Tau-23 was far too dark for her tastes, Lisa Jaeger mused while she idly rotated in her chair. She was taking a momentary break to stare out of the "window' along the wall she was facing, contemplating the dimly-lit vista of the Tau-23 system.
Well, it wasn't truly a window she was staring at - it was a screen set into the wall. At least it was a nice screen - high resolution, razor thin, and featuring all the latest bells and whistles - but her eye was able to detect something slightly artificial about the view. Still, it was a live feed from the tiny bank of cameras nestled atop her ship, and a slightly imperfect view was well worth the tradeoff in protection from not having windows here in her control room. When Lisa had bought this Camara freighter originally, she had also commissioned a complete remodel of the interior. The practically nonexistent living quarters had been expanded to an acceptable level for long-term travel, and most of the cargo hold space had been converted into things she could make better use of - server storage, a functional workshop, and this room. Her personal sanctum, at the heart of the ship. She did it all from here - flew the ship, monitored goings-on across Sirius, and did most of her actual work.
Right now, she was about to dive into the third of those. As a "cybersecurity contractor" for several lawful organizations across Sirius, she could do most of her work from right here in this room, nestled in her sinfully comfortable desk chair. Said chair was situated in front of a large desk surrounded by at least a dozen screens and monitors of varying sizes.
With a small sigh, Lisa turned back to this desk and went to work on one of the larger screens. Her fingers flew across a keyboard, entering commands as she methodically probed at the edges of a nearby network. The network in question happened to belong to a station floating out here in the rock fields - Java Station, owned and operated by the IMG. Nothing more than a cog in this plan, though it was a cog chosen only after much careful deliberation. Java met their unique requirements as a Sirian owned and operated station, in Gallic occupied territory, that saw a lot of traffic from Gallic corporations but lacked the direct "protection" of a Valor parked within scanning range.
Despite being only twenty years old, Lisa had nearly eight years of experience doing this kind of work, and her mind quickly started to build out a concept of the external-facing pieces of this network. It was a rambling network, without the tight station-wide security oversight that most military and government operations tended to employ. Groups like the IMG and Zoners tended to expand their systems without too much thought or concern about security, which left plenty of gaps that made Lisa's work so much easier.
Sure enough, it was only a few short minutes before Lisa had located a suitable entrance location. A couple of pre-written script executions later, she was in. Once inside the network, she went straight for the systems that controlled docking activities. The core docking system was more or less the same on every station - it handled approvals, assigned bays, and took control of inbound ships on their final approach. Lisa quietly uploaded an isolated instance of JADE - her AI - into the system. From here, JADE could handle the next steps without Lisa's direct involvement, and the instance would purge herself once the job was done - eliminating any trail that could lead back to Lisa.
Everything was now in place. Lisa pulled up an internal comms menu and targeted her rear cargo hold - now carrying just four pieces of human cargo. Operatives of the Liberty Navy's ESRD - including her longtime business partner James Arland.
"We're ready. I'm initiating Operation Musket. JADE will be guiding you from here."
Unlike the instance of JADE she'd placed in the docking system, the four operatives had access to the AI's full suite of features and processing capability housed within their suits of armor - thanks to a secure low bandwidth link directly back to her Camara. While they got themselves out of the airlock and into open space, Lisa looped herself into Java's sensor suite - peering through the station's eyes in search of a suitable target.
"We're ready. I'm initiating Operation Musket. JADE will be guiding you from here."
Lisa’s voice echoed with crystal clarity through a speaker hidden somewhere in the wall of the cargo bay. Four men were immediately set into motion by her words.
They all wore fairly bulky sets of full-body combat armor, minus their helmets. The armor was painted a matte black color that seemed to absorb the light, with flat lines and surfaces that indicated stealth technology. The only insignias were stenciled images of the star of Liberty on their chests in a dull silver tone.
Weapons and equipment were snatched up from several rolls of green canvas spread on the floor, having been made battle-ready over the course of the past hour. Each man clipped and attached the gear to his armor in a practiced and efficient manner, then wordlessly the four of them split into two pairs and checked each other’s equipment to ensure everything was secured properly. Then, they slung large packs onto their backs and secured them with shoulder, chest, and waist straps. One more round of partner inspections followed, and then each nodded their readiness.
