Merkiaari Wars: 04 - Operation Breakout Read online

  “No appointment, Raph, so stop stressing. Is he in?”

  Raph nodded. “Just got back from Oracle five minutes ago. His next appointment isn’t until 0800 so if you want...?”

  “Ask for ten minutes would you? It’s...” he couldn’t say urgent, though it was to him. “Important.”

  Raph stood and knocked once before entering Burgton’s office. He was gone less than a minute before coming out again. “Captain?”

  Stone nodded and entered the office. Raph closed the door for him.

  General Burgton, CO 501st Infantry Regiment and hero of the Alliance wasn’t an imposing figure. He wasn’t overly tall at just under two metres, or overly muscular, he wasn’t sensim star handsome either. He was average in every way, until he looked at you. Stone had seen men and women stumble when that gaze locked upon them. He had seen them trembling when he was being perfectly nice to them. He just had a presence, and when he focused his attention upon you, you felt it like a blow. When he was being less than polite, watch out! Stone was used to his attention and although he felt Burgton’s regard even all these years later, he could ignore the unease it created. Usually. This time was a little different. When Burgton looked up from where he sat behind his desk and those grey eyes focused upon him, Stone felt it. He felt it deep inside. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t game his friend.

  “I... I... have this thing.”

  Burgton raised an eyebrow in question.

  “Information,” he said and felt his face heating like a damn schoolboy. Thank God blushes didn’t show on him. “It actually came through the network a few days ago. I should have brought it up before but...” he swallowed. He was fucking it up!

  “I understand, Ken,” Burgton said kindly.

  “You do?” he said in surprise. How? He’d been excruciatingly careful.

  “Have a seat.”

  Stone did as he was bid and tried to relax. He could still do what needed to be done. He hadn’t blown it yet. He leaned back, feeling those eyes boring into him, assessing him. He sat forward and clasped his hands between his knees, he was unable to settle and meet Burgton’s eyes.

  “How is Richmond?”

  Stone froze. He did know! Holy shit he was screwed.

  “Ken?”

  “She’s fine. Medical are starting her enhancement today. She’s good. Fine.”

  Burgton pursed his lips. “You’ve been seeing a lot of her lately.”

  “Yeah, she’s part of my team.” Burgton simply watched him squirm, waiting for his confession in silence. “And well... we kind of... we’re seeing each other kind of. She and I... we’re involved.”

  Burgton nodded. “I knew that. It was tons of fun watching you both figure it out. I knew you had feelings for her that day in Zuleika. Risking your life with that suicide run of yours to save her was a big clue.”

  Stone smiled weakly. He felt sick. “I know it’s against the regs.”

  Burgton frowned and waved that away. “If I cared about that, I’d promote her out of your chain of command, Ken. That’s the easiest way out for both of you if you want me to apply the regs. Personally, I don’t care about them. Bend them, break them, I don’t care as long as the job gets done. Let personal feelings get in the way of your duty to me and the regiment, and I assure you I’ll care and take appropriate steps.”

  Stone believed that, and the steps could be serious ones; from ordering him to break the relationship with Richmond, to ordering one or both of them to different planets on opposite sides of the Alliance.

  “Understood, sir, it won’t be an issue.”

  “Good. Now, the information you mentioned. What have you got?”

  Stone rearranged his thoughts. Burgton didn’t know after all. “It’s something that came to me through my contacts on Northcliff. One of their ships was jacked out Helios way.”

  “Helios?”

  Stone nodded. “It’s one of our systems in the Border Zone. The navy has a gas mining station there for refuelling our patrol ships. Anyway, a heavy cruiser came into the system in time to kick raider butt, Captain Colgan commanding.”

  “That Colgan?”

  Stone nodded. “I have the data ready for upload, but it’s what Colgan found on the raider ship that’s the real news.”

  “I’ll review your data, but give me the highlights.”

