Mako (The Mako Saga: Book 1) (51 page)

“Before we launched, he was screwin’ around inside Mac’s Mako after the other mechanics were done,” said Lee. “That’s why he was so nervous when he bumped into her on the way out, because he wondered if he’d been made.”

Noll stepped in. “For god’s sake, Summerston, the man could’ve just been doing his due diligence. You think of that?”

“Listen, Lee, nobody here is calling you a liar,” said Ryan, “and I’m not saying you’re wrong. But there’s a process here, and your beating the holy hell out of our lead suspect doesn’t exactly expedite that.”

Snatching his arm free from the guard, Lee turned to his commanders. “Not to be blunt, sirs,” he said, “but both of you know as well as anyone the level of security that R&D keeps around these fighters because of what they are. They’re under lock and key 24/7, and no one—I mean no one—goes near them without jumpin’ through a laundry list of hoops first. That means eyes and signatures everywhere. So I ask you, when would anyone else have had a chance to plant that device?”

Crossing the deck from his station—past Ryan, Lee, Noll, and the others—Wyatt halted directly before Aston and stared his best friend in the face.

“Why?” he asked plainly.

Aston averted eye contact.

“You look me in the damn eye when I’m talking to you, Jeud,” Wyatt scowled, turning the mechanic’s bloodied face toward his. “Summerston’s exactly right. That girl had absolutely nothing to do with this war—none of them do. But you just served her up to our enemies on a silver platter. Best case scenario: she’s cold, alone, and scared out of her mind in some brig somewhere with little or no hope of a rescue. Worst case scenario: an innocent girl is dead.”

Lee cringed behind him.

“In either case… my friend,” Wyatt bit out the final word, “that’s on you. So I will ask you one final time… Why?”

Aston heaved a long, thoughtful sigh and spit a glob of crimson saliva onto the ground beside him.

“Someone contacted me five days ago and promised me and my family full amnesty if I opened a back door through our security net to let them grab the Mako,” he said, wiping his face with a rag from his pocket. “Don’t ask me who sent the message, or where your friend is now, because I honestly have no idea. I was given the assignment, the date, and the time—that’s it. That’s all I know. I’m sorry Kris, but I had no choice.”

“There’s
always
a choice, Jeud!” Wyatt shouted.

“Is there?” Aston glared back. “Well then tell me,
sir
, what exactly are my alternatives? Huh? Where’s the all-saving, magic bullet solution that everybody seems to see except for me… and don’t tell me it’s these five.” He snorted with disgust. “What delusional world do you people live in anyway, because it’s certainly not this one… where our guys—our friends, our brothers and sisters in arms—are getting slaughtered every time they go out because there simply aren’t enough of us left to hold the line?
C’mon, Kris!
Tell me that some science geek’s super suit is gonna fix that. Really, I wanna hear you say it!”

Wyatt leered at his former Best Man. “Have you not seen what these people have achieved since they’ve been here?” he defended. “This program has potential, you have to see that.”

“Kris, contrary to what you’re thinking right now,” said Aston, “I’m not proud of this. You’re my oldest and dearest friend—hell, man, you’re Josh’s godfather, for heaven’s sake! So for what it’s worth, I’m terribly sorry for having put you through this—all of you. However, that said… and please, dear god, forgive me for saying this…” Aston hesitated—his eyes filling with an unexpected, though unmistakable pang of regret. “But I refuse, with every fiber of my being, to stand idly by and let my family suffer the same fate as yours. God help me, Kris, I just can’t.”

The color vanished from Jeud Aston’s face upon spotting the massive crescent wrench in Wyatt’s hand. Though for whatever reason—be it guilt for turning on his people, or a fleeting sense of loyalty to the brother he’d just betrayed—Aston offered no resistance when the instrument slammed hard across his face, shattering his jaw and dropping him like a stone to the deck.

“Out of respect for Maria and Josh, I won’t kill you,” Wyatt seethed, tossing the wrench skittering to the side and hovering over the motionless engineer whose blood now gushed in a river of red from his mouth. “But I swear to you right here and now, Jeud, everyone on this ship—everyone in this fleet—is going to know what you are… starting with them.”

Then, motioning to security that he was done, Wyatt stepped aside and allowed the pair of guards to drag the brutalized petty officer to the infirmary.

“Thanks, Chief,” Lee said, grateful.

“Right on, Chief!” Link added.

