Shell Game, page 25
part #15 of The Last Hunter Series
The return trip involved hacking into the ship’s systems and disabling the transponder, circling back around and using distant asteroids as shields from being detected for as much as they could, and rendezvousing with Patrick’s ship where he had hidden it.
As she’d already known, it was almost identical to Specter but had more kingdom features that Patrick had done away with when designing her ship. That made it both familiar and strange at the same time. She wondered which ship they’d use if they combined forces. Would they continue to utilize both of them? If so, how would that work?
Well, she supposed they’d figure that out when the time came. For now, they had work to do.
They docked with his ship and unloaded everyone. Then Patrick took the cutter back to the station to retrieve his own cutter. Sneaking out as a single person would be easier than as a group with an unconscious body.
He was showing a great deal of trust in her since he might return and find his ship missing. Still, she wouldn’t be surprised if he had secret options that would make someone stealing this vessel dangerous or impossible. She wasn’t going to search the ship for that kind of thing because she intended to remain exactly where she was until he got back. Trust was being given, and so it would be returned.
It took him an hour to make the round trip and return in his stealth cutter, but he docked without incident and joined her on the small bridge. It was only made to be run by one person, but unlike hers, it had seating for two. She supposed that made sense since the kingdom often sent two spies rather than one.
Once the two of them were together again, he brought the ship to life, and they made their way deeper into the asteroid belt and toward the secret police prison. As the ship moved, he turned his attention to her. “Has everyone gotten settled in? I assume that our prisoner is secured.”
Lisa nodded. “They’ve got her locked into one of the cabins. I told them they could search it for weapons, so I hope you didn’t have anything hidden in there that she might be able to recover. If they couldn’t find it, I’m confident that she probably couldn’t either, but we should be cautious.”
“I do have weapons hidden around the ship in various locations,” he said with a smile. “There is one hidden in each of the bedrooms, but if you couldn’t find it, then I doubt she will be able to either. I’ll take a few minutes to check on her. I’d rather keep her unconscious in any case. Another dose of the drug I gave her will make certain she doesn’t cause any trouble while we’re conducting our operations.”
“That works for me. Exactly how are we planning on doing this? If I had my ship, I would be able to use some of my sabotage drones to begin scouting out what was going on there and play merry havoc with their systems. With your ship, I don’t think that’s an option.”
He leaned back in his seat. “I think I want to get some of those drones for my own use. They seem very handy. No, unfortunately, we’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way. We can use my cutter to come up to the station without being detected and board it. Once we’ve done that, we’ll have to either sneak our way through the station to the locations we want to go or eliminate two of the current residents and take any uniforms they might have for ourselves.”
She considered that and crossed her arms as she thought. “That will make our job a bit more difficult, but I think it’s still doable. Our biggest problem is that we don’t know what we’re going to face when we get there. Sneaking aboard the station is all well and good, but we have to gather intelligence before we act. I want to know how many enemy personnel they have and how many prisoners. We also need to know where the prisoners are located and who has the keys to release them. Until we get that information, we can’t act.”
He pursed his lips and nodded. “I suppose that’s true enough, but it’s not necessarily the way we have to go. There are certain things we could do at the station to put them off their game. Say there’s some type of engineering problem, and the fusion plant goes down. That’s going to cause problems and have them working under circumstances that are less than optimal. With only emergency lighting, it would also make us more difficult to detect. The key would be making it look like an actual failure rather than sabotage. One that can’t be quickly repaired but isn’t so bad that they immediately call for assistance.”
“From the way you’re talking, I assume you’ve done this sort of thing before,” she said with a smile. “So long as you know what to do, I’m good with that plan. It would take their attention off of us and allow us to do other things. Like disabling the majority of the crew. How would we go about doing that?”
“Drugs. If we can put the necessary knockout drugs into the life-support system, that will render everyone unconscious and allow us free action. There is always the possibility that someone will be able to get into protective gear or might have already been in such, so we have to be on our guard, but if we can manage that, we have the station.”
Lisa nodded. “That makes sense. I think we should also bring the Marines along in case we need muscle. If someone is going to get in a firefight, I prefer it be the professionals rather than us.”
“Agreed.”
What do you think, Regex? Are we missing anything?
That’s true, but exactly what could we plan to do in such a case? The only thing I can see that is possible is that we would have to make an organized withdrawal. Obviously, we’ll want to keep someone watching for cutters coming in and have an extraction plan, but beyond that, we’re kind of at the mercy of circumstances.
That’s speaking like a scientist, she said with a chuckle. I suppose you’re right, and that’s what I will do. Thanks for the insight.
