Fracture Lines (The Glass Complex Book 2) (15 page)

Monty turned his head and appeared to be conferring with his wives, off screen. He returned his attention to Steg, his agitation building.

“You can’t do that to us,” he shouted. “I’ll kill you all if you don’t stop taking our water. You, de Coeur, I’ll make an example of—the agony of your death will resound across Terran space.”

“Monty, threats won’t help. You’re a danger to us and to the ship. You can waste time while we continue to empty your tank, or you can cease hostilities.”

Monty looked away again. His wives were off camera and Steg assumed they were advising him. A long conversation ensued. At last Monty turned back to the camera.

“My wives advise me to listen to you,” the cephalopod said. “What do you propose?”

His body language was less arrogant, thought Steg, although he was still a brilliant red. Steg detailed his requirements, which, he hoped, would ensure the aliens stopped being a threat.

“You must agree to cease your attacks on
Wasp
, its crew, and the mercenaries. We want cameras inside your tank, monitoring your work areas and all the possible exits from your tank. Surrender your manufacturing equipment and raw material, and your weapons and explosives. If we detect any further threat, we’ll re-commence draining your tank without any warning or discussion. Understood?” Steg had no confidence the alien would cease hostilities; however, he needed to maintain a positive approach while expecting the worst.

Monty conferred with his wives. After a minute he returned his attention to Steg. “We agree. We’ll set cameras up for you, covering exits and work areas. It’ll take an hour. There are two access locks. One is in the shuttle bay where the water valves are located, and there’s one here, adjacent to the glass wall. We’ll use the bay lock to surrender our materials, including weapons and explosives. Is that acceptable?”

“Yes. In one hour, we want to see camera links in place. Also, in one hour you should have completed moving everything I requested into the shuttle bay lock.” Steg instructed Iwao to end the connection.

Dean asked Steg, his expression quizzical. “Do you trust him?”

“No, not at all.”

“Good. There are two other locks, which he didn’t mention, both accessing internal areas of
Wasp
. I daresay he thought you wouldn’t know about them.”

“I suspected he was hiding something; it was far too easy. He’ll retain enough equipment and weapons to support whatever he’s planning. However, for the moment, we’ll play fair. Kirby, instruct your men to stop draining the tank. Leave the bladder in place so they can recommence if necessary. Work with Dean to guard the access points including those Monty didn’t mention. You’ll need some fast response teams; go for maximum flexibility. I expect we’ll see some attempt to break out later today, either at shift change or late tonight, possibly after midnight. Identify paths between Monty’s exit locks and the shuttle bays. I think we can block their access to the bridge, leaving them the alternative of using a shuttle for their escape. Plan on allowing them to take a route to a shuttle that is not a primary craft—it may end up being destroyed.”

“Agreed. We can funnel them in almost any direction. Can’t make it too easy for them, though; it would raise their suspicions,” Dean said.

“Yes, their exit will require careful stage managing. They’ll possibly try to take hostages, to prevent us destroying them when their shuttle leaves the starship.”

“Sir?” The interruption came from the communications expert.

“Yes, Iwao?”

“If I had a few hundred tons of water and suitable equipment, I’d start using the water to produce an explosive mixture of gases.”

“Hmm. Dean, Kirby, assume Monty has weapons grade explosives in either solid or gaseous form. There are gas detectors throughout the ship—make sure they have hydrogen in their detection spectrum. Check if Engineering has reduced the power supply to the aliens’ habitat; they should be providing only enough for internal lighting. When they depart, we might have to pump the air in their habitat out to space, in case they leave an explosive mixture booby-trapped for us.”

Kirby said, “I’ll get the bladder team thinking about how they would clean up—they’re good engineers.”

“Good. I’m going to the main bridge. I plan to be back after lunch.” He had not heard from the commander about the contents of the message the Xesset had sent to Monty.

“Oh, good, I was about to page you,” Gillespie said when Steg entered the bridge. “We’ve been checking the message header and metadata to ensure its accuracy. The contents are interesting—damning, actually.”

“What have you found?”

