Machinations of Conspirators
#12 of The Odds Against
Alrighty, the next chapter of the Odds against story series is finally ready for submission. I hope you will enjoy it.
As always, comments are appreciated and requested.
Continued from 'A Link Reforged'...
11-06-3015
Time Index; 1430 hours GST
MAS Medium troop transport Adaron
Colyon system, Merxian space
Katy walked slowly through the corridors of the transport, her psychic senses on full alert, as they had been ever since the chemical blocking them had worn off. In such a state, she could sense every one of Tyr's soldiers on the ship, as well as every one of the Adaron's crew. It was as if the thousands of tons of metal and machinery that made up the ship was nothing more than glass to her mind. When she shut her eyes, even for a moment, she could see them all in her mind's eye, more than a thousand marines and sailors. She knew where every single person was, what they were doing and more, what they were thinking in the moment, except for the minds of her fellow psychics, of course. Even class ones, the least powerful, felt her awareness and moved to shut her out, and she felt that that was probably a blessing. It wasn't exactly a pleasant thing to know the current thoughts of so many minds. In fact, it was rather like being in a crowded auditorium and listening to all the chatter of the people within it, only amplified as if every person was standing at her shoulder.
She had only ever been this aware twice before. The first time had been back at the military academy where she had been trained, when her powers were first developing and she hadn't known how to block out other minds. She had woken up one day and suddenly been aware of everyone within reach, tens of thousands of minds suddenly connected to her own all at once. It had frightened her so badly that she had ended up in the medical wing for more than a week while a psychic among the instructors coached her, teaching her to close the link with other people. The only other time had been just before she left the planetary assault infantry for pilot training, when, as a newly promoted lieutenant, she had been picked to serve as a bodyguard for a high ranking general who was visiting the base where her unit had been recuperating after a costly assault. It was very useful to know what she now knew, especially when on the defensive, at least in theory. So, when paranoid ranking officers were abroad, they tended to demand that a psychic accompany them, and with no barriers in their minds so they could sense everything around them. Unfortunately, what most people failed to understand was that sensing all the minds around her was one thing, understanding and interpreting it was another matter all together. Even with the fastest reactions, it only gave a psychic a few seconds warning, barely enough to take any action at all. Of course, after what had happened in the last few days, she would take any advantage she could get. That didn't mean she liked it, or that she felt remotely comfortable with it. Still, she knew it could be worse.
It was well documented that every psychic in existence had more talent in certain areas than in others, though most had at least basic skill in every area. When psychics with exceptional talent in the area of mental perceptions, nicknamed 'sensors' by other psychics, got into such mentally aroused states, it was said that they could actually see from the perspectives of everyone that their mind touched, in addition to knowing their thoughts and feelings. The more powerful the sensor, the greater amount of information they got from every mind they touched, and the greater the range of their perceptions. It had been said in some of the accounts written by such psychics that it was like suddenly having uncountable pairs of eyes, ears and senses. And that also made them the most valuable when a bodyguard was needed, because, with practice, they could react almost instantly to anything they felt, sometimes even being able to thwart an attack from inside the attacker's mind.
How they dealt with that without going nuts, Katy couldn't imagine. She had trouble dealing with this much information. Shaking her head, the vixen turned her thoughts back to why she was here, and not aboard her own ship. The Adaron, much like the Yunius, was still docked with the Colyon prime station, Tyr's battalion of Rangers having been temporarily assigned to assist the MPs while they took control of the station. And, as per protocol, no ship that didn't have priority orders to the contrary was allowed to leave the station until it was secure, not even the flagship of a General. But this also presented a unique opportunity. Since Tyr had rescued her, her instincts had told her that he would be a willing ally in the move against the Conclave. She had spent the hour after she had woken up in the infirmary that morning going over how she might broach the subject with her old friend, and she still wasn't all that sure of how she was going to do it. Still, at least the memories evoked by this class of ship were comforting.
