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  When they reached the damaged hatch they stopped and took flanking positions on either side, switching off their infrared vision in the slightly better light of Platform Ten’s hangar.

  “So, you escaped my pets. Ya?” came the voice in their helmets. “I hope you did not hurt them too much, they are merely children after all!”

  Heck saw Dooly’s eyes, the man was ready to lose his mind. He shook his head at Dooly, forcefully, reminding him to be quiet lest the Gesellschaft home in on their signals. Then he peeked out into the hangar area of Platform Ten and all appeared to be well. Sixkiller was there and the Phalanx system was armed and operational. The computer systems from Sixkiller reported no attempted intrusions. He nodded toward Sixkiller and the pair moved out, cautiously, weapons ready.

  Heck was nervous. Where were those blasted Gesellschaft? It wasn’t at all like Frederick Van Schwarz to remain on the sideline. Sooner or later the man would appear with his thugs. Sixkiller greeted them with an open hatch. Heck went in first and Dooly followed close behind. The outer hatch closed and Heck placed the box containing the U-999 inside a locker specially designed to store highly dangerous radioactive fuel cells without danger to the crew. The technology behind the material lining that locker was cutting edge and had been installed only last year when the Marshals Service outfitted their fleet of cruisers to operate with the new, highly efficient, yet highly radioactive, fuel cells.

  “You think they’re afraid of the uranium?” Dooly asked what Heck was thinking as the two decontaminated themselves and jettisoned their rad suits.

  “Maybe so. I don’t like to look a gift horse in the mouth, we should get outta here. Fast!”

  “Right on, boss.”

  As soon as the pair was properly decontaminated they got into their seats and readied for takeoff. They could see the debris field floating in space beyond Platform Ten and Heck was optimistic that they would make their deadline. But he just had a funny feeling about the Gesellschaft.

  “It just ain’t like them to give up, boss,” called Dooly. “I expect a world of trouble once we clear the platform.” But Heck didn’t answer, not even a growl or a harrumph. Then Dooly looked over at Heck and saw what had his attention.

  “There’s that world of trouble I was talking about...” Dooly said quietly.

  “Gesellschaft!”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Nothing like looking down the barrel of a gun,” whispered Heck as he flicked the Phalanx system back on.

  “Held by a maniac with an itchy finger,” Dooly grimaced. “Or, about thirty maniacs in this case.”

  “Thirty-one, actually.”

  “Funny,” said Dooly.

  “We’re about to die, thought I’d lighten the mood.”

  “Why ain’t they firin’? I wanna kill some of these ‘superior’ bastards. How many you think we can take ’fore they get us?”

  “None,” said Heck, his mind elsewhere. Dooly had a point. They weren’t firing. Perhaps they were afraid of the U-999. Heck smiled, much to Dooly’s discomfiture. He had a plan.

  “We’re gonna go now,” said Heck.

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that,” he replied. “I believe they’re afraid of our cargo.”

  “What if they ain’t?”

  “Then we have a problem.”

  Heck glided Sixkiller toward the squadron of Gesellschaft fighters. They were mean looking. They were sleek and long and painted in stripes of black and gray that made them look like a bizarre hornet.

  “Hi fellas. Don’t mind us. Coming through.”

  Heck piloted straight at the fighter that he assumed was carrying the squadron commander. As Sixkiller drifted closer and closer, Heck began to doubt his plan. It didn’t look like the Gesellschaft fighters were going to make way for him. But neither did it look like they were going to attack.

  Then a flash of light from above and the streak of smoke announced one of the Gesellschaft had opened fire.

  “Nice plan boss!” Dooly shouted.

  “That’s wasn’t part of the plan!” he returned taking evasive maneuvers as Dooly unloaded on anything that moved. Before long the entire area was criss-crossed with smoke and vapor trails, it was almost impossible to see.

  “Dooly, I need-”

  “More trouble, boss!”

  “What now?” he demanded, trying like hell to avoid missiles and cannon shot. Fragments from exploding Gesellschaft fighters and debris from the drift pelted Sixkiller’s hull. Yet somehow they weren’t taking very many hits.

