They killed more than seven hundred workers at that lab when the gas was made and escaped the vapor locks. They finally managed it on the third try, but Shadow Force decided it was too dangerous and ordered them to seal away the small quantity they had.”
“Then it’s no mistake the canister was in the crates marked for destruction,” Orion decided. “Somebody on the inside wanted that gas to get to the Splinters.”
“Well,” Vicious sighed, “now they have it. We have to figure out what they plan to do with it.”
“I would take it home to Prime,” Torment said. “Use it to make a statement.”
“Using it on a ship filled with families is a statement,” Orion grumbled. “Do we have any way of detecting the NA-9X?”
Cipher felt all eyes on him. Realizing they expected him to come up with a solution on the fly, he suggested the first thing that came to mind. “We have sensors on the probes for dirty bombs. NA-9X isn’t one on the list of compounds it recognizes, but if we can get the chemical signature, I can manually add it to the program. If we can get more sensors programmed, we can work with the ship’s environmental crew to place them throughout the ship for early detection.”
Orion turned to Vicious. “I’m ordering a stop to all incoming cargo and transport ships. Nothing gets close to this ship without a thorough search. That goes for luggage and personal items, too.”
“We’ll need an emergency action plan,” Vicious replied. “We can modify the shelter in place and abandon ship drills?”
Orion agreed with that idea and added, “Let’s prioritize mates and offspring and figure out a way to shut down ventilation in the family areas to protect them in the event of a gas attack.”
Vicious nodded and looked to Raze. “You need to get the SRU teams ready to deal with a gas attack. Whatever equipment you need, I’ll make sure you get.”
“On it, sir,” Raze promised.
“Cipher, Risk, you stay here and work with Shadow Force,” Orion ordered. “I want preliminary plans on my desk from Shadow Force, SRU and Medical by the end of shift today. Understood?”
After a round of nods and yes sirs, Orion, Vicious, Raze and Venom left. Risk rubbed his tired eyes and sighed before dropping down in the first available chair. “We should get Reckless over here and read him in on the situation.”
Torment scoffed. “Not a fucking chance that Orion gives that asshole clearance to board his ship.”
“Who is Reckless?” Keen hadn’t been on the Valiant long enough to learn all the names of the personnel serving on this ship and the others in the fleet.
“He’s the head of pulmonology on the Mercy,” Risk explained. “He’s one of the few guys in the medical corps who has first-hand experience with mass casualty gas deaths.” He made a face. “He was fresh out of med school and stationed at the R&D lab working on NA-9X. The experience was so bad he asked to be sent to the front lines.” He scratched the back of his head and sighed again. “Reckless is an irritating asshole, but he’s an expert.”
“Does he have clearance?” Keen asked.
Torment groaned and rubbed his face as Savage pointedly ignored him and confirmed the doctor did.
“Then let’s get him over here,” Keen urged. “Pierce?”
Pierce, who had been quietly watching from his guard positioning the door hesitated. He shared a glance with Torment as if to question the wisdom of bringing Reckless aboard the ship.
Savage noticed it and growled, “Do we need to review the chain of command?”
“No, sir,” Pierce said. “I’ll be back with Reckless.”
Glad that Raze had fostered a much more cooperative and friendly environment within SRU, Cipher moved to a console and logged into the air traffic control data for the day Brook had been in the mine. He scanned the data starting from that day to this one and then went back a week before her trip into the mine. “There are no unauthorized ships coming into or out of the planet’s airspace.”
“Anything from the colonies? Something we might have rubber stamped through traffic control without boarding and checking?” Torment moved to the console and leaned down to read the air traffic reports.
“The usual cargo transports from the colonies,” Cipher said, scrolling through the logs. “Everything going out the last forty-eight hours went through The City departure vector. Those are all scanned and logged.” He pointed to the manifest scans attached to each ship’s log. “Everything was tagged and