walked to their fighters, the pilots mounted up, and taxied out. Angie and Janey waved as they moved out. When the fighters all took off in four-ship flight formation, the crew chiefs and the rest of the squadron boarded three transport craft and also took off. In 30 minutes they would be in the Tau Ceti system. Kelly and Timmons walked back to the Vigilant to prepare for their upcoming patrol.
That night, as he was about to turn in, Kelly checked his messages. The first message was from his bank. It showed an increase in his pay from the previous monthly statement. Kelly checked the calendar and realized he must have received a seniority pay increase. His next message, which was from the bureau of personnel, confirmed it. He could always use more credits.
The next message was from Tammy. The space-going dry dock carrying her and the new shuttles would be arriving on Tuesday. She asked if he knew anything about a shuttle service to Tau Ceti. Kelly laughed and replied to her message with information on the new transport gate.
She must have been sitting at a terminal, because her response came back almost instantly. In a few seconds an indicator on his screen told him that he had an incoming video conference request. It was from Tammy and he accepted. He had just come out of the shower and was wearing only a towel, but she would only be seeing him from the waist up anyway.
The video conference program became active and a window showing Tammy’s smiling face appeared on the screen, “Kelly, it’s so good to see you again.”
Kelly could see she was using a terminal in a public area of the ship. He reached behind him and pulled on a shirt.
“Hey, I’ll be back on Tuesday. They are going to use my ship for maintenance training for a few days. I’m being given a few days off. I’d like to go back out to the lake. Would you be able to take some time off?”
Kelly said, “I'm swamped at the moment. We're preparing for patrol and I don’t know if I can take any time off. My evenings will be free by the time you get here, though.”
Tammy’s smile turned into a frown. “I was really hoping you could take some time off with me. I go back on flight status after the mechanics finish looking over my ship.”
“Sorry, but that’s how things are. How about we meet for drinks when you get in and we play it by ear. I might be able to get a day off this weekend. It will all depend on what the captain brings back in the form of orders from HQ today.”
“Okay, but drinks are on you. I’ve been on this slow, dry bucket of bolts for two weeks now. We would have been in days ago, if these idiots only knew how to maintain their engines properly. Can you imagine how excruciatingly slow power 2 is?”
Kelly laughed, “I’ll see you when you get in.”
Tammy put a pouting expression on her face. “See if you can get a couple of days off. It will be fun. I promise.”
“We’ll talk when you get in. I’ll check with the captain and see what I can come up with. No promises, though.”
“Oh, all right. See you when I get there. Bye.”
The window showing her face flicked off. Kelly read through the remainder of his messages and turned in for the night. It would be the last full night of sleep he would get for a while.
Chapter Eleven
Now was the time for the mystery of the trade between the Indigo Consortium and the K’Rang to be solved. Kelly and Timmons were called to building 603 again a week later. They were met at the security desk by LTJG Taylor and escorted to the fourth floor. As they got off the elevator, they turned to the right and went through a set of double doors with a cypher lock.
“Welcome to Fleet Intel,” said a Fleet Commander, “I’m CMDR Will Johnson. Come with me please. LTJG Taylor, we’ll call for you when were done.” LTJG Taylor left and CMDR Johnson took them into a small briefing room.
“Captain Timmons, we want you to trail one of the Indigo Consortium freighters when it makes its next run. The Manchu Warrior will be leaving Secundus on the 15th of this month. That gives you a few days for some modifications and four days to get there. We want you to trail the Manchu Warrior such that they never know you are there. We also want you to trail them so that anyone else trailing them doesn’t know you are there, either.”
Timmons asked, “Is there anything about this situation that you want to tell me, Commander? Following a freighter doesn’t require much from me and my crew. What else is going that on I should know about?”
“Relax, Captain, I didn’t bring you here just to tell you what could have been put in a one page deployment order. We have more information to give you. You are not to share it with your crew. Only the two of you can know of this information until you are on your second day of patrol.”
He fixed them both with a withering stare. “Do you understand?”
They both nodded their understanding.
“Alright, members of the Indigo Consortium board of directors have been conspiring for some time with the K’Rang. As you stumbled onto, the voyages of the consortium’s freighters have been the method they have been using to transfer information in exchange for flame stones.”
“Mr. Delphant‘s death was in retaliation for the loss of the data you intercepted. We have been able finally to break the cypher on the information you brought us. It appears that there is a great deal more information there beyond just the technical information on the Blakes’ inventions.”
“The consortium has been selling inside information on fleet deployments, composition, personalities, weapons developments, and other details. We think we have a solid lead on the source of the leaks. We also know that he needs to deliver one more block of data to a K’Rang courier. The K’Rang used Delphant’s death to convince this individual they were serious. We will close the noose on that individual shortly after you move out on patrol.”
“We expect the Manchu Warrior to make a rendezvous with a K’Rang ship carrying their courier to receive the last data block. They will probably do it like the way you saw and interfered with, or they may not. Either way, we expect an exchange to be made on the next run of the Manchu Warrior. We will have Fleet Intel teams on the ground at all of their port calls. They will take care of the courier if the exchange happens on the ground. You are to take care of it if it happens in space or if the courier slips by our cordon.”
“Your mission is to capture the K’Rang courier alive, with the data. You are not to interfere with the information exchange this time. It is imperative, however, that you take the courier alive and return him here. To that end, we will be sending you out with a special device in your weapons bay. It will be an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, weapon. It's designed to fire a very precise EMP charge, thereby frying any circuitry in its path. The beam is very focused, so that none of your circuits will be harmed. You will use it to disable the ship carrying the K’Rang courier. It won’t hurt the crystal data storage devices the K’Rang use, so the data will be safe. We will install a retractable assault docking collar in the rear of your weapons bay in the space dock. A boarding party will use it in breaching the courier’s ship’s hull.”
Timmons was just about to speak, when CMDR Johnson continued.
“You will embark a Marine platoon to act as your boarding party. They will be equipped with lethal and non- lethal weaponry to quickly subdue any forces on board the courier’s ship and snatch the courier. The platoon leader has been handpicked for this mission, as have the platoon members. They've been training for over a month.”
“You'll get meet the platoon tomorrow. We'll shuttle you to Gagarin, to the Marine Special Operations Training Center, and introduce you. We have a special demonstration set up for you to show the effectiveness of our techniques. It's important that you have faith in the abilities of your boarding party.”
“Captain, do you have any questions?”
LCDR Timmons said, “Sir, the Vigilant is not that big a ship. We don’t have a brig. How many prisoners do you expect we’ll have to haul back here? How far away do you anticipate we will be when we grab them?”
“Well, Captain, it could be as few as one and as many as five or more. You could be ten or more days away.”
