The White Fleet (Blood on the Stars Book 7) Page 19

  He grabbed his comm unit and hit the switch to activate it. “Base, this is team Gamma-7. We’re at location A4-C37B. We’ve searched the place. There are three people here, suspected traffickers in old tech from the looks of things. They’ve got some contraband here, but it looks like pretty low level stuff, and in poor condition. Should we bring the suspects and the materials in?”

  “Negative, Gamma-7. Release the suspects and proceed to location A5-D11A. Enter and search…and, as always, exert extreme caution.”

  Jones held back another sigh, burning through more of his precious discipline to do it. It had been the same for more than a week now. One location after another. No report on what to expect, no details on what his people were looking for.

  “Let ’em go, Marines…we’ve got another stop to make.” He stood where he was, his eyes fixed on the room’s occupants. They looked too scared to move, but Jones’s Marine training and his experience held him firm. He wasn’t going to chance some petty crook grabbing a weapon and shooting one of his people as they left. Then, a few seconds later, he backed out the door, following the last of his Marines through and into the street.

  Somebody’s got a bug up his ass about something, that much is for sure, he thought.

  Someone damned high up.

  * * *

  “This is outrageous. I demand this unjustified embargo be lifted at once, and that free communications be restored immediately.” The man was dressed in civilian clothes, a suit that looked expensive enough, but something that would have been out of style on a world less provincial than Dannith.

  Gary Holsten sat in a small office, staring at a screen, watching one of his people dealing with Dannith’s planetary administrator. The local politician was almost apoplectic, and the more Holsten’s agent politely listened without response, the angrier the man seemed to get. Holsten understood. He was causing all sorts of damage to Dannith’s economy, not to mention monstrous inconvenience to many of its citizens. And, if the situation continued much longer, he knew there would be shortages of many things. Already, if he could take the administrator’s complaints at face value, certain electronic components were changing hands at three times the pre-embargo price. That kind of thing was only going to get worse.

  He could scarcely imagine the complaints flying around elsewhere as well—and probably getting all the way back to Megara by now—the freight lines disrupted, people unable to reach relatives on Dannith, natives barred from returning home from trips to other worlds. The whole thing was a mess, one that was rapidly approaching debacle status. But Holsten didn’t care.

  The thought of letting Andi go had crossed his mind, of course. He knew he could call off the whole mad search and give her up for dead. Holsten liked to think he was loyal to his people, but he was honest enough to acknowledge that he’d sacrificed more than one operative before when the cost of rescue was too high in one way or another. But he couldn’t reduce Andi Lafarge to that kind of cold equation. She was only there because of him, and this time, he just couldn’t let go, whatever the cost. He was going to find her—alive or dead—if he had to tear down every building on the godforsaken planet.

  The reports were coming in constantly, the Marine teams in the streets checking in after every assigned search. Every establishment on the Promenade had been inspected, most of them twice. But Dannith’s capital city was quite large, and its Spacer’s District alone stretched for more than five kilometers along the outskirts of the now-closed spaceport. The reports had all been the same. Nothing, at least not yet. No sign of Andi, nor even the slightest clue leading to where she was being held. His people had turned up several Sector Nine operatives—the People’s Protectorate, they were calling themselves now—and they were being held secretly in the very building he now occupied.

  The prisoners had been interrogated aggressively, though he knew such a description had a significantly different meaning in the Confederation than it did in the Union. He knew from experience that Sector Nine operatives were well trained to resist the kinds of things the Confederation did to get information from captives. Even when his people got rough, that usually meant sleep deprivation or mental and emotional games. The Confederation didn’t torture prisoners, and while in his heart Holsten agreed with that policy, right now he was feeling the absence of a Sector Nine inquisitor’s toolbox.

  He’d even considered crossing that line. It would be a crime, one almost guaranteed to end his career and result in jail time if he was caught. Even with his vast wealth, he’d be hard-pressed to save himself if such a thing were discovered. Still, he suspected some of his people would follow the orders if he gave them, and, afterward, they’d certainly have every incentive to remain silent about what they’d done.

  He’d held himself back…so far. He told himself the searches would pay off eventually, that he had whoever had kidnapped Andi trapped on Dannith, and probably in Port Royal City. But each hour that passed wore away at his patience and his restraint. He didn’t know if the Sector Nine prisoners had the information he needed, but they were, without a doubt, the best leads he had.

  He tried to push the thoughts aside again, to no avail. Bergen, he thought, trying as he did to stop even as the images flooded into his mind. Bergen will do it if I ask him to…and I’d wager he’d do a damned good job, too.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Planet Zero

  Zed-11 System

  Year 315 AC

  Rogan moved forward cautiously. He knew he had no place at the head of the team infiltrating the pyramid, a thought more than one of his junior officers had tried to express to him with as much oomph as they dared to direct at a Marine general. But this wasn’t any standard ground combat situation. It was possibly the most crucial mission Confederation Marines had ever undertaken. What would they find? Would there be more soldiers inside? Would another combat take place? And, if so, were Rogan and his people about to start a new war, this one against an enemy that seemed to have a significant technological edge on the Confederation?

