"Yeah, it just has experimental flight test listed as the reason. It's supposed to depart about two hours from now. One battle cruiser can't be a threat to the system all the way out in the Oort Cloud, could it?" Kira rubbed at her eyes with her palms and then shook her head, flinging her hair loose about her face.
"I don't see how."
"Let's keep this in mind as we filter the rest of the data."
"Makes sense to me."
Several minutes passed, and there was little of immediate use found in the data. Kira yawned and struggled to stay awake as the cruiser approached the outskirts of New Tharsis. Fifteen minutes later, Allison was waking her up telling her that they had landed.
Kira dragged herself to the parking lot of the small suburban airport and crawled in her car. Allison took over again, driving her to the Tangier estates across the county. On the way, she stripped down and tossed her clothes in a bag to drop in an incinerator along the way. She ran a bathwipe over her body and changed her hair back to its normal color. Then she dressed in clothes that she had stored in her car earlier. The clothes reeked of tobacco smoke, spilled cocktails and a mixture of perfumes and colognes.
Five minutes.
Okay.
The gate at the mansion read the wireless ID tag for Kira's car and opened silently. The automatic taxi AI took command of the vehicle and steered the little blue sportscar into Kira's usual garage spot. As far as anybody at the Tangier house was concerned, it had just been another night out on the town for Kira.
"What a long freakin' day," she muttered. Her hovercar came to a halt and dropped to the floor. Kira took a quick glance at herself in the mirror for any telltale signs that she was a spy and assured herself that she was clean. The canopy of the car slid back and the door dropped to the floor, step-ramp style. Kira took a deep breath and shook her head.
"Home sweet home," she said almost sarcastically. She actually hadn't had a real home in decades since she had become an operative for the CIA. Her home was in Virginia, or at least that was where she had grown up. Her father was a Virginian and her mother a Martian. Her natural appearance was a mix of the two. Her hair was straight and dark, and her big brown eyes and her once milky skin gave away that she had Martian heritage. Her parents were still together after more than fifty years of marriage and still lived in Herndon. They had no idea if their daughter was alive or not. The last they had heard from her had been about seven years prior, just after she returned from New Africa and started training for this mission at the CIA "Farm."
The last four years, though, the Tangier estates—there were several of them spread out through the Tau Ceti system—had been her home. People back at the Sol system would be amazed at how vast the Tau Ceti colony was. Nobody on Earth had any idea how much the place had grown. The Separatists had been using their QMT bridge to funnel supplies and equipment back and forth to Tau Ceti for decades and had created a system that nearly rivaled the United States. The economy was similar, supporting work from low to upper class. There were the Sol system equivalents of multibillionaires here, including the Tangier family. The Tangiers had been one of the largest shipping families for the Martian Reservation, and they had levied that power into the Tau Ceti colony.
Kira had luckily stumbled into the family during the Exodus. And she had fit into the billionaire's lifestyle with vigor. Her many trips to the beach properties along Madira Valley had left her tanned and taking on many of the mannerisms of the Separatist locals. She had become one of the second-tier wives in the family so quickly, most likely because, Kira thought, both Elise and two of her husbands enjoyed having her in bed with them on occasion. Any time Kira had the chance, she had gone out of her way to please the Tangiers in any way she could. Any. Way. Her enthusiastic approach toward the Tangier family had enabled her to gain access to business matters of the powerful shipping juggernaut that otherwise might have been unattainable. Kira had learned a long, long time ago to do whatever the mission required. She had fit right in, and her cover had worked perfectly.
Kira clicked the door open with her palm print. The machine didn't actually read her palm and finger prints, but instead it thought that it had and accepted the false one that Allison transmitted to it. She began the process of dragging herself up the two stories and across to the south hall where her apartment was. To fit in with her persona, she stumbled noisily, as if she were inebriated, down the hallway, bumping into a few pieces of furniture here and there until she reached her room. The door opened for her, she stepped through, and it squeaked lightly as it closed behind her.
"Lights," she sighed, half expecting to find one of the Tangiers waiting for her in her bed. She was tired, but would have to keep to her cover and play her part. "Dim."
Kira, look out!
The lights flicked on at a moderate level, just enough for her to see that there were several people in the room with her. Before she could react, a man in military dress and an armored torso step forward and coldcocked her across the bridge of the nose with the butt of a rifle. Kira saw stars briefly and blood poured down her face. Two men wrapped up her arms from the sides, while somebody else grabbed her from behind and sat an airgun against her neck, injecting her with something. The lights tunneled around her and began to close in on her.
Allison, our cover has been blown were her last thoughts as her mind went black and her body limp. Allison . . .
Kira! Kira Shavi!
Chapter 13
October 31, 2388 AD
Sol System
Oort Cloud
Saturday, 7:14 AM, Earth Eastern Standard Time
"What the hell was that!" Captain Jefferson shouted over the reverberating hull. The Madira lurched downward with the force of several gravities so abruptly that the captain's teeth rattled. The extreme noise propagating through the supercarrier's hull rapidly approached the danger zone. The CO was certain that standing with his head up the tailpipe of an FM-12 on full burn would be quieter. Jefferson also caught a glimpse of the COB losing his balance and tripping headfirst into the bulkhead. Had it not been so damned loud, he was certain that there would have been some colorful euphemisms to follow the COB's fall as he raised up, rubbing his forehead and sipping from the coffee mug from which he hadn't spilled a drop.
"Not sure, CO," Commander Monte Freeman, the ship's science and technology officer, replied. The STO tapped at his console and reached out for imaginary icons in his virtual mindview but found no answer. The impact or explosion or whatever the hell it was had just appeared to have come from out of nowhere. And whatever it had been had packed one hell of a wallop.
"Captain, we've got damage reports flooding in from everywhere." The XO shook his head to clear the ringing from his ears, just as the ship jerked and lurched a second time. "Fuck me!"
"Goddamnit, I want to know what that is!" Jefferson white- knuckled his chair until the ship stopped shaking. Yellow and red warning lights flashed, and klaxons blared across the bridge.
"I'm working on it, CO." The STO continued to work up simulations from the limited data that the ship's sensors had gathered on the impacts, but he was having little luck. The ship's self-diagnostic sensors, on the other hand, were going apeshit. The STO was certain that the CO could see all of this in his DTM, but he might not be paying attention to that particular detail at the moment since there was a battle raging outside and all. "The SIF generators were taxed to ninety percent of maximum and are running hotter than the coolant systems can overcome. From the usage of the SIFs, I should be able to back- calculate the energy of the impact."