"Unhh," she moaned and shivered a final time, and then as if someone had thrown a switch, immediately snapped out of the mood and into Elle Ahmi, Separatist Leader mode. It was as if someone had screamed "Incoming!" and she had jerked to scrambling for cover and her weapon. Nobody'd better be fucking with my plans!
"Elle . . ."
"Goddamnit!" she cursed, startling Scotty out of the moment and completely destroying the mood for each of them. There was work to be done, but Elle didn't have to like it. Turn the damn lights on. Fuck.
"What the . . . Elle?" Scotty looked at her, bewildered and squinting from the light in his eyes.
"What kind of alert?" she said verbally.
There has been a security incident, and several soldiers and guards have been killed, the AIC reported.
What do you mean security incident?
Vital information to the battle plans has been downloaded: some background information on you, the Oort Cloud facility, and knowledge of the QMT-4 prototype, the AIC replied.
"Shit!" As if the encounter had never happened, Elle was in General Ahmi mode and was standing at her bedside, pulling her uniform out of a drawer near her bed and getting dressed. "Who, and how, Copernicus? Go speakers for Scotty."
"Yes, ma'am," the AIC's voice filled the room. "There may be more data that she copied, but nobody is certain of that yet. Also, there is no identification on her, but it appears to be a young red-haired woman of average build. My guess is that her physical appearance is under disguise if this is a professional attempt. Somehow the security cameras were overridden, and there is no image of her available. She managed to infiltrate a battle cruiser and hack into the secure network. All of this does suggest a pro. CIA perhaps?"
"Too early to guess. Damn. All right, find her. Alive! We need to know what she knows." Elle looked at Scotty, who was still lying naked and spent on her bed with a tired and very angry expression. Her sleep cycle would have to wait. "It's always something.
"We have to go, Scotty," Elle said as she stormed to the edge of the penthouse toward the door and donned the forever-present red, white, and blue ski mask. She pulled her long black hair into a ponytail through the hole in the back of the mask and slapped the door open, never bothering to look back at her lover. "Copernicus, have my Lorda troop lifter ready. Come on, Scotty."
Chapter 6
October 31, 2388 AD
Tau Ceti Planet Four, Moon Alpha (aka Ares)
Madira Valley Beach Spaceport
Saturday, 5:40 AM, Earth Eastern Standard Time
Saturday, 1:40 AM, Madira Valley Standard Time
Any luck, Allison? Kira thought to her AIC. After the altercation in the stockroom, she had been having a hard time avoiding interaction with the Seppy battle cruiser's security detachments. The entire ship knew that she was there now, and she had been lying low for the better part of half an hour, trying to come up with a new escape plan. She had heard several announcements over the ship's 1MC intercom for all hands to watch for the intruder. And that wasn't good.
No. The structural integrity fields of the ship's outer hull have all been activated, and I haven't been able to find a way through them yet. Kira knew that Allison was a smart AIC and had trained all her life—ever since her AI family had activated her—to hack codes. It was fun to her, which was part of why she had followed the path to becoming an AIC for an intelligence operative. It was just a matter of time before she would figure a way out of the ship's structural integrity fields (SIFs).
Well, the longer we stay, the less chance we have for getting the hell out of here, Kira urged her. Can we blow a SIF generator somewhere?
I've looked at that, Allison responded. The generators are really deep in the ship. And I'd suspect that is the one direction we should avoid since I'm certain the Seppies have thought of that approach too.
Shit. We can't just wait around. Sooner or later, somebody is gonna find us.
I understand, Allison replied. The two of them had been together a long time, and there was no real need for Kira to tell her such obvious things—of course they couldn't just keep waiting around, and Allison understood that. The AIC had always found it interesting how humans had a habit of trying to add stress to a situation with hopes of making it better. It neither helped nor hindered the AI. It was more data, however. And Kira liked to nudge her AI partner-in-crime a little every now and then just to keep her motivated.
What if I steal a ship and blast out? Kira squirmed a bit against the coolant pipe that she had been becoming one with for about the past thirty-five minutes. She had gotten used to the periodic yellow flash of the warning lights flickering off the dull gray interior walls of the battle cruiser.
She had almost grown comfortable on her perch. There had been several close calls when troops had hurriedly marched underneath her down the hallway to the hatch at the aft end of the hangar. The hangar had been her original plan, but now she wasn't sure that it was really much of a plan more than just a general idea or a natural instinct to run for the door. All would have worked fine had she not slipped up and let that damned stock clerk sneak up behind her the way she did. After more than four years of working undercover as a second wife in a rich household, Kira was afraid that she was getting soft and sloppy. The immunobooster she had given herself as soon as she had the opportunity to hide and recover was doing its job. The injection had almost completely healed the railgun wound in her arm. The adrenaline and pain meds in it had also reduced the throbbing to a point that she didn't remember the wound being there—well, at least she no longer paid attention to it.
Maybe. Let me run some numbers real quick, Allison replied.
Well, do it quick. I'm getting tired of just sitting around. Kira was skeptical that just a shuttle ramming the SIF-protected hull from the inside would be enough to get out. On the other hand, the SIFs were designed to protect ships from external threats, not internal ones.
Do you still remember how to fly mecha? Allison asked.
Man, I was hoping you weren't gonna say that. It had been years since the skirmish in New Africa, where Kira had been undercover in the resistance as a mecha pilot. Years. And that mecha was way different than modern-day mecha. If push came to shove, Allison could always walk her through it, provided there would be time enough to do so.
I think I have a plan, Kira. First you have to get aboard one of those shuttles at the starboard side of the bay. Then we can hack it to fly the profile we need.
Okay. Sounds easy enough. Then what?
Then you have to steal an Orcus drop tank or a Stinger and follow in behind it at the precise moment the shuttle crashes into the SIF, Allison instructed. The field will weaken enough for a few tens of milliseconds so that the mecha can pass through it and survive. At that point, I would recommend ejecting from the mecha, as it will likely be in rough shape.