Gods Dogs, Book 3

Life is tough, but it’s tougher if you’re stupid.

Sgt. Stryker

League space stations attended to all 300 of the former Empire of Man worlds. The long-term plan was for each planet to buy the station for its own use, and afford the League an administration wing for its business. During the lengthy transition, League presence gave those worlds the security to develop governments that adhered to the ‘no force or fraud’ elements the League insisted on.

These three rim-worlds were, so far, the most problematic in that regard. Quinn figured it had more to do with the conditioning of the population towards obedience than the rise of the fascist insurgency the League was fighting.

The next world was Solhym. It was both an agricultural world and a manufacturing powerhouse. The industry in high orbit produced everything from farm machinery to computer parts. A robust mining operation kept the furnaces fed, and a well-run distribution and marketing bureaucracy kept the goods flowing.

When the Satya docked, the other two Coyote teams were waiting at the hatch to check on Pax. They boarded through the rear hatch.

“How is he?” Jolene asked River.

“The diagnosis looks good. Mostly burns and radiation damage. He should be out of the tank in a week.”

The eight of them relaxed, and Quinn asked, “What’s the situation here?”

Jolene smiled. “Better than Hapsburg. No rumors of cyborgs, and the station marshal is glad we’re here.”

Rob added, “Their intel is better. They located the rebel network, its leaders, and safe houses. They are still working on identifying the government connections.”

“What do they want us to do?”

“Help with strategy and provide backup,” Jolene answered with a smirk.

“We should be so lucky,” Moss snorted.

Jian put in, “They think the real leaders were the ones on Hapsburg.”

The conversation drifted after that, and eventually they headed out to a nearby cafeteria that was still inside the secure area of the space station.

River was stuck retelling the story of the fight in the command house, even though they had seen the recording.

Jian and Nina gushed with pride at River’s accomplishment. Jolene smiled a knowing smile at River across the table. River shrugged at the hero worship.

Moss finally couldn’t take it any more and said, “You think that was a crazy op, you should have been there when she shot paint balls at politicians.” The group chuckled at that image. “During a big government sponsored rally.” The chuckles increased. “On the Chert homeworld.” Now they began really laughing.

Moss went on, “She’s a mile away. Pax and I were lobbing rifle grenade fireworks into the air. Our A.I.s took over the sound system and started playing polka music.”

The others were now having trouble getting their breath because of the laughter.

“Then the riot police show up, and she splattered them with paint.”

Moss paused to let them breathe before finishing.

“Cops, politicians, some retired general, all dripping red, blue, and yellow paint. Fireworks popping over 10,000 people, who were now dancing the polka. It was great fun. Except for the music and the hairy Chert dancing. That was terrible, painful even.”

Rob turned to Quinn when he caught his breath. “That actually happened, didn’t it?”

Quinn smiled. “Just as Moss told it.”

The next day, they met with the station marshal, Vince Bloomberg. He was a large, no-nonsense black man that exuded intensity. His office was a replica of Marshal Warren’s, except these office walls carried pictures of the marshal’s family in wood frames.

“Quinn, team lead,” Quinn introduced himself as he, Rob, and Jolene entered.

“And you’re the senior Coyote,” Bloomberg said as he stood. “Heard about your man.”

“He’s got another week in the tank, but he’ll be okay.”

“Glad to hear it. That puts us down one empath, though.”

“River can cover for that if necessary. What’s your plan?”

The marshal hit the control for the holo-projector, and a representation of one of the planet’s continents appeared above his desk.

“Solhym is a typical agricultural world. Big fields bordered by strips of forest. The mountains are managed forests with vacation homes and tourist resorts. The bad guys moved into a couple of those resorts.”

“Seems like a trend,” Rob said. “They did the same on Hapsburg IV.”

The marshal nodded and pushed a button. Three locations lit up on the map.

“These are known locations, but someone tips them off when he plan a raid.”

“Any idea who?”

Bloomberg shook his head. “We’ve narrowed it down to one government department.”

Jolene offered, “Well, that’s frustrating. Is that where you need an empath?”

“It’s one idea we are floating around.”

The three Coyotes waited for the marshal to continue. He let out a slow breath and said, “Another idea is you infiltrate all three locations and call us in when you think the time is right.”

“Why don’t we do both?” Quinn asked.

“That would put you down two team members.”

“Ten of us can handle three recon missions,” Quinn replied. “In fact, we should leave two empaths here, Jian and Eli, and the rest of us will recon those locations.”

“How’s the OpSec about our involvement?” Jolene asked.

“This part of the station is restricted. As far as anyone knows, you’re mercs that are here as contractors helping the custom guys.”

“Is the department you’re worried about connected with customs?”

Bloomberg cracked a rare smile, “Everybody on the station deals with customs.”

Quinn grinned. “That should make it easy. Let’s see the layout of the resort sites.”

The camouflage function of Coyote light armor could also create the appearance of a uniform. Basic, unadorned black was the Coyote uniform, and that was the default for when the camo feature was off.