She had spent her whole enlisted career, and much of her career as a junior officer, posted on a ship like this one. Named for a famous medieval strategist, the Kanarus had been home for almost four years, and it had carried her through many battles. The Adaron had all the same lines and corridors and she briefly allowed her mind to drift through all the times she had walked through the Kanarus' halls. That ship had become so familiar that she had known every bulkhead by heart and no matter how strange the places were that she had gone while deployed, the ship was always home. It had been a much simpler life to be a young soldier in the infantry, though the war had been awfully personal at that level. Being a pilot was much more impersonal. You never really saw your enemy up close. That had been one of the reasons she had chosen it after her stint in the infantry was up. She had been tired of seeing the enemy close up, tired of the nightmares where she relived the battles she had fought, all the close shaves, all the wounds she had sustained coming back to her again and again in the darkness. It had gotten to the point where it was only during the dreams where she had followed her Terran mate that she had found any rest at all. The war had become easier after she had transferred; it had been easy to think of the ships she shot down as nothing more than machines. And then, she had met him, the one who had wandered in her restful dreams, and that had all changed...
Shaking her head to dislodge that distraction, she paused at an intersection of two corridors and returned the salutes of a passing fire team of Rangers, probably replacements from the way they moved. The Rangers, the first brigade within the Special Forces division of the Merxian Marine Corps, had a justly deserved reputation for ferocity and toughness. To date, no Ranger had ever surrendered and no battalion had ever been forced to give up an objective they held. Thus, Rangers fresh from training walked around with a smug sort of swagger in their step, as if they were invulnerable. Of course, often, the only way that the reputation was kept true was by incurring horrific casualties. Rangers tended to lose that swagger if they were fortunate enough to survive their first mission.
Turning a corner, Katy smiled a little when she saw the entrance to her friend's office at the end of the corridor. Picking up her pace a little, she headed towards the door, running the words of what she would say over in her mind once more. She would have to be careful not to tip her hand too early, even though she felt as if she might burst if she didn't share the burden with someone soon. It was too much for one person to handle. Hell, it was too much for ten people to handle. Taking a deep breath, she paused before the doors and then tapped the 'open' button. Reading the cybernetic chip set into the back of her hand, the control chimed acceptance of her clearance code and slid to the side with the customary silent swiftness of military technology, revealing Tyr standing behind his desk, talking with a lioness captain wearing the crescent moon and sword insignia of the Merxian Military Police on the armor of her right bicep, a three dimensional holographic representation of Colyon Prime station hovering over the desk between them, different parts of the station represented in different colors.
"...I have fire teams securing these areas already, and two companies are pushing into the heart of the station as we speak." Tyr was saying as she entered, gesturing to the parts of the station rendered in green. "I have had reports of firefights in several sections already as cornered black marketeers have engaged my men."
"I appreciate your assistance in this matter Colonel," The captain replied, "I know it is cruel for your men to have been put into action again right after coming off the front lines, but I don't have nearly enough men in my command to control this entire station."
"We are Rangers, captain," Tyr replied, looking past the display and waving Katy into the office, "It's what we do best. Anything in particular you want my men to look out for?"
"Not so far, sir, but I would like you to assign a few squads to accompany my investigative teams as they search the cargo bays, preferably squads with demolition training." The female captain said, "The black market is renowned for booby trapping illegal shipments."
"Not a problem," Tyr replied, "If you go find Lieutenant Quinit, I am sure his company should have what you need. Now if you will excuse me captain, I have other matters to attend to." The MP officer saluted and then turned to go, saluting Katy on the way out.
"Sorry to interrupt." Katy said, coming up to the desk as the holodisplay turned off.
"Don't worry about it," Tyr replied, waving off her concerns. "Feeling any better?"
"Yes, thank you. Do you have a minute?" Katy asked, "I have something important I need to talk about..."
***
11-06-3015
Time Index; 1530 hours GST
TFV prototype Zephyr
Asgard system, Terran space
Grinning broadly, I stood in the flag bridge of my soon-to-be new home, watching as navel technicians, some of them only visible from the waist down, their upper halves tucked deep inside consoles and access conduits as they swapped out computer modules and installed the components of the fighter coordination system I had requested. The crew of the Prometheus station seemed more than a little eager to do the work, most of them happily pulling double shifts in order to get the station's pride and joy launched quickly. I had actually spent most of the last day wandering the corridors of the Zephyr, inspecting it from bow to stern, its wonders more than enough to keep my mind from pondering the new problems that had cropped up, and the tedious waiting for my mate to reply to my hyperlink message.
Eager to receive the message quickly, I had tucked the hypercom chip into the private communications suite that was part of the flag officer's quarters onboard the ship, with a constant link to the upgraded computer module that one of the equipment techs had helpfully installed in my battle armor. Though bulky, the module had the capacity to access every computer resource on the Zephyr from wherever I was on board. Of course, with most of the computers currently in pieces with techs crawling all over them, I wasn't using much of it at the moment.
