Birthright: Battle for the Confederation- Reprisal Page 10

  With that left hanging in the air, the Admiral stopped his speech and let Elco digest everything. The Admiral seemed sincere enough about giving Elco the choice of doing this, but most of the time when a superior officer gave you a choice, you were expected to go along with the plan they presented. The question was, did Elco think this mission was something that needed to be swept under the deckplates? And if so, was he comfortable being a part of it? Would he, with that first yes, become the Admiral’s go-to guy for anything of questionable origin that came his way? There was a point at which even the most clear minded person just started going with the flow, and eventually they’d just get used to taking the missions and obeying the requests, and soon after that they’d stop wondering if what they were doing was right. Did accepting the Admiral’s conditions of secrecy amount to approval of his private little war against the Primans?

  “I want to clarify one thing first, Admiral,” Elco stated.

  “Go ahead.”

  “I want to make sure Avenger isn’t going to become your personal clean-up crew. We’re not in the business of running black bag missions, so I wouldn’t be expecting us to have this conversation on a regular basis.”

  “Agreed. Though I must point out that with a successful record such as yours, Avenger’s name is going to come up again. But I will hopefully be making my only request such as this of you.”

  A storm raged within Elco, and he knew the Admiral must have counted on the conflict in him as well. Elco was torn between what he thought was probably a vital mission for the Confederation, but at the same time he would be cleaning up the mess that Admiral Bak had created and perhaps indirectly enabling the man to feel free to do it again.

  “Alright, Admiral. I’ll leave the Priman element out of the mission report. But I assume you understand my reservations about how these Primans will be treated when I bring them in.”

  “Noted, Captain. You have the luxury of debating the morals of this situation; I do not. I simply need to come up with something, anything, that we can use against them. Now, is there anything I can do for you? I suppose you could say I’ll owe you a favor after this.”

  Surprisingly, Elco didn’t have to think long. While it hadn’t occurred to him until the Admiral had asked, he did in fact have an issue he needed to address.

  “Actually, Admiral, I can think of something you could help me out with.”

  The Admiral nodded, a gesture for Elco to continue.

  “My new Executive Officer, Enric Shae, is having some serious personality clashes with the rest of my crew. Frankly, I asked him for a favor once and he called it in when I needed a new XO for Avenger.”

  The Admiral nodded as Elco spoke. He himself had wondered where the choice had come from, since Elco and Shae didn’t have any history together and taking the Torino’s former XO must have meant bypassing some qualified officers from Avenger. At least that little puzzle was solved.

  “So you see, I can’t in good conscience ask him to transfer or just make a request for a different XO, not since I took him on under those conditions. Problem is, there’s friction all around with him and many of the crew, aviators especially. Now, I’ve talked to people, and everyone’s doing their jobs and being professional, but in the middle of a war I don’t need that kind of drama. Can you think up a reason to rotate him off my ship?”

  “That’s all?” The Admiral was surprised. First off, it wasn’t much of a favor to ask, and he suspected he’d still feel mildly indebted to Elco after doing this. Second, for Sirian Elco to want someone off his ship, he must be a definite pain in the tailpipe.

  “I can do that, no problem,” Bak replied. “That’s a little light as far as favors go, though. You want me to keep feeling like I owe you?”

  “Whatever keeps you honest, Admiral.” Elco replied, straight faced. “I’d just recommend that Commander Shae not be put in a position where he directly commands others in a crucial role. He has a knack for organization and administration, but his people skills will get in the way of him being an effective leader. Still, he fancies himself on a fast track, and has an eye for the political as well. He would gladly accept anything that he thought was a career-builder.”

  Elco could cut to the core of a man, that was for sure. Bak tried to avoid wondering how Elco must be judging him by what he’d done lately. “Consider it done, Captain. I have several positions that would work out well for him. I hate to rush you out after all this, but I do need you to leave as soon as possible.”

  Elco nodded, stood up and saluted, waiting for Admiral Bak to do the same. The curt military demeanor was something short of the friendly handshakes that they had once exchanged, but if helping to win the war meant Elco lost some respect for him, Bak would regretfully accept it as a price that needed to be paid.

  Tessa Arrine walked unhurriedly through the spaceport, taking in all the sights as she prepared for her first trip off-planet. She had always planned on traveling somewhere exotic and interesting after she graduated from school, but the Priman occupation had caused some problems with that timetable. Now, months later, after extensive security checks and quite a few threats made about what would happen to her should she do anything to sabotage the Priman occupation, she was on her way. While she was traveling alone, she did notice the attention she received from a few men as she wandered the terminal. She had heard many a cautionary tale of the perils that awaited a woman traveling alone, but she figured she knew how to handle herself. It wasn’t as if she was going on some alcohol-soaked and drug laced excuse for a vacation, either. She had always been interested in geology, and was traveling to a planet renowned for its’ remarkable features. There were mountain ranges that covered an entire continent; waterfalls so tall that the first falls would actually collect in a lake which would in turn empty out as another waterfall. There were amazing places where mineral deposits literally stood straight up out of the ground. The list went on. She did admit, though, that she was looking forward to relaxing on a few of the renowned beaches there, as well. And if the right young man happened by, she would be rude to ignore the invitation of his company, wouldn’t she?

