By Other Means (15 page)

Soun watched the Terran go, suddenly a lot more interested in the local political goings on. Treaty negotiations were dull, barely worth noting, but attempted assassinations? That was news, news that an enterprising individual could secure more than a few rounds of his preferred narcotic with.

*****

“We suspect she disguised herself.”

“As what?” Sienel asked, rather skeptical. “Every Terran on the station is supposed to be in one place, and I know of no other race in the Alliance close enough to easily hide as. Perhaps with time and significant technical support…”

“We have a number of Corel on board the station, Sir.”

Sienel grimaced, though honestly he suppose that he should have guessed. The Corel were somewhat obtuse by Alliance standards, very traditionalist and while not insular per sey, they were hardly the most outgoing on races either. Since they preferred to be garbed in body covering robes, and didn’t go out of their way to interact with other races or even each other, they would make an acceptable disguise.

They also had protections, of course, which meant he couldn’t simply search every one of them to find her. Even if she were still in that disguise, which was by no means a certainty.

“Very well, have each of the Corel on board monitored as well. If she was disguised as one, figure out which one and what they did,” He ordered, shaking his head.

This little game is becoming tedious,
He thought. There were bigger problems to deal with at the moment, problems that needed his attention far more than a single Terran who was probably just confirming the information packets they’d already shared.

Unfortunately that wasn’t how the game worked.

When you knew you had a spy floating around, you did your level best to catch them, even if they weren’t likely to find anything.

If nothing else, she would be a nice bargaining point to use in the negotiations.

*****

Sneaking weapons grade munitions into the sector had been relatively easy, even with gravity jumps acting as choke points there was far too much traffic and even more space for the Alliance to patrol even a significant fraction of it.

The closer they approached the station, however, the more security increased with almost exponential swiftness. The normally reasonable security located around important Alliance systems and facilities was now nearing impossible levels of paranoid fantasy, though much of it was admittedly targeted at the possibility of a Terran assault.

So, even with the help of inside conspirators, getting their equipment onto the station had been a task no one would consider simple.

It was now done, however, and they were ready to move on to the next phase of the plan.

“What are these anyway?”

The one in charge, a old scarred Parithalain who’s skin was now a faded grey-blue didn’t look up at the question.

“Best you don’t ask.” He said simply, “Less you know, the better.”

“If you say so, Master.”

“Don’t call me that.” The Parithalian said, voice touchy.

“Sorry, Sir.”

In silence the group finished unloading the large canisters from the hold of the ship, floating them into the station’s bay on transport dollies, and then covered them carefully before continuing out of the bay and deeper into the station.

Before they left, the old Parithalian looked back to the pallet sitting in the corner of the bay and shuddered. Some things weren’t even meant to be last resorts, but he had his orders.

Rejoining the Terran group was actually far trickier than sneaking away had been, partially because security had no doubt been heightened but mostly just because she’d been forced to ditch the coveralls. That left her with two problems, first Sorilla had to get rid of the robes she was wearing and, second, she knew that she’d have to find some human clothes in a hurry because sweat soaked skivvies tended to attract a whole different kind of a attention that she didn’t need at the moment.

Alright, most of that is from humans who should be smart enough not to push their luck with me,
Sorilla conceded with a mental smirk as she watched and waited for her chance.
Still doesn’t mean I want to give anyone ideas.

The Admiral spotted her as she moved into position and Sorilla saw him deploy his people to new positions. She rather liked working for someone who had an idea of what he was doing, it was a nice change from the normal experience of dealing with brass in the field.

The distraction came on cue, as she approached the edge of the crowd. Men from the Admiral’s detail surrounded her as a pushing match broke out on the other side. Sorilla wasn’t short, but she was towered over by the big guys on the detail and while it wasn’t in her personal fantasies, the experience of six body guards helping her strip in public was one she wasn’t about to forget anytime soon. With them on all sides, Sorilla marched right back onto the ship even as the robes that had covered for her were split up and stuffed into whatever bag, jacket, or other nook the group could find.

