Chapter 154: [ Book 2 ] Chapter 14: Objective Failed

The gray and squat cylinder that was Sanctum station drifted away in the aft cam stream of the light freighter Mounteque.

A sparkling sphere of navigation lights blinked around the station—freighters, tugs, passenger ferries, two mining rigs, a science skiff, and one decades-old pleasure yacht--all relegated to a holding pattern while SecForce investigated the crime scenes.

Between the ships and the station, over fifteen thousand sentients were clumped together within a sphere of half a million cubic kilometers of low-density particles, electromagnetic radiation, and cosmic rays. It was a minuscule pinpoint of volume in the grand scheme of the infinite universe. But when viewed from the feeble-minded perspective of channel station docking regulations, things had gotten a little crowded.

The station’s docking hub provided little information beyond the announcement of a security incident, and that cooperation and patience from all vessels would be appreciated. The ask proved too much as the station’s public hub was flooded with digital vitriol almost immediately. Haulers and merchants griped about deadlines and profits, passengers about missed appointments and connections, and a minor Pree noble who had to cancel their dinner plans.

In all the anger and sniping, no one took notice of the Mounteque as it slipped out of the traffic mess.

Stevson piloted the ship while Carnen rested in the captain’s chair, thinking about the thousands of people in some form of distress due to his team’s actions. Pawns in a greater game, at the mercy of the players who didn't follow the rules.

It would only be a matter of time before the Harmony was found, and the bodies on the station linked to the deserted ship. By then, the operatives would be long gone. The station’s SecForce branch wouldn’t score a big arrest. The crimes would go unsolved. The suspects, if ever identified, would never face justice. For as good as the intersystem security conglomerate was, they had no chance against a former Human Coalition Marine Raider turned operator with decades of experience.

Someone like Carnen.

He didn’t wish disruption upon the normal masses. They were simpletons going about their business, their efforts keeping the galaxy running. Sustenance grown and distributed, environments maintained, cargo delivered. It was the ones in power he enjoyed cutting down. Those who thought they ran the show, who needed to be shown what true power looked like. No amount of creds or prestige or family connections could do anything to counteract a knife to the throat or a gun to the head.

Soon the crisis would pass. The crime scenes would be cataloged and cleaned. The bodies autopsied and disposed of. Reports filed, administrators briefed. It would end there. Those involved with the case would have no choice but to move on, plagued with the knowledge that somewhere out there, the perpetrators were free to act again.

But his euphoria was short-lived, tainted by the ill-timed arrival of one shaggy-haired, brown-eyed man on the other side of middle-aged dressed in an ill-fitting construction coverall.

The savior.

It was a cascade of lucky breaks that allowed him to escape. Throwing the confiscated stun grenade into the compartment to defeat the ambush. Weaving through the pedestrian traffic. SecForce officers interfering at an inopportune moment. Rebooting the cart after a security admin placed it in maintenance mode. Ducking Carnen’s precision shot. The operative’s cart hitting the wall, wasting precious seconds in the pursuit. Then the final kick in the groin, the escape out the airlock.

It wasn’t the worst op Carnen had been involved in. Not even close. The primary objective—retrieving the stolen material—was achieved. No one on his team had died, and the few injuries they suffered were minor. The collateral damage was minimal; two stunned SecForce officers and a shot-up compartment still under construction. The bots working through the third shift might buff most of all the holes before the first shift reports in.

Despite the messiness, the complications, and the frustrations, the Theocracy’s secrets were safe, skewing the results into the win column.

Still, his gut was unsettled like he’d eaten a bad meal. He shouldn’t have lost the last of those couriers. He'd squeezed them into a bad spot and they still managed to slip his grasp.

A lifetime of training refocused his drifting thoughts. He could analyze his grievances later in the debriefing when they were clear of Sanctum. He’d done enough operations to know when the team had crossed the threshold where they were out of any real danger. They hadn’t reached that point yet.

