Claire Takes On The Galaxy

Claire - Chapter Fourteen

James stopped at the access hatch and listened. He was in the basement below the admin block, which included the officer’s quarters. The machinery on that level, including the base’s heating, seldom required human attention. There was no one about. He checked the grate for traps or markers – bits of paper or thread that would fall out if the grate was moved. Nothing. He pushed it open and moved into the basement. Behind a pipe, in the spot agreed, he found a set of infrared goggles, pistol firing pin and an electronic master key. Excellent. After some debate with the others, Lieutenant Addington had been dragged deeper into the plot. Claire would no doubt be furious when she discovered that Addington had been told what was happened and involved, while she had been kept out. That could not be helped. When and if they made up, James would have to do some extra grovelling. He just hoped his grovelling skills were up to the challenge.

“All clear,” said Brew in his ear. The software engineer turned miner was back in James’ study, watching the security feeds for the marine base. Having administrator access to the base system had distinct advantages in moving secretly around it. James found the room he wanted and checked the door. Sure enough, a tiny slip of folded paper had been pushed between the door and door frame about three quarters of the way up. This was standard field craft, unchanged since the world wars on earth. Those living dangerously put a small slip of paper or a hair on the door. If they came back and the marker was no longer there, they knew that someone had been in their room, and might even still be there. In this case, however, it was a strong indicator that he finally had the right person.

James checked some more. No electronic alarms that he would see or detect, but then they would be hard to identify until he tripped them. Addington had eyes on the target playing cards in the officer’s common room a few paces away. He would have some warning. The bank robber used the electronic key to unlock the door and pushed it open. Nothing.

“Target hasn’t moved,” said Brew.

James had no wish to be in his target’s room for a moment longer than necessary and discovered the agent’s hiding place in a moment. There were scratches on the screws holding the air vent cover in place – barely noticeable, unless the searcher happened to be looking for them. James found what he wanted, made the required changes and left, replacing the marker exactly where it had been before he had opened the door. A few seconds later he was in the access tunnel where he had a good cover excuse for being, if found.

“All done,” he told Brew. “Tell Addington she can stand down.”

Now all they had to do was keep the agent in view and wait.

The next day the ladies finally exhausted the subject of Claire and James.

“Maybe you should call,” said Adria in what she declared would be her final say on the matter. “He’s hot, single and a gentleman, and that’s worth a little effort. We also wouldn’t want to have all The One Five marines coming here to try their luck and cluttering up the place.”

“That part is kinda interesting,” said Taylor.

“Do you gain this insight from texting so much, or when you disappear on long walks?” asked Claire. She had meant the query to be light, but it came out the wrong way. Adria glared at her, colouring slightly.

“What business is it of yours who I text? I told you it’s friends on earth. We have a thing going.”

“And the walks?” said Lou. “We don’t ever seem to see you walk?”

Adria looked from Claire to Lou and back again. “What is this? Since when do you care where I go when I’m not soldiering.”

“We were just asking,” said Claire. “We never see where you go.”

“I thought I was among friends,” said Adria. “Friends would accept that I just wish to be alone for walks.”

Claire’s phone chimed. The marine at the front desk said that Maddie was at reception to see her. The marine knew Maddie by sight and assumed she was there by appointment. Claire retreated from the fight she had inadvertently started to meet her visitor, thinking that Adria was being unduly sensitive on the issue.

Just as Claire went to meet Maddie, Corporal Henshaw and Private Gellert fully armed and suited up were waiting, apprehensively, in the basement of the admin block. They were about to cross the line into treason and, for all their bravado, knew they could expect little mercy if their former comrades realised what they were doing. All they had been told was to wait in that basement, after drawing weapons from the armoury, and that as the issue of weapons had already been approved, no questions would be asked. So far, so easy, but once their contact arrived and they did not arrest or shoot whoever he or she was, both men knew that there would be no turning back. Henshaw rubbed sweat out of his eyes. They heard boots on concrete and turned.

