A Quiet Little War Part I: Revelations

This fanfic by baybelletrist exists on the web at the following location(s) and we suggest visiting the following link(s) rather than viewing the material here: Archive of Our Own/1325056 The text here has been included to allow searching for character availability and author recognition. Please note that the text is most likely not formatted and may be hidden by a spoiler tag. A Quiet Little War Part I: Revelations by baybelletrist Rated: M Summary: When a cargo ship is attacked in a remote area of space, the Series Five Rangers investigate. What they find leads them on a disturbing trail of secrets and lies to a danger none of them expected. Chapter 1: Prologue Sun Garden Mall Phoenix, Arizona 12/21/2098 Crowds streamed along the sunlit sidewalks. Traffic moved sluggishly through the congested streets. The small, pale-blond girl in the bright red coat moved easily among the holiday shoppers with their bundles and bags. She pulled behind her by the hand a woman bundled in a heavy brown overcoat. "Stop sulking," the girl said over her shoulder. She spoke with a crisp authority that contrasted oddly with her age, for she looked no more than eight years old. "I have a job to do, and I don't have time for your prejudices." The woman kept silent, but the corners of her mouth twitched downward. The child's lips tightened, and suddenly the woman gasped and started. "People remember an angry face," the girl said. "Smile. If you can't smile, look tired. I'm told tired is normal this time of year." The woman bit her lip. Her face assumed a more neutral expression. "Better." They waited at a corner for the light to change, and the girl let her eyes rove over the crowds. Her nose wrinkled very slightly. :They're like so many sheep.: :What were you expecting, Winter? A city full of geniuses?: Winter's lips twitched in a smirk. :Not likely! Have the spotters seen them yet?: :They're exactly on time.: Susanna's mindvoice held a wealth of sarcasm. :Just what we've been led to expect of Galaxy Ranger Captain Zachary Foxx. They're using the east entrance to the mall. The four Rangers... plus Foxx's two kids.: :Am I supposed to imprint the kids, too?: The light changed, and Winter stepped forward, tugging her escort, Lucinda, behind her. As they were passing, a tall woman in a red hat looked down at Winter and smiled before glancing at Lucinda. "Looks like your little girl is very eager to do her Christmas shopping." Winter let her face round in a beaming smile as she squeezed her escort's hand in a warning. Susanna's voice sniggered in her head. :Of course you're supposed to imprint the kids. What a cow! That hat is perfect for tossing into the street... There's a truck coming.: Lucinda spoke at the same moment. "She does like her shopping." Her voice held just the right measure of affection tempered by weariness. She reached forward and stroked Winter's pale hair. Only Winter's telepathic gift betrayed the woman's revulsion; Lucinda was too experienced an operative, Winter knew, to let her feelings show in face, voice, or gesture. :At least when she's "on.": Susanna's mental voice grew chilly. :I'd have done worse than just pinch her.: As she and Lucinda passed the woman by, Winter sent the mental equivalent of a shrug. :It did the job. She remembered that there are worse things than touching one of us... Like quietly disappearing.: Winter let her eyes lose focus for a moment. :That woman's heart isn't in very good shape.: She let Lucinda take the lead and open the door of the shopping mall. Warm air billowed out, carrying the sounds of canned music and children's voices. Winter wrinkled her nose again. :He says remember why you're there,: Minako cut in. :Teacher told him you were prying. And Teacher says be careful. This is very dangerous.: Winter shrugged again and pushed ahead. She wended her way among more crowds of people, rubbing her forehead absently at the buzz generated by so many minds. The whole place was a nauseating array of color, light, and noise, a jarring contrast to the relative quiet of the training base. :You really couldn't get imprints through the video feed, Susanna?: she asked privately. :No,: the older girl snarled on tightbeam, :I really couldn't. Patterns of ones and zeroes on a storage medium—there's no mind there to find! If they wanted imprints remotely they should have stolen personal items for you to snoop