Breakaway: A Cassandra Kresnov Novel (v1.1) (52 page)

"No," said Sandy, "he gets other people to do it for him."

"Still don't know what happened, there's some kind of strange lockdown virus in the local network I've never even seen before, it got control, let them in and got Dali out. No clue where they went ... you're sure it's Gordon?"

"PINS is useless in Tanusha, Ari, I just spent several hours in the hearing explaining that, and now Dali's escape proves it." PINSPublic Infrastructure Network Security. "Everyone in this city is so network dependent, they're blind without it. Effective security needs to operate independently from central command-decentralisation always comes with a force multiplier effect, whether it's in military systems, bureaucracy, economics or whatever. Centralisation is a weakness in any system. I'm amazed everyone's forgotten that here."

"You think Gordon's PINS is vulnerable?" Kazuma asked.

"Public infrastructure is government systems. With the amount of infiltration the FIA have done on Tanushan government systems, I'd be surprised if they hadn't written software precisely for case-by-case sce narios to infiltrate every major piece of public infrastructure in the city if they needed to ..."

"They can't take control of the whole damn spaceport, surely?"

"No, that'd be a waste of effort. Just the bits they need ... Ari, I'd like to establish a tactical command network, we need a com-frame in place, we can't afford overlapping operations here ..."

"I've already got you an Ops team from HQ," Ari replied, "they're setting up your com-net basics now, we've got net-ops tracking flightpaths and all available systems between here and Gordon. If they went that way they had good cover, we can't find anything yet ..."

"I don't think they will." Finishing her detailed sweep of Gordon's systems, and switching to broad overview ... Stared for several long moments at the massive span of spaceport, three major runways in a triangular configuration and a web of interconnecting taxi-ways, a big five-runway complex to the south of the spaceport for atmospheric flights ... that was a different system, thank God. The spaceport had a full forty operational shuttlebays, six more under construction in the new east wing. There were broad passenger halls, interconnecting transportation services with separate freight processing junctures on the lower levels, a traffic control wing, multi-level high security comnet-everything highly automated but still a twelve-thousand-strong workforce-fully operational at the moment, it seemed, traffic was normal, no alarms raised, flights coming and going.

She'd hooked into the flight-data systems before she'd even realised it, checking flights and schedules. Immediately found a shuttle registered as Federation-licensed on the old north wing thoroughfare, scheduled for departure at 4:50, in half an hour's time, headed up to Grenada Station ... where, it so happened, the Federation vessel Capetown was docked. Capetown, she knew from previous checks of the registry, was a charter vessel, under current lease of the combined delegations of numerous Earth East-Asian nations, most notably Indonesia, Japan and the Philippines, in that order of economic signif icance. The laws of jurisdiction in combined leases, she knew furtherfrom a CSA Intel briefing paper-were tricky, and had room for loopholes as to exactly who was allowed on the vessel and in what capacity. CSA Intel had had Capetown under close surveillance by operatives on Grenada since it had made dock, but hadn't spotted anything particularly suspicious ... although the FIA were nothing if not sneaky, and well experienced in dodging such surveillance measures.

"Berth 15," she said, "north wing, one of Capetown's own attached shuttles, I think. Departure at 4:50."

"Plenty of time," said Kazuma.

"If they're hooked into flight control they could go early," Ari warned.

"So land a flyer in front of them," said Kazuma, "they're not going anywhere."

"Not yet," said Sandy. "Ari, I want you to put the best person HQ have available on a network scan. Focus on the PINS fire-grid. I don't want to do it myself, these guys will know my patterns too well."

A brief pause as Ari sent that out. Then ... "They're on it."

Kazuma was staring at her from across the aisle. "You don't think that ..." and was interrupted by an incoming frequency whose accesspattern Sandy recognised immediately.

"Hey, Ricey, I hope you've had enough sleep."

"Hey, gorgeous. What have you got for me, and do I finally get a chance to shoot at that silly bastard Dali?" Her tac-display showed the signal source, a SWAT FT-750 headed out from CSA HQ, still some thirty Ks away but converging toward Gordon on an intercept that would get them there perhaps three minutes behind Sandy.

"I think that's entirely possible, though if it comes to shooting him, his own FIA people might just beat you to it if we get them surrounded."

"Yeah, I got that much already, genius ... who has the spaceport?"

