The Lo'Mak was long gone now.
Over the two months 'Black Mouse' had been doing what she was great at, being a ghost.
She had been unloaded by the dockhands in orbit after the Lo'Mak had arrived around Beta, a whole hour late. Then she'd left her crate and rerouted it to leave the system as a used resource, so no one would suspect a completely empty packing container.
From there it had been to the ducting and maintenance corridors, narrowly avoiding a Gorn two man worker crew once. That had proven the odor secretion inhibitor innoculation was working correctly, for once.
She'd installed the subspace piggyback device that had been feeding the intelligence databases back at Valhalla. She'd sent off a report of the station and what she'd observed, then "booked" herself a flight down to the planet with a little spacewalk and a magnetic coupler.
Of course that had been a last resort, after the MACOs had Skyjumped down to the surface security had been tightened. But by simply running the nice, little, subtle diagnostic program that retuned the sensors to allow her to hug the side of the atmospheric shuttle, the ride had been beautiful.
Once planetside, and another piggyback installed in the port authority system, she began moving away from what was the large port city to the main capital 451 kilometers away. Hugging the underbelly of runner vehicles, sleeping for minutes at a time sometimes.
Now, weeks later, she was finally where she wanted to be.
KDF HHB (Headquarters/Headquarters Battalion). More specifically a rarely used maintenance alcove in a highly efficient (and therefore rarely checked on) section of the complex. She had her surveillance and detection nets set up so no one could get the drop on her, backup nets in case they were looking for her, and various escape routes if they made it within 25 meters.
That had been 12 days ago.
Now she rifled through the intel, again packing it up and beaming it through subspace along the same data paths the Klingons were using to send information to their own ships and bases.
But once it got within range no one could distinguish who the sender or recipient was until they had the information.
Her main goal was to eventually locate the Poighet leadership, or what was left of it. But right now she was much more valuable where she was.
Then something caught her eye. Someone was accessing a subdirectory she'd yet been unable to get to, so she again subtlely slipped in with them and started mining.
She paused for the first time in days, though only for a split second.
Her fingers were flashing as her back straightened, her focus solely on her task. The mine designated as "2", wasn't what it seemed.
"Operation Sinkhole," Tracy said outloud as she copied, bundled and beamed the information out-
"Shit," she said, yanking the cables out of the access panel. Suddenly alarms were going off at every one of her observation posts, then the auxiliary ones were going off. She threw her kit on her back and activated her on-board stealth system, just as they rounded the corners to her left and right.
She leaped up and grabbed hold of the piping above her head, lifting her feet up and on top, the rest of her camouflaged body following.
First one squad of six, then two squads, then over forty of the enemy were directly below her, pulling out scanners and detectors all designed to find her. She stayed still, not wanting to betray any noise of any kind, keeping her breathing level and steady as well.
But it was warmer at the ceiling. She didn't realize she was sweating until she saw the bead run down the pipe she'd laid her head on. By the time she'd wiped it up, carefully, a Gorn Lieutenant's tongue caught the scent.
"Intruder!" he yelled as she popped the smoke grenade and dropped it, immediately tossing two more in either direction down the corridor.
As the first one exploded she hit the floor, running for all she had.
It was a hail mary, she knew, and when one of the Gorn officers backhanded her, the emptiness of her lungs as she hit the ground solidified it.
Another pounced on where the sound of her impact had come from, but she still managaged to roll out of the way, pulling phaser and killing him outright as another grabbed her from behind.
She snapped her head back, breaking the nose of the Klingon warrior and cutting through the back of her hair and scalp.
A fist slammed into her midsection from an Orion male, well over two meters tall, and snapped a couple ribs, making her cry out.
An assault proceeded, the KDF soldiers hitting, kicking, yelling.
By the time the head of security got down to the maintenance levels, Black Mouse was barely recognizable.
"Get that package to Intelligence, now!" Gen. Orlor commanded, a younger Klingon snatching it up and running away, talking into a communicator.
"And as for you, Tracy Wellingford, you and I have much to discuss."
_________________ Semper Paratus - Always Ready Semper Invictus, Semper Vigilans - Ever Invincible, Ever Watchful
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