The Tau Ceti Agenda

October 31, 2388 AD

Tau Ceti Planet Four, Moon Alpha (aka Ares)

Near the Tau Ceti QMT Orbital Facility

Saturday, 7:28 AM, Earth Eastern Standard Time

Saturday, 3:28 AM, Madira Valley Standard Time

Kira wiggled her fingers and toes and could feel them still there. The throbbing in her face hadn't stopped since she had regained consciousness a minute or so earlier. She tried to open her eyes, and the light penetrated through them like needles. She squinted several times trying to regain her senses.

Where am I? Kira asked her AIC.

As best I can tell, we are on the Phlegra battle cruiser again, Allison answered.

How long have I been out?

About thirty minutes.

That's not enough time for them to bring me back to the Phlegra.

You're right. They didn't. We met it in orbit. We are somewhere in space now. Closer to the star, I think.

Where are we going?

My guess is back to Sol space.

But why?

That I don't know.

Any idea what blew my cover?

I'm thinking the bullet wound or some blood on the airplane ejection seat?

But they'd still need a DNA sample that you hadn't fudged with to compare it to.

Perhaps we trusted that Elise Tangier too much. She must have gotten one somehow. Maybe in one of her sexcapades she kept some of your fluids. Who knows?

I was sloppy?

Sounds like it.

Shit. We've got to get out of here.

Therein lies the dilemma.

Kira struggled against her bindings and then moved her head up enough to look at herself. She was naked and zip-tied with her arms out wide and her legs spread over stirrups of a gynecological exam bed with zip ties around each foot and one at each knee. She struggled against them but that only managed to dig them deeper into her skin, making them more uncomfortable.

This can't be good.

No, it's not. You've been examined in every way imaginable. I fear that the worst part has yet to happen.

Any ideas?

I'm scanning for something to hack into that will help, but so far, nothing but a centrifuge in the next room will talk to me. After we left earlier, they reset all the security protocols. I'm still hacking away, but it will take a while.

Keep at it.

"Comfortable, I see," a female voice said, following a hiss of the hatch sliding open. Kira struggled to get a better view. A slender woman in skintight camouflage pants, army boots, and a black, skintight, long-sleeve, armored pullover approached her. The black turtleneck led up into a ski mask of red, white, and blue stars and stripes and a long black ponytail of hair flowed up and out the back of it.

"General Ahmi," Kira said, trying not to look back at the woman in a way that would give away her fear. But Kira was terrified, and there was little way of hiding that.

"They call me Her Majesty now." Elle leaned in over her and slid a synthleather gloved hand down her cheek, to her neck, and then to her breasts. Elle lingered on Kira's nipples a bit and then dragged a finger sensually to her navel. Then instantly changing from sensual to angry, she slapped Kira across the face. The hit reawakened the pain from the rifle butt to the nose she had taken earlier, and her head rang like a bell with pain. She was most certainly lightly concussed, if not worse. Kira fought back at the pain and the stars surrounding her vision.

"Her Majesty, we are coming up on the facility in five minutes," someone out of Kira's field of view said.

"Good, Scotty. That gives us time to figure out what our young friend here was doing on my ship." Elle slapped Kira again and then seemed to lose her temper. As if something had snapped in the terrorist's mind, the slap acted like a final snowflake that triggered an avalanche of violence. Ahmi commenced to beating Kira in the face with her fists and cursing at her. The leather in the maniac's glove cut into Kira's nose, ears, and chin and left her face battered and bloodied. Kira was afraid that she would lose consciousness if the beating lasted much longer.

A few seconds of the crazed frenzy, and Ahmi stopped at the edge of Kira's limitations. The terrorist must have been a pro at torture, for she knew just when to stop before she rendered Kira useless. There was a splatter of blood on Ahmi's leather gloves that she licked away with almost sexual excitement. A doctor, or what Kira assumed was a doctor, entered the room beside Ahmi. He leaned over Kira and checked her vitals with a scanner and then held some sort of wireless sensor over her head.

"She has an AIC," the doctor said.

Allison?

Don't worry, we're good.

Oh God, we are so fucked!

Stay calm. Don't stop thinking. There has to be a way out of this. In the meantime, put your mind somewhere else. Let's keep going through the data we got today. Maybe something there will buy us some time.

Good idea.

Kira did her best to ignore the doctor's pokes and prods and Ahmi's nonstop questioning followed by more violent frenzies. The Scotty fellow stayed quiet mostly and only interjected here and there.

"What were you doing on my ship?" Ahmi asked again, and slapped her across the face another time.

"She's not talking, Scotty. Suggestions?"

"It can't be a coincidence? Can it?" Scotty said. He leaned against the bulkhead and put his hands in his pockets. "We haven't seen a spy in years, and now, on the day of one of our best moves, she shows up."

