Chaos Vector

by Megan E O'Keefe

  WHAT LIES BENEATH

  Biran sat alone in his room—feet firmly on the floor, back straight—and planned a proposal that would change everything. He tapped the words out painfully, slowly, each letter laid down with care for he knew that this could not come from a place of heart and heat and fear and anger. This must be logical. It must be precise, lest others find the fraying edges and tear it all apart.

  There would be protests. He could already see their arguments forming in his mind. The debate would be drawn out and tedious but none of that mattered, because this must be done. Biran planned to gather all the GC on every single Prime station and, one by one, march them into a room with that system’s Protectorate and make them retract their helmets.

  It was not The Done Thing. Generations of protocol pushed back at him with every word he typed. Alexandra Halston would have never allowed it. There were rules. Systems.

  Halston was dead. And the Keepers were the system.

  Biran had grown wary of systems. He typed the last word and saved the file, stretching his arms above his head to relieve their stiffness. He wouldn’t send the proposal out, not yet. There were huge amounts of planning to do to get himself officially sworn in as Ada’s director. There were still bodies to find. To bury, if there was enough left of them. There was his own expedition through the gate to plan. But when the time came, he would be ready. He had to be.

  Because Hitton had heard voices in the walls of the asteroid station, had seen the ghost of a guardcore moving through her secure network. And, stars damn them all, she had been right. One of Rainier must have been there, seeding panic, and then, finally, the nanite swarm.

  It wasn’t the only problem weighing on Biran’s mind. The guardcore he could push to be revealed. It would be a fight, but the safety of all would override tradition. While they’d been spinning themselves in circles discussing Rainier and all her various plans and claims, one mystery clawed at the back of Biran’s mind, begging for attention.

  Was it Rainier who had wanted Hitton discredited? And why? The more he thought about it, the more everything lined up as a smear job against Hitton. Yes, he had scarcely avoided delivering the speech that would malign her mental health. And yes, he now believed without reservation that Rainier’s false guardcore had been present on the asteroid.

  But they hadn’t needed to reveal themselves to Hitton. They could have stayed hidden, easily, and done whatever it was Rainier had wanted done without being detected. For some reason he couldn’t fathom, Rainier had decided that Hitton needed to be deemed an unreliable source of information. Even Olver had started to believe in her instability.

  “Visitor approaching,” his house AI said.

  Biran scowled at empty air. “Who? Lockdown is on.”

  “Keeper Vladsen.”

  Biran’s tongue felt thick in his mouth. “Let him in.”

  He stood, pulled his robe tight, and made it to his bedroom door as Vladsen wandered in, scanning Biran’s house for signs of life. He startled as Biran let his hand brush against the doorframe, his wristpad scraping the wall. Vladsen’s frown morphed into a miniscule smile.

  “So it’s true. Our director lives in ramshackle walls.”

  Biran looked around his own house and wondered why he never saw how shabby things were until someone else was standing among them. Vladsen was an impossibly slick, modern creature against the wear and tear on Biran’s furniture. All Biran owned was what came with the place, and that was meant to be broken down and reprinted into whatever a Keeper desired later on. Even if he had the credits, Biran wasn’t sure anymore what a home should look like.

  “I’d offer you a drink,” Biran said, “but the dispenser is broken.”

  Vladsen chuckled. “Of course it is. Brought my own.”

  He produced a slim flask from his sleeve and set it down in the middle of Biran’s kitchen table as he sat, precariously, on the very chair Biran had been afraid would break under Anford. Vladsen was a slight man. The legs didn’t so much as creak.

  “Join me?”

  “I…” He trailed off. There were hundreds of things he should be doing. He sat down at the table. “I’m glad you’re here.” He let the word here carry weight, and tried to ignore the stinging in his heart. Biran hadn’t been scheduled to be at the spin-up, Okonkwo had taken that away from him as punishment, but Vladsen had.

