Cold Pursuit

April 11, m0039, continued

Florence reaches the base entrance a minute or so behind Beta, with Vajra a little way behind her. As their respective radio nodes gain line of sight through the base's Faraday cage, large bursts of information from Beta flow onto the Navy's local ad hoc net.

Florence pauses in the base entrance, and hears a few distant explosions; Beta seems to be meeting resistance, but nothing especially effective. Vajra arrives and passes a surveillance swarm off to ride on her suit, and Dougal brings up a partial map generated from Beta's transmitted observations, with hazards flagged; it seems that the place is infested with those miniature walking bombots. Florence heads in along the path which Beta has effectively cleared of such traps, and she and Vajra pick up a number of open voice transmissions as she goes; they seem to be in Soraya's voice, and to be proclaiming the fleet's defiance in terms of radical separatist rhetoric.

Florence finds Beta paused just before a closed and locked door; its sensors suggest that the human inhabitants of the base are holed up in a room just beyond. It is preparing to make assault, and seeking clearance from its commanding officers; the Europeans suggest that the Navy should take this slowly and try and avoid unnecessary bloodshed, and Jianwei talks the lieutenants into following this line for now.

Vajra's swarm detaches from Florence and enters the base's air ducts, which prove to be conveniently large. The swarm advances carefully to observe the room, which is indeed occupied by several humans (all physiologically female, so far as the observers can tell); Vajra is able to build up a map of the situation, including the location of Soraya Claire. There doesn't seem to be any sign of d'Alembert...

While Jianwei analyses the psychology of the cornered pirates and their likely responses to possible events, Vajra surveys the base's net. It seems to be in exceptionally poor shape, with little sign of a competent management AI, but a brief analysis of traffic finds the physical location of the computer room. A plan begins to come together.

Florence gets into the ventilation duct herself, and plants a full-size radio near the main vent over the room holding the pirates. Getting back out proves a bit harder - the ducts aren't that large - but she manages in the end. Then, she heads for the computer room. When the door opens, two bombots charge her, but she has her UAW out and ready, and sweeps them with rapid fire. She only hits one, but that responds automatically by detonating, spraying the room with fragments; the blast is no problem to someone in body armour at this distance, although some shards hit her armour - and another hits the other bombot, and a fratricide effect removes the threat.

At that moment, Vajra immediately notes a "flicker" in the local net, and guesses that another computer may now be managing it. Most pleasingly, the political speeches stop. Anyway, Florence reaches the microframe computer in this room, and Dougal talks her through the process of powering it down - although they subsequently realise that it had been cut off from the local system until fragments from the bombots destroyed a smaller computer unit that was tapped into the main data trunk "downstream" from the microframe.

Jianwei is now able to begin talking to the pirates, using the loudspeaker on the radio which Florence left in the air ducts, and turns on his full diplomatic charm. They respond by becoming quite cooperative; they realise that the situation is well out of hand, and are willing to surrender given basic guarantees of safety. But d'Alembert isn't there; they believe he may have left by now...

Florence takes the pirates' surrender, while Beta heads to the submersible bay that shows up when it has access to a full plan of the base, letting any remaining bombots expend themselves against its armour.. D'Alembert has indeed departed, in a minisub which can outpace Beta; there's another such minisub available, but its one-person control bay is designed for a humanoid operator.

So Florence rushes to the bay as soon as the pirates are reasonably securely in the hands of the US Navy. Dougal loads an operation skill set program from the minisub's on-board library, and manages a moderately comfortable departure into the open waters of the Boreal Ocean, but has difficulty getting a sonar lock on the fleeing, skulking d'Alembert. Florence thus ends up searching arbitrarily under icebergs. However, the Navy team soon start receiving imagery from SIA satellites, and Beta enters the water and starts using its own sensors. Together, these flush d'Alembert from hiding. He stays ahead of the pursuit for a while, but has to beach and tries to escape on foot. That puts him in reach of hoppers from a local law enforcement station, who are also working with the SIA satellite downloads. Once they have him cornered, Florence - who has also beached her minisub - is able to close in and make the arrest.