“You!” exclaimed Henshaw, as the newcomer came out of the shadows.

“You, sir!” snapped the agent. “You may have changed sides, corporal but the discipline is the same. The difference is that you and Gellert here get the promised bonus at the end of it.”

The word “bonus” caught both men’s attention. They made their choice.

“Yes, sir!” they both said.

“Go up to the surface, head out on a bearing of 163. Two clicks out you’ll come to the reactor building which you should know. Don’t try using the tunnels as you might meet townies. Any AI or base instructions to return you are to be ignored. Do not respond in any way. Are you clear on this?”

“Yes, sir,” they chorused.

“When you get to the reactor building you are to let yourself in by the door on the north face. It is unlocked. The reactor is fully automated. There won’t be anyone about. Stay there.”

“And you sir?” said Henshaw.

“I’ll be right behind you corporal.” The agent looked at his watch. “This place is about to be hit by our side’s missiles.” The agent emphasised the word “our”. “And I don’t want to be caught near here when that happens. But someone’s called an urgent meeting of officers. I’m going to find out what that’s about before following. Now go!”

Henshaw and Gellert departed, mentally counting their bonus, leaving the agent shaking his head. He had to make do with those two for want of anything better until his side put boots on the ground. They had deliberately been told nothing up to that point, beyond code words, but there was still a risk they might have said something stupid to someone. Well, he was almost home. There were just some minor details to attend to, then he had to follow his two new henchmen, and quickly.

A little after the traitors and the agent had gone their separate ways, James let himself into the Marine admin block again via the tunnel the agent had used. This time, however, he walked openly to the offices used by the marine brass to find Lieutenant Addington standing, shocked, in front of the open door to the colonel’s office. Inside the colonel’s body was slumped over his desk. He had been sitting at his desk when someone he knew had cut his throat and then held him there with some force, James guessed, while he bled out over it. The colonel’s eyes were open with one hand clasped around his throat in a vain effort to stop the flow of blood. The other was on his upper back. He had been trying to reach his attacker. He had died fighting. James felt very little for the colonel, but his death could mean trouble for Addington.

“I saw our guy come out,” she whispered to James, “I opened the door with the master key to find the colonel like this.”

“Give me the key. I’ll just say I lifted it and found him.” He moved around the desk, trying not to step in the colonel’s blood which had spilled onto the floor, and pulled the AI device out of the comms jack. Connection of the agent’s device had triggered an alarm set by Brew and, as the spy hunters had previously planned, James had gone straight to the colonel’s office. The criminal thought that he might have to explain himself to the colonel, not unplug the device with the colonel’s body slumped forward in a pool of blood beside him while he did so.

“AI unit out, start rebooting,” he told Brew though his phone. “Start with the base security systems like we discussed, and set up that security camera feed in the conference room.”

He closed the colonel’s office door behind him. The details of attending to the body would have to wait. “Looks like the colonel is going to join us. You ready to expose our guy?” he said to Addington.

“No,” said Addington, “but I’m coming.”

“Atagirl.”

They walked towards the conference room.

“Hope you don’t mind me coming here?” said Maddie when Claire arrived.

“Of course not, i***t,” said Claire, “I just haven’t been around for a time because of .. you know. Let’s go outside for privacy – it’s not so cold for once.” They went out and sat with their backs to the reception room wall. There was no place to take children in Devil’s Pit.

“It’s all my fault,” said Maddie mournfully, “that you and James aren’t speaking”.

“It’s James’ fault that he and I aren’t speaking, and no one else’s.”

“Are you two going to stay not speaking?”

“Did James send you to ask that?”

“No, no, he told me to stay away for a while but school was boring today, so I thought I’d come here.”

“You don’t seem to spend much time at school?”

“As I see it, the school has to earn my interest, and holographic projections of everything is just weird, not interesting – so what about you and James?”

“He can try to make it up to me, I guess. The others even say that I should call him.”

“Sounds good,” said Maddie brightening. “This poor little orphan girl needs emotional security.”

