The joke was suffi?cient to elicit a chuckle from both the dark-haired chief petty offi?cer and the hollow-cheeked fi?rstclass who stood at his side. “A whole shitload of space armor just came off the Epsilon Indi,” Santana answered genially. And it’s supposed to go aboard the Cygnus pronto. Unfortunately the Cygy isn’t going to drop hyper until o-dark-thirty. So we need a place to stash the stuff until tomorrow, when we can boost it back up. All the tracking data should be insystem.”
“ ‘Should be,’ and ‘is,’ are two different things,” Ruha said cynically. “So it never hurts to check.” So saying, the master chief drew a pistol-shaped scanner from the holster on his right thigh and made his way past the tractor. As soon as he was level with the fi?rst cargo module, the noncom ran the scanner over the bar code plastered across the side of the box and eyeballed the tiny screen.
Santana held his breath. Sergeant Schira swore that while it was almost impossible to remove supplies from the system without triggering lots of alarms, it was relatively easy to add items, since thieves would have no motive to do so. That was the theory anyway—but would it work? Or would the little master chief realize something was wrong and call the shore patrol? Because if that occurred, it would soon become apparent that Dietrich and he were imposters. But, based on the way Ruha was acting, it looked like Schira’s theory was correct. Because the petty offi?cer was walking along next to the train, and each time he scanned a bar code, the noncom would nod as if satisfi?ed with what he saw. Had the master chief been paying attention to anything other than the numbers on his scanner, he might have noticed that all of the cargo modules had been freshly painted and equipped with the type of Legion-style grab bars that would enable T-2s to move them around.
Thankfully, Ruha wasn’t attuned to such matters, so once the cargo was checked in, all the imposters had to do was get a receipt, and turn some very small robots loose on their way out. Once on the surface it was a simple matter to abandon the stolen tractor, enter a waiting quad, and wait for the hatch to close before changing back into their Legion uniforms. Then, having sought fold-down seats in the otherwise empty cargo compartment, it was time to fi?sh a cold beer out of a cooler and start to worry. Phase one of the plan was complete—but what about phase two? The quad began to pitch and sway as it made its way through busy streets—and the day wore on.
There was no light within the cargo module, but that didn’t bother Sergeant Omi Deker, thanks to the fact that the cyborg could chat with Sergeant Amy Matos, Corporal Stacy Subee, and Private Ka Nhan on a low-power squad-level push that the swabbies weren’t likely to monitor. And, even if they did, all the mop swingers would hear was some legionnaires telling war stories.
Having been in the module for more than eight hours, it was time for Deker to activate his work light, open the specially rigged latches, and emerge from hiding, an activity that would go undetected assuming Captain Santana and Top Dietrich had successfully deployed the pinhead-sized robots. The robots were programmable machines that the Legion’s special ops people used to neutralize video surveillance during raids. A servo whined as Deker pushed the cargo module’s lid upwards and peered out through the resulting gap. The cavern was lit around the clock, but largely inactive between midnight and 0400, which was why 0130 had been chosen as the best time to strike.
Confi?dent that it was reasonably safe to exit the cargo module, Deker gave the rest of the team permission to go before pushing the lid up out of the way and crawling out of the box. It would have been impossible, not to mention impractical, to hide T-2s in the cargo module. That was why the cyborgs had chosen to wear the small, very agile “bodies”
known as spider forms instead. The electromechanical bodies were quick and strong, which made them ideal for the mission the cyborgs had volunteered for.
Meanwhile, as the legionnaires spidered out onto the fl?oor, the cameras mounted on the massive support columns went off-line. That produced a low-level technical alert that went into the maintenance queue and would be dealt with later that morning.
That left the cyborgs free to work which, thanks to an elaborate run-through two days earlier, they were able to do with a minimum of communication. Even though the big CH-60 loaders were designed for the convenience of bio bods, the spider forms were very adaptable, and it wasn’t long before Deker and Matos were busy plucking cargo modules off shelves like shoppers in a supermarket. Then, once a suffi?cient amount of space had been cleared, it was time to reverse the process by replacing the stolen containers with the units Santana and Dietrich had brought down from the surface the day before. While all of that was going on, Subee and Nhan were kept busy replacing the bar codes on newly delivered units with copies of those on the containers that they planned to steal. That strategy should keep Master Chief Ruha happy until someone opened one of the modules only to discover it was half-fi?lled with sand—the one thing that everyone on Adobe already had lots of.
The whole process took about an hour, and once the switch was complete, it was time for the cyborgs to hide in the same modules they had arrived in. Time passed slowly after that, very slowly, but uneventfully as well. So that, when Santana and Dietrich arrived at 0730, they were allowed to pull the entire trainload of cargo modules up onto Adobe’s surface, where they were soon lost in traffi?c. Later that night, in the 1st REC’s maintenance facility, the cargo modules were painted olive drab, retagged, and stored with the rest of the equipment that would soon accompany the regiment into space. When Santana was fi?nally able to return to his quarters, it was to fi?nd a sealed envelope resting on his pillow. The handwritten note inside read: “To Captain Antonio Santana. Thank you for a job well-done. Warmest regards, General Mortimer Kobbi.”
4.
For how can tyrants safe govern home, Unless abroad they purchase great alliance?
—William Shakespeare
King Henry VI, Part III
Standard year 1591
ABOARD THE BATTLESHIP REGULUS, OFF PLANET NOCTOR,THE RAMANTHIAN EMPIRE
Like Jericho, Noctor was a so-called nursery planet, except in this case the maturation process was proceeding according to plan, as millions of juveniles were removed from the wilds and the process of socializing them began. So while the Queen stood with her back to a huge viewport, the cloud-wrapped planet made a fi?tting background as the royal addressed the most senior members of her staff.
“The attack on Gamma-014 was an unqualifi?ed success, the Queen began matter-of-factly, as she surveyed the faces in front of her. “Our forces are in complete control of the planet. Meanwhile, based on intelligence provided by Thraki agents in the Clone Hegemony, it appears that an alliance has been struck. It will take the humans time to assemble a joint task force and launch a counterattack on Gamma-014. Once they do, our naval forces will fade away allowing the allies to land in force.”
“Now,” the monarch added meaningfully, as her compound eyes swept the compartment, “iridium is important, but let’s discuss the true purpose of the attack on Gamma014, and what we stand to gain.”
Ubatha felt a surge of satisfaction. His instincts had been correct! The attack on Gamma-014 had a greater purpose. But what was it? The answer came as a complete shock.
“The attack on Gamma-014 is a feint,” the monarch explained, as a holographic star map blossomed behind her. It showed a class-fi?ve star orbited by eight planets and some smaller planetoids. “In fact, the entire campaign is a diversion intended to draw military assets away from the real target, which is Earth. While a number of species belong to the Confederacy, it’s the humans who hold the organization together, and therefore represent the greatest threat to our people. So by attacking their home world, we attack the heart of the Confederacy.”