Never Surrender (The Empire's Corps Book 10) (34 page)

Paula glowered at her.  “Very well,” she said, finally.  “I went to Meridian with General Stubbins, after Governor Brown outmanoeuvred him.  Five years of sitting in a steaming hot jungle ... we were joined, eventually, by a number of prisoners.  Three of them in particular led a breakout.  They managed to take a shuttle, then the orbital station and finally a starship.”

Rani’s eyes narrowed.  Meridian.  She might have been denied permission to simply execute some of the POWs out of hand, particularly the bitch she knew from Corinthian, but she’d kept an eye on their final disposition.  Meridian, a stage-one colony, should have made an acceptable dumping ground.  The prisoners might be able to flee the POW camps, yet they wouldn't be able to escape the planet. 

Except it seems that some have
, she thought, as Paula went on and on.  Everything made a horrific kind of sense. 
And they came here
.

“So they’re planning to assassinate the Governor,” she said, when Paula had finished.  She didn't see how one man
could
assassinate the Governor, but she knew better than to take anything for granted.  A relative handful of men had taken Corinthian from her.  “And hopefully trigger off a civil war.”

“Yes, Admiral,” Paula said.  “And they’re going to move tonight.”

Rani barely heard her.  She was too busy considering all the possibilities.  If she informed Governor Brown of the plot, he would be grateful ... but he wouldn’t give her any more power or respect.  The war would continue to stalemate until the Commonwealth actually
did
find a viable silver bullet.  On the other hand, if she allowed the plot to go ahead ... the Governor’s spies wouldn't pick up anything, because it wasn't
her
plot, but she might just be able to take advantage of it.  A dead governor would leave the reins of power lying on the ground, waiting for someone to pick them up.

“I see,” she said, smoothly.  It would take some doing to make sure that only
her
people knew about Paula, at least until the attack began, but it could be done.  “I will inform the Governor of the threat at once.  You will be held here until he has been informed and made safe.”

“Thank you,” Paula said.

Rani met her eyes.  “Why did you come here?”

“Everyone else I knew disliked General Stubbins,” Paula admitted.  “They would have grabbed me as an escaped prisoner rather than trying to listen to me.  You didn't have any history with him.”

“I suppose not,” Rani said.  She kept the smile off her face with the ease of long practice.  Paula hadn't told anyone else, then.  Brilliant.  “The Governor will choose to reward you, I am sure.  You will never need to whore for a fat overweight bastard again.”

Paula looked relieved.  Rani called for her guards, both of whom she thought were loyal to her.  “Take Paula to a holding cell and make sure she’s comfortable,” she ordered.  There was no point in trying to panic Paula before it was too late.  Once the pieces had stopped flying around, she would know how to thank the turncoat properly.  “I’ll handle the matter personally.”

She waited until they were gone, then started sending a message to the handful of people she trusted.  They would hold themselves in readiness, preparing to jump if something happened, but they would do nothing without her signal.  If Paula was wrong, or if the attack was called off, the Governor would have no reason to suspect her loyalty. 

And if the Governor dies
, she thought,
an opportunity opens up before me
.

***

The garage was precisely where Carl had spotted it on his earlier circuit of the city.  Then, it had been open, servicing a number of aircars; now, it was closed, protected only by a simple alarm circuit.  Carl cracked it with ease - it was less complex than some of the systems he’d worked on during training - and slipped into the building.  Twelve aircars, all in working order, gleamed in the semi-darkness.

He slipped through the building, checking to make sure he was alone.  Two men slept in the rear room, too poor to afford an apartment or simply reluctant to leave their property alone overnight.  Carl knocked them both on the head before they could wake, then tied their hands and feet with duct tape.  They’d probably get some of the blame, when the Wolves worked out what had happened, but there was nothing he could do about it.  He checked the rest of the complex, then returned to the garage.  The aircars were waiting for him ...

“Well,” he muttered to himself, as he removed his multitool from his belt.  It had been far too long since he’d done any basic maintenance on aircars, let alone more complex programming, but he still remembered the fundamentals.  “Time to get to work.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

Nor were they inclined to take prisoners themselves.  The Empire’s official position on negotiations with terrorists/insurgents/freedom fighters was to formally ban them from taking place.  Accordingly, any imperial serviceman who fell into enemy hands could expect very rough treatment indeed, both through a natural desire for revenge and an awareness that the serviceman was useless as a bargaining chip.

- Professor Leo Caesius. 
The Empire and its Prisoners of War.

Wolfbane System, Year 5 (PE)

“Sir, I’m picking up an emergency alert!”

Commander Drew Malochy swore, then rose to his feet.  Being Traffic Controller for the shipyard was supposed to be a boost to his career, but it was starting to look like a major headache.  In theory, he was meant to track and authorise every starship, spacecraft and shuttle flying through the shipyard; in practice, he'd been told to raise as few barriers as possible.  The workers didn't appreciate having to file flight plans for every single deployment and his superiors had made it clear.

