Crusade For Vengeance (Dark Vengeance Book 2) (8 page)

Inside, it was surprisingly small, and Valerie was bent over an open crate of some sort.  Glossy black and almost three metres long, it said MAJOR VALERIE CARTER in blocky white script on the lid.  Hanna could see various guns, armour and equipment inside.  Something didn’t look right to her.  She was looking at it from an angle, but it didn’t seem deep enough.

“You didn’t need Sneaker’s armoury last year.  You’ve got enough guns there to storm a fortress!”  Deni said.

“More than you realise, Deni.”  Valerie took out some thirty centimetre long boxes, slid them into her coat pockets and shut the lid.  Activating the crates anti-gravs, it floated up into the air.  Valerie spun it on its axis to bring the base round to the top.  She lowered it back down and opened the lid.

Hanna couldn’t help gasping out loud.  Inside lay a matt black mechanical suit tied into the crate by various leads and umbilical cords, feeding it power.  It looked similar to the Legion’s Fully Powered Body Armour, Hanna saw in holovids, but it was sleeker and smoother, with less protruding edges.  Inside the lid of the crate sat a number of weapons.  Plasma, Blaster, Missile and Quad Pulse cannons, were all there.

“Oh wow.  Why didn’t you use that on Tumbler’s place?” Hanna asked.

“You remember what Troll said last year about Sneaker’s Plasma rifle?”

“Yeah, Zeus Police will send in their biggest guns.”

“If they ever saw the gangs with Legion FPBA’s, it wouldn’t be the Police you’d have to worry about.  Commando Rangers would be kicking down doors throughout the Ghetto until they found it.  If I was seen with this?  They would send in at least a company of Devil’s and believe me, that would be the last thing anyone would want.”

“But you’re going to take it with us aren’t you.”  It wasn’t a question from Deni but a statement.

“Yes, Trovare has already procured me a smugglers crate for it.  I think we’re going to be meeting much tougher opposition and besides, they already know I’m coming.  Different rules apply.  Speaking of which, that reminds me.  Wait here for a moment.”  Valerie turned away and headed along the corridor, going up a ladder at the end of the small crew space.

“Do you know what, Hanna?” Deni said.  “I never quite realised just what we were getting into until now.”

“You’re right, nor did I,” she looked at her friend in concern.  “Do you want out?”

Shaking her head with a smile, Deni answered firmly.  “Not a chance.”

“Good,” Hanna grinned back.  “Nor do I.”

Valerie came back down the ladder and handed Hanna a code key, one not dissimilar to an aircars.

“What’s this?”  Hanna asked.

“The key to the Spectre.”

“Eh?”

“I need you to break the encryption and copy it to Deni and your wristcomps.  Then bury another copy in your system back at the Sun, so only Sneaker can get to it.  Even then, he can’t be able to stumble over it.  It needs to be set so deep he can only find it, if he’s told to go looking.  Can you do that?”

“Hiding something from Sneaker is a tall order.  How good is the encryption?”

“The best the Legion have.  This ship is a one of a kind, top secret prototype.”

“Whoa!  I’m good but come on, Valerie.  You’re asking a bloody lot here.  Why?  You’ve hidden the ship pretty well out here and if it’s as hot as you say, it’s not as if the Crew can sell it.  Why do we need to be able to access it?”

“I need a failsafe, someone who can come up here and shut it down.  This ship has an anti-matter reactor.”

“Anti-matter!” Deni exclaimed.  “And you brought it planet-side?  What if it explodes?”

“It’ll leave a hole about three kilometres wide and the earthquake will be felt all the way to Inferno.”  Valerie stated matter of factly.  “That’s not going to happen.  It’s designed to last for years in its current shut down mode.  It’ll sit here for over a decade and no one would be any the wiser.  At some point, it will begin to fail and it’s why I need someone else to have the code key.  I hope you two will survive.  Failing that, I’m leaving instructions for Sneaker, only to be opened if we don’t return.  Can you do what I’ve asked, Hanna?”

“Erm.”  Hanna’s stomach felt sick with the pressure Valerie was putting her under but there was also a thrill as well.  To pit herself against the best encryption the Legion could devise would normally be the biggest challenge of her life.  Valerie was asking her to go up against her mentor.  Sneaker taught Hanna everything she knew about Hacking.

“Honestly, until I upload the code into my system I don’t know.  When I’ve had a chance to look at it properly I can give you a better answer.  I’ll give it my best shot though.”

“I can’t ask more than that,” Valerie acknowledged with a nod.  “Let’s get back to Inferno.  You can fly this time, Deni.”

With the ship sealed behind them and Valerie’s crate floating alongside her, they strolled back to the ship.  Hanna found herself looking at the aircar then glanced back at the Spectre, hidden in the deep shadow of the cave.  Vertical jagged stone cliffs surrounded them on all sides as far as Hanna could see.

“Valerie?” she asked.

“Hmm?”