However, the uniform for the mercenary unit, the Fourth Legionnaires, was a gray top and bottom, and a patch with ’4th’ in a circle with a lightning bolt through it. That was worn as a patch on the left shoulder, and a larger one on the left breast. Below the shoulder patch were white horizontal bars, which represented contracts the individual merc completed. On the right shoulder was rank insignia, and a name strip was on the right breast. The Fourth Legionnaires existed as a mercenary unit, and one of their contracts was to provide legends for League Intelligence operatives.

Jian and Eli met with Bloomberg and a custom official who went by the name, Agent Ghant. He provided their armor with the programming for the 4th’s uniform. Then he told them, “Your known assignment is to hang out as security while customs does a routine sweep for evidence of smuggling. Your identity tokens give you access to everywhere on the station.”

Bloomberg nodded to the agent who rose from his seat in the marshal’s office to leave.

“Thanks, Jeff.”

The agent nodded and left.

“He’s a League agent as well as customs,” Bloomberg told them. “The area you’ll be staking out is in the briefing packet I sent to your A.I.s. It’s a three-day assignment, but you’re done when you identify who the moles are.”

Eli smiled and asked, “When do we start?”

“The rest of your team heads to the planet this afternoon. So, whenever you want.”

Eli stood and said, “I think we’ll recon the area, check in with the teams, and get set up before the day shift ends. Thanks for your help, sir.”

Then they left the office and headed to the non-secure side of the station.

Eli was an easy-going man of Aleut descent. His blond hair and blue eyes told of the Russian influence on the Aleut people that populated the Aleutian Islands and its surroundings. He carried the soft approach to life of his ancestors and their understated humor. In other words, he didn’t present as a fighter, but more as a pleasant sidekick to those who could fight.

Jian, his darker-skinned companion for this operation, was still the intense woman she was, but her intensity was tempered now with a self-effacing humor she picked up in empath training. She was more comfortable in her own skin these days.

When they made it through security to the non-restricted side of the station, she said, “I only have one chevron. You have two. Does that make you the boss of me?”

Eli chuckled. “Absolutely.”

They wore their reconfigured light armor, but only carried handguns in drop-down holsters. The armor also appeared to be a few generations older than it was.

They marched through the busy commercial district and onto the government district. Between the two were upscale restaurants and bars. The level below was the retail area. The level above was housing. The outer rim was docking and warehousing.

The League restricted area took up a third of the fat ring space. Its layout, level by level, was similar.

They cruised the wide passageways, ignoring the busy people on their errands, and found the storefront entrance for the Commerce Department of Licensing. It was in the same complex as the Commerce Department, which was housed in a colonnaded front that stretched for a city block.

“Impressive,” Eli observed as he entered the office.

A counter separated the room. Patrons to the front, and two dozen workers at their desks behind the waist-high counter.

“May I help you?” a nervous receptionist asked.

“No,” Eli answered. “We’re just checking out our duty station. I figured it would be harder to find than it was.”

The young woman relaxed. “We heard there would be guards for this inspection. Does that happen often?”

“Just a precaution,” Eli said with a smile. “We’ll be back around 1600 to figure out where we need to be so we aren’t in your way.”

“I’ll let the boss know,” she replied. “I’m Cheryl.”

“Eli, and this is Jian. See you later, Cheryl.”

They left and headed back.

“Nervous group,” Jian said.

“Yeah. It’s hard to determine what the cause is, though. People get nervous for a whole range of reasons.”

“I know,” Jian said with a chuckle. “I get nervous about being nervous.”

Eli laughed.

They met with the teams before they departed for their recon mission. Quinn told them, “The A.I. battle-net will let you know when we call in the marshals. Any time after that is when the moles will start communicating.”

“Do we arrest them?” Jian asked.

“Not unless you can track who called them and who they called next. We need to identify who is tipping off the government folks.”

Then the team left by shuttles.

Eli smirked. “Glad I’m staying here. It’s pretty boring doing recon.”

“Yeah, and I think Cheryl likes you.”

Eli snickered and countered, “Let’s go make nice with bureaucrats.”

The teams were three-man teams for the recon operation: Quinn, Moss, and River; Jolene, Nina, and Sonny; Rob, Christy, and Angus. They deployed to the resort locations the marshals identified, and the hackers, River, Christy, and Sonny, got to work.

Satya, with its enhanced capabilities, aided each hacker so that they penetrated the systems and eventually found the insurgency network. It was not so cleverly disguised as a back-up system at each resort location. Each of those systems connected to each other, and then to a fourth location, which they assumed was a headquarters. It took a while to nail down its location.

The following day, the director of the Division of Licensing showed Eli and Jian around the spaces the division occupied. There was the bullpen, where they were the day before. Behind that, off a parallel hallway, were five offices for the director and his four deputies. Each of those offices was staffed with three people.

As such, Jian stationed herself in the bullpen. Eli found a chair to sit in the hall with the five offices. They only engaged with the staff when staff initiated it. The rest of the time, they monitored feeling states and soon developed a baseline read for each person.

There was a ground state for a person, like a default emotional setting. Ancient wisdom saw it as a personality type: sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic, or melancholy. Empaths saw it as the emotional wrapping people used to create a comfort zone. The wrapping, then, was a function of conditioning, temperament, and life experience.

