The Cole Protocol by Tobias S. Buckell

Author:Tobias S. Buckell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2008-10-09T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

TWENTY-SIX

OUTER RUBBLE, 23 LIBRAE

There was an art to deciphering patterns, Keyes thought, looking at all the contacts the ship’s radar was showing him on a screen. And despite all the training he gave in his life he felt it wasn’t something you could analyze. Seeing patterns came to those with intuition. You looked for the gaps and cracks that opened up.

The Midsummer Night had slipped deep into the Insurrectionist structure. He couldn’t help but be amazed by it all.

All these asteroids, all these connections. What a tremendous achievement.

“Say what you will about them, this is a pretty slick operation,” Lt. Dante Kirtley muttered from comms. He was bent over, looking for stray chatter. “They’ve routed most of their communications through physical lines, there’s almost no wireless leakage. Makes all of this pretty quiet out here, Commander.”

Commander Zheng checked the information they were all sending him. “The Jackal ship, Lieutenant. Don’t forget about the ship. These Insurrectionists are probably working with the Covenant—that’s how they’ve managed to achieve all this. I’m not inclined to be as charitable.”

The radar contacts Keyes was following shifted with the ship, as if orbiting it, but from a very long distance.

Keyes puffed the thrusters, gently moving them along a random line. The bulk of the cloud of freighters, personal ships, drones and other small contacts all shifted slightly.

A slight sense of claustrophobia washed over Keyes, but it was quickly quenched.

“Commander, you better take a look at this,” Keyes said, putting the contacts up on a forward screen. “They’re adjusting their position based on our adjustments. I think we’re not as stealthy as we think we are.” Out of the corner of his eye Keyes saw Badia Campbell swallow a pair of pills with a pained look on her face. She looked stressed.

Zheng double checked the time-lapsed information, then nodded. “I think you’re right, Lieutenant.”

Campbell at ops disagreed. “We can damp our engines down further, alter our course and coast through. Lighting up full to jump out of here will just blow our cover. We won’t be able to get back in this deep ever again.”

Keyes disagreed, but didn’t say anything. The bridge crew had been tight. He wasn’t going to risk second-guessing anyone just yet, even if Campbell was being jittery. The decision was Zheng’s anyway.

Zheng mulled it over for a second, then tapped the pad. “I don’t like it. Keyes, light us up and let’s blow clear. We’ll observe from a distance. We can drop some drones and double-check the stealth there; maybe something is going wrong. It’s still a new ship.”

Keyes had a rough line plotted out already. He double-checked it, and checked the engines. Ready to come on fully hot.

They’d rip right through that school of slow Insurrectionist freighters to safety, Keyes thought, tapping the navigation console and getting ready.

But then something in the heart of Midsummer Night exploded and the air in the cockpit rose in pressure, making Keyes’s ears pop.

“Ops!” Zheng shouted, turning to his side. “Report!”

Keyes fired the ship’s main engines, looking to throw them clear while Zheng and Campbell figured out what had happened.

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