Shell Game, page 16
part #15 of The Last Hunter Series
“Then do it.”
It was a bit nerve-wracking to wait while she had her drones do their tasks, but when a few minutes had passed without any alarm from her, he relaxed. If they were going to be caught during this particular part of the operation, it would’ve already happened.
“I’ve got the drone down, and it doesn’t seem that they’ve noticed it,” she said. “It’s now behind the security station and opening one of the consoles. Once I get inside, I’ll have it break into the interior security systems and begin making certain they never figure out that we were here.”
It took her fifteen minutes to do her work, and in what would normally be hardly any time at all, his legs and arms were complaining about hanging onto a ladder over a drop of several hundred meters. Next time, he’d make certain to bring along a strap like the one she was using so that he didn’t have to worry about falling.
“I’ve got the drone ready to override any video with the loop that I prepared. I can’t do it preemptively because they have wandering patrols, and I don’t want to cover up something like that where they might notice the discrepancy. I’m going to have to pay close attention to the patrol patterns when we are safely in a location where it’s not monitored. That means you’re going to have to take the lead on dealing with any unforeseen incidents.”
“I happen to be an expert in dealing with unforeseen incidents,” he said with a grin. “You just leave that to me.”
“You’ve got it. Let’s go up to the uppermost level and deal with our new friend. It doesn’t look like he’s got guards patrolling on that level, and only the common areas are monitored. The lift is one of those, so I’ll have to override the video feed and the alarm circuit so that when the doors open, no one notices.”
“I’ll leave that in your competent hands. You get me to Mister Garibaldi, and I assure you that I can handle everything from there.”
He followed her up the top level and waited while she took the necessary steps to be certain they didn’t set off any alarms or raise any eyebrows when the lift doors opened. She double-checked what the cameras were seeing with the fiber-optic cable—a paranoia for which he approved—and then had him help her wedge the lift doors open while they all climbed out.
The mechanism for opening the lift doors was meant to be triggered by the lift itself, so it took a bit of muscle power to get things set up, but there was a catch to lock them in place. He secured that, and they all made their way into the darkened top floor of Mister Garibaldi’s station-side mansion.
He wasn’t certain if it had always been this way, but the corridor floor was covered in a plush white carpet. He took a moment to lean down and run his fingers through it. High quality, too. It had probably been here since before the Poseidon Group came into power because importing something like this after the fact would’ve been an undertaking.
Still, he couldn’t rule it out. After all, the members of the Poseidon Group were ultra-wealthy for the most part, and they could afford to have a freighter that brought in all the luxuries they desired. It didn’t really matter because Garibaldi wasn’t going to be enjoying them after tonight.
Leaving Lisa to watch over the electronic monitoring, he padded his way down the corridor past the common areas and other dedicated rooms that were not meant for sleeping. None of them were occupied, which meant he had smooth going until he got to the double doors at the end of the corridor. Unless he was mistaken, the other side would contain the master suite.
The doors weren’t locked, nor were they alarmed. This deep into the man’s sanctuary, he wasn’t surprised to find things set up this way. Powerful men—and women, for that matter—didn’t like the inconvenience of having to deal with carrying keys around or disarming security systems. That’s what lackeys were for.
Moving slowly, he opened the door just enough to see what he could determine from the inside. It was dark, so the odds of Garibaldi lying in bed watching some entertainment video were low. The snores that he could hear confirmed that a few moments later.
He proceeded into the master suite. There would undoubtedly be side rooms for storing clothes and bathing, but he was interested in the bedroom.
And that’s what he found himself in. He couldn’t see much about the furnishings, but he didn’t need to. The fact that there was a big bed—with a canopy of all things—sitting at the other end of the room told him where he needed to be.
The floor was covered in the same carpet as the corridor, so he was able to move to the bed soundlessly. When he arrived, he found a minor complication. It seemed Garibaldi had a sleepover guest.
He couldn’t see very much of the other person, but based on the shape underneath the covers, it was a woman. That made what happened next important, so he took every precaution to make certain he made no noise. He opened the satchel across his shoulder and pulled out a small spray bottle.
After putting in nose plugs and making certain that his gloves were secure, he made his way around to the other side of the bed and spritzed some of the contents across the woman’s exposed face. She snorted and started a little but fell into an even deeper slumber.
The particular drug he’d used worked directly on the skin and had an additional effect when inhaled. Firstly, the inhalation would quickly knock the person out, and where it had been applied to the skin, it would absorb more slowly and keep them unconscious. It was a tried-and-true recipe that he picked up from his old days as a spy for the king. She wouldn’t remember anything when she woke up, and there would be no traces of drugs in her system if anyone were to check.
With that accomplished, he put the bottle away and made his way back to Garibaldi’s side of the bed. He needed the man awake, so he would have to use a different mechanism to bring him under his control. Once again, his previous work prepared him admirably for this particular task.
