Alpha strike, p.4
Alpha Strike, page 4
Mac nodded his understanding.
“That doesn’t mean there aren’t places to satiate certain desires that would be frowned upon inside the Confederation,” the young woman cautioned. “Whether that be drugs, men and women of questionable morals, or gambling, there’s a place to serve you. Oh, and let’s not forget the gun shops. I think you might like those, Lieutenant Colonel.”
He found himself smiling. “Just Mac, please. Colonel, if you must. I am something of a gun aficionado. What type of hardware are we talking about?”
She shrugged. “I’m not very knowledgeable about weapons, so I don’t know. Let’s just say that when I went into one, it looked like you could buy everything capable of inflicting violence. And just to be clear about carrying weapons on the station, you’re free to carry whatever you like, but you’re responsible for the damage you cause. If someone attacks you and you defend yourself, odds are there won’t be any problems. If you inadvertently shoot a bystander, though, there will be serious consequences.”
He nodded. “That’s one of the reasons we always check to see what’s in front of and behind the target before shooting. So we’re talking automatic weapons? Grenades? Something even more esoteric? It’s too bad I don’t have any money. Something like that would be my version of shopping therapy.”
The women all laughed.
“The captain has instructed me to open a line of credit for you,” Yvonne said. “I wouldn’t go overboard, but if you wanted to make a trip to a gun store, it could be arranged.”
“I like gun shops well enough, but I think I’d rather see something a bit different,” Tina said as they continued walking. “I’m not a gambler myself, though I’ve done my share over the years. Are we talking full-blown casinos or dives?”
“Anything you can imagine exists somewhere on Port Royale.”
“How much of the space station is available for your use?” Christine asked, focusing her attention on their guide. “This place is huge, and I have difficulty imagining you’ve got much of it operating. Unless you’ve got a lot more people than I expect, of course.”
The young woman shrugged. “I can’t say that I’ve explored that much, but we only needed the one small craft bay and two dozen decks or so. Everything else is sealed off and powered down. I understand that’s how we found it, and it seemed safer to leave it that way.”
Mac considered the station’s size and guessed they were using less than ten percent of the available space. Maybe less than five percent.
“They’ve brought one power station online but left the rest off because there isn’t any call for more,” Yvonne continued. “And before you ask, I’m not sure how many people live here. Maybe twenty or thirty thousand if you count the people on the battleships, working out of the belt, or at one of the garden domes.”
That piqued Mac’s interest. “Tell me more about the garden domes.”
“We can’t leave the system to go shopping, so there’s a small planetoid in the habitable zone that’s otherwise an airless ball of rock that they put several domes on. Food crops, animals, and even some people live there. They were set up before I got here, and the people that work them are paid well for keeping us supplied with food. Thankfully, there’s always an overproduction, and we’re going to be able to absorb the refugees you brought without straining our systems too much.”
That was good to know.
Even though he’d said he wasn’t interested in visiting a gun shop, he spotted one on the concourse, so he headed in that direction. The rest of them followed him into the store and almost ran into him when he came to an abrupt halt.
He’d expected something a bit wilder than a regular gun shop, but his imagination fell far short of reality. The walls were covered with weapons. Handguns, rifles, grenade launchers, and rocket launchers. There were even crew-served weapons in the back.
A burly man in a dark vest headed toward them. His face had a few prominent scars, and he wore an eyepatch across his left eye. “Evening,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “Anything I can interest you in?”
“Are those rocket launchers real?”
The shopkeep walked behind the counter, removed one of the rocket launchers from the wall, and handed it to Mac.
“Marine issue, maybe twenty years old. If it meets your needs, we can discuss the cost of the various types of munitions. I can provide them in quantity as well. That comes at a discount.”
To say that Mac’s mind was boggled would be an understatement. The rocket launcher was authentic. He’d used one just like it back when he’d been on active duty.
He handed the rocket launcher back and gave the store’s contents a closer look. The large room was filled with lethal hardware that would’ve been in line with what he knew sat inside Hunter’s armories. In fact, there was more variety here.
“What do you have in the way of vehicles?” he asked once he’d given everything the once over.
“Everything from refurbished Marine pinnaces all the way down to one-man scooters with built-in weapons. Admittedly, the pinnaces are ancient, but we guarantee everything has been looked over by professional mechanics and offer a ninety-day warranty for anything but combat or operational damage. Are you just looking for yourself, or are we talking about a mercenary company?”
Mercenaries weren’t unknown inside the Confederation, but they did most of their work on nonaligned worlds along the fringes of human space. There was always some dictator or strongman wanting to plant a boot on someone. Human nature seemed universal.
“I’m pretty well situated for weapons, but I can think of a few specialty items I might like to buy later,” Mac said. “Do you have any Marine Force Recon gear?”
“Their stuff is specialized, so it’s a bit harder to get, and it’ll cost you more, but we have a few crates in our warehouse for special occasions. Why don’t you set up an appointment to see what we have?”
Mac nodded. “I will. Are you doing much business these days?”
