Shell Game, page 15
part #15 of The Last Hunter Series
“You’re damned right. Unfortunately, there’s no way of figuring out what’s going on without getting aboard that station. Out of the ships that I’ve seen thus far, I haven’t seen any that seem to be operating as a flagship. This may end up being a waste of time when it comes to getting the control codes. At this point, I’ve got a number of probes around the station itself, and if it seems like they’re sending signals to the other groups of Tardan warships, maybe we can narrow down if they are, in fact, using this as their base of operations. If not, we’ll have to do some more looking around.”
“Do you think it’s best we send some of your drones over to the station and try to figure out what they’re doing? These ships are obviously acting as guards rather than a central fleet command. If their leadership is anywhere in this area, they’ll be aboard the station.”
“We can do that, but there will be some risk involved. The chances of them being spotted here are low, but not zero. All it takes is one person seeing something they shouldn’t, and the game will be up.”
“It’s still a lot safer than sending any of us aboard the station,” he countered. “If this is the kind of place we need to go, then we can make that happen, but I don’t want to waste effort that has a higher chance of revealing our presence unless we need to. In the end, Admiral Romanoff will have to make the decision, but I think we need to proceed with caution.”
“I’m standing right here,” Romanoff said. “I agree with everything you’ve said. I think that sending the spy drones aboard to figure out what they’re doing would be useful. If nothing else, we might overhear something or find something in one of the computers that gives us a better location to search. We won’t be able to get what we want without taking some risks. We’ll be careful, but it needs to be done.”
“So, how do we want to do this?” Derek asked. “If you like, I can take one of the cutters in and deploy the drones so that we have no opportunity for any of our communications to be detected.”
“While that’s a good idea, it’s not something we can use here,” Tina said. “We’ll just have to pick a direction that looks like it’s safe to communicate through because I need to control them from here.”
He nodded even though she couldn’t see him. “Understood. Let me know what I need to do when the time comes.”
“Just hold position, and you can tap into what the drones are seeing if you want to. We’ll be moving them slowly, but the visual feeds should reveal pretty quickly what they’re up to.”
Derek found a handy asteroid that didn’t have any Tardan warships nearby and used it to partially shield the ship from the station. The probes they were using to scout the area would warn him if any vessels began heading in his direction, so he allowed a portion of his attention to watch the probes headed toward the station.
They were made of the same anti-sensor hull material as the ship, and the chances of them being detected on approach were significantly lower than even Specter. Technology like that certainly made the work they were doing now possible. Without it, they would have been limited to trying to sneak in with regular probes, and they would’ve almost certainly been spotted.
The pair of probes that Tina launched toward the station ghosted in and stopped just short of the hull. Both of them disgorged drones that immediately went to the nearest airlock and began working to get inside. They would bypass the security monitors and make certain that no one detected their intrusion while the probes acted as relays to communicate with Specter.
As the technology they were working on was from a Confederation manufacturer, getting in took very little trouble, and there apparently weren’t any alarm systems other than the standard notification to the control area that the airlock had been opened. Disabling that from the outside was a relatively simple task that most Marines could do. That was part of their training for boarding actions. You didn’t want pirates to know you were coming after all.
The feeds from the individual drones were somewhat chaotic to watch because he had no idea where they were going. They scattered into the maintenance conduits as soon as they were inside the station. Luckily, there was no one near the airlock to see them enter. That was the weakest point in their plan, and they’d gotten lucky.
The drones were good spies and were also capable of sabotaging the station if that was called for. That wasn’t part of their plan, but some of them immediately headed to areas where they could interfere with the power and communication systems. If it became necessary to do something aboard the station, they didn’t want anyone aboard screaming for help.
One of the drones keeping an eye on their area noted a Tardan warship moving in their general vicinity, and he focused his attention on relocating Specter to the other side of the asteroid they were hiding behind. He did so without breaking the communications link to the probe and then kept an eye on the warship just to be sure it hadn’t spotted them.
Unlike the others, it didn’t have a heat shield, so it moved quickly between one asteroid and another. He wondered why it needed to relocate as it should have been safe enough staying where it was. When it got close to the station and hid in its shadow, he understood that it probably had business with the station. That was confirmed when it launched a cutter. It went to the landing bay and entered the station.
He wondered what they were doing. There was very little chance he’d be able to figure that out, but there was obviously something going on aboard the station that the military was concerned about. If this wasn’t their command post, then what was it? Why would they devote these kinds of resources to it and keep its use hidden?
Waiting for the drones to make their way through the station and get themselves plugged into the communication systems and computer systems took a bit of time. What took longer was figuring out what the Tardans were using because they didn’t know how to utilize Confederation equipment. Interestingly, they’d set up their own computer systems and communications lines that ran down the corridors and into various rooms.
