“Smart ass,” she quipped as the lift doors opened. Three crewmembers waiting for the lift saluted and stepped aside.
“Thank you, Captain,” he told her, motioning for her to exit first.
“My pleasure, Admiral.”
“No, mine. Really.”
The sound of the lift doors closing behind them was immediately followed by the sensation of a small hand smacking him on the rump. He grinned.
“Be careful with this so-called lucky find of yours, Branden. I don’t like it. And my Rebashee contacts are getting chatter that something’s in the works.”
He sighed. “You and Gund’jalar grant the Faction capabilities I don’t think they have. By the time I escaped, the Triad had lost most of the key officers, top personnel.” Some escaped with him but far more were murdered. That was one of the many losses he felt keenly.
“And you don’t feel the Ved’eskhar give them a definite advantage?”
“Granted, the Ved control those who remain. But that’s exactly my point: they’re alien creatures.
Parasites. Their goal is to feed on humans’ emotional reactions. The success of the Faction as a military and political entity is not their concern. I’ve believed all along they would get sloppy militarily. This could well be the first of many errors we’ll find.”
“Show me the rest of the squadron, or its debris, and I’ll feel better. That kind of error I understand.
But a ship just showing up with no logical explanation—”
“We don’t know how long it’s been traveling. The explanation could be just out of sensor range for us.
I can access the Teaser’s systems – I know a Teaser’s systems – and find all that out and more.”
Sass slowed as they approached Shuttle Bay Eleven. “I want one of our furzels to scan the ship for Ved resonances first.”
“Agreed.” Kel-Paten knew he could handle anything mechanical or cybernetic. He’d integrate his personal firewalls with the security blocks already resident in the U-Cee probes. But telepathic parasitic aliens were something he’d never been programmed for. Furzels, however, hunted them with great success. That was why there were virtually none of the small furry creatures in the Triad, and why every U-Cee ship and station housed them.
He followed Sass into the shuttle bay control room, and listened without comment while she requested a scanning furzel from the division chief on duty. The slender lines of the captured Triad ship – the Ada-
class TZ-Four – drew him to the large viewport. Sleek, powerful, agile, adaptive, it was everything the Triad had been before the Faction. Yes, this one was battered, her hull caved in badly on her port side.
But those flaws couldn’t detract from her beauty, not even with the Regalia’s spiky security probes circling her, scanning for explosives and detonation devices.
He’d flown TZ-Twos in training and Threes in actual combat. “The Ada-class TZ-Four was released fifteen months ago,” he told Sass and the chief as they watched the brown-striped furzel sniff the viewport, its fur-tufted ears cocked forward, long whiskers quivering. He couldn’t hear its thoughts. He wasn’t linked to it as he and Sass were to Tank. But he recognized the scanning posture.
“If the ship is a newer model then why was it broadcasting on an old comm channel?” Sass asked as the furzel disappeared from its perch in a blink, and then reappeared moments later.
He’d considered that question. “The NB757 comm was needed to integrate with older ships.”
A plumy tail twitched. The furzel shook itself and stared with golden eyes up at the red-haired female ensign who was its teammate and handler. “Negative on Ved resonances, Captain,” the woman said.
“Probes show negative on explosives,” the chief added, pointing to the hovering holo screen with its rotating schematics of the craft.
Kel-Paten held back his “told you so” until the chief followed the ensign and the furzel out of the control room.
Sass snorted softly. “Just how long has it been since Teaser squadrons used NB757?”
Kel-Paten accessed his memory banks. “Twenty-one years, three months. TZ-Twos were the last official usage, though it existed on some early Threes because—”
“They had to talk to the older fighters. I know. But this is a TZ-Four.”
“Exactly my point. I know her specs, defenses, and data structures because they’re based on systems I’d developed for the Vax.” That was another loss he felt keenly: The Vaxxar, his former Triad flagship, now little more than scrap, thanks to the Ved. He shook off the memory and tossed one of her trademark phrases at her: “Piece o’ cake.”
She responded with her green eyes narrowing in a clear warning. “Piece o’ cake, my ass. Be careful.
That’s an order.”
Kel-Paten dropped into the seat the chief had vacated and inserted one end of a makeshift data-spike into the access port. The Regalia was a U-Cee ship, not Triad. It might now be his home, but it was still foreign territory. Linking the other end to the ports in his wrist would grant him control of and access to the probes and through them the TZ-Four. A bit of home, a bit of familiarity. He hadn’t realized how much he missed Triad tech until he’d seen the fighter.
“You hear me, flyboy?” She cuffed him lightly on the shoulder.
He held one end of the data-spike between gloved fingers and slanted a glance up at her, the woman he’d dubbed his “green-eyed vixen” more than a dozen years ago. “Sebastian.” He paused deliberately.
The name-and-pause was a ritual, also established long ago as a challenge to his patience. Now it held a distinctly sentimental and affectionate tone.
“Kel-Paten.” She paused as well. Her mouth twitched.
He fought the urge to kiss those twitches; the world of hidden and forbidden Triad data beckoned him.
For the past four shipweeks – ever since the Regalia had pulled him and what was left of his officers and crew off the dying hulk of his flagship, the Vaxxar – he’d been living in an environment where he really didn’t belong. An environment where – in spite of Sass – he was an outsider. His rank was a courtesy.
His contributions were appreciated, but as an adviser, not as part of the team. Now, with this, a Triad ship, he knew he could make a significant difference. Intel reports hinted that the Triad Faction was amassing a secret battle group in the Far Reaches. This TZ-Four had to have come from that – probably a remnant of war games gone wrong. He was going to use their mistake to undermine them. Destroy them.
Just as they’d destroyed everything he’d once held sacred: his commission, his fleet, his flagship, his home.
He activated his full ’cybe functions with a thought, and clicked the end of the data-spike into his wrist.
It took him seven-point-three seconds to guide the probe to the access port on the Teaser’s hull, and another three-point-five seconds to initiate a secure connection. Firewalls – his and the probes’ – shielded his entry. His mind slid down the datastream pathways as if he were just another bit of code, which he was. Six seconds more and he was at the main databanks.
If not for the years of training he’d been through, he would have gasped aloud. Luck? This was beyond luck. This was a veritable mythical heaven of information on the Faction’s fleet and its movements. Its battle plans. Its . . . there. It had to be. More than just battle plans. The Faction’s security access codes. The U-Cees, the Rebashee, hell, as far as he knew even the Illithians hadn’t been able to obtain these, though many had died trying.