Predator (Old Ironsides Book 3) Read online

  The soldiers looked at each other uncertainly.

  ‘Guys,’ Nathan said, ‘if we were the infiltrators, do you think we’d be advocating using the help of the one species that could undermine us?’

  The soldiers exchanged one more glance, and then the squad leader lowered his plasma rifle and gestured with a nod of his head down the corridor.

  ‘Director General Coburn could take control of the holosap lockdown from the military if there was sufficient evidence for concern,’ he said. ‘She’s in the senate chamber.’

  Nathan didn’t hesitate, taking the lead and hoping fervently that the guards themselves were not infiltrators playing a careful game. He knew that they could gun the entire team down in a flash as they followed, their weapons humming with energy just waiting to be unleashed.

  ‘How long has the senate been on lockdown?’ Foxx asked the squad behind them as they hurried down the corridor.

  ‘About an hour,’ came the reply. ‘Commodore Hawker gave the order.’

  ‘Hawker,’ Vasquez spat. ‘He’s gotta be behind all of this. If he’s with Coburn he’ll probably try to turn her too, and with her gone anything could happen. If she gave the order to throw open the doors to the invaders people would do it, they trust her so much.’

  Nathan was about to reply when one of the soldier’s radio speakers crackled.

  ‘Shots fired!’

  ‘Where?’ the squad leader demanded.

  ‘The senate chamber!’

  ‘Damn it,’ Foxx uttered as she broke into a sprint. ‘We’re too late!’

  *

  Arianna Coburn saw her double shot hit the conference table and splatter white hot plasma across the surface as Commodore Hawker ducked and rolled out of sight behind it. The plasma hissed and bubbled as it dripped off the hard light table in glowing globules to fall onto the floor.

  ‘Open the door, Hawker,’ Coburn snapped.

  The commodore remained low, crouching under cover of the table.

  ‘I cannot do that,’ he replied, his voice oddly calm considering that she had just attempted to kill him. ‘You’ll kill them all.’

  ‘I’ll kill them all?’ Coburn stammered. ‘You’re one of them, aren’t you? You’re an infiltrator.’

  ‘Don’t be bloody ridiculous, Arianna!’

  Coburn tried to spot Hawker but he was using the long table as cover and moving quickly to avoid exposing himself to her aim. Coburn saw him move right toward the exit and she fired twice again, the weapon spitting fearsome crackling balls of energy that smashed into the table once more and forced Hawker back into hiding. She changed direction, blocking his path toward the exit.

  ‘You’re an infiltrator,’ she repeated. ‘There’s no reason why you would want to flee now other than to ensure that the leadership of earth are removed from the equation!’

  ‘That’s not what this is about,’ Hawker pressed from his hiding place.

  ‘The Commodore Hawker that I knew would never have run from a fight.’

  She heard a gasp of resignation coming from the old British warrior.

  ‘Commodore Hawker won’t be running from the damned fight, Arianna. He’ll be staying right here. It’s you, and the senate leaders, who need to be removed from the equation in order to ensure that somebody survives!’

  Arianna shook her head ruefully, surprised at just how cunning this creature was, how well thought out its arguments were. She wondered briefly why something capable of being so convincing would ever need to kill in the first place.

  ‘You don’t seriously think that I believe that, do you?’ she asked. ‘You could have made the same suggestion without coming here and trying to lock me inside this building while my planet is invaded by whatever horrific beings are behind it all.’

  ‘Arianna,’ came the pleading response, ‘if anything it is more likely you who is the infiltrator. You’re the one who’s been suffering under the stress of the whole situation and now you’re the one trying to kill me!’

  ‘You’re the one trying to invade my world!’ Arianna shouted. ‘What the hell did you expect, a red carpet?! You’re murdering our citizens just to take their form and…’

  Arianna’s train of thought ground to a halt as a new awareness hit her like a freight train. She stared into the middle distance as she realized what she had deduced. Murdering, for no reason other than to take the form of others. Cunning enough, that they would never need to kill in the first place.

