Read Online Star Risk - 03 The Doublecross Program by Chris Bunch - Free Book Online Page B

Brightest of Khelat were Fighting Back.
    "They'd damned well better," Goodnight said. "Costing us enough in fuel."
    No one bothered to remind him that he wasn't picking up the bill.
    Grok and Goodnight had spent two weeks in space deep inside the Shaoki sphere of control, alternating their watch with one or another of Vian's patrol ships. They couldn't assign the task out, because they had only an idea of what kind of target they were looking for� and a very vague one at that.
    Unsurprisingly, Jasmine King found it for them, making an intercept of a propaganda �cast from the Shaoki worlds on the might and majesty of the Shaoki fleet.
    She'd frame-by-framed the �cast and found an awesome shot of the Shaoki battle fleet, ready and waiting.
    The holo shot had been awesome enough for her to triangulate the location of the fleet, hanging in space off the capital world of the Shaoki II system, Thur. She made the assumption that the fleet wouldn't be kept in the boondocks but close at hand, for easy self-stroking by the Shaoki council.
    Vian took out a patrol ship and found the fleet just where Jasmine had said it would be.
    Goodnight was starting to get elaborate ideas, and decided the Shaoki fleet wasn't a target�they didn't have enough warships for a direct confrontation�but a tool.
    Monitoring from the patrol ship found a lot of signals from the starships sent to a single location on Thur, below them.
    That gave them a target.
    And that put the raid in motion.
    All Goodnight wanted was one lousy Shaoki ship to become his tool, a weapon.
    The raiders went out, in their four ships, with a single destroyer stationed at the last jump point before entering the Shaoki sector, covering their back door and exit.
    The four patrol ships made the final jump, one at a time. Goodnight was assuming that none of the Shaoki electronic lookouts would be ready for something that gave the radar signature of a 2 cm ball bearing.
    The McGee ships were very stealthy.
    Goodnight was right�unless the Shaoki were stealthy in a very different way, and had set a trap.
    Again, they waited, but only for a day or two, to verify their original observations, plus to confirm the general times when work craft came up from the planet.
    That established, the four ships crept toward the rough globe formation that was the heavy Shaoki craft orbital station.
    "We might as well suit up," Goodnight ordered. "At least it'll smell better."
    There were two blasters on Friedrich von Baldur's desk that had been given him by Jasmine. They were current-issue Alliance, a little battered.
    Von Baldur rechecked the serial number on the first against a list of numbers. No match. He did the same with the second pistol; found no match again.
    He did the same with another list; found nothing.
    Most interesting. Those two pistols had been taken from the corpses of "bandits" by Khelat soldiers. Yet their numbers weren't on the list of pistols stolen or taken from the Khelat, nor on the list of weaponry brought in by the recent advisory team.
    So where did they come from?
    While Jasmine was pawing around, she'd also found something interesting in the government accounting office, made a copy.
    Von Baldur thumbed through a printout, admiring the work.
    It was very neat.
    Somebody had been stealing the military blind.
    Von Baldur, as an ex-supply officer and a most experienced thief, knew when and where to go looking.
    There were some questions:
    Was the thief or were the thieves part of the mercenary operation or was the thief or were the thieves Khelat?
    If they were Khelat, how high did the thievery go? Von Baldur wasn't a damned fool, and if it went to the king, he wasn't going to make a lot of noise.
    In fact, part of him wanted to link up with the thieves, in exchange for a good piece of the action.
    He decided he'd have Grok look into the matter when he finished tailing about with Goodnight.
    "All right," Goodnight said. "Move out."
    Vian's patrol ship hung in space,