"Good question, all appears basically functional now, I'm sus pecting a localised infiltration for effective cover." With full fire-grid defensive systems schematics unfolding across her forward screen, familiar specifications indeed. "My bet would be the fire-grid, I don't want anyone unauthorised flying into spaceport airspace until we know for sure."

"Yeah, I kinda already thought that when you said Gordon ... I'm looking at the schematic now. That's a five point fire system, overlapping fields of fire, the only blindspots are in among the terminal buildings themselves but you'd never get in that close without neutralising at least one firepoint, preferably two."

A feed from HQ abruptly surfaced on the B-screen ... a realtime overhead visual, presumably someone at high altitude. A shuttle was landing, transport vehicles moving, aircraft on the adjoining airport taxiing, everything looked as usual. Massive flow of civilian traffic on the main road plus the maglev line ... no aircars, thank God. Spaceport regulations prohibited civilian airborne transport near the flightpaths. Gordon was busy at the quietest of times, which this was not. Damn, this was going to be tricky ...

"I'm thinking a ground assault on two adjoining firepoints, they won't hit ground targets ... "

"I want a look at the protocols close up first, Ricey. They might override the safeties and mow you down as you go running toward them ... that's a two kilometre run from minimum safe distance, we can't use missiles because of the micro-defensive units about the macro-emplacements, and the CSA doesn't have any airborne projectile weapons with that kind of range."

Damn, what she'd give for a single Viper assault flyer with dual AP gauss cannon mounts ... those defensive systems were good, but they couldn't shoot down supersonic, finger-sized projectiles. But what need would Tanushan SWAT ever have for such weapons? The fire-grid itself was a fifteen-year-old system, installed in a fit of rare political awareness, she'd gathered, when FIA reports had circulated through the media explaining just how vulnerable key Callayan infrastructure was to armed atmospheric attack from League assault teams ...

"Security reports a high-level delegation team just went through the north wing, " came an HQ report on the net, "carrying plenty of gear, bypassed customs. Another report shows several vehicles commandeered, the local officer responsible was upset about a protocol breach but wasn't sure if he'd get in trouble for reporting it ... "

"Oh great," Ari muttered, and on reply frequency ordered, "Tell them, "Do nothing, act as if everything's normal. Quietly put a withdrawal procedure in place for all personnel, to be activated on direct command from CSA or in an emergency." This is a CSA job and we don't want overlapping jurisdictions here."

"Hello, HQ, this is Snowcat," Sandy added, "that's the last communication I want put out on secure-net, I want tac-net set up ASAP. This will be a SWAT-red operation if it does go down, command will be local. We'll need all command infrastructure prepped and ready."

"HQ copies, Snowcat, Ibrahim has been alerted. We are establishing secure communications between relevant units, the link to Gordon Central could take a bit longer. As of this moment SWAT Four has command. Lieutenant Rice, prepare for tac-net establishment, matrix in thirty seconds."

"Cancel that, HQ," came Vanessa's voice back immediately. "This is a military operation, military-grade weapons and tactics are in evidence, strongly recommend that command is issued to Snowcat, over. "

Sandy barely felt herself react, having half expected it. It was the most sensible option, and she was most qualified. Especially if those fire-grids were operational. The brief pause for consultation ended.

"HQ copies, SWAT Four-Snowcat has command. Snowcat, tac-net matrix in twenty seconds, standby to receive. "

"Snowcat copies. All units, remain on standard flightpaths, we don't want to let them see us coming." Disconnected audio briefly to shout over her shoulder, "Everyone suit up! Gear's in the back, full kit please, make it fast!" Fast visual switchback to their present position, now over mid-western Tanusha, headed due west toward where Gordon's sprawling complex lay twenty Ks beyond the megatropolis's westernmost perimeter. Low overhead skylane, a straight line above the heights of scattered mega-rise, cruising at a touch over five hundred kph ... ETA just over fifteen minutes. Plenty of time. She realised abruptly she was suddenly back in the old mode-Dark Star mode, Captain Cassandra Kresnov, on yet another assault mission. Reflexes so familiar she'd barely even noticed she was doing it. It fit like an old glove. And she found the time to be faintly amazed that she'd actually missed them.