“What are the odds he was telling the truth when he said he didn’t know anything else?” Danny wondered aloud.

Wyatt dismissed the idea. “I’ve known Jeud for over 20 years,” he shook his head, “and while he might be a traitor to this fleet, he’d have told me if he’d known anything else. Besides, he’ll never see another day outside of a prison cell after this, and he knows that. So why hold anything back now?” His thought concluded, Wyatt turned with the others to see Katahl enter the hangar.

“As you were,” the admiral commanded, halting next to Ryan. “Well, Captain, so much for a quiet investigation.”

“That’s my fault, Admiral,” Lee said ruefully. “I figured out that it was Aston and I didn’t exactly give anybody the heads up that I knew. That is, until I got here anyway.”

“It’s alright, son,” Katahl assured him. “I’ve been where you are, and it’s not easy. Just know that we’re doing everything we can to find Miss McKinsey. On that, you have my word.”

Lee nodded. “Thank you, Admiral.”

“Sirs?” Wyatt’s assistant called from the workbench, his hands still buried in the wiry mess of the salvaged computer core. “I think you’d better get over here.”

“What is it, Simpson?” the chief asked.

“Well, sir, I managed to get the core back online, but it was heavily encrypted with a BXT-134 subnet algorithm that required a dylexi-morphic—”

“Get to the point, son,” Katahl interrupted.

“Sorry, sir. I’ve managed to access the fighter’s flight log, and it looks like the cruiser that jumped you originated from these coordinates.”

Connecting the core to the desk’s computer terminal, Simpson swiveled around on his stool and pulled up the image of a gridded star chart featuring six, single-file planets in orbit around a yellow sun. With a few strokes to the keyboard, the image zoomed in on the fourth planet; a large, sphere comprised of various shades of green.

“That’s in the Myrick System,” Wyatt said bewildered, leaning in for a closer look. “What could they possibly be doing out that far?”

“What’s so significant about the Myrick System?” Danny asked.

“Nothing, that’s the point,” answered Katahl. “It’s way too far off the beaten path of Auran or Alystierian space to offer either side any kind of real strategic relevance. Honestly, the only people who ever show up around there are smugglers and illegal supply runners looking to stay off the grid.”

“Wait a second?” Ryan thought out loud.

“Captain?” the admiral raised a brow.

“Rumor around the fleet is that tensions have been brewing for some time now between the commandant and the chancellor,” said Ryan, “and if that’s the case, I wouldn’t put it past Masterson to keep a little something off the books, i.e. the Mako, particularly if he thinks it could behoove him strategically.”

Katahl threw him an agreeable look. “Fair enough,” he said, “but where are you going with this?”

“Well, I’m thinking that if Masterson wants to take a look at the Mako without the chancellor’s knowing—”

“Then where better to do that than an isolated system where only the dregs of society tend to hang out,” Lee concluded the captain’s thought.

“You got it,” said Ryan.

“Well, alright then, what are we waiting for?” Link exclaimed. “Lock and load!”

“Admiral, sir,” Noll snapped forward. “I can have a strike team assembled and ready for deployment within the hour. Just give the word.”

“The Five-One’s got your air support, Sergeant Major,” Ryan added

“I hate to interrupt, sirs, but that’s not all,” Simpson chimed in. “Once I figured out how to access the rest of the system, I did some more digging and found this.”

He gestured to the blue planet on the screen, and Lee watched as the expressions of everyone around him went deathly cold.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I don’t believe it,” said a flabbergasted Ryan. “There’s no way Masterson would be stupid enough to—”

“Apparently he is,” said Katahl, folding his arms over his chest.

“What?” Lee demanded, like his friends, growing increasingly impatient.

“It’s Dulaston,” said the admiral. “They’re planning to invade.”

“How is that even possible?” Wyatt said in disbelief. “I thought they were still months away from gaining enough ground to hit us that deep.”

“Dear Lord, fellas,” Link crowed beside the Chief. “Myrick System, Brayanna System, Revlyn, Kendara, the freakin’ Oompa Loompa planet! Geez, it’s like an intergalactic game of Scrabble with you people! What the hell is this Dulaston place now, and why is it so godawful important?”

“Dulaston is the primary hub for the bulk of our deep space operations in that quadrant,” Katahl explained, “in addition to being Kendara’s last major line of defense.”

“The mine,” Lee deduced.

