|
|
Raid, The
A raid goes bad, of course politics and treachery abound
by Jon Selbo ''Bunsin'' |
|
Waters Edge
TRDC research facilities
3058
Ken's eyes began to focus back again. "Where am I?" A woman's voice replied, "just sit still and try not to move. Your going to be fine." Ken suddenly remembered the last moments of the fight in the TRDC's basement. Not being able to see where he was going, he had accidentally tripped over something. He found out what it was when the raider he was trying to avoid looked in his direction. The raider's emitter splayed over the area he was in and highlighted the metal cabinet Ken had run into. This time Ken lacked the element of surprise and both startled men fired at the same time. Ken knew he was hit but the shock of it left him unable to discern where and how severe it was. Just before blacking out he had looked over to his right and saw another emitter sweeping its way back to the center of the room. The thought that he was not dead now left him wondering what really had happened.
*****
"Baroness you should not be in this area it is not completely secure yet."
The Capital City regional commander grimaced with guarded emotion. "Oh shut up Gene. I'll go where I want." Baroness Yetral Venzer was not a woman who enjoyed being pampered or cowered by others. "How did you find the young man?" she asked.
General Tovich replied, "Ma'am after regaining control of the center our first priority was to restore power, as such we entered the basement to turn on the reserve generator and came upon this scene." And what a scene it was, thought baroness Yetral. Two dead raiders, one with a sharpened stick in his throat, the other laying nearly across the firsts body, and then another wounded man only 10 meters from where the young man was being attended to by medics. "It would seem that our boy has more luck than a capital city hooker after the militia has been out on maneuvers for a month." At that the general actually blushed. "See to it Gene that he gets the best care money can buy, plus I want to know as soon as he is up to a press conference." The baroness disliked court politics but when the goose lays a golden egg right in front of you it's smart to at least pick it up.
"Gene, I want to know how a bonded mercenary group can afford to throw away that much money just to raid our research facilities. I also want you to try and track down any leads on who may have had their real contract."
General Tovich winced a little at that last statement. He had been the officer that had made the final approval to hire Kelly's Killers and that screw-up, no matter how little was actually his fault, could possibly end his career. He was sure that whomever had researched the mercenaries background and had given him the final report to approve was going to end up farming wulderdats in the Agapen mud plains for the next twenty years.
*****
General Tovich walked into the planetary government center. If he had been in a better mood he might have noticed that the center was looking better in the last few years. Water's Edge was experiencing an economic wind fall from the increase in exports of a local fish that, for reasons no local person could understand, was the current rage with the upper crust on many heavy industrial worlds. The Uddle fish looked like a terran eel, but it had a lighter sweeter flavor. It was reputed to be an age extender and the most powerful people had it shipped in fresh.
However good the current economy was, Baroness Yetral had seen that the fad could not last forever, and so she had pushed for a modernization and increase in research and heavy industry. The guidance systems and overall components for the long range missiles was to be the first of such industries, however, the local politicians had decided that if their planet was to be taken seriously they needed to renovate or in many cases rebuild the infrastructure of the government before allocated money to some venturous business. "I swear most of them would sell their own mothers!
"Now Mr. secretary, that's no way to talk about our esteemed leaders the General Jibed. Secretary of the Forces Brant Hill smiled and clasped Gene Tovich on the back with a smile. "Half of those idiots in there want to shut down the missile project because they are afraid of being attacked again. Not to mention closing the TRDC!"
Brant looked like he was going to have a coronary right on the front steps.
"We even showed them how much the missiles made a difference at the testing site, but those pacifist have it in their head that no one would bother us if we all would go back to picking at the dirt with pick axes and shovels. What's next for them, love offerings to pirates?"
"Brant," the General replied, "let's go have a drink and we can talk there." "Sure Gene, I just hope no one tries to pacify my drunken demeanor."
*****
Baroness Michele Yetral stepped around a lavender gesop plant that stood on the side of General Tovich's office. Already seated in the room was the Minister of Security, Tyson Geer, and the Secretary of Forces, Brant Hill.