Once they were back on the shuttle, Sorilla finally relaxed, slumping into the acceleration seat as she felt all the nervous energy fleeing her body and leaving her nearly immobile.

“How did the mission go, Major?”

Sorilla didn’t open her eyes as she felt the weight of the Admiral sink into the next seat.

“Well, I’ve gathered more data. Enough to confirm a lot of what was in their information packets, plus more.” She said, “I have examples of local manufacturing, plus the source code they used, and I’ve arranged for more. We should be able to reverse engineer their machine code from that.”

“Excellent,” He told her.

The Admiral wasn’t exaggerating either, working out the aliens’ machine code was the first step in cracking their communications encryptions. Certainly they’d use very different methods for the two, it was true, but the core would be similar… or it should be, if they used a common base architecture at least.

Either way, they’d find out.

“I think we may have a potential asset in the target,” Sorilla said softly, “He’s self-important, likes to feel like he’s at the center of things. He’ll work for us because it makes him feel bigger than he is.”

“Good, I want you to speak with our Intelligence analyst and Humint specialist, tell him what you know and think you know.”

“Can do.”

“Alright,” Ruger said, getting up, “get some rest. You look like you need it.”

Sorilla didn’t have the energy to either roll her eyes or make the snide comment that part of her so desperately wanted to make, which was good because she was probably too tired to engage the brake on her mouth that kept her from mouthing off to superior officers.

Instead she just nodded slightly, “Yes sir.”

She hadn’t been active that long, actually, just a few hours. A regular working day, in all honesty. Sorilla could have stayed active one helluva lot longer, had it been required, but she’d learned a long time ago that when you were hyped up and working in enemy territory, you crashed when you had the chance. Her mind knew that she had the chance, and it intended to make full use of it.

Sorilla was asleep before the shuttle finished pre-flight and rumbled out of the station’s bay.

*****

A dull beeping noise caught his attention and Master of Station Parath walked over to the station, leaning in from behind his subordinate.

“What is it, Cor’a?” He asked.

“Uncertain,” She replied, scowling at her board. “Minor flux in onboard gravity systems, nothing out of the ordinary ranges, but it was unpredicted.”

Parath nodded, understanding her annoyance. Gravity reactors could be twitchy devices, but generally you could predict what direction they were going to twitch in. They had momentum, inertia, and didn’t just shift directions… so to speak… at a moment’s notice.

“Have a full systems check done,” He said, “If it’s the monitors that made a mistake, I want them fixed, if there’s something in the reactors… I
especially
want them fixed.”

“Yes, Master,” She answered, fully understanding his emphasis and agreeing with it. “I will see to it immediately.”

“Good, go.” Parath ordered, straightening up.

He stepped back to the center of the command deck and looked over his domain, all feeds and information streams included. The Station was one of the most important trade hubs in the sector, but it was a very minor military installation… or had been until recently.

Now, however, with countless military starships frequenting its immediate vicinity, the station’s own gravity core had to be watched even more intently. The waveforms of the cores could be affected by other gravity sources if they were powerful, or close, enough and that was one system that no fleet being wanted to have fail on them.

*****

Sorilla shifted in her sleep.

She’d got briefly to transfer from the shuttle back to her room, but quickly found that sleep wasn’t coming as easily on the ship as it had on the rumbling shuttle. It was more than a little annoying, she’d learned a long time ago how to sleep anywhere, anytime, and yet right now that skill was evading her mastery.

Finally Sorilla opened her eyes, staring up at the shelving above her bunk as she lay motionless.

One by one she started eliminating causes, trying to figure out what was bothering her and keeping her from the shut eye she rather fondly wished to have.

Noises, about as normal. Muffled groans of the metal stressing, some digital sounds, a few liquid gurgles from the plumbing.

It was all the usual stuff, things she could easily tune out.

No odd vibrations either, the air quality is still holding.

