Red Angel: Book II: Raiders (Red Angel Series 2) (24 page)

"Captain, we're approaching the search area for the GPS coordinates we were given," said the Nav officer. "Three minutes."

"Comm, establish a tight-beam connection to the Lapis." Hargrove felt his excitement rising with every passing minute.

"Captain, Captain Thayer on monitor one."

"Elaine, time to cut back to minimum power and go passive, unless you want to give the raiders a handicap."

"Then it wouldn't be a surprise party, Harry."

Thayer's face was smiling ear to ear. "True. All right, party hats on—"

"Shit—" the Radar officer shouted as the Cabiri was slammed with multiple explosions.

The Comm officer, who hadn't buckled in, was thrown from his chair, bounced off the Nav officer, and hit the back wall. The Nav officer lay unconscious, slumped over in his seat. Hargrove and the other officers on the Bridge had an assortment of injuries from the violence of the impact: arms and hands striking panels or chair arms.

"Unidentified cruiser is accelerating away," said the Radar officer, coughing blood. "Damn! The Lapis is under attack ... four hits."

"Helm, maximum acceleration after that raider. Tac, prepare to fire, max load." Hargrove sat with his eyes glued to the hologram showing the two raider cruisers moving away.

"Two hundred gravities and increasing at one grav per second. Definitely military grade engines," said the Radar operator as he watched his panel between coughs.

"Weapons ready, Captain," shouted the Tac officer with one arm in his lap, covered in blood.

"Fire!"

"Six missiles away."

"Five hits on unidentified cruiser," the Radar operator said, a slight grin on his lips.

Less than a minute later, "Four incoming," shouted the Radar officer, and the ECM operator's fingers flew over his bloody panel.

"Chaff away, laser defense active—"

The Cabiri bucked as three missiles stayed on course and got past the lasers.

Hargrove watched the damage monitor as the reports began coming in: they had lost two missile tubes, two fighter bays had been destroyed, six areas had been opened to space, and every area seemed to have some level of damage.

"Tac, fire when ready."

"Four away. Ten seconds to impact."

"They're increasing their lead; we've lost one engine."

"Tac, keep firing as long as they stay in range," Hargrove said, hoping one of the missiles would get lucky and disable the raider.

"Four incoming, no, eight. Both cruisers are firing on us."

"Tac, stay with our raider," Hargrave said as seven missiles slammed into the Cabiri.

Thayer's jaw dropped as the monitor showed Hargrove thrown violently sideways into the arm of his chair and his head shaking like a bubble doll’s.

"Captain—" the Radar officer shouted.

Four missiles slammed into the Lapis before he could finish the warning, and a ripple of explosions sent aftershocks through the ship.

"Tac, fire when ready," Thayer said in a voice of steel as her eyes watched the damage monitor. It wasn't good: more than a hundred had been killed as the ship was breached in three different areas. The good news, such as it was: they had full power, all their missile tubes, and ECM survived intact.

"Unidentified cruisers accelerating away, Cabiri chasing one."

"Helm, max power, keep our raider in missile range." Thayer said, looking around the Bridge and finding everyone functional.

"Six missiles away," the Tac officer said, "Time to impact, ten seconds."

"Six hits," the Radar officer said several seconds later, smiling.

"Four incoming." The ECM officer's face was a mask of determination as he worked in vain to stop them.

The cruisers were too close, and the distance was covered in seconds. Four explosions rocked the Lapis, taking out a bank of two missile tubes, a bank of lasers, and causing additional damage to the Environmental section.

"The raiders are both firing on the Cabiri. It's lost power," the Radar officer said, slamming his fist into his panel. Then softly, "Bastards."

"Mac's on the way. Don’t let that raider escape."

"The raiders are accelerating away yet continuing their attack on the Cabiri and Lapis," Childs said, eyes glued to his radar panel.

"Nav, an intercept vector." MacLin's voice was space-cold as his eyes studied the hologram with the four cruisers. "Radar, tag Hargrove's raider red-one and Thayer's red-two.

"Vector on the helm's board, Captain."

"Helm, execute vector at max velocity. Tac, three and three on red-one and red-two when ready."

"Six away. Time to impact, red-two fifteen and red-one sixteen seconds," said O'toole the Tac officer with a predatory grin.

"They're combining their fire on the Cabiri," Childs said harshly, and then softly a moment later, "She's lost power.

"Nav, a vector a thousand kilometers in front of the two raiders." MacLin sat, eyes narrowed and lips pursed.