  ‘Why would they kill, when they could just replicate a person’s ID chip on the black market?’

  Her voice was a whisper, soft in the otherwise silent chamber. Sure, the infiltrators might not have any empathy for human life but she and the JCOS had received reports from witnesses that the strange shape shifting entities showed a genuine fear of dying when confronted with their own mortality. Killing to take an identity was one thing, but hadn’t Detective Foxx said in report that one of the beings had taken the form of a person that they had not murdered? If they could do such a thing, then surely they could have taken human forms and obtained illegal ID chips among the outer colonies before coming to earth? The colonies were less well policed, a haven for drugs and crime. She looked across to where Hawker was hiding.

  ‘Why would you kill and expose yourselves to the chance of identification when you could have just…?’

  Hawker wasn’t there.

  Arianna whirled and her pistol arm hit something solid as Hawker loomed before her and smashed her arm aside. Strong, wiry hands twisted the pistol from her grasp and she cried out as pain bolted through her wrist and shoulder.

  Hawker held her in place, her arm twisted back on itself as she was bowed over at the waist in sympathy to the pain. The commodore turned the pistol over in one hand and pressed it against her temple.

  ‘My apologies, Arianna,’ Hawker said, ‘but I will not let you leave this room.’

  ‘Then you’ve done your work well,’ she spat at him. ‘Divide and conquer, commodore?’

  ‘I am not doing any such thing, I’m trying to…’

  Hawker’s response was drowned out as the solid door to the senate chamber suddenly exploded inward in a shower of sparks and the hard light door behind it fizzled out. Hawker yanked Arianna in front of him and kept the pistol pressed to her head as he saw six CSS troops storm into the chamber, followed by four detectives and what looked like an elderly patrol officer.

  ‘Put the weapon down, hands on your head!’ the squad leader yelled.

  ‘On your knees!’ bellowed another.

  Hawker remained standing, switching his gaze swiftly from one person to the next as he tried to figure out what the hell was going on.

  ‘Stay back!’ he warned, and pressed the pistol more closely to the director general’s temple.

  Detective Ironside raised his hands palm up to Hawker and shook his head.

  ‘Take it easy,’ he said quickly. ‘Nobody wants to get shot here. It’s over, Hawker, we know you’re behind all of this. Put the weapon down, okay?’

  Hawker narrowed his eyes as he tried to keep his eyes on all of the intruders.

  ‘You won’t get away with this,’ he hissed. ‘I know what you all are. You were all at the JCOS briefing at Polaris Station, you knew everything.’

  Detective Vasquez raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you kidding me?’

  Hawker saw the six CSS soldiers glance in surprise at the police detectives.

  ‘You had inside knowledge,’ Hawker went on. ‘You came back here and you started the invasion early because you knew we were onto you.’

  Detective Ironsides almost laughed. ‘We were the ones doing the investigating! If it wasn’t for us, nobody would have known that the infiltrators were here at all!’

  ‘Indeed,’ Hawker agreed, ‘it’s tough to arrest a killer if you’re wandering around looking for yourself.’

  ‘We captured one of them,’ Foxx added.

  ‘A clever ploy to lead us off the trail,’ Hawker retaliated. ‘And
that meant the infiltrator had access to you, all of you. It could have obtained your identities at any time!’

  ‘I fired it out of an airlock,’ Nathan said.

  ‘So you might say, but none of the rest of us saw it! It could be anywhere!’

  Foxx threw her hands to her head.

  ‘Damn it, this is getting us nowhere! The whole purpose of the infiltrators is to set us against ourselves and it’s working! Commodore Hawker, we have evidence that you’re a Sentinel, a leader of the infiltrators.’

  Hawker stared at Foxx for a long moment, genuine surprise and fear wracking his body.

  ‘But I haven’t done anything!’

  ‘You’re holding a gun to the director general’s head, sir,’ Detective Allen pointed out.

  ‘But she’s one of them!’

  ‘And we think you’re one of them!’ Foxx insisted.

  Hawker pulled Arianna closer to him, the gun still firmly against her temple.