That last one was often a problem on board ship, even small variations in the filters could induce what crewmembers
fondly
referred to as ‘smoke’. At the moment, however, even her spectrograph and chemical analysis implants were happy with the ship’s air, which was perhaps unusual in its own right.

Sorilla scowled, digging deeper into her implants and comparing the current scans to baselines across the board, only to come up short on the gravity scans.

What the hell is this?

There was a distinct deviation in her internal accelerometer, showing that ‘down’ wasn’t where it was supposed to be.

Oh, it was close, otherwise she would have noticed it consciously a long time earlier. The deviation was barely a degree off from the mean, but that was enough to throw her out of whack. What was odd, however, was that it was a steady deviation. Usually if there were steady external gravity sources that close, or that powerful, the Captain would adjust the ship’s position to compensate.

She got out of bed and slapped a palm down on her desk, activating the comm there.

“Yes Major, is there a problem?” Crewman Parker’s voice came back quickly.

“Is engineering reporting problems with the gravity reactor?” She asked tiredly.

The voice chuckled, “We were wondering if you’d call. The reactor is fine, but there is some external interference we’ve not been able to isolate yet. We’re working on it.”

“Right. The source is point three degrees off our starboard quarter, forward.” She said, “Unless we’re dealing with multiple interference points.”

“Damn your kit is accurate,” Parker whistled, “We figured that as well, but that’s where the Station is and we’ve already accounted for its reactor. A new ship arrived a short while ago, but it shouldn’t be large enough to throw us off this much.”

“Roger that,” Sorilla sighed, “I’m going to try and get some more sleep then, thanks.”

“Anytime, Major.”

She killed the comm and lay back down, yanking a pillow over her head as she tried to ignore the subtle incline her senses were telling she was sleeping on. Normally it would, of course, be far to slight to feel, but with her mind interpreting the data from her accelerometer implants even before it got to her main processor, Sorilla felt like she was sleeping on the edge of a precipice and about to roll over.

Maybe if I put on a deployment chute it’ll feel more normal?

*****

“Well, we have secondary confirmation, it’s not our instruments. There’s really something out there,” Parker announced as he walked over to the Engineering duty station.

“Secondary confirmation?” Commander Bristol looked up, “Did the Alliance station report something?”

“No, Major Aida just called to find out why our reactor was out of alignment,” Chisolm laughed. “I think it’s keeping her awake.”

“Holy hell, what did SOLCOM
put
in that woman?” The Engineering Master Chief beside them blurted, before instantly grimacing, “and good
god
did that sound wrong. Still, I stand by the question.”

The others laughed at the Chief’s discomfort, but it was Bristol who answered.

“To be honest, we’re not sure. Her implant suite is classified, almost across the board.” He said, “but the accelerometers themselves are just standard micro-implants, mostly off the shelf hardware.”

“No way,” The Chief shook his head, “That stuff is nowhere near sensitive enough to pick up this deviation.”

“Pick it up, hell,” Parker snorted, “She located it within a hundredth of a degree.”

“Like I said, no way in hell her hardware is off the shelf, especially not the accelerometers.” The Chief said.

“Maybe right, I just know what I read in her file.” Bristol sighed, still focused on the problem, “but if it’s not our systems screwing up, we have a problem. What the hell is generating a gravity blip that powerful, or that close, that we haven’t already accounted for?”

The men and women assembled looked at each other uncomfortably, each hoping that someone else would have the answer for that.

No one spoke.

“Right,” Bristold said finally, “Recheck
every
gravity source on our scanners, and start looking for new ones. Are there any pulsars charted in the region?”

“Negative.”

“Alright, so that basically rules out stellar sources. That leaves the station and local ships, find me the source of that gravity hit.” Bristol ordered, “If someone out there is packing this much mass, that means we have at
least
a warship unaccounted for. Unaccounted for warships make me
nervous
people, you won’t like me when I’m nervous. Get to it.”