Stars in the Sand by Richard Tongue Page B

Alamo’s repair schedule still good?”
      “ I’ve inspected the facilities at Hydra Station,” replied the engineer, “and I think everything will be satisfactory. Eighty to ninety days remains my estimate, probably towards the beginning of that time period. We’ll have the orbital defenses in position in ten days.”
     “ Excellent.”
  “ Three months drifting in orbit,” Orlova said. “The crew could use the break, sir. I’ve already had several requests for shore leave.”
      “ That sounds like a good idea,” Marshall replied. “What about Ouroboros?”
     “ My team has completed a damage survey, sir,” Quinn said, “and I don’t think it will take much to repair. A few days should see it back to full working order.”
     “ Are we taking it with us, Captain?” Zebrova said. “We have got the personnel to man it, and having a second ship could be useful.”
     His father, looking at him from his chair, shook his head, “I think he has something else in mind.”
     Nodding, Marshall said, “Last night, Corporal Cooper came to me with some new information regarding the fate of the Espatiers captured by the Cabal. I think he should begin this briefing; Corporal?”
     Rising to his feet, flexing his newly fitted artificial hand, Cooper looked around the room, obviously trying to conceal his nerves. It seemed strange to Marshall that a man who had been in combat four times should be afraid of public speaking.
     “ Before he died, the traitor Major Diego attempted to trade his life for some information on the location of the prisoners. I couldn’t make any headway in interpreting it with Alamo’s computers, nor with the Cabal database, but I had more luck with the astrogation systems on Ouroboros. The prisoners are being held on Denebola VII, a Cabal resource extraction hub, where they are being used as part of a labor workforce.”
     “ What is your basis for that, Corporal?” Zebrova said, flashing a look at Marshall.
     “ I didn’t know it at the time, but Diego was telling me the colloquial name for the system; it is a variable star, and that was the term the Arabs used for it on Earth in ancient times. More than that, the information we have indicates that the population is predominantly indentured labor, and prisoners are used there by the extraction corporations.”
     “ That fits,” Bailey said. “It’s exactly what they did with us at Ghawar. Though we were kept segregated from the main workforce.”
     “ I expect the same will be true here, Lieutenant,” Cooper said, his manner easing. “My plan is to use the Ouroboros to send in a strike team to infiltrate the planet and free the prisoners, then returning them to Alamo.”
     Zebrova shook her head, “I can’t even begin to tell you the flaws in your plan, Corporal.”
     “ There’s a lot more too it than that. We can trade our way to our destination, disguising ourselves as a normal freighter crew.”
     Bailey nodded, saying, “I’m pretty sure we can provide fake civilian identification documents without too much trouble. We’ve got a lot of examples to work with.”
     “ Once there, we can evaluate the situation and determine the best way to break our people out. It’s a civilian facility, not a military one, so security will not be as tight. And they won’t be expecting it,” he added. “With luck, we’ll catch them by surprise.”
     “ I am always concerned about plans that rely on luck. What if the prisoners are not there?”
     Cooper took a deep breath, then said, “In that case, we make the most of the opportunity to gather some intelligence about the Cabal from the civilian point of view. Most of the information we have is focused on the military.”
     Tyler said, “Our intelligence staff will find such information useful.”
     “ Not to mention the bonuses for any possible negotiations,” Caine added. “Knowing what the civilian population wants as opposed to