Their attention was redirected to a sandy-haired man with green eyes – their leader. “Okay, we know the plan. Webb – you’re with me on the port side. Arland, you and Herrin will approach from the starboard. Just follow the AI’s lead and we’ll get in there just fine. The rest should be simple. All good?”
His eyes flickered to the faces of the other men. “Right. Let’s go.” He snapped his helmet onto his head and the others followed suit.
He led them to a side hatch, and they all wedged into an airlock that was probably a bit too small for the four men and all of their equipment. It was only a brief period of discomfort, however, until the airlock cycled and the outer door hissed open.
With a quick push of the feet, the men exited the ship into open space, drifting freely. They slowly separated into two pairs via tiny jets of thrust from the packs each man wore on his back. Slowly, both pairs came to rest, the armor they wore seeming to drink in the faint light of Tau-23’s star.
Commander Eisenhart, the team’s leader, turned his head slightly to the left, visually confirming that CPO Webb had successfully reached their rendezvous. Even mere meters from the man, his suit made him difficult to clearly see. This team had spent several months training with this new equipment, but this would be their first combat mission together. The commander assumed that was the cause of the extra bit of tumult in his stomach. Plus the constant reminder that their work here was going to be carefully scrutinized by the Admiralty.
Still, the addition of Ms. Jaeger’s unique services was going to make this entire thing go much more smoothly. She would be pre-selecting their target, and then her AI would be coordinating the most difficult part – the approach. But even with the AI’s guidance, what they were about to do made him nervous.
Abruptly, a small timer appeared in the top left corner of his HUD, reading, “Burn in 0:60.0”. After a moment of delay, the timer started ticking downwards.
“Sixty seconds, people,” Eisenhart said over the squad net.
At thirty seconds, small thrusters housed in the pack on his back flickered briefly, rotating his body about forty degrees downward. He raised his head slightly, realizing he was now pointing directly at the dim outline of a space station far through the rock field. The AI would do all the driving here, since it could react far quicker than he could to any changes to their course. That still didn’t put him at ease.
The timer hit zero, and the thrusters on his back flared to full power. It was a long burn, draining nearly half of the fuel in his tanks before the engines finally faded. Glancing up at his HUD’s speed measurements, he realized he’d reached a speed of 200 meters per second, faster than a ship at impulse. He rocketed through the asteroid field, the AI occasionally making small course corrections to avoid hitting any of the rocks. At these speeds, even a relatively small rock would kill him instantly – this sort of approach would be impossible without the AI’s assistance.
The station’s shape grew larger in the distance. Java Station, home to many miners, Zoners, and Gallics. The reason they were closing at ballistic speeds now was so they could remain undetected on the station’s scanners. The burn had concluded before they’d entered the station’s sensor envelope, so their suits should now render them essentially undetectable, even to short-range active scanners. He reckoned they would put that theory to the test momentarily.
“Target has been redirected to Bay 14-D. Entering final approach.” The AI’s voice was calm, reassuringly so. He knew better than that – if she made even a tiny mistake, he could end up splattered against the side of the station like a bug on a ship’s canopy in atmo.
Lieutenant James Arland was currently sailing through space at ridiculous speeds, and this time he was determined to enjoy every second of it. Last time he'd done an EVA mission, he'd been hijacking a freighter in Planet Hamburg low-orbit. He'd been rendered serene, entranced as he had plummeted towards what would have been his death had not the AI JADE been at the wheel, guiding his suit systems with incredible precision towards the moving spaceship. Now, he'd put fatalistic serenity on hold in favour of observing the abyss around hurtle past, three shadows being propelled along with him.
All was to the sound of silence, save for the sound of breathing in sealed helmets. As the docking bay doors were beginning to close around their target vessel, their window grew smaller - but James had faith that the AI would see them through.
"Activating retrothrusters, adjusting for final approach angle. Prepare for landing," she instructed, not an ounce of hesitance in the smooth, synthesized voice. Flameless retrothrusters, emitting little enough heat to render the strike team undetectable, fired off - adjusting their positioning to land in the hangar bay feet first and reduce their speed to survivable levels.