  “Another fifteen assault craft, big ones, are out there now. And they’re firing!”

  “Hell!” Heck turned Sixkiller back toward Platform Ten with the intention of locking himself inside the drift and taking his chances with the corpses that weren’t carrying weapons.

  “Sensors have been scrambled, Heck! I can’t see a thing! Get us back to the platform!”

  Shockwaves generated by explosion after explosion, above and below and all around, rocked Sixkiller through the deadly space around Alamo Drift. It seemed to go on forever and it was all Heck could do to avoid being slammed into the side of the drift by the powerful forces. More than once an unknown object careened off Sixkiller’s hull, or engines, even the cockpit. Heck was just trying to survive whatever battle they’d been sucked into, for it certainly appeared that there were two opposing forces at play. But what were they fighting over?

  Then the fighting stopped.

  “Sensors still offline?”

  “No,” said Dooly amidst the chimes of his holocomputer. “They just came back on.”

  “Nav systems?”

  “Back online.”

  “Good. Set a course away from this drift but close to a long-range comm station. We need to call Kharkov.”

  “What’s out there, anyway?” asked Heck, keeping his cruiser tight alongside the drift so as to attract little attention.

  “Scanners are still trying to identify. Got ten of ’em, whatever they are.”

  Heck allowed Dooly a few precious moments to get all of the systems back online and ready for departure. Fuel was low due to the excessive use of the Phalanx defense system, but they had enough for one fast-burn of the engines to get away from Alamo drift as quickly as possible. Then they would have to find someplace to get more fuel cells. And that was going to be a challenge since he was now, technically, an outlaw.

  “Ready, boss,” said Dooly amidst the glow of floating holographic gauges and data streams. “But whatever you do, do it quick like.”

  Heck let out a deep breath, as he stared at the smoky haze that seemed to be concealing them. “They’re all around us, aren’t they?”

  “It’s hard to say due to all the debris from blown up ships, and the radiation, and the vapor trails; but it does look like they’re all around us.”

  Heck nodded and Sixkiller very gently coasted away from Alamo drift. If his own sensors were limited, then so were everyone else’s. After a few seconds of free drifting away from Alamo, Heck steered Sixkiller slightly up toward the topside of the drift. Rising gently in the cloud of still moving smoke and debris, Sixkiller’s ascent was fairly well disguised. Finally, when they reached the upper levels up the drift, Sixkiller slowly floated free. Smoke and residue spilled off the cruiser’s hull like water as it cleared the cloud.

  When Heck looked out at what was before him, hope slipped away.

  “I thought you said there were ‘ten,’ Dool,” Heck said quietly.

  “Hell.”

  A massive cruiser nearly the size of the CS Marauder, and just as heavily armed was just beyond the cloud and oriented directly at Sixkiller. A swarm of smaller fighters and cruisers hovered protectively around the larger craft, all of them oriented on the cloud that Sixkiller had just risen from like an alligator raising his head above the murky waters of a swamp for a breath of air.

  “Forty-five.”

  “What?”

  “Forty-five,” said Dooly lamely. �
�If you were...wondering.”

  Heck grunted and gave his friend a half smile.

  “Think there’ll be zombies in there?”

  Heck laughed, casually engaging Phalanx defense system.

  Then the great spacecraft, armed with missiles the size of his own cruiser, drifted slowly forward toward the lawmen. A large bay began to open and a bright light from inside the hangar beamed out into space, helping to illuminate the plethora of well-armed ships that could now see Sixkiller very clearly. But the rays of light illuminated something else, a red flag with the Soviet hammer and sickle emblem painted on the hull of the great warship.

  “Ryevolutzia flagship,” whispered Dooly in awe. “The Stalin.”

  “You just love giving me data late, don’t ya?” Heck said wryly, grinning all the same.

  “I reckon we don’t need to make that long distance call after all.”

  It didn’t take an astrophysicist to figure out what Ryevolutzia wanted, so Heck complied. He drifted Sixkiller gently into the open bay, braced for the sudden transition to full gravity, and set Sixkiller down in the hangar. As the bay door closed, the hangar was pressurized and a squad of heavily armed soldiers in black and red armor and uniforms filed in.

