This would also provide a real-world test of Enfield stealth capabilities against Barat’s security measures.
Nothing of any great security was ever exposed to the dome, Simone had told them. Neither Godel nor Barat dared risk sensitive material being captured by surveillance cameras or sensors peering down through the clear dome from above.
Both Barat and Godel employed regular security sweeps, using sniffer bots to locate and destroy any spy-drones around their most secured areas. The two also politely refrained from commenting on the number of surveillance devices neutralized on a weekly basis, although both clearly deployed them. It was likely that private concerns and corporations did so as well.
<Still amazes me how desperately people feel they need to know what the other side is doing,> Ramon commented, his mental tone flavored with a wry humor. <Friend or foe.>
<Can’t argue that one. Curiosity’s a trait both our species share in equal measure,> Simone chimed in from where she monitored both teams on the shuttle.
They settled in at the motor pool to wait for Fireteam Two to be in position.
* * * * *
Fireteam Two stood at the base of the waste reclamation plant, looking up at the release valve Tobias had identified as their best entry point. Jason reviewed the diagram one last time, but the result was the same: there was no other path from where they stood into the compound except through the belly of the beast.
The ‘beast’ was a microbial biomass filled with anaerobic bacteria busily working to convert organic waste matter into an activated sludge.
The ‘belly’ was the secondary treatment tank, where methane could be extracted for fuel and solid products could be stabilized and used in hydroponics for fertilizer.
<Okay,> he sighed. <Let’s just get this over with.>
Tobias turned and began to scale the metal rungs that led up to the release valve. He reached for the grille and pulled. With a low screech, the covering gave way, providing access to the wonderland of goo that was their ticket inside the compound.
<Don’t forget, methane’s not a particularly stable gas when mixed with air,> Tobias reminded them, <so don’t scrape anything that might set off a spark. And be sure to have your chameleon suit filter out the smell.>
Jason snorted a laugh. <Thanks, Tobe. Not the kind of thing we’re about to forget, trust me.>
Tobias just grunted before sliding his frame through the opening. After a moment, the Weapon Born waved him in.
<Step inside, but be sure to hug the outer rim,> he cautioned.
Jason ducked his head inside and peered around, as Tobias reached a narrow, twenty-centimeter shelf—something a charitable person might call a catwalk—that ringed the tank. It had no railing, so a single misstep would send a person plummeting into the slowly churning slurry of materials with dubious origin. Two meters below the ledge, a series of four rakes stirred the sludge in a steady counter-rotational motion.
<Holy shit, Tobe!>
<Quite literally, boyo,> Tobias agreed with a chuckle.
Jason didn’t bother to respond. After a pause to study the situation, he added, <It’s going to be tricky, but it’s doable.>
<Agreed,> Tobias concurred.
Jason stepped inside, shifting to the other side of the valve to make room for Lena and Tama.
Lena joined them, then shifted to close the grille behind her. She caught herself before she lost her balance.
<Careful, Lena,> Tama cautioned. <I don’t want my eulogy to read ‘lost inside a pile of shit’.>
Jason stifled a snicker, then realized he hadn’t been too successful when he caught Lena’s glower. Turning back to examine the tank’s interior, he willed himself to ignore the steady sweep of the rakes that churned the tank’s contents beneath them.
<Intake pipe on the other side,> he pointed out. <Looks like it’ll accommodate your frame.>
<It’ll do, boyo,> Tobias agreed. <But we’ll need to maneuver halfway around this ledge to get to it. Ready?>
<Stars, yes,> Lena said. <Get me out of here.>
* * * * *
<Fireteam Two in place,> Tobias told Khela as her feed updated.
<Lena, how are we for untraceable encryption back to the shuttle?> Khela asked.
<Got a web of relays set up that’ll give ‘em one big headache if they try to follow. Any source from within the compound’s going to lead them to someone’s grammy’s pot pie recipe.>
<Good. Route me a hot comm line, then, will you? I want to confirm there’s no new intel on where the prisoners are being held before we move out.>
A few seconds later, Khela heard Simone’s voice.
<Location confirmed. Extraction is a go.>
Khela sent her acknowledgement as she motioned her team forward. <Okay, people,> she addressed both fireteams over the combat net. <We have fifteen minutes to exfil. Make them count.> She pushed a countdown clock to their HUDs and activated it.
Logan triggered the breaching nano and was through the door of the long-term detention block with Ramon on his heels. Khela followed behind, sparing a last glance at the silent exterior before sliding the door shut behind her.
The building had NSAI-monitored surveillance inside, but Logan released a cloud of jamming colloids to spoof them. He then slapped a packet of nano onto a stairwell, paused for it to bypass the sensor that would report the door had been opened, then slipped through.
<Clear,> he reported, and Ramon and Khela joined him.
<Ramon,> Khela pointed to the door, and the Marine nodded, adopting a watchful stance as Logan passed him the tokens to control the nano he’d emplaced on the door’s exterior.
Her overlay updated as Simone fed it more data, the AI’s voice whispering in her head.