That ruined the ability of the airtight doors to keep things secure if there was a loss of pressure. If there was any decompression, the closing hatches would sever their communications and computer lines. He was surprised. It seemed wasteful to utilize actual cables when wireless would certainly do the trick.
“I think I figured out part of what they’re doing,” Tina said. “Check out feed number six.”
She was talking to Romanoff, but Derek tapped into the appropriate feed and saw what she meant. McDonnell had said that the station had been evacuated, but it was obvious that wasn’t true. The large area here had once been a cafeteria of some kind but was now an area to hold prisoners. Someone had set up makeshift cells, and they were occupied by humans.
A quick count told him there were at least two dozen people there. Some of them were sleeping while others paced the small area that they had to themselves. None of them were in the same cells as other people, and the clear partitions between them did not allow for physical contact.
“This can’t be good,” Romanoff said. “What are they trying to do?”
“Unknown. Perhaps they’re trying to communicate with them. When we had our prisoners, we tried to open lines of communication via the hardware that Lisa set up. They don’t have even that, so they’d have to try and learn how to speak Confederation standard. Perhaps that’s what this is.”
The people in the cells were wearing coveralls, but none of them matched. Well, very few of them matched. Some of them look like they came from ships, and others were perhaps taken from the station here. He wasn’t sure. Whatever the case, he doubted the people that he was observing all came from the station. They’d been plucked from other places and brought here.
That’s when he heard Tina curse. “I figured out what they’re doing. Look at feed number twelve. That comes from a compartment just down the corridor from this one.”
When Derek switched to that feed, he saw what was obviously a laboratory, and he recognized a lot of the equipment. The base they’d captured on Argent, where the Tardans had been experimenting with implanting the symbiotes into human beings, looked very similar to this, and the fact that there was a human strapped to a table face down while two Tardans were opening up his back confirmed his fears.
They were experimenting with humans to figure out if they could be turned into a host race. Derek knew from talking with various people that it wouldn’t be successful, but the amount of damage it would cause to the people they were torturing was significant.
He hadn’t thought that they had brought any free symbiotes with them, but obviously, that hadn’t been correct. They were repeating the experiments that their brethren had done inside the cluster and torturing the humans they had captured during the process. That wasn’t intentional, but they wanted to subjugate an intelligent species and turn them into an extension of themselves.
That was just as monstrous as it had been the last time he’d thought about it, and it needed to be stopped. Unfortunately, they weren’t in a position to act without revealing what they were doing. They couldn’t stop this while keeping their presence secret. The choice now was to do something and blow their operation or to allow what was going on to continue. Neither one of those options was very appealing.
“Well, that certainly tears things,” Romanoff said. “They’re not going to be successful in what they’re doing, but that doesn’t mean we can let them continue unabated. How can we stop them without revealing ourselves?”
“I can’t think of anything we could do in this situation that wouldn’t make things worse,” Tina said. “If we disrupt this operation, it will get out to the rest of the Tardans. If we intend to continue trying to get the master control codes, we cannot intervene here right now. That makes me angry and sick to my stomach, but we have to keep in mind what our ultimate goals are. These people are going through hell, but there is nothing we can do to stop that.”
Romanoff didn’t say anything, most likely because he was thinking. Derek was doing the same, trying to come up with any option that would allow them to stop this monstrous experiment, but he couldn’t come up with an answer that wouldn’t ruin their chances of defeating the incursion. They had to have those master control codes. Without them, they would be subject to a fight they almost certainly couldn’t win.
“As much as it pains me, I agree,” Romanoff said. “We’ll want all the data that we can get off of their computer systems. Not the Confederation ones but the Tardan ones that have to be on the station somewhere. If they know where the command forces are inside the DuPont system, that will make our job easier. If they have a listing of all the forces that came on this invasion and what might’ve left for Earth, that would be even better.”
“I’m still looking for those, but when I find them, it won’t be very difficult to steal data from them. The automated intrusion program that Lisa put together is pretty good, and I should be able to worm my way in without them being aware that we are here.”
“Then focus on that. I think we’ve seen enough about what they’re doing here. Set up the drones so that they can operate to sabotage the station. Before we leave, we’ll want to stop back by and destroy this place and rescue the prisoners.”
“Will do.”
Derek sat at the controls and felt helpless. Why did these monsters have to do things like this when he knew that the vast majority of Tardans were decent people? It made no sense.
Well, one way or another, they’d deal with them. Those who had committed these terrible crimes would pay for what they’d done. It just wouldn’t be soon enough for him, much less the poor people on that station.
20
Patrick followed Lisa up the lift shaft past the sensors, alarms, and weapons emplacements. The security personnel hadn’t installed anything to block the shaft from direct access, counting on their precautions to keep intruders out. That was sloppy of them, but he wasn’t going to complain since it allowed them access.