Ever since I had sent the message, I had taken to wearing a deep field virtual interface visor everywhere I went, the device acting like a holographic screen that only I could see and manipulate. A similar system was incorporated into the helmet of all pilot's armor, and they were a common fixture among staff and administrative units since they allowed for constant display of information. Even the headaches and eye strain the visors were known to cause were worth it every time the system received a message, even though the one message I wanted above all hadn't come in yet.
Allowing my smile to slip a little, I turned and left what was rapidly turning into the Marine Starfighter corps' mobile command center and started wandering the corridors once more, thinking about all that had happened since the late night meeting where the small conspiracy of Terran officers I was a part of increased from two to three.
On the plus side of things, the Asgard Industries fighter production facility had churned out the first of the production line of Tartarus multirole fighters, the first squadron's worth of which were earmarked for Samurai squadron, replacing the old Scorpions we had flown for years. My pilots were already familiarizing themselves with the new ships with the assistance of the test pilots. That brought to mind another good thing; the members of the test squadron that had proven the Tartarus design had all volunteered to form a new, active duty squadron that would be shipping aboard the Zephyr along with Samurai flight, rounding out my command ship's fighter compliment, and best of all, the mechanics that maintained their ships had signed on as well, eliminating one of the personnel issues I had been wrestling with. And perhaps best of all, the paperwork required to create a wholly new fighter squadron, and by extension, the new fighter wing that would be officially assigned to the Zephyr when it launched, not to mention transferring Samurai squadron to the new wing, was keeping Major Chase so busy that he hadn't had time to pester me about administrative paperwork all day.
Of course, it wasn't all good news. The work on tracing the Conclave's members had actually gotten worse since my old friend had joined us. Showing off his knack for obscure reasoning, Pride had found even more information that Dillinger and I had missed and I was seriously considering bringing in more of my staff officers on the plan just to get through it all. But the most troubling thing of all was that the breach in Prometheus station's computer system still hadn't been explained. The station's security compliment had already done a complete check of the station, with no luck on finding the remote transmitter. Now, with the assistance of some of the fighters posted aboard the defense stations that surrounded the prototype shipyard, marines in EVA suits were checking the outside of the station for it.
And the truly troubling thing was, none of the computer specialists could find anything that had been tampered with in the computer system, which meant that either the intruder had gotten nothing at all after breaching one of the most secure computer systems in the Federation, something that I personally doubted very much; or, they had been so good at hiding their tracks that the computer techs couldn't trace them.
And then, just as I passed another technician who was handing tools up to a second who was hanging upside down out of a hatch in the corridor's ceiling, the comlink set into the DFVI visor chirped. Tapping the control that extended the microphone from the ear piece, I activated the link, the ID tag of the incoming call flashing into existence as glowing words that seemed to be hovering about a foot in front of my face, though they only really existed in the visor's view.
"Cramer here." I said, stopping in place to listen.
"Pride here, knight." Mychael's voice said, "I am in the port side fighter bay. One of the EVA teams found something and are coming aboard as requested."
"Be right there." I replied, hurrying off to the lift. When the search had been organized, Pride and I had agreed that if the marines found anything, they should bring it to us first. Not knowing who it was that might be responsible for the attack made any other option nothing more than foolish. It took me about five minutes to get to the bay, and as I hurried through the pressure door, a trio of marines in the bulky EVA maintenance suits were just coming out of a short range shuttle's hatch. Pride was standing a few steps away and I hurried up to him. "What did they find old friend?"
"The transmitter, I hope." He replied, speaking quietly enough that his lack of decorum wouldn't carry through the cavernous room. When the marines had taken off their helmets, the lead soldier walked over to us and saluted smartly, quite a feat in the bulky environment suit. When we had returned his salute, he spoke.
"Sir, you asked to be informed immediately if we found anything." He began, handing Pride an object that appeared at first glance to be nothing more than a sphere covered in metallic protrusions, almost like a mechanical sea urchin, all told about the size of a soccer ball. "I swept it for explosives and booby traps and nothing turned up. I honestly have no idea what this thing is, but whatever it is it doesn't belong where I found it, sir."
"Where did you find it, sergeant?" Pride asked, turning the device over, carefully examining the protrusions.
"In the secondary com array sir, right next to one of the hypercom antennas." The marine replied.