“With the Locusts on our doorsteps and the gate destroyed, I suspect my primary customer base won’t be around for a while, so I’m willing to cut a deal, especially if we’re talking quantity. My name is Bud, buy the way. This is my place.”
Mac took the card Bud pulled out of his pocket. Apparently, the rules of the road here were looser than he’d imagined possible, so he inclined his head to Yvonne to acknowledge the truth of what she’d said.
“Is there anything else you’d like to see?” Yvonne asked when the four of them had walked out of the gun shop and stopped at the edge of the concourse.
“I think I want to see one of these gambling dives,” Tina said with a mischievous smile. “I’ve heard stories, but everything always ends up being a bit more upscale than I’d like. Can you find something that’ll scratch that particular itch without us ending up in a bar fight? I promised to keep Mac out of jail.”
Yvonne laughed. “If I take you to a dive—which I’ll admit I’ve never been to one before—I’m not guaranteeing that there won’t be a fight. Those places are well known for folk who like to brawl for fun. If you go there, you’ll get what you get.”
“I vote against going to the dive,” Christine said. “Do you have something like a news organization here?”
“Of course,” their guide said with a nod. “People want to know what’s going around Port Royale, so we have a few groups that write up the events and even bring in a bunch of stuff from the rest of the Confederation. Well, they did before the invasion anyway. None of them are open at this hour, but I can send you their contact information. Would that do?”
Christine nodded, seemingly happy with the compromise.
“So, if everyone here is something of an iconoclast, how would you describe the people living on the battleships?” Mac asked. “What are they doing there anyway?”
The young woman frowned. “I don’t like to speak badly of anyone, but the folks that choose to live on the old battleships or out in the belt, for that matter, aren’t fond of strangers. They’d rather be left alone to do whatever it is they do. We’ve got rules of behavior here aboard the station, but in the rest of the system, the sky is the limit, except for slavery, piracy, and a few other hard no-nos. That’ll get them raided.”
It would be difficult to get anything done with the other warships if that was the case. They still needed to be scouted, and that would mean confrontations. He’d want to have local muscle along for those particular trips to help smooth things out.
There had to be a way to get access because they’d need them for the war effort. That didn’t mean it would be easy, though, and he didn’t envy Jack that particular task.
“If we can’t go to a dive, perhaps you can find us a place where we can just absorb the local color,” he said, looking for something that might satisfy Tina and avoid getting them in trouble. “We can have a few drinks and then head back to Hunter. What do you ladies think?”
When they agreed, Yvonne led them to a bank of lifts, and they were off.
He wondered what other secrets and surprises Port Royale had to offer, but he knew better than to ask. This place would have a dark underbelly, and the people in it might disagree with Connor’s treaty. He’d need to work with Tina and see what they could find out before that bit them in the ass.
5
Weirdly, Jack got a good night’s sleep. Even after all the chaos and blood it had taken them to get to the depot system, he felt as if they were finally ready to start fighting back. Now all he needed to do was come up with a plan, and to do that, he needed more information.
He had breakfast with his mother and Sara. The three of them had been sharing meals over the last week and had fallen into a comfortable rhythm. He was happy to spend time with his mother because it had been a long time since he’d had the opportunity to do so. Adding Sara was new but pleasant.
Before they’d left Faust, he’d spent significant time in Sara’s company while she was recuperating. As the only other flag officer aboard Hunter, she was someone he could share his worries with. The same was now true of his mother, and he took advantage of that this morning.
Once David Chen had served everybody breakfast and departed, Jack laid out his concerns. “I don’t trust Connor. That man’s a criminal.”
“I think you’re right and yet wrong,” Sara said as she poured syrup on her pancakes. “Sometimes you run into people you have to keep an eye on every second—and he may be one of them—but I believe him when he says he wants to fight the Locusts. Besides, he’s got a lot on the line here.”
“True,” his mother said after she took a sip of her orange juice. “If he helps, he gets to keep everything he’s worked for. The Locusts will find him if he doesn’t, or the Confederation will come for him once the war is over.”
Sara nodded her agreement. “I wouldn’t say he’s a good man, but he has certain moral codes. Appeal to those, and you can pretty well guess what he’ll do.”
Jack bit off a piece of his bacon and eyed her curiously. “He’s pretty much your opposite number, so why do you think that?”
She smiled and took a sip of her coffee. “When you’ve been a lawyer and a judge as long as I have, you get a feel for people. In my line of work, we always see people at their worst, whether through their own actions or events that have occurred to them. You get a feel about someone that has true convictions.”
“I think you’re looking at this wrong, Sara,” his mother said as she poured herself some coffee. “You’re focused on the person leading these others. Just because he believes in what you’re doing doesn’t mean they do. Even if you come to trust this man under certain circumstances, that doesn’t mean there won’t be other elements working against him and you.”
Jack eyed his mother with more than a hint of amusement. “Is this the optimist in the family saying this? Who are you, and what have you done with my mother?”