Below that, they knew, was the true ground state – the clear lake with no ripples – the most basic feeling of all, the feeling of being alive. It carried no personality traits and resting in this place was one reward for decades of meditation – let alone skill at solving the problems emotions announced.

Jian and Eli rested there and observed the others as they flowed up and down the scales of feeling tones. With a couple of them, there were spikes of anxiety that quickly faded.

Like nervousness, though, there were multiple causes for anxiety. A random memory of a scary incident could provoke it. Even so, they kept an eye of those individuals.

The day ended with no alert from the A.I. battle-net. They returned to their ships in the restricted area. Around dinner time, Quinn contacted them through the battle-net and its connection to the ship.

“We will send out our request for assistance at 0930,” he told them. “We’ve identified a fourth location, and one of you will need to go with the squad that hits that location.”

“Okay,” Eli replied. “Jian can go. I’ll round up the moles.”

“Sounds good. Quinn, out.”

The two of them were having dinner at the cafeteria near the restricted docking bay.

Jian asked, “Why send me?”

“It will be more fun than riding herd on the security people.”

Jian smiled. “Riding herd on marshals is better?”

Eli shrugged and finished what was on his plate.

Jian leaned forward. “I think you want a clear run at Cheryl,” she stage-whispered.

Eli laughed. “I thought you were the serious type.”

“I’ve been working on loosening up.”

“Are you okay with going?”

“Now you ask me,” she exclaimed and rolled her eyes.

The next day, at 0930, each of them was on station. Jian noticed the woman with anxiety connect to an un-networked communicator.

Jian asked her embedded A.I., Tammy, [Can you capture that conversation?]

[Isolating signal. It’s encrypted, but I’ll record and save it. Back-tracking to the source. I have the location.]

[Good. Connect me to station security.]

[Connected.]

“This is Coyote Jian. I have a security breach to report. Lower level, frame 6-L-14,” Jian said and sent her tokens.

“Dispatching a drone now, Coyote Jian. Security officers are en route.”

“Thank you.”

She then waited for the woman to make a second call, which she did.

[Still recording,] Tammy told her, [and it was easier to trace this call. It’s to the planet.]

“Eli,” she sent by tac-net, “I have one mole out here.”

“I have one in here,” he sent back. “He’s calling the insurgents now.”

“Mine, too. We arrest them when they’re done. I got security to arrest the guy that called my suspect.”

“Yeah, they aren’t very good at being sneaky. I have security getting my guy, too.”

They marched the man and woman suspects into the station security office, and Jian left to join up with the marshals. On the way, she transformed her suit back to Coyote black.

Her rifle and combat load-out was waiting for her at the shuttle. She strapped it on and secured herself in the seat the crew chief indicated. The last few marshals arrived, and the shuttled headed for the planet.

The marshal contingent on a space station over a former empire world was like a metropolitan police force. Most of the marshals were detectives who investigated breaches of League laws. There was also a SpecOps contingent that acted like SWAT teams in cities.

The group heading for the previously unknown fourth location was a mix of the two: ten SpecOps and five detectives. The marshal-in-charge was Bob Nolan, who looked like a marine drill instructor Jian knew.

“Listen up,” Nolan said. “The target location and deployment assignments are being sent to your implants.”

After the plan loaded, he continued, “It’s a remote cabin on a small plateau. There is little cover, so we will land on their doorstep and assault the cabin.

“We don’t have any intel on what’s there, so be careful. We have a Coyote observer, but she will engage only if necessary. Any questions?”

There were a few, but soon they were through the plasma burn of re-entry and on final approach.

“Vampire!” the co-pilot called out.

“Evasive maneuvers,” the crew chief facing them shouted, and they all cinched down their restraints.

The shuttle released its anti-missile protections and began erratic hard burns.

Tammy told Jian, [Two SAMs are in the air. I am attempting to hack them.]

The shuttle jerked around, and then climbed sharply. Then it rolled and dove again.

Tammy warned, [Prepare for a proximity detonation.]

Immediately, there was a nearby blast that pushed the shuttle sideways. The hull held, but the engine sputtered.

The pilot said, “We’re going down. Your target is one klick northeast.”

The pilot got the nose up and slid the shuttle on its belly across rocks, muskeg, and meadow of the plateau until it jolted to a stop.

The rear hatch dropped, and the marshals piled out to set up a perimeter. Jian stayed onboard.

She asked the crew chief, “Do you have contact with the station?”

“No. It got knocked out.”

She nodded and Tammy took the hint and said, [I have contract through our comm-drone. Sending a situation report now.]

Jian told the chief, “I got through and filed a report. Whatever your contingency plan is, it should be activated.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

Jian allowed a small grin at the title and headed outside.

Nolan came up. “They are dug into prepared pop-up bunkers. We counted six so far about in a circle, a hundred meters in front of the cabin.”

“What’s your plan?”

“Wait for reinforcements. We don’t have the heavy weapons to root them out.”

“Probably what they want so they can evacuate.”

Nolan grimaced and replied with some heat, “Well, there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Give me covering fire,” Jian said and switched on her armor’s stealth. “You’ve got my IFF, so don’t shoot me.”