Crusade For Vengeance (Dark Vengeance Book 2) (38 page)

Maritta turned away from her panel and looked again at the now blank tactical screen, all of the Rock’s sensors having been destroyed.

“Who’s out there and what are you going to do next?”

***

At Hanna’s confirmation of the lockdown, Hans moved quickly, his hands danced over the Spectre controls almost as fast as Hanna’s had on her keyboard.  The display moved as the ship reoriented itself to his commands.  Part of it switched to a three dimensional tactical representation of the Rock.  Surrounding it were green dots, each representing a missile put in place by Deni and Hans.  Now they were all moving simultaneously.  On Hanna’s screen warnings were beginning to flash all across the Rock, but the missiles were already too close to be stopped.

Blue energy lanced out from the Spectre’s energy weapons.  Every missile the ship had in its arsenal had been deployed and there were still defences unaccounted for.  Those were all directly in front of the Spectre’s current position and based on Hans’ meticulous targeting, they were now being obliterated.  Red icon after red icon disappeared from the tactical display in front of Hanna’s eyes.

“Defences are down and the Rock is blind,” Hans announced.  “Call in the cavalry, Deni.”

“Hive, this is Spectre.”  Deni said into the ships com.  “The Rock is open.  All units are clear to approach.”

“Copy, Spectre.”  Shannon’s voice replied.  “Good work.  All assault elements.  Engage thrusters and good hunting.”

The tactical display zoomed out and sixteen icons glowed a friendly green.  Five were accelerating hard and represented the five Shadow Company Helos leading the assault.  Behind them came the ten shuttles containing the Rebels and Crew Enforcers to support Shadow Company.  At the very back, much further behind, was the bigger icon of the Wandering Pony.  It was in the ship’s holds the prisoners would be transported from the Rock.

A warning flashed on Hanna’s screen.  “Uh, oh.”

“What is it?”  Hans asked.

“They’re lining up their emergency beacons.”

“Can you stop them?”

“Nope, it’s as we thought.  They have a dedicated hard line into that system.  They are emergency beacons after all.”

“How many are we looking at?”

“All of them.  They’ve five queued in each launch tube.”

“If you can see them, can you get me their navigational data?”

“Yep, pulling it now.”

“Good, shunt it over to me.  Deni, I’m going to get the Spectre to run Hanna’s data through its interception program.  It’ll prioritise based on speed and direction.  You’re going to be piloting while I handle the guns.  Got it?”  While he was talking Hanna sent the data over.

“Yes, sir,” Deni answered.

“Here we go, first vector.  Punch it!”  Deni took Hans at his word and the Spectre came alive around them.

On the tactical display, twenty new icons glowed a menacing red as they exploded out from the Rock.  The Spectre was already in motion towards the nearest of the four launch tubes.  Blue energy lanced out and one, two, three, four icons disappeared in rapid succession.  The ship spun as Deni brought it into a hard turn for the fifth and that too vanished.

“Good work, Deni.  Keep going, next vector.”  Hans commanded.

The whine of the engines could be heard coming through the hull as Deni poured on the power.  At the second tube the beacons were beginning to spread out when they arrived.  Hans destroyed two in the first pass, two more in the second and a back flip took care of the fifth.

“Nice flying,” Hans congratulated Deni.  “I don’t remember teaching you that one!”

“Something I picked up in the simulator,” Deni said.  There was none of the flippancy Hanna’s friend normally displayed.  Her voice was tight with concentration,  her eyes never wavering from the display guiding them to the third launcher.

The ship’s internal compensator was set to allow them to feel the ship’s movements.  Hanna could understand it from the point of view of those piloting the Spectre.  It allowed their natural senses to help guide them and increased reaction times.  For her, sitting sideways behind them, it wasn’t a pleasant experience.  Her stomach squirmed and reminded her how it reacted after the assault on Derwent Tower.  At least she had been facing forwards that time.  All she could do now was concentrate on her screen. 