James admired the discipline of his new team - nobody so much as uttered an expletive over the radio as they flew into the bay, clear of the large bay doors by only ten metres - two men on each side of the vessel. "Pack repulsors activating, entering artificial gravity field... now." James felt a wave of nausea as his body adjusted to the new normal gravity, and his EVA pack activated small, but sufficiently powerful repulsor units to guide them to the "ground" in relative comfort. What that entailed was that in all likelihood, their legs wouldn't snap like twigs on impact - and sure enough, James made landfall with a painful, but not unbearable smack of armoured feet on hard metal.
Just to his right, Petty Officer Herrin did the same - he'd bounced once, tucked his legs closer to his frame and skidded to a halt a ways in front of James, who'd already detached and activated his EVA pack's self-destruct cycle - no evidence to be left behind. "Herrin, you alright?" James unfastened his weapon off his chest rig - a standard Navy issue LNC-86 series carbine - quickly scanned the area ahead of him, then rushed forward to help his teammate back on his feet. Herrin grabbed the proffered hand, stood somewhat stiffly, but seemed otherwise unhurt. He began sorting out his own kit, as he spoke. "I'm alright, L-T. Damn, but the simulation made that look easy, I'll probably have bruises for weeks." James got back to scanning the surroundings, especially the ship airlocks and the entrance to the docking terminal hub. "You'll be fine, sailor. Hurry and get sorted, we're on the clock."
A HUD indicator with four green lights shone at the edge of James' vision - good, everyone had made it inside. James licked his lips, spoke. "Team one, team two. We're in - no contacts. Front airlock, starboard side is ours, ETA thirty seconds to breach, how copy?" Herrin was ready to move now, and were covering sectors James weren't watching himself as they proceeded towards the airlock in question. His radio crackled to life with Eisenhart's response. "Affirmative, team two, proceed as planned. Team one is moving to position on front port airlock as we speak. Watch your fire inside, out." The airlock approach consisted of a configurable extension ramp, made to be able to service many different sorts of ships. As the two operators skulked up there, James turned about face, took a knee to cover Herrin, who got to work on the door.
Several moments passed in which absolutely nothing of note seemed to happen. James smirked, still watching the entrance to the hub. Even ops like this had their little moments of downtime. Herrin called out from over James' shoulder. "Lock scrambler's in place, sir. We'll be inside in ten - oh, hell-!" James whirled around just fast enough to see the airlock hissing open. Herrin had fallen flat on his ass in sheer surprise, but his training and reflexes took over and his weapon - another carbine identical to James' - was up and ready before the door was even a quarter of the way open. By the time they saw legs, they both opened fire indiscriminately, aiming for whatever they saw. Two men fell to the floor, legs now bullet-riddled masses of pulped flesh and splintered bone. A last round to the head for each finished the poor bastards. They hadn't even come out with weapons drawn, James noted.
James had learned to not acknowledge his enemies as human beings in a combat situation. There was only you, friendlies, and targets, and anything that made you stop and consider otherwise for a second made you a second slower than the other guy, and then it would be you on the floor with a bullet in your brain instead. James flicked in and out of that mindset like flipping a switch - something others found remarkably unnerving at times. Herrin was not quite there, James recognized, by the way he was now semi-frozen in his firing position, still looking down the sights at the bodies. They didn't have time for rumination. James grabbed the enlisted man by the shoulder, shook him gently. "On me, Herrin. Good job. Take left, I'll go right." Herrin got back up, quickly switched magazines. "Right. Let's do this."
Now that the airlock was open, getting inside was not a problem. James sliced around the corner to the right carefully, Herrin did the same to the left. A general alert was signaled aboard the ship, a klaxon blaring dully. The instance of JADE aboard the station systems ensured any distress call would be duly ignored, luckily. James staked the next course. "Clear, let's head to the bridge. Cover rear." They found themselves in a relatively unremarkable access corridor as they crept forward, Herrin ensuring nobody snuck up behind them. A staircase marked the descent to the bridge area, another bulkhead door sealing off the compartment. Gunfire was faintly audible through it - Eisenhart's team were already inside and engaged, it would seem. "Friendlies coming out, team one." James slapped the door panel, a chaotic scene revealed itself.