with.: Winter flinched. :I'm sorry.: Through the general link, :Where are they?:  :Foxx's kids asked to stop at the chocolate shop, seven doors in from the east entrance,: Susanna answered. :Foxx is inside with them and that woman. The freak and Hartford are just outside.: Winter and Lucinda moved at a leisurely pace down the mall. From the corner of her eye Winter saw Lucinda, fully in character now, looking about as if considering where to go first. They kept moving at the same swinging stride, in and out of the crowds. Ahead, Winter saw the atrium where the four wings of the mall came together in a cross shape. At this time of year a huge artificial tree dominated the space. As they drew near she saw a line of children and adults, clearly queued up for something. Winter craned her neck to see and realized that the adults were waiting for the chance to put their children in the lap of an old, obese, white-haired man in a hideous red-and-white costume. :What is that? They call these people normals, but they're bizarre!: :Winter!: Susanna's mental voice tightened. :The spotter thinks the freak's seen him. He's moving on. He wants to know if you can take it from here. The backup spotter says she'll need a few minutes to get into place.: Winter and Lucinda rounded the crowd of children and parents, and in the distance Winter caught an unmistakable flash of auburn hair. :Tell her not to bother. I've got them in line of sight.:  She and Lucinda kept walking hand in hand, moving steadily toward the eastern end of the mall. As they approached the group, Winter stared, taking in impressions, sounds, feelings:  The tall, wary blond man in black towered over the graceful woman with waist-length auburn hair who smiled up at him and then turned to accept a chocolate from the leggy brown-haired boy who looked so like the tall brown-haired man whose blue eyes laughed down at the golden-haired, ponytailed girl who held his hand and giggled helplessly at the joke the smiling brown-skinned man had just made... Through the link, Winter felt Susanna smile. :We have them. Come home, Winter.: As Winter and Lucinda passed by, Ranger Niko of no family name looked around suddenly, as if someone had called her name. Winter smiled, already deep behind her shields, her grey eyes as chilly as the season. She looked up at Lucinda. "Mission accomplished... Mommy." Chapter 2 On board Ranger One 2/20/2099, 1437     "This is the Earth cargo ship Saoirse calling BETA. We have been attacked near the Brimstone System and left flying off course. Our ship's AI is in psychological distress. Request immediate assistance. Earth cargo ship Saoirse to BETA Mountain, request assistance. Please respond, repeat, please respond." Tense and urgent, the woman's light alto voice held the rhythms of a native of Eire. Commander Joseph Walsh, framed in the comm screen of Ranger One, touched a key on his desk and sat back in his chair. "The distress call came in twenty minutes ago. We've been unable to contact the Saoirse so far, but they're in an area near the Brimstone system that's known for interfering with radio transmissions. I know you're on your way home, but you're closer than any other unit, so I'm diverting you to investigate." Zachary Foxx frowned. "They weren't very specific about the problem with their ship. Are we still trying to raise them?" "Yes, Zachary. Lieutenant McIntyre is standing by, awaiting word from the comm center." Shane Gooseman considered the recording. Brimstone System... Why's that familiar? "Commander, wasn't there some kind of trouble out that way not long ago?" Walsh cocked an eyebrow. "You're familiar with the Diego Jihad?" It clicked in Goose's mind, and with the name came memories of an old briefing. "Basically," he answered. "Some kind of local religious revolt on Brimstone that kicked up a couple years back, wasn't it?" "The founders of Brimstone were peaceful, deeply religious, and committed to building a society not dependent on high technology," Niko said softly. Goose heard a thread of anger in her voice. "They didn't consider technology evil; they just wanted a simpler way of life. They were considering joining the League when the Diego Jihad started. The Jihad bombed settlements and archaeological sites, murdered civilians, and seized control of the system before the League could agree on a course of action. They're—well, they're not completely anti-technology; they