Space Carrier Avalon Read online

  The selected MP stepped up next to the door and hit the panel that should have opened it. The security door failed to respond. The MP turned his gaze towards it, focusing on it for a moment, and then turned back to Khadem.

  “Standard overrides aren’t working, sir,” he told his boss. “It’s locked down under the Commodore’s personal code.”

  The Lieutenant-Major nodded grimly, stepping up to the panel and tapping the golden badge of his office, a layered block of molecular circuitry that could override almost any lock in the Navy, against it.

  The panel flashed bright red, and then slowly conceded to the police override. The door slid silently open, revealing the last sight that Stanford had been expecting to see.

  The office was the same as it had been when Larson had threatened him. The viewscreen behind the desk still showed Avalon – only now it was spattered with blood.

  Larson was sitting in the chair at his desk, the retractable monitors extended around him for what looked like daily paperwork. A service automatic, the standard seven millimeter caseless high-velocity sidearm issued to every officer, was in his right hand, and his brains had been blasted all over the wall-screen behind him.

  “Stop,” Khadem ordered as Stanford started forward. “No offense, Flight Commander, but you have no idea what to do at a crime scene. My men have forensics training.”

  The Marshal waved his MPs forward around Stanford, each carefully stowing their stunners and pulling out white gloves to cover their hands.

  Stanford, standing back out of the way, contacted Roberts over the com. He made sure Khadem was copied in, in case the MP had something to add.

  “Larson’s dead,” he said flatly. “Looks like he committed suicide.”

  “What the fuck,” Roberts replied, his voice just as flat. “He shouldn’t even have known you were coming – and he sure as hell didn’t strike me as the type.”

  “He wasn’t,” Khadem interjected grimly. “Looks like we showed up faster than someone was expecting – this was a botched job.”

  “Botched job?” Roberts asked over the channel.

  “I’ll flip you both visual,” the MP replied. “I don’t want Stanford getting his boots in this mess.”

  The image that flipped up on Stanford’s optic nerves almost made him throw up. Khadem was looking very closely at the shattered back of Larson’s head.

  “Looks like he blew his brains out to me,” the pilot muttered.

  “It’s meant to, but the man pulling the trigger was in a hurry and botched his angles,” the MP explained. “See these wounds up here?” Khadem, apparently oblivious to the gore and mess, pointed to a set of smaller holes, just above the gaping wound where the hollowpoint had exited. “Those are entrance wounds, gentlemen – someone shot him in the back of the head with a needler. Once he was dead, they started positioning him to make it look like a suicide – only they realized we were on our way and rushed it.”

  “If they’d got the angle right, the first wounds would have been obliterated, and we would probably have written it off as a suicide,” the Marine finished. “But someone botched it – I’d say an amateur with a professional’s tool and game plan.”

  “Liago’s tool, Liago’s plan?” Roberts asked quietly. “That would explain the amateur.”

  “Possible,” Khadem replied. “I’ll need more time to examine the scene, see if the station’s internal sensors picked up anything that wasn’t wiped.”

  “I think we’re missing a question here,” Stanford said slowly, wiping the horrifying image of his old boss, the man who’d made his life living hell for two years, from his implants. “I thought whatever the hell was going on here had Larson in charge. But if Larson was running things, who shot him?

  “And why?”

  Chapter 6

  New Amazon System, Castle Federation

  09:00 July 7, 2735 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time

  DSC-001 Avalon – Captain’s Break-out Room

  It was a small staff meeting. In the aftermath of Larson’s death and the questions it raised, Blair had ordered the ship’s senior officers to convene to discuss everything they’d dug up. Kyle had brought Stanford, now his senior Flight Commander, with him.

  Blair had been joined by Ship’s Marshal Lieutenant-Major Khadem, who’d been running the investigation, and a tall blond woman he didn’t recognize.

  “Wing Commander Roberts, this is my executive officer, Senior Fleet Commander Caroline Kleiner,” Blair introduced the woman. “We’ve had an exciting few days since you arrived, or I’m sure you’d have met already.”