  A last-minute threat against Vladsen’s life had made the GC ground him on Ada for his safety. Not unusual for Keepers, but considering the context…

  Vladsen took a long drink and held on to the flask. “You’re wondering if Rainier spared me.”

  Biran wanted to look away, but couldn’t. “You were a favorite of her husband. It stands to reason.”

  “It does, doesn’t it? But I don’t know.” Anguish twisted his features.

  Biran thought back to his proposal to unmask all of the guardcore. “Do you want to know?”

  “Honestly? No. But I need to. Someone else took my place on that podium, Speaker, and I haven’t even had the guts to look up who yet.”

  “We’ll find the truth,” Biran said.

  “And will that make it better?”

  “No. Maybe. I don’t know.”

  Vladsen laughed roughly and took another drink, then pushed the flask across the table to Biran. “Please, there’s frightfully little left, and stars know I don’t need it.”

  Biran drank, coughed, and grimaced as he handed the flask back. “Dios, Rost. This is worse than what we had at—”

  He cut himself off.

  “Rost again, is it?”

  Biran swallowed hard and placed his hands palm-down on the table. “If you’d like.”

  “I would.”

  A flush of heat rose into his chest and cheeks, but it was passing.

  “You’re troubled,” Rost said, gently.

  “I’d be insane not to be.”

  “No… This is something else. Not that—that mad woman’s accusations.” Rost grimaced. “I never dreamed Rainier… Well, how could I? But that’s not the point. We hashed all that out at the meeting.” Light as a whisper, Rost touched the back of Biran’s hand with a fingertip. “Can I help at all?”

  Slowly, Biran shook his head, but he shifted his other hand to cover Rost’s fingertips with his own.

  “No. It’s time to get my own hands dirty.”

  The story continues in…

  Book Three of the Protectorate

  Keep reading for a sneak peek!

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you to my readers, who have come along on this twisting journey with me through the worlds of The Protectorate. I’m a very lucky writer indeed to have you all along for the ride.

  A special thanks to my beta readers, Karen Rochnik, Andrea Stewart, Tina Gower, and Marina J. Lostetter for always having my back and letting me know when I’ve gone off the rails or need more kissing scenes. My work and my life are richer for having you all as a part of it.

  I am a very lucky human to have many dear writing friends who’ve provided great insight and comradeship over the years and during the course of writing Chaos Vector. Thank you to Earl T. Roske, Erin Foley, Trish Henry, Laura Blackwell, Laura Davy, Clarissa Ryan, and Vylar Kaftan for your friendship and support.

  To my Murder Cabin compatriots, Thomas K. Carpenter, Rachel Carpenter, Anthea Sharp, Annie Bellet, and Setsu Uzume, thank you for your friendship and for not murdering me just yet.

  Publishing these books with Orbit has been a real pleasure, and that’s all thanks to Brit Hvide, Bryn A. McDonald, Angeline Rodriguez, Kelley Frodel, Ellen Wright, Nivia Evans, Anna Jackson, James Long, Lauren Panepinto, and my excellent cover artist, Sparth.

  Thank you to my agent, Sam Morgan, who sees the real chaos and handles it all with gusto.

  And, as always, a very special thanks to my supportive husband, Joey Hewitt. Who is still, in fact, not the inspiration for every single character he likes, despite his assertions otherwise.

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  Photo Credit: Joey Hewitt

  MEGAN E. O’KEEFE was raised among journalists and, as soon as she was able, joined them by crafting a newsletter that chronicled the daily adventures of the local cat population. She has worked in both arts management and graphic design, and has won Writers of the Future and the David Gemmell Morningstar Award.

  Megan lives in the Bay Area of California.

  Find out more about Megan E. O’Keefe and other Orbit authors by registering for the free monthly newsletter at www.orbitbooks.net.

  if you enjoyed

  CHAOS VECTOR

  look out for

  THE PROTECTORATE: BOOK THREE

  by

  Megan E. O’Keefe

  Dazzling space battles, intergalactic politics, and rogue AI collide in the third book in this epic space opera by award-winning author Megan E. O’Keefe.