  At this time, however, she was questioning whether she would make it off the planet. While the ability to purchase and fly your own private interstellar ship was available to anyone, it was costly enough in equipment, insurance, and training that most ordinary people still settled for traveling commercially when they needed to leave their home planet behind.

  The spaceport was gleaming with polished metal and mirrored glass, with extra wide concourses and plenty of skylights. It was very traveler friendly, and even with the Priman security teams wandering the place, it still seemed comfortable. Her problem was with the other passengers waiting to board the shuttle and pass through the Priman exit-screening stations in orbit. Several in particular were sources of annoyance. As she walked through the crowded terminal, she was constantly dodging clueless travelers who would stop suddenly in the middle of the corridor and consult datapads. Lines from kiosks and shops went out into the hall, as well, and she was constantly darting around people who were walking so slow she thought the planet’s rotation might outpace them and leave them behind. Several times so far, she had to resist the grim fantasy of just knocking one of these moving roadblocks out of the way, for after doing her research and watching those in the building who seemed to be familiar with the place, she quickly adopted their techniques and mannerisms as her own and considered herself a traveling pro-in-training.

  She tended to follow the businessmen, who were in no way exempt from the ability to be annoying companions, but at least displayed a mastery of how to cope with the spaceport environment. As she approached the waiting area for her shuttle, however, she became trapped behind another of the dreaded business travelers. She had already become accustomed to the fact that, while comm devices sported damping fields that could prevent a person’s voice from traveling much farther than the receiver as a courtesy to those around them, many people
in loud environments such as the terminal didn’t use such options since it made their own voices hard to hear and thus made it difficult to carry on a conversation. She had to grant that if they couldn’t hear their own voice, communication would be difficult, but those comm units had the damping fields for a reason, and that reason was so that everyone in the building didn’t have to hear your conversation.

  So she listened half-heartedly as the man rattled on about meetings, memos, and selling some sort of investment if the price topped so many credits per share. It all blended into the background noise after a while. The man only veered around aimlessly twice that she could see, no doubt becoming distracted as he tried to talk on his earpiece while stopping to look at the overhead holo field for his flight status. It was too bad that he was so entrenched in his electronic world; Tessa thought him rather cute and wondered what he was like when he wasn’t working. Oh well, she’d have time to look for all sorts of entertainment when she finally began her vacation. She just hoped she wasn’t sitting next to this man if he planned on working the entire flight.

  The businessman Tessa was following would have been gratified to hear that she had written him off as one of the faceless masses. Garrett hustled through the spaceport completely in character. While sometimes he chose to travel as his legitimate self, a real estate and relocation specialist, he often traveled under a number of disposable identities in order to avoid creating patterns for others to track. Whether those others were customs officials, rival Fixers, Confed Intelligence, or the invading Priman hordes, it was all the same to him; he only concerned himself with blending in and remaining anonymous. So today, he was dressed the part of a harried business traveler, complete with trendy ultra-thin briefcase, document viewing glasses, and an earpiece comm device that he occasionally pretended to have a conversation on. It was his experience that business travelers the galaxy over were mostly ignored for various reasons by the others who traveled through spaceports, and he took full advantage of it.

  Halley and he had enjoyed a nice dinner several days ago after their mutual break-in, but she had made it known that dinner was all they would share. He sensed she had eyes for someone else based on their conversation and the topics she both avoided and brought up. Not that it was his business, he figured, but still it was a shame for him. He considered striking up a conversation with the attractive woman following him, but decided against it as he didn’t want anyone to remember his time here.

  Their meet the day after the break-in had been different than those previous; Halley had actually seemed uptight and a bit impatient. She had prepared a message, but was uncharacteristically abrupt about the contents, forgoing the usual banter he so enjoyed. He assumed (though he didn’t know it, he was right) that her message contained preliminary analyses of whatever it was she’d found. The fact that she was nervous made him feel the same.

  So here he was, enroute to Talar again with a flashlight he needed to drop off at the gym. He offhandedly wondered how many of these things showed up at that place, and pictured a back room somewhere filled to the top with perfectly useful but forgotten flashlights whose only purpose was to be used to smuggle messages.

  Halley had in fact sent some preliminary data out with Garrett to show Confed Intel what she was onto. The stakes were enormous, and the weapon she had discovered was terrifying. What it boiled down to was this: there was a Priman research project that had been conducted to isolate the Priman genes from all the species in the galaxy they had helped along the evolutionary path those many centuries ago. And if you were to believe their data, the Primans had stuffed their DNA into most of the advanced species she knew of, including the humans of the Confederation, Talaran Collection, and more. There were also the Drisk, Callidorians, Qualin and dozens more. That alone was groundbreaking in and of itself. However, along the way, someone in the military had instigated a program to weaponize the research, and right now the Primans were working on a virus that would actually nullify or remove the Priman DNA from all mixed-species applications. She didn’t have the computing power in her apartment to model out what would happen if the Priman parts of her DNA were removed, but she imagined it couldn’t be anything good. The genius to their virus was that it only acted if it found Priman DNA mixed with other DNA, so the weapons would theoretically not affect Primans at all. She immediately imagined the worst case scenario: the Primans unleash the DNA weapon on the galaxy, eliminate most of their advanced opposition, and claim both a strategic victory as well as the propaganda victory of showing that without the Priman DNA in their genes, those species that fell did so because they had turned their back on their ancestors.

