Chapter Twenty
“Fourteen ships, correct?” Carter asked cyborg Dale Homme, an inventor who designed spaceships and other tech. Through his connections, Homme had gotten his hands on some alien vessels, acquiring invaluable intel for Cy-Ops.
“Correct. Four cloaked fighters will orbit the moon, ten others will be stationed in the outer sector, ready to move in at a moment’s notice,” Homme said.
Carter had called his seven most trusted best and brightest for one last briefing before deployment: Homme, Kai Andros, March Fellows, Sonny Masters, Manny Mansfield, Illumina, and Brock. There was no such thing as being too prepared. Check, double-check, and check again.
He wished the entire fleet could be on the ready and armed during the Summit, but competition for orbit space would be fierce. Vessels from across the galaxy would converge on the moon like a cloud of gnats. Hundreds of large ships would hover in lunar space while thousands of transport pods would zip to and from the surface. Dodging ships that couldn’t see or scan them would be tough enough with just four vessels.
“Lamis-Odg could also have cloaked ships at the Summit,” Carter said.
“Moonbeam is in the programming stage on a cloak detector and jammer,” said Homme, who owned a spacecraft factory. He nodded at his wife and Cy-Ops partner. “Illumina has been assisting with coding. I wish we had a prototype for the Summit, but we’re not ready yet.”
“We’ll want safeguards built into it anyway,” he said. “That’s all we need is for Lamis-Odg to get their hands on a jammer.” The terrorist nation had acquired cloaking technology when they took possession of a downed Cy-Ops ship. For a primitive people who scoffed at science and believed in gods and sand demons, they’d taken to modern technology like an Arcanian to a tourist’s wallet.
“Has there been any more chatter about the secret weapon, about it being unleashed at the Summit?” asked Amanda “Manny” Mansfield.
“That was our conjecture, based on the broken communique we intercepted. We don’t know what kind of ‘weapon’ Lamani has—or if he has one. It could be another ruse, but we have to be prepared and assume Lamis-Odg will be nearby.”
“They do have a vested interest in the outcome,” Brock said drily, “seeing how the AOP will decide whether to declare war.”
“The initiative is expected to fail by a large margin, but Brock is correct. If I was Lamani, I’d stick close by to find out what’s going on,” Carter said.
Manny drummed her nails on the console. “I don’t mind not chasing my tail to put to rest rumors and dead ends, but it seems ominous the false leads have ceased.”
She and her partner and husband, Sonny Masters, had the distinction of having gone undercover on the Lamis-Odg home world in search of Lamani. The terrorist leader had vanished before they got there, but they’d connected with an underground Resistance movement. Cy-Ops now had allies on the inside.
Sonny shook his head. “Lamis-Odg and their Malodonian partners have been flooding cyberspace with false rumors of attacks for years, and all of a sudden they go silent? That’s bad news—not to mention the possibility they might have developed a secret weapon. What if they have an undetectable microexplosive device?” Looking grim, he glanced at his wife.
Until now, Carter hadn’t appreciated the stress Sonny must feel when his wife, Amanda Mansfield, deployed. Beth wasn’t in near the danger Amanda was, but he faced similar anxieties. It had nothing to do with them being female. It was more about the relationships.
Females were as capable as their male counterparts, and, as Manny had proven, femininity sometimes gave them an edge, so capability wasn’t the issue. He was the last person to stand between anyone and his or her aspirations, but dangers couldn’t be ignored. Anyone would seek to avoid putting someone they loved in harm’s way—even if the person could take care of him or herself.
He hadn’t decided what to do about Beth’s request to become an Aym-Sec officer. Just get through the Summit.
“What are the odds a secret weapon doesn’t exist?” asked Kai Andros. Posing as an android, he’d gone undercover on a Lamis-Odg’s space station outpost, barely escaping with his life when he’d gone off mission to rescue an abducted Terran.
It was damn near impossible to prevent a hero from being a hero. Saving the girl and the galaxy one mission at a time. That’s what they did.
“Propaganda could be his secret weapon,” Andros said.
“Could be,” Carter admitted. “My hunch? I think there’s a 10 percent chance he has something.”
“We can’t ignore it,” Brock said.
“I have a little more information that might alter things.” Illumina sat at the end of the table where she could stretch her cybernetic wings. A Faria computer sensate, she had intercepted the communique about the secret weapon.
She was a cyborg, but her capabilities differed from the rest. Cyberwings had replaced her original ones, which had been torn off by her ex-husband who’d nearly killed her. She could fly faster, stronger, longer than any bird, but her greatest asset was her ability to integrate into computer code.
All cyborgs could access computer systems via their wireless, but their capabilities couldn’t compare to Illumina’s. A software program or virtual reality didn’t exist that she couldn’t hack into. Carter could have used ten computer sensates, but had only one, so he assigned her the highest priority tasks. They were damn fortunate she was on their side because she was scary good.
“I had Solia, the new Cy-Ops staff member, review the intercepted communique.”
“The linguist.” He nodded. The new hire was another Faria, but not a cyborg, although her husband, Guy Roarke, was. All Faria had special gifts and Solia’s was her ear for languages, in addition to a moderate amount of empathic ability.
“There were some Odgidian symbols I couldn’t translate—but she could. She said they refer to a biologic element.”
A stunned silence fell on the room. “A biological weapon? You don’t mean like a plague?” he asked. Biological weapons, which could wipe out entire civilizations and render planets uninhabitable, had been banned by the Association of Planets. It was one of the few get-tough measures the AOP had implemented.
