Con-Red: Recourse (41 page)

“We both know you spent all of your inheritance years ago, before you even came to Telcore,” Xander replied with increased annoyance in his voice and moved to stand directly in front of Richard, “you also can’t honestly think that I’ll believe you paying for all this luxury with just your day job, do you Mr. Flemming?  I mean look at this place.”

To this medical examiner Brenington had nothing to say and became extremely quiet.  Xander knew at that point that he had broken the man’s will to resist.  He smiled internally at the victory, but still had to get as much information out of him as possible.  What Richard wasn’t aware of was that the entire time they had been talking Xander had been recording and transmitting everything to the local Federal Court and authorities.  Richard was actually correct in thinking that TelSec would be on their way to the island, but not for the reason he wanted.

“You should know that I know all about your hidden accounts on Komnia and I know how much gets deposited into it.  It’s pretty amazing that each one of t
hose deposits appeared a day after you were assigned to specific murder cases on Telcore and your previous employer planets.  Quite the coincidence wouldn’t you say?

“You know what this is, correct?” Xander held up the black T in his hand and pressed down at the center of it with a finger, causing five
wire-thin projects to extend out from its body, “now I’m going to ask you one last time to cooperate and be completely truthful.  After that I shall let the Extractor do that work for me and I’m sure you’ve seen how painful that can be.  Do us both a favor and just come clean.”

He continued to hold the intimidating Extractor in his hand, moving it closer to Richard’s head.  The unit was designed to make connections with the wearer’s neuronal network and sift through their memory centers in order to
find any information requested.  Once the information was located the device also attacked the cerebral cortex in order to force the person to speak the truth.  This process was highly painful and its intrusive nature caused its use to be highly regulated.  Only a Federal judge could grant permission to use the Extactor and even then only as a last resort after abundant evidence was presented to warrant its use.  Because of his top level authorization Xander was not bound by this restriction in the law and was able to use all means to complete his missions.

Xander saw the man’s eyes widen in surprise and fear as his resolve collapsed outright, “save us both the time and effort Richard.  Just tell me the truth.  I know you want to clear your conscience
of all of this, I can see it in your eyes.”

“Ok…alright… I’ll tell you everything you want to know.  Just please, put that thing away,” Richard finally relented and looked down at the kitchens wooden floor.  For the first time ever all of his deeply hidden secrets began to pour out of him into the open.

Telcore’s orange-red K class star rose up from the horizon between the Capital’s tall buildings and announced the start of a brand new day.  Sitting in his windowed booth seat with a cup of coffee in his hand Xander stared out of the café’s tinted windows at the city street.  Being a vacation day for most there were very few individuals out and about this morning when compared with other work days.  Usually at this time the streets and air lanes were filled with traffic of people heading to their jobs.  This was true for the SanSin Café as well, which was located in one of the busiest parts of Inselstadt and on the lower level of the premier hotel of Telcore.  Normally bustling with activity, it was mostly empty on this day with only a handful of people sitting around eating breakfast, most of them tourists.

To those around it looked as if Xander was simply people watching, but in reality he was monitoring a number of outside camera feeds for any sign of his mark.  His internal neural interface had hacked into the café’s security system as well as the two other microcams he had installed earlier that morning and projected those feeds directly into his optical implants.  At the corners of his peripheral vision were four different feeds and each one scanned every passerby for a facial recognition match.  He had recovered two distinct faces from Elfonso’s necklace pendent, which he had finally gotten from Richard the night before.  The medical examiner had kept the necklace as insurance just in case his employers ever wanted to have him eliminated as well.  Being in protective custody at the moment, however, meant that he no longer
had any use for it.

Once the interrogation of Richard Brenington had ended Xander went ahead with a new investigation.  Richard admitted that he did not know who was contacting him, accept for the person’s code name.  He back tracked every communique to and from the man
and also used all available resources to trace the source of each deposit into Richard’s Komnia bank account.  It took most of the night and early morning, but Xander’s search actually paid off, revealing that the payee’s account belonged to that of Deluvner Global Trust.  That Trust turned out to be a dummy corporation with little real business to their name.  Xander had passed this information to SIS who was busy at work putting together profiles of every individual responsible for establishing the DGT in the first place.  This would further push them towards the real culprits and hopefully the larger organization responsible for establishing the Trust in the first place.

