Birthright: Battle for the Confederation- Turmoil (27 page)

Everyone nodded
somberly.  They all knew what they were getting into.

"Alright,"
Cory took control.  "Let's go nail us a dirty Priman spy."

Tana Starr's day had
begun on a low note and sunk even lower as the morning wore on.  Her 'official'
duties as Dennix's chief aide consumed most of her time, and she was forced to
waste it on people wanting face time with the Senator to curry favor, offer
services, and sometimes outright bribery.  It made her realize even more
profoundly how badly these people needed solid, determined leadership.  These
people had no course, no purpose.  If only they'd see what her people could
offer, there would be no need for the war and bloodshed.

Until such time, she
would continue to serve the other half of her duties in the best way she could:
Priman officer and covert contact.  Salvor had already contacted her this
morning using their prearranged signal, and she was not in a position to offer
any help.  The Confeds had slapped an immediate and effective quarantine on
transport traffic, offering threats of a terrorist attack by Priman
sympathizers to the public as the reason.  Salvor, Velk, and what remained of
his team couldn't remain in their safehouse for long.  They had run into
unexpected resistance and lost a large number of their team, and sooner or
later even these rudderless humans would start searching the cities, and the
capitol was the logical first place to start.  She had scheduled a meet with
him tomorrow night, in a crowded nightclub.  She actually went there twice or
more a week, just to establish her presence as normal there.  It helped being a
'regular'; people watched out for her and she'd had an employee run off a
drunken suitor once or twice.  A quick conversation with somebody there was
noticed but not remembered by the staff and patrons.  It pained her to make
public contact again, but if she was going to do her job, that was the price
she needed to pay.

Loren's group had
changed into civilian clothes and started to plan their day.  Halley offered to
go scout the government center where Starr worked in Senator Dennix's offices. 
Merritt and Cory had gone to pick up two hovercars from a rental agency.  They
were the most common vehicle on the planet by make and color; six passenger,
two different shades of blue, lots of chrome and lights.  In any other city
they'd stand out like a sore thumb; here, they blended right in. 

They'd been torn
about what to do for a base of operations.  They didn't have the means to
acquire a big, well-located space, but a records search found that Tana Starr
didn't own a vehicle, meaning she took public transport or walked to work. 
They therefore settled on cheap dorm-style lodging near the spaceport that
tended to service the capitol building and the immediate area.  Long-haul
pilots tended to have a half day or more of free time as their ships were
unloaded, serviced, and filled back up for the next leg.  Most spaceports were
home to a fair number of low-service lodging; small rooms, prepackaged meals
available, and low prices catered to people who just needed a place to crash
for a while before heading back out.  The bonus was that the mostly-transient
population of a business like that afforded excellent anonymity.  Loren took
care of that aspect, and secured two rooms.

Web stayed with him
and helped lay in supplies, mostly organizing the equipment they'd brought from
Avenger and stocking up on food and essentials. 

By late morning,
everyone except Halley was back.  After a brief discussion, Web and Merritt
took one of the hovercars to go meet up with Halley in case Starr left during
her lunch hour.  Halley had already cautioned Loren to stay out of sight; Starr
had met him personally, and seeing him around her place of work when he had no
business there would likely make her suspicious.

The afternoon
brought no lunch dates and no surprises, so they prepared to follow her home
after work.  Loren and Web were ready in one hovercar, Merritt drove the
other.  Halley and Cory prepared to follow her on foot if she walked, in which
case Merritt would park the hovercar and work into the rotation following Starr
on the ground.  There had been a rushed meeting between the lunch hour and
Starr's expected afternoon departure between all of the Confed officers, during
which Halley had outlined some basic tradecraft.

First, while all of
them would be utilized in some way, Halley would start off in the most exposed
and critical position, often referred to as The Eye.  She would directly
observe Tana Starr and call out initial movements and reactions.  The Eye's job
was to steer the rest of the team onto their target; if Halley dropped the ball
or ran a sloppy intercept, the whole thing would go down in flames.  She was by
far the most experienced of the bunch when it came to surveillance, so it was
her call.

Second, she
discussed how to watch Starr without standing out.  They'd have  to rotate
positions and techniques to avoid detection.  If Starr saw any of them
repeatedly over time, in different environments, or caught unusual demeanor
from them such as trying to avoid eye contact, following too closely or making
sudden turns or stops while in close proximity to her, she'd be tipped off.

Third, they needed
to start thinking about the next step right away.  Look for patterns of
behavior; places she frequents, times she does things, routes she takes, people
she talks to.  Look for weaknesses in any place or routine she has.  Determine
any security or countersurveillance techniques she uses.  Think about how to
plan an attack using the environment they saw around them.  It was an intense
briefing from Halley, filled with lots of head-nodding and note taking.  In the
end, she pronounced them ready enough and they took to the streets.

Salvor was
uncharacteristically restless in the safehouse.  It was a nice enough place; at
least, that's what Starr had told him.  Unfamiliar with the trappings of a
surface-based home and the activities centered around it, he had taken her at
her word that everything around him was considered normal. 

They were in a lower
middle class neighborhood; the neighbors were hard workers, polite without
being nosy, and apparently completely unfazed by the 'three' young Drisk who'd
moved into the fixer-upper at the end of the street.  Salvor and Starr had
prepared an elaborate backstory about how he and his two operatives that were
seen in public were all starting a specialty transportation company, but the
people around the neighborhood just smiled and waved, none of them prying too
deeply.  Perhaps that would come later with familiarity, but Salvor wouldn't be
staying that long.

