Command Authority, page 21
part #5 of Last Hunter Series
The admiral stood, and they rose as well. “I want a full report on everything you’ve experienced and discovered. Leave nothing out, and don’t make the mistake of believing you’re doing yourselves any favors by shaping the narrative to fit Commodore Romanoff’s desires. History is not kind to those with an agenda, and I won’t tolerate any type of deception. Also, I want to know everything you can tell me about this conspiracy and who you suspect may be involved. If they’re powerful enough to plant an assassin in the Judge Advocate General’s office—as an assistant to the commanding JAG officer, no less!—it means they can get people anywhere. Understood?”
David inclined his head. “Understood, Admiral. It’s going to take at least twenty-four hours. There’s a lot of information that needs to be collated into a report format. We didn’t expect to encounter a senior Navy officer that would need the information in quite that manner.”
“That’s sloppy thinking, Mister Chen. I’ll expect better of you in the future. I’ll have one of my people fly you back to your ship when you’re ready. Try to make it twelve hours.”
“No need to worry, sir. You have your office to get back in order. We’ll handle getting ourselves back to Hunter.”
David inclined his head a second time and headed through the hatch with his wife. Neither of them said anything until they were further down the corridor. Then she turned her head toward him and quirked an eyebrow. “Did you catch that?”
“That he knew who Selter was? We never mentioned which department he worked for, yet Allen seemed to know he was part of Commodore Nastasi’s staff. Do you think he’ll realize he slipped up?”
“It’s possible, so I suggest we stay on our guard. We’d best pick up the professor and Lisa before heading back over. I’ll encrypt a message for Commodore Romanoff and Sara. They need to know what we’ve discovered.”
“Maybe we can get someone that’ll talk this time,” he said with a slight smile. “And perhaps taking Lisa back to the ship is a bit premature. Having one of the most skilled hackers I’ve ever met working on the same station as someone like the good admiral could be very productive.”
Tina nodded. “I agree, and it might be best to not drag everyone back to the ship in a hurry. It would make us look spooked. It’s far better we pretend we didn’t notice anything at all.”
“Agreed. We need to keep our heads down and find a way to get around Admiral Allen. We don’t know when or if the Tardans or Locusts are coming here. While protecting the people of New Copenhagen is important, Argent is a lot bigger and seems to be a node that the Tardans wanted to focus on. That means we must get busy building the defenses here as rapidly as possible. We can’t do that if people are maneuvering behind the scenes because of that stupid conspiracy.”
His wife put her hand on his shoulder and grinned. “If it wasn’t complex, it wouldn’t be fun. We’ll figure it out. If any of our enemies come here, Jack will make sure they deeply regret it. We need to focus on making sure somebody doesn’t stick a knife in his back while he’s doing it. Since the conspirators are more than happy to kill anyone that comes near their secret, we have to be both cautious and expeditious.”
“Do you think that’s why he’s making sure no one other than himself is speaking to the planetary president? Trying to keep the story straight? Now that we’ve found somebody else involved with the conspiracy, I wonder if this is one of the locations they’re working out of. Could the government officials here be involved?”
“Some people inside the government could be involved,” she agreed. We’re not going to know unless we find more information about them. Since Confederation Intelligence has an agent here, maybe Mister Rowe has more insight than we do. If, of course, we can trust him.”
“At this point, we can’t trust anyone,” David said as they got into a lift. “We have to assume that people we don’t know are potential conspirators. I’d hoped we’d left this behind, but I suppose we’ll have to do this the hard way. We’ll have to read Lisa and Regex in on what we want if we expect them to be able to help us. Other than that, I’ll make sure Jack hears about this when we get back to Hunter.”
“Do you know what else we need to do?” Tina asked. “We need to figure out where Lisa is.”
She pulled her comm off her belt and called. After speaking for a few moments, she pressed the button for a different level. Minutes later, they walked into a mess hall where Lisa and Bronson Rowe were drinking coffee and talking.
“Mind if we join you?” David asked, smiling.
“Please do,” the man said. “We were just discussing the adventures you people have been on. I have to say I’m impressed. If you hadn’t done what you’ve done, everyone in the cluster would be in a lot worse shape than they are right now. I think what the Tardans are trying to do is horrifying, and we must find a way to stop them at all costs.”
A server stepped up and provided them with coffee and then disappeared again. David took a sip and nodded appreciatively. This was definitely a cut above his usual bean water.
He took a second sip and then set the cup down. “Things are grimmer than I’d expected them to be, but there’s hope on the horizon. We’ve got people working on the other battleships, trying to get some of them back online. That’s a lot of work, and nothing is guaranteed, but we may be able to hold things together until we get reinforcements.”
