Infiltrate (Silver Cane Chronicles Book 3) Read online

  “I’ll be with you as soon as I can,” he replied.

  “He’s hiding something, Sil,” Arty spoke directly through Silver’s neural processor.

  Silver gave away no indication that she was suspicious of Neon. She sent a message to Arty through her neural processor. “Explain,” Silver said.

  “He is lying.” Arty replied. “And,” Arty went on, “he is concealing his location.”

  Silver enhanced the holoimage of Neon and focused on the background. It was indistinct. There was a movement behind Neon. She tried to identify it. Then Silver spotted another movement in the image. A robed civil servant moving behind Neon.

  The robed civil servants weren’t found anywhere else in the system. Silver now knew that Neon had to be somewhere in Gov Central. Then the door to the office opened just as Silver guessed where Neon had to be. She turned to the door and saw Neon standing in the doorway, his hand raised, a blazer pointed at Silver.

  Silver directed her suit’s gravity field to generate a deflection shield between her and Neon. She let her knees give way beneath her and dropped toward the floor. In the fraction of a second it took for the field strength to grow Neon pulled his trigger.

  Neon’s aim was excellent and it hit the field around Silver’s head. The blazer round fizzled in the gravity shield.

  Silver hit the floor and drew her blazer just as a second and third round slammed into her grav shield. She took aim and fired at the same moment that Neon dove for cover.

  Silver focused her suit’s gravity field onto the ceiling and launched herself upward. She looked toward the point where Neon had taken cover. She saw he was still moving. He threw an object toward Silver with an over arm lob as he moved.

  Silver fired a blast at the small object and deflected it off its trajectory toward her. It could have been a concussion grenade or even an explosive one. It would have to be very low yield not to take out Neon too. The object slammed into the floor and detonated in a cloud of smoke and sparks.

  The device was clearly intended to be a distraction and to provide cover to Neon. Silver knew she could use the same cover. Neon would have known that too. He had tried to kill her with a sneak attack but the fact he had a back-up plan told Silver what Carbon already knew, Neon was not an incompetent agent, he was a skilled and effective infiltrator, and a deadly assassin.

  Blazer rounds slammed into Silver from out of the smoke that filled the office. The grav field deflected them but she was pushed backward by the force. She returned fire. Her neural processor identified the location the rounds had come from and displayed the location on Silver’s visor.

  Silver guessed Neon was moving. She fired a few rounds to the left and right of his last known position. Then a blazer round came out of the smoke and thumped into Silver’s hand.

  The field strength at her aiming hand was weakened by the sudden movement back and forth as she attempted to find her target. Even as Silver felt her fingers break she noted that Neon was good. He had identified the one weakness in Silver’s attack and used it to hurt her.

  The blazer fell from Silver’s hand and she snatched it out of the smoky air with her other hand. She recoded her right hand bias and set it to favor her left hand with a quick instruction to her neural processor. Then she refocused her suit’s grav field and threw herself back to the floor.

  She lay. She listened. She waited. Neon was nearby. He had taken her by surprise. He had hurt her, and had been a fraction of a second away from killing her. She held her breath and listened.

  The door to the office opened and sent the smoke swirling in twisting eddies. A robed civil servant entered and waved an arm at the smoke. Silver had no choice. She had to warn the civil servant.

  “Get out,” she called. And at that moment she changed position, moving swiftly across the floor. Two blazer rounds slammed into the floor where her head had been a moment before.

  Silver spotted the movement in the smoke. Neon was running toward the open door. He threw a grenade back into the office as he dashed through the door. Silver guessed Neon was fleeing. His chance at assassinating her lost. Now escape was his only plan. Then the grenade detonated.

  The smoke cleared in the pressure wave generated by the blast, and it sent Silver flying backward. Her leg caught on the holostage as she was flung backward by the force of the detonation. It sent her tumbling. She refocused her grav field to steady herself but there was no response. As she hit the far wall she noticed the office door reopen and Neon standing there.