“How did you get out to Inferno?  With the living quarters on the ship being that small, it didn’t have room for an aircar, did it?”

“Hah.  No.  Well thought out.  I used my grav-belt to get to out of the valley and walked.  It’s how I ran into the Mulgrew Clan.”

“Oh.  Alright then,” Hanna could only reply.  She shook her head.  She well remembered the harsh terrain she saw on their way here.  Every time she thought she had some idea of Valerie’s limits, the woman surprised her.

“Grand Admiral Cestari, Madam Secretary Soetemeyer is expecting you.  You may go right in.”  The personal assistant said, as though he could stop Antonio if it wasn’t convenient for the Secretary of the Interior.  It was one of those bureaucratic nonsenses he got used to in his long career.  He was the head of the Legion.  The only office he couldn’t enter without permission was the President’s.  Though, if he did enter Secretary Interior’s office without her permission, there would be consequences, but not as bad as would have been the case two years ago.

“Admiral Cestari, thank you for coming.”  The Secretary said as he walked through her door into what was a fairly conservative office for her position.  Like him, she seemed to prefer functionality over opulence.  When you were one of the most powerful individuals within seven hundred light years, there was no reason to proclaim it to everyone.

Given their long history of animosity, it had been many years since last he was in this room and it had changed little.

“Not a problem, Secretary Soetemeyer.  I fully understand the scheduling pressure you’re under.  It was just fortunate mine was not quite so full this afternoon.  I much prefer to discuss this face to face.”  He told her and actually meant it.  Since Furioso, Antonio’s relationship with Petra Soetemeyer thawed considerably.  While he and the iron-grey haired woman were still feeling out the boundaries of their political alliance, they found much in common over the past two years.

They shook hands and Antonio indicated the woman who followed him in.  “I don’t believe you have met my Chief of Staff, Admiral Wioletta Standring.”

“No, I haven’t.  A pleasure to meet you, Admiral.”  The two women shook hands and the Secretary waved to some chairs set around a low table to one side.  “Please, both of you.  Won’t you take a seat.”  The three of them arranged themselves on the luxury chairs and Antonio leaned forward.

“The PLN Wasp’s Sting arrived yesterday with Noomi Pomykala.  She was transferred to a secure but comfortable location, in Mountnessing.  My team of Devil’s ensured she was kept fully sequestered throughout her journey.  Even they only knew I wanted my people to speak to her directly, due to my name being raised during her abduction.  Admiral Standring, with a small team of Legion Intelligence specialists, questioned her overnight.  Please tell the Secretary what you found out, Wioletta.”

“I’m afraid, Madam Secretary, Miss Pomykala didn’t have much more to add to what your Grandson already passed on to you.  We were able to confirm two things.  First of all, this is undoubtedly Major Valerie Carter.  We showed Noomi a holopic line up and she positively identified the Major three times out of three.  Secondly, Carter is not working alone.  She has put together a very well organised team who helped her with the kidnapping.”

“They must be more members of the Legion.  What of her old Company?”  Soetemeyer accused, much as she had done for years, and Antonio held back his own instinctive and abrupt retort.  He took a deep breath before answering.

“We don’t believe so.  We can account for Shadow Company’s movements over the past two years.  We’ve spent millions training them in counter-surveillance, so our watchers have been quite removed.  Nonetheless, we have been keeping them very busy.  Most of that has been off system and, purely by coincidence, none of their missions have been anywhere near Blaze.  After you contacted me last month, I sent them on a training mission here in Olympus on New Titan.  There is no way they would have been able to help Carter on Blaze.”

“As far as we are able to determine,” Wioletta interjected.  “They have no idea she is alive.  My investigators have been through Carter’s record thoroughly.  Only a handful of those she has worked with are stationed in the Blaze system.  None of that handful, or any of their associates, matches the descriptions of Carter’s accomplices.”

Soetemeyer gave a short jerk of her head, stopped, and smiled a little ruefully.

“I’m sorry, Admiral.  That was rude of me.  Old habits die hard.  OK.  She hasn’t recruited anyone from the Legion and it does not seem to be consistent with Bacc’s rebels.  Where did she find these people?”  She paused and frowned thoughtfully.  “Also you said descriptions.  That implies eye witnesses and not holo images.”

“I see age hasn’t dulled your thinking, Petra,” Antonio joked dryly.

“Now, now, Admiral.  Let us walk before we run.  I don’t think we are quite at the point where you can make fun of my advanced years.  Besides, I only have a dozen more years than you, though you do carry them better.  You’re also avoiding my question.”

“My apologises, Madam Secretary.”  Antonio replied contritely, but not too much.  Soetemeyer’s reprimand had none of its customary bite to it.  “We agree.  This has none of the Rebellions MO to it.  It’s far too high profile for one thing.  Also Carter has unearthed a Hacker of extraordinary talent.  He or she got into the security system of the hotel the Pomykala’s were kidnapped from and removed any trace of Carter and her accomplices.”

“They deleted the footage?”