The bridge of an Aurochs freighter consisted of a rough semicircle with a few crew stations, a captain's chair in the centre, and a panoramic view of the outside world. Right now other features included most of the bridge crew's corpses leaking blood and bits of brain over the floor, seats and consoles. Two remained, cowering behind consoles and occasionally popping off wildly inaccurate handgun fire. Webb and Eisenhart were trying very carefully to kill them off without damaging the consoles too much. They needed to fly this bucket out of here, after all. James and Herrin took up fire positions parallel to Eisenhart's team, and were ready to fire when the two survivors' will broke completely. "Please, stop shooting!" The cry went. A man stood, trembling with his hands raised in surrender as James examined him through his gunsights.
Male, early-mid fourties. Greying hair, pallid complexion from a long time spent aboard spacecraft. Terror-stricken, shocked - tearful. Confused. His companion had followed his example, younger crewman, likely a fresh posting, terrified out of his wits. Eisenhart raised a hand. James gestured for Herrin to turn around, cover rear again. "We surrender! Please, whatever you want, we-" Eisenhart's hand fell in a sharp forward gesture. James complied, a trio of rounds putting an abrupt end to the man's pleas. Webb cut down the younger man with a short automatic burst. Nobody said anything for a few seconds. Webb shifted uncomfortably. Herrin looked backward, like he was about to say something, but ultimately chose against it. Eisenhart remained still. James moved for a command console, stepping over the dead.
James tried to wipe off a bit of the blood that had gotten on the captain's console, but it was a futile prospect. Ultimately, he ignored it. Instead, he'd opted to shut off the blaring klaxon, as well as send Java Station an automated launch request. He took the time to switch the GUI language from French to English, too - he bloody well wasn't going to try and figure out this boat's systems with a language he was not very comfortable with. Seconds after, a green response message winked in his face."Sir, we're clear for launch. Looks like station administration hasn't noticed anything. Proceeding with pre-flight checks. Once we link up with Jaeger's Camara, we can transfer a full instance of JADE to this system."
Eisenhart nodded. "Good. Once we're in space, do a full decompression override and sweep for survivo- No, belay that order." There was a very sudden shift in Eisenhart's voice - a strain of urgency that hadn't been there before.
James continued with the pre-flight checks, but his superior's tone gave him pause. "Sir?"
Eisenhart seemed wound up, never looking up from the manifest. "We have live passengers in the hold below. Civilians outbound from Lyon, five people." James stopped working.
Something was not right about how he said that. "Just five, commander?"
"Family of five, Lieutenant. We've got kids on this boat. IDFS sometimes provides cheap passage aboard their freighters. I'm guessing these people came to the Taus looking for work."
A long string of curses flowed forth from Herrin. "All due respect, sir, but I'm not spacing any kids. We can't-"
Eisenhart cut him off before he could launch a rant. "Noted, Herrin. Watch the door. And I agree. We have standards."
Webb snorted. "Not if you ask these guys," he said, gesturing towards the two dead crewmen still sprawled on the floor.
"Never said high standards, Webb. Agreed?" Eisenhart said quietly. Webb nodded. He wouldn't argue. "Arland... Anything you'd like to add before I make the call?"
"Well, sir... I could be an arsehole and mention OPSEC, but we all know that's irrelevant in the face of this. That's why we're the ones doing this job, not just random psychopaths." James promptly finished the flight checks, began the launch procedure.
Eisenhart nodded. "Alright, listen, this is what we'll do. Get me eyes on the civvies, we'll decompress all the compartments but the ones they're in. Then we'll sweep and clear as planned, secure the civvies, have them processed in Liberty space. No loose ends, no civilian casualties. Understood?"
All of them voiced their affirmatives. "Taking her out now. We lose gravity in ten," James said - the engines rumbled, and the team could feel weight shift under their feet - then disappear as the ship dragged itself out the hangar bay doors.