  “The raider ship is known to us. Jean de Vienne is a Banshee class destroyer that first entered my sights during my op on Thurston. It was delivering arms to the Freedom Movement there. Eric fixed the situation a little later, but Jean de Vienne was long gone before that.”

  “Thurston, yes. I don’t recall the ship, but I remember Eric’s download of that op. It’s where he first met Fuentez and pushed for her recruitment.”

  Stone nodded. “Right. Anyway, after Colgan’s marines made the ship safe they found a lot of cargo aboard. Standard procedure would have them record everything for evidence against the crew and then either confiscate or destroy it. The ship was badly damaged in the battle. Colgan had planned to scuttle, but what they found in addition to the usual types of loot changed things. He rigged a tow and brought the ship into the station.”

  “Oh really? That seems a lot of work.”

  “The cargo included cadavers in cryo including bodies of three unknown alien races and... and one of us.”

  Burgton sat up, his eyes blazing. “Who!”

  Stone shook his head. “They don’t know. There were Merki bodies and corpses of other Alliance soldiers. None had I.D.”

  Burgton hissed under his breath. “Who is missing?”

  “Again, I don’t know. We always have operations running, and we do have people out that way, but none of them are due to report in. It could be any of them... well no, I take that back. The dead viper is male, but that’s all we know.”

  “And we’re sure he’s dead and not in hibernation?”

  “The report says deceased, but I can’t verify without going out there.”

  Burgton nodded and pushed to his feet. Stone watched him pace and knew what he was thinking. The Merkiaari were making their move, but they didn’t know exactly where or what the move was. They had to respond, had to, but to mobilise the regiment without orders or better data was unacceptable.

  “I want to go out there,” Stone said quietly. “OSI is working well. It doesn’t need me watching over it every minute any more. I can afford to get eyes on scene, and I think this situation needs the best. That’s me.”

  Burgton nodded, not agreeing just acknowledging the words.

  Stone licked his lips. “I want to take Richmond and Fuentez with me.”

  That stopped him. Burgton swung his narrowed eyes onto Stone, perhaps remembering their earlier conversation and re-evaluating. “Explain.”

  This was it. Lie or come clean? He sighed and chose truth. “Richmond’s brother was last seen on Jean de Vienne.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “He was taken after he shot his own captain in the back when he threatened to scuttle the ship. He’s Colgan’s prisoner.”

  Burgton frowned. “You haven’t told her?”

  “She would have demanded transport to Helios seconds later if I had, and she needs to be repaired. I held the data back so Marion could fix her first.”

  “You could ship out without her.”

  Stone shook his head. “She would never forgive that.”

  “True, true,” Burgton murmured and frowned. “You realise he’s going to be mind-wiped?”

  Stone nodded.

  “Your plan?”

  “To make her see what a scumbag he really is, to show her that she needs to cut him loose and move on.”

  “Why the need for Fuentez?”

  “For support. She won’t trust me after this. She’ll need a friend.”

  “Fuentez has only been back a month. She’s holding Sebastian’s hand under The Mountain.”

  “Can you spare her? Richmond isn’t close to many people. I need Fuentez with us
.”

  “Richmond will be fully online by the end of the week?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Burgton nodded. “That works, just about. Liz told me Oracle will be complete soon. Sebastian is already connected to Oracle’s power grid and the cryo plant. As far as I know, all that needs to be done is hook up all his data feeds and seal his matrix into the column. A day maybe two will see it done, Liz says.”

  “So I can take her?”

  “Talk to Eric. If he has no objections you can have her for this. Don’t let Richmond’s personal situation get in the way, Ken. Merkiaari, dead aliens, a dead viper and all of it inside Alliance space? This could be our first indication of a new incursion. It’s bigger than any one of us.”

  Stone nodded.

  * * *

  5 ~ Oracle

  Oracle facility, The Mountain, Snakeholme

  Stone guided the shuttle into the bay. Hovering and moving slowly, he crossed the busy space toward the parking area following the signals provided by the safety officer. He edged forward concentrating upon the man’s light wands, and paused when the officer abruptly crossed them. He lowered power to his anti-grav and the shuttle settled upon her skids. Stone went through his shutdown checklist while the safety officer trotted away to guide another shuttle, this time exiting the bay.