“But what has happened with the James’ project that you and I talked about.”

“Gone real quiet. James has even watched a couple of films with me – although he seems on edge.”

“Romeo and Juliet?”

“I’m banned from watching it ’cause I went into his study. He’s blocked that and grown-up films on all my devices. I’m stuck with children’s stuff. I watched a series about mermaids and a film about a pony club rivalry. They were alright, I guess, but seem tame compared to the adult stuff. You could speak to him, maybe, about having mercy on poor little orphan girls.”

“Maybe. What were the films you saw with James?”

“One was a really old film that’s very famous, James said, Cas.. Casa..”

“Casablanca?”

“That’s it. I was saying I could tell how all romantic films were going to turn out and James said okay, we could watch Casa .. Casablanca and I could try and guess the ending for that one.”

“That was mean of him,” said Claire amused.

“May said that to, when I told her. It was mean. James said he’s just toughening me up for the real world.”

Claire laughed. She did miss James.

“Can you speak to him?”

“I’ll think about it.”

“You know that day we met, when I found you at the Colonel’s Find.”

“Yes?”

“Well it wasn’t just about you yelling at James. I don’t really care about people yelling at James. May said you were a poss.”

“A poss?”

“A possible for James.”

“Really! You dragging me away from lunch with my friends was a set up.”

Maddie looked abashed. “Maybe – sorta,” she said.

“You little schemer.”

Maddie hung her head.

“I was just throwing people together,” she said in a small voice. “That’s what May said. All you can do is throw people together, and if something happens it happens. I’m certainly not having him dating any of the Doll House girls. I mean, they seem nice but May said it’s not really James.”

“It’d better not be.”

“So, we sorta thought there might be someone in the new company.”

“Why not Lou or Adria? They were with me at the time and Adria has the fashion model thing going.”

“You yelled at James and disapproved of him. That interested him – at least that’s what May said.”

“You and May have discussed this a lot?”

“Well, yes, James is important to both of us. May is worried that the Mercs will come, and I want to be properly adopted, maybe even get back to earth – especially if you two got serious.”

“Get serious? You mean marry and adopt you.”

“Well I was sorta hoping if that happened you would.”

“We have to get serious first, and until this Merc agent business we were having fun.”

“I thought you really liked James.”

“I do, but there’s a difference between liking someone and being stuck on Devil’s Pit forever. Anyway, I’m a marine I’ll get deployed away like that other girl, and James can’t follow me back to earth or anywhere else without being thrown in jail.”

“Maybe James couldn’t but I could – I asked Dog about it. I like James as my foster dad but I could go with the foster mother and wait for the foster dad to catch up – they won’t keep him here forever.”

“You little schemer – you had this thought through from the start.”

Maddie visibly cringed. “It wasn’t like that. You put people together and maybe something happens. Maybe it doesn’t. That’s what May said. But if it does, I may be able to get to earth, and finally have a friend who isn’t a hologram.”

“I thought you liked your hologram friends.”

“I don’t mind them, but they’re not programmed for weird girls who like Romeo and Juliet. They even like Japanese Anime movies about girls who lose their grandfathers and gin super powers. Seems tame compared to Shakespeare, even if half the time I don’t understand what they’re saying in Shakespeare.”

“I suppose I could talk to James and get him to relent. You’re only a poor orphan girl after all.”

“That’s me. A poor orphan girl. James did say that if I behaved myself I’d be allowed to watch Jane Austen stuff and then maybe the Bonty sisters.”

“Bronte sisters.”

“Oh right, Bronte. But who is Jane Austen?”

Before Claire could reply, the base PA system switched on, at full volume.

“Warning! Incoming. Warning! Incoming! This is not a drill! Counter measures now activated. All marines to ready stations.”

Not suspecting the two ladies in his life were talking near the guard room, James walked into the conference room, put the AI unit he had taken from the colonel’s office on the table and covered it with a manual on marine protocol he found on one of the shelves. Then the officers of both companies filed in, taking seats around the table, greeting James. As he had been there for previous meetings, no one questioned his presence until the Two-One commander Captain Chan arrived.