  CHAPTER 1

  Prime Standard Year 3543

  Three Weeks After the Blowback

  Sanda Greeve stood on the deck of the biggest weapon humanity had ever known, and watched live footage of the city of Atrux tearing itself apart. Ninety-seven percent of Atrux, fallen. That was the only number she could cling to, because the actual amount of dead and comatose was too high to comprehend.

  The rest, that 3 percent, had been converted by the ascension-agent. And in their confusion and pain, they rioted across the city, not understanding their own strength, until guardcore—vetted, safe—showed up to capture them or put them down.

  Sanda clutched her blaster like a shield, though the weapon could do her no good. There wasn’t a weapon in the universe big enough to stop what had happened to Atrux. Even her ship, The Light, wasn’t enough. She wasn’t sure anything could be enough.

  “Tell me Anford’s finally recovered footage of the contamination moment,” Sanda asked Bero. Asked her ship.

  “Watching it won’t change anything,” Bero said.

  He was stalling. Warning hackles raised along the back of her neck.

  “Mouthing off isn’t going to stop me. Play it.”

  The video flickered onto the forward viewscreen, though The Light was perfectly capable of displaying any video without the tiniest hiccup. Bero showing his annoyance by inserting a glitch. She almost rolled her eyes, but that’d only encourage him to comment on her irritation, and that wasn’t an argument she wanted to have.

  Because irritation was only scraping the surface. Below the major’s bars on her chest and the sleek confines of her Prime-issued jumpsuit, Sanda boiled with molten rage. Needling her might give the magma within a path to eruption, and not a soul on board The Light had time for her to melt down.

  A guardcore appeared in the footage, slipping through the thin cracks in Prime’s protocols, to secure an unwelcome canister to the additive tank of Atrux’s atmo mix. From that canister, a wave of self-replicating nanites had spread the ascension-agent throughout the city’s ventilation system. Sanda leaned toward the screen, frowning. The armor was right. The weapons were right. The clearances were right. But that was no GC.

  “It’s not Rainier,” she said.

  The Light’s crew shifted uncomfortably. This ship didn’t need a crew to fly, but Bero had gone ahead and given them all seats with consoles they could work if they so desired. They often fiddled with the controls, trying to figure out the inner workings of The Light. Sanda suspected those buttons were little more than placebos, but she hadn’t had the heart to ask Bero outright.

  “We can’t be sure,” Dr. Liao said. “The armor—”

  “Doesn’t disguise gait,” Sanda countered. The doctor pressed her lips shut.

  Sanda couldn’t blame her. She wanted that figure to be Rainier, too. But she’d learned a long time ago that wanting something to be true badly enough to lie to yourself led only to more pain.

  “Bero, can you run a gait analysis?” she asked.

  “Against every person in the known universe?”

  “No,” Arden said. Their voice rasped and they’d gone deathly pale. The word trailed off into emptiness, cut down by a sharp glare from Nox, but Sanda didn’t press. They needed to do this on their own, because neither one of them would forgive her if she pushed for it, even if they already knew it was true. “I have some footage of Jules I can send you.”

  “She wouldn’t do this,” Nox snapped, but he didn’t stop Arden as they tapped on their wristpad, sending the files to The Light.

  “We have to know,” Arden said softly.

  Sanda could see a retort bubble below the surface, but before Nox could get it out, Bero pushed two videos, side by side, onto the viewscreen. In one, Jules Valentine approached Arden’s old apartment building on top of Udon-Voodun. In the other, the guardcore walked through the door into the atmo-mix control room. For the benefit of the humans riding in his belly, Bero allowed graphical points of comparison to run over each figure.

  He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to.

  “It’s her,” Arden said.

  Sanda pushed down a burst of excitement. Rainier Lavaux was an expert at covering her tracks. But Sanda was pretty damn sure Jules Valentine lacked the same skill set. Jules, Sanda could find. From there, she’d leverage her way to Rainier. She doubted Nox and Arden would be as excited about this break as she was.

