Star Force: Mastermind (SF32) Read online

  “Anyone else fried?” he asked in between mouthfuls.

  “Very,” Sara said, glancing at Kyler. “You’ve got to be dead.”

  “I admit I’m feeling it, but I’m more used to the water than you guys are.”

  “Liar,” Emily said with a smirk. “You’re barely staying awake.”

  “Am I?” he asked honestly. “Maybe I’m still numb to it.”

  “Probably,” Rafa said, grabbing a breadstick. “As soon as we get done here I’m grabbing a bunk and getting some long hours in.”

  “Same here,” Emily agreed, then looked at Paul. “Did you find anything?”

  “It was the relays,” he said, referring to his recent dive through the battlemap records while the others helped with various things around the city. The enemy infantry had been taken care of, they thought, but they were only beginning to clear out the nearest of the submerged buildings with the help of the recently arrived engineering crews from Ackbar. A team of Archons and Regulars were there now, pulling the bodies out and securing the exits as the breach in the hull was patched over and the damaged shield generators were repaired/replaced. Pretty soon they’d start pumping out the water in that section, then down the chain one building after another.

  “I don’t get it,” Rafa said, frowning. “They’ve fought without coordination before. Why turn tail and run when we cut them off this time?”

  “Two ideas,” Paul said, snagging another quick bite. “One, these aren’t their expeditionary troops. Two, this is a larger scale assault than we’re used to dealing with.”

  “Not a raid,” Emily clarified.

  “But they left almost exactly when the last of the relays were cut?” Rafa asked.

  “There was a two minute delay,” Paul noted.

  “I’m glad they did, but that doesn’t feel right,” Sara chimed in. “It’s like they let us off easy.”

  Both Emily and Rafa glared at her.

  “Ok, not easy, but why not at least let the rest of their infantry get to target. You said they recalled some of them that were already in the water.”

  “Those closest to the fence,” Paul said, washing down his second pastry with a swig of water. “I agree with Sara that something is different here, and we’ve been seeing it in orbit too. They’re fighting smarter than they used to. Not more experienced, but more clever. And now with this bit of data, I’m betting it has to do with Thrawn.”

  “Thrawn?” Rafa asked.

  “He thinks they have a mastermind calling the shots,” Sara offered, explaining the Star Wars reference.

  “Big man gets cut off,” Kyler said, thinking aloud, “little ones run away. Almost makes sense, save for it doesn’t fit their MO.”

  “I know,” Paul admitted. “But I’m almost certain of it now.”

  “One of the variants?” Emily floated.

  “Could be, but I’m starting to think not. We recovered 11 lizard sets of genetics, but that was from an expeditionary group. Their main forces may have more than that…or we might be seeing a ruling faction and a lizard that wasn’t grown here, but shipped out from their core worlds.”

  “Big man on campus?” Rafa asked.

  “I don’t know if it’s an individual, group, or caste, but we’re facing more strategic and tactical wizardry than we have anywhere else. Agreed?”

  The other four trailblazers nodded, all of whom continued to chew food.

  “So the question is…where is Thrawn?”

  Sara swallowed. “Not with their fleet, obviously. The relays kept them in contact.”

  “How much water can they punch through anyway?” Rafa wondered. “Wouldn’t it be easier to link to orbit than through miles of water?”

  “We’ve got control of low orbit,” Paul reminded him. “And we can hack part of their communications, which they obviously know by now. I suspect they’ve got several surface to orbit relays set up, or maybe they’re using cruisers in that regard, but I’d bet you the water relays operate differently than their normal comms, if for no other reason than to keep us from hacking into them.”

  “Still, if they’ve got an attacking fleet here, why not just link directly to orbit for coordination. If a mile of water interferes with the signal too much, just send a couple ships up in a chain to transmit from.”

  “If they’re using line of sight,” Emily suggested, “and we know the locations of their warships in orbit, then we could interfere with the signal.”

  “That or they’re a binary operation,” Sara added. “One water, one space.”

  “No,” Kyler said emphatically. “They’re integrated. The cruisers pull double duty.”

  “It might be as simple a fact as Paul suggested,” Emily added. “They’re used to having control of orbit. Without that, they’re going to plan B and setting up the underwater relays.”

  “So is Thrawn down here or up there?” Sara reiterated.

  “Or both,” Paul added.

  “I have to say down here,” Kyler offered. “Setting up the relays is too elaborate if you were leading this from space.”

  “Too little data to speculate,” Rafa said, pulling the conversation back a bit. “All we know right now is that they are using underwater relays and that we’ve got at least one mastermind lizard in the system. So, next move?”

  “Find and follow the relays,” Kyler said without hesitation. “To field the kind of fleet they just hit us with, they’ve got to have some massive infrastructure in play. Now that we’ve got a thread to follow we need to pursue it before they get a chance to cut ties. If I were them I’d remove the relay links closest by and set up new ones in their place.”

  “What do you need to start?” Emily asked.

  “Given the ranges involved, no less than a battleship.”

  “What are you waiting for then?” Rafa asked.

  Kyler’s eyes glazed over. “Good point,” he said, reaching for his ear and finding he had no earpiece in.

  Paul reached up to give him his, only to discover that he hadn’t put one in either. He looked at the other three trailblazers and laughed when he saw they didn’t have any.

  “How the hell did we all forget them?”

  “Hungry I guess,” Kyler said, standing up to leave. “Don’t touch my tray. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  As he walked out Emily reached over and poked her index finger into one of his pastries, then pulled it back without taking anything. She licked a bit of vanilla icing off her fingernail as Rafa raised an eyebrow.

  She smirked, then turned her attention back to her own plate as she deviously whispered, “Space monkeys.”

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