<There are twenty holding cells to a block, and three different blocks branching away from the lift exit. As of shift change, our analyst was listed as being held here.> She dropped a pin on the leftmost corridor, fourth cell. <We’ve been told she’s been worked over and may need medical care before transport.>
Khela waved Logan forward, their advance coordinated so that one covered the other as they moved deeper into the cell block. As they approached the fourth cell, she hoped to stars the woman was stable enough to move; they were running out of time.
* * * * *
Jason followed Tobias into the headquarters building, Lena bringing up the rear. The three leapfrogged across through to the back of the building where a pin hovered over a cell in the small temporary lockup area.
As they approached a security checkpoint, Simone’s voice came to them from the shuttle.
<Fireteam Two, your captain, at last report, was here.>
Something about Simone’s tone snagged Jason’s attention.
<Last report?> His words were sharp, he knew, with an edge to them he couldn’t help.
He tensed at the regret in Simone’s voice as she replied.
<The information on her location was not updated along with the other prisoner’s. It is her last known location.>
Jason lurched for the entrance, but Tobias reached a gauntleted hand out and pulled him back.
<Patience, boyo,> he cautioned. <We’ll nae have come this far, and through so much shit, to make a misstep now.>
Jason sucked in a lungful of air then nodded silently back at his friend.
<I’m sending colloids out now,> Lena informed them. <And…we’re clear.>
The door slid open soundlessly, and they slipped through, swiftly but methodically searching each cell.
* * * * *
Khela paused behind Logan’s frame until he pivoted, his E-SCAR sweeping the room before coming to rest on what looked like a pile of cloth in one corner of the room.
Closer examination revealed a severely-beaten human hudd
led beneath.
Khela slapped her suit’s medkit open as Logan bent to examine her. The data he sent from his scan indicated that the woman’s mednano had been all but obliterated. Several broken ribs, an arm fractured in three places, and a concussion. The myelin sheath surrounding the axons in her brain registered as loose and decompacted from the head trauma.
<Unconscious,> came Logan’s terse appraisal, as Khela studied the medical readout.
<It’s no wonder,> she remarked. <She’s in bad shape, but no spinal insult, so she’s okay to move. She’ll need to be carried out,> she added unnecessarily, as Logan had already gathered her in his arms and rose.
Khela paused at the entrance to the cell, knowing that the interrupted feed would not go unnoticed for much longer, and once they departed, the NSAI would report the empty cell to those in charge.
<Seven minutes! We’re on a clock, people. Jason?>
There was no answer.
IF IT WEREN’T FOR BAD LUCK
STELLAR DATE: 03.09.3272 (Adjusted Gregorian) 2030 hours, local
LOCATION: Unknown
REGION: Unknown
Calista’s restless pacing kept a steady measure of her cell’s dimensions: three meters wide, seven down, then three to the other side. Seven more brought her back to the door. The faint glow of the ES shield reinforcing its seal was discouragement enough to keep her from attempting to breach it.
As her captors knew it would be.
It also conveniently sealed her inside a room in which an EMP could be unleashed against her—and which regularly was—preventing her mednano from replicating itself in large enough numbers to neutralize the neuroparalytic they had employed more than once.
The soft slippers she now wore allowed the cold surface beneath her feet to seep into her soles, and the shapeless coveralls were thin enough to make her wish for a blanket to wrap herself in so that she could ward off the chill.
She’d almost made it.
She’d have to tell Jonesy how well his new nano had worked. He’d taken the nanotech that had run rampant in Tau Ceti, the stuff that nearly brought the planet Galene to its knees, and adapted it. What was once a nanophage was now a sweet little deployable weapons package.
Terrance had blanched when the engineer had first mentioned his latest project, but Jonesy had just grinned and said something about ‘eating the fish and spitting out the bones’.
She’d nearly laughed at the look on Enfield’s face—a weird mixture of horrified and confused—until Shannon had backed up Jonesy’s claim with a more coherent explanation, and his expression had cleared.
The end result had been a tidy little package of Elastene-clad colloidenes, a special breed of lighter-than-air colloids that employed some of the click-assembly tricks used in chemistry. Pre-loaded common codes, or ‘bricks’, that gave nano creation a jump-start.
The result was a nanobot programmed to rapidly alter existing nano to whatever the person controlling it needed it to be. Considering how ubiquitous nano was—the stuff was practically everywhere, you could hardly inhale without breathing some in wherever you went—it was like having your own personal unlimited supply of whatever you wanted, whenever and wherever you were.
Calista didn’t pretend to understand nanotransfection. The whole concept was a little bit like waving a magic wand, as far as she was concerned. But she’d become a believer just five short hours ago.
She’d waited until after dinner had been served and the hallway outside her cell had quieted before accessing the stockpile inside the compartment Jonesy had fashioned inside their combat boots.
This little trick had elicited a laugh from Jason, who had accused Jonesy of ‘playing at being Q again’ when he’d revealed the design to them. The engineer had responded by reminding him that martinis were to be served shaken, not stirred, which made no sense to her whatsoever.
But the real marvel hadn’t been the hidden Faraday cage that prevented scans from finding the cache of nano…. It had been the nanotransfection colloidene bots themselves.