Eisenhart signaled for the team to get ready to move. "Magboots, people, we go once we have a better overview of the ship. Lieutenant, how are we doing on that?"
Magboots anchoring James to the deck, he opened a view panel for security camera feeds. He studied it intensely, the resolution was decent enough to make out most details. "Tracking movement in the cargo hold, sir. Give me a moment." Between crates of cargo, a small space had been set aside for the passengers to travel in relative comfort. A woman sat strapped to modular seating with three children beside her - one girl, James gauged her to be in her early teens. Two boys, one aged roughly the same as the girl, one much younger. Primary school-aged, thereabouts. The woman appeared to be engaging them in idle chatter, attempting to comfort her children, but everything about her bodylanguage struck her as uneasy, unconvinced of her own platitudes. "Sir, we're missing one. Presumably the father. I can't see him on the hold, airlock or engineering cameras. Looks like IDFS skimped on the costs for cameras in the hallway. He may have gone to investigate the disturbance. I'll seal the doors, but I'm not decompressing. We'll just have to be careful and check our fire."
Eisenhart sounded displeased, but didn't disagree. "Alright, let's go. Webb, on me. We'll take port side. Arland, you and Herrin have starboard again, make a full sweep and PID your targets."
They stomped back up the stairs from which they came, magboots making walking an ungainly and slow process, but they didn't have much choice. Freefloating came with disadvantages of its own - loss of coordination was common, and if you were stuck with nothing to push off from at the wrong moment, you were just a floating target.
Going back to the airlock, they had two options - the crew quarters, which were likely to be small and cramped on a little boat like this, and going a deck down to engineering and the cargo hold. James motioned for Herrin to hold while he swept right towards the mess and crew quarters. The hallway was clear enough. Two doors - both on the left-hand side. James hit the first one, sliced around the corner as quickly as he could with his feet slowed by the magnets.
Inside were three sets of bunk beds, enough for six - and their personal effects. A man was rummaging furiously through a footlocker by one of the bunks. "Arrête!" James called out.
The man reflexively whirled around, a handgun muzzle sweeping over James - then past, as the momentum kept the man spinning beyond what he'd intended - a bullet slammed into the doorframe next to James.
In turn, the Bretonian operative failure-drilled the man, snapped two rounds off in his chest area, then he scattered the man's brain on the wall with a final, aimed shot. Blood drained from the corpse into the zero-gravity environment, floating around it like a shroud - interspersed with bone and grey matter.
James turned away, quickly opened and scanned the mess hall as well.
Then he opened a link to Eisenhart. "One contact down, team one. Armed. Not sure if it was our man... He tried to play hero. Status on your end?"
Eisenhart held up his left hand, signaling a stop as he and Webb approached another intersection in the narrow engineering passage. They had cleared the port side almost to the ship’s stern, but these passages near the ship’s drive required an extra level of care.
Returning his hand to his carbine, he took three steps forward – mag boots making a soft clank as they stuck to the deck, despite his practiced fluidity. It was impossible to be completely silent while doing this, but it was still far better than trying to clear a ship in zero-gee. Eisenhart knew that from personal experience.
He pivoted, snapping his gun around first to the left, then to the right. Clear. Clear.
“Move up,” he grunted into his helmet, broadcasting only to Webb.
Soft clinks of metal as Webb advanced to his side. Having now established it was clear, Eisenhart took another glance down each hallway. They were both dead ends – passages stopping identically each way with the bulk of an engine compartment.
End of the line.
The comm in his ear crackled to life with Lieutenant Arland’s voice. "One contact down, team one. Armed. Not sure if it was our man... He tried to play hero. Status on your end?"
“Just finished our sweep. No contacts.” Eisenhart paused a moment, before adding, “I reckon that means he was our guy.”
Webb spoke up, his voice strangely devoid of its usual sarcasm. “We gonna tell the family?”
“Not yet,” Eisenhart responded. “But Arland, I want you and Herrin to swing back by that cargo hold. Go in there and check the area thoroughly for any sort of comms device or weapon, and take anything that seems even slightly suspicious.”
