God's Dogs Book 2
37

Diplomacy in general does not resolve conflicts. Wars end not due to peace processes, but due to one side giving up.

Daniel Pipes

Rendezvous point Bravo was in inter-stellar space – a location where no one could replace them. At irregular intervals, the seven cutters appeared as well as the three captured Cass ships.

Wylie, as the senior Coyote, took the lead at their meeting. In each of the conference rooms aboard the ships, the captain and the Coyote team lead was seated before a holo-display. On the Satya, Anaya and Consul Singh joined Quinn and Captain John.

Wylie’s long, goateed face looked tired, but his eyes were bright with purpose. He began, “I’ve been over the after action reports, as I’m sure you have. The mission was a mess, but it worked out. The ambassador was notified, but we haven’t heard back from her. I’m sure she has her hands full with damage control.

“The question now is what do we do next? Jolene, any new info?”

“I’ve got the decryption keys, and I’m going through the files. We rescued five of the People, but it looks like there are five more under Cass control – all of them aboard ships. The lab didn’t have any deployment data, so we don’t know where they are.”

“Have you found the home world?” Gautama asked.

“Not yet. I do have a chemical breakdown on the layers of the planet. That gives us a signature we could use.”

One of the captains remarked, “Molecular hydrogen is the outer layer and not all that unique, but the inner layer of metallic hydrogen may provide you with the unique signature you postulate.”

“I’ll pass that onto the people who can figure it out,” Jolene said. “I’m hoping for some coordinates, but I’m two-thirds through the data.”

Quinn spoke up, “We’ll need to go back and talk to Clan Leader Odic.”

“Agreed,” Wylie said. “What do you think, Singh?”

The consul moved uneasily in his chair before answering, “The ambassador is committed to returning these children to their homes. I’m hoping her delay in talking to us means she is pursuing options that she needs to eliminate before she can okay a new assault on the Cass.”

“Fair enough,” Wylie said. “With the mess we made, it should open up new options. The pressing problem, though, is replaceing those five ships.”

Captain John offered, “Sanga space is one of their hunting grounds.”

“Quinn?” Wylie prompted.

“We do have a contract with them. I could return there without needing authorization from the ambassador.”

“Take Gautama with you so you can double the coverage.”

“We’ll need to get the Sangalore to free up two merchant ships,” Quinn said, thinking out loud.

“All we can do is ask.”

Gautama put in, “I’m under contract to cart Consul Singh around.”

“Oh, yeah. Jolene?”

“Yeah. I’ll go, but not until I finish with the files. Say tomorrow sometime.”

“Okay,” Wylie smiled. “We have a plan. We’ll hang out here to see what the ambassador wants to do, and Quinn and Jolene get to go hunting.”

Anaya cut in, “I need to stay with the children, and I want them all together.”

A different captain said, “We can link up the captured ships for that, I think.”

“Or we can transport them all back to Jomeca IV,” another captain said.

Anaya decided, “Back to Jomeca IV would be best, but I do need to talk to the three on the ships. They’ve been traumatized and need a mother’s reassurance that it will be okay.”

In the end, the Inanna took Sparky and Twinkle, Singh and his aides, and Anaya. The remaining cutters escorted the three Cass ships, and the few Cass prisoners, back to Jomeca IV. Satya and Artemis made for Sanga.

As they waited for the merchant ships that would carry them, the crews and teams took liberty on the space station above Sanga. There wasn’t much to see or do on the station, but dull and boring was a welcome change.

River and Jolene met up for a leisurely lunch at a small café with outdoor tables. Not surprising, the menu items were mostly seafood.

“So, how is it we’re both on teams with three guys?” River commented with a giggle.

“It’s not too bad. Guys are uncomplicated – what you see is what you get.”

“True enough,” River conceded and sipped her coffee. “I do miss our intense chats, though. I think women need more intensity in relationships than guys do.”

“Could be we’re more emotionally evolved or endowed than men. More expressive, too. I sometimes feel like I’m a concert pianist accompanied by kazoos.”

River chuckled at that.

Then Jolene asked, “When will you get your own team?”

River shook her head. “Not ready for that.”

“You know –”

“Yeah, feeling not ready is one of the prerequisites. I didn’t use that excuse when Master Lu asked me. I told him I was fine where I am, and I was still integrating all that happened to me.”

“That was a few years ago. What’s left to integrate?”

The Sangalore waitress showed up with their fish and chips about then. When she finished serving them, River answered.

“Well, for one, Pax wants me to go through empath training, since one result of my ordeal was my empathy and intuition got stronger.”

Jolene snickered as she sampled the food. “It’s an ordeal now, not a torture session.”

“Well, torture is an ordeal.”

“True. Are you going to do it?”

River smiled. “Not ready for that either.”

“What are you ready for?”

“Taste more of the offerings at the smorgasbord of life,” River said with a flip tone. “I really liked my stay at Raina’s lab. My computer skills helped with their physics experiments. Being a hacker gives us an out-of-the-box perspective on working with data.”