Stevson began humming some unfamiliar tune. Carnen looked over the sensors one final time. A force of habit rather than a legitimate concern, as the station didn’t have a patrol skiff. No ship followed in their direction. The Sentinel and Warden teams were in the clear.

Carnen opened a comm to Kemp. “What’s your status?”

“We’re ready for you,” Kemp answered.

“Only my way,” Carnen said. He stood and watched Sanctum’s glow and its orbit of flashing lights fade into the onyx canvas of deep space. He said to Stevson, “You can join us when we’ve cleared Sanctum proper.”

The pilot, still humming, called over his shoulder, “Save some of the interrogating for me.”

---

Carnen could hear the screaming through the closed hatch of the main cargo hold. The hatch slid open on sensing his approach and he stepped through.

Whereas Harmony’s hold had been configured as a studio for some sort of performance troupe—unusual but not overtly nefarious—the Mounteque’s was for a different kind of show.

The type you didn’t want to star in.

Containers lined the compartment, each split open to reveal its innards—tactical gear, weaponry, a military-focused workbench, medical equipment. Standard loads the Mounteque had carried to support the crew's covert operations. The latest operation for the Pree Theocracy brought aboard a few new containers—high-tech medical scanning and imaging devices, pharmaceutical manufacturing machines, and procedure tables.

Given the sensitive and sometimes illegal nature of the containers’ contents, each one could fold in on itself in under a minute if need be. Carnen knew that only a security inspection would warrant such action, the operatives either unable to talk their way out of it or lacking credentials to bypass it. If all else failed, the ship held hidden weapons caches to fight down to the last operative. Storming it would be a nightmare, even for seasoned HuCo Marine Raiders. He knew this firsthand from several unpleasant experiences with pirates and smugglers back in the day.

Everyone but Stevson was in the hold, working on various equipment. The secret laboratory vibe, already radiating ominous energy, took on a visceral quality with the two Pree strapped to procedure tables. Diagnostic equipment chirped softly at their heads. The detainee babbled nonsense while the traitor was unconscious. Sensors were stuck to his body, while thin tubes snaked away from his arms.

With the traitor sedated, Carnen started with the detainee, an apparent rogue asset. The agitated Pree struggled against the restraints.

“Those good-for-nothing traitorous breeders! Spouting on about their immoral Acculturation! Philandering with unworthy! They must be stopped!”

Kemp stood at the head of the table, scrolling through her datapad. She appeared oblivious to the racket. Eptus came beside Carnen.

“Commander, he’s been going on like this since SecForce released him into my custody,” the Pree said. “I had to gag him when I brought him aboard. We removed it and he’s back at it.”

“Shut him up before I dump him out an airlock," Carnen said.

Without looking up from her datapad, Kemp retrieved an injector from a supply shelf and pressed it to the detainee's neck. His ranting faded out over several seconds until his eyes rolled back and his head tilted to the side.

“How did SecForce react when you requested his release into your custody?” Carnen asked.

“They were distracted with securing the station following the incidents, and were glad to get rid of what they thought was a drunken idiot. They cleared the ship to depart without a second thought.”

“Good.” Carnen glanced at Kemp, who still had her head in her datapad. “What do you have?”

Kemp read over her datapad one final time, then raised her eyes to Carnen. Her face pinched, irritated by the interruption. Carnen knew where it came from. She was a scientist, a behind-the-scenes talent in the creation of Project Fidelity. In that environment, she lived near the top of the food chain. Here, Carnen ran the show, a change she appeared unable to handle at times.

A problem Carnen would need to correct at some point.

With an exasperated sigh, Kemp said, “I have nothing definitive to report yet. The detainee is a business executive who is kin of a regent. I confirmed that he is a project asset--"

"How?" Eptus asked.

Kemp gave the Sentinel commander a scolding glare. "I cannot divulge aspects of Project Fidelity yet and you know it."

Eptus looked to Carnen for support, but found none. The Sentinel commander frowned at Kemp but kept quiet.