The engineers over in the Rock were trying to bring their systems back online.  With the way Hanna closed them out, it was unlikely they would be able to.  That wasn’t to say it was impossible.  Sneaker could certainly have reversed Hanna’s programing.  Without the need to stay covert anymore, her link was a standard com relay.  Information streamed back and forth as she countered each of the Rock’s attacks.

With her mind focused on the screen in front of her, it helped her keep control of her stomach.  She was sure Hans and Deni didn’t want to be covered in her last meal.  Also, Deni would never let her forget it.  Another congratulation from Hans, told her the third launch of beacons was taken care of and she smiled, delving deeper into her own fight.

***

The room was quiet around Sneaker.  He sat at his console in the Hive’s Operation Centre.  Everything they had been building towards for months was now in action and here the architects sat.  Waiting.  Billy stood in the centre of the room, hands clasped behind his back, the overhead lights gleaming off his shaved head.  Forlani stood behind Sneaker at the tactical display table, her hands pressed against its edge as she leant over it.

The Tops authorised Sneaker to speak for them when dealing with the Rebellion, on the understanding he was on his own if caught.  If they were ever to be free of the Pantheon, the Blaze Underworld needed to play a careful game.  It also gave him much more room to make his own decisions.  It was not the end of their involvement.  The Tops gave Sneaker access to a facility even he had not been aware of.

Somehow the Tops gained complete control of one of the orbital laboratories over Blaze B.  The platform in orbit over the planet in the process of being Terraformed, was the perfect place to plan and train for this mission.  Flights to the ground were a regular occurrence, from the planetary engineers working to stabilise Blaze B’s eco-system.  Freighters came and went almost daily, delivering new livestock and plants to be introduced to the planet.

The arrival of the Wandering Pony was easy to conceal, along with the training flights of Shadow Company’s Helos and the shuttles the Rebellion and Crew procured for the assault.  The Enforcers Sneaker hired and the Rebel fighters, were brought over from Blaze A without anyone noticing.  The Planet’s surface was at the stage where it could sustain human life, though it would be many years until the animal population was self-sustaining and be ready for colonisation.  It was the perfect place for the Rebel fighters and Enforcers to familiarise themselves with the equipment Shadow Company brought with them.

By common consent it was decided Major Forlani would be in charge of the training and the operation itself.  She broke them all down into six companies of five platoons each, twenty fighters per platoon.  The lead fire team of each platoon was made up of Shadow Company troops.  They would lead the way in the battle with the rest of the platoon there to support them.

Forlani trained them all relentlessly.  Sneaker saw much of Carter’s techniques in the way she taught.  She recognised where others’ skills would be of benefit to the whole and incorporated them into her training.  It was how he acquired twenty pupils to teach in the art of Hacking with Hanna’s help.

It was certainly an interesting and fulfilling couple of months.  The three very separate groups of people coming together to form this Alliance, as they began to call it.  One particularly interesting moment had been a Rebel walking into one of his bars, giving a code for a high level meet.  Forlani was not happy the Rebellion kept the fact they had a contact on the Rock secret and nor was Sneaker.  Billy’s explanation, it was new and untested, hadn’t held a lot of water.  It took some fast talking on Hanna’s part to smooth that one out.  It was a shame they hadn’t been able to send word back to Valerie in time for the attack.  It would have taken an additional month and everyone agreed it was too long.

One thing Sneaker knew for sure, whether they succeeded rescuing Valerie or not, things had changed dramatically.  They would not go back to how they were.

The speakers across the Operations Centre came to life.  “Hive, this is Spectre.”  Deni’s familiar voice said.  “The Rock is open.  All units are clear to approach.”  A cheer went up from all around him and Sneaker felt like doing the same as he spun round to look at Forlani.