"Well gentlemen who wants to begin?" She asked. From the looks on each of their faces no one really wanted to be the first to break any bad news. To ease some of the tension she decided to begin this meeting herself "To start things off I have asked Jennifer Sorthinson to drop by in about twenty minutes to give us all a briefing on what it will take to get the TRDC back on line. In the mean time I want to know what you found out about how this thing was accomplished and who was behind it."
Brant Hill looked at his watch and began. "Well there are a lot of holes in the story but this is what we have been able to piece together so far. Obviously as you know the mercenary group Kelly's Killers was hired with a two year planetary defense contract. There were very few indications of problems before this incident, in fact almost nothing out of the ordinary showed up for a group of rowdy mercenaries. They were hired on Outreach by our advance contract team, and had posted a two million C-bill bond against contract default with Comstar. As of a week ago all contact with our contract team on Outreach had ended. A check with the local authorities has not revealed their whereabouts. Also, that bond is now gone."
Baroness Yetral rolled her eyes and said, "Are you telling me Brant that Comstar had something to do with this?"
"No Ma'am", replied Brant "At least not that we can tell. They received all the necessary documentation allowing the release of those funds. As far as who could be behind all this, the only thing I can guess at the moment is it was someone with the juice to place people in our own government, kill off our advance contract team, correctly forge release documentation to Comstar, and have prior knowledge of our research."
General Tovich's mouth had gone dry. The implication that someone had that much foreknowledge and power did not bode well for a quick solution. "So who could do that? " Gene Tovich asked nervously.
Brant Hill replied, "Well of course there is Word of Blake, any of the Great Houses or for that matter, any minor ones as well, a large number of industrial firms, or any number of our rivals in this sector. Oh, and let's not forget we could be dealing with some form of home grown terrorism here. All be it on a grand scale."
A knock at the door stopped all discussion. "Come in." The baroness said.
Jennifer Sorthinson entered the room. At a hundred and seventy nine centimeters and a slightly thin build Dr. Sorthinson fit all the qualifications for the perfect woman on Water's Edge. The only reason no one had been able to catch her yet, was the relenting drive she had to get the TRDC research center completely up an running. She had been the director for R and D there for the past five years and most people knew that she was the driving force behind the rapid pace of progress at the center.
"Hi Jenny" Tyson Geer said with a blush. Another well known fact, although not as obvious to them, was that Dr. Geer was very infatuated with Ms. Sorthinson.
"Hi Ty." She responded.
"Well now that you two have been introduced." Brant whispered. The Baroness chuckled and reminded herself to invite them both to the next reagents ball. "Jennifer could you please update us on what is going on at the TRDC now and how much damage you sustained."
Everyone noted the slight change in the baronesses voice as she spoke. "Yes ma'am. First let me report that the raiders were not able to destroy our most sensitive areas. They attempted to destroy labs in the secure sector but apparently didn't have enough time to do a thorough job. At most we have four labs that are a complete loss and two others damaged. The top secret work was locked behind sealed doors on the top floor and the raiders did not blow them open."
"What about the testing facility?" asked Tyson "How much damage was there?" She replied "The damage at the testing facility is extensive and will take months to repair. Again the good news is the raiders were unable to take the main production facility so we can be producing on a limited scale in about three weeks."
"How about that young man that stopped the raiding team in the basement?"
The baroness already had someone checking up on his background to make sure there weren't any nasty surprises once she labeled him as a hero in front of the media. Jennifer smiled, "Well he did even more than we first anticipated. Besides his basement escapade," Gene Tovich winced at the description of that battle as an escapade. "he probably is the reason we still have a top floor on that building. Apparently he started out in his office and moved up to the top floor. From there he rigged up a LRM missile, minus the warhead, to fly down the hallway. It was rather ingenious actually. He used a motion sensor and set it off with a battery pack from a computer. As near as we can tell the rocket decapitated the lead officer and killed or wounded most of the advanced team on that floor."
The baroness decided then and there she didn't care about skeletons in his closet, she would hold the press conference that afternoon. In closing the meeting the baroness said "OK people at our next meeting I want as much as we can get on where that dropship went, how's behind it, and what we need in the way of self defense now that our butts are blowing in the wind." |
|
|
|
|
| Page :
1 2 3 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