  “Let’s go meet the welcoming committee,” said Heck as he unstrapped and stepped over to the hatch. Dooly was right behind him as he walked down the ramp and touched his feet on a deck that wasn’t bleeding harmful radiation. Well, he reminded himself. This is a ship from the old socialist alliance....communist bastards.

  A woman with jet black hair and a beautiful oval face stalked around the squad of soldiers. She wore a long coat, not unlike the leather trench coat Heck was fond of, with a pistol strapped to her thigh and a short-barreled rifle slung across her back. Her dark glasses prevented him from seeing the color of her eyes, but Heck already knew that; ice blue.

  “You have uranium, tak?”

  “You have Laylara, tak?” he quipped back at her. She wasn’t amused. She raised her hand in the air and a large vid screen on the upper level of the hangar flicked on. Laylara was standing there, looking completely pissed off but otherwise in good health.

  “How do I know that isn’t a recording?”

  “It’s not a recording, Heck,” said Laylara, her voice echoing through the cavernous hangar. “Tell them to eat it!” That earned her a cuff from whatever guard was standing nearby. But she took it well and spit at the feet of whomever her captor was.

  “You see? She is alive. Impudent and a little worse for wear, tak? But alive.”

  “I’m gonna get you outta here, baby-” Yulia waved her hand and the vid switched off.

  “Touching,” she said, indicating she thought it was anything but. “Considering you only gave her two hours to live. Now, where is my U-999?”

  “In there. Port side, in the radioactive fuel cell locker.” Yulia nodded and two soldiers wearing rad suits stalked past the lawmen, giving them a scathing glance. “Hey, Ivan and Igor! Port side means left!” he called out in as snide a voice as he could manage. Then he realized they probably don’t speak English anyway. Waste of a good insult.

  After a minute the pair of well-disciplined thugs marched out carrying Heck’s radiation locker between them.

  “I’m sorry,” he quipped. “I should have warned you it was heavy. I know how you Russian’s have trouble with heavy things.” Then there was a loud crack and, belatedly, he realized it had been made by Yulia’s gun striking him on the head. Stars danced in his vision as he stared up at Yulia’s shapely legs from where he landed on the deck. Then, realizing her booted feet were too close to his head he rolled over and got up, slowly.

  “We-are-not-Russian!” she said vehemently, threatening to strike him again. “Ukrainian!”

  “Right, right. Ukrainian. Got it.”

  “I knew that,” offered Dooly, smirking at Heck. “I knew that.”

  “Tell me, Kharkov. Why didn’t you just go and get this thing yourselves?”

  She smiled, a dark and dangerous expression on her face.

  “The great Marshal Thomas doesn’t know?” Kharkov was enjoying patronizing the lawman, especially with a squad of armed men at her back and his girlfriend held hostage. She reached for his face, patted his cheek and said, “We didn’t want to get our hands dirty with Von Schwarz’ little toys.”

  “You didn’t know where it was. You needed my informant network to help you find it. If there was one place in the Inner System where Ryevolutzia doesn’t have any teeth, it’s always been here on Alamo Drift.”

  “And you Key-evers hate them Kraut Gesellschafters don’t ya?” said Dooly, grinning. “They got a bigger fleet than you and they’d love to blow your Key-ever asses out of the System! Which reminds me. Should you be going? I mean the Krauts might be coming back soon.”

  “Gesellschaft has been largely defeated. Thank you for luring them into the open for us. It was very imprudent of them,” she said in her best silky voice. Then she added, “You should be more prudent as well, Mr. Doolin. Marshal Thomas is capable of flying that cruiser without you.”

  “Feel free to pistol whip him, Kharkov,” said Heck, grinning at Dooly. But Kharkov didn’t rise to the bait. “So. What’s next for your little wormhole device, Kharkov?” he said rubbing his head.

  “You will like what is next, Marshal Thomas. Or should I say, Outlaw Thomas? You’ve left quite a trail of destruction behind you.”

  “Get on with it Kharkov. Or should I say, Ruskie?” Kharkov glared at him but didn’t strike.

