Crossroads of Fate (Cadicle #5): An Epic Space Opera Series (18 page)

“So, we need to write our own protocol to push an update to the network—our own virus to restore the original functionality,” Curtis suggested.

“Yes, closer. But what do we need that update to do?” Wil asked. “Ideal scenario.”

“Restore the ability for our ships to maintain a beacon lock, obviously,” Ian said.

“Create a firewall to prevent further hijacking,” Curtis added.

“And
ideally
,” Saera interjected, “prevent the Bakzen from piggybacking off of our beacon signals, like we know they do.”

“That might be too ambitious. We’ve never been able to stop them before,” Wil countered.

“Except, we didn’t know how they did it before. They inadvertently gave us the key to their kingdom.” She grinned as she pulled up a snippet of highlighted code on the front viewscreen.

Wil examined the code.
Stars, she’s right!
“The cipher controls the lock, but the communication protocol between the ship and beacon is right there in the open.”

“All we have to do is a little extrapolation,” Saera continued. “I never would have thought to put a cipher on that part, myself—it’s innocuous enough on its own, but it’s the last missing piece we needed to understand how they read our fleet movements.”

“Do you have enough now to code a lockout?” Wil questioned.

She nodded. “Ninety-nine percent sure, anyway. The rest of the code repairs are an extension of the work I did earlier.”

Good thing I was willing to delegate before. I couldn’t possibly deal with all of this on my own right now.
“Great, get going on it as soon as possible. Grab any help you need. This is top priority.”

“I’m on it,” Saera acknowledged. “Except, I think it would be best to work directly at one of those hubs you mentioned. I’ll need to study how it sends the update signal.”

Wil hesitated. He disliked being separated from the Primus Elites, let alone sending Saera off on her own. “It’s not safe—”

“It’s safer than the whole fleet being trapped in their current locations,” Saera replied. “I can look after myself.”

“I know you can, but—”
he started to protest telepathically.

“I’ll see you in a few days,” Saera stated with a clear tone of finality.

Reluctantly, Wil nodded. “Okay. Just there and back.”

She smiled. “I’ve got this.”

The Bakzen had thoroughly screwed up the SiNavTech network, that was for sure. Saera let out a heavy sigh as she massaged her eyes, taking a break from the tedious coding.

She glanced over at the beacon hub station attendant, a stocky man in his fifties. Based on his tepid reception of Saera, it had been clear he’d taken the remote assignment due to a profound disinterest in having company.

“Stan, have you finished the—” Saera started to ask.

“Yes, the relay protocol is already uploaded. I’m just waiting on you,” Stan replied with a dour expression.

Saera doubted that his tone would be any different even if he knew she was married to a SiNavTech heir. “I’m almost done with the new firewall.” She turned back to the viewscreen, steeling herself for the final push.

Situated in a completely unpopulated sector, the hub was a standalone station tethered by a subspace anchor, like any other navigation beacon. Its compact form barely had enough amenities for one inhabitant, let alone a visitor. Saera had been camping in her transport shuttle for power naps every night, but the circular control room with its array of viewscreens and administrative access panels had turned into her temporary home away from home.

The last three days had been an even more intense grind than when she’d led the initial coding to interface the independent jump drive with the TSS fleet. The beacon hub had a backup of the uncorrupted navigation program, fortunately, but creating the new firewall to block out the Bakzen’s piggybacking on the network had proved more difficult than she’d anticipated. After two failed attempts, she had finally isolated the sequences to enact the required countermeasures to read the fleet’s movement; the Bakzen would likely still be able to use the nav beacons, but they would no longer be able to access the TSS’ travel logs. All that remained was inputting the final patches to restore capabilities for the TSS ships to lock onto the beacons. If all went well, they could roll out the updates before the civilian network was impacted.

She spent the next hour reviewing the mind-numbing lines of code for the new sequences. At last, she was satisfied that the quality control checks were sufficient.

“All right, Stan, let’s see if this works,” Saera said.

He only grunted in response, but the touch-surface on top of Saera’s console changed to a security screen. Hidden characters for the password appeared in sequence as Stan entered them via his console on the other side of the compact control room. Once logged in, an upload screen appeared.

“Activating the new lock system,” Saera declared as she tapped the corresponding controls.

A holographic map depicting the beacon network appeared above her console. The beacons were presently red, indicating a failed lock. Hopefully, the patch would fix that in short order.

