Red Sky At Morning - DK4 (44 page)

“Lucky?” Kerry winced as she heard an echoing boom. She edged a little closer to Dar and peered behind her to where Andrew was just haphazardly parking her car’s larger cousin. It was still overcast, and the air was thick with moisture. She sniffed at the wind. And thick with what smelled like gunpowder. “Those aren’t real bullets, are they?”

“Sure,” Dar replied. “But don’t worry. Everyone will be participating, or watching, or keeping the hell out of the way. We can get in and get out and not attract attention.” Unanticipated, but Dar wasn’t a person who argued with good luck when it happened to thump down on top of her head. Things had been strained enough lately; a little smooth sailing was definitely called for.

“Ah.” Kerry frowned. “Well, as long as we stay inside. I’m allergic to bullets.” A group chorus of deep, male chanting carried over.

“Mm...way too mucho macho for
moi.”

The rest of the group came over and gathered around them. “All right,” Dar spoke. “We’re heading for the administration building, over there. It should be pretty much empty.” She glanced around, seeing that most of the area was, in fact, pretty much empty.

Kerry shouldered one of the portable scopes. “I’ll take Mark to the telecom center,” she offered. “I remember where it is, and I’ve got my badge, still.” She displayed it. “He can hook up there and control the network.”

Mark looked up. “Brent, you and Josh come with us. Bring that cable kit, willya?”

Dar nodded. “Okay, the rest of you come with me to the computer
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center. Bring that array and the black box,” she said. “Dad, go along with Kerry. She’s headed toward the ops center, and there might be people around.”

Andrew regarded her thoughtfully. “All right,” he drawled after a moment.

“If anyone questions you,” Dar told them seriously, “just tell them you’re doing your job, and refer them to me, understand?” She made eye contact with the techs. “Don’t act like you’re not supposed to be here, got it?”

“Got it,” Mark assured her.

“Captain, you come with me.” Dar squared her shoulders and started to lead them toward the building.

The group sorted themselves out and followed her. Dar took the few moments of peace to run her plan through her mind again, checking the details and making sure she knew what she was going to do once they got to the computer center. After a few strides, she realized she had a diminutive shadow. “Thought you’d go with Dad.”

Ceci rubbed the side of her nose. She and Andrew really hadn’t talked about what they were going to do once they got to the base, but after Dar had told him to go with Kerry, it had seemed only natural that she—
What in the hell are you talking about, Cecilia? This isn’t natural for
you in any way!
“Well,” Ceci glanced around, “I figured that if you ran into any trouble, I’d just tell them that I’m your mother, and I said it was all right.”

Dar’s eyes perceptibly widened and went round. She gave the two techs a startled look, grateful they hadn’t heard.

Or, at least, they were pretending very hard not to have heard. She lowered her voice. “W...what?”

Ceci smothered a grin, and shrugged. “It always worked when you were a kid,” she explained soberly. “Those Marines usually recognized my authority a lot faster than their CO’s.”

Dar felt a blush coming on, and she hoped her employees wouldn’t notice. Having her mother along wasn’t something she’d figured into her battle plans. She sighed. Not that Ceci wasn’t right, she grudgingly admitted, remembering many a time when only her mother’s intervention had saved her from fates worse than death. Like cleaning the recruits’ latrine.

Dar felt her nose wrinkle in remembered disgust. “Good point,” she finally said aloud. “Maybe you better write me up an admin pass while you’re at it.”

They climbed the stairs, and one of the techs scurried forward and opened the door, holding it courteously as the rest of them approached.

Resting a hand on the doorsill, Dar paused and looked around.

No Marine. She wondered about that. Hadn’t there always been a guard at this door? It seemed very quiet, though, and after a moment she shook her head and continued inside the building.
It’s been years,
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Melissa Good
Dar. They could have changed a procedure or two.

The door closed behind them, its metal lock clicking home with an exaggerated sound that echoed slightly in the empty hall.

KERRY WALKED NEXT to Andrew, one hand nervously running up and down on the strap of the scope she carried. So far, they hadn’t seen anyone on their walk to the telecom center, and she was trying to decide if that was good or if would be better for them to meet the first potential objector instead of anticipating it.

