Norse scrutinized the stream of the devastating attack on the freighter Nightstorm again and again. It looked real. His own teams reviewed it, and though they were light years away, he knew Ardan and Grand Emperor Surda had assigned their best to the task. He couldn't imagine how the Riga could pull this off—real or not. Intelligence reports must be underestimating their capabilities. Underestimating Jack.
"You aren't the only one with secrets, Ari. Trust me." Jack took charge, leading the team through a maze of passageways. "Cloe, two more charges, here," he ordered, pointing, "and on that panel." Three months with the resistance, and Jack instilled confidence in everyone around him no matter how dire the situation. Men and women had faith in him, liked and respected him. "Timers, thirty seconds. The rest of you, keep moving. Look for an inset access tube, north wall, about a hundred meters ahead. It'll get us just past Wren's back door. We'll be right behind you."
Inquisitor Jon Ardan's face occupied the lower corner of his stream. Norse had warned him about Jack. He wouldn't repeat that now, but tapped the screen to fill it with Jon's strikingly handsome face.
"It's a foolish move, Jon." Norse did want to tell Ardan that ordering Pride of Galilei to engage the Riga was not only stupid, but could derail plans they'd had for twenty years. Ardan wouldn't take offense at the blunt words. They knew each other too well. And if anyone had hacked their highly-encrypted private stream, they'd sense the tension between them, which if reported to Grand Emperor Surda, would keep the competition between them alive and well, and be just as he would expect.
"You never mince words, my dear Ari," Ardan said, continuing the charade. Everyone was my dear to Jon Ardan. He used the phrase when he was impatient, or wanted to make someone feel uncomfortable.
Norse bristled, but only to keep the hounds at bay. He'd been recruited by Ardan, though neither arm-twisting nor torture had been necessary. They'd been classmates and lovers at the war college, and had grand plans to assume ultimate control of the Empire. But their paths had diverged, all part of the Grand Emperor's plan. Surda didn't want two egotistical, ambitious young men in positions of power. That was a threat.
Ardan had seen it as an opportunity, and they plotted Norse's betrayal. It had been a brilliantly timed move, what with Torredo's resistance stirring trouble.
"The vid file from the freighter is convincing," Norse said, studying Ardan's face but keeping his own emotions in check. "But pulling Pride away leaves Torredo unprotected, especially when Conqueror is dealing with the rebels on New Mars. This is exactly what Riga wants."
"Pride is the only battlecruiser within range of the enemy fleet that Nightstorm reported," Ardan said. "I have explained this to the Grand Emperor, but he is not convinced the threat to Torredo is great. Galilei is in control. You've done a splendid job."
Ardan gave him a heartfelt smile, but then paused. Norse wondered if he would bring up the failure to eliminate Ford and Jack, but Ardan kept to the matter at hand. "I cannot get around this." He leaned closer to the monitor, slowly releasing a deep breath that Norse could almost feel. "Pride must investigate and engage the enemy."
"Can you delay?" Norse asked. Was there enough desperation in his voice? "Three days, that's all I ask."
"Two Riga cruisers, Ari! We cannot ignore that. If we wait, we lose them in deep space. It's time for action. We must not allow the enemy to choose the time for battle."
"It's a mistake, Jon."
"Go to Alert One. Add extra security. Do whatever you need to hold Torredo for us."
Us. Jon didn't mean Galilei, didn't mean the Grand Emperor. When all this ended, the Grand Emperor would be dead. He and Jon would rule.
* * *
"Pride at system's edge, sir," Lieutenant Droga reported.
Norse sat stoically in his command chair. The battlecruiser would jump to deep space within minutes, leaving the defense of Torredo to a handful of crusader wings and the firepower of the ODPs.
He eyed the SITS Board, anticipating the blip of a Riga space force. With a tap, he updated the status readouts. The board split to show interior and exterior shots of the ODPs, the spaceport, and the system. He glanced at his digipad and asked, "Is that freighter still in space dock?"
"Yes, sir," Droga replied. "Sounds like it may be there for a while."
Something about the freighter grated on Norse's nerves. "Her crew?"
"Latest logs show a few of them are here, on the surface, but Nightstorm is habitable while in the repair bays."
Nightstorm. Had he missed something? Norse's instincts were strong. He scrolled through the captain's profile. Ben Stone. Clean, except for a barroom brawl four years earlier on New Mars. Long term crew to a man, except for one he'd locked in the brig. Same time two men were reported killed on board. No explanation. Mercenaries were known for dispensing their own brand of justice. If Stone's prisoner had killed his shipmates, Stone could've spaced him, but the records didn't tie the two incidents together. The crew deaths had occurred on a run between Sacarra and Argolas...the same day of the Riga invasion.
That was interesting. Norse brought up coordinates for both worlds in relation to Torredo and splashed them on the SITS Board. Same day. Was there a connection?
Droga interrupted Norse's thought. "Tech reports have been submitted on those power fluctuations on ODP-1. And the Pride has just jumped to lightspeed."
Norse acknowledged Droga, but kept reading Stone's file. Nightstorm ran cargo for dozens of companies—all above board—each year for the past six, but before that... Just a few entries.
This wasn't right.
A second later Norse ran Stone's image against iGal, the massive compilation of "i"—intel—maintained by Galilei. And there he was. Ben Chase, Maileb War College, senior fighter pilot, number one in class. Served three years. Spec Ops. Resigned. Further down, duty stations, missions, commendations, parents' names—both deceased—and a brother.
"Have security find Captain Stone." Stone, rather Chase, had been inserted in a dozen bloody operations, received the Grand Emperor's Freedom Medal, not once, but twice, and then resigned his commission. Such a waste.
Norse's eyes caught on the word brother. Never ignore the little things.
He clicked the entry and Matthew Chase, deserter, appeared on his screen. No known activities. What if...?
"Stone just returned to ODP-1, sir," Droga reported.
Norse glared. "Then he shouldn't be hard to find. Get him. Hold him." He started to turn away, but... Returned to ODP? Had Stone been meeting with someone from the resistance?
He jerked toward the SITS Board, then furiously punched possible flight trajectories for the transport that had whisked Jack Gamble away the day of the invasion. He could hardly hear himself think. "Have security find out where Stone was, and who he met with. Now."
Recognition of Norse's suspicions dawned on Droga's face in a holy-mother-of-colonists moment. He cleared his head with a shake and sent security an alert. "Sir," he said, "you might want to look at the issues the techs identified at ODP-1. Upgraded couplings and power generators were installed when the missile bays were rebuilt after the Riga attack. They're overloading the entire system."
"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!"