  ‘If you kill me I’ll take her with me,’ he insisted.

  ‘If we were the enemy, that would play right into our hands,’ Vasquez pointed out. ‘Removing government from play weakens the structure of our society. You’re not winning any fans here, Hawker.’

  From beneath Hawker’s grip Arianna spoke, her voice trembling.

  ‘They kill us for our identities but they don’t need to,’ she gasped. ‘Something’s missing. Why would they kill to do that, when they could more easily adopt identities using black market ID chips?’

  ‘Because then there would be two of each person wandering around,’ Foxx replied. ‘Sensors would detect that too easily.’

  ‘But not if they were separated by light years, as per the colonies,’ Arianna said. ‘It might take weeks or even months for the data to filter through. They could have travelled here and settled in among us without the risk of being exposed due to their murders being interrupted and the police turning up.’

  Commodore Hawker’s grip eased without conscious thought. ‘They must need something,’ he said. ‘Something from us, from our bodies, to be able to function.’

  Arianna Coburn turned her head to him as far as she could.

  ‘They,’ she said. ‘You said they.’

  Hawker stared down at the director general, and at the pistol he was pressing against her skull, and he realized suddenly what had happened.

  ‘Oh hell,’ he whispered, and then looked up at the armed guards watching him. ‘But any one of you could be…’

  Nathan Ironside stepped forward, blocking the aim of the CSS guards.

  ‘The thing that the infiltrators need is body tissue as a disguise and water, that’s why they kill and assume human identities. The only way to solve this is to reactivate the holosaps. They can figure out who’s who without fear of being replicated. You’re the one who shut them down, Commodore, so we figure it must be you who’s behind all of this because you’re the one calling the shots.’

  Now, Hawker stared at Ironside for a long moment. ‘I did not make that order.’

  Detective Allen frowned.

  ‘We know that you did, we all saw the broadcast.’

  ‘Yes,’ Hawker agreed, ‘I broadcast the order, but it did not come from me.’

  Hawker looked down at Arianna and he suddenly released her as he stared at Nathan. Nathan thought back to their meeting with the JCOS at Polaris Station and then he realized. The handshake, dry and rough, as though the skin were parched. The infiltrators cannot hold water for long.

  ‘Admiral O’Hara,’ Hawker whispered. ‘O’Hara gave me the orders to be broadcast in his absence. He also ordered the holosaps to be shut down.’

  Nathan stepped forward and took the gun from Hawker.

  ‘Where is O’Hara now?’

  Hawker directed a fearful gaze at Nathan.

  ‘He’s at Polaris Station in command of the fleet,’ he replied, ‘and he shut down all communications to avoid betraying their position to the enemy.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s what he had in mind,’ Nathan said. ‘He did it so that he could take control of the fleet.’

  ***

  XXXVIII

  CSS Titan

  Admiral Jefferson Marshall strode onto the bridge of the fleet’s flagship and surveyed the crew as they worked at their stations. Over thirty men and women served aboard the flagship’s bridge and another three thousand in the armory, flight deck, galleys, war room, engineering and maintenance sections. A floating city in the depths of space, Titan had been at the forefront of the last few battles of the Ayleean War, one of three Ships of the Line newly constructed to strike fear into the hearts of the Ayleeans.

  Now, the Ayleeans were no more.

  ‘Tactical?’

  Titan’s Executive Officer, Olsen, a fleet commander with thirty years’ experience replied with the efficiency of the born and bred military officer.

  ‘Battle ready on all fronts, admiral.’

  ‘CAG?’

  The Commander of the Air Group replied with brisk, clipped tones.

  ‘All flights ready, all launch catapults prepared with pilots awaiting orders.’

  Marshall nodded as he stepped up onto the command platform and settled into his seat. Before him was the usual broad display screen, now showing vast tracts of deep space where the fleet had gathered outside of the Sol System as per tactical protocol. Although the natural temptation was to position close to earth to protect it directly, Marshall and every other commander knew that it would be like standing in front of a gun and hoping one could duck the plasma round when it came out of the barrel. The Ayleeans had been completely overwhelmed, their fleet shattered. CSS would not allow the same calamity to overtake its warships, which would monitor relay stations just outside Sol’s heliosphere and wait for their enemy to arrive.