At the same time Xander had accessed TelSec’s planet-wide camera network and uploaded the pendant’s images into the system.  The system automatically scanned its previously stored data files for any people caught by its cameras that matched those that were on the pendant.  It was the camera network throughout Inselstadt that had finally located both of these men, identified them by name, and noticed that they frequented the area around the Express TransCo building.  A number of these feeds had actually captured these men walking out of the SanSin Café with Elfonso.  The location made perfect sense to Xander as it was right across the street from Extran Tower where Elfonso worked and close to where he lived.  This made the café a natural place for him to stop at.  Also being in a heavy traffic location with lots of surrounding businesses, it was not suspicious that he would see the same people multiple times at that location.

With all that information at hand Xander had called the emergency number given to Richard and made contact with one of the individuals involved.  After making them an offer they couldn’t refuse he knew from experience that one or both of them would show up t
o this meeting.  So here he sat waiting for them while watching the new day take shape.  He saw a large transport descend from the sky off in the distance and pass right in front of the rising sun on its way to Hemprish Spaceport.  It was then that one of his video feeds flashed red and expanded to fill his vision.  His monitors had detected the man he was going to meet walking down the plaza towards the café.  They also detected three other individuals sitting on benches beside the SanSin who were trying hard to look inconspicuous.

Looking towards the front of the café Xander watched the
glasteel doors silently part as his suspect entered the establishment.  The man took a quick look around and instantly caught Xander’s eyes.  Being a professional as well he had without a doubt researched Xander’s cover and recognized him at first glance.  Without getting up Xander simply gave the man a little nod of acknowledged and watched his bulky, but short frame moved towards him.  He also noticed that the man was trying hard to project an air of confidence and superiority around him, but he could feel a twinge of uncertainty underneath all of that external bravado.  It wasn’t surprising, however, considering that the man had probably never considered the possibility that someone would contact him directly as he was always the one perusing others.

“Xander Grissom I presume?” the man stated as he sat down across from him.

Smiling, Xander took a small drink of his coffee and set the cup down on the table, “Mr. Chornie, thank you for coming.  Or should I call you Felix?”

Mr. Chornie’s face tightened up at the mention of his real name, “what is this about
and why shouldn’t I just have you killed right now for even trying to contact me?”

“Well, for starters, you would probably mess up breakfast for all of these fine people,” Xander started with little expression on his face, “and second, you’d be placed under arrest and in jail before the end of the day.  You would also be losing a great opportunity for your employer.”

He placed his empty up on the table and ran a finger over the necklace
lying just beside it.  In satisfaction he watched Felix’s face harden as the man noticed the pendant. “I believe you know what that is and what it contains.  If something happens to me, you should know that everything stored within it will be uploaded to TelSec.  Along with that incriminating video an entire dossier on you will be transferred to them as well.

“That’s not what I want, however,” Xander tried to assure Felix
, “I didn’t invite you today to threaten you.  I simply want to encourage you to use my services.  We can both benefit from this arrangement.”

“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t try to play me Mr. Chornie,” Xander came back forcefully and leaned towards his opponent, “I’m not some ignorant patsy for you to use and toss away.  I know all about your operation and am offering to help you full time.”

Felix’s face relaxed slightly as he studied Xander for a moment, “I’m not saying that you are correct in your assumption
, but if you were, how do I know that I can trust you?”

Taking a slow breath he palmed the necklace from the table and leaned back against the booth
comfortably, “well one hint is that you’re not in custody right now.  Plus you don’t really have to trust me.  All you have to know is that it’s not in my interest to see you put in jail, unless you force my hand that is.”

“May I ask why you are doing this Mr. Grissom?”

Xander smiled at that question, “money of course Mr. Chornie.  Isn’t that why everyone does anything?”

“
Let’s say I believe you, what do you propose?”

“
A partnership, if you will.  We don’t have to make it anything complicated Mr. Chornie.  I’ll work for you just as Elfonso Capratti did only I’ll be under your employment full time.  Think of me as your personal man inside one of the largest transportation companies in the Federation,” he paused to let it all sink in and gauge Felix’s reaction. “You’ve no doubt gone through my profile and know the skillsets I can offer your organization.”

“And of course there’s a price to your service.”