"Thank you sergeant." Pride said, giving me a significant glance. "That will be all."
"Yes sir." The marine replied, walking back to the shuttle with his comrades. When he was far enough away, my friend spoke in a whisper once more.
"Knight, I am familiar with every piece of com equipment in use by our military, and I have only seen something like this once." He said, all cheer gone from his face. "It's a remote computer relay device that is designed to allow an intelligence agent to remotely hack into a Merxian computer network. But from the looks of the interface equipment, this one has been redesigned for use with Terran systems."
"Could a Merxian have gotten a hold of it and altered the systems?" I asked, leading the way back into the ship.
"No. And that is the part that troubles me." He said, "These things never made it past the prototype phase. They were much too easy to detect to be practical. It had to have been a Terran who got it. And to get a hold of it, they had to either be part of Asgard Industries R and D, or had a contact within the department."
"You don't think..." I said, unwilling to discuss the problem outside of a secure room. Pride nodded.
"Has to be." He replied and I sighed. This could only mean one thing. The Conclave had hacked the computer system, which could mean nothing good. "The sooner this ship launches, the better."
"Agreed." I said, then perked up suddenly. A line of text had just leaped into being before me. The computer system into which my hyperlink chip had been set had just sent me a confirmation of a message received, but instead of a routing path and subject like most messages had, the text was composed of letter of numbers that, to the untrained eye looked like random gibberish. However, to one who knew what to look for, the numbers and letters were a confirmation of a hyperlink message. Pride looked over at me with a questioning expression on his face and I nodded. He smiled, obviously able to guess what had happened. "I have something to attend to. Will you take care of that thing?"
"Sure sir." He replied and we separated at the next corridor junction, I heading for the private comm. unit, he for a technical workshop to take the remote hacking device apart. With any luck at all, Pride would be able to back-trace the source of the hack, though I somehow doubted that he would get anything useful from it. Sighing, I picked up the pace. Just another problem to deal with...
***
11-06-3015
Time Index; 1700 hours GST
TFV Zephyr
Asgard system, Terran space
The lights in my flag quarters were out, the doors sealed by a three layer security lockout that required not only my command code, but my DNA and retinal scan to remove. Outside the secured door, two members of my personal security detail stood guard, both of them former Special Forces operators. As one final precaution, I had also given strict orders that I was not to be disturbed under any circumstance short of an attack on the Asgard system. The security precautions no doubt seemed extreme to almost everyone on the ship, but my two co-conspirators knew they were necessary, considering the source of the message. But, for the first time in more than a week, I wasn't concerned with the details of security, or all the minutia and red tape that came with the stars I wore on my uniform. I wasn't even thinking about the Conclave or anything for that matter outside the suite of rooms that my rank warranted.
The only light in the room was the holographic display of the com system. Right now, a single line of text floated in the air over the projector in the silent room. The line of text contained the message path and a record of access to the message's content, a security feature of the hyperlink chips that allowed the users to see if it had gotten intercepted anywhere along the line. The moment I had sealed my quarters, I had accessed the message and found an unexpected surprise. The message had been much too large to be text or even audio. It could only have been a full hologram. Which meant that I had had to wait in agony for the hyperlink chip to reassemble all the pieces of the message, decode it, then feed it into the holo-system, which took another short eternity of agonized waiting to buffer.
And it was only now, after having watched the message all the way through twice that I began to think constructively at all. When I had discovered that the message was a hologram, I had found my heart racing in my chest as if I had just sprinted through the entire ship. I had found myself becoming so giddy with anticipation that all of a sudden it was like I was six years old on Christmas Eve, waiting in agony for the morning to come. When the first still image of the message had appeared, revealing my mate's torso, decked out in battle armor and wearing the four pointed silver insignia of a General fourth rank, my heart had leaped into my throat, as if trying to escape from my body. Every rational thought had gone right out the window in that moment. I had been so keyed up that it was torture to wait for the message to start playing, and when I had heard the first words, spoken in my mate's beautiful voice, I had hung onto them like they were the edge of a cliff above an endless void, the words my only salvation. The entire first viewing, I had taken in almost nothing of the content of the message, consumed instead by a hunger that I hadn't understood.