The countdown hit zero, tac-net reception ... the new codings jarred when she accessed them, then unfolded in a rapid rush across internal visual, interlocking graphical lines and angles-her position, the flyer's position, SWAT Four's flyer, command uplinks-a good, solid matrix layout, everything she needed in a rapidly evolving situation. Of course, it was nothing as complex or multi-layered as the tacnet matrixes she'd used in Dark Star, straights couldn't process that much network information that quickly ... but when she overlaid her own matrix-reception over the existing centralised system ... a whole new level of complexity unfolded to her. The full Gordon layout, physical and network systems, all realtime in massive information overload. Her vision blurred, reddening in automatic combat reflex. Things seemed further away, time slowed. Central re-accessed her link, and the recognition codes seemed to take whole moments to access and unfold into an audible linkup ...

"Snowcat, your uplink shows you receiving at a factor of ten beyond optimum ... are you having a difficulty, or is this standard?"

"Standard, thanks, HQ." Her own voice sounded slow and ponderous to her ears. "Don't call every time you're surprised, I'll be busy." This, of course, was why Vanessa had given command over to her. She was made for it. Literally. Now she only needed to remember not to abbreviate her commands too much (that was always the reflex in this state), to keep them stringing out for what seemed like an age. Her old Dark Star team had understood her shorthand, too-CSA operatives would not. "Can someone get me that fire-grid feed, please?"

Another flash of visual data as the feed came through, a massive, multi-layered system that she broke down and analysed with reflex mental speed ... it looked military, all right, a big three-dimensional gridwork with various interconnecting bits and pieces clearly intended for armscomp, separate parts for fire control and acquisition, sensory grid, target processing, spatial awareness and field coordination ... she raced through it, found and isolated the safety lockouts for closer examination ...

"SWAT Four, this is Snowcat ... forget charging the emplacements on the ground, Ricey, they've overridden the old settings. Projectiles are still self-terminating at four Ks, so we have a safety range, but fire capability is now downward of horizontal, they can shoot up anything on legs or wheels now. The whole system is frozen, we're locked out-that's good in that it means they can't reset them again, but it also means no one from outside can get in and put them back."

"So they've clearly got the fire-grid?"

"It certainly looks that way. The one bit I can't see from this probe is how they're controlling it-I'm guessing a manual, realtime uplink to someone's portable, they can assign threat-ID-positive there from the sensor-grid, which will mean anyone they don't like the look of."

"Can we hack that control link?"

"Not a chance, it's buried, all the surrounding net infrastructure is frozen and we just can't break through what isn't interacting-that control point is connected between point A and B, we're at point C. We've no way of accessing unless we can hack their portable, and that's just not going to happen."

"Will they target civilians as a hostage threat to hold off an assault?" Although not in command, Vanessa certainly knew how to ask all the right questions. Threaten to blow one of those civilian shuttles out of the sky? Jesus. It was the FIA, she wouldn't put it past them-not considering the damage Dali could cause if they got him to spill what he knew about their collusion in just about everything Neiland's new allies found so annoying about the Federation Government right now.

"We'll put everyone into a holding pattern before we go in. First thing, someone get onto FS Mekong in geo-stationary communications orbit and ask them to begin the protocols for a live-fire mission, coordinates to follow." A brief pause.

"Uh ... Sandy? You're not going to call down an orbital-fire mission on Gordon Spaceport, are you?"

"Firebird OMS is a very effective piece of hardware, Ricey, as I've had the opportunity to see for myself from the wrong end ..."

"It's also a military-graded weapon for use in times of war, Sandy, I'm not sure the protocols allow for ... "

"That's why I'm asking now, to give them some time to think about it," Sandy said with forced patience. "Give me some credit, it's just the first option." It also occurred to her that FS Mekong was a Second Fleet cruiser, based in Sol System, and its captain may well owe his or her appointment to certain connections within the Earthbased Federation bureaucracy ... in the name of relocating which, she was now asking that same captain to open fire with an Orbital Missile System, against the interests of those who would surely like to prevent such a relocation. "Okay, Vanessa, options. We can't destroy the firegrid emplacements because SWAT don't have the weaponry from outside the four K safe-range. We could fool the sensor-grid into thinking we're friendly, there are civilian shuttles, ground traffic and the occasional official flyer or aircar on the main highways going through constantly as we speak, but the sensor-grid is good and we certainly shouldn't think the FIA's stupid."