“Show me,” he snapped, as he glowered down at the young ensign.  “What’s happening?”

“Customs Boat #42 has just transmitted an emergency alert,” the ensign said.  She looked uncomfortable under his scrutiny, but pressed ahead anyway.  “She’s suffering a major core overload.”

Drew glanced at the display, then cursed under his breath.  The flashing red icon was far too close to a major industrial node for him to be happy, even if lives hadn't been at stake.  It was all the fault of his superiors ... he’d
wanted
to set up flight paths through the shipyard, with strict penalties for anyone who defied them.

“Tell her to get away from the platform,” he ordered.  A core overload almost certainly meant an imminent explosion, unless the crew managed to dampen the reaction in time.  In theory, the design prevented a runaway core, but bitter experience had taught engineers that there were limits to what they could do to their designs without crippling them.  “Get the emergency teams scrambled and ...”

“Too late,” the ensign said.  The red icon winked once and vanished, replaced with an expanding sphere representing a hail of debris.  “She’s gone.”

“Send an emergency alert to everyone in the vicinity,” Drew snapped.  There would be hard questions for everyone, including him, once the chaos had died down to a dull roar.  And if he didn't handle the crisis well, his career would be redirected to an asteroid-mining station in the middle of nowhere.  “I want them all inside, now.”

“Aye, sir,” the ensign said.  “The emergency teams are still getting ready to move.”

“General signal to all shuttles and worker bees,” Drew said.  “They are to move into position to intercept any pieces of debris that might threaten the facilities.  If they have to overload their systems to do it, that’s fine.  I authorise the risks.”

He stalked back to his command chair, cursing the commander of the customs boat under his breath.  His record wasn't perfect, but it had been a damn sight better before the fool had brought his ship into the shipyard.  No matter what happened, Drew’s career had just taken a kick in the pants.  All he could do was hope that his recovery was good enough to save him from a lifetime trapped in an asteroid mine.

“And send a signal to Wolfbane,” he added.  “Inform them of the crisis and request they prepare emergency support, if necessary.”

“Aye, sir,” the ensign said.

Drew puzzled it over as the emergency craft were
finally
scrambled from their hanger bays and started to make their way towards the scene.  A core overload should have been noticeable from the start, even if the captain was a complete incompetent.  Unless ... he knew enough about design work to know that a great many corners had been cut when the patrol boats had been designed, just to ensure several hundred of them could be put together as quickly as possible.  Maybe a warning system had failed, allowing the trouble to build up until it was impossible to contain.  Or perhaps the captain had hoped to pass the buck to someone else and ignored it instead of getting help.  Or ...

He sighed.  One way or another, thirty good men were dead, chunks of debris were spinning through the most sensitive complex this side of Wolfbane itself and his career was in the toilet, just waiting for some asshole to flush.

Shaking his head, he forced himself to wait.  He'd learn what had happened soon enough.

***

Jasmine allowed herself a moment of amusement as her team blended with hundreds of other men in spacesuits as they raced towards the emergency shelters, mounted on the side of the giant industrial node.  There were so many teams, each one with its own spacesuit markings, that her team just faded into the crowd.  Her HUD kept flashing up emergency alerts - she was amused to note that the procedures hadn't changed from the days of the Empire - but there didn't seem to be any security alerts.  It seemed, very much so, as though no one suspected that the core overload had been deliberate.

She gathered her team at one side of the shelter and waited, patiently, for the all-clear.  It hadn't been certain just how long they would have to wait, but the sheer tempo of the industrial system had convinced her they wouldn't have to wait very long.  The workers cowering in the shelters wouldn't be able to do any actual
work
if they were staying in the section.  She pushed the thought aside and waited, eavesdropping on a handful of public communications channels.  Most of the remarks seemed to be sarcastic observations on the need to do basic maintenance. 

“The debris has been handled,” a voice said, finally.  “You may return to work.”

Jasmine nodded, then led her team towards the nearest access hatch.  They’d handled the debris quicker than she’d expected, but she had been careful to ensure that the ship would shatter into a cloud of fragments, rather than a handful of pieces of junk.  It wasn't certain - nothing was
certain
- but she was fairly sure they wouldn't have been able to track the spacesuits, without more sensors than they seemed to have.  The debris would just make it harder for them if she was wrong. 

Stewart opened the hatch, then dropped inside; Jasmine followed him, into a small observation tube.  If she was right, if Wolfbane had stuck with the Empire’s designs, there should be an access port further down the corridor.  The remainder of the group brought up the rear as they advanced, trying to look like a team of workers.  Thankfully, most workers would still be wearing their emergency suits until it was
definitely
clear.  They passed two other groups of workers, one wearing complete spacesuits, as they slipped into the access port.  A small terminal sat there, with a single operative.  Stewart knocked her out before she could even turn and see the men filing into her compartment.