It was like I had been burning inside all the time we had been apart, especially when I couldn't feel her, and that seeing her again, even as an intangible projection of light, and hearing her voice was a balm so soothing it was indescribable. All through the first playing of the message, I had just sat and watched it, not listening to the words she said, fixated on the sound of her voice, the small movements she made while talking that I remembered so well. But when the message was over, I had felt empty, unsatisfied, and it had taken me a few minutes to realize why. Without being able to touch her, to smell her scent, to have her there with me, the message was like a cruel joke, the teasing whiff of food to a starving man. It had taken me a long few minutes after it was over to even realize it had stopped and that I was staring into empty air. After that, it had taken me a while to recover my composure enough to start the message over again. When it had started playing again, I had had to exert all of my self-control to stop that primitive instinct from taking control again so I could actually understand what she was saying. I had had to actually close my eyes, focusing on her words, not her voice and now that the message had ended a second time, I relaxed the control a little, setting aside the message, instead puzzling over why I had reacted that way.
The problem was, I had never even heard of anything like that happening before. No human reacted that way to a message from a loved one, not even a soldier who hadn't heard from home for months. After a long few minutes of sitting in silence, I had realized that I actually physically hungered to be in her company again, a feeling so sharp that it was painful to ignore it, let alone deny it. But there was only one explanation I could think of for my behavior. It must have been the fault of the mate bond, the biological process that had forged the permanent link between myself and my Merxian lover. Having felt what it was like to be apart from Katy for a few months, I had to wonder how the Merxians could deal with being apart from their mates at all. And then it had occurred to me that this couldn't be the way it felt for them. There was no evolutionary reason for it. Being that distracted would have been disastrous in the wild, making one a perfect target for predators.
And then the thought had coalesced out of the ether of my mind, that there was one thing that Katy and I shared, one thing that no one else in history had ever felt. We were both class four psychics. In the last four hundred years, since psychic powers had first been identified in the Federation, there had only been seven class fours recorded, and not more than one at a time, and similar numbers had been recorded among the Merxians, or so they had reported. Since we were both so powerful, perhaps our bond was stronger than usual.
Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and let that thought go. It wouldn't do me any good to spend my time worrying over it right now. Instead, I brought to mind what my mate had said in her message. It had been like a personal letter, and though it had contained important news, it had also been like a one sided conversation. She had opened by teasing me for being so formal with my last communication, and then she had told me about her new post, and about the progress she had made in tracking down information about the Conclave. And then, she had paused, and I had felt my insides twist up tightly in my chest until I felt like I had a mass of very wriggly ice in place of organs.
And then, when she had told me about Kos and what he had almost done to her, it was like a bomb had exploded in my chest. I had gotten so angry that I had started to tremble. I had actually had to pause the message to get a hold of myself. For a few moments, before I could restrain the ravening beast that suddenly leapt into being within me, the only thought I had had was to find that bastard and rip him into little pieces with my bare hands. The fact that she also said that he had been killed when Tyr's troops had rescued her hadn't diminished that instinct one iota. And what was more, the mention of Tyr had made me feel oddly scrambled inside. I felt elated that he had saved her, but, at the same time, I felt suspicion and a healthy dose of anger. Even though I had never met the man, and even though he was now my ally against the Conclave, I instinctually didn't trust him. All of that was very confusing, as if I had suddenly become two people. One was the professional soldier I had been, able to separate my emotions from my actions and the other was like a wild beast, driven by animalistic passions and instincts that refused to be restrained.
Shaking my head, I forced my mind back on topic. I focused instead on her last statement, where she had suggested we meet in person somewhere remote, and had asked if I knew of a good, secret place where we could go. When she had said goodbye by saying she loved me with all her heart, it had made the primitive thing that tried to rule me so happy that it was almost purring in delight. And though I had to admit my human side felt something similar, it wasn't nearly as strong as the feeling I felt from this new side of my mind. It wanted me to go racing off right this second to my mate's side; to sweep her off her feet to somewhere cozy where I would be free to show her how much I had missed her.
Shaking my head, I considered her question logically, trying to keep my barely controlled emotions out of it, and realized that I actually knew a perfect place to meet up. I had first heard of it in an article published by a group of Terran survey scientists just before the war had begun, taking about a strange world that they had been exploring. It took me a moment to recall the details, but when I did, I felt a wide grin come to my lips. Still grinning, I activated the holo system once more, composing a reply in my head even as the hyperlink chip activated. If we could manage what I had in mind, this could well please both sides of myself...