  Stone was feeling upbeat and more cheerful than he had this morning. He had the General on side without having to con him into it, and Marion was willing to keep Richmond out from underfoot while he gathered what he needed for the mission. Both missions. The official one didn’t need much. A fast ship and one of the regiment’s stasis tubes was about all he needed. He had a fallen unit to retrieve. The investigation side of the operation didn’t require hardware, or if it did, it would be available on site. Richmond’s mission though... if things went the way he thought they might, she would need everything an undercover operative might use on a hostile world. He figured he would just pack for her as if he were performing the mission himself.

  The General had given him Harbinger, a courier class ship modified with neural interfaces. Harbinger was one of only three ships like it that the regiment used for special occasions. Courier ships were highly automated at the best of times and carried small crews. Twelve was standard spread over three watches, but using Harbinger’s neural net, it could be handled by three vipers easily. It was the General’s preferred ride, his own ship. He used it to visit Earth when drone communication was inadequate or ill advised for one reason or another. It wasn’t as if he could just turn up at Sol aboard Hammer and not raise questions about a destroyer crewed by non-naval personnel after all, and using a merchy as a passenger ship didn’t sit right.

  Stone finished his checklist and left the shuttle for the elevators.

  He had never visited Oracle before but he had a rough understanding of what to expect, so when the elevator deposited him directly into chaos he was surprised and briefly wondered if he had somehow selected the wrong destination. Couldn’t have. There weren’t many destinations available from the bay he’d chosen. It was an ancillary bay built for Oracle especially.

  He stepped into the centrum but had to step aside as an engineer hurried by pushing a gravcart piled high with equipment. No apology for nearly running him down either. Stone followed the man with narrowed eyes, his targeting reticule locked on and spinning centred on his back. He shook his head as the oblivious techy actually did run some poor fool down and received a chewing out for it. The two yelled at each other adding to the din. Stone didn’t think much of their brains.

  Oracle’s centrum, soon to become Sebastian’s home, was a huge gleaming hollow ball the size of a stadium. There were techs and engineers scattered around doing arcane things with their equipment, busily ignoring each other, and burying themselves in data. The gleaming walls of the centrum were shimmering with the telltale effects that colonisation by nanotech gave any surface when not actively in use. Stone watched in fascination as the techs used areas of the walls as view screens and monitors to display diagrams and test results. He had a passing interest in nano-engineering and other tech. Being the product of some advanced tech himself, it would have seemed strange to him not to take an interest, but the blueprints displayed lost him the moment he tried to understand them. Oh, he could tell it was Oracle’s guts he was seeing, but he couldn’t fathom much more than that. The techs seemed particularly interested in the matrix column. That made sense. Sebastian needed installation into the column, and there was obviously something impeding that.

  Rather than ask around, Stone used his sensors to find Fuentez. A window opened on his HUD filled with green icons representing the techs and engineers, but his attention was all for the single cool blue blip representing the only other viper present—lieutenant Gina Fuentez, Richmond’s best bud, and soon to be his co-conspirator. He had decided to let her in on the deal with Richmond. Not everything, but damn near; more than he was comfortable with, truth be known, but unlike the General, she would be with Kate and needed to know. Not that he had conned the General. He hadn’t. Burgton now knew what his aims were regarding Richmond and her brother. He just didn’t know every detail of how he planned to achieve it. Burgton didn’t generally micromanage. He delegated tasks and expected positive results; same here despite the unofficial nature of the mission. Stone appreciated that more than he could say. OSI (Office of Strategic Intelligence) depended on having discretion, but Burgton had never been shy in granting that.

