that were part of the Fleet Reserve. Once a year, it made the voyage from Earth, carrying the entire Defense Academy graduating class to their component basic schools on Gagarin. This trip, the Hanson was having problems with its number three engine, and would take a week longer to reach Gagarin. The ship’s engineer would attempt repairs enroute to speed their journey.
Kelly shook his dad’s hand and gave his mom a kiss goodbye as his group was called to load on the Hanson’s shuttle. Once on board the Hanson, he was assigned a four-person cabin with three other cadets, two females and a male. The Academy never assigned coed rooms, so this was something new to them. Back to back desks and clothing lockers in the middle of the cabin provided a visual block and they agreed to respect each other’s privacy. After a week, they were so used to each other that passing gas and scratching themselves while walking around in their underwear were routine occurrences on both sides of the central divide. By week two, even the underwear was sometimes optional.
The Hanson’s captain had made this particular run many times and knew what to expect when several hundred energetic males and females used to rigid discipline were set loose on their own recognizance. He had not just a Master at Arms, but an entire section under him to maintain order. They were specially trained in calming down rowdy junior officers by appealing to their sense of duty. If that didn’t work, they had Sleep Wands that could put a charging elephant down with a touch. Many a new butterbar wound up sleeping the night away in a holding cell, to be freed the next morning with no charges filed and as if nothing had happened, but that the butterbar just needed a good night’s sleep. The captain felt duty bound to deliver his cargo of junior officers as close to the condition they were when they boarded. After all, he took this same trip many years ago himself.
Kelly’s two female cabin mates, Celia and Marta, had no romantic interest in him and thought of him as a friend. They frequently joined him for late night gabfests, while the ensign in the upper bunk snored the night away.
This was a military transport, not a luxury liner, so recreational facilities were limited. There were two small bars, one port side and one starboard, a supersized gym with weights, exercise machines, a basketball court, and a pool, and an observation room up on the uppermost deck with a clear dome for watching the stars in reclining seats.
Kelly, Celia and Marta made the circuit, starting in the gym, moving to one of the bars, then to the observation deck, and back to the gym for a late night dip in the pool. After the third week on board, most people were bored out of their minds. A cheer rose throughout the ship when the captain announced the engines had been repaired and they would be getting into Gagarin a week ahead of schedule.
Kelly was sad to see Celia and Marta go when they finally disembarked at Gagarin. They made him swear to look for them wherever he was assigned. They exchanged contact info, but he had yet to meet up with them again. His mind finally at rest, he drifted off to sleep.
Chapter Six
Kelly woke up when they were still hours away from Earth. He checked on the status of the courier ship and saw it was still on a direct course to earth. Alistair was approaching Earth and would be there a day ahead of the K’Rang. He would use that time to coordinate the first CI team’s arrest of Colonel Little, Sergeant Major Days, the yeoman and the admin assistant. Simultaneously, a second team would be rounding up the network’s known support staff on Earth. As with the other planets, this would have to wait until the courier ship had left the bounds of the system network node. In the case of Earth, they would have to wait until the courier left Sol’s system, and then they could execute the raids.
He had one other task to take care of before he left the Sol system. He arranged with Fleet Intel to take the cooking forum down. It existed on mirror servers on three planets and on Earth. All four sites would need to be taken down at the same time, so that the word could not go out for the network to go to ground.
H’Topa’s confidence swelled as Earth’s sun came into sight. He was seven days away from saving both his and J’Kraul’s lives. The order to the transporter to bring all packages to the Geneva South spaceport had been sent and acknowledged. He ordered the captain to wait until dark over the spaceport and land.
The transfer went smoothly and the courier ship was immediately ready for take off, but the authorities held them because the spaceport had closed for the night. They could leave at 0600 the next morning. H’Topa almost laughed at the irony of the future of the K’Rang Republic being stymied by blind bureaucratic inertia.
Kelly ordered the Vigilant into a geosynchronous Earth orbit. It was a crowded orbit, full of communications satellites. Kelly had the helm move cautiously until they found a parking area above Geneva. Kelly called up the electro-optical sensors and focused them on the K’Rang ship. It was still sitting on the parking apron, an hour after the exchange had been made. Kelly couldn’t imagine why the courier ship hadn’t left yet.
Why would the K’Rang sit there taking a chance on discovery? It came down to Connie to determine the answer. She researched the operating hours of the Geneva South spaceport and found the K’Rang got caught when the airport closed for the night. The K’Rang probably never heard of quiet hours. Whoever was in charge must be livid right now. Now they had to wait until 0600. Kelly was sure the K’Rang would want to be first out in the morning.
Connie also found out the ship’s name and its registry in her research. It was the Red Eagle (naturally), registered on Schirra to Cooper Shipping, Inc. Further research would reveal Cooper to be a shell company owned by a list of other shell companies. In the end, no one owned her, at least no one but the K’Rang.
H’Topa had never seen time pass so slowly. He monitored the local sensors to watch for any movement by security forces to advance on the ship. He watched for hours and saw nothing. The spaceport was shut down for the night and they meant it. The only activity he saw after four hours were two taxis dropping off drunken crewmembers at their ships. H’Topa turned the monitoring over to one of the crewmembers because he could no longer stand it. He retired to his cabin and paced the rest of the night.
At 0600, the tower came up and the captain requested permission to take off. Permission was granted and the courier ship made a lazy departure. It wouldn’t do to invite local scrutiny by blasting out of the spaceport and breaking windows in the process. H’Topa favored the latter departure; the captain favored the former. The captain won.
The courier ship passed the minimum safety distance and increased speed to FTL power 3. H’Topa waited for the scan report if any ships were following them. The report came back negative and H’Topa retired to his quarters and went to sleep almost immediately. The nervous tension of the past hours wore him out, and he slept for the next nine hours.
Alistair landed his ship at Geneva Main Spaceport. A CI team ground car met him at the gangplank and whisked him away to the Defense HQ. He walked in with the CI team chief and watched while the CI team placed the Colonel, Sergeant Major, yeoman and admin assistant under arrest. Protests by their subordinates were stopped when the CI team chief showed his badge and credentials. When they heard the four were arrested for espionage, all their former subordinates and office mates suddenly found better places to be.
The other CI teams rounded up a total of 14 members of the network support cells. One of the transport specialists kept a record of all contacts he had ever made. Over the next two days, two more agents and 12 more support cell members would be arrested. Fleet Intel ran out of cells to put them all into and had to arrange for cell space for the remainder.
The CI team on Gagarin received their go order from Alistair. The main team dropped in on Bart and Silke and removed them to a Fleet Intel holding facility. Bart could not believe he had been caught and thought this was only an exercise. After he’d spent 10 hours in an interview room reviewing the evidence they had against him, he realized he was in deep doodoo. They had video of him and Silke steaming open the envelopes, opening the safes, and photographing the design plans. They even had video of him and Silke celebrating afterwards on his apartment couch. He gave up and asked if he could get a deal. The investigator laughed and left him alone in the room, until he and Silke could be arraigned for espionage and other crimes.
