Audacity (Warner's World Book 5) (42 page)

She knew she wouldn’t get it straight away but she also knew that he would be giving it his utmost priority. She liked having that power over people. She smiled and decided to use the intervening time to catch up on the news.

The headline story was from where she had just come. She chuckled seeing Bakun Likta’s photo along with footage from the rally in Lewista. “Oh Mr Likta you’ve made it oh so easy now” she said out loud.

Several blocks away at the Likta Corporation office Aras Leptude saw the same news broadcast. “Oh what have you done?” he exclaimed out loud from inside his office. His mind began racing as it analysed the implications. The first thing that crossed his mind was that the authorities must be closing down or taking over all Likta Corporation offices and assets. He hailed the Likta spaceport desk and told them to ready his personal shuttle. He also issued an order for the immediate departure of the seven heavy lift freight shuttles currently at the spaceport with a destination he would forward in the next few minutes.

“Damm, damm, damm” he muttered to himself. ‘Where can I send them where they won’t be interfered with?’ But his mind was overloaded with anxiety and he could not think straight. ‘Get it together Meeka’ he chided himself. He fired up a space chart and did a search for an unoccupied star system within two week’s warp of Cheklin. It found two. He selected Oromus and zoomed into the system. Its star had long since given up the fight to fill the system with energy and its two inner planets were listed as ‘dead’. There was a mining lease still active on one of the larger asteroids in the outer reaches of the system but no actual mining operation underway. “Perfect” he said out loud and composed his message to the spaceport desk conveying the coordinates.

He wondered how long it would be before the ISS came calling, figured it would be within the hour and decided it was time to leave. But he also needed to download certain data and then cover his tracks within the Likta Corporation computer system.

Back at her hotel Torine responded to the ISS Chief’s hail. She listened as he explained about the order he had just received that directed him to take over the Likta Corporation’s offices. “No you will not detain him” barked Torine. “Occupy the offices by all means but let Mr Leptude go. I will deal with him.”

“And if you fail it will be my head on the block” said the ISS Chief.

“That is not going to happen but your head will be served on a platter if you cross me.”

“Very well then, have it your way. My team is already on its way. The flyby data is now available. You had better hurry.”

A minute later Torine was watching the movie taken by the surveillance drone of her target’s apartment building. Conscious of the time she stood up and said out loud “piece of cake.” She grabbed her wind jacket and put it on over her running gear, secured the pistol in the jacket’s inner pocket and left her room.

Ten minutes later Aras was still wiping out his data records when the front desk rang to inform him that ISS officials had arrived demanding all staff assemble in the front foyer.

He told the receptionist to delay them for as long as possible. He set his computer system to reformat all memory and threw a few of his effects into his bag and made his way down the internal elevator to the basement car park. From there he would make a quick dash to his apartment before going to the spaceport.

Torine decelerated from her brisk jog and entered a fast walk as she approached Leptude’s apartment building. The gold plated sign out the front proudly announced its name as the Amatailon. It was a good 130 storeys tall but Torine knew she would only have to go down and not up. She entered the public foyer and placed her communicator next to the security node that controlled access to the elevators and was rewarded with a slight ping sound and the doors opening.

She knew from the schematics that Leptude would be entering via the underground carpark, where he had a reserved space on level P2. She hit the corresponding button and rode the elevator down. As she did she received a call from the ISS chief that Leptude had just left his office.

She exited the elevator and the lights automatically lit up the area for her. As she walked to Bay 14, two cars entered on the access ramp. Torine felt the reassuring presence of her pistol inside her jacket pocket. There was no way either of these could be her target’s vehicle. She knew it would take him a while longer to arrive. But she did not want to be seen. So she ducked in between the two cars parked in Bays 10 and 11 and pulled the hood of the jacket over her head and pretended to fiddle with the car door. The drivers exited their vehicles and struck up a conversation together as they made their way to the elevator.

