Quarters in garrison bases were capable of becoming completely lightless by design. Even marines needed sleep, and trying to relax on alien worlds was hard enough without unscheduled light interrupting the night cycle. This early in the morning, even marine officers weren’t usually awake and active. Fourth watch, on the other hand, was not only awake and active, but under orders to report anything unusual, even if it meant disturbing a formerly sleeping major.
“Rook to Black Queen.”
The major reached for the side table and keyed her commlink. The environmental system detected movement and brought the lights to 10%. “Komanov.”
“Major, we are picking up an unusual gravitic reading from our surface repeater at point west.”
“Is it localized?”
“Negative, ma’am. I was about to raise Jester, but you left orders to check with a command officer first.”
“And Tarcus is off-base,” the major sighed. “Quietly raise signal status to condition four. I’ll be up in a minute.”
Komanov stopped at her window and deactivated the polarizing field. Reflected light from one of Bayone’s suns was visible along the mountains far to the south. The fire base Sixth Armor had landed to establish was fully operational by now. The major’s Iron Keep had deployed flawlessly, adding yet another feather to special projects’ resume and her experimental weapons section.
Because of Commander Curtiss, instead of one engineering camp, now they had three, each with total failover power routing capabilities. Reactor Two was a half-mile underground, courtesy of DSS Argent’s combat engineers. The infantry team would have preferred to blast its way under the surface, but given the time restraints, it was decided precision demolitions could do the job faster. It wasn’t quite as loud or destructive, but it only took a few hours instead of an odd number of weeks.
The garrison itself was a triangular affair, with reinforced and anchored half-dome ground emplacements at equidistant points around a larger headquarters facility situated at the complex center. Armored maglev trains shuttled fuel, repair crews, combat personnel and ammunition between nodes using vacuum-sealed supercooled underground tracks. Sixth Armor’s battalion of superheavies was now firmly established as the base’s primary ground force. The SX-15 Razorback tanks provided both ground and low orbital energy weapon firepower for defense and the SX8 and SX12 recon units were tailor-made for patrol duty.
A company of heavily armed marine infantry from the 14th was stationed at Lethe Deeps orbital defense complex and in constant communication with the remainder of Komanov’s forces at the garrison. Several attempts had been made to bring the formidable permanent weapon emplacements of the Deeps back on line, but the project had been postponed in the interests of speedy readiness. Captain Hunter had left orders not to proceed more than three levels below the planetary installation’s surface, which was prudent considering the inexplicable mysteries they had found at ground level. It was still inconvenient and potentially dangerous, however. There was no telling what might boil up from below, so the 14th had the abandoned base under constant surveillance.
Komanov had managed to “lose” the 715th marine artillery battalion by pretending to get into a bureaucratic disagreement with DSS Argent’s SCOM. The two officers produced a mountain of paperwork which they promptly submitted to Skywatch Command along with a request to mediate a compromise. It was good enough for a month of delay, during which time Jason Hunter pretended not to notice four gunships and sixty personnel from T-Hawk Black had been mistakenly assigned to the 9th Marine Intelligence Battalion. That little “mistake” gave the Bayone Amphibious Forces formidable air defenses and long-range firepower to go along with the infantry and armor units. Reaper Eight (Black Eight), Night Fever (Black Five), The Black Parakeet (Black Seven) and Shadow Waltz (Black Three) were parked in a menacing row inside the base’s flight bay right across from the mighty hypersonic artillery pieces of Rickety’s Gun Shop.
But the major knew it wasn’t going to be enough. Not by a couple of touchdowns. For one thing, any ground combat was going to have to favor defensive formations within a few minutes response time to Starhaven. Facts were facts. There was nowhere for the civilian population to run. An airlift of tens of thousands of civilians would take months of planning even in the best of circumstances. And this was to say nothing of the companion problem. Abandoning Starhaven’s crops would threaten a significant portion of the food supply for three systems. Like it or not, the civvies were here to stay, and that meant the marines weren’t going anywhere any time soon either.
Komanov strode in to the station’s alert center. Three technical specialists from watch four were on duty, and by the looks of things, all of them were focused on the same set of readings.
“What’s the approach profile?”
“That’s what’s confusing, major,” the watch officer replied. “It’s a scout-class ship, but it’s in a standard approach lane.”
That meant one of three things. Either the ship was automated, it’s captain was suicidal, or it was exactly what it appeared to be. Only one of those possibilities made any sense, so the major punted.
“Stand by hailing frequencies. Patch monitoring to Jester.”
A moment passed as the signals tech configured the ground antenna with the starship Jester’s sweep frequency.
“Jester, Riley.”
“We brought you in to get a fix on an approaching spacecraft, pilot.”
“Oh, I love party guests. Is it the shuttle in line for a standard orbit at two one five?”
“That’s the one. Feed us the telemetry. If they veer out of the approach, we’ll hand it off.”
“Acknowledged. Standing by.”
“Alright, corporal. Open a channel.”
“Aye, ma’am.”
The inbound tracking display filled the main viewscreen. A tiny yellow dot in the center of the picture indicated the slow-moving spacecraft. The lower left corner was filled with a portion of the planet. The green position markers for three Perseus warships and the 808th formation were scattered throughout the planet’s orbit.
“Attention unidentified vessel. This is Major Darya Komanov on the surface of Bayone Three. We are monitoring your approach. This is a restricted area. By order of Skywatch Command, Starhaven is under embargo. Civilian vessels are advised to proceed to the out-system jump gate and then to Vicksburg for routing. Acknowledge.”
Moments passed.
“Anything?”
“No response.”
“Adjust pickups to read transmissions outside standard Skywatch frequencies. Recalibrate and transmit full spectrum. Repeat message.”
“Aye, ma’am.”
Another pause.
“We’ve got them, major. Very low power. We can barely read them. Tune COMSAT relative to data channel K-6 frequency one point three six five and confirm signal.”
“Can you boost it for us?”
“Stand by.”
Komanov nudged her tech. The corporal reconfigured his receiver to the proper data and voice channels.
“Black Queen, this is Jester. Stand by for voice transmission. Same frequency.”
“Go.”
Static crackled and popped. Komanov frowned. Something was wrong. A half-watt crystal radio at this range and azimuth would produce a clear signal. There was almost no interference, especially this early in the day. Unless the approaching ship’s equipment was malfunctioning, her base should be reading them five by five. A tinny, distant voice was audible.
“Ground station, this is Sandbag. Request permission to land at your facility. Repeat. We are low on fuel. Requesting permission to land at your coordinates.”
“Jester, this is Black Queen. Can you confirm data reception?”
“Stand by.”
Komanov watched the yellow dot intently. She was moments from ordering an intercept when Riley picked up the transmission again.
“Black Queen, Jester. Data transmission checksums are not a match. Repeat: The data and voice transmissions do not match. Standing by for instructions.”
“Decode it, corporal. Quickly.”
Everyone in the control center watched as the message slowly decoded on the viewscreen.
“Attention Skywatch. Our shuttle is carrying a 200 kiloton warhead set for remote detonation. We know where Lieutenant Ria Cooper is being held. Help us.”