Merkiaari Wars: 04 - Operation Breakout Page 23

  Kate delivered her trunk to the cargo master of her shuttle, and then boarded to find a seat. The shuttle was nearly full when she buckled in, and just minutes later they were on their way. She closed her eyes trying not to let the other passengers annoy her with their inane chatter and squirming around. The shuttle was a small one and the passengers were packed in shoulder to shoulder as usual. They were built for fast economical movement of people, not for luxury.

  Her seat jolted, and then again, making her tense and grit her teeth. The guy behind her was messing around with the vid screen in her seat back. That would normally be fine, but his ham-fisted incompetence at finding what he was looking for was being transmitted through her seat as he punched buttons as if pounding nails. She opened her eyes and glared at the shuttle’s overhead as he pounded away at the menu buttons. The steward floated expertly along the aisle pulling himself hand over hand in the micro-gravity using the seat backs and stopped to help. He murmured a warning about damaging the equipment before moving on.

  Kate closed her eyes again. Her nemesis seemed to have found something to satisfy him, but thirty seconds later he was at it again. Thump... thump... thump-thump! In a fit of temper she sent a concentrated electromagnetic burst into his vid unit using her ECM. It was meant for spoofing security cams or sensors when a viper didn’t care about damaging a system, but it worked on any sensitive electronics. It fried the unit, and the passenger shouted as a wisp of smoke rose from the burned out circuits, curling into the air above her seat before being sucked away into the shuttle’s ventilation. She smiled grimly, and closed her eyes as the steward came back to take his name and seat number. He would be charged for the damage.

  The shuttle landed at the Kastoria Spaceport an hour and thirty minutes later. She would have preferred a faster trip, but Northcliff was a popular destination nowadays, since the new trade route to the Shan had opened, and air traffic over the capital was heavy. They’d had to circle. The spaceport was located in a valley sandwiched between two mountain ranges. If she bothered to look it up, she was sure the valley was the result of glaciation in the distant past. From the air it looked sparsely forested with the spaceport an ugly scar in the middle. Roads and maglev rails led to and from it like a demented spider’s web, supplying the port with workers, passengers, and cargo.

  Kastoria City itself was built upon the slopes of the foothills and mountains. She supposed the mountains were pretty enough compared to the deserts, but she couldn’t work up much enthusiasm as she collected her trunk and headed for the exit from the transit lounge. They weren’t very impressive examples. They weren’t grand ranges with massively tall peaks like those on Snakeholme, and the trees looked stunted and scraggly unlike the lush forests back home... she frowned. Home was Snakeholme, or it had been until this. Where was home now? Certainly not Bethany, not anymore.

  Bethany was like Alizon in its lushness and beauty. Both planets were renowned for it. Grand waterfalls and canyons, mountains and forests were numerous. The climate was mild never severe, and the gravity was below that of Earth, especially Alizon. Both worlds could be called paradises with economies heavily vested in tourism. If you had the money, wanted ease and beauty without the dirty reality of other worlds in which Humans lived and strove for better lives, then immigrating to either one would do. Bethany especially, if you didn’t care who ran the government, or how. Not something she would recommend anyone do, and she was born there. No, she preferred Snakeholme, where it took effort to thrive, and where the world reminded you of it every day.

  Kate stepped outside and was rocked back on her heels by the heat and glare. Compared to the air-conditioned interior, the heat outside felt unbearable. Sweat beaded upon her brow; she was in danger of having a catastrophic deodorant failure and she had barely been outside a minute yet. She looked around for a direction to follow, and saw a sign through the shimmering air pointing to the maglev station. All routes it said. Her eyes automatically metered light levels, but she put on a pair of sunglasses because everyone else did, and turned to follow the crowd along the baking plascrete.

  Northcliff was different in a lot of ways. The sun was a white dwarf and its light was harsh. Gravity wasn’t particularly low at 0.97g, but much of the planet was arid. Temperatures were high in most areas, probably one reason the mountains were chosen for the city. At least at higher climes the population could expect a little relief from the heat with mountain breezes. Really, with the terrain of the entire planet to choose from, what other reason could there be for the colonists to cut terraces here and build their capital on them?

  Kastoria City wasn’t the only important city on Northcliff. There were plenty of others spread over its three huge continents. The planet had a large percentage of land compared to sea. Over 60% of the surface area was land with large deserts. That hadn’t deterred the corporations building there of course. In fact, it attracted them more strongly. Many industries found the resources in the deserts useful, and vast solar and wind farms made power inexhaustible and totally free after the initial investment had been paid down. Nanotech factories consumed materials like silicon at a prodigious rate, which is plentiful in deserts of course, and other resources could be found from mining at extreme depths. Not a hardship with modern mining machines.

  All of the desert cities were built around huge factories and were governed by the corporations that had built and owned them. Their citizens lived and worked within the city environs, rarely if ever leaving to visit other places. Kate was glad she didn’t need to visit them, not because they were distasteful places to live or anything like that—they were ultra modern cities with every convenience and pleasure anyone could want. Keeping their workers pacified and under control was important to the management, and the carrot was always better than the stick for doing that. No, it was because the cities were tightly controlled and security would be tight. It had to be. Cyber theft and industrial espionage was rampant between competitors, and although such clandestine wars in the core had cooled, that wasn’t true at all out in the Border Zone. Corporations had teeth out here. Their mercenary armies were serious military assets the equal of some government forces in the core.