She waited several more minutes and watched another vehicle park and its occupant leave via the elevator. The sound of another car coming down the access ramp made her focus yet again on the new arrival. It swung around and drove into Bay 14. She withdrew her pistol.

Aras Leptude checked the sensor light that flashed on the device he had recently affixed to the car’s dash. It was linked to the motion sensor that he had installed. He flicked the thermal sensor switch and noted a heat source three bays to his left, between him and the elevator. He withdrew his pistol and toyed with the idea of confronting whoever was there. But he felt a moment of real fear and thought that discretion was the better part of valour at this stage. ‘To hell with it’ he said to himself as he opted to stay in the car and reverse out.

The sudden movement of the car surprised Torine but she recovered quickly realising that somehow she had been detected. She stepped forward towards the driveway with her pistol held extended out in front of her. She fired once, twice and a third time at the vehicle before it sped to the exit ramp, turning hard and accelerating back up the ramp.

Torine pumped her legs fast to try and close the distance so as to get another shot. As she rounded the ramp access she shot another two rounds into the vehicle. The vehicle careened and sideswiped the railing but regained control and sped around the next bend.

“Fuck” yelled Torine. She knew she should ask for backup from the ISS chief to reacquire her target, but her pride won out. She ran back to the elevator and rode it to up to the foyer where she exited in a hurry. She flagged down a passing taxi and gave as her destination the spaceport. The taxi’s AI driver confirmed the destination and advised her of heavy traffic ahead. “Fuck it” cursed Torine.

“There is no need for abusive language” responded the AI.

“Oh shut the fuck up” barked Torine and sat back in her seat fuming.

Also trying to negotiate the heavy traffic was Aras though he was now a good five minutes ahead. He hailed the spaceport desk and was surprised to hear that the ISS had not yet arrived there. Ten minutes later he met one of the staff at the corporate loading dock and a couple of minutes after that boarded the already prepped shuttle. He was delighted when Control gave him permission to launch and he wasted no time in taking off.

As he climbed above the planet he sent a message to his fellow conspirators which simply said ‘Confirm, new objective is Cheklin. Timetable must be advanced seven days.’

In a flash he warped away.

At the same time Torine was cursing the fact that he had already taken off. She knew she had cocked this up big time. She sat down in a chair on the concourse her head in her hands trying to come to terms with her own failure. Her communicator rang and she could see it was from the ISS Chief. She hit ignore but before she could refocus a message came through from the ISS Chief requesting advice on Leptude. She slammed the communicator into the ground.

It took her a few minutes to regain her composure. She took a shuttlebus across the spaceport to the private terminal. Ten minutes later she was lifting off in her own craft. As she began exiting the atmosphere she received several messages. Two stood out and she tapped the first from the head of the ISS. To her astonishment she was being recalled. She could not believe it. She knew there could be no way that her failure here was known at ISS HQ. There just wasn’t enough time. ‘Interesting’ she thought.

Her craft was approaching her designated warp out location. If she was being recalled time was not that critical, so she tapped the other message of note. It was from the head of Foreign Intelligence Agency, acting under direction from the First Consul. To her amazement she was being tasked to eliminate the head of the ISS. “Very interesting indeed” she said out loud.

Chapter 33. Kiev over Chelora 1730, 24 August

Dave had brought along a kernel of his planning team, comprising Ivan, Chase, Jim and Julian. They had spent the last hour explaining the way they intended to secure the space station. It was a much more positive Jim who outlined the new force restructure. 

Julian managed to keep his report on the analysis of the simulation results to just the key points. Dave had to give him a look twice when he looked like he was going into too much detail. But to Julian’s credit he delivered his points well. The differences in the estimated casualties was profound, in a positive way for the marines but not so for the droids.

“If you can pull this off” said Phil “I don’t give a fuck about the droids. We can keep churning those out. I like it, but I want to see a demonstration. How long would it take to put one on? Just a single integrated company. I want to get some feedback from your marines Jim on whether they think it will work. Cause if it doesn’t then it’s got to be the old way.”

