Dark Space Universe (Books 1-3): The Third Dark Space Trilogy (Dark Space Trilogies)

by Jasper T. Scott

Atara did so.

  “Good. Now go to bed, honey.” Tyra stood up and walked away.

  “Okay...”

  “Goodnight, Atty,” Lucien said from the door.

  “Goodnight, Daddy. Goodnight, Mommy. I love you.”

  “Love you, too,” Tyra replied.

  Lucien didn’t say anything.

  Still mad about the broken finger? Atara wondered, and smiled to herself. The door swung shut again, and Atara breathed out a sigh. That was close....

  Chapter 42

  Astralis

  “You and I both know she wasn’t watching cartoons,” Lucien said.

  Tyra gazed down on Theola, reticent to tear her eyes away from their youngest daughter. She and Lucien had come up to check on her right after leaving Atara’s room. Thankfully she was fine. Slowly, Tyra turned to face her husband. “Then what was she doing?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”

  “How?”

  Lucien smiled, then glanced around quickly, as if to make sure Atara hadn’t somehow snuck in behind them. He walked up to the door and touched the keypad. Tyra heard the deadbolt slide into place.

  “Lucien?” she prompted.

  He turned back to her and answered in a whisper, “Ever since Atara tripped me, I used the parental controls on her ARCs to enable monitoring. All I have to do now is check the history to see what she’s been doing.”

  “What if she found out?”

  Lucien shook his head. “If she knew I was monitoring her, then she wouldn’t have been using her ARCs to do whatever she was doing. She would have known to be more careful.”

  “But if you use your ARCs to access hers, and someone in the Resurrection Center is monitoring you, then they’ll know we’re suspicious of her,” Tyra said.

  “We’ll log in from our holoscreen,” he said, nodding to the screen at the foot of their bed. The screen was innocuously disguised as a famous painting—Passing the Torch—that depicted one sun rising over a purple sea just as another one set.

  Lucien waved the screen to life and the painting disappeared, replaced by a hub of available applications. He selected the browser application and summoned a holographic keypad to type in an address. The keypad was safer than using his ARCs right now. A login screen appeared with the title, Monitoring for Atara Ortane, and Tyra watched him type in his credentials. That done, an account summary with various tabs appeared. Lucien used his finger to move a floating cursor and select the tab titled Activity Log.

  “Well, well...” he said, shaking his head. “Cartoons my ass. Look at this.” He pointed to the most recent lines of the log.

  Tyra walked over to look, and promptly gasped. “She sent a message to Chief Councilor Ellis?”

  Lucien nodded slowly. “I guess that settles any doubts we may have had about them. Let’s see...” Lucien selected the message to see what Atara had sent.

  “It’s an audio log from her ARCs,” Tyra said. “She told him to listen to it. What did she overhear?”

  Lucien looked at her. “Us. Talking in the living room.”

  “But we weren’t talking about anything...” Tyra trailed off, remembering.

  “You mentioned Wheeler, and Coretti, and the Res Center, and I mentioned the banquet. We may as well have called Ellis and told him what we’re planning.” Lucien keyed the log for playback and dialed down the volume to make sure Atara didn’t wake up. What they heard on the log only confirmed their fears. Atara had heard everything.

  “It’s over,” Tyra said. “Ellis will have security officers here to arrest us by morning.”

  Lucien nodded slowly. “Probably. Or even tonight.”

  “Can’t we use this to incriminate them? What would our daughter be doing talking to the Chief Councilor?”

  “It’s odd, I’ll give you that, but Ellis could explain it easily enough. He could say he suspected we were planning some kind of terrorist plot and so he used our own daughter to spy on us.”

  “But why Ellis? Why not get the cops involved?”

  “Because I’m a cop,” Lucien said. “Ellis will say he didn’t trust the ship’s security forces to catch one of their own.”

  Tyra could feel her eyes drifting out of focus. Her heart thudded in her chest, and blood rushed in her ears. “What are we going to do?”

  “We’re going to break into the center now. Tonight.”

  “But the banquet—”

  “Is no use to us now.”