  Kate followed the crowds toward the maglev station, ignoring the hopeful cab drivers. Her trunk wouldn’t fit in a cab, but that wasn’t her reason for choosing the train. The trunk could have been locked down on the car’s roof if she wanted. No, she just didn’t want to be on her own again so soon. Ten days in foldspace going stir crazy... ten frigging days of boredom was enough. She wanted to mingle a little and relax, breathe the air of a new world, and try to blend with its people to get her head in the right space. All too soon she would be working to free her brother and then running for her life.

  She rode the maglev into the city and then accessed the Infonet again to find a hotel. She chose one called The Crowne because it was near the station, not because of its service. She was sure that would be fine but its location was more important because the station was more than just a maglev terminus; it was a transport hub with a connection to Kastoria’s extensive subway system. Multiple routes out of an area was one of the things she looked for when on an op like this. The taxi rank and hire cars were of less interest—she wouldn’t get far outside the city before running out of roads to use—but she noted it for completeness. Any of the cars would be easy to jack from the owners if push came to shove. The Crowne had another thing going for it; it was big enough that it had a bank and a few stores on the premises. She wouldn’t find what she most needed there, namely weapons, but she should be able to buy a good portable comp and some more clothes. Stone’s selection had been useful but minimal.

  She entered the hotel bypassing registration and headed for the bank. The android teller smiled blankly and waited for her to make a request. It was a female design as most droids used in banks were, and very stupid. That was what she wanted. There would be human bank employees around, but she didn’t want them remembering her or the transaction s
he was about to make. She withdrew both wands that Stone had supplied and inserted the first one into the desk.

  “Thank you, Ms. Murillo,” the droid said. “How might I help you today?”

  “I’ll be making a withdrawal,” Kate said.

  “Please enter your password.”

  Kate quickly entered the password on the account, but watched her sensors close. Now was the time for anyone overly interested in her to make a move. Nothing showed up, but she went the extra mile.

  Computer: initiate full spectrum security scan. Range out to 200 metres.

  >_ Sensors: full spectrum sweep in progress.

  “Thank you, ma’am. How much would you like to withdraw today?”

  “All of it. Large denomination platinum wafers.”

  The droid blinked twice as it tried to process her request. It smiled. “Please choose a number between zero and your available balance and state it clearly in standard English. How much would you like to withdraw today?”

  Kate growled under her breath. “Fifty. Thousand. Credits.”

  “Thank you. How would you like... fifty... thousand... credits… dispensed?”

  >_ Sensors: threats detected.

  Kate froze, but then she sighed as the so-called threats were listed. Her sensors had simply picked up the emissions from bank security, not true surveillance gear. It was all standard and passive stuff, not weaponised. She dismissed the alert and concentrated on what she was doing. God she needed sleep, her brain was turning to mush.

  “Like I said. Give me hard currency. Fifty platinum wafers.”

  The desk spat out a pile of platinum. “Thank you, Ms. Murillo. Have a nice day.”

  She swept the money off the desk and pocketed the little stack along with the wand. She shoved the other wand into the slot.

  “Thank you, Ms. Jackson,” the droid said. “How might I help you today?”

  “I’ll be making a withdrawal,” Kate said again, without the sigh building in her chest. She really needed her downtime, like yesterday.

  “Please enter your password.”

  Kate quickly entered the password on the account and went through the entire procedure again. She stashed the second fifty thousand in her other pocket.

  “Thank you Ms. Jackson. Have a nice day.”

  Kate ignored the dumb machine and hurried to the hotel’s registration desk where she paid for a suite for two weeks in advance. The concierge was dismayed when she paid him with cash, but hard currency was still legal and he had to take it. She used her Cherry Jackson identity for the registration.

  Once in her room, she set the do not disturb order on her door, and ran a security sweep of the entire suite for form’s sake. It came up clean as expected. She took a shower, but fell into bed naked and with moisture still beading on her skin. She was that exhausted, she couldn’t think straight.

  Computer: initiate maintenance mode. Reactivate combat mode in 24 hours.

  Acknowledged. Maintenance mode in 3... 2... 1...

  Lights out.

  * * *

  19 ~ Desert Planet

  The Dunes, Deep Desert, Northcliff

  Although the wadi was many more klicks from her target than Kate was really happy with, it was the best choice she had for a stealthy landing site. She hovered above it on anti-grav staring down at the ground through the cockpit’s side window, and carefully manoeuvred the shuttle to clear the escarpment to her right and the fallen rocks littering the ground. The wadi was an unusual feature of the Konuhara Desert, which was a vast area of rolling sand dunes that continued for thousands of klicks in every direction. She had trained in desert conditions before, but she had never seen one like this. The deserts she’d experienced had been arid rocky wastelands, not rolling dunes of yellow sand. Ironic, because most would think of sand when picturing a desert, but few were really like that. Well this one was, and it was a vicious one too. According to her instruments, it was 60°c outside and that was in the shade of the escarpment.

