Judas Unchained

“Come on,” she murmured. “Let it go. Down, boy. Calmly.”

“All right.” Now thoroughly embarrassed, Oscar held his hands up in surrender. “Backing off. Doing yoga; some balls like that.”

Anna grinned. “Never knew you had it in you.” Her lips puckered up in a mocking pout. “Soooo macho.”

Oscar just winced. “Don’t. Please.”

Wilson gave him a rueful grin, then sobered. “You know, much as I dislike Bose, that is a worryingly big discrepancy.”

“The Starflyer agent?” Oscar guessed.

“My first choice. Damn, we really are going to have to sit at a table with the little shit and listen to what he has to say.”

“Better off with the motile. It doesn’t look like a permanent walking hissy fit.”

“Hey, behave.” Anna punched him on the arm.

“Ow.” Oscar rubbed at the pain, then noticed Tiger Pansy standing a couple of meters away. She had an avid grin as she chomped away on her gum. “You guys,” she said with shrill admiration. “You’re so intense. Really.”

“What the hell is that?” Adam asked.

The sensors that the Guardians had planted around the approach to the Boongate gateway were showing a single dilapidated old carriage creeping forward onto the main Boongate line.

“It’s the type of carriage the station maintenance crews use,” Kieran said.

The sensor image wobbled, then expanded. Kieran was focusing the camera on the carriage windows. There wasn’t much to see. A yellow light illuminated the interior of the carriage, diffused by the grimy glass. There were dark humanoid shadows moving around inside. Bigger than the average human. Much bigger.

“Bradley?” Adam asked. “What do you think?”

“It seems an unlikely vehicle for the Starflyer to use. On the other hand, because that’s not what we’re expecting…”

“It does have a small cargo handling ability,” Kieran said. “How big does it have to be?”

“I don’t know,” Bradley said.

Adam shook his head. He really didn’t like that carriage. It was wrong, and he knew it. But he couldn’t work out what it might be doing.

Sensor data such as it was filled his virtual vision. The carriage certainly didn’t have a force field. But there were some large power sources inside, five of them. And its communications link to traffic control was all standard.

He touched the icons of the small combat team they’d hidden out near the gateway. “Get ready,” he told them.

“If it’s the Starflyer, it will be heavily protected,” Bradley warned.

“I know. Call Burnelli, get her to find out what that is.” He took his armor suit helmet from the cab’s console where it had been lying, and locked it over his head. A hundred meters in front of him, the shed doors began to slide open.

***

“Sir, the navy team is in position,” Daniel Alster reported.

“Okay,” Nigel said. His virtual hands pulled the wormhole activation code from an encrypted store, and sent it to the Boongate gateway control center.

“Confirm activation code,” Alster said. “We’re opening it now.”

“Get them through as fast as you can, Daniel, please.”

“Yes, sir.”

Nigel shifted the gateway control center data to a part of his virtual vision grid where he could monitor it. In front of him, the doors to the lecture theater opened automatically for himself and Nelson. “They’re going through,” he told the security chief.

“I hope it’s worth it.”

“With confirmed Starflyer agents in custody, Columbia will fall into place without a fight. That makes it worthwhile.” Nigel scanned across the auditorium floor to see the various groups. He was halfway to Qatux when Mellanie intercepted him, with an uncomfortable-looking Hoshe in tow. “We’ve got to get some people back from Boongate,” she said.

“Excuse me?” He couldn’t help glancing over at Oscar, who was in a huddle with Wilson and Anna. Oscar looked up expectantly.

“There’s a Senate Security team stranded there.”

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that, but it’s not our problem.”

“They’re following a Starflyer agent. I thought we wanted Starflyer agents.” Her arm swept around the auditorium. “That’s the whole idea, isn’t it? Grab them and haul them in here for Qatux.”

“Wait, which Starflyer agent are they watching?”

“Victor Halgarth, Isabella’s father,” Hoshe said.

“He’s there as well?” The Boongate gateway data in Nigel’s virtual vision grid showed him the wormhole opening.

“As well as who?” Mellanie asked. “Look, Nigel, the Senate Security team have just reported Victor’s on the move with a whole bunch of armed troops. We need to get them out, or send in reinforcements. Either way, the gateway has to be opened.”

Wilson and Oscar exchanged a startled look.

“The Paris team can’t divert to help Senate Security,” Oscar said. “Arresting Tarlo is an absolute priority.”

“Tarlo’s on Boongate?” Paula asked in surprise; she turned to Hoshe. “Why didn’t we know?”

“None of this has been filed,” Hoshe said.

“Two Starflyer agents on Boongate?” Nelson asked. He sounded alarmed.

“What operation are you running?” Paula asked Oscar.