Once she has handed him over to the local authorities, Florence rejoins the original group - and notes with some mild irritation that there is no one uninjured who is likely to be susceptible to her charms. She also notes that Soraya is trying, against the odds, to flirt with Jianwei. (It seems that being in an all-female pirate fleet with no males except the politically obsessive and manipulative d'Alembert may have become boring for a self-appointed pirate queen after a while.) Jianwei, though, has other things on his mind; the diplomatic situation is moderately complicated, only partly because of the presence in the arrested group of on Ssu-Li Wong, daughter of a certain mid-ranking Chinese official. Jianwei, though, is well on top of the situation, and soon has everyone doing things his way. Score one for European diplomacy; as the team head for home, they mark this mission down as a success.

Rules of Engagement

April 11, m0039, continued

Before the combined party sets out, though, Jianwei asks about the US Navy's rules of engagement; although he's too polite to say so, the E.U. team may be required to report how well those rules were followed, after all. Kethburger replies that this is, formally, a police action; the Navy will make best efforts to proceed with some kind of minimum force and restraint. On the other hand, it's a Navy police action, against armed opposition with unknown but as it appears possibly lethal capabilities; his force is authorised to take what actions are judged genuinely necessary.

Then the group sets out. The Europeans are in a RHIB with CPO Romero, while Kethburger is supervising Alpha and Beta, and Oppenheimer has command of a third boat full of assorted gear, some of it somewhat autonomous. Travel in light, fast craft on the Martian polar sea proves somewhat ... exhilarating; local waves are quite large, and a boat that leaves the surface doesn't necessarily come down again for some moments. Still, automated control systems manage things quite well, and nobody is actually unable to face a lunch of enchiladas when the time comes around.

It's mid-afternoon when the methodical search of locations identified as possible hiding-places by SIA analysis of past pirate activity and satellite imagery finally produces a result - an ice shelf (basically a beached iceberg) with space underneath and some oddities in thermal patterns and chemical traces in the surrounding water. There's no local radio traffic detectable, even by military-grade sensors, but good radio management and a Faraday-caged base would probably see to that.

Alpha and Beta go in the water, trailing fibre-optic links to provide low-signature comms, while the Navy take all three RHIBs up onto a nearby beach. Within seconds, a small army of miniature scout-RATS have deployed from Oppenheimer's boat and gone scurrying off cross-country to probe and monitor the possible pirate base. Soon after that, Alpha and Beta settle on the sea bed, and a memetically-tailored surrender demand is aimed at the likely base location.

This provokes a response, if not a reply; Jianwei and Vajra, who are both monitoring the Navy's sensors (by invitation), realise that there must be a network of sensors on the sea floor, which has just gone from passive to active mode. Seconds later, something appears, presumably from the pirate base - it's about six metres long and moderately fast-moving. Alpha, which is closest to it, evidently realises that it will have been detected, and that it's more vulnerable if it's stationary on the bottom, and so rises into active mode itself.

The unidentified object responds immediately, turning towards Alpha. Then it accelerates; everybody who knows anything about aquatic operations realises that it's supercavitating. Alpha tries to evade the charge, but fails - and goes offline. Sensors show an expanding mass of debris from the last known position of Alpha (and the evidently hostile object).

Beta's tactical programming is good. It beaches itself promptly, using the bubble trail and collision turbulence for cover.

Jianwei speaks to Kethburger, suggesting that it may still be possible to resolve this incident relatively peacefully, and then, with permission, composes a message addressed to d'Alembert, while the Navy team update their intelligence and generate some better tactical mapping. Vajra notes signs that suggest that the pirate base is now running Web traffic through the Martian satellite network.

D'Alembert responds to Jianwei's requests to talk, although he only provides voice and a still picture (which does match his last known appearance); Jianwei follows the same protocol. D'Alembert seems most interested in political argument, challenging the Americans' right to exert authority here (or for that matter that of the E.U.) and quoting the old-time pirate "Black Sam" Bellamy ("I am a free prince, and I have as much authority to make war on the whole world as he who has a hundred sail of ships at sea and an army of 100,000 men in the field..."), and Jianwei ends up debating politics and law with him. While they are bogged down in this, however, another signal comes in, from a Chinese government official named Kong-Ki Wong, who seems intent on asserting that China has an interest in this incident, and keen to ensure that the US (and the E.U.) do not do exceed their authority under international agreements.

