“Must be they are scared of us,” said Vishal.
“No,” said Sparrow. “They’re just scared of her.”
“Maybe they should be,” Kira muttered.
Sparrow surprised her by laughing so loudly, the sound echoed up and down the hall. “That’s it. You show them.” Even Hwa-jung looked amused.
The hallway led them through all five floors of the shield ring and then, as Kira knew it would, to a maglev car waiting at the end. The car’s side door was already open, the seats inside empty.
From the blackness on the other side of the car, she could hear the whisper of the rotating hab-ring, turning, turning, constantly turning.
“Please watch your hands and feet as you enter,” said the drone, stopping next to the car.
“Yeah, yeah,” Falconi muttered.
Kira took a seat with the rest of them and strapped herself in. Then a musical tone sounded, and from hidden speakers, a woman’s voice said, “The car is about to leave. Please tighten your seat belts and secure all loose items.” The door slid shut with a squeal. “Next stop: hab-section C.”
The car accelerated forward, smoothly and with hardly any noise. It passed through the pressure seal at the end of the terminal and entered the main transit tube that lay embedded between the docking ring and the hab-ring. As it did, Kira felt the cab rotate inward—felt herself rotate—and a sensation of weight began to press her down into the seat. Her arms and legs settled, and within seconds, she felt as if she’d regained her usual number of kilos.
The rotation combined with the acceleration was a weird feeling. For a moment it left her dizzy, and then her perspective shifted as she adjusted to her new down.
Down was between her feet (where it ought to be). Down pointed outward, through the shield ring and away from the station’s hub.
The car slid to a stop, and the door opposite the one they’d entered through popped its seal and retracted.
“Ah. I feel as if I’ve been twisted around a spindle,” said Vishal.
“You and me both, Doc,” said Falconi.
A chorus of clicks as they released their belts, and then they stumbled out into the terminal, still finding their balance on unsteady legs.
Falconi stopped before he’d gone more than a step or two. Kira stopped next to him.
“Shi-bal.”
Waiting for them was a phalanx of troopers in black power armor. All carrying weapons. All aimed at her and the crew. A pair of heavy assault units stood looming behind the others, like blocky giants, bug-faced and impersonal. At intervals between the troopers, turrets had been bolted to the floor. And filling the air with a hum like a million angry wasps was a swarm of battle drones.
The door to the maglev snapped shut.
A voice boomed: “Hands on your heads! Drop to your knees! You will be shot if you fail to comply. MOVE!”
CHAPTER II
ORSTED STATION
1.
Kira wasn’t sure why she had expected anything different. But she had, and the UMC’s behavior left her angry and disappointed.
“You fucking bastards!” said Falconi.
The voice boomed across the terminal again: “On the floor. NOW!”
There was no point in fighting. Kira would just get herself killed. Or the crew. Or the troopers, and they weren’t her enemies. At least, that was what she kept telling herself. They were human, after all.
Kira put her hands on her head and dropped to her knees, never taking her eyes off the soldiers. Around her, the crew did the same, the Entropists too.
A half-dozen troopers rushed forward, boots clanging in a metallic cacophony. The weight of their suits made the deck shake; Kira felt the vibrations through her shins.
The troopers moved behind them and began securing the crew’s wrists with restraints. The Entropists’ also. Hwa-jung snarled when one of the troopers grabbed her arms. For a second she resisted, and Kira could hear the soldier’s armor whine as it struggled against her strength. Then Hwa-jung relaxed and muttered an expletive in Korean.
The troopers dragged Falconi and the others to their feet and marched them off to the side, toward a pressure door that slid open at their approach.
“Don’t let them hurt you!” Falconi shouted back at her. “They touch you, rip off their hands. You hear me?!” One of the troopers shoved him in the back. “Gah! We have a pardon! Let us go or I’ll get a lawyer who’ll tear this whole place down for breach of contract. You’ve got nothing on us. We’re—”
His voice faded away as they passed through the doorway and out of sight. Within seconds, the rest of the crew and the Entropists were gone.
A chill crept into Kira’s fingers, despite the best efforts of the Soft Blade. Once again, she was alone.
“This is a waste of time,” she said. “I need to speak with whoever is in command. We have time-sensitive intel about the Jellies. Trust me, the Premier is going to want to hear what we have to say.”
The troopers moved aside, clearing a path forward, and for a moment, Kira thought her words had had the desired effect. Then the thunderous voice again sounded: “Take out your contacts and drop them on the floor.”
