First Command (16 page)

      
He had one other task to take care of before he left the Sol system.
 
He arranged with Fleet Intel to take the cooking forum down.
 
It existed on mirror servers on three planets and on Earth.
 
All four sites would need to be taken down at the same time, so that the word could not go out for the network to go to ground.

* * * * *

      
H’Topa’s confidence swelled as Earth’s sun came into sight.
 
He was seven days away from saving both his and J’Kraul’s lives.
 
The order to the transporter to bring all packages to the Geneva South spaceport had been sent and acknowledged.
 
He ordered the captain to wait until dark over the spaceport and land.

      
The transfer went smoothly and the courier ship was immediately ready for take off, but the authorities held them because the spaceport had closed for the night.
 
They could leave at 0600 the next morning.
 
H’Topa almost laughed at the irony of the future of the K’Rang Republic being stymied by blind bureaucratic inertia.

* * * * *

      
Kelly ordered the Vigilant into a geosynchronous Earth orbit.
 
It was a crowded orbit, full of communications satellites.
 
Kelly had the helm move cautiously until they found a parking area above Geneva.
 
Kelly called up the electro-optical sensors and focused them on the K’Rang ship.
 
It was still sitting on the parking apron, an hour after the exchange had been made.
 
Kelly couldn’t imagine why the courier ship hadn’t left yet.

      
Why would the K’Rang sit there taking a chance on discovery?
 
It came down to Connie to determine the answer.
 
She researched the operating hours of the Geneva South spaceport and found the K’Rang got caught when the airport closed for the night.
 
The K’Rang probably never heard of quiet hours.
 
Whoever was in charge must be livid right now.
 
Now they had to wait until 0600.
 
Kelly was sure the K’Rang would want to be first out in the morning.

      
Connie also found out the ship’s name and its registry in her research.
 
It was the Red Eagle (naturally), registered on Schirra to Cooper Shipping, Inc.
 
Further research would reveal Cooper to be a shell company owned by a list of other shell companies.
 
In the end, no one owned her, at least no one but the K’Rang.

* * * * *

      
H’Topa had never seen time pass so slowly.
 
He monitored the local sensors to watch for any movement by security forces to advance on the ship.
 
He watched for hours and saw nothing.
 
The spaceport was shut down for the night and they meant it.
 
The only activity he saw after four hours were two taxis dropping off drunken crewmembers at their ships.
 
H’Topa turned the monitoring over to one of the crewmembers because he could no longer stand it.
 
He retired to his cabin and paced the rest of the night.

      
At 0600, the tower came up and the captain requested permission to take off.
 
Permission was granted and the courier ship made a lazy departure.
 
It wouldn’t do to invite local scrutiny by blasting out of the spaceport and breaking windows in the process.
 
H’Topa favored the latter departure; the captain favored the former.
 
The captain won.

      
The courier ship passed the minimum safety distance and increased speed to FTL power 3.
 
H’Topa waited for the scan report if any ships were following them.
 
The report came back negative and H’Topa retired to his quarters and went to sleep almost immediately.
 
The nervous tension of the past hours wore him out, and he slept for the next nine hours.

* * * * *

      
Alistair landed his ship at Geneva Main Spaceport.
 
A CI team ground car met him at the gangplank and whisked him away to the Defense HQ.
 
He walked in with the CI team chief and watched while the CI team placed the Colonel, Sergeant Major, yeoman and admin assistant under arrest.
 
Protests by their subordinates were stopped when the CI team chief showed his badge and credentials.
 
When they heard the four were arrested for espionage, all their former subordinates and office mates suddenly found better places to be.

      
The other CI teams rounded up a total of 14 members of the network support cells.
 
One of the transport specialists kept a record of all contacts he had ever made.
 
Over the next two days, two more agents and 12 more support cell members would be arrested.
 
Fleet Intel ran out of cells to put them all into and had to arrange for cell space for the remainder.

      
The CI team on Gagarin received their go order from Alistair.
 
The main team dropped in on Bart and Silke and removed them to a Fleet Intel holding facility.
 
Bart could not believe he had been caught and thought this was only an exercise.
 
After he’d spent 10 hours in an interview room reviewing the evidence they had against him, he realized he was in deep doodoo.
 
They had video of him and Silke steaming open the envelopes, opening the safes, and photographing the design plans.
 
They even had video of him and Silke celebrating afterwards on his apartment couch.
 
He gave up and asked if he could get a deal.
 
The investigator laughed and left him alone in the room, until he and Silke could be arraigned for espionage and other crimes.

      
Other teams went after the support network and took almost all of them with no fuss and no bother.
 
One of the dead drop servicers was armed and fired several shots at the team before pointing the gun at her temple and pulling the trigger.

      
The teams on Shepard were staged and ready for the order, therefore were quickest to execute their raids.
 
They had Cindy, in her signature lab coat, under arrest within minutes.
 