Vajra handles this call, and takes it at face value - but eventually, Jianwei notices the conversation, breaks off his unproductive interaction with d'Alembert for now, and examines the available information. Wong, it seems, is actually only a mid-rank official in one of the Chinese communities in the equatorial region, and his nominal responsibilities don't seem relevant here. Jianwei wonders if his tone and manner actually suggest a personal interest in the incident.

But nothing is happening for now; in fact, the team decide that they may be here for a little while. Jianwei even suggests to Kethburger that the Americans might consider using their orbital mirrors to melt the ice shelf under which the pirates are hiding - but that really is a long shot, as it would not only take some time, it would require redirecting mirrors which are covered by some rather stringent international agreements. So for now, the E.U. team decide to attempt some background research, looking to see who leads the Anne Bonney Memorial Fleet; Web-based probes come up with the name of one "Captain Soraya"...

And while they are discussing this, another call comes in, from one Captain Soraya Claire. She doesn't deny that she leads the "Fleet", or that d'Alembert is their guest; however, she does demand to know what business it is of anyone else who they choose to receive as a guest?

Jianwei responds by listing the charges against d'Alembert - indeed, Claire seems quite interested to learn of these details. She breaks off briefly, evidently to talk to someone at the other end, then goes offline altogether and rather abruptly.

Unfortunately, at this point, it seems that the US Navy team are becoming a little irritable. Some information on recent events, including the destruction of Alpha, has been posted on the Web, under the heading "PIRATES 1, US NAVY 0", and they aren't amused. Jianwei tries pushing a call through to the pirate base, and is acknowledged after a few seconds. He suggests that this post wasn't a good idea; the pirates seem openly amused, but do take the point. However, after a few moments, there are hints of a disagreement at the other end, and then this call too is abruptly terminated.

By now, the team's assessment is that the pirates may be ready to give up d'Alembert, and they run the idea of a deal on that basis past Kethburger, who in turn contacts his superiors. While he is doing so, though, Oppenheimer takes another call from someone elsewhere on Mars. From what the team overhears, they think that caller is trying to strike a bargain on behalf of someone in the pirate base.

All of which might seem moot, though, when that base emits a defiant "Death or Glory!" message, signed as from the whole Anne Bonney Memorial Fleet - and a few seconds later, tactical displays show a swarm of small cybershells charging out from the same location. These look sinister, and the whole party retreats to the vicinity of their boats (and their automated point-defence systems) as a number of explosions echo through the thin Martian air. Meanwhile, Beta goes into semi-autonomous mode and charges the pirate base; some of the miniature shells attack Beta, but they are apparently carrying only small explosive charges, totally incapable of penetrating military-grade armour.

The humans have other concerns, though; their own personal armour isn't quite so good, and the pirate bomb-bots are threatening to overwhelm the Navy's defence systems by sheer weight of numbers. The PCs draw hand weapons and manage to destroy any shells coming for themselves at a safe distance; Lieutenant Kethburger, however, is less fortunate, or maybe less skilled, and suffers serious but non-fatal injuries from a close-quarters explosion. When the situation calms down a little, and Jianwei is applying some first aid to Kethburger, Vajra places an urgent call with Kong-Ki Wong, regretting that the situation now seemed to be escalating and adding a vaguely-expressed wish that it might not decline any further - hoping that this might trip the right levers to get him to try to calm the pirates down a bit. (Although Vajra isn't at all sure that the pirates are still in control).Wong in turn declares that he will contact his connection within the pirate base immediately.

This leaves Florence free to follow up Beta's charge, and although she restrains her enthusiasm enough to get permission first, she undertakes to see what's going on inside the base. Vajra in turn heads in behind her, ready to take up a position at the entrance to the Faraday-caged space as a communications relay.