“Exactly,” Katahl answered. “If Dulaston falls, Alystier will have an open pipeline to every ounce of Caldrasite on that planet, and we’ll be virtually powerless to stop it.”

“Sirs, if these readings are correct, they’re redeploying ships from four other systems to mount this offensive,” Simpson observed, and Wyatt pursed his lips while he did the math.

“That’s what? Twenty, twenty-three ships?” the Chief surmised. “There’s no way they could get a force that size through the security net undetected!”

“If the last eight hours are any indication, yar security grid needs a wee bit of work,” Hamish muttered next to Link.

“Look at this,” Ryan noted, pointing to a column of numerical data on the left side of the image. “Those are access codes for Dulaston’s early warning system. They must’ve hacked them out of the security net while they had access, then relayed them back to the cruiser via the short-range system in this Phantom.”

“I’ll bet you a paycheck that’s what they were after on the Parkwood, too,” added Wyatt, “but science ships don’t normally have that level of access.”

“Meaning what?” Danny posed, and Ryan stood up straight beside Noll.

“Meaning, with this information, they could’ve circumvented every buoy in the network, just like they did today, and dropped out of hyperspace right on top of the planet without any prior warning whatsoever. By the time our people got airborne, they’d have been sliced to ribbons!”

“Bridge, this is Katahl,” said the admiral, spinning around on his heels and tapping his earpiece. “I need the XO in my ready room right away, and open a line to the president immediately, priority code Katahl, Alpha-1. Noll, Ryan, Wyatt,” he said, turning for the door. “You’re with me.”

“Wait just a damn second,” Lee barked, catching Katahl by the arm to halt him in his tracks. “What about Mac? She’s out there, along with your precious fighter, and for the moment, we just so happen to know where both are. So what are we doin’ about that?”

Caught off guard by Lee’s irreverent tone and demeanor, though totally empathetic to what he was feeling, Katahl turned to face him.

“Listen, Summerston,” he explained. “I wholeheartedly plan on keeping my promise to help you find Miss McKinsey, but it’ll have to wait for now. You have to understand the timing of this situation. These access codes are changed every 12 hours, and the Alystierians know that, which means whatever they’re planning, it’s going down in a matter of hours, not days. With that said, they have no idea that we know any of this, thus giving us a real opportunity to catch them off guard. They’ll jump their 23 ships into Dulaston space, but rather than meeting a simple orbital security detachment, the bulk of the ASC fleet will be standing by, ready to face them head-on. Therefore, given everything that’s at stake, this has to take priority over a rescue op for one person and a prototype fighter.” Katahl placed a hand on Lee’s shoulder. “I know that’s no consolation to you, but it’s just the reality of the situation.”

“Admiral, what if the 51
^st
stayed behind,” Ryan offered. “We could mount the rescue op which only puts you out five bodies in the cockpit.”

Katahl shook his head. “I’m sorry, Captain, I really and truly am, but I’m gonna need all hands on deck for this one and unfortunately, that must include the flagship squadron of the flagship herself, if nothing else but for morale. The same goes for you, Keith,” he said to Noll.

Incensed by Katahl’s total lack of flexibility, though still understanding his meaning, Lee tried to relax well enough to compose a logical, rational response.

“Admiral Katahl, sir” he began. “I want you to know that I completely understand your decision, and it makes perfect, logical sense. You’re the commander of the entire Auran fleet, and you have to make choices—the gravity of which none of us can begin to fathom—that affect the lives of not only the men and women under your command, but those of your entire world. As such, any rational person has to acknowledge that the protection of an entire civilization will always take priority over the life of one, single individual, regardless of who he or she may be. I get that, but here’s what you need to understand about us.” Lee rose to his full height. “Mac is family, plain and simple, and if she was here, with one of us out there, she wouldn’t have wasted any time with this quaint little discussion of ours. She’d be in a cockpit right now, halfway to Myrick 4 already.”

“Damn straight,” the others agreed.

“So gettin’ down to the point,” Lee concluded—his expression every bit as firm as his resolve. “I would rather rot in hell for all eternity than to have to go home and explain to her parents why they’ll never see their little girl again. One way or another—if it’s the last thing I do—I will bring her home. That’s
my
priority. Now I realize that we’re not enlisted ASC personnel, and that gives us little or no right to demand anything from you. So I’m just gonna ask. Will you give us the tools that we need to get the job done ourselves?” He paused. “With all due respect, Admiral, you owe us that much.”