Dammit. They must have detected the contacts when she boarded Orsted.
“Weren’t you listening?” she half shouted. The skin of the Soft Blade tightened in response. “While you’re jerking me around, the Jellies are out there killing humans. Who’s in charge? I won’t do a damn thing until—”
The volume of the voice was enough to make her ears hurt: “You WILL comply, or you WILL be shot! You have ten seconds to obey. Nine. Eight. Seven—”
For just a moment, Kira imagined pulling the Soft Blade over herself and letting the troopers shoot her. She was pretty sure the xeno could protect her against all but the largest of their weaponry. But if the fighting on Nidus was anything to go by, the largest would be more than enough to hurt her, and then there would be the consequences for Falconi and the rest of his crew.…
“Fine! Fine!” she said, tamping down her anger. She wasn’t going to lose control. Not now, not ever again. At her urging, the Soft Blade returned to its normal relaxed state.
She reached for her eyes, hating that she was once again going to lose access to a computer.
Once the contacts were on the floor, the voice returned: “Hands back on your head. Good. Now, when I tell you, you’re going to stand up and walk to the other side of the terminal. You will see an open door. Go through that door. If you turn to the side, you will be shot. If you try to go back, you will be shot. If you lower your hands, you will be shot. If you do anything unexpected, you will be shot. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Walk now.”
It was awkward, but Kira got to her feet without using her arms for balance. Then she started forward.
“Faster!” said the voice.
She quickened her pace, but not by much. She’d be damned if she was going to run for them like a server bot programmed to obey their every word.
The battle drones followed her as she walked, their incessant buzzing as maddening as a headache. As she passed the troopers, they closed in behind her, forming a wall of iron, blank and impassive.
At the far end of the terminal was the open door the voice had promised. Another group of troopers waited for her on the other side—a double row of them standing with their weapons trained on her.
Keeping to the same measured pace, Kira left the terminal behind and walked out into the concourse beyond. It was a large chamber (decadent almost with its extravagant use of space), lit by bright panels embedded in the ceiling, which made the whole chamber appear to be bathed in Earth-norm sunlight. The light was needed too, for the walls and floor were dark, and that darkness gave the room an oppressive feel, despite the brightness of the illumination.
As elsewhere, all the doors and passageways leading out of the room had been sealed off, some with freshly welded plates. Benches, terminals, and a few potted trees
were distributed in a grid throughout the area, but what really caught her attention was the structure in the very center of the concourse.
It was a polyhedron of some sort, perhaps three meters tall and painted army green. Surrounding it and separated from it by the width of a hand was a wire framework that exactly matched the polyhedron’s shape. A host of thick metal disks (each about the diameter of a dinner plate) were attached to the framework, arranged so the empty space between them was minimized. Every disk had a panel on the back with buttons and a tiny glowing display.
Within the facing side of the polyhedron was a door, and the door stood open. The polyhedron was hollow. Inside was a single chamber so dim and shadowy she couldn’t make out the details.
Kira stopped.
Behind and above her, she heard the troopers and the drones stop as well.
“Inside. Now!” said the voice.
Kira knew she was testing their patience, but she paused a little longer, savoring her last moment of freedom. Then she steeled herself and walked forward and entered the polyhedron.
A second later, the door slammed shut behind her, and the dark confines rang with what felt and sounded like her death knell.
2.
Several minutes passed, during which Kira listened to the troopers thudding about as they shifted equipment into place next to her prison.
Then a new voice sounded outside the door: a man with a rough, burred accent so thick she wished she still had her overlays to provide subtitles.
“Ms. Navárez, can you hear me?”
His words were muffled by the walls, but she could hear well enough. “Yes.”
“My name is Colonel Stahl. I’ll be debriefing you.”
Colonel. That wasn’t a navy rank. “What are you? Army?”
A brief hesitation on his part. “No, ma’am. UMCI. Intelligence.”
Of course. Same as Tschetter. Kira nearly laughed. She should have guessed. “Am I under arrest, Colonel Stahl?”
“No, ma’am, not as such. You are being held in accordance with article thirty-four of the Stellar Security Act, which states—”
“Yes, I’m familiar with it,” she said.
Another pause, this time as if Stahl was surprised. “I see. I realize your accommodations aren’t what you were expecting, Ms. Navárez, but you have to appreciate our position. We’ve seen all sorts of crazy stuff from the nightmares over the past few months. We can’t afford to trust the xeno you’re carrying.”