Saera rapped her fingers on the console while the network interface refreshed after the upload. She sensed Stan glaring at her hand, annoyed by the offending sound inside his sanctuary. After listening to him loudly clear his throat for the last three days, Saera couldn’t care less that he was bothered.

Seven minutes passed. The console refreshed with an updated network graphic. All the beacons were once again displayed as pleasant gold icons.

She grinned with relief. “Good as new!”

Stan scoffed. “Be more careful next time.”

“You’re the one monitoring the network connections, not me,” Saera shot back.

“Well, I didn’t start the war.”

“Neither did anyone in the TSS who’s alive and fighting now, but we’ll be the ones to end it.”

Stan swiveled back around in his chair. “If you say so.”

Saera swallowed her exasperated groan. “I guess I’m finished here. Let me know if you detect any anomalies.”

The attendant let out another grunt to acknowledge her statement.

Shaking her head, Saera headed for the only door out of the tiny control room. The narrow corridor branched to either side, and she stayed to the left toward the docking bay. Less than twenty meters in length, the docking bay was overcrowded with two ships parked in tandem—her sleek TSS transport ship barely fitting behind Stan’s utilitarian evacuation shuttle. A pressurized door separated the room from space, but the heating controls were set to minimum levels. Saera hugged herself as she jogged to her ship, her breath appearing as a cloud in front of her face.

Saera palmed open the door to her shuttle and hurriedly closed it again behind her. Inside was no warmer, since the shuttle had been powered down all day. She climbed into the pilot’s chair, the seat frigid through her clothes. Shivering and with a cloud of breath billowing out with every exhale, she powered up the main systems. Within moments, heat radiated toward her numb face and limbs. She soaked up the warmth, flexing her fingers as the feeling returned.

Once Saera felt reasonably thawed, she pulled up the communications interface to contact the Conquest.

After a moment, the Command Center appeared in a holographic projection in front of her, with Wil and his men at the center.

“Hi,” she greeted.

“Hi. What’s the status?” Wil asked.

“Everything looks good on this end,” Saera replied. “I think it’s safe to boot up the nav system and see if it works.”

“Would you like me to attempt a beacon lock?” Rianne asked from beyond the camera’s view.

Wil nodded. “Set it for the Medea outpost, we need to regroup.”

Ten seconds passed while the nav system initialized on the Conquest.

“We have a lock,” Rianne confirmed.

“Excellent. Saera, can you meet us there?” Wil asked.

“Sure, I’m on my way.”

“See you soon.” He ended the transmission.

Saera checked the location of the Medea outpost on the map; it was intentionally positioned away from a beacon, but not so far that a manually calculated jump was necessary. Given that her transport ship wasn’t equipped with an independent jump drive and she was fatigued enough that she didn’t trust herself with manual calculations, she elected to jump to the beacon and travel the rest of the way through normal space. The extra hour of transit time was a worthwhile tradeoff for the added caution.

She relaxed back into the chair for the trip. Soon she’d be back with Wil and be able to sleep in her own bed again. They had a new system to limit the Bakzen’s movement and the TSS would have the advantage. Everything was looking up.

*       *       *

“If it works like we planned, the Bakzen’s navigation capabilities will be severely compromised,” Wil explained over the viewscreen to the captains on the ships gathered around the Medea outpost.

“What if the Bakzen have an independent jump drive, too?” Agent Ellis asked.

“They might,” Wil admitted, “but maybe not on every ship, just like with our own fleet. If nothing else, at least we’ll gain some added security.”

“True,” Cris agreed from the Vanquish.

Next to him, Kate nodded thoughtfully. “We should make another pass at the supply lines from Aleda while they’re caught off-guard. I’d give it a day, maybe two, before the Bakzen are in a position to retaliate against the new nav system.”

“Agreed, we need to move quickly if we’re to keep any advantage,” Wil replied. “I know the fleet needs some time to resupply after being trapped for a few days. Let’s plan a run at 09:00 tomorrow. I can observe from here.”

“Yes, sir,” the captains confirmed.

“Speak with you in the morning.” Wil ended the transmission. He let out a slow breath.

“Somehow, I feel like the change to the nav network won’t cause the Bakzen to miss a beat—just piss them off,” Michael commented.

Wil frowned. “I’m afraid of that, myself.”

“Worst case, it changes nothing,” Ian said.

“True.” Wil checked the time. “I’m going to go over the full fleet report. Let’s reconvene at 08:00.”