  “B, get me Anford,” Sanda said.

  “I am not your personal assistant.”

  Sanda rolled her eyes and put a priority call through to her commander. General Anford’s face popped up on the screen in seconds, overriding the footage of Jules. Anford didn’t even blink at Sanda’s unusual crew or the alien deck of The Light. It was amazing how quickly humanity adapted.

  “Greeve, tell me you have something.”

  “The guardcore who released the nanites on Atrux is Jules Valentine.”

  The general’s eyes narrowed briefly. “Not Rainier? You’re sure?”

  “She may have acted under Rainier’s orders, I don’t know, but Bero is certain that the body in that armor belongs to Valentine.”

  “Far be it from me to doubt Bero’s assessment.”

  “Thank you, general,” Bero said. “I have been lauded for my intelligence in the past.”

  Sanda suppressed a smirk. “I intend to pursue. Valentine might know a way to get to Rainier.”

  “I agree. We need her alive, Greeve.” Anford glanced to the side, the corners of her lips tightening. “We need all the information we can get our hands on.”

  Ninety-seven percent. That number was burned into Sanda’s heart. Similar branding stamped pain around Anford’s eyes.

  “I’ll get you answers,” Sanda said.

  “Hold in Atrux. I don’t have a lot to spare, but I’ll send a battalion to you.”

  Slowly, intentionally, Sanda shifted her gaze to the walls of The Light. “General, with respect, I need no other weapons. They would only slow me down.”

  Anford’s jaw flexed as she soaked that in. “Very well. Between Okonkwo and me, you have carte blanche to requisition anything you need. Good luck, Greeve.”

  “Good luck.” Sanda snapped off a tight salute, and Anford cut the feed.

  “You sure we’re going to be enough, commander?” Conway asked.

  “It’s our best shot. Bero, do you have a bead on that GC ship Valentine took off in?”

  “It was last flagged passing through the gate to Ordinal.”

  “Then that’s where we start.”

  Arden swiveled their chair around to look her in the eye. “Rainier made her do this.”

  Sanda met their gaze evenly, peripherally aware of the tension in Nox’s body, the held breaths of everyone on the ship. No one liked hunting down a woman they’d meant to save not too long ago. No one liked acknowledging they’d known, and even cared for, a monster.

 
; Sanda could relate, but that didn’t mean she could make it better.

  “We’ll find her,” she said. “And we’ll ask her ourselves.”

  “Sanda,” Bero said, his voice tense.

  She frowned. “What is it?”

  “The Light has an incoming tightbeam.”

  “Does this ship even have a transponder to point at?”

  “Not… exactly.”

  “Put it through.”

  The viewscreen filled with a face so familiar that if she hadn’t already been propped up on an emotional cocktail of rage and determination, she might have had to sit down.

  His face was sharper than she remembered. New shadows carved troughs beneath his eyes, and thick stubble peppered his jawline. Dark brown hair stuck up under low-g, and over his shoulder, she could make out the sleek geometry of a high-end shuttle. But those grey eyes, they were always the same, if a touch sad.

  “Hey,” Tomas Cepko said. His voice was thin and wary. “We need to talk.”

  “You look like shit,” she said.

  The corner of his eye twitched, then he settled into a small, warm smile. “Nice to see you, too.”

  “Believe it or not,” Sanda said, gesturing to the ship around her, “I’m a little busy.”

  “It’s about the sphere,” Tomas said, his expression completely locked down.

  “How the fuck—?” Nox took a step, as if he could reach through the screen to choke the spy on the other side. She couldn’t blame him for wanting to try.

  “Crew,” Sanda said firmly. “Meet Nazca Tomas Cepko, first-class spy and all-around asshole.”

  His lips thinned, and he flicked his gaze down. “I… can explain my actions.”

  “Really not what I’m worried about right now.”

  “Hello, Tomas,” Bero said.

  Tomas’s eyes widened. He leaned toward the camera, pressing his hands against the console of his shuttle. “Christ, are you in danger?”