He pulled a small patch out of his satchel and peeled the adhesive off one side. That exposed a bed of extremely small needles that wouldn’t leave any trace that they had injected a drug into Garabaldi’s system, and wouldn’t even wake him up from pain. He wouldn’t feel the insertion at all.
As deeply asleep as Garibaldi seemed to be, there wasn’t much risk that the man would wake, but he once again took every precaution when pressing the drug patch to the man’s exposed shoulder. The slight pressure made Garibaldi rearrange his torso a little, but he didn’t even try to scratch the area where the drug was being absorbed. Perfect.
Sixty seconds later, Garabaldi’s eyes opened slowly, but he was staring straight up, not seeming to be aware that he was awake. He waved a hand in front of Garabaldi’s face and received no response whatsoever. Then, he tapped him on the forehead with a fingertip and was rewarded with the same reaction. Satisfied, he reached over to the nightstand and turned on the light.
“You can come in,” he said quietly. “We’re ready to proceed to the next stage of the operation.”
21
Jack sat at one of the consoles in the intelligence gathering area and went over the high-level summary that Tina had prepared for him. He’d hoped to get information on the forces the Tardans had brought into the Confederation proper, but it didn’t seem like they were going to get lucky. This research facility wasn’t directly part of the military and didn’t contain information about that.
What it had was a map of the system and the location of the command ship. That’s what they’d hoped they’d find at the station, so it made this a worthwhile stop on the way to getting what they needed.
It angered him to see what the Tardans were doing to people on the station, but they just couldn’t risk revealing themselves to rescue them. It made him sick to his stomach, but when he balanced their well-being against that of the entire Confederation, it was an easy choice to make from a strategic perspective. It certainly wasn’t easy, though. The thought of what those monsters were doing made him almost physically ill.
When the time came, he would deal with everyone aboard the station. Their exit from the system didn’t have to be nearly as clean as their entrance. So long as they got the control codes, they could rescue the prisoners and destroy the station and its guard ships. The fighters they had waiting for his call would be more than capable of handling that before they withdrew.
With some difficulty, he put the situation they were dealing with out of his mind. He had to focus on getting the control codes they needed, and everything else would have to sort itself out.
Tina was able to find where the fleet command was located inside the DuPont system and it was relatively near the research station. It was only one cluster of Tardan vessels over, so getting there took less than an hour. By the time he’d finished going over the rough data that she’d gathered for him, they were there and sending probes to determine what they were dealing with.
Unlike the station they’d left, these were just ships clustered together behind a very large asteroid. There were manufacturing areas that someone had set up to turn another asteroid into heat shields, and that process seemed to be ongoing. These people were settling in to stay. What they planned to do after the Confederation proper was conquered, he had no idea.
Another thing that he noticed was that there were two kingdom warships in the formation. Also, there were a lot of Locusts swarming the area. And by a lot, he meant more than enough to destroy a battleship if they were deployed correctly. Considering that these would be under manual control so far as their orders went, they were quite dangerous.
Rather than jumping in without understanding what was going on, they peppered the area with stealth probes to monitor communications and see if they could determine which of the ships was the flagship. Sneaking through to get to one of the ships would be dangerous enough, and he didn’t want to have to do it more than once. Rescuing someone who was spotted would be impossible, so their best bet was to be certain that they were cautious enough not to reveal their activities.
Even though they could understand the language, Tina had Ensign Vassen working with her to listen in on everything. As a native speaker, he might understand nuances that they failed to grasp. That was one of the reasons they’d brought him along.
He found the young officer intriguing. The fact that he’d been moved enough to join the Confederation Navy and lead the way for what would undoubtedly be a wave of Tardans doing so made him stand out. Jack had taken every precaution to make certain there would be no prejudicial behavior, but he wasn’t convinced that would always be the case.
Sadly, the Tardans had invaded the Confederation, and their military had committed atrocities. That would be difficult for the young man, and he hoped Vassen could bear up under the pressure.
“I’ve got something interesting here,” Tina said. “There is a series of signals going between one of the kingdom ships and one of the Tardan vessels. We didn’t catch all of it, but it seems that there is some kind of conference taking place, and the admiral in charge of the system—or so I believe—is summoning one of the kingdom officers to a briefing.”
“That’s good,” Jack said. “It will narrow down which vessel we need to focus on. I wish we could be flies on the wall for something like that. There’s no telling what kind of juicy intelligence would just be tossed out onto the table.”
“Actually, I’ve been thinking about a way that we might be able to do exactly that.”
He focused his attention on her. “What do you mean?”
“With the number of Locusts swarming the area, even using probes is taking more of a risk than I like. We have to physically get our hands on the hardware, which means putting boots on the deck. I’m not confident that we can do that in a stealthy manner.”
Jack grimaced. “I see what you’re saying, and there’s something to it. I presume you have a way around that?”