“That makes sense,” Jolene allowed, “and Raina is a live wire.”

“What about you?”

“I found my niche. Running a team is like hacking, too. I have a unique set of tools – my guys – to help me solve problems.”

“But you’re responsible for them. That burden seems too uncomfortable for me.”

“I got over that hurdle when Rand asked me, ‘Who better than you?’ I’m decisive. I listen. I’ve got good instincts. I’ve got the combat experience no one coming out of training now has. So, who better than me?”

“When you put it like that, it makes my team look pretty weird. Moss gave up a team. Pax and I have years of experience.”

“They won’t break you guys up,” Jolene asserted. “You’ve got a synergy that makes you one of the best – if not the best – team we have.”

River stopped eating and stared at Jolene for a moment. “You think that?”

“I know that, girlfriend. You took down a destroyer by yourselves. You’ve stopped how many wars now? I mean, get real, River, you guys make us all proud.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Well, you’re not the shy, unsure of herself candidate that was my best friend anymore. Okay, I still count you as my best friend, but the rest – that was your award that went up on the wall a while back, wasn’t it?”

River shrugged. “You’re making me uncomfortable, Jolene.”

“Sorry, but you wanted intensity, and it seems to me that what you haven’t integrated is how great you’ve become.”

River snorted at that and went back to her lunch, which was tasty.

A few days later, each cutter was tucked into a merchant ship. Quinn was pleased to be back aboard Screech’s ship, and the crew welcomed them like long-lost cousins.

Jolene’s search of the Cass data didn’t reveal the gas giant coordinates, so all they knew was the chemical and electrical signature of the planet, and that bit of information kept banging around in Quinn’s head. Finally, an idea jelled and he made for the comm shack.

A rating was monitoring the data streams as the ship left the planet, and Quinn asked him, “Can you connect me to Solomon?”

The rating, a young Samoan with a quick smile, looked up startled. “The ASI?”

“Yeah, that one,” Quinn smirked. “Let him know it’s me.”

“OK,” the rating said decisively. “Dialing him up on our nifty FTL comm-link.”

Solomon appeared moments later as a holo-image on the desktop.

“Coyote Quinn, to what do I owe this interruption in my busy day?”

“Hello, Solomon. Is that brown ship suit and bland avatar a uniform for ASIs?”

Solomon laughed. “You wouldn’t believe what Tau-14 wanted to use as an avatar with humans. He’s such a moron.”

“Good to know, I guess. Anyway, if I give you the signature of a gas giant, could you replace it?”

Solomon shook his head. “Do you know how many gas giants there are?”

“Lots,” Quinn answered lightly as he passed a data cube to the tech, who plugged it in.

“Lots, he says. There are not enough zeroes to come close to – well, that’s interesting. The phased transitions in the liquid metallic hydrogen have some irregular quantum properties. Is this gas giant in your local space?”

“Somewhere close by, we think.”

“Okay. I’ll get someone to look for it – meaning I’ll branch off a piece of me, and, by the way, I do need to talk to you about your latest antics.”

“I’ll leave,” the rating said and bolted from the room.

“Go ahead,” Quinn replied as the hatch closed.

“Good job with the Ooli thing. And it seems you’ve become favorites with the SpecOps community after a slow start. But declaring war on the Cass planet? Dropping steel on an airbase? It’s got the conservatives in the Congress all a-twitter.”

“Well, I felt bad about leaving the ambassador to deal with the fallout.”

“She’s doing quite well, if you must know. Something like, ‘They’re Coyotes. What did you expect?’ Not sure that argument does any good.”

“We rescued five captive, tortured children, Solomon. The Cass got off light, so far, for that horror story.”

“I don’t disagree, but it made us some enemies.”

“Who wants friends that condone child abuse?”

“I hear you, but politics is what it is.”

“What would you have me do, Solomon?”

“Don’t kill the Congress politicians backing the Cass would be my minimum request. This isn’t Penglai. It’s not even human. I’m still learning the complex culture of the Congress. All these races rubbing against one another and making it work. It’s amazing.”

“Well, I’m out of it for a while. We’re pirate hunting. There are still five of these children on Cass ships, and we don’t know where they are.”

“So I can assume you won’t be throwing any monkey wrenches into the gears for a while.”

“Fair assumption.”

“I’ll call you when I replace the planet.”

“Thanks, Solomon.”

And the holo-image blinked out. Quinn sat for a moment and reviewed the last few months in his mind. He really couldn’t see how he could have done anything, or would have done anything different. The kinetic strike from orbit included. He would have ordered that as well, and he told River so.

He sighed and left the room. The nervous rating in the hall scurried back to his station.

At the regional capital, Jomeca IV, Anaya and her batch of devil rays were housed at the space station. Their habitats were in a warehouse and various instruments were hooked up. The local exo-biologists were intrigued by the People, and once they settled down, the People were intrigued by the exo-biologists. From Anaya’s perspective, it looked like they were studying one another.