just consider some high technology—like AI's, genetic engineering, and the like—an abomination. Anything that could be interpreted as 'playing God,' essentially. They have no problem with radios and spacecraft, though." She paused. "Or bombs." Walsh cleared his throat, and Niko fell silent. "As a result of the incident, there's a no-fly zone around the Brimstone system, authorized by the Board of World Leaders and the League of Planets," Walsh said. "Not that a no-fly zone really means squat in space," Goose noted. "Space is so damn big that effective blockades become nearly impossible unless you've got a huge number of ships." Walsh said, "True, Gooseman, but the PKF has managed to catch a few blockade runners closer to the planet, where they've concentrated their forces. In any case, there's some concern that the Saoirse may have violated the zone." "But the peacekeeping forces have authorization to shoot down noncompliant ships," Zach pointed out. "The distress call said they were 'attacked and left flying off course,' whatever that means, not that they were shot up and left drifting. That tells me they're still in shape to fly. And they didn't report damage to the ship." The wall screen blinked into life to display Sheela McIntyre, Walsh's adjutant. "Commander, incoming transmission from the communications center," she announced. The face of a comm center technician replaced Sheela's. "Commander Walsh, we've managed to raise the Saoirse," the man said. "Patching through." The screen flickered, fuzzed into static, and cleared. The sharp, tired face of a middle-aged human woman took shape. Her dark hair was cropped short in a spacer's cut. "I'm Captain Dervla Brennan of the Saoirse," she said. "You are?" "Joseph Walsh, commander of BETA," Walsh replied. "You have the Series Five Rangers on the other half of your screen. How can we help you, Captain Brennan?" Relief softened Brennan's expression. "It looks like we were attacked  by pirates," she said. "We were traveling near the Brimstone system, well outside the no-fly zone, when the entire crew lost consciousness. When we all woke, the better part of our cargo was gone. But there's no trace of gas that we can detect, and no one's suffering the aftereffects of a stun blast. And I swear to you we weren't anywhere close to the zone." Brennan hesitated. A brief burst of radio noise sent a line of static across her image. "That's not the strangest part. The attack was over six hours ago now, Commander Walsh, and our ship's AI has lost every bit of that time.  Aside from the theft, which we think could have been accomplished within two to three hours, we've no idea what happened in those missing six hours. None at all."       On board Saoirse 2/20/2099, 2151 BETA Mountain time     "Welcome aboard, Captain Foxx." Brennan shook his hand, her grip firm. "We're more than glad to see you, I can tell you. This is Iain MacInnis, my co-pilot." She tipped her head toward the short, wiry man with jet-black hair who stood at her elbow. MacInnis gave Zachary the briefest of nods and passed a quick, bright smile around the group. Ranger One had made rendezvous with the Saoirse at the coordinates where the crew had regained consciousness. The two ships had docked without incident. The Series Fives and the Saoirse's officers stood now in a corridor just outside the ship's airlock. Niko was already checking her handheld for readings; Goose, the only one in a pressure suit, looked ready to head right back out the airlock for his external inspection of the Saoirse's hull. "Thanks, Captain," Zachary said. With a gesture, he indicated the rest of the Series Fives. "My team: Rangers Hartford, Niko, and Gooseman. Ranger Hartford will need to examine your ship's computer. We were told that was the first priority here; from the briefing we were given, I understand your AI isn't doing so well."  "Indeed he's not, Captain Foxx. How d'you do, Rangers. Ranger Hartford, you'll be talking with Ben Woodhouse, our steward, quartermaster, and computer jockey," Brennan told Doc. "He's most likely in the processor bay—Ben!" she shouted down the corridor. "You've got your help!" Turning back to Doc, she continued, "Hope you've got plenty of practice with this sort of thing. Poor Seamus isn't feeling well at all. He's been saying he's sure he's off his nut. Losing time's bad enough for us humans, but an AI—" She shook her head. "The processor bay's in the aft of the ship on the port side."  