“No.  Even better than that; as the system has multiple redundancies to prevent any deletion, the Hacker merely prevented the system from seeing certain people.  Say we were being recorded right now.  Someone watching the live footage would not see anything wrong, but when you went back to look at the record, all you would see of me, for example, would be a solid black shape.  It doesn’t even match up with a person’s limbs.  We can’t use body language or dimensions to identify them.  All you see is a black blob.”

“Can we do that?”

“No, Madam Secretary,” Wioletta answered.  “When the Captain in charge of the Devil team told me this, I checked with our top tech people as I’d never come across it before.  They confirmed, with all the in-depth security on any system, it should be impossible.  I ordered them to scramble a team to Blaze as soon as possible.  They should be leaving on board the Wasp tonight.  Unfortunately it will have been almost a hundred days since the kidnapping.  It’s very unlikely they’ll find anything.”

“And where did she find this Hacker?”

“We don’t know.”  Antonio said, shaking his head.  “She is very good at pulling the right people together.  She handpicked every member of Shadow Company since day one.  They never failed a single mission under her leadership.  Neither have they under her successor Major Forlani.”

“Now we are sure, we need to initiate a nationwide hunt,” Soetemeyer said.  “She is undoubtedly returning here and could well already be on planet, but there is no point in narrowing our focus merely to this system.  All the Pantheon’s forces must be used to find and eliminate her.”

“It’s not quite that simple, Petra,” Antonio told her.

“What do you mean?  I know we need to keep Prometheus under wraps and she can’t be linked with Furioso, but we now have enough distance from it to create a new cover story.”

“We can’t let the Legion know she’s still alive.”  Antonio could see the aged politician reacting to the hesitancy in his voice and kept going, not letting her interrupt.  “While she was dead, it wasn’t a problem and it is why I didn’t bring this up.  Carter has something of a reputation within the Legion.  Almost every recruit knows of her.”

“I thought she was some secret super soldier.  That’s what you told us and that’s what you told the President.”

The grimace of Antonio’s face was entirely involuntary.  He couldn’t stop it at the mention of the President.  It was the equivalent of Family members threatening to bring the Family Head in over a minor indiscretion.

“As a Commando Devil, she was kept very secret, but stories got out, as they do.  Rumours became myths and myths became legends until the legend had a name.  Battleborn.”

“Battleborn!  Carter’s fucking Battleborn?!”  Soetemeyer was well known for her vindictiveness and spiteful chastisements, but in over eighty years, he had never seen her as angry and red in the face as now.  “That’s some nonsense made up by soldiers telling war stories, like men lying about the size of their dicks!”

Out of the corner of his eye, Antonio saw Wioletta sit back.  She was trying to stay as far out of this as she could and he didn’t blame her.  He could handle Soetemeyer if he had to, but it would be bloody, both in the political and literal sense.  Keeping his voice as calm and even as he could, he tried to explain.

“With her abilities, stories were always going to be told.  I knew it needed to be managed, so she was always placed in units where discretion was a given.  They never named names or anything of any sensitive nature.  The stories were just that, stories, and, as these things do, they grew with each retelling.  The Legion took pride in Battleborn, it was something for them to aspire to and it’s a good thing.”

“Until that inspiration gets murdered along with her entire family by the Zeus Police!”

“Exactly.  It was the Legion’s response to that act, I initially feared when Wioletta told me about the attack on Carter’s home.  There are enough people in the Legion who know Valerie Carter is Battleborn.  It could have ignited the entire Legion against us, making Furioso look like a children’s argument in comparison.  When we thought she had blown herself up along with the station, I was relieved!”

“It’s even more imperative we stop her.  I have no idea why she hasn’t gone to the Legion before now but if, no, when she realises, it will be a disaster.”

“I think she has been so wrapped up in her need for personal satisfaction, she has not thought of a more large scale response and you’re right.  She has to be eliminated, but quietly, and to do it, Wioletta and I have put together a plan.  Wioletta?”

The junior Admiral leaned forward, back into the conversation.  “Yes, Madam Secretary.  We have put together a profile for one of Bacc’s terrorists, with the cover of only having DNA trace evidence of their identity.  It will of course be Carter’s DNA from her file and, without a name or any other identifying flag, we can send this nationwide as you suggested.  Without anyone realising who we are really hunting.”

“And you want me to put this through the civilian security agencies, I take it?”

Antonio nodded.  “Yes, Madam Secretary.  That way it doesn’t look like the Legion is hunting one of its own.”

“Very well.  I’ll make sure it gets done.”  The anger had clearly cooled as her mind took back control and she sighed.  “In all honesty, Antonio.  What do you think are our chances of catching her before she strikes again?”

“Normally?”  Antonio shook his head.  “Slim to none.  She is simply that good.  Fortunately we know what she wants and ultimately who her target is.  What we need to do, is intercept her before she gets to Julian September, but if it comes to it, we’ll surround him with a Heavy Mech division and dare her to try and get to him.  One way or the other, we will stop her.”