"Vector on Helm's board, Captain."

MacLin said nothing and the Bridge seemed suspended in time as he sat silent.

"Three hits on red-two; two hits on red-one," Childs’s words shattered the silence.

"Helm, execute a one second skip on the vector on your board." MacLin’s voice cracked like a whip. "Tac, ready a full load. Execute on whichever raider you acquire first."

The Bridge faded in and out almost too fast to notice, except for the eerie icy-cold sensation the skip produced in me. Silence again descended on the Bridge as everyone awaited the Tac officer.

"Six away on red-two," O'toole said. "Time to impact ... now." He laughed.

"Red-two lost power. Red-one skipped," Childs said, watching his panel. "I've lost Red-one. They must have cut all power."

"Comm, connect me to Commander Bitter and Colonel Graves."

"Connected," Jimenez said, and their faces each appeared in a split screen on monitor one.

"Colonel Graves, send one shuttle to inspect the Cabiri for survivors and two shuttles of your marines to inspect that crippled raider. Commander Bitter, scramble your fighters to support Colonel Graves's boarding action."

"Yes, sir," they replied in unison.

Fifty members of the Cabiri had managed to get into escape pods before the systems completely shut down. The raider ship, Rottweiler, had no survivors. The system computer had been destroyed, leaving no clue as to the location of their base. The Lapis had sustained substantial damage and lost one hundred fifty-six crew. Another forty-three were wounded.

"Well, Commanders, what now?" MacLin asked late the following day after the Vulcan and Lapis had docked at the Westar space station. The survivors of the Cabiri and the wounded from the Lapis had been transported to Westar hospitals. MacLin had been unusually subdued, as had Kris, who was feeling guilty that our information had led to an ambush. I felt the loss of so many humans but not personally guilty.

"I would like to wait and see what action they take next—"

"What! After this?" Kris blurted, clearly distraught.

"This just confirms what we already knew—they're vicious, vindictive, and more importantly not planning to leave the UAS."

"But if we close down the merchants and Controllers …" Kris said, implying they would have to leave.

"Or would they attack different targets, like merchants?"

"I kind of like Paulus's reasoning. Rounding up merchants doesn't seem as satisfying as destroying a raider's cruiser. No one is blaming the NIA. You told us where they would be, not when, and an engagement with two cruisers is always going to be costly."

"Alright, I'll get off a message to Adrian with our recommendation," Kris said reluctantly.

Early the next morning, Adrian replied.

To: Lieutenant Commander Sinclair and Lieutenant Commanders Paulus

Copy: Captain MacLin.

Return to Oxax when Captain MacLin is ready. Admiral Rawls is considering your recommendation in light of the ambush at Westar.

From: Lieutenant Commander Shrader

"I have to admit, I feel guilt over the ambush. I thought MacLin and Thayer would consider us to blame," Kris said. "But it would be like blaming Colonel Pannell for not having marines guarding us in the NIA building when the raider thugs attacked. We have to accept we're in a war with the raiders and the only rule is winning."

"I talked with MacLin earlier. He's planning on leaving tomorrow morning. He's anxious to get his bloodhounds back on the scent." I hooked my arm in Kris's when she smiled. "Let's go eat."

On docking at the Oxax space station, Kris and I caught a shuttle to the planet and then a marine shuttle flew us to the NIA office. When we entered, Stauffer was in the conference room with Adrian and Rich.

"Welcome back, ladies. I appreciate you stopping into the office straight from the Vulcan. One question and then you can go. Why do you recommend we not round up the merchants and Controllers?"

"In truth, I thought we should." Kris grinned and punched me on the shoulder.

Red made no effort to move although he could have easily struck her if he had wanted. I understood. If nothing else, it would keep her off cruisers and give her time to search for that elusive husband.

"Adrian favors that approach too," said Stauffer, "so why is the team recommending we not?"

"A team member wants to wait, so she gets us to wait," Kris said.

"Isn't that rather ... capricious?"

"Tradition. When we started the Smuggler's Project, I wanted to see the merchant ship that smuggled the red-headed krait. Adrian went along with my whim and Anna found the fake missile and that led to closing down the smugglers," Kris explained.

"Yes, a good example of why arbitrarily adding members to this team wouldn't work. Most senior officers would fight that policy—Anna wants so Anna gets. Why, Anna?"