Anaya made a point, though, that they conceal their telekinetic abilities. Since that was why they were kidnapped, the five children agreed wholeheartedly to keep it secret.

Once the People were safe in the warehouse, Singh claimed the Cass ships as prizes and turned the Cass prisoners over to the police for their crimes. He made sure the media learned of it – children kidnapped, tortured, and so on.

Those the Cass paid insurance money responded by trying to discredit the Coyotes – what they did was overkill, and spinning the story as ‘pirates battle pirates,’ and so on.

The problem with the veracity of a given event or series of events was Tau-14. His pronouncements about events had the impact of Divine Revelation. Regardless of what one might want to believe about an event, Tau-14’s explication of it fell into the category of absolute truth. He released his report that the rescue of tortured children was well within the natural consequences of the Sanga contract with the Coyotes.

As such, the campaign to discredit the Coyotes’ actions was short-lived. On the other hand, what to do about the resulting mess was open for debate.

The loose conglomerate of politicians from the Cass local space, to whom the Cass were paying protection money, rose up to defend that revenue stream. But, as Singh predicted, the media and the citizenry were appalled by the crimes the Cass clearly committed. Like addicts, though, the conglomerate of politicians scrambled to protect their supply by more clandestine means.

Anaya and Ambassador Suh were savvy enough to know that was coming, and kept Gautama’s team on the station. The ambassador sent the other four teams back to the Cass world to infiltrate Odic’s headquarters and obtain the information needed to replace the ships carrying the other five captives, and the location of the Peoples’ home world. She also instructed them to interdict any Clan Odic vessels approaching or leaving the Cass home world.

Wylie took on the task of going after Odic at his headquarters, while the other teams ambushed Odic’s ships. Wylie was more flamboyant than other team leaders. He blamed it on his mixed Polynesian heritage. Rose, a stoic woman of Mongolian descent, balanced Wylie, and, as the team empath, she was even tempered. Christy, a lithe Asian woman, was the hacker, and she brought a clever cynicism to the team. Angus, redheaded and of Celtic descent, was the sniper and medic. He rounded out the team with a plodding pragmatism.

The stealth shuttle dropped them five miles from Clan Odic’s compound around local midnight. They fanned out to head for their individual observation posts along the north side of the compound.

After hours of slow infiltration, each of them was set up near or on top of buildings adjacent to the headquarters building.

“How are our bugs doing?” Wylie asked.

They released airborne spy-bots earlier, and those were intent on gaining access to the headquarters.

Christy answered, “My little guys are tapping into their system. I’ve got building security, but Odic’s office is on a separate network.”

“Well, we’ll need to go in there,” Wylie concluded. “Open a vent or something to let our bugs in.”

“On it,” Christy said. “And, by the way, Odic isn’t here. He’s at the capital city. Big meeting about the mess we made.”

After a few minutes, Christy reported, “Bugs deployed. Not much traffic here at O-dark-thirty.”

“Rose, Christy, go get Odic’s files,” Wylie ordered.

Clicks confirmed the order, and the two made their way to a rear entrance of the squat two-storey building. Wylie and Angus covered them from rooftops that overlooked the main and rear exits.

The women moved through the corridors and monitored the feeds from the spy-bots. It was mostly deserted except for a couple of guards at the main entrance and a pair assigned to roving patrols. Currently, they were talking with the others at the main desk.

They found Odic’s office on the second floor. It was a corner office at the northeast side of the building. Christy hacked the lock and the two of them slipped inside.

Finding the computer console, Christy slipped a hacking stick into a portal, while Rose searched the room.

“Got something,” she said and opened a cabinet filled with data cubes.

“That might be useful,” Christy muttered with not a little sarcasm.

Rose began bagging the cubes, and an alarm went off.

“Guess it was booby-trapped,” Rose commented.

“Yeah,” Christy grimaced. “I need another few minutes. I’m trying to silence the alarm, but it’s on a different network, too.”

“Not surprising. They are a paranoid lot,” Rose returned. “Okay. We’ll go out the north-facing window. Angus, you hear that?”

“Yeah. I’ll try not to shoot you.”

“Thanks.”

“Almost there,” Christy said as the pounding on the door began.

Then the door blew open, and two guards came in with good technique. Rolling towards cover, they came up shooting.

Christy returned fire as Rose shot out the window and scrambled down the side of the building. Angus had the angle on one guard, but not the other. He fired and that guard went down.

“I’m coming out,” Christy alerted Angus as she pulled the hacking stick free. She fired multiple shots with her handgun as she made it out the window.

The other guard charged to follow, but Angus took him out.

Wylie told them, “Ready forces are coming from the barracks. Scatter and meet at RV Delta.”

They did so, and a few hours later returned to the shuttle. From there, they flew nap of the earth to where they could sneak into orbit and rejoin the Themis.

Christy and the ship’s A.I. began working through the recovered data.