“Colonel’s got you here?” he said cheerfully. “I thought we’d dealt with the Shades issue.”

“We had,” said James. “This is a different matter entirely. Is everyone here, good.” That included the agent who was standing by the door, with Lieutenant Addington standing across from him. “This is about the progress we’ve been having in tracking a Merc agent among the marine officers.”

Dead silence.

“What?” said Chan eventually.

“We knew he had to be a One-Five officer or command..”

“The colonel should be here for this,” said One-Five commander Captain Culp, “someone get him.”

“That’s going to be difficult,” said James. “I just looked in his office and our agent has cut his throat. He’s dead.”

“What!” yelled Chan, jumping out of his chair. The other officers all stood up. “Major Horne, we need to check this out.”

“After a lot of work, we thought it must be Captain Wells,” said James, calmly.

“Me?” said Wells. “I’m no spy.”

“I’m not saying you are, but you recall you were sent here at the last moment.”

“The original guy died swimming.”

“Classic ploy of eliminating an innocent to move up an agent, and you got a boost to captain.”

“Well, yeah..”

“But in this case, it wasn’t about you but about the original officer.”

“I never met the man,” said Wells.

“The important point was that the original officer had been two years in the same training unit as the real Major Horne.”

Every pair of eyes turned towards the main exit door, where Horne had been standing, silent, the whole time. Horne smiled stood up straight, seeming to become a whole different person, and produced a standard issue Marine pistol from his pocket.

“Very good, James,” he said, pointing the pistol at him and smiling. “Did you recognise me at that food plant of yours?”

“No, your field craft was excellent. We didn’t get your height or gait or anything – and you kept me busy dodging your shots. Pretty good shooting by the way.”

Horne was pleased by this, as James intended he would be, to get him talking. A security camera was recording the whole thing for transmission to Earth, so there could be no doubt about what happened. All the officers listened in silence.

“Only the first shot I really aimed to kill. Getting rid of bodies is irritating. Then what gave me away?”

“I first started looking when Henshaw and Gellert threatened us that time we banned them.”

“Those idiots,” snarled Horne. “I told control we didn’t need them.”

“I wasn’t going to take it seriously, but May said she’d dealt with goons a lot before and she thought the threats were more than hot air. I took a look at the base system to keep her happy and realised it had been altered out of sequence with the earth updates. I knew that there must be someone other than those two and started trawling. But the final clue was when we were talking out in the valley, setting those markers.”

“Of course,” interjected Horne. “I talked about fighting in caverns. The real Major Horne never saw combat.”

“Then I took another look at when the photos had been changed on the personnel file, and at the career of the officer Wells replaced.”

“And those poker nights were never about community relations. You were hunting me.”

“I don’t care for poker much. What I don’t understand is why you had to kill the colonel? I didn’t think you had to kill anyone.”

Horne shrugged. “That was unprofessional, I suppose, but the man was at his desk when I wanted to use his office and he was a pig.”

“The real Major Horne, what about him?”

Fake-Horne shrugged. “Never met him. Associates dealt with him and disposed of the body. James, you have proved a worthy foe. It’s a shame our association has to end. Gentlemen and ladies, the missiles are now inbound, and the base defences are down. I suggest you prepare yourselves for whatever afterlife you believe in…”

“Defences are down?” said Chan. The other officers looked horrified.

“..anyone who follows me,” continued Fake-Horne, “will meet their maker sooner.”

“Relax Captain Chan,” said James, moving the manual on protocol to reveal the AI unit. “That’s what you left in the colonel’s office wasn’t it Horne – why the colonel was worth killing in case he messed with it?”

Fake-Horne’s face fell for just a moment, before he regained his composure. “Software is still there.”

“Brew’s been rebooting the systems to earlier versions. Missile interception is back up and the intelligence systems will be online real soon. Captain Chan, you’re next in chain of command, I believe.