  Kleiner extended her hand for a perfunctory handshake, and Kyle felt like he was being carefully measured – and not necessarily judged to measure up.

  “Everyone here is aware of what’s transpired over the last few days, leading up to Larson’s murder,” Blair continued once all five of them were seated in the tiny table in his break-out room. The little meeting room, directly next to the Captain’s office, was even less decorated than the office. A small Navy-standard table occupied the center, and the only decoration on the wall was a duplicate of Avalon’s commissioning seal from the office next door.

  “How is Lieutenant Williams?” Kyle asked. “I haven’t heard anything since Stanford brought her aboard.”

  “Doctor Pinochet assures me she will recover,” Blair answered. “The nanites inflicted some nasty internal damage, though, and the Doctor won’t clear her for service until she’s had a chance to assess her mental state.”

  “She deserves everything we can do,” Kyle said softly. “I don’t think the Space Force has ever failed one of our own so badly.”

  “I agree, Commander,” the Captain told him. “She’s under guard now, and Dr. Pinochet is one of the best I’ve ever known. She will be as safe as we can make her, and we will make this right.”

  Kyle nodded, satisfied for the moment, though he resolved to check in on the Flight Lieutenant himself later.

  “Ahmed, if you can fill us in on what you and Major Neilson have discovered since Larson’s death,” Blair instructed the Marshal after a moment of quiet.

  “Mostly, what we’ve discovered is that whoever did it was better at covering their tracks than committing the crime,” Khadem told the others. “All security cameras and scanners in the station section that Larson’s office is in were disabled for a seventy-six minute period by a short-out in the wiring. It looks natural, but we’re assuming sabotage as the timing is too convenient.

  “Currently, we have about four hundred and twenty people who were in the zone at the time,” he continued. “None should have had access to a needler, but a large fraction would, theoretically, have known how to trigger the wiring short-out.”

  “Can we search their quarters for the weapon?” Kleiner asked.

  “Even on a military base, that wide a search would require a warrant,” the Marshal replied. “We could get it, but it would be a waste of time: I know what happened to the gun. One of the waste disposal units in that section reported a spike in high density materials during the recording blackout. The gun was incinerated before we even found Larson’s body.

  “Neilson is still digging through everything he can find of Liago and Larson’s movements, trying to see if we can track down someone who would have had a motive for this, but in the absence of further information it doesn’t look like we’ll be able to identify the killer,” Khadem concluded.

  “What about Larson’s actions?” Blair asked.

  “Most of those have fallen into my area,” Kyle interjected. Khadem gestured for him to continue, and the bulky Wing Commander flicked a command from his implant to the projectors hidden in one of the blank walls.

  “When Commander Stanford boarded the station to deliver the Lieutenant-Major and his MPs, he drew my attention to something odd,” Kyle explained. The screens warmed up, showing four images of flight decks with rows of fighters, all almost identical.

  “These are images of Flight Deck
s Alpha through Delta on the Flotilla Station – all taken late last night,” the Wing Commander continued. “Over the last two days, Michael has landed on both Alpha and Charlie,” the two images flashed. “He noticed that both bays were full of Badger-type starfighters, equivalent to those we’d taken off of Avalon, and asked how many there were supposed to be.”

  Kyle gestured, and the other two images flashed.

  “As you’ll note, Bravo and Delta also only contain one type of starfighter – all Badger-type.”

  “Is this supposed to mean something to me, Commander?” Kleiner asked.

  “The Badger starfighter design dates back to the end of the War, ma’am,” Kyle told her politely. “The design is twenty-one years old, and the Space Force hasn’t purchased any for twelve. They are a Class Two export, and the design, less the positron lance, was recently released for civilian design and manufacture.

  “In short, the Badger is utterly obsolete,” he concluded. “Because this station is an utter backwater, Starfighter Group Two-Seventy-Nine was assigned fully half of the Badgers still in service.”