“Regex says that we don’t have enough contingency planning,” she said out loud. “We need to have whoever is left aboard the ship keeping an eye on the passive sensors so that we’re not surprised by unexpected guests. We also need to have an exfiltration plan in case we run into more resistance than we expect or if said visitors show up. No matter what happens, we’ve got a lot of people we need to get out safely, and we can’t afford to let circumstances conspire to surprise us.”
“That’s good thinking. I’m used to working alone and making up my plans as I go, but with so many people, it is preferable that we plan things out in advance. We’ll be at the secret police station in about an hour. We could get there sooner, but I don’t feel the need to rush and potentially draw attention to ourselves. Just because we’re not detectable on sensors doesn’t mean we couldn’t be detected via optical viewing, and I don’t want someone to see something they shouldn’t. We’ll work out the plans while we do that, and then once we arrive on station, we’ll load the Marines aboard the cutter with us and depart. I’ll give some of the Navy personnel the information they need to monitor the sensors and communicate with us via tight beam through the cutter.”
“That works for me.”
They spent the next hour getting everything sorted out and training the personnel that were staying on what they needed to do. Patrick also retrieved the weapon from where their prisoner was stored and gave her another dose of the knockout drug. He said she wouldn’t wake up before they were done, and that was good enough for Lisa.
Once they were prepared, everyone that was going on the mission climbed aboard the cutter. Patrick had outfitted them with vacuum suits and weapons, all of Confederation manufacture. They weren’t armored, but if it came down to shooting, they were already deep in the crapper.
With the secret police station sitting off in the distance, they detached the cutter from Patrick’s ship and began ghosting toward it. This would be the most tricky part of the operation thus far. If things really went bad, they could be killed or captured, and it would be difficult for Admiral Romanoff to rescue them.
She vowed that they would not be captured or even seen. That might be difficult to arrange because life liked throwing curveballs at her, but she would make do. One way or the other, they would rescue the people that the secret police had locked away and deal with their captors once and for all.
35
Derek followed the fighter as it led his stolen cutter away from the battle. Thankfully, he and Vassen’s guardian angel made certain that no one came to bother them, and they were soon outside the danger zone. That became readily apparent when he saw Specter pulling into visual range ahead of them.
He brought the cutter to a halt and waited until a cutter left the spy ship and headed in their direction. They would have to do a space walk to get over to the other craft, but he and Vassen were already back inside their vacuum suits and ready to go.
Draining the atmosphere took just a few minutes, and once he was certain that Vassen had their prize securely strapped to his body, Derek opened the hatch, and they stepped out into space. The other cutter was only a couple of meters ahead of them, and they drifted over to it slowly.
The hatch was already open and waiting for them when they arrived, and they climbed in one at a time, then sealed the hatch behind them. As soon as they had done so, the suit indicators showed that pressure was rising, and in a few seconds, he could begin to hear the hiss of the air as it entered the cutter.
Once the pressure had reached the appropriate level, he pulled off his helmet and began stripping out of the vacuum suit. He hung it on one of the racks nearby and helped Vassen get clear of his own suit before they proceeded toward the front of the cutter. The hatch opened when he hit the control, and he saw Tina sitting in the pilot’s chair.
“I hope things went well for you,” she said. “Tell me you’ve got what we need.”
Derek gestured toward Vassen as he took the other couch. “He’s got it right there, but I’m not sure it’s what we need. It looked like the ship was headed out on patrol, and that’s not the kind of behavior I would expect from an invasion commander. I think the situation wasn’t what we thought it was.”
“Jack said something like that, too. I suppose we’ll find out, but still, good work. I’m glad the two of you came out of this intact.”
“As are we,” Vassen said. “I’ve never done anything like that before, and it was somewhat invigorating.”
“What’s the plan?” Derek asked.
“Once we dock with Specter, I’ll take you back out to Aries, and you’ll join Hunter in luring as many of the Locusts out to be destroyed as you can. Something about a hammer and anvil was mentioned as an example. I’m sure your staff has all the details.”
“That sounds good to me,” he said with a smile. “All this sneaking around isn’t what I’m used to. You can keep the spy business for yourself. I’d much rather be a naval officer shooting down my enemies when they dare to pop up in my face.”
She chuckled. “To each their own. Let’s get you back to Specter and jump out to meet Aries.”
It took another half an hour to dock with the spy ship, thrust until they were at a distance where they could use the independent quantum drive and get out to where his battleship was waiting for him. The final jump-out went smoothly, and Tina quickly shuttled him and Vassen over to his ship.
As soon as the two of them were off the cutter, it picked back up off the deck and headed for the exit. He gestured for Vassen to accompany some of the officers that were waiting for them. “Get this to whoever it needs to be with so they can connect everything. I’m headed for the bridge. Good work, Vassen.”
