Operation Musket

[Manticore]

The ship floated languidly down the lane towards the jumpgate to Tau-31, Webb doing his best to pilot her like a corporate pilot would. It was a strange mix of lazy patience mixed with careful precision – corporate fliers were paid by the haul but their ships were in no way built for any sort of “hurrying”. Veterans of the lanes knew that arriving safe and on time to a destination had a much better expected payoff than a rushed early arrival. Being a sitting duck for the ever-present unlawfuls tended to breed a very meticulous, careful attitude.

Eisenhart had just gotten off the comm with Jaeger, who had set a rendezvous point with them off the lane to Holman, just clear of standard scanning range from the rings themselves. From there, he intended to head home as quickly as possible – but he wanted to get the hacker’s input on the potential intelligence ramifications of that course of action.

Webb guided the ship into the maw of the jumpgate to Tau-31, and Eisenhart stared out the front glass into the rapidly growing whirl of colors. This problem was a real tickler, with potentially disastrous ramifications on either side. On one hand, he could proceed to drop off the civilians, but create the very real risk that they blabbed their entire story to Gallic authorities as soon as the Aurochs left the airlock. If that were to happen, the ship would be immediately flagged for arrest and the mission would – likely at least – be compromised.

On the other hand, if they bypassed Holman and took their unintentional captives back into Bretonia, the civilians would wind up reported as missing. Since there was a record of them boarding the Aurochs in Lyon, the first place even the most incompetent police investigator would look was the transport flight. Since their ship would’ve never checked in at Holman, the logical conclusion would be that it was lost in transit. A more detailed investigation would prove that the ship had stopped briefly at Java, and in that case the investigator would be led right to the truth – or at least close enough to it to possibly compromise the mission.

It was a tricky one, and he was not too proud to admit to himself that he needed Jaeger’s insight into the options.

“Sir, I’m dropping us out of the lane to proceed to the rendezvous,” Webb said. The man’s face was intent on his consoles – flying an unfamiliar ship was a difficult task for even a pilot of his caliber. Eisenhart indicated approval with a silent nod of his head.

The ship shuddered slightly as Webb manually aborted the connection to the lane, and they drifted out into open space. All was silent for a brief moment, then Webb fired up the impulse engines and the ship began to slowly gain distance from the lane.

Eisenhart glanced at the plot, noting that flickers in the lane that indicated passing ships were very intermittent – the Taus were hardly a safe place for shipping, despite the Gallic occupation.

“Fire up the cruise engines, Webb. We need to hurry.”

There was a gentle shudder beneath their feet as the cruise engines began to charge. The charge peaked, and the Aurochs leapt forward towards the rendezvous point. At ten klicks, a fuzzy sensor return appeared on the plot. After they closed within five, the sensor suite had resolved it to match Jaeger’s ship, and flagged it as friendly.

Eisenhart opened a local tight beam comms channel. “Hope these hydrocarbons from Tau-29 fetch a good price,” he said, speaking in a dull monotone voice. It was code, indicating to Jaeger that they were not compromised.

A low tone sounded from his console, indicating an incoming secure comm request. Eisenhart hit the button to accept. “This is the commander.”

“It’s fine, Commander. We’re speaking under an absolutely excessive amount of encryption.” Jaeger’s delicate voice contained no hint of sarcasm.

“Very well,” he responded. “Good to hear from you again, Jaeger. The mission was a success.”

“I can see that.”

“However… there was a slight complication.” After a brief hesitation, he summarized the human cargo and the problem it presented.

“Well, Commander, I can tell you one thing right away – we need to go to Holman. We absolutely can’t just head home from here.”

“Explain.”

“Well, I’m gonna hack the transponder, yeah? So we can completely change the identity of the ship, even under close scrutiny. But even with JADE’s help, that takes several hours of work. I mean, if just anyone could completely re-program their transponder, then piracy would be a hell of a lot worse than it is now. I’m one of the few that can do it, but I need time, and I can’t have any interference.”

“Interference? Who’s going to pick up on what happened that quickly?”

“IDF, of course. Every corporation closely tracks their assets, right? In this case, it’s both the ship and the cargo – IDF has a central dispatch system, completely automated, that routes their ship captains from destination to destination. But more importantly, it tracks when they arrive at their destination, so the company knows that the particular trip was a success.”

“So they’ve already tracked us off the lane here? Does that compromise us?”

“Not necessarily. Tracking a ship in a specific point in space, even with a tracking beacon applied, is very expensive and generates a lot of data. If IDF has an active beacon, I’m not picking it up – more likely that they only bother to log departures and arrivals at each leg of a ship’s journey. After all, the company only cares that the goods are delivered on-time, right? Not necessarily how they get there.”

“Makes sense. So we have to go to Holman to show the goods were delivered? And then we have some breathing room?”

“Right. And you’re already running late. IDF’s system, if it’s like others that I’ve seen, gives an hour or two before a shipment is officially flagged as ‘late’. Once it hits that point, the local authorities are automatically notified, and the company will attempt to remotely ping the ship’s transponder. That’s when the trouble would start.”

“Understood. But what about the issues with docking on Holman? We can’t just drop off the family and expect them not to make a fuss – not to mention the missing father.”

“It won’t be easy, but an option comes to mind. As far as IDF is concerned, they only care that the people are delivered, correct? If they make it through processing, anything that happens afterwards isn’t the company’s concern.”

“Logical enough.”

“So all that we need to do is replace the father with one of your men, get the civvies through processing, and then figure out a way to quietly get them back aboard before you depart.”

“So one of us would have to pose as the father? And keep the civvies under wraps while they get processed?” Eisenhart lowered his head into a hand.

“I know it’s a tall order, but it’s the only way I can think of to avoid compromising the mission.”

Eisenhart let out a long sigh through his teeth. “Agreed. I’ll get them ready.”

“Quickly. Like I said, we’re up against the clock here.”

“Copy,” he replied, cutting the connection.

He wished the four of them could just draw straws for who would have to pose as the “father” of the civvies, but unfortunately there was only one good choice. Lieutenant Arland was the only one who spoke passable French.