All Enemies Foreign and Domestic (Kelly Blake series) (5 page)

      Alistair entered the Assassin’s Guild as a recruit at five and confirmed himself as a novice at ten years to learn the way of soldiery, police, and intelligence operations.
 
The Assassins were secular replacements for the settlement’s Templar Company that was decimated in the process of eliminating the threat of the many-teeth beasts that ravaged the settler’s livestock.

      Upon Archimedes’ discovery, Fleet Intelligence started recruiting and preparing Assassin’s Guild members to work as operations officers.
 
Some of them became field agents.
 
Some became instructors.
 
Alistair became a reporting officer, plying the spaceways alone in a converted freighter, finding out all he could about whatever intelligence problem he was put against.

      Armed with the translated data taken during the raid on the K’Rang intelligence headquarters building, he would be able to circumvent many K’Rang security measures.
 
That data resided on a data crystal in his coat pocket.
 
Also on his person were the names, addresses, contact information, and key information on all agents working for the Galactic Republic within K’Rang space.
 
He was here, however, to review the progress made by his deputy in establishing the secure rooms in the interim consulate and establishing communications and control over the in-place agent network.

      Alistair was tall, blonde, and with the rugged good looks from a Scandinavian bloodline.
 
People always questioned how he could blend so well into crowds when he was so striking and stood a head taller than most, but his assassin training let him become almost invisible in any group of three or more.
 
Years of hard work in a coal-burning society left him lean, fit and muscled.

      This was Alistair’s third visit to the K’Rang capitol.
 
He had made a clandestine visit five years before to hand-carry a defector off the home world and to the Galactic Republic.
 
The first transport ship failed to send a security code quickly enough upon reaching G’Durin orbit and was destroyed by an orbital patrol ship.
 
Alistair had to survive on G’Durin for two weeks, until the back-up ship could arrive and get them out.
 
Alistair had to make his own luck, as the defector could do nothing for him.
 

      Alistair chuckled, wondering how thick was his dossier.
 
There had been no enemy personnel files among the records taken during the raid.
 
Those counterintelligence records must have been stored elsewhere.
 
He would need to discuss with the ambassador how intrusive and aggressive he could be in his work here.
 
He walked down the hallway of this loaned building and wondered how many spaces still had sensors and listening devices, even after the best Fleet electronic countermeasures teams had swept it.

      Lost in his reverie, Alistair passed his temporary offices and had to backtrack.
 
A normal-looking door led into a reception area with two seemingly unremarkable women, one matronly and the other comely, sitting at desks flanking either side of a secured double door leading further inward.
 
As with everything else in espionage, all was not as it seemed.
 
Each woman had her finger near a row of buttons, which, if pushed, would flood the space in front of the desks and the hallway outside with concentrated disrupter fire and/or incapacitating gas.
 
In addition, each woman was as expert in martial arts as the best masters at the Fleet Intelligence Academy could teach.
 

      The sturdy woman sitting at the desk to the right of the door rose as Alistair entered and greeted him with a warm hug.
 
Sylvia Brown was ten years older than Alistair and had been an administrative assistant in Alistair’s initial branch, where he was assigned as an apprentice agent handler.
 
She had helped him adjust to a technologically advanced society as the Archimedean converted from a nineteenth century assassin to a twenty-third century intelligence operative.

      She looked him over and said, “Mary, this is Alistair.
 
He was the smartest apprentice in the branch.
 
Alistair learned quickly how valuable and helpful the admin people could be and how much we could gum up the works if he didn’t treat us right.
 
Don’t let his boyish good looks and charm fool you.
 
He has a mind like a steel trap.
 
Once learned, never to be forgotten.

      “Alistair, this is Mary Stevens.
 
She replaced me in my position in that branch and has been following along behind me ever since.
 
This will be the first time we’ve ever worked together.”

      
 
Mary rose and delicately offered her hand to Alistair.
 
He took her hand and gave a firm, but not too strong, two-handed handshake.
 
Mary’s cheeks turned a bright crimson as Alistair held her hand a little too long while he looked in her eyes.

      Sylvia handed Rojo’s carrier to Mary, hooked her arm in Alistair’s, and said, “Come on, boss, let me show you all Tom has accomplished for you,” and she led him through the double doors.

* * * * *

      Corporal Ingrid Solbrig, best gunner in the 1st Battalion, 85th Armored Regiment, stood with her 170 centimeters at crisp attention in front of her unit’s formation beside her tank commander, Staff Sergeant O’Neil, driver Private First Class Jones, and Charger Private Malagasy, while her citation for shooting a perfect score on the final and toughest tank range was read aloud.
 
She was also the youngest and lowest ranking gunner in the battalion, which gave her twice the ego boost as the battalion commander pinned her award on her.
 
He pinned it to a pocket of her duty coveralls, dusty still with range dirt, having just road marched into garrison from the ranges.
 

      Ingrid Solbrig was the only daughter of Erwin and Hilda Solbrig.
 
Ingrid and her three older brothers were inseparable.
 
They grew up in the Texas hill country, in a small ranching community outside the city of Fredericksburg.
 
There was nothing her brothers could do that she couldn’t do just as well.
 
A gangly tomboy as a young teenager, she grew into a body that got in the way of her being one of the boys.
 