  “What about the plan to get in with a maintenance worker? It’s the middle of the night!”

  “You’ve never heard of 24-hour repairmen?”

  “Lucien—Wheeler won’t be able to help you.”

  “You don’t know that. Try and call her. If you can’t reach her, then we’ll just have to go in blind.”

  “And what am I supposed to do? Sit here and pray to Etherus that you pull this off?”

  Lucien nodded. “Can’t hurt.”

  “Lucien, I was being serious.”

  “So was I.”

  Tyra frowned.

  “Stay here with Theola, and whatever you do, don’t let Atara find out that Brak and I are gone.”

  “What if she gets up and goes to look in on Brak?”

  “I’ll lock his door before we leave, and if you lock yourself in here, too, then even if she starts wandering around in the middle of the night, she won’t figure out we’re missing until morning. Hopefully by then this will all be over.”

  Tyra frowned. “There has to be something else I can do.”

  “There isn’t.” Lucien went to her walk-in closet, and she followed him there. He dropped to his haunches in front of their safe and typed in the key-code. Locking bolts thunked as they slid aside, and Lucien opened the safe. He withdrew the three cloaking comm units that Coretti had provided. He fitted one over his ear and then waved a hand over it to make it disappear. Then he handed her another one, and pocketed the last for Brak. Tyra fitted hers to her ear as Lucien had done.

  I’ll let you know once we’re in position, Lucien said via a text-only message. If security arrives looking for us before then... stall them.

  Tyra nodded. That was the only useful thing she could do at this point. I’ll do my best. Be careful.

  I will. I love you, he replied, and kissed her quickly on the lips.

  Love you, too, Tyra texted back. She followed him through their room and watched as he unlocked the door and left.

  After a moment of staring at the shut door in shock, Tyra went and locked it via the keypad; then she composed another text message—

  Commander Wheeler, come in!

  She waited a few seconds, and then tried again. Wheeler, this is Councilor Ortane, I need to speak with you urgently!

  But no reply came.

  ***

  Astralis

  Lucien and Brak went straight to the Crack of Dawn, hoping to find Joe Coretti there. They got lucky, but Joe wasn’t amused about the change of plans.

  “That little brat mentioned my name?”

  “Technically my wife did.”

  Joe scowled. “Security will be swarming around here soon thanks to her. I wasn’t planning to join you in the Res Center, but now I have to.”

  “You’re coming with?” Lucien asked.

  Joe nodded. “You think I’m going to stick around here waiting to get arrested as an accomplice in your plot? Frek that.” He jumped up from his throne-shaped chair and snatched a still-smoldering glow stick from the ashtray beside him. He waved over his shoulder for them to follow. Bob the android waited for them to go first.

  “What about the rest of the team?” Lucien asked.

  “I’ll get them to meet us along the way,” Joe mumbled around his glow stick. He led them through a bedroom with rumpled sheets and holocorders sitting around on charging pads, to a big ornate walk-in closet with black, mirrored cabinets and gold trim. Joe walked straight to the back of the closet and opened one of those cabinets. Dozens of expensive suits hung in
side, but Joe pushed them aside and waved his hand over the wall behind them. At that, a recessed door appeared and slid aside. Joe walked through and lights snapped on, revealing another type of closet, this one stocked with racks of weapons. Lucien and Brak followed him in, while Bob stayed to guard the entrance. The android was already wearing a pair of bulky pulse pistols.

  “What’s your preference?” Joe asked, standing in front of a rack of automatic rifles.

  “We’re infiltrating the center through ducts, so small is better.”

  “If you say so,” Joe snorted, and grabbed one of the rifles for himself. He pointed to another rack filled with pistols, and Lucien walked over there.

  Lucien was busy examining an automatic stun pistol when Joe came over and took it from him. “You planning to stun the Marine bots when they come for us?” Joe put the pistol back on the rack and removed a laser pistol and two spare charge packs.

  Lucien accepted the weapon with a frown. Joe passed him a twin-holster gun harness, and Lucien belted it around his torso. “What about live personnel at the center? We can’t kill them.”

