Rodney Smith - First Command

She kneeled down beside where he lay on the couch and ran her lips and hands over his body until he stirred. Then she gave him one more gift, for her pleasure this time.

Alistair jumped when his console alarmed, signifying a new message on the cooking forum. He was so startled he almost dropped Connie off his lap. She stood up, allowing him to read out the latest message. This one was a beef stroganoff recipe from Gagarin. He would break out the IP address and location of the sender later. For now he waited for the fifth comment. It was from another housewife, asking for a picture of the completed dish.

Alistair had learned that it signified a call to place the data in a dead drop. He wished he had the technology to trace an IP address to a specific individual. The imaging technology on his ship could follow an individual on the ground from high orbit. It would be helpful to follow the package to the dead drop, and then follow the package after it was picked up, and make prosecutions easier when Fleet Intel counterintelligence rolled up the network. Oh, well, rolling up the network was someone else’s responsibility.

He pulled Connie back onto his lap. The airlock door sensors would give them plenty of warning.

Irina Bugarov toured the 4 Motion Electronics, Inc. plant on Shepard as the introduction to her first of ten subordinate firms. She saw a modern, efficient factory putting out three main components of the transport ring system. She made a point to look beyond where she was being guided. If the guide turned left at a hallway that also went right, she went down the right hall to see what she was being led away from. There were more than a few instances where her guide kept on walking and talking, while she was looking through storage closets and unoccupied workspaces. After this happened twice, the CEO had the plant manager inform her what was in the opposite direction and ask if she wished to confirm this. She didn’t. She just wanted to make the point to this manager and all the others she had yet to visit that she would look and go anywhere she pleased and wouldn’t be fooled by being led away from somewhere unpleasant. She knew this manager would be in a conference call with the other nine managers within seconds of her leaving the building.

She did see things that disturbed her. There were numerous copies of classified plan design sheets at many supervisory positions, most with no one present at the position. She had her assistant make a note to enquire about security in the plants. The company CEO and plant manager explained the sheets were needed to ensure the components were made to spec.

Irina asked, “Are all these people here cleared for this information? If so, how would you know? They have no badges or other identifiers showing they are cleared. What are your document security procedures? How many copies of these documents have been made?” She walked over to a partial document obviously run off a copier and held it out before her.

“How many of these are running around? This is unsatisfactory. Terri, make a note. Look into hiring a security officer for my staff. Gentlemen, clean up your act before my security officer arrives. I suggest you dust off your industrial security manuals and read up. There will be a test.”

Terri looked at the faces of incredulity, the ‘but we’ve always done it this way’ faces and thought to herself, “Folks, there’s a new sheriff in town.”

Terri worked late that night, preparing notes for the General’s visit to her next plant. It required her to put together a data file with each key plant individual, a picture, notes on compensation, and last performance review. All this was organized into a master file, which included the plant’s production statistics, manpower, facilities, and any issues relating to the plant, such as lawsuits or regulatory issues.

The General was a tough taskmaster, but Terri could stay ahead of her and usually anticipated her needs. Irina needed to make a first impression of confidence, business savvy, and knowledge of each plant’s contribution to the subsidiaries’ profit potential. Irina needed to get them all pulling in the same direction, like a team of horses dragging a heavy wagon.

The plant managers were under the same gun as the General. She wasn’t afraid to terminate any of the managers’ contracts if she lost confidence in their ability to do their jobs and contribute to the overall profitability of the subsidiary. She was going to make a profit, a quite considerable profit. Profit was Irina’s mission now.

H’Topa was almost done on Shepard. Transport specialists were rendezvousing with dead drop servicers and consolidating the data in one location. The close pass by a Human warship, specifically a scout ship, made him anxious to get away from this planet. He would wait until darkness covered the selected spaceport and land, be on the ground just long enough to pick up the deliveries, and then back into space to Gagarin.

The captain tried to convince him that the close pass must have just been a coincidence. If the Humans were on to them, why would they alert them to their presence? H’Topa was somewhat assured by the captain’s logic, but didn’t like coincidences. He would be happier when they were a few light years from here and with blank scans behind them.

Alistair informed Kelly that the courier ship was moving. Alistair had moved his ship to where he had line of sight on the K’Rang ship. The courier was moving down to a spaceport on the smallest continent. Alistair focused his optics on the ship as it flared out and set down gently on the parking apron. He watched as a vehicle drove out to the ship. A single man carrying a case of some sort passed it over to someone from the ship. The first man received something in a bundle from the man from the ship, and the first man drove away.

The ship sat on the ground for 30 minutes and lifted off. Alistair informed Kelly that the ship had filed a flight plan to Gagarin and lifted off.

Kelly ordered his ship to Gagarin and set an initial course 300,000 km parallel to the most direct course. His intention was to shadow the courier ship from just ahead and to the side of his path, hopefully out of his sensor range. As long as the courier ship didn’t have special sensors, they should be okay.

On the planet below, Cindy was railing at Ron. “How could you have been so stupid? I told you to put the package on top of the south support beam of the footbridge, not the north beam, you jackass! Couldn’t you tell your north from your south?”

Cindy had been in a foul mood ever since she’d seen the post on the cooking forum with the missed dead drop code. No telling how long it would be before another courier ship would show up. Plus they had to retrieve the package before some inquisitive teenager sneaking a snort under the bridge looked up and saw it. She punched him in the side to encourage him to drive faster.

Alistair landed on Shepard and coordinated with the counterintelligence team leader in charge of rolling up the agent network on Shepard. Alistair turned over his report and the detailed information on the suspects. The team spent an hour on Alistair’s ship, reviewing the data and planning their raids.

Alistair asked the team leader not to start the raids until they received the go signal from him personally. That would signify that the courier ship had launched from Earth and was out of contact with a network node.

The Vigilant would track the courier ship until it showed them the exfiltration route into K’Rang space. At that time, the Vigilant would destroy the courier ship before it could escape across the frontier.

Concluding the briefing, Alistair hurried them off and fired up his ship to pursue the courier ship to Gagarin.

H’Topa reviewed procedures for collection on Gagarin. The landings were at one of five minor spaceports, chosen at random. He reviewed info on the spaceports, saw no difference between them, and picked the last one according to the Human alphabet. He was heartened to hear from the captain that no ships left orbit behind them. He also did a 360-degree maximum range scan and found nothing but routine intrastellar traffic.