As she referred to them, “These damn boobs and butt threw me all off balance and got me nothing but merciless teasing.”
 

      A growth spurt at sixteen left her even more awkward and gangly then before.
 
During the two years between her sixteenth and eighteenth birthday she filled out and gained a certain grace, but never lost her ability to do job as well or better than her brothers.

On the eve of her eighteenth birthday, when she was at a sleepover at a friend’s house, her family was taken from her.
 
A faulty sensor and an accidentally dislodged flue pipe filled their house with deadly carbon monoxide.
 
She lost everyone that mattered to her.
 
She buried her family and sold the ranch, for ranching held no favor in her eyes anymore.
 
She put all the money from the sale into an investment trust and joined the ground forces the next day.

      Next stop for her now would be promotion to sergeant, as this award would put her over the top for promotion points.
 
She could hardly wait to be promoted to be a “real” non-commissioned officer.

      Technically, a corporal was a non-commissioned officer, but the lowest ranking one and sometimes not thought about when the benefits of being a non-commissioned officer were being enjoyed.
 
All that would be behind when they pinned those three stripes on her.
 
Who knew, maybe in two to three years she could get promoted to staff sergeant and get her own tank.
 
She had already held the positions of charger and driver.
 
Now that she had proven herself as gunner, only the tank commander position was left to learn and assume.

      She shook hands with her battalion commander and sergeant major, saluted, did an about face along with her crew, company commander, and company guidon bearer, then marched back to her position in the rear of the formation.
 
The battalion commander, LTC Hrata, called the formation to attention and released the companies to their commanders.
 
Her company commander, Captain Stanislav Kopinsky, saluted, did an about face, and announced, “Corporal Solbrig is released for the day after she cleans her personal weapon.
 
Everybody else to the wash rack and get the vehicles cleaned up.
 
Platoon leaders, take charge.”

      Ingrid could hardly believe her good fortune.
 
Twenty minutes to retrieve her gear from the tank, twenty more for cleaning her weapon, and she was free for the weekend.
 
Now if she only had somewhere to go.
 
She always hung out with her tank crew when she was off duty, but none of them had any plans.
 
At least she could get a long shower and a nap in before they showed up from cleaning the tank.

      She was back in her barracks room, in thirty minutes instead of forty, and quickly stripped out of her uniform and dashed her no longer tomboyish body into the shower so she could get a long leisurely shower before the rest of the battalion arrived and all the hot water vanished.
 
A shovel full of dirt seemed to wash out of her light brown hair as the water cascaded over her body and down the drain.
 
Rivulets of silt found their way down the drain as she scrubbed two weeks of living in the choking dust churned up by the suspensor fields of their M-25 hover tanks.
 
She scrubbed and scrubbed until she could find no more dirt, rinsed, dried off, hit the rack, and was snoring in less than five minutes.
 
Her weekend plans would wait until after she was rested.

Chapter Three

      The sentient queen had waited long enough. The sun was going down and soon it would be dark, time to strike.
 
She had workers lined up to act as runners to take the simple commands to the waiting groups of soldiers.
 
Arrayed in a semicircle on the ship’s starboard side opposite the boarding ramp and quarterdeck hatch were over 300 shiny, silent soldiers in groups of ten to twenty, waiting in the tall grass for the signal to move against the ship.
 
Her entire assault force was ready to go.

* * * * *

      On board the survey ship, the evening meal was being cleared away.
 
Captain M’Taso was concerned that some of her survey teams were out overnight.
 
She knew the geologic teams would be out, but one of her xenobiology teams was still out and she had not heard from them.
 
Her team leaders knew how she worried about them and always called to let her know their status.

      She walked to the quarterdeck and stepped outside to see if she could spot any fires where the teams might be up in the mountains.
 
She saw none.
 
She couldn’t shake a feeling of danger, so she emphasized to the quarterdeck watch to keep the inner or outer airlock door closed if the other was open.
 
They complained about how stale the air in the crew’s quarters was and having the doors open helped to air out the heavy smell of scores of K’Rang.

      She sympathized with them, but ordered them to keep one of the two doors closed at all times and the steely look in her eyes convinced them to do as she said.
 
She watched as they complied and noted she should talk to the engineer to increase the airflow in crew’s quarters.
 
She took one last look at the stars and re-entered the ship, heading to the sensor section.

      She had the sensor section send a message to all teams to report status and location.
 
The three geology teams reported in that all were safe and sound.
 
No one reported a distress call from the xenobiology team.
 
She told herself it was just that they were out of range or behind a hill blocking their comms, but she didn’t believe it.

      She instructed the sensor team to call the team’s communicator.
 
They punched in the ident code and waited, as the signal came back that the communicator had received their call, but there was no answer.

      The quarterdeck watch heard it though, “KTan,” said the junior watch stander to the senior, “do you hear that?
 
It sounds like one of our communicators over there to the east.”

      K’Tan arose from behind the desk and listened, but heard nothing. He looked at S’Tok and said, “It could be our xenobiology team out there lost.”

      S’Tok shook his head and questioned, “If they were out there why didn’t they answer the call?
 
I think we should call the captain.”

      The both agreed, so K’Tan put in a call on the ship’s intercom, “Captain to the quarterdeck.”