Audacity (Warner's World Book 5) (21 page)

Dave laughed. “And you look after her too.”

“All the time mate. I better go.”

Dave made his way back up to the command centre. John had the watch and Crystal was on battle systems. He was in discussion with Jasmin about the P22 probe that will be launched on coming out of warp. Its route was displayed on the holo, which had been positioned and zoomed to show the city of Rollinium located at the south east of the predominant land mass. The route’s point of entry was over the south pole and it travelled above the atmosphere heading nor-northwest roughly in line with the eastern seaboard.

On closer inspection Dave could see that it in fact it was composed of a number of short zigzag legs. The annotations next to each leg indicated the times at which it would use active sensors before reactivating cloak. Unlike larger vessels it could do so quickly and Jasmin was hoping this would give the probe some chance of survival.

“It’s not going to work” said John to Jasmin.

“Why not?” she asked a little indignantly.

“It’s too predictable” responded John in a soft voice that he was using in an attempt to be less threatening to the recipient. He came over to her terminal. “May I?” he asked with a warm smile. She could see he was making an effort to be nice and it was partially successful. Reluctantly she handed over the controls to him.

“If you select the route, then apply the Randomiser function like so and then set the min and max leg distance and the min and max activation duration like so, you’ll make it much harder for the bad guys.” He smiled at her rather than his usual grin. He did not want to appear cocky at her expense.

Jasmin nodded. “I didn’t even know you could do that?” she said as John got back up and she sat back down.

“Tricks of the trade” he said with a warm smile as he walked back to the far side of the holo. He busied himself with his pre warp out checklist unbeknown to the fact that Crsytal has been observing him intently. But it hadn’t escaped Dave who leant back in his chair with a wry smile.

Then he remembered something. “Jasmin when you are finished there I need you.”

“Of course Sir.”

Dave rubbed his tired eyes and for the first time since this morning wondered what Rihan would be doing right now. A smile appeared on his face as he did so.

It was still there when Jasmin said “Yes Sir?”

Dave turned to face her. “Work me up a signal to the Admiral for transmission once we deactivate the cloak. Tell him we are commencing ground ops to secure the spaceport etc and that we’ll report progress as and when we can. Forewarn him that we may need to return to Chelora to restock missiles.”

“Very good Sir. I’ll have it to you shortly” she said.

Dave glanced across to Chase. He had nothing more to do for now and so was sitting back in his chair. Dave checked the time. It was going on 2000 hours. Warp out was not for thirty minutes. “Coffee Chase?”

It broke Chase’s reflections and he swung his chair around to face Dave. “Sure” he said, his voice still a little distant. Chase also checked the time. “We’ll have to hurry though” he added in a flat tone.

Chase led the way to the coffee machine in the officers’ mess but was intercepted by Cranky Jack. “Let me Sir” he said to Chase. While Chase was surprised at such an offer, he nodded and gave Cranky a weak smile of thanks. To Dave, Cranky added “I’ll bring ‘em both over.”

“Thanks Cranky” said Dave. “Any of that pie left?”

“I believe there maybe two slices Sir. Leave it with me.”

Chase was still very much focussed within or more correctly on Kat in the recovery ward. Dave wasn’t sure what to say. Everything he thought to say failed one of the four gates of speech, being either not true, not necessary, not required right now or not kind. So he opted just to sit there in silence with Chase. Chase didn’t seem perturbed by this state of affairs.

Cranky delivered the coffees and pie. They were consumed in silence. Chase actually licked his lips at the end of the last mouthful of pie but he hadn’t really tasted anything. Just at that moment he became aware of his surroundings. He looked at Dave and smiled “thanks Sir. We better get back.”

“You’re welcome Chase. Do you want to check in on Kat?”

Chase shook his head and then added as he stood up “No she’s in good hands.” Part of him knew that if he did go and see her now he might not get back to the command centre.

They had to wait for the elevator to come back up. When it opened Mary came out. “Oh Chase you’ll be pleased to know that Kat has settled very nicely.” Mary had the warmest of smiles.