Arland grunted assent.
“You’ll frighten them a bit, but avoid giving any unnecessary details. They must know something’s up, so I don’t want any more surprises.” Eisenhart paused, considering. “Webb, we’re going back to the bridge and getting this thing underway. The longer we wait, the riskier this whole op gets. Let’s move.”
He and Webb trooped back through the maze of engineering passages and up a deck to the bridge – moving much quicker now that the ship was secured. Back on the bridge, Eisenhart carefully lowered his armored bulk into the captain’s chair.
He pulled up the captain’s logs, skimming through the recent entries and looking for further details.
“Looks like they were headed for Holman, Tau-31,” he said, speaking over the squad net. “The civvies were on the official manifest, so they will be expected there, along with the rest of the cargo. Looks like Java was just a stopping-off point for a short refuel. Probably why the AI picked this ship, actually – it’s right on the way back to friendly space.
“The civvies being here changes our mission parameters. We’re going to head into Tau-31, but break off the lane and rendezvous with Jaeger before we hit Holman’s sensors. From there, we’ll decide how to proceed.”
He paused, glancing over at Webb. “Get us underway, PO. Arland, get back up here when you’re done.”
James nodded to himself. "Acknowledged, Commander." He turned his head to look at the dead man, still floating lifelessly - spinning slowly in place, surrounded by the grotesque cloud of blood and human debris. A cold feeling ran down his spine, settled in his stomach - impossible to ignore. Guilt. Shame, even. Thoughts began running, out of control. Questions. How could he confront a family after killing one of them? Why didn't he try harder to ID the target? Could he have disabled the man non-lethally? How could he live with-
He forced his eyes away, pressed unwilling feet into action, moved away from the doorframe back towards Herrin, fingers tightening around his carbine. No, he thought. Stop that. Don't start now. This is what you do. Nothing is different about this. Stamp out your feelings for now, examine them later. Now, you move.
He found Herrin where he'd left him, still covering the hall leading down to the hold. The young NCO stood up as James approached. There was something nervous about the motion. A little too quick, a little too crisp. "Shit, sir, I-" James cut him off, marched straight past him.
"Let's not, Herrin. Come on. Need to secure the hold." James' terse, clipped order brooked no argument. If Herrin held any doubts about Arland, or his actions, they went unvoiced for now. He fell in step. When they reached the cargo hold bulkhead door, they stacked up alongside it in typical fashion, Herrin first, James second.
Before they opened it, James spoke. "Herrin, can I ask you a favour?" Herrin glanced turned his head around, as though trying to get a read on James. It would prove a futile effort, though. Their visors were both quite opaque.
"Not an order, sir?" He inquired.
"No, not an order. A favour. A selfish one. You may decline, should you wish. I'd like to ask if you could do the talking with these people." James knew Herrin to be a compassionate sort. He was uncertain of which direction that compassion would turn this time around, though.
Herrin paused to consider.
"Well, sir... I know it fucking sucks, but in all honesty, I think it should be you. No offense. Thanks for not making it an order, though."
James nodded. "None taken. I'll talk. Now open the door, I want this over with."
Herrin complied, undid the door seal. Then it moved to open, hissing softly as hydraulics actuated the heavy bulkhead. James signaled ready with a tap on Herrin's shoulder - in turn, Herrin carefully sliced the pie from one end of the door frame to the other, covering as much as possible of the room before making his entrance.
Then he entered, snapped the muzzle of his carbine to the left, immediately followed by James - who did the same thing in the opposite direction, a fraction of a second after Herrin.
"Clear left," Herrin reported.
"Clear right," James answered in kind.
They found the civilians in the same state they'd seen on the cameras, still strapped to their seating. The mother seemed to stifle a scream as they noticed the two operatives approaching, weapons tentatively kept in a tense low-ready. The children, on the other hand, cowered or cried unreservedly.
James turned up the volume of his helmet's voice modulator, and decided to open in French. He didn't meet their eyes, and was quietly thankful for his opaque helmet visor.
