out of sight but somehow she knew and locked the room down. Before I knew it her blankets encased her in an emergency vacuum bag and the atmosphere was draining out of the room! She scolded me like some childish playmate and forced me to apologize before she'd open the door!”
“What about your own vacsuit?”
“She was connected to it using my own cybernetic systems! It wouldn't seal.”
“So what are you telling me?”
“Use signal radius jamming, stop all wireless communications in the fleet; it's the only way to delay her until we finish what we have to do on Pandem. I'll do my best to hold her off in my head, but if I try to leave put me in stasis, deactivate my cranial systems.”
“I will, don't worry. What about long range communications?”
“I'll try to keep her contained, there are no guarantees. Right now she seems distracted with learning her way around her new body and my head, but I don't know how long that-” Gabriel was interrupted as the door opened and two rifle wielding guards rushed inside, the rest of their armoured squad was just outside in the hall.
“We received an alert from Command about this room sir, is everything all right?” the lead guard announced in a rush.
Gabriel knew Eve was watching, using the sensors on the soldier's armour and weaponry. “We're fine. His Grace wanted to temporarily cut the wireless signals off in this room so he could be sure we weren't recorded.”
“Who sounded the alert?” Hampon asked.
“It was automated, Your Grace.”
“Ah, all is well here, I'll reactivate the wireless systems in this room.”
“Should we have maintenance check for a glitch in the system?” Asked the soldier.
“No, I think I know what caused it, be on your way please.”
“Yes, Your Grace. I'm sorry for the disruption,” saluted the soldier respectfully before leaving and closing the door behind him.
The screen behind Hampon began to display the view of Pandem once more and the pair looked at each other for a moment before Gabriel cleared his throat. “So when would you like Wheeler off the leash to begin chasing Captain Valance and his crew?”
“The optimum time according to the Victory Machine is after the upcoming attack.”
“I'll make sure he knows to be ready. Does the Victory Machine have any advice on his orders?”
“Only that he should antagonize him as aggressively as possible. Lucius Wheeler and Jacob Valance cannot become allies.”
Smash and Grab
The tension on the main bridge of the Triton was incredible. Laura manned her station at field control, manipulating two and three holographic displays that hung semitransparently all around her. There were two junior officers, at least that's what she called them even though they only had two and a half slashes on their cuffs, sitting behind her, watching everything she was doing.
After the near disaster she and the engineering team had gone through less than ten hours before she had reconfigured the simplified interface she had been using so it could present all the information she'd need as it became available, enabling her to properly control the myriad of energy fields all around the Triton manually, something that surprised even Alice.
As she was satisfied that the refractive, gravitational and hardened energy shielding was in balance and ready she looked around the bridge. Almost everyone suppressed their nervousness fairly well. Panloo seemed extra anxious as she looked to her pilot's station then back to the main holographic display over and over again. The main display would be dedicated to tactical and critical information as soon as they finished the quick deceleration from hyperspace but for the time being it displayed only the time until engagement and whatever sensor data was available from the distance they were coming in from.
Little by little more detail appeared around the brown, green and black Asom moon as the navigational database confirmed the locations of listed objects like commercial satellites, servicing stations, port facilities, orbital leisure complexes, energy collection nodes and many other non-critical objects in the arrival area. The military assets wouldn't update until they were actually in range of their transponders. Navigational databases only included information on what areas were reserved by the military, nothing about what was actually inside those areas or regularly on patrol outside of them.
The sheer number of commercial objects in the area they'd be arriving in was unbelievable and Laura hoped that Panloo and her navigation team would be able to manage the work of piloting them safely into position. She couldn't help but glance at Captain Alice Valent. By any measure the woman had transformed herself, taking control of the bridge, the ship, and carrying herself with so much confidence and visible sureness of self that no one doubted her abilities. After the news of Frost quietly stepping down from the Chief Gunnery position after a conversation with her got around the ship that respect and almost awe only intensified. Everyone knew he had a reputation as being difficult and chauvinistic, to see him brought down so low impressed many and frightened more.
On the bridge Alice was the picture of a professional Captain. The questions she posed the various departments were specific, could have only been posed by someone who had a firm knowledge of the ship and the crew. The month their Acting Captain had spent training the crew with Jake had taught the woman well, it was obvious to everyone.
There was no room for error and Alice demanded the best from the entire crew. The three pilots who had left the Mission Theatre weren't restricted to quarters, they weren't sent to the Habitation Section, they were put on the lowest quality escape shuttle they had and jettisoned towards the nearest spaceport. It would take them at least a week to make the journey.
Laura was familiar with that kind of paranoid reaction to crew members withdrawing from service after knowing operational details, Jason, her Husband was intelligence after all. There were things he couldn't even tell her about missions that he'd been on. She was the only person in the entire universe that he trusted completely, and she'd seen his suspicious, hyper vigilant side. Trust was something that he granted few, even in the slightest measure and as she grew to know the crew of the Triton she had come to trust them. Well, not all of them. To her dismay part of the plan that Alice had put in motion involved a number of the original Samson crew to man the ship they were most familiar with. That included Ashley, Finn, Frost and several of the more tried and true support staff including the lead navigator for the ship, Larry, who was always partnered with Ashley regardless of what she was flying. She had come to trust everyone from the Samson except for Frost and Leland March. Sadly the only Samson crew member that had remained behind was Agameg Price, who was a point of curiosity and fascination for her.
She had never met one of his kind that she was aware, and had especially never seen one who was confident or proud enough to actually remain in their native form. His big, expressive eyes and fine collector tendrils with which they gathered moisture and smelled as well as created intricate forms on their faces with to aid with shape shifting were so strange, so unlike anything she'd ever seen. At the same time his mild demeanour made him possibly the most friendly person she'd met in recent years.
Jason was always on her mind, and no matter how much she liked the crew of the Triton or Samson she always missed him. The topic of Triton going to Pandem had come up, and after very little prodding Laura discovered that getting the hypertransmitter was key to them getting there in much less time than they would if they started out using hyperdrive systems. Laura's suspicions were confirmed; the hypertransmitter would be used to rebuild the main array required to generate high compression wormholes for the Triton. Ease and speed of communications preoccupied Alice as well, there was something important she wanted to tell the galaxy as a whole and Laura suspected it had little to do with their rebellious cause.
If they managed to complete their mission, if they pulled this off, if they stole the piece of technology they were after, worth over three hundred billion credits they would not only silence one of the most major outlying