Doc swept her an extravagant bow. "The Doctor is on the case, ma'am." He sauntered away as Goose snorted softly. "Captain, if you don't have anything else for me to do here, I'll head out," the Supertrooper said. "A cargo ship's got a lot of hull to go over." "Go ahead, Gooseman. Keep in touch by comm." Goose saluted and strode to the airlock. "I've got more work below, as well," Iain MacInnes said. "Aine will still be wanting help, I imagine." He headed aft, turned through a hatch, and vanished from view. "Problems?" Zach inquired. Brennan grimaced. "When our AI, Seamus, realized we weren't where we were supposed to be, he had a sort of—fit—and threw us out of warp. The drive needed more than a bit of tuning. Aine ni Suileabhain, our bosun, has been swearing up a storm ever since she came to and heard how it sounded. Not that our medical officer Nuala is much happier, mind you, what with this blackout we all had. Thank God they're both down in engineering, or we'd all have blue ears." Niko looked up from her scanner. "Captain Brennan," she said quietly, "I haven't picked up any residues of gas yet, but my scanner here isn't calibrated for ultrafine scans." "I'll take care of that, Niko," Zach put in. "I brought the bigger scanner along. I've got something else in mind for you to do, if you're up for it." She nodded, understanding clear in her eyes, and the corner of Zach's mouth quirked. There are definitely advantages to having a telepathic team member. "Captain Brennan," he added, "where were you when you lost consciousness?" "On the bridge." Brennan jerked her head toward the nose of the ship. "This way." "I'll start here, Zach," Niko said. "I'll comm you if I need anything." "Affirmative."     Zach frowned down at the scanner and looked around the tiny ship's galley. Same thing as on the bridge: a bit of ordinary knockout gas—and faint traces of MZ-9. Awfully well connected pirates... His wrist comm beeped, and he answered. "Foxx here." Doc's face blinked into the screen. "Captain, this is the weirdest data swipe I've ever seen. You know Captain Brennan said the memory logs are missing six hours worth of data? Well, get this: the data wasn't just wiped off the memory core. Someone copied everything but those six hours of data onto an entirely new core, pulled the old one, and swapped in a new one. It's even a slight upgrade—they don't make the old model any more." Zachary stared in blank bewilderment. "Why go to all that trouble? What's the point?" "Well, you know when data's deleted off a storage medium, it's not really gone, right? It's just marked as available space for the next time the computer needs to store something, so it's possible to recover the deleted data. I guess someone wanted to make sure that couldn't happen. I mean, you can burn drives clean, but it takes hours, and they didn't have the time." "Understood. Anything else?" "Well, their flight data checks out; just like Captain Brennan said, they weren't inside the no-fly zone. For whatever that's worth. Does make it a lot less likely the peacekeeping forces could have seen anything, though. I know if I were gonna commit random or not-so-random acts of piracy and mayhem, I'd avoid peacekeeping forces at all costs." "Thanks for the alert," Zach said dryly. "How's the AI?" Doc leaned back and flexed his hands with a cracking of knuckles. "The Doctor has operated. Seamus is feeling much more the thing now, as he puts it. While I was in here, I even helped him work out a little twitch he'd developed—" Zach cleared his throat, and Doc broke off. "Right," he said. "Sorry. You finding anything?" "They used MZ-9; it's one of the newer military-grade stun gases." "Hey, I do actually read briefings, you know. So we're definitely not talking just your average common crooks here. Weird. Where do pirates get hold of MZ-9?" "I don't know," Zach said, "and I don't want to speculate." At least not where civilians can hear me, he thought. Doc laid one finger alongside his nose and bobbed his head ironically. "Gotcha, Zach. Anyhow, I'm done here. Heading forward." "Roger. Foxx out."     