  “So we have forty-eight squadrons of these ships in service?” Kleiner asked. “That seems excessive if they’re as obsolete as you claim.”

  “No, Commander,” Kyle said quietly. “The Force currently, officially, has twelve squadrons of Badgers in service. There are twice as many Badgers on the New Amazon station as we’re supposed to have in the entire Space Force.”

  As that sank in, the CAG looked over at Captain Blair.

  “When we first discussed the issues on Avalon, you said you didn’t think things had fallen so far as to worry about starfighters being stolen,” he reminded him. “It looks like you were wrong.

  “Avalon should have had six squadrons of Typhoons aboard – a Class One Export, restricted to our allies, and still in service in secondary duties throughout the Navy and Space Force,” he continued. “SFG-Two-Seventy-Nine should have had six squadrons of Badgers, yes – and ten of Typhoons and two squadrons of Cobras, our current frontline starfighter.”

  “We are missing an entire modern carrier’s fighter group, eighteen squadrons, of frontline and last-generation starfighters,” Kyle explained to a silent room. “That is what Larson was blackmailing Randall to protect. That’s why Larson was killed – because he sure as hell didn’t sell a hundred and eight starfighters and replace them with obsolete junk without help.”

  Silence filled the room.

  “How?” Kleiner finally asked. “Shouldn’t the pilots and squadron commanders have noticed when their ships were sold out from under them?”

  “A posting like this turns over its people a lot, except for those shoved here as a punishment,” Stanford told her, his voice soft. “If they were careful and co-opted some of those officers posted here as long-standing punishment, they could hide a lot from us. I know my squadron was fully equipped with Badgers when I arrived.”

  “And no one except another Vice Commodore or a Navy Captain could override Larson’s security lockouts to see the records,” Kyle reminded them. “And why would someone check the records for what ships were on station according to the station, versus what Joint Command recorded?”

  “With Larson dead, do we have any way of learning what was going on?” Blair asked.

  “Randall,” Kyle said reluctantly. “With everything going on, we can pin treason on him as well as rape. Both are firing squad offenses, and both would be open-and-shut cases. We can offer clemency if he comes clean on everything that happened – offer life in a JD-Justice penitentiary rather than a bullet.”

  “I really want to see that fucker hang,” Kleiner snapped. It was the first fully human moment she’d shown so far and Kyle suddenly liked her a lot more.

  “You’re his CO, Kyle,” Blair said. “Can I trust you to handle it?”

  Kyle nodded grimly, and then tilted his head as a message came through his implant.

  “I’ve just been advised by Doctor Pinochet that Lieutenant Williams is awake,” he told the others. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I have a new pilot I need to welcome aboard.”

  New Amazon System, Castle Federation

  09:25 July 7, 2735 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time

  DSC-001 Avalon – Main Infirmary

  It took Michelle a minute or so to even begin to orient herself when she woke up. The last thing she remembered was the burnt pork smell of Liago falling beside her, and then darkness. Now, at first all she could recognize was pain. Her entire body ached.

  After a moment, she realized that the pain, while pervasive, was muted. She recognized the sensation of pain medication, and slowly opened her eyes to confirm that she was in a Navy infirmary. That realization had her unconsciously pressing further into the bed, away from the wall.

  Dr. Donner, the senior physician on the New Amazon station, was not her friend – he’d repeatedly signed off on the evaluations that said there was nothing wrong with her.

  Her motion caught the attention of the nurse in the room, a cute brunette whose insignia labeled her as a Federation Space Navy Nurse-Lieutenant. She wasn’t familiar to Michelle, and she had a perfect heart-shaped face that sent a half-forgotten tremor through Michelle’s body.

  “Lieutenant Williams,” the nurse spoke to her quietly. “You’re awake. How do you feel?”

  “I hurt,” Michelle managed to croak, and the nurse nodded slowly, clearly checking something in her implants.