“Not to put too fine a point on it, but Jack is the experienced combat commander that got us here, and I’m leery of the idea of anyone trying to steer us in a different direction right now,” Tina said. “I’m sure Admiral Allen is a fine man, but he’s not Jack Romanoff. His ideas about assuming direct command—or even strategic oversight of what Jack is doing—makes me very nervous.”
Rowe nodded slowly. “I understand your concerns, but that’s outside my control. The admiral will do what the admiral does, and while I’ll advise him to back off, I’m afraid I don’t think that’s very likely. The fact that he outranks Commodore Romanoff will make him feel he has to take charge. I hope your people can convince our JAG representative that everything is in order because I don’t want to see anybody’s elbows jostled at such a critical juncture either.”
The man’s eyes flicked toward Lisa. “I’ve probably taken too much of your friend’s time, but if it’s at all possible, I’d like to speak with you about matters of mutual interest.”
David picked up his coffee and took a much healthier swig before standing. “That’s good timing because there’s something I need to go over with Lisa. Why don’t you and Tina have that discussion while I see about briefing our friend?”
For her part, the hacker stood and smiled, said her goodbyes, and drank down the last of her coffee. Then the two walked away from the table and out into the corridor.
She raised an eyebrow at him. “What’s going on?”
“Trouble. We believe Admiral Allen is part of the conspiracy that’s been siphoning money away from the battleship division for more than a century. He knew information about the assassination attempt against Commodore Nastasi. I mentioned Selter’s name, but he knew he worked for the Judge Advocate General’s office underneath Sara. There’s no way he could have known that off the top of his head. That tells me he was briefed on the events, and the only people here in the cluster that would know who Selter is belonged to the conspiracy.”
“Well, that sucks,” she said. “So, you want me to stay here and work my magic on the computer systems? If you can think up a good reason for me to be aboard the station, I’d be happy to, but you’ve got to keep your Confederation Intelligence friend out of my back pocket. If I have to worry about him watching what I’m doing, I’ll never be able to get anything accomplished.”
“You figured out he was part of Confederation Intelligence? Bravo.”
“I’ve got a very good sense of hearing, and I overheard bits of what you and he were talking about. Enough to make sense of who he was, anyway. People like that are always suspicious of everyone around them, and if he has reason to look more closely at me, both Regex and I are in a lot of trouble.”
“I think we can come up with a good reason for you to be here and working on their computer system. Admiral Allen said they wanted access to the translation program, so I think you should bring a copy of it over here and continue working on it. That should keep suspicion away from you for a little while.”
“Sounds like a good start to me. I’ll have to head back to Hunter and pick up my equipment, but as long as they agree to give me a little office space, even if they’re keeping an eye on me, I should be able to get into their systems enough to start searching around for things that shouldn’t be there. This may not be quick or easy, but if there’s information here, I’ll find it.”
“It’s possible there won’t be, and that may mean we have to work in the dark, but I hope you can find something that will be useful for us. Don’t hesitate to head back to Hunter if you think this is a bust.”
“I’ll do my best. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to see about hitching a ride back to our ship. As soon as I have anything concrete, I’ll call. It’ll be some mundane sort of thing, but if you hear from me, come back and help me. I’m no spy, but I think I can maintain a cover well enough to fool anyone in the short term.”
He laughed. “You have a peculiar notion about what spies do. Coming up with a decent cover story and working your way into the systems like you’re going to be doing is exactly what a spy would do. While you do that, I’ll see if I can locate Professor Prescott and give him the short version. He needs to know we’re in danger here, and not just from our normal enemies.”
The two of them split up, and David pulled out his comm. An already complicated situation had just become murkier, and he needed to get to the bottom of things as quickly as possible without letting the other side know that he had done so. If Admiral Allen was a member of the conspiracy, they were in deadly danger. Humanity couldn’t afford to lose Jack Romanoff, and David swore he would do whatever it took to make sure his friend stayed safe.
23
Lisa called for a cutter to come pick her up, and she stood waiting in the small craft bay on the station, wondering if someone would arrest her. Not that she had done anything wrong—yet—but now that she was on the job, she felt a bit paranoid. Her cover story would be good enough to pass a casual inspection, but if anyone dug into what she was doing in the computer system, she’d be in trouble.
As a hacker, most of her access was done on the sly. She’d slip into a system without anyone being the wiser through links she could scrub clean of any information about her. She didn’t physically have to go to the computers she was intruding into. Usually.
This time would be different. She’d be working in plain sight, and anyone with the skills could monitor the systems she was using. That would be problematic, and she needed a workaround. Something to keep their eyes off what she was doing and on someone else.