“The Xesset are protesting because they haven’t heard from Monty on schedule. They’re wittering on about his lack of communication. The message also confirmed their route; they listed the way stations they’re planning to use, which is excellent detail for us. We can use their course data to determine our tactics.”

“Excellent. I suppose we’d better prepare a message to send back from Monty. Do you have enough information to produce a suitable reply?”

“Yes, I think so. My people are checking if they can determine whether there are buried sequence metrics somewhere in each message. You know, something indicating this is message ten, this one is eleven, twelve, and so on. The Xesset will know a message is suspect if it doesn’t contain the necessary sequence metric. I’ve had my communications team working through all the copies of Monty’s sent messages, but so far nothing stands out.”

“Interesting possibility. Perhaps we should take a risk?”

Gillespie said, “I’ve reached the same conclusion. I’ll get my team to draft a reply, based on the message threads. It’ll be ready for review in an hour.”

“Good. I’m heading to the mess. I feel as though I had breakfast yesterday and nothing since.”

“Give me a minute and I’ll join you. After lunch I’m back on watch until midnight,” the commander said.

“You seem to be popular with the Fain?” the commander commented as she sipped her coffee. She and Steg were enjoying a quiet moment in the officers’ mess, both understanding they had challenges to address after their meal.

“What? Oh, yes, they enjoyed patching me up, I think.” Steg recalled the scalpel. “It was touch and go for a moment.” He felt his face redden and changed the subject. “You’re ex-Fleet?”

“Retired with a large salvage bounty. My neighbors had no idea of what Fleet life was about, and we had nothing in common. Got bored. So five years ago we purchased
Wasp
—it was a retired frigate, ex-Alliance Navy—they’d removed all its weapons, of course, although we soon added what we thought were necessary once the War Merchants issued our license. ‘We’ including Rose Curtis, commonly called Curtains—she heads up Weapons, and our Engineering chief, Thi Baan. He’s Tacian, runs his department efficiently. You haven’t met him; he’s always in Engineering. Rose and Thi were on the same salvage trip with me, retired at the same time, and were as bored as me.”

“Bored now?”

Gillespie laughed and took another sip. “Certainly not. There’s a bit too much risk, though, this time. What do you think?”

Steg considered the question. He was not risk averse, yet did not think he took undue risks. He said, “I’ve been talking with your Weapons team and if the changes to
Wasp
are as good as everyone says, I believe we can defeat the Xesset, even if we’re outnumbered. This ship’s larger, almost as fast, and, from what I’ve been told, is strongly shielded, both for defense and stealth. We’re carrying heavy-duty weapons, far heavier than the Xesset can mount on their smaller ships. So, unless we suffer some unexpected misadventure, which is always possible, I’m confident we’ll win out.”

“What about Monty?”

“An irritant. Oh, of course, he can harm us. We don’t know what surprises he has up his sleeve, so to speak. We’ve enough mercs to manage him and his wives. It depends on his strategy, I suppose. We’ve threatened his habitat by draining off a hundred tons or more of his water supply, and he knows we can drain a lot more. We’ve cut off his power, we’re guarding his exit points, and he’s lost communications.”

“I wanted to ask you: how do you access and control his communications?”

“I’d prefer to leave the discussion for another day.”

“Understandable. I’m still curious, however.”

“Commander, when I can, I’ll tell you.”

“Jessica, please.” She patted his hand as she stood. “We’d better see what’s happening, I suppose.”

“Indeed. I’ll check Monty’s status, first. I’ll be on the bridge in thirty minutes. I want to re-read the Xesset’s last message and review your proposed reply.”

“Comms will be ready for you,” promised the commander.

Steg returned to the war room to find Sergeant Kirby and Captain Dean in conference with three other mercenary sergeants; two were from Dean’s company, and one was from another of the mercenary companies.

Dean turned to Steg. “We’re allocating rapid response resources. Everything is quiet, for the moment.”

“Calm before the storm,” Kirby predicted.

“Anything I need to know?”

“The AWE is still in position; corridors are sealed, Engineering has confirmed power has been cut off except for a domestic connection, and we now have cameras giving us views of different parts of the habitat. Not total coverage, of course. Monty surrendered large quantities of weapons and explosives. There’s been no noise or movement at any of the locks, at least, nothing we can detect,” replied Kirby.