  ‘On our turf, but on our terms,’ Marshall whispered to himself.

  On the main tactical display beside the viewing screen he could see Titan’s location at the head of more than thirty warships, all cruising under the colors of many flags. Although CSS was an organization that embraced all nations and all creeds, thousands of years of territorial patriotism was a hard thing to breed out of people. Much of planet earth was now given over to nature, with cities perched on the largest rivers but most small towns and urban areas long gone along with the borders that defined them. However, that did not stop the people from considering themselves as Russian, British, American or whatever other flag they may perceive themselves to have been born under. Even those born in the orbital cities who had never once visited the earth defined themselves by which country their station orbited above, and their cultural dialects and accents remained recognizable and were even deliberately maintained by people for whom an identity distinct from others was considered a birth right. Ironically it was only here in deep space, far from any sense of home, that all men and women became what they had always been and served only one flag: that of humanity.

  ‘Priority fleet wide signal, incoming!’

  Marshall’s reverie was broken by the communications officer’s call, and almost immediately a perfectly formed hologram of Rear Admiral Vincent O’Hara shimmered into life on the command platform before Marshall. He waited as the admiral stood with his hands behind his back and his chin held high to address every ship in the fleet.

  ‘We have been here before,’ he began solemnly. ‘Our ancestors fought to survive conflicts, disease, social strife and inequality countless times in history, and always we have fought each other. Even in the wake of The Falling we fought each other, struggled to build new futures in isolation, segregated those who suffered more than we did. Now, for the first time in our history, we stand together side by side to defend our homes against an enemy for whom we have given no slight, against whom we have mounted no attack. An enemy who does not know us, does not understand us and shows no indication of doing anything but destroying us.’ O’Hara paused thoughtfully. ‘Ayleea has fallen, their species extinct. They were unable to de
fend themselves against the onslaught that overtook them. We must not fall prey to the same fate that they did: they let their enemy in without knowing it.’

  Admiral Marshall listened, aware that the bridge of the warship was utterly silent, the crew hanging on the admiral’s every word.

  ‘We here are united and we must remain so. The enemy will seek to divide us, and we must resist. No ship that comes out of the Ayleean system can be trusted, for all there have been infiltrated by our enemy and represent the greatest danger to any military force: an enemy within. They must be treated just like any other enemy ship and destroyed if they make it back to Sol, for the security of the fleet and of our defense of earth.’

  Marshall frowned as he thought of Captain Travis Harper and of Endeavour’s narrow escape from the clutches of the enemy.

  ‘It is almost certain that our enemy will arrive soon and that their attack on earth will begin in earnest. I trust that every man and woman in the fleet will do their duty, that you understand that the safety and security of every human being alive in this universe of ours rests in your hands.’ O’Hara placed one hand over his left chest. ‘Defensionem ut impetum.’

  In response, the crew automatically mirrored his actions in chorus. ‘Defense as attack.’

  Admiral O’Hara’s transmission cut out and Marshall leaned back in his seat.

  ‘A touch one sided,’ Olsen murmured alongside him, quietly enough that the rest of the crew wouldn’t hear. ‘Endeavour got away okay.’

  ‘That’s what I was thinking,’ Marshall said. ‘What happened to Harper anyway?’

  ‘He was taken away for debriefing at Polaris Station,’ Olsen replied. ‘I think that Admiral O’Hara did it personally.’

  ‘I promised him a command on his release,’ Marshall said, ‘and gave him Victory with O’Donnell as his XO.’

  Marshall glanced at the tactical display and saw the frigate CSS Victory nearby. Most of Endeavour’s crew had been transferred to Victory to bolster her ready for the battle, while others had been posted to a cruiser named CSS Valiant. Marshall found himself watching the vessels with an intense gaze but he couldn’t figure out why the ship suddenly seemed so important to him.