"<Remain calm, and stay in your seats,>" he began - mechanically, and menacing with his voice disguised. "<We have taken over this vessel. We will be conducting a check for any communications devices or weapons and confiscating such. Please surrender any such objects immediately. You will be taken to Holman as per the ship's manifest.>"
Trembling, the woman began nervously reaching for some of the personal effects that they had within immediate reach - moving slowly, obviously. She did not want to be percieved as doing anything threatening, by the looks of it. She surrendered a handful of PDAs, a couple of small media entertainment devices.
"Check their luggage," Arland told Herrin. Herrin nodded, got to work on the cases and bags that had been secured a few metres away from the passengers' modular seating.
"<W-where is the crew...? My husband? We heard noises...>" The woman asked, desperately searching the Libertonian operatives' visors for anything - any sign at all. James struggled to remain perfectly still. But he had to say something.
"<I'm- I am not at liberty to tell you.>"Shit. He'd hesitated. Now he forced himself to look her in the eyes. Pale blue, verging on grey. Dawning realization, horror. Gradually filling with tears. Anger, grief, hate - an intense mix of emotions.
James was struggling to strangle his own. He had no choice.
"<You monsters,>" the woman said, quietly - almost a whisper. Her voice was cracking. "<Murderers!>" She screamed as she collapsed into tears. Herrin was about to reach towards one of the children for a brief body search when the mother lashed out at his hand, knocking it away. "<Don't you dare touch them!>" She screamed.
Herrin withdrew and instead turned to James. "Two computers, no sharp objects, firearms or anything like that. We about done here?" He asked, nervously. Through gritted teeth.
"Yeah, we're done," James sighed. He turned back to the passengers. "<Your belongings will be returned to you once we reach Holman,>" he said, flatly.
"<Just get away from us,>" the woman hissed.
The operatives gathered up the devices they'd confiscated, and complied, sealing the doors behind them when they left the cargo hold. On the way back to the bridge, Herrin spoke. "Well, that could have gone better."
James considered that for a second before answering. "No, actually. I don't think it could."
Herrin conceded the point. "...Yeah. You okay, sir?"
"Let's just focus on finishing up, shall we?" James grumbled as they stepped through the bridge doors.
The ship floated languidly down the lane towards the jumpgate to Tau-31, Webb doing his best to pilot her like a corporate pilot would. It was a strange mix of lazy patience mixed with careful precision – corporate fliers were paid by the haul but their ships were in no way built for any sort of “hurrying”. Veterans of the lanes knew that arriving safe and on time to a destination had a much better expected payoff than a rushed early arrival. Being a sitting duck for the ever-present unlawfuls tended to breed a very meticulous, careful attitude.
Eisenhart had just gotten off the comm with Jaeger, who had set a rendezvous point with them off the lane to Holman, just clear of standard scanning range from the rings themselves. From there, he intended to head home as quickly as possible – but he wanted to get the hacker’s input on the potential intelligence ramifications of that course of action.
Webb guided the ship into the maw of the jumpgate to Tau-31, and Eisenhart stared out the front glass into the rapidly growing whirl of colors. This problem was a real tickler, with potentially disastrous ramifications on either side. On one hand, he could proceed to drop off the civilians, but create the very real risk that they blabbed their entire story to Gallic authorities as soon as the Aurochs left the airlock. If that were to happen, the ship would be immediately flagged for arrest and the mission would – likely at least – be compromised.
On the other hand, if they bypassed Holman and took their unintentional captives back into Bretonia, the civilians would wind up reported as missing. Since there was a record of them boarding the Aurochs in Lyon, the first place even the most incompetent police investigator would look was the transport flight. Since their ship would’ve never checked in at Holman, the logical conclusion would be that it was lost in transit. A more detailed investigation would prove that the ship had stopped briefly at Java, and in that case the investigator would be led right to the truth – or at least close enough to it to possibly compromise the mission.
It was a tricky one, and he was not too proud to admit to himself that he needed Jaeger’s insight into the options.
“Sir, I’m dropping us out of the lane to proceed to the rendezvous,” Webb said. The man’s face was intent on his consoles – flying an unfamiliar ship was a difficult task for even a pilot of his caliber. Eisenhart indicated approval with a silent nod of his head.
