Three Square Meals Ch. 049

John nodded, recognising the name, and he said, "I've heard of them. Mostly do corporate work, but they've done some nasty jobs for the Federation too."

Alyssa walked up beside him, and asked, "What's the verdict on Captain Buckley?"

John glanced at Rachel and said, "He's an accessory to your mother's kidnap and murder. What do you want to do with him?"

She narrowed her eyes, and then glanced at the angry faces of the police officers outside the room. "He's a cop killer. Let them deal with him," she said firmly.

Alyssa waved her hand away dismissively, and Captain Buckley went tumbling backwards, then sprawled across the floor. John walked out of the server room without giving the man a second glance, and he passed the furious police officers as they began to walk slowly towards the prone man, their fists clenched in anger. The girls followed after him, apart from Rachel, who watched the red faced Captain scrabble backwards, looking up at his men fearfully. With a nod of satisfaction, she strode briskly after John to catch up.

Detective Walsh jogged to keep up with John, and she looked up at him in awe as he strode purposefully towards the elevators. "Where are you going now?" she asked him, sounding shocked to the core by the recent turn of events.

"Beta-Draconis," he replied calmly. "We've got a nest of snakes to eliminate."

***

An hour later, John and the girls had removed their combat gear, and were gathered around the long table in the briefing room, looking at the Beta-Draconis system map. The yellow star was enormous, massively larger than Terra's sun, and Dana had to adjust the scale of the map so that they weren't just staring at a huge yellow sphere. None of the planets in orbit looked particularly appealing, two of which were gas giants, while the third was a molten world, covered in vast oceans of magma. The fourth planet out was a relatively small and barren planetoid, called SerpentHold.

Dana frowned and said, "What's up with all these snake references? I can't believe they lucked out and got a planet with a name like that for their base."

Before anyone could answer, Irillith strode into the room, and she said, "They didn't. The mercenary group purchased that world and renamed it."

John smiled at the enthusiastic expression on her beautiful face, and said, "It sounds like you've been doing some digging."

She nodded, but hesitated a moment before she said, "I've discovered a wealth of information for you, but I have one condition before I hand it over."

He looked at her suspiciously, and asked, "That sounds ominous. What do you want?"

Irillith smiled with a predatory gleam in her eyes as she replied, "To come with you on this mission. I haven't hunted Terrans before, and for some reason, the idea suddenly seems very appealing."

John studied her for a moment before he said, "Alright, but there are conditions. Firstly, no firing until I give the order. Secondly, you obey my every command while we're down there. I won't risk you stirring up another shitstorm with some reckless shooting."

She nodded her agreement to his conditions, and produced the small holo-projector she had retrieved from the police server room before they left. She walked over to the desk, and placed it on the surface, angling it so that it would project out into the room. Although she had removed her body armour, she still wore the golden vambrace on her right forearm, and she pressed a couple of buttons on it with comfortable familiarity. Dozens of images sprang up, floating in the air in front of them, and she turned to face John and the girls.

"The 'Armoured Cobras' purchased Beta-Draconis IV eight years ago, and promptly renamed it to SerpentHold," she began, bringing up a deed that showed the sale from the Terran Federation to the Mercenary Company. "Since then, they've spent a substantial sum of money on terraforming the planet. It was a barren rock with a toxic atmosphere, but now the air on SerpentHold is breathable."

Dana looked puzzled and asked, "Why would the Terran Federation sell off a planet like that? It's got to be worth a fortune when it's fully terraformed."

John shrugged and replied, "The Terran Federation were strapped for cash at the time. It cost a huge amount of money to finance all the wars I fought in, back when I was a Marine, so I can easily see them needing to make some quick credits. By the sounds of it, Beta-Draconis IV would have been unusable without spending some serious money on terraforming, and the Federation wasn't in a position to spend those kind of credits."

Irillith nodded and said, "They bought the planetoid for half a billion credits, and have invested at least as much again in terraforming expenditure. They've been making significant amounts of money hiring themselves out to a variety of corporations, but there's also some off-the-books revenue streams as well."

John looked surprised and said, "You've been able to go through all their private finances?"

The Maliri woman shrugged nonchalantly and nodded, saying, "If a server is linked to the Holonet, I can hack it. Especially with their third rate data security."

Rachel frowned as she asked, "These other revenue streams don't sound like they're from legitimate sources. Are they still kidnapping and ransoming people?"

Irillith nodded, and replied, "New Eden isn't the only place they've been active. When they started drawing too much attention there, they started branching out to a number of different worlds." She tapped a couple of buttons, and a few dozen images appeared, showing news articles reporting kidnappings that were taken from at least ten different planets over the last eight years.

"They must have been raking in the cash!" Dana said in amazement.

Rachel looked grim and said, "These news articles are probably the tip of the iceberg. The rich and famous don't like airing their dirty laundry in public, so the last thing they'd want, is for it to get out that they'd been the victim of a kidnapping gang."

Calara frowned and said, "I can't believe someone hasn't put this together yet. Why haven't the Terran Federation military got involved?"

John glanced at the news articles, and said, "It looks like they've been careful to hit a broad selection of different worlds, so planetary law enforcement hasn't made the connection." He then looked at Irillith and asked, "Are you certain they're responsible for all of these kidnappings?"