  She managed to set down without crashing, always a plus, especially when her deposit was riding upon her ability to return the shuttle undamaged. As soon as the skids were on solid ground, she powered down and collected her pack. She was armed with the minimum she was comfortable with, a pulser in a shoulder rig. She chose not to bring anything else in case she found herself under scrutiny. It was unlikely, but not impossible that someone would come out to check on her. She had a story ready for that eventuality, and a weapon for personal protection was something everyone was expected to carry outside of civilised areas. Civilised in the Border Zone meant within sight of a city or settlement, but on some planets the term could be debated within city hall itself!

  Kate opened the hatch. “Woof!” she gasped as the heat rushed in and slapped her in the face. Hard. “Damn me, this is gonna suck.”

  Sweat burst instantly upon her face as she jumped down and locked the hatch behind her. She pulled up her hood and secured it over her face before she lost too much moisture. She had brought water with her, but she couldn’t afford to let dehydration get a hold on her. She pulled on her backpack, took a GPS reading, and with a map open in a window on her display headed for her objective.

  This was her third day on Northcliff. She was much poorer in the pocket but far wiser than when she’d arrived. The money wasn’t a concern. It had been well spent on a few very necessary items like the brand new comp and comm dish in her backpack. For the bargain price of an extra thousand, it had come preloaded with a suite of applications designed for the cyber enthusiast, or for the would-be terrorist depending upon your viewpoint. She had spent considerable time finding the right kind of dealers—shady—to approach with her queries, and the costly answers received were a large part of how much wiser she was with regard to Northcliff. The place was a bloody powder keg! She wouldn’t have known by the evidence of her eyes, but under the surface Northcliff was seething as the corporations fought to control an emerging power in the Alliance.

  It was the Shan causing it of course. Not that it was their fault exactly, but they were the reason for Northcliff’s rise to prominence so fast. In fact, it was the speed of that rise which was more directly responsible than the aliens themselves. The influx of off world business and money had caused a boom, but as with any boom in industry a less savoury side of economics had raised its head. Corruption. The news was full of the latest scandal of big money interests buying their way through rules and regulations, greasing the wheels so to speak, to get their way. Nothing new about that, but it was the sheer scale of it here that made it notable.

  While arming herself with knowledge, she hadn’t neglected the essentials. She had found plenty of places in the less reputable areas of the capital able to supply her with weapons and ammo, but it was her new bodysuit that impressed the most. She had wanted a sneaksuit like the ones she had used on her ISS operations, but this one was better. It was a new design based upon the skinsuits that marines used for piloting their mechs. Powered armour was climate controlled, but in the field the marines couldn’t just climb out to do their business. They were often locked into their mechs for days at a time, and that created a need for truly reactive skinsuits to make life bearable. She was wearing hers right now, and despite the heat she was comfortable. The nannies built into the reactive cloth scavenged sweat and other wastes, even dead skin cells, and recycled it all to heat or cool the suit. Her movement provided the power in the form of kinetic energy. It was a very elegant solution to the conditions on Northcliff, and most natives wore something like it beneath their street clothes.

  Hers was mil-spec and a little bit more special of course. It came with a full face hood with eye protection as sneaksuits invariably did, and the manufacturer hadn’t skimped on the usual things like IR masking, and reactive armour either. It was flame and penetration resistant. If shot she was sure to be unhappy about it—it couldn’t replace real armour after all—but she would have a few extra moments to react. She was more than happy with h
er purchase despite the cost, and wouldn’t be going back to her old sneaksuit design from now on. Maybe she should invest in Yamaichi Opticom, because if this was an example of their future products, they were going to hit it big.

  So, the desert.

  She wasn’t here for her announced reasons. When hiring the little single seater shuttle, she had needed to fill out reams of paperwork and waivers on top of leaving a hefty deposit. That deposit had taken care of nearly her entire remaining budget, but as long as she didn’t ding the shuttle she would recover it all. So far so good with that. She’d managed to fly around and land a number of times without problems. Her stated reason for needing a shuttle was sightseeing, so she’d made a point of visiting various notable landmarks. She’d bought a good camera to back up that story, and she’d used it extensively to take shots of boring vistas all over the place, but although the subterfuge was probably unnecessary, the camera would be useful now that she was close to her real target.

  Konuhara Penitentiary.

  It was the only prison on the entire planet, and would be where her brother was delivered to when his ship arrived. Located in the middle of the largest desert thousands of klicks from anywhere, it was escape proof, and that wasn’t something she ever said lightly. It didn’t mean it wasn’t breachable from outside. Obviously she could get in. Any viper could get in and out... probably out, but could she get out with a civilian along without risking his life? Hmmm... that she wasn’t so certain of, and she had to be absolutely certain of success. She was okay with collateral damage. She certainly expected some on this op, but this was her brother’s life on the line and she had no intention of making him a statistic.