Not that she was all that worried, not with Andrew strolling beside her, his long and somewhat rolling stride making her lengthen her own steps a little to keep up. She had no doubt her father-in-law could handle whatever uniformed minion got in their path, but still...

She looked around. It was creepy. “Is it usually this quiet?” She finally voiced her worry aloud, seeing from Mark’s quick look he’d been thinking the same thing. “I remember it being a lot busier the last time I was here.”

Andrew regarded the hallway, then turned and walked backward for a few steps, his pale eyes flicking over every inch of the painted wooden walls and the studiously polished tile floors. He reversed himself again and continued forward. “Well,” he paused, “Admin’s usually emptier than a sack of sand with a wet bottom on the weekend.”

“Kinda like our office,” Mark supplied.

“Yep,” the ex-SEAL agreed. “Usually a body or two more ’round hereabouts, though.” He glanced down an offshoot corridor. “Figure everyone’s out watching the pups.”

“Pups?” Mark asked.

Brent, walking beside him, was listening intently but pretending not to. He hadn’t said a word since they’d left the office, and Kerry found herself wondering again why he was there. She glanced at the shorter man’s face, and just then he looked up, and their eyes met. It only lasted an instant, then Brent jerked his head forward.

Kerry had felt the icy coldness behind his eyes, though, and she drew in a faintly unsteady breath.

“Got a couple of new SEAL teams goin’ through some situations,”

Andrew said. “That’s what’s all going on outside.”

The door to the telecom room loomed up, and Kerry tried the latch.

She was surprised to find it open, and she looked over her shoulder at Andrew in question. “That’s pretty careless.”

Andrew grunted and held the door open as the techs passed inside.

“Y’all g’wan in there. I’ll be right back.” He let the door close, then turned and just stood for a moment in the hallway.

Listening.

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THEY FOUND THEIR first two Navy personnel inside the computer center. Dar pushed the door open and stuck her head inside, giving the two console operators a nod as they looked up in surprise.

“Afternoon.”

One had been on duty the day she and the chief had tangled, and that one stood up as Dar entered. “Ms. Roberts—”

Dar held a hand up. “We’re just collecting some data.” She waved the woman back to her seat. “Relax.”

“B—” the woman protested.

“You’re not going to ask me for authorization, are you?” Dar swiveled and gave her a patented glare.

“No, ma’am, I’m not, but—”

“Great.” Dar continued toward the console and sat down in front of it, eyeing her arm in irritation.

The console operator opened her mouth, then closed it and gave her companion a little shrug. The male sailor also shrugged and shook his head.

Dar leaned on the console and scanned the screen. “Hook that up to the aux port,” she absently directed the shorter tech, a young man with curly red hair and russet freckles sprinkled over half his face. “I want it direct.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the tech replied quietly. “We do have the net direct card in it.”

“I know.” Dar hunted and pecked, scowling. “I don’t want it addressable,” she answered, cursing silently at the length of time it was taking her to set up the program she wanted. After a moment more, she gave up and unhooked the sling holding her arm close to her body and removed it, laying it over her thigh.

Ow.
Whether from lack of use or her injury, it was hard to tell, but her muscles were screaming as she flexed her injured arm. Dar grimaced but kept up the motion, finally laying her forearm down on the console and using both hands to type.
Ow, ow ow. Son of a—
A glance up at her reflection in the screen showed a tense, drawn face looking back, and she paused, taking a deep breath and releasing it, trying to will the pain away.

Stupid damn arm
, her mind muttered in disgust.
Stupid damn Chuck
and his stupid damn bat and his stupid parochial macho ego.
The jolts of pain went down her shoulder and all the way into her fingers, so intense it almost made her sneeze.