  “We reduced your pain medication to bring you out of the induced coma,” she said softly, still keeping her voice low as if she knew about the headache slamming Michelle’s skull. Given the scanners available in a Navy medical facility, she possibly did.

  “I’m going to fetch Dr. Pinochet,” the nurse continued. “Please, don’t move until she’s had a chance to check you over – you still have quite a bit of damage.”

  Michelle barely had time to wonder what had happened to her and who ‘Dr. Pinochet’ was before a short, dumpy woman appeared, with close-cropped red hair and the two gold circles and snake staff collar insignia of a Fleet Surgeon-Commander.

  The sight of a completely different doctor caused Michelle to try and push herself away, her breathing coming short and sharp as she tried.

  “Please Lieutenant, calm down,” Pinochet said. Like the nurse she spoke quietly, but her tone was fierce. “I swear to you, upon the honor of the Navy, that you are safe.”

  Michelle found herself shaking her head and pressed against the wall, but the Surgeon met her gaze and held it, with an intensity she couldn’t turn away from.

  “You are in the main infirmary aboard Avalon,” Pinochet continued. She gestured towards the door out of the private room. “There are two armed military policewomen outside that door, who’ve been in this star system less than five weeks between them, with orders not to let anyone in this room without the explicit permission of myself or Wing Commander Roberts. At no point in the sixteen hours since you came aboard have there been less than three Space Force officers or senior non-coms sitting in the waiting room, glaring at anyone who even made too much noise near your room.

  “No one, and I mean no one, is getting into this room to hurt you,” the Doctor finished. “Please, Michelle, we understand how badly we have failed you. We will protect you. I won’t ask to trust us, not yet – but please, relax.”

  The sheer fierce protectiveness of this dumpy, motherly, doctor managed to break through Michelle’s defenses. Suddenly, unexpectedly, she was crying. Pinochet was there in a moment, holding her gently and getting her settled back into the bed.

  “What happened?” Michelle finally managed to ask, cleaning her face as gently as she could with a tissue.

  “What do you remember?” the Doctor asked.

  “Liago grabbed me after yet another waste of time appointment with Donner,” she said fiercely. “Paralyzed me somehow – I knew he was going to throw me out an airlock.” Michelle shivered at the memory of the sheer helplessness. “Then, there
were MPs, and he was shot. After that, nothing.”

  Pinochet nodded briskly, pulling a chair up next to Michelle’s bed. As she spoke, she began going through the readouts of the bed and the scanners attached to it.

  “Yesterday morning, Wing Commander Roberts arrested Randall for your attack,” she explained quietly. “The original medical reports, before the edits and deletions started sneaking in, have been forwarded to me. Liago apparently believed that killing you would help protect Randall.”

  “Flight Commander Stanford somehow knew you were in danger though, so they put out an order for the MPs to take you into protective custody,” Pinochet continued. “They found you and Liago, and drew the correct conclusion.”

  “When Liago died, however, his implant sent a garbled message that the nanites in your body had no idea how to translate. They went crazy and starting shutting down and overloading neural pathways at random.”

  “The MPs rushed you to the New Amazon Station infirmary – where Doctor Donner apparently finally remembered how to be a damned doctor. He saved your life,” Avalon’s doctor told Michelle. “Then he called me and confessed everything. I ordered you transferred here immediately, in case anyone else on that damned station was insane.”

  Michelle blinked slowly, trying to take all of this in.

  “Dr. Donner told you?” she said softly. “That he kept telling me nothing was wrong?”

  “Dr. Donner has a damned Euphoria chip habit,” Pinochet said flatly. “Larson held that over him to get him to ignore your condition, as it would end his career.

  “Well, now Donner’s career is over, but Larson is dead – and he seems to think that’s a fair trade.”

  “Larson’s dead?” Michelle asked, horrified.

  The door behind Pinochet slid open before she could say more to reveal a large, red-haired man unfamiliar to Michelle. His collar bore two gold circles flanking a set of golden wings – a pilot-track Wing Commander, presumably the Roberts that Pinochet had mentioned.