  “I need information. Information that only one person in the System has.”

  “Oh yeah? Who’s that?”

  “Doctor Thaddeus Uzefski.”

  Heck stared at Kharkov, hard. How was he going to get anything from Uzefski?

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “I have no time for jokes, Thomas. Uzefski has something I need. You will bring him here.”

  “Here?” he exclaimed. “Here? You want me to fetch the most famous astrophysicist in the Solar System, out from under the nose of the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth, and stroll on back here?”

  Kharkov did not respond. She simply glared at him.

  “And what would you like from me after that? Shall I pull a faster-than-light engine out of my ass?”

  Kharkov swung her fist at Heck’s head, but Heck saw it coming and stepped into her swing. He blocked her punch easily and threw her arm out wide. Before he could do anything else, the soldiers all drew the rifles and took aim at Heck. Dooly stepped back quickly with his arms up.

  “Hey! Easy, now,” said Dooly. “Let’s be reasonable and point those things at Heck Thomas. He’s the one who offended your lady-friend.”

  “I think you are going to die, Thomas,” whispered Kharkov, her face next to Thomas’ ear.

  “I think you need me, Kharkov. Or else you’d have done all this dirty work yourself. Call off your dogs,” he said, shoving her back. Kharkov said something in Ukrainian and the soldiers lowered their weapons. Kharkov gave him a look that held a promise of violence to be repaid.

  Kharkov turned on her heel and paused, “Twenty four hours, Marshal.” Then she stalked away.

  Heck Thomas watched the maniac and her soldiers vacate the hangar.

  “Here we go again,” grumbled Dooly. Heck nodded in agreement as the pair climbed into Sixkiller and prepped for launch.

  It was time to engage business mode.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Special Agent Hall of the Commonwealth Bureau of Investigation turned off his holophone. He knew, somewhere, his boss was cursing him. Perhaps he was even angry enough that an ‘accident’ might be arranged on Hall’s behalf. He smiled grimly at the thought, perusing data files at a computer station in the Marshals Service headquarters on Palace Drift.

  David Hall was a good cop, and Revelier knew it. But Revelier wasn’t counting on something, and that was Hall’s unwillingness to bend to his master’s will of late. Revelier was Rev
elier and he would think that he could find a way to intimidate or browbeat Hall into doing what his boss wanted. Not anymore. Hall knew that something big was happening and it involved Special Agent In Charge, Gem Revelier.

  Hall had been the lead agent in the Technology Crimes Division of the Bureau for most of his career, before being scooped up for administrative work by Revelier. In his youth, Hall had been a bit of a vigilante hacker. Eventually he got bored with only seeing one side of the data streams and wanted to become part of something more adventurous. In his late teens he enlisted in the Commonwealth Fleet. Due to his incredible technological skills and his brilliant mind, Hall had been quickly recruited by the Fleet Intelligence Directorate and was put to work in the Signals Division. Signals Division monitored communications of all types to detect threats to the Commonwealth, and developed cutting edge encryption algorithms to protect Commonwealth communications. But there was something else Signals Division was well known for: designing - and breaking - every technological security protocol and standard used by the Commonwealth government. From there it was a straight path to the Commonwealth Law Enforcement Academy and on to the Bureau.

  As he sat in front of the holocomputer, Hall’s conscious wrestled with what he was about to do. Not for fear of getting caught. No, Hall had no doubt about his skills to disarm the security features and access the virtual tunnels to higher systems that many did not know existed; or denied that they did. Rather it was the fear of what he might find. Anything Gem Revelier was involved with could, easily, go to the highest levels of government. If that were the case, there would be little he could do stop whatever was coming. Eventually, patriotism outweighed prudence and self-preservation. Were there any ideals of more importance than that?

  Hall didn’t think so.

  Within seconds he’d established a dummy data stream running programs and applications pertaining to the financial and economic trends of the late 21st Century; a topic so incredibly boring he needn’t worry about shoulder surfers peeking at his business. A few seconds more and he was accessing the hidden tunneling protocols that were not supposed to exist, which led him to hidden computer systems that were not supposed to exist.