  “Why not? They won’t stay dead. It’s just a longer-acting form of stun.”

  Lucien eyed Joe. “We’re not killing anyone. We’ll never get out of going to the corrections center if we leave a trail of bodies behind us.”

  “Fine,” Joe said, and passed the automatic stun pistol back.

  Lucien slipped it into the other holster. “If we do this right, we shouldn’t have to use our guns at all.”

  “Sure, you keep thinking that,” Joe said, and patted the rifle hanging off his shoulder.

  Lucien turned to look for Brak and found him examining a rack of swords and knives.

  “You like those?” Joe asked, strolling over to the Gor.

  Brak picked a pair of razor-shielded swords from the rack and held them up to the light to examine the mirror-smooth blades.

  “They aren’t going to be much use without armor,” Lucien said. “You’ll never get close enough to use them.”

  Joe bent to retrieve a bulky belt and vest from a shelf below the melee weapons—a personal shield. He handed the pieces to Brak. “This should help.”

  Brak put down the swords and donned the pieces of the shield. The vest wouldn’t close, but he cinched it shut with the belt.

  “Does it work?” Lucien asked, eyeing the setup skeptically.

  A loud pop sounded, and the air shimmered around Brak.

  “Looks like it does,” Joe said, and grabbed a matching vest and belt for himself. Lucien took another and tested the shield as Brak had done, activating it via his ARCs. His augmented reality contacts weren’t connected to the ship’s network, so he decided he could probably risk using them to make short-ranged connections with other devices.

  “We’d better get out of here,” Joe said. “We’ve taken too long as it is. Grab some grenades before you go.”

  Brak deactivated the shield and collected a pair of belts and scabbards for the razor swords he’d chosen. He strapped them crosswise across his back and went to get a stun pistol for his waist.

  “We’re ready,” Lucien said, turning to Joe.

  “If you say so,” Joe replied, his nose wrinkling at their modest choice of weaponry. He led the way out, back through his clothes closet and bedroom, through his throne room, for lack of a better word, to an elevator beside the stairs. The elevator opened immediately and they piled in. Bob walked in last, and Joe selected P1 from the floors listed.

  A split second later, they walked out into a parking garage filled with sporty-looking hover cars. Joe walked by all of them to a hover van marked with a generic utility company logo. He waved the doors open as they approached and they climbed in. Lucien and Brak sat facing Joe and his android, Bob. Joe gave directions to the driver program, indicating another night club—presumably where they were going to meet Fizk and Guntha.

  The van’s engines rumbled to life, and then it drove out of the parking lot, up a ramp, and through the public parking area behind the club. From there they joined the alley that Lucien and Brak had driven down all of half an hour ago.

  Seedy bars and clubs flashed by the windows in a neon-colored blur.

  “You look nervous, Lucy-lu.”

  Bob the android wore a blank expression, but Joe was smiling like he didn’t have a care in the world. “And you look too calm for someone who’s making an impromptu assault on the most secure facility on Astralis.”

  Joe shrugged and turned to look out the side window as the van rolled to stop outside a busy-looking bar. They hadn’t even reached the end of the alley yet.

  Two men were waiting on the curb. Joe waved the door open for them and they climbed inside. Guntha sat beside Lucien, elbowing him in the ribs to make him shove over, while Fizk, the demolitions expert, sat with a scowl beside Joe.

  “What the frek, Joe?” Fizk said. “The op isn’t supposed to be for another three days!”

  Joe jerked his chin at Lucien. “Lucy’s brat ratted us out.”

  “A narc just like her daddy,” Fizk sneered.

  Joe ordered the van to take them to the Res Center and it raced down the alley once more.

  “The Faros got to her,” Lucien explained.

  “Sure...” Fizk drawled.

  Joe elbowed him in the ribs. “Shut up and listen. Skullman—” Brak hissed and bared his teeth. “—yeah, you,” Joe said. “You’re going to cut the power to the center’s ventilation system.”

  “Why Brak?” Lucien asked.

