On a mecha. That changed things. That put everything back in the realms of stuff he'd been trained for. Rick knew how to take out mechas, and, thank goodness, it didn't involve landing and trying to figure out how to get through a forcefield on foot.
He strode back to his console, vaguely aware that he was smiling. "Prepare for orbital boost. G-8, we're going to need to jump in behind the mecha - can we do that?"
Dylan checked something. "Lunar Lagrangian, and cut it short? It's the right direction. How accurate do you need it to be?"
"Provided we end up inside that hyperbolic curve, not accurate at all. Why do we have to cut it short?"
"Lunar orbit's a long way out. We only want to go a tenth of that, or even less, and there aren't any jump-points where we need one. The only way I know to do that is to make a longer jump in the right direction and kill the jump-drive early."
"Wait," said Paula, "we're going to jump through the forcefield? How do we know that will work?"
"We already did it," Rick said. "Tell me if I'm wrong."
"You're not wrong," said Jenny. "We were pretty close to the mecha on the jump home, actually. We went through the forcefield twice, both sides of the curve. I... I wish I hadn't thought about that." Her voice shook.
"It's done. Compartmentalise."
"Yes, Commander."
He could hear her using their standard relaxation breathing techniques. She was doing fine. Probably because she had no idea just how far from a standard mission this mess was. He'd never flown a mission involving more than two jumps. He knew it was possible to cut a jump short, but he'd never been on a ship doing it.
He could tell Dylan as much, but then they'd still have to do it, with their jump-pilot thoroughly unnerved. No, he'd discuss something else with him. No matter how good their information was, how sure he was that there was a mecha up there and it was his job to take it out, he couldn't leave ISO USA like this, a sitting duck target. But with the main gate compromised, there was no way he was going to assume that the skeleton flight crew on the other side of the base was to be trusted.
"G-8," he said, "the other local ISO facilities. How many of them have airfields?"
Dylan half turned, visibly thinking. "The orbital launch site's probably the closest."
"With fighters. Someone we can put on patrol here while we go investigate Jen's other focus."
"Oh. Parker's closest, they may have something... no, wait, Armstrong-Tracy. They have Z-17s. Nykinnen's trying to get me some experience there, since I won't be getting it with Team Three any time soon."
"That'll do." Rick turned in his seat to face his comm-tech. "G-9, I need an encrypted radio link with Armstrong-Tracy. I need it to not go anywhere near that compromised ISO network. Voice only and if it's a poor connection, that would be ideal."
"On it." Not a hint of uncertainty in her voice. Rick only wished he felt as confident. Too late now. He was committed, and as she nodded, he took a deep breath, opened the comms channel from his console, and tried to remember everything he'd ever been told about voice impersonation.
"Armstrong-Tracy, this is Galaxy Security Actual. I need your standby pilots in the air now under my command. Acknowledge and go silent."
A long pause. They'd be confirming that the codes running alongside the voice transmission were indeed today's, and, he hoped, doing what he wanted without stopping to consider who Galaxy Security Actual was - or wasn't - right now. He did not want them second-guessing anything, discussing it over the airwaves, or contacting ISO itself for confirmation of a bizarre order from a brand new commander.
"Acknowledged." And the line went dead.
So far, so good. "G-7, tell me when they're in the air."
"One taxiing now," said Dimitri. "One still... no, firing engines. Screen three."
"G-9, I want an open Z-17 air-to-air channel. Not too clear."
"Yes, Commander."
The light flashed on his console seconds later. All ready, just as soon as Armstrong-Tracy's pilots got their act together. How long were they going to take? As scrambles went, this one was decidedly unimpressive. But the first plane was, finally, accelerating down the runway, and the second followed in short order, soaring into the sky and swinging onto a standard holding pattern over the base. He gave them another minute to sort themselves out, and then opened the channel.
"Armstrong-Tracy Z-17s, Galaxy Security Actual. You'll be flying deep surveillance patrol centred on ISO USA until countermanded by me. Codeword is Foothold. Report to me only."
"Foothold protocol confirmed," crackled back over the radio, and the line went dead. Nothing from the second pilot, but on a quiet Sunday afternoon it was highly likely that he was a trainee who didn't know Foothold protocol - the set of instructions you followed when you believed that your command structure was compromised - from a hole in the wall. The lead pilot knew, and that was good enough.
"Foothold?" said Dimitri. "Do you think so?"
"I'm guessing what's going on inside that forcefield and I hope I'm wrong. But even if I am, it gets those planes doing what I need them to do without lengthy explanations." On the screen, the two Z-17s had broken off from their holding pattern and were heading towards the coast some way south of them, standard double aircraft patrol formation. Not too close to ISO itself, nothing to draw attention, but close enough to notice if anything odd happened. If they did report something... well, he couldn't worry about that now. It could be anything. He had enough to worry about with the theoretical focus point in high orbit above them. If it wasn't there, he had no idea what he'd do next. And having no idea meant it wasn't worth worrying about until it became relevant.
"Sound off," he said, and listened to his crew doing something standard, that they'd practiced, that had an expected outcome, that he understood. Maybe fate would even things out and their next ten missions would be easy. For now, he'd just keep on doing his best with what fate had given them this time.
They finished preparations, and he leaned back in his seat. "G-8, take us up."
He's blindfolded. He can't see you're wearing jeans and a T-Shirt, and it makes no difference that you couldn't go through jump right now. As the goon stirred and groaned, Jason took a deep breath and told himself that it was time to be the Condor.
"Put him in that chair," he ordered. Quiet menace had always been his technique - that plus the generic American accent he always used in birdstyle would identify him to even the dimmest goon, surely.
One of Grant's men looked beyond startled. The other moved to do as he was told, with a sharp "yes, sir!" The goon was dumped unceremoniously on a chair, and Jason contemplated what he needed to ask. He hadn't a clue. Keyop might know, though.
"Move and I'll break your neck," he said. "Tell me what I want to hear and I may let you live. Think about that."
Watch him, he signed to the two guards, and Follow to Keyop, and headed out of the room and round the corner, to a point where they were definitely beyond goon earshot.
"What's going on?"
Keyop looked up at him - not as steeply as it had once been, Jason realised. The kid was growing fast. "Everyone needs to hear this."
"Fine." He raised his voice, Condor accent. "Senior staff, briefing room one, now." Not that any of the people he needed would have heard him, but the security staff were already moving to pass the message on.
"You okay?" he asked Keyop as they headed there.
"Yes, now."
That was all he said, and Jason didn't want to push him. Sending an unaugmented seventeen year old out against multiple squads of goons had been a lousy idea, even if it had been the only option. Keyop had always had absolute faith in his implants, his teammates and his birdstyle, possibly not in that order, and he'd had to go out there without any of them. Not only that, he'd been caught and he'd looked down the barrel of a gun and seen his own death.
"A school enhancement experience?" he asked.
"I figured looking twelve has to be good for something."
"You might need to start using fourteen."
Keyop grinned, even if it was half-hearted. "Seriously?"
"Seriously."