The ship shuddered slightly as Webb manually aborted the connection to the lane, and they drifted out into open space. All was silent for a brief moment, then Webb fired up the impulse engines and the ship began to slowly gain distance from the lane.
Eisenhart glanced at the plot, noting that flickers in the lane that indicated passing ships were very intermittent – the Taus were hardly a safe place for shipping, despite the Gallic occupation.
“Fire up the cruise engines, Webb. We need to hurry.”
There was a gentle shudder beneath their feet as the cruise engines began to charge. The charge peaked, and the Aurochs leapt forward towards the rendezvous point. At ten klicks, a fuzzy sensor return appeared on the plot. After they closed within five, the sensor suite had resolved it to match Jaeger’s ship, and flagged it as friendly.
Eisenhart opened a local tight beam comms channel. “Hope these hydrocarbons from Tau-29 fetch a good price,” he said, speaking in a dull monotone voice. It was code, indicating to Jaeger that they were not compromised.
A low tone sounded from his console, indicating an incoming secure comm request. Eisenhart hit the button to accept. “This is the commander.”
“It’s fine, Commander. We’re speaking under an absolutely excessive amount of encryption.” Jaeger’s delicate voice contained no hint of sarcasm.
“Very well,” he responded. “Good to hear from you again, Jaeger. The mission was a success.”
“I can see that.”
“However… there was a slight complication.” After a brief hesitation, he summarized the human cargo and the problem it presented.
“Well, Commander, I can tell you one thing right away – we need to go to Holman. We absolutely can’t just head home from here.”
“Explain.”
“Well, I’m gonna hack the transponder, yeah? So we can completely change the identity of the ship, even under close scrutiny. But even with JADE’s help, that takes several hours of work. I mean, if just anyone could completely re-program their transponder, then piracy would be a hell of a lot worse than it is now. I’m one of the few that can do it, but I need time, and I can’t have any interference.”
“Interference? Who’s going to pick up on what happened that quickly?”
“IDF, of course. Every corporation closely tracks their assets, right? In this case, it’s both the ship and the cargo – IDF has a central dispatch system, completely automated, that routes their ship captains from destination to destination. But more importantly, it tracks when they arrive at their destination, so the company knows that the particular trip was a success.”
“So they’ve already tracked us off the lane here? Does that compromise us?”
“Not necessarily. Tracking a ship in a specific point in space, even with a tracking beacon applied, is very expensive and generates a lot of data. If IDF has an active beacon, I’m not picking it up – more likely that they only bother to log departures and arrivals at each leg of a ship’s journey. After all, the company only cares that the goods are delivered on-time, right? Not necessarily how they get there.”
“Makes sense. So we have to go to Holman to show the goods were delivered? And then we have some breathing room?”
“Right. And you’re already running late. IDF’s system, if it’s like others that I’ve seen, gives an hour or two before a shipment is officially flagged as ‘late’. Once it hits that point, the local authorities are automatically notified, and the company will attempt to remotely ping the ship’s transponder. That’s when the trouble would start.”
“Understood. But what about the issues with docking on Holman? We can’t just drop off the family and expect them not to make a fuss – not to mention the missing father.”
“It won’t be easy, but an option comes to mind. As far as IDF is concerned, they only care that the people are delivered, correct? If they make it through processing, anything that happens afterwards isn’t the company’s concern.”
“Logical enough.”
“So all that we need to do is replace the father with one of your men, get the civvies through processing, and then figure out a way to quietly get them back aboard before you depart.”
“So one of us would have to pose as the father? And keep the civvies under wraps while they get processed?” Eisenhart lowered his head into a hand.
“I know it’s a tall order, but it’s the only way I can think of to avoid compromising the mission.”
Eisenhart let out a long sigh through his teeth. “Agreed. I’ll get them ready.”
“Quickly. Like I said, we’re up against the clock here.”
“Copy,” he replied, cutting the connection.
He wished the four of them could just draw straws for who would have to pose as the “father” of the civvies, but unfortunately there was only one good choice. Lieutenant Arland was the only one who spoke passable French.