  “Because none of us can pull off that disappearing act of his. Now listen up, Skulls, it has to look like an overload, not sabotage, so you need to wire in a capacitor—we call it a spike. That will generate the power surge. The spike will dump its charge automatically after you hook it up. All you have to do is match the colors of the wires and splice them together. Don’t let the wrong ones touch or you’ll be the one who gets overloaded. You think you can do that, Skulls?” Brak hissed, and Joe looked to Lucien. “Is that a yes?”

  Lucien smiled. “Close enough.”

  “All right. I’m going to get you close to the center, but you’ll have to find your own way in.” Joe produced a palm-sized holo projector and placed it on the floor of the van. He waved it to life and browsed through a list of files until he found the one he was looking for.

  A 3D schematic of the center appeared, and Joe zoomed in on the lowermost levels where the center’s dedicated reactor lay. He selected a maintenance corridor and indicated a particular set of conduits. “These three conduits power the center’s climate control system. You’ll have to overload all three to take down the power to the ducts. Once you’ve done that, all those servers in the records room are going to start getting real hot, real fast. It’ll trip an alert, and they’ll call for a maintenance crew.”

  “What about hacking into the center’s comms?” Lucien asked.

  Joe waved his hand to dismiss that concern. “Already done.”

  “How?” Lucien demanded. “You only shared the plan with me earlier today. You’re telling me you hacked in sometime in the past few hours?”

  Joe just looked at him. “I’m a fast worker.”

  Lucien didn’t buy that for a second. They either had someone working inside the Res Center or else they’d hacked into the center’s comms a long time ago already. Either way, it implied that Coretti’s plan to infiltrate the center wasn’t an old, discarded idea, but a current one. Tyra was right: Joe definitely had his own agenda for getting into the center.

  “Moving on...” Joe said as he zoomed the schematic back out. “The rest of us will be waiting in this alley here.” He pointed to one side of the center. “As soon as Guntha gives us word that he’s deactivated the security system in the vents, we’ll sneak in and make our way to the records room.”

  “What about Brak?” Lucien asked.

  “I’m sure Skulls can find his own way out.”

  “No, I mean, isn’t he going to join us
in the ducts?”

  “I don’t see how,” Joe said, and eyed Brak speculatively. “He’s too big to fit.”

  “If all I do is disable the power, then why do I bring weapons and a shield?” Brak demanded.

  Joe shrugged. “Come back here and guard the getaway car.”

  “We won’t need a getaway car,” Lucien said. “Once we find what we’re looking for, they’ll realize why we had to break into the center, and we’ll get to walk out the front doors—unless you’re planning to commit some real crimes while we’re there...?”

  “I just like to know we’ve got our asses covered. You all clear on your jobs?”

  Everyone nodded except for Fisk. “You have the bomb?”

  Joe nodded over Lucien’s shoulder. “It’s in the back.”

  “Good.”

  Joe waved away the holographic schematic and pocketed the projector once more. That done, he withdrew a handful of glow sticks from another pocket and passed them out.

  “For luck,” he said, holding one out to Lucien.

  “No thanks. I’ll make my own.”

  Joe smirked and settled back against his seat. He squeezed the butt, and the stick lit itself, glowing blue-white all along its length and smoking from the tip.

  Soon Lucien and Brak were choking on clouds of sweet-smelling smoke.

  Ten minutes later, the van stopped, having arrived at its destination. Lucien waved the door open and scrambled out. His head was spinning so badly that he actually fell in the alley on his hands and knees.

  Behind him, the gangsters all burst out laughing.

  “What the frek is in those sticks?” Lucien asked.

  “I told you it was a good batch,” Joe replied, still chuckling. “Skullman, you’re up. You wearing your comms...? Good. Guntha pass him the spike.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Behind you. Reach around... there you go.”

  Lucien recovered to the point that he could climb to his feet without fear of falling again. He turned to see Brak getting out of the van. The Gor stepped on Joe’s foot as he left, and the gangster cursed viciously and punched him on the thigh.

  “Oops. Sorry,” Brak said as he came to stand beside Lucien. He didn’t appear affected by the glow smoke.