“See you in the morning,” Michael acknowledged.

Wil headed into the private workspace off to the right side of the Command Center. It was just large enough to hold a couch for a quick nap and a touch-surface desk. A viewscreen next to the desk was currently set to a rotating display of colorful nebulas.

He sat down at the desk and began going through the tedious reports of fleet supplies and current positions. The downed nav network had left a few ships in a tough spot, but for the most part, all the key vessels should be well positioned for the attack in the morning. They just needed a few hours to get back in order.

Suddenly, Rianne came over the comm, “Incoming message addressed to you, sir. Unknown origin. It’s marked as private.”

“Unknown origin?” Wil asked. “That can’t be right.”

“I tried a trace, but there’s nothing.”

“Put it through in here,” Wil instructed, unsure but intrigued.

When the video feed resolved on the screen, Wil nearly fell out of his chair. Bakzen eyes met his, glowing red under a heavy brow. The face was unmistakable.
Tek.

It took a moment for Wil to gather himself. His pulse raced, every muscle tense.
How did he get this comm channel?
“Tek. It’s been awhile.”

The Bakzen examined him. “It has. My, how you’ve grown.”

What does he want?
Wil attempted a covert scan to identify the transmission origin, but he found that the signal was blocked.
“That tends to happen with age.”

“I see you’re still as spirited as ever. You know, that wasn’t very nice of you to lock us out of the beacon network.”

Wil swallowed. It hadn’t taken the Bakzen long to notice. “It wasn’t yours to begin with.”

“Wasn’t it? We used to be Tarans, too, after all.”

Not knowing how to reply, Wil remained silent.

“I hear they’ve named you Supreme Commander of the TSS,” Tek continued.

“That’s correct.”

Tek’s lips parted into a sneer. “I’ve received a promotion myself.”

“How generous of your superiors.”
What’s this about? There’s no way this is a just social call.
He tried to stay composed, but he knew there were cracks in the façade.

Tek seemed pleased by Wil’s discomfort. “My former superiors hardly had a say in the matter. I have little tolerance for ineffective leadership, you see. I had to take matters into my own hands.”

A chill ran down Wil’s spine.
That can only mean one thing.
“You made yourself Imperial Director.”

“You do catch on quickly, I’ll give you that.”

Stars! We’re fighting an enemy led by a madman.
“So, leader to leader, what do you want?”

“I want Cambion.”

Wil almost laughed at the boldness of the statement, but felt too ill for humor. “I may be Supreme Commander, but I’m in no position to barter inhabited planets.”

“Don’t underestimate the power you hold,” Tek countered. “This is wartime, and you call the shots.”

“Then let me rephrase. I won’t hand over a Taran world to you.”

“Surely there’s a price you would consider.”

“Money isn’t a big motivator for me.”

Tek tilted his bald head. “How about your wife?”

An icy fist gripped Wil’s heart.
Shite, where’s Saera?
“I think she’d agree with my stance.”

“Don’t play dumb. That wasn’t my question.”

They couldn’t have captured her, could they?
Wil was about to bring up the route information for Saera’s shuttle, but Tek’s level gaze stopped him.

“Answer me. Your wife, or an entire planet?”

Wil swallowed. “An irrelevant hypothetical.”
She must be okay, right? She hasn’t telepathically reached out to me. I sense no distress.

“A hypothetical for the moment, but what happens next is up to you.”

“Empty threats won’t win you any consideration.”
Stars! Where is she?
Wil shook Tek’s piercing gaze to hunt for Saera’s shuttle on the desktop console. When the coordinates came up, he saw she was right on course. He breathed an inward sigh of relief.

“My threats are never empty,” Tek said. “You have two minutes to make your decision. Your wife, or Cambion.”

“I already told you, I won’t hand it over to you.”
Fok! What is he after?

Tek smiled. “I wanted to challenge myself, to see if I could make you yield to me. Look closely, and you will see that two Bakzen scout ships are ghosting your wife’s shuttle. There is no way she could escape with the limited maneuverability of her craft. We can end her at any moment.”

Stars, no!
Sickened, Wil confirmed the presence of two ships floating in subspace that could jump into normal space at any moment and fire. His mouth went dry. “Then why haven’t you?”

“Because Cambion offers much greater short-term gains.”

Wil’s mind raced. “So just attack it.”
They likely have telepathically controlled civilians standing by to bring down the shield generators. No matter what I do now, the planet is probably lost.