  Silver raised her blazer and pulled the trigger. The round should have struck Neon in the face and dropped him like a stone. The blazer did not fire. Silver slumped to the floor, her vision was blurred and there were lights sparkling on the edge of her vision. She tasted blood in her mouth and felt it run from her eyes. Neon was walking forward, a long steel blade in his hand.

  “The military has some interesting equipment, don’t you think?” Neon walked forward quickly. “If I take out all suit and blazer tech with a small dampening field grenade, all I need is this.” Neon brandished the sword as he stepped up to striking range. He brought he blade back, ready to thrust it forward.

  Silver planned how to disarm Neon as he brought the sword forward. Then she felt two small uncomfortable lumps in the small of her back. She attributed the discomfort to some broken bone or ruptured organ but then she realized that they were the kinetic pistols she had taken from the gangsters in Darklin’s settlement on Frost. The pistols had been attached to her suit for so long she had almost forgotten them. They had fallen away as her suit’s power had been disabled. She drew one out from behind her with her left hand. Neon was lunging forward with the sword, an expression of lustful violence filled his eyes. His tongue crept out and licked his lips.

  Then he saw the pistol.

  The small 9mm weapon in Silver’s hand was not quite as antiquated as the sword Neon held but it was still old tech and just as invulnerable to the dampening field blast given out by Neon’s grenade.

  Silver saw the moment the look on Neon’s face turned from one that was sure of victory to one of horror and surprise as he faced a lethal weapon just centimeters away.

  Silver pulled the trigger. Neon’s head was snatched backward by the small kinetic round that struck him in the forehead. Time froze as a red mist erupted from the back of his head. Silver fired a second round that took the top off Neon’s skull, just to be sure.

  The smoke swirled around the office and closed in around Neon and Silver. Both lay on the floor, bloodied from their battle. Only Silver would get up again.

  She climbed unsteadily to her feet before collapsing to the floor again. Her right hand throbbed with pain. Her ears were ringing from the pressure and noise of the grenade blasts. Blood trickled from her eyes like red tears. Damn it, she thought. She really didn’t have time for this. A medic drone rushed in and lifted her off the floor. She really didn’t have time for any of this.

  The glove fitted to Silver’s right hand by the medical drones reset her broken fingers with a crunching of bone and cartilage. The local anesthetic applied by the glove removed any pain. Silver didn’t notice the procedure, she was too busy.

  A message to the captain of the destroyer Tenacity relayed to him how Silver wanted the riot suppression operation to proceed. The military would deploy knock out gas in a massive planet-wide sweep. That would stop the rioters in their tracks. The entire population would be sleeping by the end of the day. Silver sent instructions to agent Zinc stationed at Frost for him to conduct a similar operation there.

  “Monitor the operation closely,” Silver said to Zinc as she left the hospital wing of police HQ. “Their lives are depending on getting this right.”

  The landing bay on the roof of police HQ was bathed in a bright orange glow of the sun setting on one horizon, and the fires raging in the district on the other. Razor was powered up and ready to go. Silver stepped on the ramp. It began closing as she walked into Razor.

  “Get
us underway, Arty,” Silver said as she walked toward the flight deck.

  “When are we going to inform the admiral that we are on our way to the Defender?”

  “When we get there,” Silver said. “I don’t want anyone to have warning of our arrival.”

  “The defender is currently stationed in the Belt. Setting course for the outer system.”

  Dropping into her chair on the flight deck Silver accessed a view of the ground below and displayed it on the small holostage. The riots had spread right to the walls of Gov Central. They were virtually planet wide.

  Razor climbed quickly, the ground dropping away.

  Chapter 3

  Reports from Frost were encouraging. Agent Zinc reported a total cessation of violence in the hours after the operation began. The report from Pepper was also good. The knock out gas was doing the job that VR had been doing for years. The population was at peace. It was worrying that it only took a few hours without VR for the population to degenerate into uncontrollable violence, though. Society functioned perfectly well as long as everyone was permanently plugged in.