It was hard to keep her mind focused with all that. She had to retype the same line twice and then reenter a parameter before she finally had things set up the way she wanted them. It was a simple program, really—just a looping bit of code that would transfer the contents of the base’s main system to her storage box, sector by sector—

at a machine level that would not allow for any interference in the copying from any high level security that might be running. Sort of like 242
Melissa Good
copying the encoded digital signal from a CD, rather than recording the sound as it was produced. She hoped that would protect the integrity of the data. Any attempt at a simple copy could trigger God only knew what, if someone really knew what they were doing and had protection in place. Dar was surprised, actually, that her previous intrusions hadn’t been detected and objected to. She’d figured that either meant whoever was doing this wasn’t as good as she was—or the person was a lot better.

Dar sighed and hit enter. She wished she knew which it was, remembering a time when considering anyone to be “better” was an alien thought to her. Another sigh. God, she’d been such a cocky son of a bitch.

She moved slightly, and a shot of pain made her suck in her breath and hold it, her eyes blinking away the sudden tears. Dar realized the painkillers she’d taken before they’d left were wearing off.
Shit.

C’mon, Dar. You used to just work past this, remember?
For a moment, she just closed her eyes and concentrated, allowing the ache to become something she could handle and put into the background of her conscious mind. It took a little longer than it used to, but after a bit she was able to start breathing normally, and let her eyes open, focusing on the screen and the task before her.

Okay. I can do this.
Her mind cleared, and she started typing again.

Logic strings emerged grumpily from long unused memory cells, but it only took two or three tries before she had a relatively working loop going. “Okay.” She glanced at the tech kneeling nearby. “Ready?”

The redhead looked up at her confidently. “Ready, ma’am.”

Dar hit the enter button. For a moment, she thought she’d screwed up the program, then the screen flickered and started scrolling a hexadecimal display with commendable obedience.
Whew.

“Wow.” The tech watched, evidently impressed. “You did that on the fly?”

Dar shrugged modestly. She was aware of the Navy console operators watching over her shoulder with interest. One whistled under their breath. Dar rested her chin on her hand and wished herself elsewhere.

“’Scuse me.” Ceci’s voice came closer. “Here.” The older woman put something down on the console, then rested a hesitant hand on Dar’s shoulder. “They were out of Evian.”

Dar eyed the cute container of MacArthur Dairy chocolate milk and found herself smiling. God, her mother had always hated her constant consumption of this stuff. “Guess I didn’t turn into a chocolate cow after all, huh?”

“No,” Ceci said. “All those sleepless nights worrying about you keeling over from scurvy, wasted.”

Dar half turned and glanced up. “Did you? Really worry about that?”

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Ceci studied her daughter’s tense face. “Yeah,” she admitted quietly. “I worried about you all the time, for a lot of reasons.” She paused. “I guess I shouldn’t have.”

Dar thought about that, then she shrugged a little. “Maybe it’s a mother thing.”

One pale eyebrow lifted. “It sort of grows on you after a while,”

Ceci said. “Surprises the hell out of me sometimes.”

Dar grinned slightly. “I bet.”

Her mother chuckled with a hint of wry humor. “I’ve got some ibuprofen. Interested?”

Dar nodded in thinly disguised relief. “Thanks.” She accepted the dose of small pills and opened her milk, washing down the painkillers and drinking the cold, sweet liquid with a feeling of pure relief. The program was running, transferring the information to her secured storage at a very good rate, she had ibuprofen, she had chocolate milk—

things were looking up.

The only thing she was missing at the moment was...

“Dar.” Kerry’s voice made her look up and spot her lover coming in the door. “Mark’s having trouble syncing the circuit. He wants to know if you know anything odd about the data rate.”

Ah.
Dar leaned on the console and regarded the blonde woman.

Kerry’s brows were creased and her pale hair was messed, apparently from her running her hands through it. Definitely a sign of her lover being a little distraught. “Nothing concrete. He want me to go take a look?”

Kerry came up to her and leaned on the console, peeking at the screen before answering. “He didn’t say that, just wanted to know if you had any hints.”

One of Dar’s eyebrows lifted. “He couldn’t just call and ask?”

“Um.” Kerry fiddled with a button on her shirt, then peeked up from under pale lashes. “He didn’t want to chance the cell?”

“Uh-huh. And he had to send you to ask?”

Kerry’s lips tensed, masking a smile. “I volunteered.”