"She's been here all along according to the Tangier records. Remind me to tax the hell out of Elise when we get back. Somebody should hang for this. Literally." Ahmi pounded her fist against her open palm, causing the leather to slap together loudly.

What about today? Allison?

Well, the Phlegra is scheduled for a trip back to Sol, right?

Yes, so? Apparently, ships go back and forth to that Oort Cloud base all the time.

Remember the manifest? Nothing goes to this ship after today.

Hey . . .

"What tho thpecial bout today," Kira managed through swollen busted lips. She licked at them and swallowed blood.

"Ha ha, the nerve," Ahmi turned back to her. "I'm the one asking questions here."

"Since you have to kill her anyway . . ." Scotty shrugged.

"Today, we are going to fix an election." Ahmi stood straight and looked deeper into Kira's swollen eyes. "So that is why you have to tell us what you know and who you have told."

An election?

Presidential election is Tuesday, Allison answered.

Why?

Who knows, she's crazy as a fucking fruit bat.

Wait, how would they fix an election? Kira had studied Ahmi for years now. She never did anything haphazard. This would be a well- managed and thought-out scheme. How would we fix the presidential election?

Let me think. It looks tight. President Moore is likely to lose if he doesn't take Florida and Luna City. The Democrat nominee Senator Webb might even win the popular vote, but without the electoral votes from the Moon, she can't win.

So that's it! The Moon is the common factor for both candidates. She's gonna do something to Luna City.

Like what?

I dunno, what is her standard MO?

Well, during the Desert Campaigns, she had kamikaze AI-driven fighters fly into the front lines until the AEMs were toast.

Yes! And during the Exodus, she used the kamikaze ships in several different cases. Kira had a good idea what was going on and how Ahmi planned to do what she was going to do. But even if they got to Sol space in the Oort Cloud, that is still months at top hyperspace speeds to Earth space.

Use that. Keep her talking.

Right.

"Ha, ha, ha . . ." Kira broke into laughter as best she could. "You're gonna fix the election? Luna City. You're going to crash this ship into Luna City."

"What?" Scotty laughed and looked surprised. "You're about four hundred thousand kilometers off."

Ahmi looked back and forth between the two of them. Kira noted that there was a hint of surprise from her body language. She wished she could see her face through that damned mask.

"Florida? No way. Its not important enough," Kira managed through her fat lips. "Florida won't win it for either candidate."

"Oh, you just wait and see." Scotty again laughed, a bit too cocksure of himself.

Allison. Could Florida win it for either one?

Well, there is the slimmest chance, but . . .

Ahmi doesn't take chances like that.

That is what I was thinking.

HE DOESN'T KNOW!

You must be right. Use it!

"He doesn't know, does he?" Kira laughed, not breaking her eyes from Ahmi. "Go on, tell him the whole thing. Florida is just a diversion, isn't it?"

"What is she talking about, Elle?" Scotty took his hands from his pockets and walked closer, looking directly at Ahmi with anger in his face. There was obviously some history between the two of them, and this topic must have been a sore one.

"Not now, Scotty." Ahmi waved him off. "So you have figured it out, have you?" Ahmi caressed Kira playfully. Kira was most certain that the general was off her rocker.

"Well, what I can't seem to figure out is how you plan to get this ship from the Oort Cloud to the Moon so quickly." Kira lay still, trying to look calm and trying with all her might not to react to Ahmi's touch. Each one made her skin crawl and not in a good way.

"Ah, so you don't know everything. That is good." Elle turned to the doctor. "Take the AIC."

"Yes, ma'am," the doctor nodded.

"Wait! What do you want to know?" Kira attempted to stall further.

"Nothing more from you. Without access to the QMT, you haven't been able to contact Earth. My guess is that you are completely isolated and have yet to manage a message to home. Good try, though."

The doctor held a glass tube up to the side of Kira's head just behind her right earlobe. The tube sealed off with a vacuum hiss against her skin, drawing blood to the surface it attached so harshly. A spring-loaded metal tube within the glass tube crunched through Kira's skull and extracted the bone. Kira screamed in pain and blood poured red into the tube. A little metallic finger snaked itself into the hole in the side of her head and pulled out a small gray object shaped like a sunflower seed.

"Motherfuckers! I'm gonna kill you!" Kira screamed.

Allison? Allison! Allison! There was no response.

The tube hissed, and the AIC popped out into the doctor's hand. He handed it to Ahmi, who then held it between her gloved thumb and forefinger.

"I know how you can grow attached to these things. I'm so sorry for your loss." She sat the little seed-shaped AI implant on a table in a metal pan and picked up a small hammer lying beside the pan and then smashed the little implant to a thousand pieces.