  The proximity alarm sounded, alerting Silver that they were approaching the Defender. The holostage flickered to life, a commander appeared there.

  “Police cruiser. Come to a complete stop and hold position.”

  Silver sent her authorization to military AI aboard the defender. The holostage flicked again and Admiral Blake appeared there.

  “Chief Silver. This is unexpected.”

  Silver leaned forward in her chair. “Sorry to arrive unannounced. You are holding two prisoners for me.”

  Blake paused as he checked Silver’s claim. “Yes,” he said. “The two hijackers. We have them.”

  “I need to speak with them.”

  Silver walked down Razor’s ramp and onto the deck of the Defender. She was met by a familiar face.

  “Commander Dooley,” Silver said, recognizing the commander that had met her last time she had been aboard.

  “Chief Silver,” Dooley replied and gave a smart salute. “Congratulations on your promotion.”

  Silver almost felt as if she was getting used to the new title. “My prisoners. Take me to them.”

  Dooley smiled a cheerful smile and walked ahead. “We have some holding cells here on the Defender. We sometimes need them, but they are rarely used for people other than our own personnel.”

  “The prisoners are due to be transferred to police HQ for questioning,” Silver said. “I needed to speak with them immediately.”

  Dooley turned his head, looking back at Silver as they walked. “Will you be taking them off our hands today?”

  “I just need to ask them a few questions.”

  Dooley stopped at an indistinct interior door. It looked like a doorway to an office, or a closet. Dooley smiled and opened the door.

  Beyond the door was a large room with a number of corridors heading off like spokes from a central hub. There was a desk in the middle of the empty room, a sergeant sat behind the desk. He stood as the door opened, saluted and stood at attention.

  “At ease, Sergeant,” Dooley said and then invited Silver to enter. “We are holding two prisoners for the police service. We’d like to see them now.”

  The sergeant held out a hand toward the desk and a glowing screen set on to the desk top. “Authorization,” the sergeant said.

  Silver pressed her palm to the glowing screen. Lines of text flashed across the screen before it flashed green and accepted Silver’s authority to access the prisoners.

  The sergeant turned toward one of the corridors and marched off. Dooley and Silver followed. The corridor was lined with numbered doors, each with a small window at eye level. The sergeant stopped outside one.

  “The first prisoner is held here. The other is in the next cell.”

  Dooley dismissed the sergeant. Silver stepped up to the door and peered through the small window at a prisoner lying on a bunk at the far end of the cell.

  The last time Silver had seen the woman was during the battle of the cockpit aboard the hijacked civilian cruiser. She had been guarding the cockpit door. Now, the woman looked calm, lying on the padded bunk.

  “You can open the door here,” Dooley said, indicating the small panel to the side of the door. “You are authorized.”

  Silver nodded. She had questions for this hijacker, this crim. Who had sent her to hijack the civilian cruiser? Who had directed her to crash the craft into Gov Central? How did she communicate with other terrorists across the system and why was she determined to destroy VR and SV? But more than any of this Silver wanted names.

  She held her hand to the door panel. The door clicked as the lock was removed. The panel beeped and lit up green. Silver pulled at the small handle to open the door.

  The door didn’t move.

  Silver looked at Dooley with a questioning look. Dooley shrugged and pulled the door himself. The door didn’t open.

  “Try the panel again,” Dooley said.

  Silver held her hand over the panel. Again it beeped. Again Silver pulled the handle. The door wouldn’t open.

  Dooley called out along the corridor for the sergeant who came at a jog.

  “This door is stuck,” Silver said. She stepped back and instructed the sergeant to open it.

  The sergeant pulled once. The door remained shut. He pulled again and again until he was straining with the effort.

