!”
David said curtly, “As you were.” He motioned Sheila, Amir, and Calvin over to the main holographic projector in the middle of the bridge. “XO, colonels.”
Sheila was the first to speak. “I’m not sure where to start, sir.”
“We’ll start with the obvious. This peace deal was a farce, designed possibly to turn the rest of the galaxy against us, or at least give the League a pretext to fir
e on Canaan.”
Calvin made a face. “We should have never trusted those Leaguer bastards. The only good Leaguer is a dead Leaguer, sir.”
Sheila’s face clouded over at Calvin’s words, while Amir looked eager for a fight. David, though, shared Sheila’s concerns. “Colonel Demood, I sense that at the very least, Minister Jenner was sincere. That doesn’t change what we need to do here, but it’s something we should remember.”
Sheila picked up where David left off. “We also need to remember that almost all of the people on those League ships are conscripts, and if they won’t fight, they and their families are executed for treason.”
David cleared his throat as Amir’s face twisted. “Be that as it may, we’ve got a job to do here.” Turning to direct his full attention to Calvin, he continued, “Colonel, do we have enough Marines on this ship to secure the POW transport and save our people? We know they’re there thanks to the Intergalactic Red Cross visits on the way to Canaan.”
Calvin nodded. “I’ve got three hundred Marines on this ship, Colonel. I’ll get them home or I’ll die trying. You’ve got my word on it.”
David cracked a smile. “I’m much more interested in you making the other guys die for their country, Colonel,” he said, referencing the comments made at the dinner with the League.
“Agreed, sir.”
“Amir, do we have enough stores to outfit your wing for anti-capital ship strikes?”
Amir set his jaw. “Yes, sir. What we lack in numbers, we make up with fighting spirit. We have plenty of anti-ship missiles. I’ll have our entire bomber force set up to engage capital ships, and we will stand by on ready five for your order to engage.”
David nodded his understanding. “I hope I’m wrong, folks. I hope the Destruction simply stays in orbit, and this was all some kind of giant misunderstanding or a plot by only a few of the League’s officers. But my gut says very shortly our friends over there are going to go weapons hot and start shooting. So we’re going to be prepared. Sheila, take us to material condition two, get our damage control teams up and running, and make sure those contractors know we’re in a possible combat situation. I want the right groups in the right places to help with repairs should we need it.”