“I asked her that. Solia said there wasn’t enough of the message for a decisive determination, but she said it was possible.”
Just contemplating the possibility of a biological agent being released sent chills up his spine. A cyborg had nanos to neutralize toxins, but everyone else? Between ambassadors, their staff, world leaders, and his own noncyborg staff, thousands would be on the moon during the Summit.
He shot a message to Beth’s PerComm. Have decontamination and Air-Pure units installed at the Astro-Center.
He got an immediate reply. Already did. Decom is built into the bioscanners. As a backup, I ordered Air-Pure units. The scanners are 99.999 percent effective in detecting and eliminating known viruses, bacteria, and bio-contaminants. On the slim chance something slips through, Air-Pure will neutralize it before it spreads.
You’re two steps ahead of me.
I like to think so.
Carter stifled a smile. As this had proved, she was good—great—at her current job, and he needed her doing what she was doing. He didn’t need her involved in physical altercations. He hoped he could convince her to abandon the idea of becoming an Aym-Sec officer.
“Beth has it covered,” he reported to the group. “She’s ordered decom units for Luna Center already.”
“I’ll keep scanning cyberspace for new messages,” said Illumina.
“Priority one,” he agreed. “Can you squeeze in one more thing?”
“Sure.”
“Find out what you can about Cornelius.” He’d previously briefed the team about the incident. “We haven’t been able to turn up anything on him, so we still have no motive for the shooting. Maybe Cornelius is a lone wolf, a whack job with a grudge, but if he’s part of a bigger organization or plot, we need to know asap.” No news could be good news. The fact his regular investigators hadn’t uncovered anything was a positive sign, but they couldn’t rest there. Check and double-check. Standard operating procedure.
“I’ll get on it right away.”
“Beth seems to have recovered fully from the attack,” March Fellows commented. “She’s progressing amazingly well in self-defense training.” He’d been one of the cyborgs assigned to fill in during Carter’s absence.
“Yeah.” Too well. It had given her ideas.
March eyed him. “You don’t sound happy about it.”
“She’s requested to become an Aym-Sec officer.”
“She’d be good at it,” March said.
He glowered. “Did you tell her that?” March didn’t have to worry about his wife, the Xenian Empress, who had a palace full of guards.
Sonny Masters cast a sympathetic look in his direction, as did Brock. Any cyborg with a wife “in the business” understood his plight. In Brock’s case, his wife didn’t work in security, but trouble had a way of finding her anyway.
March raised his hands in defense. “No. This is the first I’ve heard about it. I’m sayin—”
“You’re right,” he said. He’d overreacted. “She is doing well. I would hate to lose her in logistics.” In light of the new information, he regretted telling her she could attend the Summit.
“The possibility of biological attack is a new wrinkle, but we can’t ignore past patterns. Lamis-Odg typically uses microexplosive devices in its terror attacks. MEDs are getting smaller all the time,” he added. “In an ambush on a colonial outpost last month, the MED was concealed as a freckle on the suicide bomber’s face.”
“How do you know?” Illumina asked. “Wouldn’t the MED be destroyed when it detonated?”
“There were two suicide bombers,” Brock explained. “The other was captured before his device detonated.”
The bomber’s co-conspirator had been arrested by local security forces on the outpost. After hearing of the attack, Cy-Ops had swooped in and relieved the local authorities of their suspect—in the nick of time. Their weapon scan detected the MED. It had been set to explode later in the day.
“Fortunately, our scanners are the most sophisticated in the galaxy,” Brock said.
“We’re also fortunate that Benson Vincere has agreed to stringent security,” Carter added. The about-face probably had more to do with Beth being attacked than the man suddenly coming to his senses. Vincere was, and always would be, too much of a feel-good do-gooder for anyone’s good. Sometimes you had to take a hard line and destroy the enemy. “We would have done our jobs regardless of the AOP’s restrictions, but their cooperation makes our assignment a little easier.
“From the original approved attendee list, ninety-eight individuals—nearly 2 percent—had their passes revoked after more detailed background checks discovered ties to terrorist organizations, including Quasar, Malodonia, and Lamis-Odg,” Carter said. If not for Vincere’s change of heart, those people would have been at the Summit.”
March whistled. “Shit, that’s a lot.”
“Admittedly, we eliminated some individuals who probably posed no threat. For instance, they had family members who had friends who had done business with Quasar or had visited Malodonia. The individuals themselves seemed to be on the up-and-up, but we couldn’t ignore the possibility they might have been recruited or were unknowingly used as a pawn.”
“Like a freckle bomb could be planted on their person without them being aware of it,” March said.
“Exactly.” Carter nodded. “If we detected any security risk at all, no matter how slight, they were eliminated.” That’s why Vincere’s capitulation had been so critical. They would not have been able to screen out the unlikely-but-possibles.
“There was one individual, a junior ambassador who’d been in bankruptcy until his sister’s husband visited Malodonia. Suddenly, he achieved solvency, all his debts paid. Coincidence? Maybe—but the risk was there,” Brock said.
“I’ll bet Benson Vincere didn’t like having an ambassador kicked out of the Summit,” Andros commented.
“He wasn’t happy, and neither was the ambassador’s home world,” he admitted. “But, Vincere had promised to adhere to the security plan, so he accepted it without too much of a fuss.
“All possible protections are in place, but we can’t become complacent. Trust your instincts. If something feels off or odd, check it out.” He glanced around the room. “If there’s nothing else to report…let’s get to work, boys and girls.”