“Double my salary should do it.  I don’t think that’s asking too much. You get someone of my experience and all of your dirty secrets stay hidden.  I think that price is very fair,” Xander finished and rested his hands on the table stop, never taking his eyes off Felix, but taking in the surroundings through his peripheral vision.  He monitored the outside world at the same time with the various camera feeds in order to make sure nothing insidious was going on.

It took a long moment for Felix process the information and come to a decision on the matter of Xander Grissom, “very well Mr. Grissom
.”

“Call me Xander.”

“Alright, Xander, I accept your offer,” he finally said with a hard face. “If you very double cross me, however, you should know that I will stop at nothing to make you dead.  Your evidence against me and my men will no keep safe.”

“Mr. Chornie, I would expect no less from you,” Xander stated and slowly slide out of the booth. “
Do we have a deal?”

He held out his hand and waited for Felix to accept it after getting out of his side.  There was a moment of delay as the other man thought the entire conversation over again, but he finally conceded and shook Xander’s hand back
.  At that point thousands of microscopic nanomachines transferred from Xander’s hand onto Felix’s.  These machines were designed to embed themselves throughout the target’s subcutaneous tissue and use that person’s own body to power themselves.  Once embedded they would join together to broadcast a strong tracking signal and serve as listening devices.  Their combined burst transmissions were strong enough to reach nearby subspace FedCom relay nods.

“We have a deal Xander,” Felix said and looked up into his eyes, “someone will contact you with instructions to your first assignment within the next day.”

“I look forward to it,” Xander replied as Mr. Chornie turned and walked back out the front door.  It was another victory for him and would hopefully pan out into something larger in the coming days.

Flying in tight formation with the binary star of AS-117 behind them Commander Styker
‘Raven’ Telwin observed the blue-white illumination from the pair of blue giant stars bathe every one of Knight Squadron’s ten AF-103E DragonFire assault fighters.  These two high luminosity primaries centered a group of three planets of which two were gas giants and one happened to be a resource rich rocky world of slightly higher mass than earth.  That planet contained a mining settlement owned by the Askot Resource Corporation, which was named ARC-4.  Because of this, ARC-4 was a vital interest of the United Planets Federation and the Aquarius Sector.  Its extraction of specific ores and minerals also made it a prime target of pirate raids, whether to disrupt and destroy shipments or to intercept them for personal use by the group.

It was because of one of these raids in progress that the Regal CBG had been dispatched to the system.  Styker could see flashes of light from weapons fire in the distance that showcased the pirate assault underway. The attack was taking place in the darkened space between the first planet of the system, ARC-4, and the second which was its much larger gas giant brother.  The closer his Knights got to the battle raging between the pirate ships and the small convoy made up of two escaping freighters and a trio the ARC’s defense vessels, the more intense the exchange of fire became. 

Following not far behind his lead squadron were the ten AB- 212B Valkyrie bombers belonging to Hydra Squadron, assigned to deal with the heavier pirate ships once Knight Squadron cleared out the enemy fighter screen.  Both of these squadrons were part of the larger CCW-154 Carrier Combat Wing that was stationed on the Federation Naval Carrier
Regal.
  The Knights were part of the CGF-229 Fighter Group, while the Hydras belonged to the CGB-94 Bomber Group.  At that moment the entirety of the Regal Carrier Battle Group hung in space high above ARC-4, away from the action.  Admiral Singh had been suspicious of a larger assault on the planet itself, fearing that the convoy raid was merely a diversion, and as such had positioned his ships accordingly to protect the planetside colony.

At the center of this Battle Group was the six-hundred and ninety meter
flagship FNV
Regal,
a Majestic class fleet carrier.  Designed and built by Shinguma Shipyards to replace the navy’s aging Federation class carriers also constructed by that very shipbuilder, these ships were similar in length, but had an increased internal capacity and surface area.  This enhanced attribute allowed them to carry more powerful shields, armor, and weapons systems than the Federation class.  Majestic carriers still held the standard complement of eight full squadrons, but were able to carry double the number of assault and transport shuttles.  They also had enough room onboard to house an entire marine battalion of over two hundred men and women along with all of their equipment. As such all of these improvements made the newer carriers powerful adversaries capable of launching both space and limited ground operations without much assistance from other units.