Tina made a waggling gesture with her hand. “Sort of. According to the message, the Tardans will send a cutter to pick up the kingdom representative. Based on the information we’ve pulled from the Tardan military vessels in the past, the standard crew on such a vessel would be a single pilot. The plan is for it to depart from one of the Tardan vessels that is closer to their kingdom counterparts and then make the run to the flagship. If we were to hijack that cutter, we could have people on board the flagship.”
He found himself frowning. “I can see where you might see that, but that sounds like a dangerous risk. What if they already know who’s coming? There aren’t that many kingdom personnel here with just two vessels. What if this is something a single person does regularly? The gig would instantly be up.”
“Considering that they asked who the kingdom would be sending, I don’t believe it’s probable that they have a regular person. This isn’t one where the commanding officers would be directly involved. In fact, they’re sending a junior ranked officer, so it’s not someone they’ve likely had much contact with.”
Jack thought about that long and hard. If they were to risk something so chancy, it endangered everything they were trying to do. Yet if they didn’t, they might never get their hands on the master control codes. Tina wasn’t wrong when she said that getting to the flagship through the swarm of Locusts would be difficult. Even so, he didn’t want to risk his personnel on a suicide mission.
“I hear what you’re saying,” he said slowly. “It’s risky. Really risky. What is your plan?”
“Based on where the kingdom warships are located, any cutter that comes to their position will be out of sight of the kingdom forces for a period of time once it departs. It will also be very far away from the Tardan military units. Why they’ve got the groups separated by so much, I don’t know. Nevertheless, we can use that to our advantage. If we use the sabotage drones to disable the cutter and board it, we should be able to insert our own personnel aboard the flagship. Better yet, they can bring sabotage drones with them and get them to work their way into the flagship while they handle getting the physical hardware. They might even get valuable intelligence from the briefing.”
“If they aren’t caught and shot,” Jack said firmly. “I understand that the Confederation is at risk, and we have to take whatever steps are necessary, but I’m not sure that this is the right course of action. This would be by far the chanciest thing we’ve done here. If it goes wrong, we’re in deep trouble.”
The intelligence operative shrugged. “I understand that, but the other option is to come in with guns blazing. It’s possible we could get some sabotage drones to the flagship and take it out of operation, but it’s surrounded by so many other vessels that getting our people there to recover the hardware is almost impossible, to my mind. Even if our personnel are captured, if we can disable the flagship, it’s possible they could still carry out their mission. The Tardan military isn’t like dealing with the Novarites. They’re not going to shoot on sight.”
Jack had to concede that point to her. The Novarites were as xenophobic and ferocious as one could possibly imagine. The Tardan military wasn’t nearly as bad, though they would still be risking a lot.
“Who are you thinking of sending?” he asked. “Vassen, obviously. Who else?”
“Derek. He’s young, and the name that was given was male, so I believe he would most closely fit the need. While it’s conceivable that the person that they’re sending bears little resemblance to him, we’re blessed in the fact that the Tardans are an alien race. So long as the difference isn’t too great, they may miss the fact that they’re dealing with a different person if they’ve never seen this other kingdom officer before.”
“I hate making assumptions, and that’s a big one. How much time do we have to think about this?”
“Very little. They indicated the cutter would be leaving to pick up the officer in roughly half an hour. We can get a cutter near the kingdom ships, but it will be shielded from observation by the curve of the asteroid that’s protecting them from the star. Once it picks up its passenger and leaves, we can put some sabotage drones into the cutter and disable it. So long as we get aboard quickly, we should be able to resume course toward the flagship without drawing undue attention. That’s not to say that it won’t be risky. I just think that this is the best chance we have.”
Jack tapped his finger on the console and then opened the communications channel to the bridge. “Derek, we need you back in the intelligence gathering area. Put the professor on the controls and come back at once.”
“On my way, sir.”
He turned his attention back to Tina. “I really hate doing something like this. Could we also put some Marines on the exterior of the cutter so that they could jump clear and operate off the hull of the flagship?”
“We could, but I don’t have any idea how long we’re talking about. They would be at the mercy of their life support, and even if they were required to go in, I’m not sure that a handful of people would be enough to make a difference aboard a ship that size. I know that you don’t like doing something like this, Jack, but we’re limited by the situation we find ourselves in. We don’t have a battleship that can take care of our military problems for us. We have to do it via other means, and that means putting our people at more risk than we would prefer, but it’s the only option I can see.”
He sighed. “I suppose you’re right, but that doesn’t make this any easier. Thankfully, we’re at least prepared for the possibility of having to insert our people into this kind of situation. Vassen already has a Tardan-style military uniform that he can use so long as we use whatever rank insignia and name tag is on the pilot. We’ve got a selection of kingdom military uniforms, and I know that at least one of them will fit Derek. He’ll have to do the same sort of thing, but they may be able to pull this off. The only thing is that I’m not going to order them to do it. They’ll have to volunteer.”
“Whatever it is, sir, I volunteer,” Derek said from the hatch behind him. “What did I just set myself up for?”