This wasn’t the way he’d have chosen to get into the ad hoc mansion that Alphonso Garibaldi had constructed for himself, but it was effective enough. It might even mean fewer dead bodies in their wake than a more straightforward approach would have done. Getting into a facility like this on a space station was somewhat more difficult than doing so on a planetary surface. There were fewer means of entry, and they could be guarded more heavily.
That didn’t keep him from eyeing the weapons as he passed. Slug throwers that were tied into the sensors created a tripwire that would shred any people who attempted to climb up this lift shaft. Based on some of the damage he saw on the way up, it had been put to the test. The dried blood on the walls indicated that others had made the attempt and failed.
That probably gave the security personnel a false sense of, well, security. While that was a repetitive thought, it was amusing.
Lisa hypothesized that Garibaldi lived on the uppermost floor, which would put him on the top of the station with a view of the space around them. The way stations were oriented, the bottom was where the heatshield was attached, and so the uppermost layers had a clear view of the stars all around without the blazing sunlight that would otherwise blind anyone inside or the smothering darkness beneath the heatshield. It also allowed people on the other side of the station to deal with any raised temperatures.
That was the way of rich people. They always lived in the most exclusive areas and had the very best amenities. It seemed the station was in no way different than any planetary environment, though the amenities were significantly different.
Lisa paused at the first set of lift doors just past the weapons emplacements and began threading a fiber optic cable between them. There wasn’t much space to work with, but when one could insert something the thickness of the hair it was easy enough to get a look.
“There’s a security station here, and it’s occupied,” she said in a low voice. “They don’t look like they’re very concerned about intruders, but I can see four people in uniform, all armed with rifles and pistols. None of them are focused on the lifts, but there are some monitors. I’m not sure they’re watching what’s going on in the rest of the facility, but that seems likely.”
“Can you do anything with their systems from here?” he asked.
“Not from here, but there is a spot further up that I might be able to work with. Come on.”
The two continued climbing higher, and the pair of Marines that were accompanying them followed along behind. He thought bringing the Marines was unnecessary and would possibly be problematic considering what they were going to have to do, but this was her show, and he would see how it played out.
They went up another two levels and were just below the highest one when Lisa stopped again. Next to the ladder was a removable maintenance panel that she began working on. She had a strap that attached to the panel itself so it couldn’t fall and be lost. That was thinking ahead. He approved.
Once she had the panel off, she directed the two drones that she’d brought with her to crawl into the small opening and then put the panel back in place and secured it. She once again secured herself to the ladder and began working on her tablet.
“That access panel was to the electric circuits powering the lift, and it should get me access to one of the floors down below where there’s a junction. It’s a good thing that the crawly drones can squeeze into some really tight spots. Yep, there’s the junction I was expecting. Let’s see if I can find a way back down to the security station and hijack their systems.”
Patrick had to admit that he was impressed. He was no slouch when it came to compromising security systems, but with her skills and the drones she’d designed, Lisa undoubtedly would prove to be his superior in that area once she gained experience. Her idea of going into corporate espionage—and potentially blackmail, he thought—would be an excellent complement to the skills she was acquiring or had already had.
He’d been considering her alternative plans for the future and upon reflection, he didn’t think he would protest too much if they indeed proved compatible in a professional and romantic sense. Having someone to share his life and goals with wasn’t something that he could have done before, and he was intrigued by the idea now that it was possible. Intrigued enough that he was willing to make compromises to make it happen.
“I’m down to the security room, and I’ve made my way into the ventilation system,” she said. “Unfortunately, the place that it lets out is directly in their line of sight if they look up from the monitors. There is some risk involved with this part that I can’t really get around. One of the drones will be able to hold onto the vent while the other one disconnects it. Then, that second drone can make its way down the wall while the first one keeps the vent in place. There’s going to be about thirty seconds to a minute where there’s a danger of it being spotted.”
“How do you intend to mitigate that?” he asked.
“The only way I can. I’ll have the drone move slowly so that there’s no motion to capture anyone’s attention. That’s what humans do on an instinctual level. So long as it doesn’t seem like anything on the wall is moving, we’re just hostages to the random chance of someone looking up for some reason. It’s a risk, but one that I’m willing to take if you are.”
While he was certainly willing to give this a shot, he decided to ask a few more questions to make sure she was certain this was the best course of action. “What do we do if this goes bad? We could blow our way in and still deal with the target, but that’s not going to be something the Poseidon Group will overlook. The original plan calls for them never knowing we were here. Do you think it’s worth the risk, and will that work?”
“I think it will work. The lighting there is set to a rather low level so that they can watch the monitors more clearly, which gives us some cover. I say we go for it.”