The quick walk to the bridge only took a few minutes, and he walked into a hive of activity. His executive officer was waiting for him and stood as he approached the command seat. Michael Cavanaugh was young for his position but not nearly as young as Derek was. The man had been the executive officer on a cruiser before the invasion, and he had been a godsend in filling the gaps in Derek’s education.
“Glad to have you back aboard, sir,” Cavanaugh said. “Hunter has already left to go deeper into the system and begin trolling the Locusts out of position. We have a rough idea of what they intend to do and where they intend to do it, and we should be able to jump right in and cause some havoc.”
“I like the sound of that. We won’t make the jump until we have the device with the control codes wired in. I don’t know that it will be what we need to override what the Tardans are doing, but it might give us an edge. I’m not going to waste the opportunity to give it a try.”
“Understood, sir.”
The tactical department, in conjunction with communications people, had the device that sends out orders to the Locusts wired into their systems in short order. They’d done this before—at least Hunter had—so they knew what they had to do to make it work. Now the goal was to see if it did them any good.
As soon as everything was ready, Derek gave the order for Aries to jump in as close to where they estimated the enemy to be as possible. Unlike Hunter, he’d decided to go much deeper into the system to try and catch them off guard. He hoped surprise would work in their favor.
They actually came out from the jump a significant distance away from where Hunter was trolling the enemy, and that gave them all the details they needed to make the next part of this operation hurt the enemy as badly as possible.
“Are we ready to try the master control codes?” he asked.
“We’re ready, sir,” the communications officer said.
“Helm, take us in right behind that big cloud of Locusts. Communications, as soon as we appear, I want you to order them to stand down.”
Once the two officers signaled their understanding, Aries jumped out of the system and then returned directly behind the massive cloud of Locusts. They began turning on his ship, but the orders issued by his communication officer quickly had them standing down and ceasing their acceleration.
In just a few minutes, the entire cloud of Locusts was docile. At least they were until the Tardan ships following them issued orders for them to resume the attack. Then they turned on Aries until the communications officer once again shut them down.
“It looks like we’ll be able to give them conflicting orders, but they don’t have any way to override them,” Derek said. “At least they haven’t shown that capability yet. Tactical, I’d like to deter those warships from interfering with our plans. Fire enough missiles to fully engage them, and let’s see if we can get them out of the picture.”
The tactical officer was about to respond when their sensors detected Hunter arriving in the midst of the enemy ships and lashing out with her lasers and phased packet plasma guns. At point-blank range, the smaller warships didn’t stand a chance, and they were quickly wiped out.
He chuckled. “I suppose that shouldn’t surprise me. At least they saved us from wasting the missiles. Communications, open a channel to Hunter.”
The communications lag at this range was moderate, but even before their signal would’ve arrived, the other battleship engaged their independent quantum drive and appeared just off their starboard side. The communications officer sent the signal again, and in a few seconds, Amanda appeared on his screen.
“Well, this went better than I thought it would,” his wife said. “It doesn’t look like you have the override codes, but it sure seems that you have enough to control what goes on in your general vicinity. That gives us some options that we didn’t have before.”
The screen split further, and Admiral Romanoff appeared between the two of them. “Good work, both of you. It seems that we have the ability to control their robotic craft, but only when we are closer than the enemy.”
Derek nodded as his commanding officer’s comments mirrored his wife’s. “True enough, sir. We’ve destroyed a fair number of Tardan warships, but there are still some lurking in the asteroid belt. How do we want to proceed?”
“I believe you should be able to take Aries deeper into the system and continue to lure Locusts out to join you as long as they end up closer to you than they are to the other ships that have control codes. Once we identify where those ships are, we can destroy them and perhaps eliminate the invasion here at DuPont. The first thing we need to do is get all the ones you’ve managed to attract out of this system so they’re no longer subject to the orders of the surviving military leaders.”
“That makes sense,” Derek said. “If they’re not in range to receive countermanding orders, then they can’t be a problem for us. It shouldn’t take us more than half an hour to pull these in close enough to jump out of the system and drop them off. Once we’re done with that, we can skim along the asteroid belt and see what pops up.”
“And when we have located the ships that want to cause us trouble, Hunter can take care of them,” Amanda said. “We’ll want to separate as many of the motherships as possible. If we can salvage their hyperdrive units, that means we can make more antimatter missiles to attack the main invasion force heading for Earth. Every single one of those is worth a thousand regular missiles.”
“Agreed,” Romanoff said. “I still don’t want to get us pinned down inside the system, but so long as we circle in relatively slowly, we should be able to do what we need to do. The only problem will come if there is someone here who has codes that will override the ones we’re using. If they don’t, we can clear the system in a few days.”