"What about her?" the doctor asked with an evil grin on his face, reminiscent of a child molester's on a kindergarten playground at recess.

"You can have her," Ahmi said as she turned and walked out of the sickbay. Scotty looked back at her and turned his head as he followed his fearless leader like a lapdog.

"You know, my sister was a security guard on this ship until this morning. I believe you killed her. I think I should get something to ease the pain of my loss."

Kira ignored him. Tears and blood oozed down her neck into her hair. The doctor stepped between her legs and leaned over her. His breath smelled of coffee. He leaned in closer and began to fondle Kira's body clinically. He lowered his face to hers and glared into her eyes but she turned away from him as best she could.

"I am so going to fucking kill you," she whispered.

"Oh, I don't think so. I plan to leave you right here for a long time. Right up until this ship explodes. Believe me. I plan to make you suffer until the last possible minute. My little sister would have wanted it that way." He held an injector in front of her battered face that was filled with a pink fluid.

"What is that?"

"This, my dear, is pain. Pure, liquid, pain. Enjoy it." He stuck the needle into her neck and drained the pink stuff into her.

The injection started burning from the instant the needle touched her skin. At first Kira felt a tingling and burning spreading out through her face and then down her body. Her hearing heightened, and she could hear her own heartbeat begin to race as if it would beat out of her chest. Kira tried to shallow and control her breathing, but the burning grew and grew to the point were her body felt like it was being burned from the inside out. She screamed in pain.

"I am so going to fucking kill you!" Kira did her best to put her mind somewhere else but the pain was too great to ignore.

"You can't just destroy Luna City, Elle!"

"Scotty, I can and I will. That is the only way to be sure that the election goes our way." Ahmi paced back and forth in her cabin. "Now, that's enough of this."

"Elle, millions could die from an event like that. It was different when there were millions being saved on Mars, and we always expected that the U.S. would save them, but this is just murder. It's mass murder on the largest scale known to man. For what, just to sway an election!"

"A means to a better end," Ahmi replied.

"Damnit, Elle—" Scotty was interrupted by the door buzzer.

"Yes?" Elle snapped the door open to face the ship's captain.

"More info on the attack at the facility, General."

"Yes?"

"It appears as if we have overwhelmed them. The supercarrier has taken several direct hits from the mass driver on the moon. The space and ground forces are outnumbered more than three-to-one and are attritting." The captain stood still in the doorway awaiting Ahmi's response.

"Good, Maximillian. And the other mass driver?"

"They are too close to it for any useful firing solutions. The crew has been moved to the moon facility for more efficient use of their abilities."

"The defenses of the base are working as planned. Good." Elle tugged at her ski mask, adjusting her ponytail in the back. "We will drop out of QMT and start the immediate recharge of the projector. The hauler and other battle cruisers will protect us until we teleport again. Once the cruiser is in the Earth-Moon sphere of influence, we will evacuate the ship completely. Got it?"

"Understood ma'am." The captain saluted, and the door closed behind him.

"How long were you going to keep this from me, Elle?" Scotty asked.

"Right up until the last minute. I knew you would get all defiant about it."

"You know I have family there! Why didn't you warn me about it?"

"Would you have swayed one way or the other?"

"I, uh . . ."

"No, you wouldn't have. I know you too well. Now stop it, Scotty. I've got a battle plan to think about." Elle waved him to the door. Scotty shook his head and reluctantly dropped the topic, leaving the general to her work.

Allison? Allison?

Don't worry, I'm still here.

You got really quiet on me.

I didn't want to transmit just in case they knew how to detect it. Looks like our decoy implant worked. How do you feel?

Yes it did, and I feel rough as hell.

The CIA had discovered decades earlier that the Separatists often removed the AIC implants of captured agents and either hacked them or destroyed them. And in many cases, they killed their biological counterparts in the process. Allison was a member of the Top Secret AIC family that had been developed to grow as microfilaments along the human nervous system, rather than to be implanted as a small device in the brain. Allison's components were dispersed and intermingled throughout Kira's body and would likely only be removable if Kira were dead. The implant was just a copy AIC that had been put there years ago to act as a decoy. Most CIA operatives had similar AICs. The AICs had to volunteer and so did the operatives, as it pretty much made them symbiotic and intertwined for the life of the human.

Any luck getting us out of here?

The troop carrier we rigged this morning hasn't been repaired yet! Allison said excitedly into Kira's mind. That was a glimmer of hope. The lifter that they had commandeered in the hangar bay to fly them up to the mecha that they had ended up stealing for the getaway was still in line to be repaired. The Seppy repair crews had just rolled it aside for later maintenance. And it still had the hacks in place that Kira and Allison had previously applied. And it was still keyed into the ship's networks.