Ron walked unaware into the lab and a set of handcuffs only a moment later.

      
The ring factory janitor almost got away when the team arrested the wrong janitor.
 
The right janitor came around the corner, saw the commotion, figured it for what it was and turned to run—right into the arms of a burly security man that had been sent out to the ground car for the identification photos he had left behind.

      
Over the next three weeks, additional cell members were identified and gathered up.
 
The only hole at the end of the investigation was the identity of the human that controlled Bart and Silke.
 
Bart was willing to give him up, but had no useful information other than three phone numbers used to contact him.
 
All three turned out to be out of service numbers.

* * * * *

      
Kelly followed the courier ship to its exfiltration point.
 
He had to time his attack to ensure he identified his point of exit without letting him get through it.
 
They were still several days to the frontier, but Kelly was pretty sure he knew where they were going.
 
There was an area of few stars and no habitable planets in the Perseus sector.
 
It was a backwater area and only lightly patrolled, even by the K’Rang.

      
That was where he appeared to be making a straight line for and the most logical place to quietly cross the frontier.
 
He would give him one more day, then attempt to get him to surrender or destroy him.
 
Kelly’s experience with the K’Rang was that they preferred auto-destruct to surrender.
 
In the two cases where he had K’Rang vessels stopped and ready to be boarded, they activated their self-destruct mechanisms rather than be boarded.
 
He’d give it one more day to be certain of his destination and move in.

* * * * *

      
Alan Shepler wasn’t sure what had happened.
 
He had tried to log into the cooking forum, but it was down.
 
He used his last clean phone to call Bart Morton, but a stranger answered the phone.
 
He immediately stripped the phone down to its major components and drove around, discarding them at various crossings over the Mercury River.

      
Something bad must have happened and he didn’t want to be around for it.
 
Claiming a problem at the main facility, he paid a premium price to contract for the son of the former owner to run the plant until his replacement arrived.
 
He caught the next available transit to Fomalhaut.
 
It wasn’t until the ship left the atmosphere that he relaxed.
 
He had the flight attendant bring him two whiskeys and a glass of ice.
 
First class was the only way to travel.

* * * * *

      
The extra day was up and the courier ship was still headed right for the spot Kelly thought he was heading.
 
There was no other place he could be going.
 
At its current speed, they would reach the frontier in two days.
 
He ordered battle stations.

      
Kelly ordered FTL Power 4 to close the distance quickly between Vigilant and the Red Eagle.
 
The distance decreased slowly, too slowly for Kelly, so he ordered an increase to FTL power 5.

      
As the Vigilant reached missile range, Kelly ordered the helm to match speed.
 
Kelly came up on the communicator and hailed the courier ship.
 
“Red Eagle, this is the Galactic Republic Scout Ship Vigilant.
 
You are charged with espionage and of having received stolen Galactic Republic property.
 
Come to a halt and power down your engines.
 
Prepare to be boarded.”

      
The Red Eagle did not stop.
 
It did not power down its engines.
 
It accelerated.

      
Kelly instinctively shouted out, “Helm, emergency evasive, now!”

      
The helmsman did not hesitate and hit the evasive maneuver button.
 
The Vigilant automatically dove down, turned to starboard, and dove down again.
 
These semi-random maneuvers were designed to accomplish two things.
 
One was to throw off an enemy missile’s target lock, and the other was to put the Vigilant in a position to return fire quickly.

      
Kelly gave the order to fire one of mini-missiles and take out the courier ships engines.
 
As the gunners lined up and acquired missile lock, the Red Eagle also went into evasive maneuvers.
 
The two ships, set for evasive maneuvers, moved around each other like dancers on a stage.
 
The Red Eagle made a hard turn to starboard just as the Vigilant made a hard turn to port.
 
The distance between them increased.
 
Kelly ordered to secure from evasive and sent the Vigilant in pursuit.

* * * * *

      
H’Topa’s growing confidence crashed to the deck when the crewman announced a GR scout ship had just appeared astern and was closing on them.
 
When it increased speed and hailed them, he felt it was the voice of doom.
 
The captain, unfazed, stated, “I knew it was too easy.
 
Our friend out there doesn’t know what he’s up against.
 
This is no ordinary cargo ship.
 
Helm, increase speed to FTL power 5.5.”

      
The two ships traveling at FTL speed were unable to use their guns.
 
The captain ordered the Red Eagle to evasive maneuvers as he saw the scout’s missile bay open.
 
Both ships jinked across space dangerously close to each other.
 
The chance of collision became too great and the courier ship captain ordered a sharp turn to port and down.
 
He looked for anything to hide in or amongst and found nothing.
 
This area had been chosen specifically for its lack of space objects.
 
It left nowhere to hide, either.
 
The nearest star system was 23 minutes away, an eternity against a faster opponent like the scout ship.
 
Captain M’Toth ordered his ship into a sharp turn and ran headlong towards the Vigilant.