She looked up and the blonde woman’s eyes were bright as she replied.  “Copy, Spectre.  Good work.  All assault elements.  Engage thrusters and good hunting.”  She turned to James Evans, who was in charge of the Hive’s sensor section.  “If that task force so much as twitches, I want to know about it.”

He nodded without showing a hint of resentment at being asked to do the obvious.  Forlani had said she would be being extra careful to ensure the inexperienced team did not forget anything because of her presuming they knew what they were doing.  Most people understood and those who didn’t, Sneaker and Billy replaced.

Sneaker remembered from the earlier planning meetings, they would not know anything about the task force for another twenty-seven minutes.  It would take that long for the signal from the transponders to reach the Hive.  The information they unlocked from the Spectre’s memory, enabled them to track the Legion ships by using their own encrypted transponder codes.

Forlani was focused and Billy gave off an aura of calm as he strolled over to join her at the table.  Not really having anything to do at the moment and feeling he really should, Sneaker got up and walked over himself.

“All going to plan then, Major?”

Forlani looked up and nodded.  “Yes,” she pointed at the green dots heading at speed towards the Rock on the display hovering over the table in front of her.  “The Helos and shuttles are all accelerating to full speed now.  They should be landing in thirty minutes.”

“Major, we’re getting a feed from the Spectre,” Alan Sutherland, the Hive’s Intelligence Officer, reported.  He had stepped in to take over Shadow Company’s Command Section, processing all the information coming into the Operations Centre.  Lieutenant Hoeks who would normally have taken Captain Gibson’s place, was out leading Major Forlani’s Second Platoon.  If there was any one thing proving their devotion to this cause, it had been Captain Gibson’s execution.  Forlani wasn’t shy about the details and included a body with recordings as proof.

It would be an excellent cover, if this was a ruse on their part, but Hanna trusted them.  Sneaker learned to trust the girl’s instincts over the last couple of years.  She had a way of seeing what lay at people’s hearts that was truly uncanny.

“What is it, Sutherland?”

“The Rock has launched emergency beacons and the Spectre is in pursuit.”

“Put it through to my screen.  Barring a major incident, nothing else is going to happen for a while.  We might as well watch some of the action.”  Sneaker felt his respect for Major Forlani grow.  She was treating this as though it was an everyday occurrence, despite knowing it was the weakest point of their plan.

“Yes, Ma’am.”  It took the barest of moments before a cloud of red dots could be seen emanating from the Rock.  The green icon of the Spectre was already in motion and five dots disappeared.  It changed heading and moved onto the next cluster.

***

Lunch was over and already cleared away.  Valerie sat opposite Quin, the chessboard in between them.  Seven of Valerie’s pieces already sat next to Quin’s elbow.  She only had three of the other woman’s pawns to show for it.  Briseis sat next to Valerie with her back to the table, leaning on her elbows.  She watched her fellow Spartans spar in the open half of the playpen.  Quin’s friends Luisa and Ingrid sat on the table next to them.

Valerie and the Spartans tried to teach the other women how to fight, but understandably the guards hadn’t liked that very much.  They were fine with Valerie and the Spartans training amongst themselves, it kept them quiet.  All the others could do was watch.

“Are you going to do something with that Knight or just hold it all day?” Quin asked.

Frowning, Valerie took her hand off the piece.  She tried to work out what she could do to prevent losing for the third time in a row.

“Just what chance have I of winning this game?” she asked a little frustrated.

“It depends,” Quin answered.  “There are a couple of ways you can get out of this, but quite a few more where I can get to your king before you can do anything about it.”

“Great,” Valarie sighed.

“Something is happening,” Briseis rumbled gently and Valerie glanced upwards.  The guards were moving differently.  Unless they activated their external speakers, she couldn’t hear any of their conversations, but their body language looked confused.

“Anything from your contact?” she asked Quin.

The other woman shook her head.  “Nothing.  Why?”

Looking up again, Valerie took in the guards movements.  Confusion changed to concern.  They were looking down at the prisoners in a worried manner.