“You don’t think we don’t see bad people in my line of work?” she scoffed. “Well, let me disabuse you of that notion right now. Doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals are just as prone to infighting as anyone else. I’ve seen people sabotage projects just to get at a personal enemy even though it hurts a lot of other people and wastes an incredible amount of money.”
“I bet the professor or Doctor Wilson would say the same thing about academia,” Sara added.
“True,” his mother agreed. “It’s all fine and good to trust a single person will do what you expect if you know what makes them tick, but you’ve got to keep your eye on the entire situation if you want things to go your way. We can’t afford to have some unknown factor ruin everything. The stakes are far too high for that kind of laxity.”
“I don’t have enough eyes to do that,” Jack said with a sigh as he dug into his own meal. “I can’t have people watching everything around us.”
“Then don’t,” his mother said as she sopped a bit of her pancake in her egg yolks. “Right now, you’re still setting up the parameters of what needs to be done. That’s a relatively safe period for this project. Once you’re done assessing everything, that’s when someone will stick a scalpel in your back. Remember that old saying, ‘trust, but verify.’”
Sara spent a few seconds chewing a bit of her pancakes and nodded. “That’s sound advice. You can always trust someone to look out for their own self-interests. Keep an eye on everyone and see what benefits them. Things will be easier if you can get your goals aligned with the majority.”
“That’s still a herculean task, but I’ll try to keep your advice in mind,” he said before popping some of his pancakes into his mouth. Damn, but David could cook.
“So far as not trusting Connor, it’s not like you have much choice, is it?” Sara said after drinking more of her coffee. “In this earliest stage, you’ve got to assess what you have to work with, so what’s the biggest problem that could come out of that? Something you need is either missing or being used for something else. Focus on mapping the ground you’re working on, and then worry about other problems later.”
That was good advice, but Jack wasn’t sure how much use it would be. His first priority was getting Hunter in as good a condition as possible. If he focused on that, maybe he could deal with the problems that cropped up early and save everything else for farther down the track.
Once they’d finished eating and David was clearing away the plates, Jack excused himself and headed for the small craft bay. He called for the inspection team he’d put together last night to meet him there.
Derek would fly them over, Amanda would inspect the weapons, Kelly would look over the engineering parts, and Joby Hutton would examine the remaining supplies. The four of them should be able to give him a decent idea of how helpful this alliance would be.
Turner had also sent a pair of experienced people to make sure nothing untoward happened. They might not be needed, but Jack wouldn’t turn down backup while in potentially hostile territory.
Since he suspected a fair chunk of the depot was in vacuum and had no power, everyone brought vacuum suits and spare canisters of breathable air. There wasn’t any way they’d be able to look at everything they wanted to, but he wouldn’t allow a lack of equipment to stop them before they had a good look.
Amanda also had some skill at flying the old-style small craft, so he sat in the back with the others while their youngest flew them over to the depot. Experience was experience, and there might come a time when he needed as many experienced pilots as they could get.
Someone must’ve notified the smuggler that they were on the way because he was waiting for them. He seemed a little subdued for the character he portrayed, so Jack wondered what was wrong.
“Problems?” Jack asked.
“Nothing serious,” Connor assured him. “The council still hasn’t come around, but I think that’s just a matter of haggling. We’ve got two in favor and two opposed. The holdout isn’t leaning one way or the other, and I expect I’ll be able to bring her around. She’s an old friend, and she’ll see the benefits eventually.”
Jack had to admit he was a little surprised. He’d expected the smuggler to have a rubber stamp council, but it seemed they had an independent government. Surprising and somewhat reassuring. He’d cross his fingers and hope for the best. If some of the details needed to be renegotiated, they’d find a way to make it work.
“Are we still going to be able to take a look around?” he asked.
“Of course. Where would you like to start?”
“One of the most difficult things about fighting the Locusts is not having all our weapons. We’ve managed to get some of our lasers back online, but we don’t have access to missiles, so our primary offensive arms are useless. I think that would be a good place to look.”
Connor grimaced. “That might be something of a sore spot, though I’d imagine there’s enough for everyone. We never got that many missiles refurbished, and we’ve used up every one of those shooting down the drones when they came at us. It seemed like a low priority item since there were no Locusts to be defended against before.”
“What about the warheads?” Amanda asked. “We didn’t detect any radiation after the explosions, so there were no nuclear charges. What’s the story with that?”
“It seems the Confederation wasn’t as cavalier as they might have been when they abandoned this place. They took the nuclear weapons with them. They didn’t go far, but it might as well be across the galaxy. The nukes are sitting in a storage bunker on New Copenhagen.”
Well, that was an unpleasant surprise.
“You seem pretty certain about that,” Jack said as he put his hands on his hips. “How do you know?”
“It’s in the log at the nuclear armory. Whoever transported them away made an entry of where they were going. They didn’t feel comfortable just leaving such destructive weapons lying around, but they were right at hand if needed, or so they thought. I have no idea how long ago that was, so I can’t say whether they’re still there or what condition they’re in.”