"I don't believe rounding up the merchants and Controllers will stop the remaining raider or maybe raiders. So, I would like to know how they're going to change or not change their current methodology. If we can't figure it out, we still have the option of shutting them down." I wanted to ensure the solution wasn't only a temporary fix.

"I'll run it by Rawls. In the meantime, take some time off while we wait to see what they do. But don't relax your security." Stauffer looked to the ever present Pannell, who nodded agreement.

"I hear the Vulcan destroyed one of the raiders without getting hit even once, a unique situation. You'll receive a battle ribbon without having to endure the usual trauma," Alexa said as she entered my home office. I had retired there when I went home early—to think, not work. I knew the raiders were going to change their methodology, the question was—what were their options? They could try another code, but that seemed risky given we had cracked the current one. They could involve the merchants more, but that would mean exposing their agents, the Controllers, who they had been scrupulous about keeping anonymous. Of course, they could decide to kill us first.

"That's true, Mother. Kris says her uniform’s beginning to look like it belongs to a retired Admiral."

Alexa laughed. "You two have certainly earned more meaningful medals than most officers earn in their naval careers. Are you getting closer to catching them?" Concern was evident in her voice.

"I think it’ll depend on what they do or don't do next. They still have one and maybe two cruisers in UAS space, and I don't think they’re ready to leave. The credits are well worth the risk. We have to wait for the next Master Puzzle edition to find out." 

"Good, that means you'll be home for a while."

I spent the next couple of days reviewing merchant activity for the last five years. It soon became obvious that the Controllers did not use the Cloud Chaser, Star Trader, or Good Deal merchants to and from their assignments. So I started over, looking for any merchant that was in system a week after each raid. It took two days but I finally eliminated everyone except for the merchant ship Gypsy. It had been in position to relocate each Controller after the raid. I was convinced I had the right merchant when I verified the Gypsy had subsequently traveled to the systems where we presently thought the Controllers now resided: Stone Ring to New Zheng, Easter to Safe Harbor, and Holy Star to Oxax.

Then I looked at the Gypsy's activity over the past five years. Unlike the three messenger merchants, the Gypsy didn't confine its principle activity to a publication area. At the three-year mark, I did notice more activity at the raided sites. Given I was right about the Gypsy, the passenger logs identified the Controller at Stone Ring as Leo Massey, at Eastar as George Bernal, and at Holy Star as Ken Finch.

And according to the latest movements, Ken Finch had moved to Oxax and then to Westar to set up the ambush. Leo Massey had moved from Stone Ring to New Zheng and then to Oxax to arrange the ambush at the NIA office. George Bernal had moved to Safe Harbor.

It was late when I finally finished, and I sat back and considered what I had found. Not so much the Controllers' locations or why they moved, but how it affected their methodology. The three UAS merchants knew how to determine if the puzzle AU was valid, but I now knew they didn't know the Controllers—only the Gypsy knew them. The other three merchants were messengers paid to deliver the puzzle publications to ... who? Certainly not the FPU cruisers, given how careful the raiders had been to shelter the Controllers. Since there were several FPU and PRS merchants in UAS space at any one time, I concluded the hand off was to one or more foreign merchants working with the raiders.

So the UAS merchant meets a FPU merchant and gives the puzzle publication to him. Then I presume the FPU merchant delivers it to the raiders. But would the raiders give the FPU merchants their hiding place—very unlikely. So where were the three cruisers hiding? Was it just one place or one per publication area? And what was the Gypsy's part in this?

My head spun with unanswered questions and felt like hundreds of tiny men were banging on the inside of my skull to get out. That was probably the reason Red had disappeared into my nightdress—or else he was just disgusted that I couldn't deduce the answers. Frustrated, I sent Adrian my findings.

Several days later, I was notified that we had received three puzzles from the Checky Fools.

When I arrived at the office, Adrian, Kris, and Rich were already in the conference room looking deflated.

"Good morning, from the look on your faces the puzzles weren't real," I said as I sat with my cup of moo-coffee.

"All three are supposedly real. Each puzzle's AU had the double asterisks. But when I removed the non-Latin characters, I didn't see any of the words in the previous valid messages," Kris said.

"I sent them to your tablet, Anna." Adrian's voice had a hint of optimism.

I turned on my tablet and went through my normal procedure as a double check and then scanned the resulting strings. The same four words were in each puzzle.

"There is a message, and it's the same in all three puzzles.
Your end of days
."