Niko stood just behind the pilot's chair on the bridge of the Saoirse, hand on the seat back. Doc lounged against a console nearby, while Zachary stood just by the hatch. Dervla Brennan sat sideways in her seat, head canted sideways to look up at Niko, and watched, curiosity plain in her eyes. Niko touched the badge at her belt. Her face grew still and intent. "They came through the hatch," she said softly. "Three of them. They never took their p-suits off. I can't see their faces. Injections. They used drugs on the crew to keep them unconscious." Niko closed her eyes in concentration; opened them again. "Captain Brennan, I know Dr. Casey did exams of all the crew members, but did she look at their skin from head to toe?"  "Only the standard exam, ma'am. It's needle marks we'll have to look for, then?"  "Yes," Niko said. "And I think taking blood samples would be a good idea. Some drugs leave traces our forensics teams can detect." Brennan touched the communicator at her wrist and began quietly to issue orders.  "Anything else, Niko?" Zach asked, keeping his voice low.  "They came through the airlock, I saw that out in the corridor... And from what I saw in the computer room, one of them did something with the memory core, but we knew that already." The three looked at each other. "Let's see what Goose has to say," Niko suggested. "Maybe he'll have the final piece of the puzzle."     Goose took off his helmet and hung it by the hatch of the airlock. "I've got images for you, Zach," he said, and unclipped his handheld from its holder on his thigh. He held it out and pointed at the image on the screen. Craning his neck, Zach made out a small, round mark just beyond Goose's gloved fingertip. Brennan's bosun stepped forward to peer around Goose's other side. "They landed a drone on the exterior of the hull, burned through it—probably with a laser—and pumped gas through the breach," Goose said. "They sealed it with the right stuff—looks like professional work. You can see minor scuffing to the enamel here, here,  and here"—the finger tapped the screen—"where the drone's landing gear made contact. If I hadn't been taught how to find that specific kind of damage, I'd have passed over that hole as just another ding from space junk." Aine ni Suileabhain swore. "Drill holes in my hull, will they?" "Calm down, Aine," Dervla Brennan ordered. "The Rangers will find the parties responsible or they won't. Be glad Ranger Gooseman saved you the trouble of inspecting the hull yourself." "It gets better," Goose said. "A drone like this one will usually use that same hole to plug itself into the internal computer network of the ship it's disabling. I'm guessing it launched cracking software to lock down your AI before it actually started pumping the gas—to keep the AI from alerting the crew the atmo was going bad, or from calling for help." Brennan looked aghast. Ni Suileabhain's face flushed an angry red. "They were mighty thorough," Doc said. "If Niko couldn't see their faces, neither could the security cameras. From what Goose said, I bet they sent that drone ahead to gas the crew before they even warped out, so none of the crew members could have seen anything on scans or cameras. Same deal goes for Seamus. Poor guy. Not that we'd know if he had seen anything—that missing memory core is the only place you'd find sensor readings, long-range scans, anything that covered the time after the crew passed out but before the pirates boarded."  Goose thumbed a key on the handheld. "By the way, I noticed a couple of places where the hull's gonna need patching in the next several months," he said to ni Suileabhain. "You want the data?" The Irishwoman's face grew a bit less grim. "Yes, thanks. I hate doing EVAs, if you want the truth. Can you just beam it over to Seamus, please?"  Goose hit another key. "Got it. Zach, what's next?" Zachary stared down at the screen of his handheld. "I think we've picked up all the data we can here," he said. "Captain Brennan, if there's anything else BETA can do to assist you, please let us know. Please be sure to have Dr. Casey follow up with BETA medical regarding the blood tests—plus our docs recommend full physical exams for everyone the next time you're at a port with a certified doctor. Commander Walsh has already told me that if you present yourselves at a BETA facility, there won't be a charge for the exams." Brennan nodded. "Many thanks, Captain Foxx," she said. "We're grateful for your help." She offered her hand, and they shook. Zachary looked around at his team. "We've got the coordinates for the site where the Saoirse was ambushed," he said. "Let's go take a look." Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13