Can you access it? Kira had put her mind so far out into space that she could barely keep her sanity. The internal burning sensation had finally lessened to a tolerable level, but that had been followed with a strange and frightening euphoria that had lasted for several minutes. The doctor had left her to her chemical trip as far as she could tell and was no longer in the room with her. The bastard hadn't even bothered to cover her up.

I've got control of it now.

Can it bust us out? Kira tried blinking her eyes and shaking her head hoping to keep the pain managed. The remnant of the immunoboost that she had taken hours ago was probably keeping the pain from overwhelming her, but the chemical had pretty much overcome what was left of it. Her head pounded like a repulsor hammer with each beat of her heart.

It couldn't get through the deck plating. But it's a start and a way out if we can get to it.

If we can get to it. Right. How do we do that?

You have to get untied.

I have no idea about that yet.

The door hissed open and Kira braced herself for more torture. It was the doctor again. This time Scotty followed in behind him. The two were arguing about something, but Kira couldn't make out exactly what at first.

"The general sent me back down here to ask more questions. Is she conscious?"

"I can always wake her up if not," the doctor replied.

"Leave us, now." Scotty glared at the doctor. Kira wasn't sure, but she was guessing that Scotty must be a high-ranking member of Ahmi's inner circle, if she had one.

"If you need me, I'll be in my office," the man said, and the door closed behind him. Scotty turned his attention to Kira.

"Here, this will help," he told Kira as she felt a sting in her neck.

A flood of warmth and well-being coursed through her body. A feeling that Kira had felt way too many times that followed stims and immunoboost injections. But that was a good thing. She never wanted to feel the way she had a few minutes ago ever again. She needed the added strength and for some of the pain to go away. Almost immediately, the throbbing in her face subsided. There must have been painkillers in the injection as well.

What the hell?

This could be our chance?

"I'm not privy to the plan to murder on such a mass scale. Everything we had done before was based on creating a new America. One that we lost so many decades ago. You have to stop this madness!" he rambled rather quickly and then slipped a knife underneath the zip tie, cutting her right hand free.

"Why are you doing this?" Kira rose as he cut her left hand free. She rubbed at the scratches on her wrists that were healing in real time. The swelling in her face reduced, and the cuts began to close.

"I told you. I'm not a mass murderer. Elle has stepped over a boundary that I can't." Scotty focused only on cutting Kira's bonds loose.

"You know she is fucking nuts!"

"No, she isn't. She is the most brilliant woman I've ever met. Probably the most brilliant human that ever lived, but with that great intellect, she has become so logical that she has forgotten the emotional aspects of being human on an individual scale. She only thinks in the grand schema nowadays." Scotty looked nervously over his shoulder. "Her big picture is brilliant but is getting too costly. And I have family in Luna. She could have at least warned me."

Aha, it isn't selfless. He has someone he cares about in harm's way, Allison thought.

Typical. But he must actually care for them to risk his neck for us.

"She will have you killed."

"Not if you do this right." He cut her last zip tie and then put the knife in her hand. "Stay put. Dr. Ross will be back any second. Make it look like he let you loose." Scotty turned for the door. "Stop this ship from killing all those people."

"Thank you. I will." Kira rubbed at the healing hole behind her ear and could feel the soft spot where the bone was beginning to fill in. She palmed the open knife in her left hand and squirmed back into place as if she were still tied down. "Now get the hell out of here."

"Good luck," he told her as he left.

Wasn't expecting that.

Hope it isn't a trap.

Me too. But don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

The door slid open, and Kira could hear the doctor's shoes squeaking against the floor. She lay still as if she were catatonic with her eyes open wide and not blinking. With the pain subsiding in her head, she could focus and control herself better now.

Wait . . . wait . . .

The doctor leaned over to check her with a diagnostic tool, and he looked into her pupils with his flashlight. When he did, Kira grabbed the back of his hair with her right hand and jabbed the knife into his temple with the left. The blade slid into his head all the way to the hilt. Kira twisted the blade, scrambling his brains around, withdrew it, and then stabbed him again, repeating the process. She tossed him to the floor and rolled out of the examining stirrups over on top of him. The deck plating was cold against her bare feet.

She quickly pulled his pants and shirt off and slipped them on. They were too big, but she managed to pull the slip fastener at the waist tight enough to hold, and she rolled the bottoms tight around her ankles. The shirt was still loose, so she tied it in a knot at her side. She hefted the knife in her left hand and backed up against the doorjamb, punching the open switch. The door hissed open. She looked around the doorway into an empty hall. It was clear.

Great. Now where to from here?

We need to stop this ship from getting to the Moon.

Engine Room?

Good a place as any to start with.

"All hands, all hands, prepare for QMT jump in ten . . ."