  It still felt odd legitimising his efforts, Stone thought as he headed for Fuentez. OSI (Office of Strategic Intelligence) was the name Burgton had finally settled upon for his new section. He’d based it upon the navy’s ONI (Office of Naval Intelligence) It was better than calling his people intel weenies, which they still were, but being called that trivialised their work. They were intelligence agents or operatives—assassins and saboteurs quite often, information gatherers and analysts always, and soldiers no matter the mission. Vipers were always soldiers. They deserved to be treated as such and having a properly named section within the greater regiment felt right and was good for their morale.

  According to sensors, Fuentez was near the matrix column but on its far side. Stone couldn’t see her, but he headed that way. The column’s insulation and shielding had been removed to allow Sebastian’s matrix to be installed. He could see the columns guts and Sebastian himself, or his brain he supposed it was. The matrix had been installed but there must have been a setback, because as Stone approached he could see work was underway extracting it from the column.

  “...calm down, they’ll fix it,” Fuentez was saying. “No, they understand that. No I said. I’m not going to... okay, but they’ll do that anyway.”

  “What’s the issue now?” Liz said, sounding tired. “Is he still bitching about the buffer memory specs?”

  “Not this time,” Fuentez said. “Bastian thinks you should connect the neural interface first this time. He says if you do that, he can run a diagnostic on the entire facility himself much quicker than your people, and guide them through the installation. He says it will save time.”

  Liz frowned. “That actually does make sense. He’s already awake and aware. The usual procedure would be to initialise a new A.I’s matrix after installation, not before.”

  “I know. He’s thoroughly educated me on the accepted process that he now wants to throw out the airlock.” Fuentez grinned. “I know more than I ever wanted to know about it.”

  “What’s wrong?” Stone said to Liz. He hoped the problem wouldn’t mess up his plans for recruiting Fuentez. “I only caught the last part of that.”

  Liz shook her head. “Nothing serious.”

  Fuentez sighed. “Bastian says he’ll be the judge of that, thank you.”

  Liz rolled her eyes.

  “Ah... Sebastian says?” Stone said.

  Fuentez turned her back on Stone and pointed to her butt. Stone blinked, but she wasn’t dissing him. She was pointing to a data cable plugge
d into her primary node that led off toward the matrix column. All vipers had a data node at the base of their spines for hard wire connections. The regiment’s simulators could use them, but they were designed originally for uploading and maintaining a viper’s software. He’d never seen one used outside of the tech centre before.

  Stone made an educated guess. “Sebastian is linked into your internal net?”

  “Yep! I’m hearing voices... woo!”

  Liz grinned. “Bastian, meet Captain Stone. Stone, say hello to our newest recruit.”

  Before Stone could answer, Fuentez spoke again but the words weren’t hers. “Ah yes. Stone, Kenneth, Captain 501st Infantry Regiment DGN-896-410-339. Congratulations on your recent promotion, Captain.”

  “Ah... thanks?” Stone turned to Liz. “Is he plugged into our database already?”

  “I am not,” Sebastian/Fuentez said. “I am, however, into Gina’s files—” Fuentez scowled. “I’ve told you about that! Stay out of my personal stuff! I am not in your personal stuff. Yes you are. I can feel you rummaging around in there. It depends upon your definition of personal. I am limiting my rummaging, as you put it, to your professional memories and data. I have avoided all personal references as I promised.”

  Stone listened in amazement. So this is what the General meant by holding Sebastian’s hand? It was like listening to a mad woman talking to her imaginary friend.

  “Tell me,” Sebastian/Fuentez said turning his/her attention back to Stone. “What was your impression of the Shan? I find Gina’s memories of them fascinating.”

  “I liked them.”

  “Perhaps you could elaborate? What did you like and dislike about them? There must be something you do not like?”

  Stone frowned wondering what he was after. “I’m not sure there was anything to dislike. They’re a courageous people it seemed to me. They fought the Merkiaari twice to a standstill. The first time they could’ve had little hope of defeating them, but they survived and rebuilt their worlds. The second time they had our help, and worked to exhaustion to keep up and do their part.”