Echoes of the Storm

Chapter 31

"The missiles are offline?" Of course they are, Norse thought, and added, "Estimated time for repair?"

"Thirty-six hours," Droga reported.

On his feet, Norse remained calm, but his palms turned slick with sweat. "Get the facilities manager on the comm now. Pipe it to my office."

* * *

The morning crew had started filtering into the Ops Center. Senior Captain Lirrani stared at Norse's hasty exit into his office. When the door slid shut she exchanged a glance with Droga. "What is it now?" she asked.

Droga stood and stretched as he waited for the ODP manager to respond to his call. He rattled off Norse's concerns. "Pride just departed to blow the Riga cruisers to the far ends of the galaxy, and power issues on ODP-1 have taken down the entire orbital missile control system."

"Leaves us a bit open," Lirrani said.

"Comms here were axed an hour ago, but came back online quickly," Droga added, acknowledging First Sergeant Hummel from SigRep who'd entered Ops along with an older sergeant from his unit in tow.

Responding to the work order Droga had called in, Hummel hustled to the communications control panels. A regular visitor to Ops, Hummel's every report about the state of the system ended with, "It's a patch and it'll break again. Recommend full overhaul, sooner rather than later."

The day shift's comm tech was studying signals and reports flashing on three different screens even before he had his earpiece on. He sat, dragging a chair closer to his desk. "There it goes again," he said.

"Report," Lirrani ordered.

"Comms down at ODP-1, sir," the man reported.

"That on our end?" Lirrani called to Hummel who had keyed open one panel to work on the controls. His sergeant sat on his haunches inspecting another board. Hummel lifted a handful of wires and gave the captain a You've got to be kidding look.

Hummel's sergeant waved his scanner at Lirrani. "Working on it," he reported, the top of his head just visible over the metal-encased units of wires and circuits, transducers and receivers.

* * *

Like Hummel, Jack was in uniform and wearing sergeant stripes. He hoped Lirrani wouldn't look too closely, but it was Droga who approached him. Jack kept his head low. He hadn't crossed paths with the man, the lieutenant being one of the Galilei brought in during the invasion. That didn't mean Droga wouldn't know his face from the streams, but Jack had a beard now. It was regulation cut, nothing too wild that would attract unwanted attention. His hair was a deep silver and he had a prosthetic nose and wrinkles around his eyes and mouth, which aged him thirty years. His clothes bulked him up, but not so much to make anyone think he spent all his off-hours lifting weights at the gym. Even Saber hadn't recognized him after the make-up job.

They'd debated whether Tic should accompany Hummel since he had been Lirrani's second-in-command before the invasion. Tic knew the HQ, knew the Ops Center, and could recite the SOP forwards and backwards. But Jack had one edge up. He had a better grasp of Norse than anyone.

Another alarm began to flash.

"Power down on ODP-1," Lirrani reported.

Droga whirled toward the Board, then back in Jack's direction. "Power and comms," Droga shouted. "We need them now!"

One point for us, Jack thought, and sent a signal to resistance teams through his encrypted connection. He risked a glance at Norse's office. Come on, Norse. Need you out here where I can see you.

"Emergency generators online," Lirrani said.

"This is Stone's doing," Droga said.

"Stone—the freighter pilot?" Lirrani asked.

Jack's heart hammered, his eyes flicking to Norse's office again.

Norse knows...

But Ben was still free. The outage on the defense platform proved that. Ben and his crew were in the central power substation executing the plan to control the ODPs.

"Comms!" Droga shouted.

Not yet. Jack needed to give Ben a few more minutes. He glanced at the countdown on his chron. Tic and Saber's handiwork at the spaceport would catch their attention shortly.

Jack opened a third panel, and a circuit tray slid out smoothly for inspection. He couldn't delay much longer. Droga was pacing toward him and Lirrani was staring at the SITS Board, putting the pieces together.

Jack had always like Lirrani. She was a smart officer who played a mean game of chess, not that much analysis was needed in this case to figure out her opponent's next move. Power fluctuations, overloaded couplings, the Riga attack on Nightstorm—all a ploy. If the resistance controlled the ODPs, the missiles were in their hands.

"Contact the Pride—return to base," Lirrani ordered. "Launch our fighters. Target the ODPs!"