She’d been stunned at how rapidly the microscopic machines had subverted the nano in her immediate surroundings to her control. Calista felt like she had a full arsenal at her disposal as the bots disabled the sensors monitoring her cell, released its door, and blanketed her progression with a satisfying array of suppression that covered the full spectrum of EM emissions.
She’d sent a passel of nano into a nearby node, the nanotransfection bots hybridizing Barat’s own systems until the heavily censored public net run by the Humans’ Republic lay open before her. From there, she’d begun to lay a web of relays that snaked their way outward toward Godel and freedom.
A part of her mind was occupied with a search for a relay that would give her access to the marina and the ships moored there. She’d anchored the relay with her own ident, and encrypted a brief missive updating the team on what had transpired, then had instructed the little buggers to notify her when they’d connected to the Avon Vale.
All this had been done while she slipped from shadow to shadow down the long hallway where she’d been held. The lifts were no good; she daren’t risk such an obvious exit point. The electronic monitoring, she could spoof; humans, on the other hand…. Those, she was trying to avoid. The stairwell next to the lifts would do just fine.
Her divided attention may have been to blame for her inability to drop both soldiers that entered the stairwell’s third floor landing just after she’d rounded the corner and had begun her descent. But then again, it could have been sheer, dumb luck—the bad kind.
That they were hoping to steal a few moments away from their posts for a bit of fun was evident in their whispered words, which came to an abrupt stop as she whirled to face them.
Had they been in a public place, Calista might have bluffed her way down the steps, hoping her garb and the back of her head were nondescript enough to hide her identity. Here, though, where every citizen soldier wore the same uniform, there was no chance of that happening. She’d had no option but to rush them.
Both paused as their minds reconciled what they had expected to find with what they’d actually found. This allowed Calista the time to launch herself from her position on the third step, jabbing a straight-knuckled chisel fist strike to the first soldier’s throat.
The man stumbled back into his companion, his hands reflexively going to his neck as he knocked the second man back out into the hallway. Before Calista could reach past the first man, the second one had pivoted and bolted, sounding the alarm.
The soldier she’d felled had a crushed windpipe. He might survive—if he had mednano, and if it was any good. Calista frisked him, relieving him of a short blade and one biolocked pulse pistol.
With one hand, she loosed a passel of nano colloidenes onto the weapon’s biolock, as she leapt over the railing, bracing herself with her other hand, and plunged two stories down to the bottom level.
She hit the deck running, flash-sighting the now-unlocked pulse pistol at two soldiers racing to meet her head-on. They dropped, and she hurdled their bodies as the sound of pounding feet informed her that the alarm had been sounded on her escape.
Five minutes later, she plowed face-first onto a dirt quad ringed by half a dozen drab plascrete buildings, her body twitching and numb from the riot control pulse cannon that had felled her from the guard’s tower twenty meters away.
Moments later, a pair of grey uniform slacks, black piping running the length of their sides, swam into her vision, above a pair of tidy, yet utilitarian, black boots.
Their owner spoke; it was a voice she recognized.
“You’re turning out to be more trouble than you’re worth, thief. Looks like we’ll need to move you somewhere a bit more secure.”
She was lifted roughly as two soldiers hooked a hand underneath her armpits and dragged her off toward an awaiting transport.
INTELLIGENCE SNAFU
STELLAR DATE: 03.10.3272 (Adjusted Gregorian) 0400 hours, local
LOCATION: Beneath Barat Sector
REGION: Phaethon Duty Station, Little River
<She’s not here. Dammit, she’s not here.> Jason’s movements took on a fevered urgency as he raced from cell to cell, confirming that the few occupants in this block weren’t the woman he sought.
<Time’s up. Move out.> Khela’s mental voice came to them from the Sable Wind, her tone unyielding.
Jason began to protest even as Tobias tugged on his arm and they began to jog toward the stairwell. <We have to keep searching. Once the element of surprise is gone, they’ll triple the guard around her, and we’ll never—>
<Think, Jason.> Khela talked over him, cutting him off. <If we can get out undetected, they’ll assume this was purely a Godel op. We won’t have tipped our hand.> She paused, then added, <To them, we’re still just a civilian ship, shaking the trees with loud protests in the only way we know to get her back.>
<It’s true, boyo,> Tobias sent privately, and Jason hated that he was right. <Best to make a clean exit now and leave our options open for a later recovery.>
They met up with the rest as they crouched, waiting in the shadows of the motor pool’s exterior.
<Logan’s loosing a few microdrones to seed a bit of misdirection that will lead them away from our exit point,> Khela informed them, nodding in the general direction of the compound’s nearest ten-meter-high wall.
<Ramon’s inside, setting up a seam-repair program for the access panel, for after we slip back into the underlayer.> She turned back to the unconscious form she was kneeling beside.
<Need some help with her, lass?>
Not waiting for an answer, the Weapon Born bent and gently lifted the woman into his arms. Khela thanked him with a nod, then rose.
<Let’s go.>
Silently, she slipped through the side door into the cavernous garage where the Humans’ Republic kept its vehicles.