Jim nodded. “We’ll need a few days just to iron out some of our procedures. The 28
^th
?”

“OK the 28
^th
it is then” said Phil.

Chapter 34. Aspliar to Nilsun2 1745, 24 August

Arras Leptude was still sitting in the pilot’s seat of his shuttle a few minutes after entering warp. His heart rate was up way too high and he knew it. He was breathing in short gasps. ‘Too much stress’ he said to himself. He closed his eyes and tried to slow his breathing.

Then he felt this burning sensation on the left side of his face. “Aagh!” he screamed. He put his left hand to his cheek but quickly pulled it away. He stared in shock at the pieced of bubbling flesh stuck to his hand. He flicked the detritus away with his right hand, unbuckled his harness and quickly made his way to the small medbay.

He entered the bay in tremendous pain, but he knew what he had to do. He hit the control on the wall to commence the treatment assessment process. The AI voice directed him to lie down on the treatment table which was rising up out of the floor. He did so but another burst of intense heat made him fling his head over to the right side in agony.

The AI activated a head restraint that, despite his almost violent gyrations, managed to secure his head in a fixed position. The scanners went to work while Arras’s body transferred the gyrations down to his arms and legs. Further restraints were applied and Arras found himself unable to move any limb. Yet the pain was maddeningly intense. So he screamed at the top of his lungs - but only once. The injection worked its magic in short order and Arras lost conscience.

Chapter 35. Slidwon 2000, 24 August

“I don’t see why you have to go in person” argued Jebna. He was carrying Angina’s luggage out to the hopper. It had been a hot steamy day and finally a coolish breeze was sweeping across the landing bay outside Angina’s office. It was welcomed by Jebna but it did not appease his concerns.

“They will not believe an envoy. It has to be from me” said Angina emphatically. “We’ve been through this already Jebna.” Jebna reluctantly nodded and handed the bag over to the pilot as he waited outside next to the hopper. As the pilot stowed the bag Angina added “Now you make sure you keep a tight rein on things while I’m away. If you need to contact me, use our special channel.”

“Don’t worry I’ll keep the wolves at bay. Good luck” said Jebna.

Angina took Jebna’s hand and held it between her own. She looked into his eyes. “Thank you Jebna. We can do this. We will prevail. I’m sure of it.” She leaned forward and kissed Jebna on the cheek.

The gesture took Jebna by surprise. Never before in all their dealings had she shown him such affection. He smiled and she turned and boarded the hopper. It lifted off and zoomed away into the night sky.

Chapter 36. Resolute over Chelora 0730, 25 August

Julian and Gunter were in intense conversation in the officers mess. They had been there for the last twenty minutes. Both had woken early unable to sleep because their minds had been in overdrive since the previous night.

It had been Gunter who sparked off the proceedings the previous night at the conference to nut out the droid integration issues. Dave had expressed doubts about their ability to train enough operators for the command droids. He also worried about their vulnerability. Julian had to confess that both mastering the command software and the handling of the droids were serious issues.

It had been then that Gunter had asked “why don’t we integrate the droid and marine comms nets and then have the droids respond to the same commands that the marine leaders use. That way the marines don’t need to learn a new system. We just need to implement a voice parser and a limited set of keywords and commands for the droids.”

Julian was blown away by the simplicity of it and between the two of them shot down every obstacle proffered by the others at the conference. Even Ivan had to admit that the failings in the past when it came to voice command systems for the earlier synth bot programs had faltered because they were primarily too ambitious.

Dave in the end gave them the go ahead to work on a system that would focus on basic commands like fire, move, clear and defend. More complex commands like secure, delay etc were off limits for now. He set them a deadline. They had two days to get it ready for a test that would decide if they would adopt it. It was a ridiculously short deadline and Dave knew it but he saw no other option. In the meantime just in case they failed to deliver, Jim would press ahead with the training of the operators.