Dark Rivals by Amy DuBoff & Michael Anderle & Craig Martelle

Author:Amy DuBoff & Michael Anderle & Craig Martelle [DuBoff, Amy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LMBPN Publishing
Published: 2018-02-04T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Kurtz winced as he eased into the desk chair in his temporary quarters. While he’d expected Ava to have speed and strength on her side, he had figured he’d still be able to hold his own next to her. He hadn’t yet decided if he was pleased or miffed that she’d bested him in both his human and Pricolici forms without breaking a sweat.

Considering that the future of an entire system is presently in her hands, I can only count her prowess as a win for all of us, he decided, setting aside his bruised ego.

The sparring session had been an opportunity to check on her state of mind, how she was handling the stress of having an entire mission hinging on her. She had given him no cause for concern; if anything, she seemed to be in good spirits, considering.

That bolstered his confidence in the mission being successful, but he couldn’t neglect the contingency plans.

Beyond the danger to the Alaxar Trinary, the FDG was at risk. The Dyons had broken in once, and though they’d been blocked from reentering the system for now, the aliens could potentially get an infusion of new resources from Alaxar that could bolster their strength. As sickening as it was to think about that potential, Kurtz needed to make sure the FDG finished getting its own augmented defenses in place.

He established a secure comm link to FDG headquarters and initiated a video call with Denise.

The chief of security picked up. “Sir, what can I do for you?”

“How much have you heard about my mission on the Hellfire?”

“I know it’s connected to the Dyons and the attack on headquarters, but not much beyond that.”

“Well, it’s time I explained,” he replied.

She nodded her understanding while Kurtz laid out the details for the first iteration of the plan to take out the Dyon ship. When he got to the part about the Arti-Sun not working, Denise’s composure broke.

“It what?!” she exclaimed, her eyes bugging out. “Sorry, sir, it’s just…”

“I know, I haven’t been able to make proper sense of it myself. But we are about to implement a plan to disable those countermeasures, which we’re hopeful will allow us to use the weapon. If we can’t for whatever reason, though, we’ll need a way to keep FDG headquarters and the ship’s computers from being hacked again, to ensure we have a secure command center from which to command our counterattack.”

“Network patches are in progress.”

“Is there anything else we can do?” Kurtz asked. “I know this is far from my area of expertise, but they’ve broken through the digital security once. Are those patches a certain fix?”

Denise was silent for a moment. “You’re right. We were approaching this from a ‘this should work’ standpoint rather than reengineering the system to make it a surety.”

“My guess is you don’t have time for a complete overhaul.”

“No, we definitely don’t—at least not before that ship hits the Alaxar Trinary.”

“Any ideas, or are we in wait-and-see mode?”

She sighed and shook her head.

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