Birthright: Battle for the Confederation- Pursuit by Ryan Krauter Page B

bid their farewells and
headed back up to Avenger, Captain Elco aboard as they shared their ride back
into orbit. 
    "Did you find a way to win the war
yet?" Elco asked Loren lightly as he eyed Cory and Merritt in the seats
across from them in the cramped confines of the transport's aft flight deck.
    "No," Loren replied glumly. 
"Made a few friends, I suppose.  They're a pretty upbeat and extroverted
bunch, and I pushed pretty far talking up AI as a positive thing, but I guess I
never really expected an android to jump out of a broom closet and congratulate
us on our positive attitude towards them.  I don't think we really accomplished
anything, I'm afraid."
    Elco looked at Cory and Merritt. 
"Anything to add?"
    "I think the Commander summed it up
nicely," stated Merritt.  "They seem willing to help with what they
can, but nobody offered to show us to android headquarters, either."
    Nobody said anything for a minute after
that. 
    "I know this is a long shot and
all," Cory began, "but how long are we supposed to do this?  I mean,
trying to develop this kind of intelligence is the sort of operation somebody
like Halley would work months on.  And here we are, just knocking on doors and
saying 'hi'.  Do we think this is going anywhere?"
    "A valid concern, that's for
sure," said Elco.  "I give us two more stops on our itinerary and if
nothing develops, I'll contact Admiral Bak and see if he can offer us another
option."
    More silence as they watched through the
cockpit doors and out the windshield in front.  The underside of Avenger was
growing larger as they approached and lined up on the port side hangar bay. 
Avenger's armored hull flashed by just above their heads as they cleared the
force field into the hangar.  No sooner had the pilots slid the craft out of
the flying lane than the armored door slid down from above, closing off the
hangar from space.
    "Now where to, Captain?" asked
Loren as the four of them strode across the hangar deck towards the Vipers'
ready rooms.
    "The Mining League," Elco said
simply.  "It's a loose collection of a half dozen worlds that claims
several solar systems relatively close to each other.  Not really a fully
organized galactic power; they're more of a group of very close trading
partners that still remain relatively independent.  But if you make a deal with
one of them, you better make the same deal with all of them.  We're going there
to have you take a look at a very strong and influential underground AI
support.  AI issues are quite illegal there; one of their planets was almost
completely wiped out long ago by computers gone rogue, and their trading
partners had to basically blockade the entire planet and bombard anything that
was left standing back down to sea level."
    Loren just turned to look at the
captain.  "I assume there's a plan for getting access to what it probably
a quite fidgety and nervous bunch of people?"
    "Oh yes.  His name is Von.  He's a
SAR operative like our friend Halley."
               
     
    "Everything is in place,"
Captain Vol finally heard from his subordinate.  It had taken longer that he'd
liked, but getting into the Carada system undetected and finding a suitable
place for the ambush was no mean task.  He'd only allowed himself three ships
for the task; one light and two heavy cruisers.  The rest waited far out beyond
the Caradan system's frontier outposts and listening sites, ready to dash in if
need be but preferably not tipping their presence to the locals if possible. 
They'd watched via long range scans and piggybacked feeds from in-system
traffic control. 
    And now they waited. 
    Captain Vol had found the perfect place
for an ambush, and it was almost right on Avenger's expected vector if they
were in fact sticking to their itinerary of visiting the Mining League next. 
The Caradans maintained an immense mothball shipyard on the outer reaches of
the system.  Since government and commercial ventures were often