The Maliri woman nodded decisively and said, "I cross referenced each kidnapping case with their accounts. A few days after each incident, significant sums of money were transferred through shell companies, and finally routed to the Armoured Cobras."

Dana looked puzzled and asked, "I thought you said their data security was third rate? They must know what they're doing if they can hide the trail enough to hide it from the cops."

Irillith sneered condescendingly, "Their network specialist is probably considered an expert amongst you Terrans. If he was my student, I'd have given him five hundred lashes with a neural whip for this kind of incompetence. It took me less than three minutes to cut through his firewall."

John raised a hand and said, "Alright Irillith, settle down. What do you know about their command structure? Do you know the names of the people running the mercenary company?

She scowled for a moment, before pressing a couple more buttons on her vambrace. A series of dossiers appeared, fanning out and aligning in an organisational chart. "Colonel Semias Morgan runs the Armoured Cobras, but I could find no records for him, military or otherwise, so the name is probably an alias. He has three Captains working for him, Abraham Pickering, Zane Latimer and Hitch Mallor. They all served in the Terran Federation military together, but they were dismissed with dishonourable discharges. Pickering was a Commander, and the other two men were First Lieutenants before they were stripped of their ranks."

With a few more taps on her arm, she brought up their extensive criminal history. They each had violent backgrounds, with crimes ranging from extortion to grievous bodily harm, and in Hitch Mallor's case; attempted murder. He had been acquitted when witnesses changed their statements, or refused to testify.

Rachel stared at the four men's faces, and asked quietly, "Do you think they were the original gang members that murdered my mother?"

John was about to reply, when Irillith suddenly said, "When they were discharged from the military, they were suspects in a number of violent crimes over several years. They seemed to cease all criminal activity eleven years ago, right before the kidnappings began. Then they disappeared off the grid for three years, until they suddenly formed the Armoured Cobras, and bought SerpentHold eight years ago."

John nodded appreciatively to Irillith, and then turned to look at Rachel. "That sounds like a pretty huge coincidence to me, and you know how I feel about coincidences," he said grimly.

Rachel nodded at him with a determined look in her steely grey eyes.

He then looked at Irillith and asked, "What info have you got on their hardware and numbers?"

The Maliri woman typed in a rapid series of commands on a holographic panel, and a number of listings appeared. They provided full details on the armoured company, including personnel rosters, vehicle inventory, and ship assets. Calara leaned forward eagerly to digest all the information, but she frowned when she read through the long lists of resources the Armoured Cobras had at their disposal.

"They've acquired a substantial amount of materiel," Calara said looking concerned. "They've got a fleet of three cruisers, and a dozen destroyers, along with a carrier rigged for orbital exo-armour insertions. They have ten heavy tanks and just over two hundred personnel."

John looked grim as she listed off all their forces, and said, "Are they all on-planet at the moment?"

Irillith shook her head and said, "The Cobras secured a contract to garrison a corporate facility a few systems from here. Going by the data on their normal deployments for garrison duty, that means the carrier with the exo-armour will be busy. They usually take one of the cruisers, and half the destroyers for protection."

Calara suddenly looked a lot more confident. "If they've split their forces, that's a whole different ballgame. We can hit the defending cruisers with a surprise assault, then obliterate their base from orbit."

Rachel looked worried and said, "Wait a moment. What about kidnapping victims? Have the Cobras taken anyone captive right now?"

Irillith rolled her eyes and asked, "You aren't seriously suggesting we rescue prisoners? Why bother putting ourselves at risk for a handful of civilians?"

John looked at her pointedly and asked, "How many are down there?"

The blue-skinned woman tsked, then said grudgingly, "Four women, two children. They're being held in the main compound."

Rachel looked horrified, and she gasped, "You would have let us bomb innocent kidnapping victims?!"

Irillith smiled at her wickedly, and gave her a nonchalant shrug.

Dana looked puzzled and asked, "If we'd blown up the base from orbit, how would you have been able to hunt any Terrans?"

The Maliri woman grinned and said spitefully, "There would have probably been some survivors. Just like cockroaches seem to be able to survive anything."

Further argument was silenced by Calara, who said loudly, "It doesn't matter anyway! They've got a planetary defence shield."

Rachel looked bemused and asked, "What does that mean?"

"That we can't hit their base from orbit," John explained. "If the base is shielded, that usually means they'll have laser defence batteries too. The Invictus won't be able to just sit there and slug it out with them."

"We have to rescue those poor people!" Rachel said earnestly.

He nodded, and looked thoughtful for a moment, before turning to Irillith and asking, "Do you have a topographical map of their base?"

She scanned through the list of files and then selected several, bringing them up in the holo-projector. The images included a satellite image of the base, a couple of photographs taken from different angles, and a detailed maintenance schematic of every facility in the compound. The maintenance schematic showed everything from power junctions and generators, to Janitor's closets and bathrooms.

John laughed in amazement and said, "Terran Federation Intel Division would kill to have someone like you working for them. In my ten years in the military I never had a mission briefing like this!"

Irillith smiled at him proudly, and for a moment, she looked genuinely happy, and pleased by his complement. As quickly as her face had lit up with that lovely smile, it was abruptly replaced by the dark shadow of a scowl. He shook his head, feeling sad for the woman, before turning to face the girls.

John smiled at them confidently and said, "Alright, let's get to work."