He considered the
tactical situation, which heavily favored his people.  They were in a
residential area with tightly packed, tall (three stories) but narrow houses. 
There were two, sometimes three tiers of homes that extended on for blocks and
blocks.  The ground level homes were like anywhere else in the civilized
galaxy.  The upper tiers had to have a lot more open space so as to not cast a
complete shadow over the surface levels.  The second level of homes was built
right over the first on separate supports.  The roofs of the first level homes
were where hovercars were parked, and after that gap the second levels
started.  Instead of streets, there were large open spaces with lanes where
hovercars were meant to rise or descend to the desired street level.  Instead
of yards, there were large open spaces, with shared patios and sidewalks,
backed up with invisible barriers and repulsor fields to stop people from
falling (or jumping) to their demise far below.

From his perch atop
the second level and without a third tier above, Salvor could see someone
coming from a long way off.  If somebody wanted to get to his place, they'd
need to either approach via the sidewalk in front, the open courtyard on the
west side of the home, or the roof.  He had three floors to choose from, and
besides Representative Velk there were still five more members of his original
strike team.  Things could be better, but they could be far worse.

Now, he just needed
Tana Starr to help them get out of the city.

Tana Starr either
felt she had nothing to hide, or she had nothing to fear.  She just walked
home, fifteen minutes from the immense capitol building complex, though there
was a public tube system she could have used had the weather been bad.

Halley had directed
the team and used every last trick she felt they were capable of.  They'd followed
her at a discrete distance on the ground, made easier by the fact that Starr
was apparently using zero countersurveillance tradecraft.  Halley had later
explained that the appearance of no countermeasures didn't mean there weren't
any in place, though.  Starr might go through certain chokepoints where she
could watch for familiar faces, or she might have some sort of remote
monitoring of her route provided by an accomplice or electronic means. 

Halley had taken no
chances.  With the exception of Loren, who had to stay in the hovercar,
everyone had been involved.  Several times, Halley had used Loren in the
hovercar to briefly watch Starr as Halley rearranged the rest of them, swapping
drivers in the other hovercar and racing to drop each other off on likely
routes of travel.  She'd forgotten how exhausting a serious, properly run
surveillance was. 

Still, it paid off. 
Starr arrived at her high-rise apartment, and based on the time it should have
taken to get up to her unit versus how long it actually took, Halley assumed
the woman had spent some legitimate time clearing her tail while in the
building.  That was fine; she didn't have an immediate interest in getting into
Starr's apartment.

The best part of
running an effective surveillance was watching the target relax and let her
guard down.  Loren's description of Starr as a hard-case staffer was confirmed
again and again during the trip, but things changed once in her apartment. 
Halley, watching from atop an adjoining building with high powered optics, saw
Starr shuck off her shoes and formal tunic, then head to a window in bare feet
and tank top to open it up and let the breeze in.  Starr seemed to savor the
wind in her hair, closing her eyes and allowing the faintest hint of a smile to
appear.  Halley had to remind herself that the legends had the Primans stuck
out beyond the butt end of civilization past the edge of the galaxy for a
thousand years; feeling the wind in her hair and the warm sunlight on her skin
might have been one of Starr's lifelong ambitions.

Starr went back into
her apartment and sat on a long couch, stretching out her legs and crossing
them as she extracted her comm device from her pocket and started to putter
around with it.

Halley quickly
checked her camera's settings.  She herself knew that there were many ways to
detect if you were being recorded; laser rangefinders, electrical emissions,
certain radio frequencies and magnetic fields in the right proportions were all
telltale signs that recording equipment was being used.  Web's insight about
using still images was a good one, but she only allowed herself to take a
handful of them and once Starr's comm device came out she stopped doing that as
well.  She had to assume Starr had access to as good or better technology than
she did, so from then on she resorted to just watching through the optics and
taking notes on a non-connected data pad lying next to her.  

Halley had commed
Web using her nanite-controlled dermal patch as she watched Starr's apartment. 
The woman was making a light supper, though it was hard to tell exactly what as
the residence started to fall into shadow with the setting of the sun.  She'd
asked Web to find a window inside the building she was sitting on top of so
that they could move their operation inside.  It was a shared
commercial/residential building, and Web quickly found an office whose tenants
had left for the evening.  He had entered and cleared it, then called her down.

They'd only gotten
settled in when Starr made her move.

"She just
changed clothes," Halley said simply.

"Anything
good?" Web asked, partially distracted as he was concentrating on
eliminating the signs of his recent break-in to the office.  He was using an
aerosol mister to spray the surfaces he'd touched; seconds afterwards, the mist
would have broken down the oils in his skin that left prints and damaged but
not destroyed most types of organic forensic evidence like hair and even blood.

"Looks like a
naughty nurse outfit, and she's putting on some old fashioned exam
gloves," Halley replied. 

"Don't you have
a getup like that?" Web replied, suddenly very close to Halley.  She
smiled at him coyly. 

"I was just
seeing if you were paying attention."  She grinned.  "And no, I don't
have one."

"But you could
get one, right?"

"I'd prefer to
use the molecule gloves, though," she said seriously, referring to the
bracelet-controlled 'gloves' similar to what the coroner had used on the dead
members of the Priman team that broke Velk out of the detention facility the
day before.

"Well, now I
know what to get you for your birthday," Web replied.

"That will have
to wait," Halley said, back to business as she commanded the comm line
open so everyone could hear.  They'd long since agreed that the only way this
would work was to have her run the show despite being lower in rank to all of
them, but service rank was much less important than expertise at this point,
and there were no objections.  "She's going out; she got dressed up nice,
put on some makeup, and she's making one last check in the mirror by the front
door.  Cory, Merritt, downstairs for the pickup; you decide who's on her
first."  Halley picked up her camera and started stashing it in her bag as
she made a whirling motion with her other hand for Web's benefit.  The meaning
had been explained earlier: it's time to go.  She swept the room as she made
for the hallway beyond, Web doing the exact same thing behind her to double
check.