“I certainly am,” said Chan, shaking himself and seeming to grow, “and my first command to my officers is to disarm that man!” He pointed at Horne.

The PA system came to life. “Warning! Incoming! Warning! Incoming! This is not a drill! Counter measures now activated. Warning! Incoming! Warning! Incoming! This is not a drill! Counter measures now activated. Marines to ready stations.”

A rocket took off hard by the conference room causing it to shake. Its roar drowning out the sound of the PA.

Before anyone could move, Horne opened the door then, as a parting gesture, aimed his pistol at James. The criminal saw him mouth the words “you meddling s**t,” above the noise, then pulled the trigger.

Claire yanked Maddie inside the reception room.

“We’re being jumped,” said the marine there, a corporal from the One-Five. “We’re for it. Get her to safety and get to your unit.”

One of base missiles, an interceptor installed in a cupola close to the reception area, launched with a roar that made the marines and Maddie clasp hands to their ears. Maddie gasped.

“Go, go,” said the corporal when they could speak again. The missile was already a fading dot in the valley sky, seeking its incoming missile target. Claire grabbed Maddie’s hand and led her at a run into the complex. She thought she might head towards the tunnel that led to the Doll House and take Maddie there. Ahead of her was the conference room. She heard a shot then shouting and abruptly the door flung open and all the officers led by Captain Chan poured out.

“Private get to your unit rally point!” Then he noticed Maddie. “Oh right. James is just in there with Lieutenant Addington,” he said pointing to the conference room. Go to them quickly! They’ll get you to safety.”

Claire knelt down and hugged Maddie who, she noticed with surprise, had tears in her eyes.

“Don’t get killed,” Maddie said, rubbing her eyes. “Too many people in my life are dead, and someone has to make James let me watch stuff.”

“I’ll try real hard not to get killed, I promise,” said Claire. “Now go to James and stay safe.” Claire wanted to see James too, but now was not the time. She dashed off in the other direction, looked back reached a corner and waved at Maddie, who waved back tearfully, then ran. Private Claire Amber Williams sniper specialist, headquarters platoon, The Two-One Company, The Steller Marine Corps, was on her way to war.

The Fake-Horne’s pistol clicked. The Merc agent pulled the trigger again, again it just clicked.

“You should have found a better hiding place than the air vent in your room,” called James above the still blaring PA announcements. Fake-Horne glared at him then threw the pistol. James ducked. Fake-Horne pushed away one of The Two-One officers who tried to grapple with him and drew a small knife from a sheath on his back just under his collar. It still had traces of the colonel’s blood on it. He backed out the door, facing off with two others, including Captain Culp. He lunged forward, meaning to stab Culp, when Lieutenant Addington, who had concealed a pistol in her jacket, knowing that the confrontation could get violent, brought the weapon out and fired. The bullet caught fake-Horne full in the chest. A moment later James heard, “he’s dead”.

“Over to you Captain Chan,” said James

“Where are those idiots Henshaw and Gellert.”

“Would you believe they’re making for the reactor building. We think Horne was going to hide out with them there and re-emerge when his own forces arrived.”

“We can’t have them armed in our rear,” said Chan, shouting over the blaring PA. “We’ll have to send a team to get them.”

“None of their weapons will work, sir,” said Addington, looking almost sheepish. “If you recall I had an audit of the weapons of different units a few days ago, and I altered the firing pins on their weapons.”

“You fixed it so that a marine would be unable to fire his weapon?” said Chan.

“Well, yes sir.”

Chan shook himself. “There is no time for this. We discuss it all later. You can block them in where they are?”

“No problem,” said James. “Once inside the reactor building it’s all concrete walls and steel doors. We’ll keep an eye on them.”

“Okay, marines listen up!” said Chan “Lieutenant Addington, you and support team clean up here. Everyone else to the rally points. We are going out to fight.”

In a moment James and Lieutenant Addington were alone. Then Maddie came in and flung herself into James’ arms, crying.