Kemp went on. "Now, the SecForce arrest report stated this individual attacked the performers known as Sisters Celescia during their pro-Acculturation performance. Based on previous incidents involving generation 1.0 assets, there's probable cause that this was another rogue activation. But, I need more time to study it."

“You may do so, but the traitor takes priority," Carnen said.

“I know that.”

Carnen brushed off her open contempt. Unfortunately for Kemp, she fell into the camp of the intellectual elite who looked down upon others. If she kept it up around him, it would catch up to her one day.

“What is the status of the traitor?” Carnen asked Eptus, moving the conversation along. The group shifted to the unconscious defector at the next table over. His clothes were replaced with medical scrubs. Bandages covered his upper body and one side of his face. He breathed gently, an almost serene expression on his face.

Pree were not a physically intimidating species, and this one was no exception. Yet, the elder male had managed to outwit Carnen while on the business end of an ambush. The operative respected that, especially given the Pree’s lack of formal training. But that didn’t relieve Carnen of any frustration at the setback.

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“He sustained serious injuries in the ambush but is stable. We will need to take precautions when he's strong enough for an interrogation,” the medtech said.

Carnen gave Eptus a hard stare. “Once we’re done with that, we’ll conduct the after-action report on the ambush. Someone made a mistake which allowed that man to escape with three of the couriers. It cannot happen again.”

“Yes, Commander,” Eptus said with an icy expression as Stevson arrived in the hold and joined the others around the traitor. Stevson took in the dour expressions and kept his mouth shut for once.

The medtech said, “As you know, our primary objective was to repossess the stolen material. All the missing prototype capsules and datacores have been scanned and accounted for.” The medtech paused and lifted a clear bag. Inside was what looked to be a standard medical injector. “However, this was in the detainee’s possession. The loaded cartridge was empty, and the device’s system logged an injection at the time of the ambush. Upon investigating each capsule, we discovered one had less mass than the others.

“The injectors self-sterilize upon use so we cannot trace the recipient. We scanned the blood samples of the traitor and the deceased couriers. None of them yielded signs of the prototype Project Fidelity compound. Assuming it was in the injector, I believe the traitor must have injected one of the escaped couriers with it.”

Carnen’s mind played back his experience of the firefight. The joint operative team gunning down a few of the couriers in a matter of seconds. The traitor, falling to the ground near one of the couriers who escaped. The frightful chunks of material the unknown man’s powerful pistol blew to tiny bits. Nowhere in that chaos did he witness an injection. But, the three couriers who escaped and their traitor were out of sight for several seconds, hugging the floor in the middle of the compartment.

“I agree with that theory. I cannot think of another scenario,” Kemp said.

Carnen's heavy brow sunk as he digested the implications. The stolen prototype was still in the wild. Their primary objective had not been met. They had no intelligence on where the three remaining couriers—one of whom had the stolen material inside of them—had gone after blowing out the airlock.

No one but Kemp knew how the material functioned. The operational brief only informed the teams that its retrieval was vital for the upcoming vote. The revelation that it was biological in nature left Carnen with an unexpected sense of discomfort.

The Sentinel operatives appeared to share the same sentiment as they exchanged worried glances among themselves.

“We understand the need-to-know secrecy classification for Project Fidelity, but we deserve to know if there's any risk of exposure to it,” Eptus said to Kemp.

“You have nothing to fear. The compound is not transmittable and it’s not dangerous. This much I can assure you,” she answered.

Still, the Pree operatives didn’t look satisfied.

“Do we have anything on the escaped couriers?” Carnen said.

“Nothing beyond what we already know. They ejected and after that, no one could find them. There's no sign that SecForce picked them up using a tug or a shuttle,” Stevson said. "That means a random ship stepped in to help."