It cut through Chase’s demeanour. He smiled back as he passed her on his way into the elevator. “Thanks, that’s great. I’ll be back down later.”

Chapter 7. Lewista 1900, 14 August

For the first time since stepping foot on Cheklin, Felis wished he was wearing a suit. He could have used the zoom feature in the helmet’s visor to better make out the small craft parked in the centre of the field. It was a good 300m away and it was a small craft, one of the flash city hoppers that only corporations or the privileged could afford.

He pulled out the small hand held thermal sight from his pack and scanned the entire area slowly. There were two in the hopper and one standing on the ground nearby. The tree line behind them looked clear. To the left the fallowed field was empty. The one on the right was yet to be harvested. The crop was two metres tall. ‘Anyone could be in there’ said Felis to himself. The crop was so dense that it blocked the thermal signatures after as little as a few metres in.

He didn’t have time to clear it. He sensed Evie’s frustration. She was a couple of metres back taking cover behind the water tower. Felis glanced back to it and knew that he could get a good look from up there onto the top of that crop field. But again there was not enough time.

“I will go first” he said to Evie in a low voice. He knew that Madge had come up and was now crouching low in the drainage furrow this side of the track. Felis knew that their pistols would be useless from this range. He didn’t like it but knew the only options were to go ahead or turn around. On reflection he knew there was only one option. He put the site back in his pack and paced towards the hopper.

He got halfway and called out in rogan “It’s me, Draag.” The light blinded him temporarily. He was like the bunny in the spotlight and felt as vulnerable.

“Hands high. Come forward slowly” sounded the male voice up ahead.” Felis obliged. At twenty paces out he could make out the dark shape of the fellow holding the light. There was a pistol in his other hand. “Stop there. Where’s Plentun?”

“She will come forward once I am satisfied it is safe to do so” replied Felis.

The left rear door of the hopper opened and out stepped a figure. With the light still blazing at him he could not make out who it was.

“I am Meelanda Orocash” said a female voice. She stepped forward next to the male with the light. She held her own light above her head. Felis could see that she matched the image he had studied earlier. She had the bearing of an aristocrat. ‘A handsome lady’ thought Felis. But that counted for little at the moment.

“Let me call her forward?” asked Felis.

“Go ahead” said Meelanda.

Felis withdrew his communicator from his pants and hailed Evie “Come forward.”

“Stay here” said Evie to Madge in a low voice.

At that moment Madge wondered as to what she would do if Felis and Evie were taken. They could be bundled into that craft and whisked away before she could cover the distance to be in effective range. She didn’t like it but like Felis felt there was little choice. “OK” she whispered back.

Judy was on the other side of the water tower and was feeling just as powerless. She watched Evie step forward at a forthright pace as though she was marching to her destiny. She found that reassuring.

Evie stopped next to Felis on his right and looked left to gauge his state. He was tense but that was to be expected. She turned to face the woman under the light. “Madam Orocash?” she said formally.

“Please Evie, call me Meelanda. How can I help?”

After half an hour of talking Meelanda’s minder whispered in her ear and she said “We need to go.”

“We need a place to stay” said Evie.

Meelanda nodded. “I have a place you could use but the trouble is there is not enough room in this hopper.”

“Actually, there are four of us.”

“Oh, really?”

“As I mentioned we came here on a human ship and they have provided me with two bodyguards.”

“That won’t work” said Meelanda. The tone of her voice saying ‘what were you thinking?’

“Wait. Let me show you.” Evie hailed “Madge, Judy, come join us.”

Madge and Judy came forward and when they entered the light Meelanda said “Well! That is amazing.”

Evie smiled. “Let me introduce Madge and Judy. This is Meelanda Orocash. She is going to provide us with a place to stay.”

“This is going to require two trips” said Meelanda. “I have to be somewhere else.” Turning to her minder she said “Stay here till we return. Look after them.” The minder nodded.