  Silver stepped along to the next cell and the second prisoner. This prisoner was also lying on the bunk, apparently asleep. Silver held her hand out to the door panel. A click and beep and the panel lit up green. Silver pulled hard at the door and it did not move. She heard Dooley barking orders at the sergeant.

  “I know it should open, sergeant. Get it open now.”

  Silver looked through the small window at the second prisoner. The man was lying face up. He was still, not even his chest was moving. He was not asleep. Silver stepped back from the door. These prisoners definitely had information, and they had taken it with them to their graves.

  Walking back along the corridor past the sergeant struggling with the door and Dooley barking orders Silver called to Arty. “I need to see the admiral.” And then she made her way out of the cell block leaving the sergeant and Dooley struggling with the cell doors.

  “A filtration malfunction?” Silver asked skeptically. She sat in a large armchair in Admiral Blake’s office.

  Blake sat behind his desk. He nodded. “All the air, not just the stale air, was removed. The negative pressure held the doors shut tight. We are just opening them now.”

  “And the same malfunction affected both cells? The only two cells containing prisoners. Prisoners that may have had valuable intelligence. Does that not sound convenient to you?”

  “It sounds like sabotage, there’s no doubt.”

  “It’s murder, Admiral, that’s what it is,” Silver said.

  “I have already set up an investigation. We will find out who did this.” Blake leaned back in his chair.

  “Whoever is behind this knows enough about your systems to avoid detection. They knew how to kill them quietly.”

  “I can check all the arrivals and departures. If the killers have left the ship, we will track them down.”

  “The killers are here,” Silver said. “They are part of the conspiracy to attack the system. They are military personnel. They have infiltrated your ship, Admiral. For all I know you are the killer.” Silver studied Blake as she laid her accusation at him, searching for a guilty flicker however small.

  “Maybe I am,” Blake said coolly. “If I was would I let you leave?”

  Silver noticed every minute muscle movement in Blake’s face. He was unperturbed by the accusation, not bothered in the slightest. The threat against Silver was delivered in the same cool manner.

  “If you really are involved you would want me to go free. Holding me would just confirm your involvement in the terrorist conspiracy.”

  Blake sat back and fi
xed Silver with a stare. “For all I know you are involved. You were one of the few agents not to be killed when police HQ was destroyed. You must have known you’d be in line to take over as chief.”

  Silver studied Blake. He was as calm and cool as deep space.

  “Maybe we are the only two not involved?” Blake said with a smile.

  “Maybe,” Silver agreed.

  “Sorry your visit was a waste of time, Chief,” Admiral Blake said standing up.

  “Not a waste of time,” Silver said also getting to her feet. “Now I know the military has been infiltrated too.” Silver observed a slight flicker of worry, a minor, momentary twitch at the corner of one eye. It was so indistinct it was practically invisible, but Silver spotted it.

  “I will send you the outcome of my investigation. Good luck with yours,” Blake said offering Silver his hand.

  “Thank you, Admiral. If there’s anything I can do for you,” Silver said taking the admiral’s hand and shaking it warmly.

  Silver stepped out of the office and into a busy command deck. Dozens of uniformed officers were at work at the terminals that ringed the deck. The military was a huge organization. It was inevitable that a system wide conspiracy would have infiltrated this powerful organization. But how far up the chain of command had the conspirators climbed?

  “Arty,” Silver said as she walked out of the command deck. “Ready Razor. We’re leaving immediately.

  Razor lifted off the landing deck of the Defender and accelerated away, autopilot programmed Pepper. Silver read through the updates coming in from all her agents. Their investigations were progressing rapidly. Information had been gained from sources across the system, from civilian, military, and government sources. The agents had been active and productive. Zinc was reporting success in quelling the riots at Frost and was taking up his investigation into the bomb attacks.

  Silver was pleased with the work of her team of agents. If they focused on this one investigation, all coming at it from different angles, then maybe they could discover who was behind the attacks. Silver was determined to stop whoever had plunged the population of the system into turmoil and chaos.