***
11-07-3015
Time Index; 0451 hours GST
MAS Carrier Yunius
Colyon system, Merxian space
Katy sat in the chair in the middle of the comms. suite that sat beside her quarters, an odd mix of emotions swirling around in her heart. She had been awakened out of a sound sleep by the distant ping of the comm. system, a sound she had learned to ignore ever since the system had gone online. The ping had been the acknowledgement of a message received, a sound that happened several dozen times a day, often in the middle of the night, often when she was trying to sleep. And this ping had been no different from the others, but something, perhaps her still heightened psychic senses, had yanked her forcefully from her dreams when it had come and she had stumbled into the comm. room at once, expecting some message from one of her subordinate commanders that they had thought urgent enough to bother her with despite the very early hour. All such thoughts had vanished when she had recognized the alphanumeric code sequence of the hyperlink chip.
Smiling slightly, she remembered the sudden, giddy flare of excitement that had accompanied seeing her mate once again, hearing his voice as the system played the message. To the holoprojector, it was just a jumble of coding, a collection of electrical signals that made up a stream of data. The hypercom array displayed the message dispassionately, incapable of realizing how much emotion it would invoke in her by relaying the message, and yet, all the same, she felt somehow grateful to the fusion of Terran and Merxian technology that had brought it to her. And now, after hearing the message, she sat back, ignoring the computer as it patiently waited for her to give it instructions.
Her mate's message had been, like hers, full holo, which, only after she had sent it, did she realize how much of a risk she had taken. She knew the limitations of the hyperlink chip, knew that in all likelihood the message would be incomplete when her mate saw it. And yet, she hadn't been able to resist. She had felt the need to talk, to send a message that was so much more personal than raw text. And it had been worth it to get the same thing back. She had actually laughed aloud when he had replied to her teasing, feeling almost as if they were together again. And then, she had listened with growing anticipation when he had told her of his idea of where and when they could meet again. And now, after thinking it through, she felt so elated that she was almost light headed. It was possible to do what he had proposed, not only possible, but it could easily be done. And that giddy realization had made her feel a way that she had felt only a few times before.
The last time she had felt the odd, fluttery sensation in her chest was way back at the academy, when her best friend had convinced her to sneak out late at night to go spear fishing. This was almost exactly the same thing, only the rewards, and the stakes, were much greater. And now, as then, she felt a sudden rush of adrenaline as she gave in to the temptation. Her fingers became a blur as they activated the hyperlink system and typed out her message. It was short, a single sentence of easily compressible text, but that was all that was needed. Tapping the send key, she slid out of the chair and turned back to her quarters. Now she had some work to do...
By the time the hyperlink message piggybacked its way out of the Colyon system with the Yunius' daily status report at 0600, Katy was already packed and drafting the log explanation for what she was going to do. It was a plan that required some deft administrative sleight of hand and a fairly liberal interpretation of standing regulations to pull off, but it could be done. Regulations stated that any ship, including military vessels, that was in-system when a situation invoking martial law arose, were to remain in-system for a period of not less than one week after the situation was deemed under control by military authority, in order to prevent unlawful individuals from stowing away on board. However, in military parlance, 'vessel' referred specifically to any capital ship, from the tiny courier ships that hand delivered orders and high ranking personnel, to the gigantic battleships and heavy carriers, but technically not to fighter craft, since fighters were not typically equipped with jump drives. However, the new Giryan class interceptors were capable of hyperspace jumps, which meant, ostensibly, that they were bound by the same rules as capitol ships. But by the letter of the regulations, they were not mentioned, and that was one loophole she leapt at the chance to exploit.
The explanation that would be logged in the official record was that, with her command ship locked down in system, she was taking the opportunity to run a full shakedown of her new fighter's capabilities, something that was well within her prerogative to do. And, what was more, she had logged in a course that was supposed to take her through a number of uninhabited systems well within Merxian space, a course that would have out of contact for about a week. Only she and Tyr knew that the moment she jumped out of sensor range of her carrier, she would head on a completely different course to a clandestine meeting with someone from the Federation. When Tyr had acknowledged her explanation of where she was going an hour after sending her reply to her mate, Katy had felt a delightful soaring sensation in her chest, as if her heart had suddenly grown wings. All that was left was to issue final orders to her staff and then she would be off. As she began to dictate the orders to her adjutant, she had to fight to stop her hands from trembling and stop her lips from assuming a triumphant smile. This was going to be so much fun...