Carnen said, “Assuming it was, once aboard, the escaped couriers wouldn’t request a transfer back to Sanctum knowing we were after them. Not to mention the intensive questioning they would receive from SecForce. That means they’ll need transportation to their next planned destination. Most likely the same place they planned to hand over the stolen material to their Acculturation leadership. We have no leads where that may be. Harmony’s manifest listed no destination, and we found no clues while aboard.”

“Hopefully it wasn’t an intersystem hauler heading for the channel,” Stevson said.

“Even if the rescuing ship were bound for the channel, the couriers would pay for a transfer to another ship heading sunward. They wouldn’t abandon their movement at this critical juncture,” Eptus said.

“Then we deduce their next destination,” Carnen said. He stepped to the nearest wall display and brought up the local star map. Icons glowed in various colors, representing the population centers, natural celestial bodies, and ships.

He eyed the blue icon of three overlapping globes. A flicker of contempt flared at the symbol of the Commonwealth on their so-called ‘security’ flotilla. He knew the truth—they were sticking their nose into the charter business of the Pree.

He was glad about that. They would have a front-row seat to their imminent downfall.

A handful of population centers were within several days of travel. There was no clear sign of where the couriers might go next, but a few stood out as candidates. Major commerce hubs—with admins who took a neutral political stance on the charter issue—would be conducive to Acculturation movement operations. There was also the possibility that the couriers intended to link up directly with another ship. Either way, the operatives needed a clue of where to go next.

Carnen noticed the Sanctum news feed scrolling on one of the large displays in the converted containers. Multiple streams showed three Pree performers on a stage engaged in an energetic dance routine amidst a rainstorm of shifting lights. The dark form of the enraged Pree flashed into view, only to be knocked off the stage at the last moment by another form.

"Tell me more about these singers," Carnen said.

“They’re vocal Acculturation advocates who came out of nowhere over a year ago. Very hip and provocative. Their music and dance pulls from many other races while incorporating Pree traditions too," Stevson said. "We saw firsthand their popularity. People on the station went crazy, swarming the lounge just to get a glimpse of them."

"Why do you know all this?" Eptus asked.

Stevson looked around at the faces starting back at him. “I, uh, like their media. It’s catchy.”

Carnen recalled the pilot's humming on the Mounteque’s bridge. He brought up the images of the Harmony’s interior on the nearest display. He expanded images of the courier ship's cargo hold and the unusual equipment layout.

“Notice anything?”

“Holy shit,” Stevson said. “Sisters Celescia are the couriers!”

Carnen looked to each of the Sentinel team operatives.

“No one has a better idea about this than you. Is it plausible that this Sisters Celescia troupe are Acculturation agents?”

“Absolutely," Eptus said. "Their fame grants them access to people of power and influence who could aid the Acculturation movement. They have financial resources and means of travel."

Carnen reverted the display back to the system map.

“Assume this Sisters Celscia troupe is our primary target. Do we know where they’re going next? Are they on a scheduled performance tour? ”

“I’ll check their public hub,” the Sentinel tech said. He shared his search to the display. The Sisters Celescia hub featured a prominent image of them in dramatic poses. There were vids of previous performances but no indication of future scheduled shows. “It appears their schedule is secret. Their appearances occur with little to no notice.”

“How convenient,” Stevson said.

"They have to if they wish to speak out against the Theocracy and minimize the risk of retaliation," Carnen said.

“We can run a probability analysis using their past performances to predict future ones,” Kemp said.

“I agree that is a worthwhile endeavorer,” the Sentinel tech said.

“Get right on it,” Eptus said.

“We need to speak to the detainee now. See if he has any insight into this,” Carnen said.

“I can wake him, but there’s a chance it could kill him,” the medtech said.

“Give me a number.”

The medtech paused in thought. “I’d say 30 percent.”

“He’s our only lead,” Carnen said to Eptus.

The Sentinel team supervisor stared back at Carnen. An internal battle of odds and outcomes played out in the tension on Eptus’s face.

Without looking away, Eptus said to his subordinate, “Wake the traitor.”

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