“Good. As you said, it’s the calm before the storm. I’ll be on the bridge, if you need me. I want to review our recent Xesset messages.”

Steg read and re-read the latest communication from the Xesset to Monty; it had arrived in the last hour. He read it again, deep in thought. He read the earlier message. He turned to Commander Gillespie.

“There’s something wrong with these.”

“What do you mean?”

“They both have a different feel compared with previous messages. The prior messages were direct, had no surplus details, contained bare information. See, here, the messages are far too detailed and precise, and are set out with a lot of deliberation. It’s as though they’re saying ‘Hey, come and get us.’ There’s too much information about their course, about their intentions.”

“I see what you mean. Ross, what do you think?” The commander handed the flimsy to the Comms lead.

Ross perused the message again. “I’ve read it six times. I wondered. I thought there was something different. I agree.” He handed the flimsy back to the commander.

“We’re being set up,” Steg said. “Somehow Monty has broken through our communication barrier. I wonder—Ross, can you check what private messages from everyone—crew, mercs, officers—have been transmitted over the last twenty-four hours? If Monty used his insects to reach Attwood or anyone else who doesn’t believe he’s betrayed us to the Xesset, he may’ve persuaded them to send a message in some kind of code to alert his friends.”

The search took thirty minutes. Ross indicated the main display in front of his workstation, drawing Steg’s attention. “Look. Here are two messages. Attwood sent a message early this morning. And—what’s his name—the young lieutenant—ah, Berkin—also sent one, almost at the same time. Same addressee. Each message is made up of blocks of characters, a code of some kind. Here’s a third one, sent by Fowler, also blocks of characters. Monty knew his targets.”

“So he managed to send word out before we shut off the corridor. I suspect he used his bugs with a pre-recorded message to communicate with the targets, possibly via their implants; it was a matter of getting close enough, I suppose. Monty’s a definite challenge.”

Commander Gillespie came over from her station. “What have you found?”

“There are three apparently coded messages with indications they were sent on Monty’s behalf,” Ross replied, indicating the selection on the screen.

“We can assume the general content,” Steg added.

“And the senders were?”

“Attwood, Fowler, and Berkin.”

“Idiots. I’ll ban them from sending any more messages unless we verify the contents, first”

“I suspect Monty’s using small bugs to contact them. We’ll need to decontaminate
Wasp
,” Steg said. “Can Weapons handle that for us?”

“With enthusiasm—her team will enjoy the challenge of finding and destroying tiny, Monty-made bugs. I’ll get them started. It’ll take an hour or so to program the AI sweeps.”

“Good. Weapons also needs to be on alert for the arrival of Xesset ships. I suspect Monty’s requested them to come to his rescue. The question is whether they’ll send one or two ships to carry out their mission. It depends, I suppose, on what they see as the risk for their freighter. Let’s assume the worst: two ships to attempt his rescue, with resources for a number of boarding parties. Commander, may I work with Astro and Weapons to determine our strategy? We’ll reverse the ambush.”

Thress, the Astro watch commander—Thress seemed to be her only name—was eager to help address the problem and instructed her team to load and display starcharts matching their course. The multi-dimensional hologram added depth to the chart data, highlighting
Wasp’s
current position and marking the intended path the starship would travel in the next two to three days. The Weapons lead joined in the planning session, as did Commander Gillespie.

“As we know, the freighter is traveling from Astoner to Eos,” Thress said. One of her team members added the proximate freighter course to the display, and she continued. “We should intercept them here, in about fifty hours, if we continue our present heading and speed. You said the Xesset are providing three ships to escort the freighter?”

Steg said, “Yes, although they’ve now changed their strategy. We need to re-plan. Assume one Xesset starship remains with the freighter. The other two are on an intercept course to reach us, well before your time point. My reasoning is they’ll want to stop us before we reach the freighter. So, they’ll look for us here, don’t you think?” He indicated a point along their path, away from way stations and standard shipping lanes.