Felis agreed to wait with Judy. Evie and Meelanda climbed into the back seats of the hopper. Madge hopped next to the pilot, the first fair headed rogan she had encountered. He gave her a quizzical look but he had too much to do to dwell or chat. Madge found the seat on the small size and only just managed to secure the harness around her.

Madge looked back, saw that Evie and Meelanda were engrossed in their own talk. She picked up a few of the rogan words but it was all too fast for her to follow. So she eased back as best she could as the hopper took off. Its thrusters made short work of it. She was fascinated by the way the pilot flew the craft with just his hand moving over a transparent surface in front of him.

The surface curved from the horizontal to the vertical, forming a crescent facing him, with the vertical part furthest away from the pilot. It showed a semitransparent 3D map display. The craft’s current position was marked along a route line. The pilot adjusted the route waypoints with a wave of one hand. He zoomed in the display so that the details of the city scape were more easily recognised. Madge could see that they were climbing to an altitude a few hundred metres above the top of the buildings, then flying straight towards the centre at this altitude.

The pilot added another waypoint with the touch of his finger and the route line dived down into the city. With the dexterity that comes from much practice and a smart AI the route was adjusted to navigate around the building before reaching its destination. With a flick of his hand the display zoomed back out and the pilot levelled off from the climb.

Madge estimated they must have been about 1,000m off the ground. From her vantage point she looked down through the windows to see a city full of light coming up fast. The hopper was probably only doing 200kph thought Madge but as they crossed into the urban terrain it seemed a lot faster.

The pilot was hailing someone. She couldn’t make out what he was saying. All of a sudden she was distracted by the sight of the tall buildings ahead. What struck her was the beauty of the architecture. A favourite or at least a common design was the slender crescent. Many of the buildings were topped with large domes.

She peered sideways as they passed one of these, not more than 200m below. It might have been night time but everything within the expanse of the dome was lit up like it was day. She could see figures moving among green vegetation and what she thought was a pool. As they whizzed past the image blurred into a strip of blended greens, blues and white. ‘So beautiful’ she thought.

Her focus was disrupted when the hopper slowed and began its descent. Madge turned forward to see a series of hover lights marking an aerial ramp down into the city. Following a line of these hover lights, they dropped below the top of the nearby buildings. The pilot slowed even more. Up ahead was a row of three crescent shaped skyscrapers. Their shape reminded her of a hand of bananas positioned end on end and curving to the left. The space between the top and bottom of the crescent was delineated by three hover light aligned vertically. The hopper was level with the top one. It was probably no more than 300m away. Its light changed from a washed out yellow to a bright purple.

This must have given permission to the pilot for he banked left at this point and dropped down as he slowed even further. There must have been a hundred metres between the hopper and the building on either side of the aerial canyon that they were now gliding into, but to Madge they seemed all too close.

They were losing altitude fast. Madge could clearly see the levels of the buildings as they passed by. With their speed down to about 50kph Madge could make out people and furniture and of course the bright signage that adorned many of the buildings. Unlike the constant bombard of advertising she was used to back on Polaris the signs seemed to transition between what she assumed were ads and natural landscapes.

It was into one of these signs that the hopper seemed to turn and head straight towards. Madge’s first reaction was to look to the pilot but she could see he was unperturbed. She looked back to the front and saw the sign had folded over and inwards revealing an illuminated landing. The pilot expertly brought the craft to a hover with minimum disruption to his passengers. He manoeuvred till he was over the correct space and the thrusters lowered them down gently.

“We’re just up a few levels. This will be your new home” said Meelanda.

Chapter 8. Resolute over Q2, 2050, 14 August

“We’ve lost it” called out Jasmin, referring to the probe. “But we’ve got the data” she proclaimed in triumph. “It’s available now.”

The Resolute was cloaked in orbit around Q2 50K out. The ground ops leaders were huddled around Chase’s terminal as the probe data was being scrutinised for last minute fine tuning to the plan.

“Shit” said Ginty who was tugging on Jim’s arm to get him to focus on the imagery of the enemy battery site. Chase had four windows opened tiled on his screen – one for visual, one for thermal, another for infrared and the fourth was for X ray.