  He’d come because he didn’t want his Marines facing a new enemy without him there, because he had no idea what to expect and felt he had to lead from the front to make decisions on site. But, mostly, he realized he was there to do the one thing his simmering anger railed against. To prevent another fight if there was any possible way to avoid one.

  He’d landed with only a sidearm hanging from his belt, but now he clutched an assault rifle, and he’d strapped a belt over his shoulder, studded with grenades and extra clips. Had it not been for the small stars on the collar that protruded from his armor, he’d have looked like any other private ready for action.

  His people were silent. He’d forbidden any communications save for warning of enemies or other danger. Combat was always serious business, but the company of Marines moving into the pyramid carried an immense weight with them as they advanced. Billions could die as a result of what happened in the next few minutes.

  It had taken longer than he’d expected to force open one of the hatches, to allow his people to get inside. Whatever material the structure was made of, it was tough. In the end, it had taken a combination of powerful explosives and plasma torches to force an opening, and even that had been barely large enough for armored Marines to penetrate in single file. If his people had to retreat in a hurry, it was going to be a bloodbath trying to get out.

  They were moving down a corridor now, about five meters wide, and stretching as far as the electric torches could illuminate. That wasn’t as far as he’d have liked, but the strange material of the walls absorbed most of the light, reducing the effectiveness of the lamps. The floor was pitched, slanting steadily downward, and Rogan realized his people were well below grade now, advancing into some kind of subterranean complex that seemed to extend considerably farther than the structure above.

  After another ten meters or so, the corridor ended at a “T,” with narrower hallways continuing to the left and the right. He signaled the force to
stop, while he peered cautiously around the corner in both directions. They seemed identical. He didn’t want to split his force, especially since he was fairly certain the comm units couldn’t penetrate the material on the walls. He’d lost contact with the surface not long into the mission. That was bad enough. But having groups of his Marines wandering around, unable to warn each other or call for help…it went against every instinct he had. But if he chose one direction and took everyone with him, he’d leave the other unexplored and his rear open to attack.

  He leaned back suddenly, pressing himself against the wall, trying to rub his back against the inside of his armor. He’d been ignoring the itchiness for as long as he could, but it was starting to drive him mad. It had gone from occasional discomfort to full on pain, and as much as he tried to focus on the situation, he had a hard time getting past the distraction. He’d been in full armor more times than he could count, but now his skin was irritated in a way it never had been before…almost on fire.

  He took a deep breath and tried again to ignore the growing discomfort. “All right, we’re going to divide up into two groups.” He could almost hear the groans from the Marines. “I know nobody likes that idea, but we can’t leave our rear undefended, so there’s no choice. Major O’Toole, you’ve got the left. I’ll take the right. Odd squads with me, evens with the major.”

  Rogan took one last look around the corner, and then he set off down the corridor. He stopped after about ten meters. There were doors on both sides of the hall. There were small panels next to each, but his efforts to operate the controls were unsuccessful. Both doors remained closed.

  “Horn, Balder…get up here with that plasma torch.” He paused an instant, looking at one door and then the other. They were identical. Finally, he just tossed a coin in his head. “This one,” he said, gesturing toward the door on the right.

  He stepped back as the two Marines moved forward, hauling the heavy plasma torch with them. They set it down and angled the cutting blade toward the door. Then, they activated the power source.

  Rogan could hear the loud hum as the portable reactor roared to life. He’d never been comfortable standing next to a barely contained fusion reaction, though he’d spent most of his life flying around in spacecraft powered by larger versions of the very same thing. He guessed it was the compact size of the torch that got to him. Dauntless’s massive reactors seemed more substantial by comparison, but Rogan didn’t have any real idea of the comparative safety of the two systems.

  He took a few extra steps back as the two Marines began cutting their way through the door. It was tough, apparently the same material as the outside veneer of the building, though it looked like it was thinner down here. The torch cut through more quickly than it had on the exterior, and about five minutes after they’d started, the Marines gave the door a hard kick, and the cut out section fell into the adjoining room, landing with a loud clang.

  Rogan had been standing ready with four Marines next to him, weapons drawn, waiting to see what was inside. He hesitated for a moment, half expecting more of the armored soldiers to come pouring out or hose down the doorway with fire. But there was nothing.

  He leapt forward into the room, followed by the Marines standing with him. His eyes moved quickly from one end of the room to the other. It was a large space, and he could see racks on the far wall. Some were empty, and others held what appeared to be weapons and various components of body armor.

  “The other door,” he snapped back toward the hall. “Get that door open now.” He turned back and panned his eyes all around. There was no one in the room except his Marines, but it was clearly an armory of some kind. Whatever the people on the surface thought the pyramid was—a temple they had called it—Rogan knew a barracks when he saw one. The primitives above might call whoever lived down here “gods” or something to that effect, but he knew damned well they were just soldiers, most likely deployed to watch the primitives, and probably to keep them in line.