Floating around the
Regal
were the other eleven ships of the battle group.  For this operation they were stretched out to both port and starboard in order to cover as much distance as possible.  Flanking the carrier on either side was each of the group’s two Cosmos class destroyers, the
Sirius
and the
Rastaban
.  In the forward screening position at the moment was the
Karabela
the CBG’s single Saber MKIII heavy cruiser.  Surrounding these four capital ships were the two other groups of escort ships.  Each one of these groups contained two pairs of ships for a total of four per group.  These eight ships, the four Redemption frigates of
Gualver, St. John, Libertad,
and
Serpieri
along with the four Odin corvettes
Ragnar, Fenris, Gungnir,
and
Arendal
, hovered around the larger ships to form a protective initial layer against any incoming attack directed at the Battle Group’s carrier.

“Knight Lead,
FOPSCOM Actual, ARC SpaceCom just informed us that their patrol vessels cannot hold out much longer.  Clear out those fighters with increased urgency and secure that convoy,” Captain Vladomir Chulovski, Flight Operations Commander, directed of Commander Telwin through battle group’s TacNet.

“Acknowledged
FOPSCOM,” Commander Telwin replied instantly and keyed both of the squadrons now under his authority. “Knights you heard the Captain, no playing around, just punch through that defensive screen.  Vampires follow close, we’ll open the door and you slip through for the killing blow.”

Green acknowledgment indicators lit up throughout his projected HUD as each of the other fighter and bomber pilots responded to his message.  With that he gave the signal and pushed his throttle all the way forward.  In coordinated fashion the entire squadron leapt forward, accelerating towards full velocity.  At such rate he knew that they would never reach the fighter’s top speed before hitting their intended targets.  A timer at the edge of his visual field readjusted to show a new intercept time for his squadron and the lead elements of the pirate fighter screen.  The distance counter on the sensor display began to decrease at a faster rate as well as the Dragonfire passed through the hundred and fifty thousand kilometers of empty space separating the two forces.

Five seconds into the flight the Knights were already more than halfway at their objective.  Semi-transparent images of the automatically enlarged scene ahead allowed Styker to already start making out most of the larger ships as they engaged in battle.  The sensor systems built into the AF-103E detected each of the ships and fighter craft involved and enhanced them for better view within the transalloy canopy surrounding him.  He could now clearly see two large frigate sized pirate ships, outlined in red, trading blows with three much smaller hundred and twenty-five meter long Panther class patrol ships that made up the ARC system defense force.  As he continued to watch groups of comparatively tiny fighters would streak by on perimeter patrol patterns.

The
se three Panther vessels, manufactured by Iskra Heavy Industries, were actually modified armed versions of a freighter design they built for the shipping industry.  While more heavily armed and shielded in comparison to their civilian counterparts, the Panthers were still no match for most dedicated military ships.  As if in confirmation to Commander Telwin’s train of thought one of the defense ships took a full broadside and detonated in a series of explosions its port side.  Even so the pirate frigate continued to pound the vessel relentlessly with plasma rounds until it broke along the thinner midsection of the hull.  The remainder quickly fractured into multiple large fragments with sheared, scared, and half molten edges.  What little internal flames had remained were quickly extinguished by the surrounding airless nature of space.  Zooming in further on the image, Styker even witnessed dozens of flailing bodies get sucked out into space making the scene that much more realistic.

Destruction of that single Panther ship opened a hole within the convoy’s defenses and a trio of enemy shuttles maneuvered to take advantage of
the vulnerability before the other ships repositioned themselves.  An alarm rang out at that second and caused Styker to look down at his sensor display.  Instead of showing the collection of ships and fighters coming up directly in front of him the screen was now a flickering haze filled with static.  It seemed that only his optical systems and the enhanced Dragonfire’s spectroscopic array were working properly.  He was about to relay new orders to his squadron when a ‘Connection Lost’ signal appeared on his HUD, indicating a disruption in the area wide Tactical Battlefield Network.  Luckily his PAS, pilot assist system, automatically detected the failure and switched to the unit’s TacLink, which was a laser datalink based system. 

This development came as a complete shock and surprise to the commander.  There had been no previous indication that the pirates had such capability and therefore the Knights had not planned for it in this mission.  Years of experience and training took over almost instantly, however, and allowed Styker to quickly overcome the initial surprise.  His entire squadron had trained for such events before and contingency plans were always in place since every flown mission had many unknown elements associated with it. 
It was this refocused determination that allowed him to visually detect a change in the enemy fighter screen’s movements.  They were quickly coming together into pairs, but still trying to keep some of their previous patrol patterns.  Something inside him, possibly instinct, screamed out at him that something was wrong.