“Get the hacker pack set up,” she ordered.  The Trade Federation representatives had told her it should crack most non-military computers, but there was no way to know what advancements Wolfbane had made.  “See what we can get out of the computers.”

Stewart nodded, slotted the hacker pack into the computer and then went to work.  Jasmine waited, forcing herself to remain calm, until he looked up.  “I can't get much out of the system,” he said, “but the armoury is right where we thought it was.  It shouldn't be hard to upload a manifest into the system.”

Jasmine looked at him.  “Do it,” she ordered.  She frowned as the diagram popped up in front of them.  It looked as though it was better defended than she’d expected.  “Teams One, Two and Three will go there.  Teams Four and Five will carry out their planned orders.”

She waited for Stewart to finish, then led the way out of the compartment.  There was a shuttlebay just down the bottom of the compartment, crammed with worker bees.  Stealing them would be easy, she was sure.  And then ...

Get into the armoury
, she thought. 
And then see how much damage we can do.

“They’re not part of the main computer network,” Stewart reported, as they inspected the worker bees.  “But I can link them into the laser beam.”

Jasmine smiled.  “See what Gary can make of them,” she ordered.  She led Team One into one of the worker bees, then started the engines.  “And hope the shit doesn't hit the fan.”

***

“You know, you can sit down and wait,” Lieutenant Julian Chan pointed out.  “You won’t be at risk, whatever happens.”

Gary shook his head.  He’d been pacing up and down the freighter’s bridge until he’d practically worn lines in the deck plating, simply because he’d been unable to force himself to wait calmly.  Back on Earth, he would have eaten something to distract himself from the butterflies in his stomach, but here he didn't dare.  Even the thought of kissing Kailee was
too
distracting.  All he could do was wait and hope he didn't fuck up when the time came.

There was a beep from his console.  “The link is up and running,” he said, practically throwing himself into the chair.  “And I have a message.”

He blinked as he read it, quickly.  Jasmine wanted him to try to hack the deeper levels of the shipyard’s network, but she also wanted him to prepare to take control of the worker bees and direct them at enemy targets.  Gary flinched - how was he supposed to handle two separate tasks at once - and then got to work.  The worker bees themselves were easy to subvert; they were designed to be operated remotely, if necessary, and there was almost no protection on their computers at all.  Indeed, the only real problem was handling so many at once.

But it was the computer network that posed the real problem.  Gary had hacked networks before, on Earth, but he’d never explored a military-grade system.  He’d always been too afraid of meeting people even more violent than Barry or Moe.  Now, he had no choice, but to try to break the system.  Some of his hacking tools worked; others, it seemed, were next to useless.  The system was actively designed to make hacking almost impossible.

“I can't get in without a password,” he said, finally.  In his experience, there was always one idiot who used ‘PASSWORD’ as his password, but linking the idiot to his ID within the system would be the real pain.  A school computer would allow unlimited attempts to enter a password - he smirked at how easy it had been to crack some of the systems - yet some of the gaming companies had been smart enough to break the link after three failed tries.  “And they would probably notice if I tried to guess.”

Kailee frowned.  “How does that work?”

“They have a locked compartment inside their house,” Gary admitted.  “I need to know where it is to find it and I need the key to get inside.  Right now, I can see the firewall blocking access, but I need both an ID and a password to get in.”

He cursed under his breath.  There were ways to force entry, but he had a feeling they would merely trigger alerts.  The system he was touching, however lightly, felt more alert than anything he’d previously encountered.  One wrong move would be disastrous.

A message blinked up in front of him.  “Keep in touch with the bees, but do nothing else,” Jasmine sent.  “Deploy them when the time comes.”

“We wait,” Gary said.  “Again.”

***

Jasmine held her breath as they slipped closer to the armoury, a single brooding structure near the centre of the shipyard.  Weapons pods surrounded it, ready for installation; it didn't take much imagination to see them pouring fire towards Commonwealth targets.  She frowned inwardly as she saw the missiles themselves - it always astonished her just how large they actually were - then pushed the thought aside.  The warheads on the tips were the truly important points.

“Docking in five minutes,” Stewart said.  “They’ve accepted our manifest - our manifesto.”

“A weak joke,” Jasmine said, dryly.  “But liveable.”

She smiled, thinly.  They were inside the security wall now; anyone who saw their manifest would assume that someone else had already cleared them to enter the shipyard.  But there were places on military bases, even Castle Rock, where access was denied without a proper ID card and clearance from one’s superiors.  Surely, the armoury would be one of those places.

“They seem to have cleared the wreckage of the boat nicely,” Stewart commented.  “You wouldn't know that
anything
had happened over there.”