Adrian and Kris paled; Rich sat with his mouth hanging open. It was a message meant for the four of us, and an acknowledgement that they knew we had deciphered their previous code. But that raised interesting questions—how were they now communicating, and did they have a current
winner or three
. Because all three AUs contain the two asterisks indicating they were real, I checked each AU and found each in an out of the way location in the appropriate system as indicated by the last letter in the string.

"This means they know we can decipher their previous code, still don't like us, and the messages are fake." Adrian shrugged in defeat.

"I don't think so. The merchants don’t know what the puzzle message says, only that there’s a valid AU coordinate; therefore they'll report to the designated area."

"But if they know we can decipher the message ... another trap? Do they expect us to follow the merchants?" Kris asked. "Well, at least MacLin doesn't need us to do that." She croaked out a laugh.

"Which is why it probably isn't a trap. I think they want us more than a cruiser. Besides, I don't believe they think they can fool the cruiser captains so easily again. They didn't fare well in the exchange." I had a feeling that one of the three messages was real. "If my assumptions about the Gypsy and the Controllers are right, then only Safe Harbor can be a valid target ... whether that puzzle message is valid or not."

Everyone grabbed their tablets and began reading my message to Adrian. After a long silence, Adrian and Kris looked up and nodded.

Eventually, Rich looked up and smiled. "Because none of them except the Controller on Safe Harbor has been there long enough to identify a target and a winner."

"But how does the FPU merchant and or the FPU cruiser know it’s a fake?" Kris asked.

"More importantly, if it isn't a fake, who's the target?" Adrian asked, clearly frustrated. "I should tell Stauffer what we suspect," he said as he rose.

Kris nodded. "Best to keep them informed as to what we surmise. If Safe Harbor turns out to be a target, they would be rightfully upset if they weren't notified, even though it's only conjecture at this time."

Rawls called for a meeting after Stauffer informed her of our conclusion.

"As I understand it, you believe Safe Harbor's the next target, but you don't know who or when," Rawls said, getting straight to the point. "Still think we shouldn't arrest the UAS merchants and FPU Controllers?"

Everyone looked to me and I felt my cheeks burning. I was close to capitulating when Red appeared and wound into my hair and draped his head on my forehead. For no reason I could determine, I felt he agreed with me and we shouldn't back down.

"Yes, ma'am. Their last message is clear—they aren't leaving until they're ready, and they want the NIA team dead. Rounding up the Controllers and the UAS merchants won't cause them to leave or to stop hunting us. Consequently, it might take years to discover their new methodology, whether they kill us or not."

Rawls sat deadly still staring at me for a long time, and it became so quiet I could hear people breathing in the silence that followed. "That's a persuasive argument, Anna. I'm sure Admirals Lultrel and Bell will agree that protecting this team's the priority. I concur with your recommendation. Good hunting."

"Well, what can or should we do now?" Adrian asked after Rawls and Stauffer had left.

"Spend more time at the firing range," Rich quipped, but I felt he was partly serious.

Adrian and Kris nodded almost imperceptibly.

"Wait for the next raid," I said. "I would like to go to Safe Harbor after the raid to see if they used the same procedure—and if they did, to identify the client they found."

"Seems rather heartless waiting to go until after the raid, but I agree. What else can we do without knowing who?" Kris looked resigned.

"Let's take the time to rest, as I agree with Anna. We’ll be off to Safe Harbor soon enough," Adrian said. "Meet here same day next week for an update."

The week passed slowly but I didn't mind. It was great being home. During the day I pondered the complex system the raiders had developed and hoped that if we could figure it out, we could destroy their operation. We were missing some critical pieces.

We knew, or I thought I knew, the Gypsy was used to set up a system for the raiders’ Controller and to deliver him to the system. The Controller initiated the ad and filtered the contestants until he found a winner. He then constructed a puzzle with the information the raiders would need ... but ... how did he know the coordinates for the UAS merchant to hand off the puzzle? It wasn't a constant because I checked—neither the system nor the AU remained constant. So where did he get the information?

The UAS merchant reviewed the puzzle publication each month and delivered the publication to the designated area when the AU had two asterisks. I was guessing to a foreign merchant, who then delivered it to a raider cruiser. But how did the foreign merchant know where the cruiser would be? They were careful, so I doubted the merchant knew the actual location. They met at some designated location, but was it static or did it change, and if it changed, how did the FPU merchant get the information?

I concluded a major piece of the puzzle to their methodology was how they communicated the location information. The system had been carefully thought out and designed to make sure that no one merchant's capture could expose the Controllers or the raider cruisers.