In other words, she needed a distraction.
Considering everything they’d been through, she knew what she could do, which might make the commodore a bit angry. It really depended on how touchy he’d be. Not that it would stop her because she had no desire to be arrested and potentially cut open. Regex might be a pain in her ass—simply because she had no desire to have company—but he had his uses. And, she had no desire to see either of them die.
I’ve got a plan, but we’ll need to be careful. I don’t want anything to happen to either of us.
She chuckled. I don’t know if I’d have put it quite that way, but I suppose so. This isn’t how either one of us envisioned spending the rest of our lives, but if this is what we have, I suppose we’ll have to make do. As roommates go, I suppose you’re more useful than some I had when I was younger. At least you don’t leave your underwear scattered all over the place.
I’m not leaving them scattered around. They’re hanging in the bathroom, which is not the same thing. In any case, have you thought about what we’re about to do? I realize this is more my wheelhouse than yours, but having somebody to ask an opinion of is always helpful.
Your people have fiction like that? Books, videos?
That sounds interesting. Later, when we have more time.
She wasn’t an expert when it came to conspiracies, but what he was saying made sense. Until they knew better, anyone could be watching them with hidden motives. David had tasked her with digging into the admiral’s systems and finding out what he knew. To prove his collusion, she needed all the information she could get to identify any of the conspirators.
Once she knew who they were, she could track down their computer access and activities. People always thought they were clever with their computer security, but no one was immune to making stupid mistakes. Not even her. Once she had a thread to follow, she’d find whoever was connected to the admiral.
The wait for a cutter wasn’t that long, but she was glad to be aboard it and on her way back to the battleship. With only the Navy pilot, she could relax and begin formulating how she’d conduct this intrusion. The technical aspects of it weren’t going to be nearly as complicated as the personal ones. That’s why she needed backup that could stand out loud and proud, distracting everyone that came looking for her into seeing something else they couldn’t take their eyes off.
When the cutter landed in a small craft bay aboard Hunter, she went in search of Christine Hooghuis. The woman wasn’t difficult to locate, even without calling ahead, since she was always in the small compartment she used as her office. She’d been spending a lot of time there recently, compiling everything into the first part of her documentary.
Lisa rapped her knuckles on the hatch, and the muscular young woman turned away from her monitor and smiled. “Hey there. What brings you two down here?”
The casual way she mentioned Regex made Lisa uncomfortable, but she supposed it was true. They were a couple of sorts. Would they eventually be close enough to look to others like a single being? That was unsettling.
“I’m about to go on a secret mission, and I need your help,” she said. “How far along is your documentary?”
Christine gave her a nonplussed expression. “The first part is complete. I’m going over a few things, just tweaking bits here and there, but all the footage is approved, and it’s ready to release. Not that I’m in the position to do that sort of thing just yet. Why do you ask?”
“I’m about to go back to the station and do some computer intrusion. David suspects Admiral Allen is part of the conspiracy that stole the money meant to fund the maintenance of the battleship division and tried to kill Commodore Nastasi. I’ll have to do that in plain sight, and I need somebody that’s going to distract anybody that comes looking to see what I’m doing.”
“And you think my documentary will do that?”
“Without a doubt. There’s no way anyone could see part of that documentary and not be riveted. If we make a big deal about you preparing it for general release and see that the important parties are made aware of it, they will not be able to take their eyes off it. I’ll be able to do whatever I want at the console right next to you, and no one will be the wiser.”
Christine considered her for a moment and then shrugged. “If it will help, sure. Let me grab everything I need, and I can also see about recording some footage for the next segment of the documentary. When people see drones flying around and recording them, it centers their attention pretty well. If you need to keep all eyes off you, I’ll do everything I can to make sure no one pays you the slightest mind. I can go big.”
That made Lisa grin. “Don’t get carried away. We don’t want to draw too much attention to you, or it’ll become obvious. Let me get my gear and intrusion software. Once I’ve got that set up, I’m going to pretend I’m finalizing the translation software for their use. That’s much less exciting than what you’ll be doing, so it should be fine. I’ll meet you in the small craft bay in twenty minutes.”
“Perfect. See you there.”
Lisa made her way to the office she was using for both living quarters and work and grabbed her bag. She then corralled a couple of tablets and a chip containing the latest iteration of the translation software. The final things she got were the voice files utilized by the Tardans. She got ones of human transmissions and some recordings of their prisoners.
And since that might make an even better distraction if things went south, she grabbed some video files of the prisoners. There were a few that they’d used the translation software to translate, so those would be perfect for sharing with their new friends. No secretive information would be revealed, and they would be mesmerized by seeing the enemy that had almost conquered them. That would be perfect.