  But for what? How could it be worth the cost of this to watch those people?

  “General!”

  He heard the voice shouting from out in the corridor, and he raced back out of the room. He turned and looked back at the Marines stacked up behind him. They were passing a message forward.

  “General Rogan…the other group has found something.”

  Rogan cursed under his breath. He had no idea how the material used in the pyramid blocked their comm, but he was pissed as hell that he couldn’t reach the rest of his Marines.

  He made his way back, squeezing past the Marines lined up in the corridor. He’d gotten about halfway toward the “T” when he heard an unmistakable sound.

  Gunfire.

  He picked up his pace, shoving hard to clear his path through the reacting Marines. His hand tightened around the assault rifle, and he could feel the sweat pouring down his neck, the thunderous beating of his heart. His people were in some kind of fight against…he had no idea what they were up against. But however many enemy troops they were fighting—and he absolutely thought of whoever these people were as enemies now—he was sure they were better equipped than his Marines.

  And he knew any fight with them would cost.

  It would cost heavy.

  * * *

  “We found trouble, that’s what we found.” Tyler Barron was sitting at the head of the conference table. Like everything else on the new Dauntless, it was oversized, a gargantuan metal oval that seated twenty comfortably. He’d wondered more than once what architect had decided such a thing was worth the space and resources on a warship. His old vessel had been considerably smaller, and her power plants and weapons hadn’t held a candle to those of his new command. The first Dauntless had been cramped, in a way he found comfortable, a way he felt a warship should be. But none of that was on his mind now. He had far more pressing matters to worry about.

  “General Rogan’s people have penetrated the pyramid, Admiral. Hopefully, they’ll be able to gather some more information.” Travis was sitting next to Barron, the two of them alone in the huge room. Barron had dismissed Dauntless’s section heads twenty minutes before, but she had remained. The conference had not been productive, to put it delicately. No one seemed to have a fix on what they were up against, or how to deal with it. Travis’s eyes moved from the screen toward the admiral, and back again, but she didn’t add anything to her statement about Rogan.

  “General Rogan and his people might run into a legion of soldiers whose weapons make their assault rifles look like popguns.” Barron’s mind had been racing ever since he’d gotten the first reports from Sara Eaton. He’d increased Dauntless’s acceleration immediately, and brought his ship to the planet at flank speed, ordering every vessel in the main fleet to do the same. Among other resources, those ships carried thousands of Marines and with no real idea of what was actually down on the planet, Barron didn’t know what kind of reinforcements Rogan might need. He had a full battalion, seven hundred strong, boarding landing craft on a dozen ships of the fleet even then, and he was ready to send more if the situation warranted.

  Barron was edgy about the tactical problem, and worried about his ground teams…but in a way, that tension was a relief. The more he could focus on the pressing situation and the specific details, the less thought he had for the larger fact that his White Fleet hadn’t found great caches of ancient technology, it hadn’t uncovered the mysteries of the empire and the Cataclysm. It had found what was rapidly beginning to look like a new enemy, and worse, one that seemed to have superior technology and weapons. The implications of that line of thinking were overwhelming…and unproductive at present, since there wasn’t much he could do about it that he wasn’t already doing.

  “Tyler…I know you’re worried about Bryan and his Marines, but there can’t be too large a force in that pyramid. We’ve sent almost a thousand drones down to the planet, and burned half of them getting close-in shots from within the atmosphere. We’ve found more ruins of cities on half
a dozen continents, but we’ve only seen inhabited villages within a few hundred kilometers of the one the landing party found, all clustered around a mountain range. Everywhere else, the planet seems to be completely dead, or devoid of intelligent life.” She paused. “And, there’s only the one pyramid.”

  He nodded. “I realize that, Atara. But we don’t know what the hell is actually going on down there, we have no idea what other high tech installations may exist underground or obscured under cover. What is happening? How can we explain any of it? We’ve seen no signs of infrastructure to support a technologically advanced society, certainly nothing that explains the equipment those soldiers appear to possess. Are they even from this planet, or…” He stopped, not wanting to finish the thought.

  “We’re just going to have to take this one step at a time.”

  Barron nodded. He didn’t like the fact that he kept coming up blank when he tried to think of a course of action, but somehow, the fact that Travis also seemed to be at a dead end troubled him more. He’d come to rely on her in many ways since they’d first served together, and he hadn’t realized how much he expected her to fill the gaps, to have the answers when he didn’t. But now, they were both at a loss.

  “Admiral…” It was Sonya Eaton. Barron had given his aide direct access to the conference room’s comm.

  “Yes, Captain?” It had to be important. He’d told her to interrupt him any time she needed to, but he knew she’d never do it unless she had no choice.

  “General Rogan just reported, sir. His people have secured the pyramid. They engaged approximately fifteen more of the enem…unidentified fighters.” Eaton paused. Barron shook his head slowly. The word “enemy” came so easily to the lips of his people, and yet most of them were trying to hold it back, not ready to jump right to the conclusion that the Confederation had another adversary. Another war.