“Break i
nto pairs and release decoys NOW NOW NOW!” Commander Styker yelled out and mentally activated the decoys within his fighter’s weapons bay.  Pressing the trigger he watched one of them drop down under his craft and accelerate forward, broadcasting an identical sensor shadow of his own Dragonfire only more intense.

Responding in kind the rest of the squadron launched their drones as well.  Staggered in pairs and triplets the flat-nosed decoys charged forward into the unknown. 
His read of the situation at hand was proven correct at that very moment when over a dozen quickly fading explosions went off directly in front of the Knights flight trajectory.  With his sensors being jammed and offline at the moment Styker could only utilize his optical systems and the fighter’s spectrum analysis array.  He redirected both of these to the area directly in front of him and saw just a hint of a twinkling light, almost like tiny stars.  The Spectroscopic Array processed the information more methodically, quickly detecting what little light reflected back towards the Dragonfire to establish an estimated image of the objects ahead.  It compared that image with those within its own database.  All if this took only milliseconds to accomplish and reaffirmed Styker’s assumption.

“
Proxies!” he called out and quickly pulled the throttle back while initiating a retroburn in order to cut his forward momentum. “Switch to burst and go over top.  Follow my lead Knights.”

He heeded his own advise the changed the variable laser cannons to ‘burst fire’ mode.  Styker squeezed on the trigger in his right hand.
  Before the first laser burst exited the wing mounted cannons a new series of detonations appeared as the decoys reached the strewn out proximity mines.  These explosions happened to be much larger than the ones previous and were followed by others as the rest of the decoy drones reached the mines.  To his surprised one drone actually passed through the field without triggering any of the mines.

With a mission at stake there was really no time to think, only to react and do.  He pulled the fighter into a climb
, knowing that the majority of the mine field’s strength would be within its center.  At the same time he held down the trigger and unleashed a hail of rapid fire energy bursts. The narrow dark green beams proceeded to rake the floating mines directly in front of the maneuvering AF-103.  They followed the fighter and stitched their way from the center of the field towards its periphery.  Most of the bursts passed harmlessly between the hundreds of small devices, but every now and then one of the high powered beams would impact one of the objects.  Looking out directly in front of him through the darkened canopy Commander Telwin watched a number of these struck mines explode, noting that they were doing so at a far closer range than he had expected for his comfort.

The inherent danger of the maneuver was quickly realized when a pair of much brighter and
larger detonation bursts went off far to his starboard.  At the edge of his formation, where Knights Seven and Eight were supposed to be, was a quickly expanding fireball and debris field.  His squadron status display changed at that same moment to show the loss of contact with Lance, the pilot of Knight Eight.  He began to fear the worst for Seven as well when an entire Dragonfire cockpit ejected out of the diminishing fire into the empty space above.  An emergency EV beacon came online at that time as well.  It informed everyone inside the solar system that there was an extravehicle pilot in need of immediate assistance.  In reality a pilot inside an undamaged ejected cockpit was able to survive for days while floating in space.

Breathing out a sigh of relief for at least some good fortune Styker proceeded as planned.  He would
review what had truly happened later, but now was not that time.  Pushing the control stick forward again after a second more he quickly leveled back out, estimating that his squadron had finally passed over top of the mine field.  Behind him the other fighters followed his every action and together accelerated once more towards the battle still taking place ahead of them.  Each remaining paired flight spread out a little further to cover a wider area.  During their transit, however, the positions of the enemy fighters had changed.  They were no longer orbiting the pirate engagement as before.  Instead, Styker now noted that their whole squadron of DragonRay fighters was coming directly at them for a head on engagement.

These fighters were so named by the UPF military because they were a cobbled together mix of old Dragonfire parts and even older
Stingray class fighter bodies.  It was true in this particular case that looks were highly deceiving.  From the outside these fighters looks completely unfit for battles of any kind, but in reality they were far from it.  Federation Naval pilots found out years ago that DragonRays were quite formidable when under command of experienced pilots and had no trouble dispatching unwary opponents.  Each one was well shielded and armored and used two oversized shuttle engines instead of the standard four to maintain a decent acceleration profile.  The added weight of armor decreased its maneuvering capability, though, and gave naval fighters an edge in combat.