  Something had to be done, and done now, so she had already started up her emergency extraction routine, with a twist. She would need help taking down that facility, and in addition had discovered that the real guts of the work on the DNA weapon were being done on a secret station orbiting the moon of one of the larger out-system gas giants. That research station had to be destroyed immediately.

  Halley had sent out a coded request using an age old bit of tradecraft. She had taken out a personals ad in a planetwide newsfeed that was monitored by her handlers for just this purpose. She was making the request separate from her message sent via Garrett for several reasons. Primarily, it was for operational security; the lack of names would make it harder to track in case Garrett was intercepted or otherwise compromised. Second, and just as important, she knew she could trust the people she was sending the message for, that they’d be made available to her, and that they’d show up well equipped for the mission.

  Ples Damar walked through the halls of Senator Dennix’s improvised broadcast studio and resistance headquarters, rehearsing his lines and altering them ever so slightly as he worked on polishing his performance. Only an hour earlier, his clandestine meeting with Representative Tash had yielded new marching orders for his operation. He was to cooperate and help the Confeds arrange their rescue mission, forwarding the plans for Representative Tash for later use. Though Tash had predictably cited security for his reasons on not briefing Ples on the mission, it was pretty obvious: the Primans would coordinate an assault timed to catch the rescue party on the ground and deny the extraction of his tame Senator. And he could almost feel pity for the orbiting resources that were there, as he assumed Tash would have called in generous numbers of ships to make sure nothing happens that the Primans didn’t approve of.

  At one time, he would have feared that the Senator would try and escape on his own; that was no longer the case. While he had no doubts that Zek Dennix had no love for him, the Senator also knew that Damar was instrumental in his campaign to slowly gather power and eventually rule the Confederation on behalf of the Primans. He had in fact considered letting the Senator in on the plan. After all, two people managing the situation was better than one trying to do it all, but in the end his background in Intelligence won out and he decided to keep the Senator in the dark.

  He spent the afternoon with two of the SAR troops, a man and a woman who were masquerading as a young married couple trapped on Callidor during their honeymoon. Representative Tash would have their identities by nightfall. Ples smiled and made appropriate suggestions when asked for information, and smiled inwardly as he contemplated how this op would result in another Confed failure.

  As the complement of Avenger counted down to their role in the operation for Delos, Captain Elco had called Loren to his cabin to talk. Elco wanted to brief Stone personally on the Stormhawk mission, since he intended for Loren to lead it. Traditionally, this would have been the XO’s job, but true to his word, Admiral Bak had already cut orders for Shae and the man was now on a shuttle, none the wiser about why he was leaving. Elco intended to offer Stone the interim XO position for an indefinite period.

  The door sounded a tone, and Elco touched the button on his desk that released the lock. It slid open to reveal Loren, who walked in and stood before Elco’s desk. Elco stayed true to form by continuing to sit at
his desk instead of standing to make a formal greeting or salute- he felt that by now he and Stone were well enough acquainted that such ceremony was unnecessary. He simply gestured for Loren to take a seat, which he did.

  “Busy day, Captain,” Loren started. He looked relaxed enough in the chair, though Elco could see the tension in the man’s face that had no doubt been grinding him down since his homeworld, with his wife on it, had been captured by the Primans.

  “That it has been, Loren. I’ve called you here for something that I believe only you should handle. There’s a quick rescue/recon Op we need to run before the Delos mission, about a day’s round trip from here. There was a Confed patrol that was destroyed by a Priman force, and it’s drifting in deep space. Normally that’s not big news, unfortunately. However, there are some materials and resources on one of the ships that the Navy needs to have recovered. Still, no big news. So here is the off-the-books portion of the mission: there should be several live Priman prisoners of war aboard. They and some of their shipmates were being interrogated, and Confed needs to finish the job, covertly.”

  Loren absorbed this, but knew where it was going. Scuttlebut and rumors traveled faster than a Talon on full thrust, and he had heard the whispers that Admiral Bak was aboard Fleet Admiral Privac’s flagship, Thunderbird. Loren put two and two together, and surmised Admiral Bak wanted to do unpleasant things to the Primans and their technology. Six months ago, he would have balked at the idea. Today, he was fine with that. If Admiral Bak could shave even a day off the war or produce something that could help liberate Toral and Cassie, he could live with it.

  “What is my role, then, Captain?”

  “Loren, first of all, you can call me Sirian. We’ve known each other long enough, and trust each other enough, to let the rank drop behind closed doors. And you might as well call me by my name, because I’m going to do it to you. Second, I want you to lead the boarding party and act as acting XO for the time being.”