She bit back a sarcastic response. “Yes, alright. I get it. Now, can we please—”
“Not quite yet, ma’am. Let me be explicitly clear, lest there be any, ah, unwarranted accidents down the road. The disks you saw on the outside of your cell, do you know what they are?”
“No.”
“Shaped charges. Self-forging penetrators. The walls of your cell are electrified. If you break the current, the charges will detonate and crush you and everything around you into a molten-hot ball less than half a meter across. Not even your xeno can survive that. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have any questions?”
She had lots of questions. A bedevilment of questions. So many questions, she doubted she would ever find enough answers. But she had to try. “What’s going to happen to the crew of the Wallfish?”
“They’ll be detained and interrogated until the full extent of their involvement with you, the suit, and the Jellies is determined.”
Kira swallowed her frustration. The UMC couldn’t really be expected to do otherwise. Didn’t mean she had to like it. Still, there was no point in antagonizing Stahl. Not yet. “Okay, so are you going to debrief me or what?”
“Whenever you’re ready, Ms. Navárez. We have the recording of your initial conversation with Captain Akawe on Malpert Station, so why don’t you begin there and bring us up to date?”
So Kira told him what he wanted to know. She spoke quickly, concisely—striving to present the information in the most organized fashion possible. First, she explained their reasons for leaving 61 Cygni for Bughunt. Second, she described what they had discovered on Nidus. Third, she recounted the events of the nightmare attack. And fourth, she outlined in painstaking detail the offer of friendship Tschetter had conveyed from the rebellious Jellies.
The one thing Kira didn’t tell Stahl was her role in the creation of the nightmares. She’d planned on it. She’d promised Falconi she would. But the way the League was treating her did nothing to engender a sense of charity. If the information could have helped them win the war, then she would have shared it, regardless of any discomfort. But as she saw no way it could, she didn’t.
Afterward, Stahl was silent for so long that she began to wonder if he was still there. Then he said, “Your ship mind can provide corroboration?”
Kira nodded, even though he couldn’t see. “Yes, just ask him. He also has all the relevant records from the Darmstadt.”
“I see.” The terseness of the colonel’s reply couldn’t hide the underlying anxiety. Her account had shaken him, and more than a little. “In that case I’d best look at them immediately. If there’s nothing else, Ms. Navárez, then I’ll—”
“Actually…” said Kira.
“What?” said Stahl, wary.
She took a breath, preparing herself for what was to come. “You should know, we have a Jelly on the Wallfish.”
“What?!”
And Kira heard the rapid drumbeat of troopers running toward her cell. “Everything okay, sir?” someone called out.
“Yes, yes,” said Stahl, irritable. “I’m fine. Get out of here.”
“Yessir.” The weighted footsteps retreated.
Stahl swore quietly. “Now, Navárez, what the hell do you mean you’ve got a goddamn Jelly on the Wallfish? Explain.”
Kira explained.
When she finished, Stahl swore again.
“What are you going to do?” she asked. If the UMC tried to force their way onto the Wallfish, there wasn’t a whole lot Gregorovich could do to stop them, not without taking drastic and most likely suicidal measures.
“… Give Earth Central a call. This is way above my pay grade, Navárez.”
Then Kira heard Stahl walk away, and the clamor of the troopers’ footsteps followed, rising and swelling until the sound broke like a passing wave, leaving her alone in silence.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she said, feeling a certain perverse satisfaction.
3.
Kira looked around.
The inside of the polyhedron was empty. No bed. No toilet. No sink. No drain. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all made of the same green plating. Above her, a small round light provided the only source of illumination. Slits with fine mesh covers edged the ceiling: vents for airflow, she assumed.
And there was her. The only occupant of the strange, faceted prison.
She couldn’t see them, but she assumed there were cameras recording her, and that Stahl or someone else was watching everything she did.
Let them watch.
Kira willed the Soft Blade to cover her face, and her vision expanded to encompass both the infrared and the electromagnetic.
Stahl hadn’t lied. The walls glowed with bluish loops of force, and between the end points of each loop ran a snake of twisting electricity, bright and shining. The leads weren’t built into the walls; it looked to Kira as if the current was coming from the framework that held the shaped charges, flowing through wire contacts dotted across the entire polyhedron. Even the floor glowed with the soft haze of an induced magnetic field.
Over the door and in the corners of the ceiling, Kira spotted several small disturbances in the fields: knot-like eddies that connected to tiny threads of electricity. She’d been right. Cameras.
She allowed the mask to withdraw and sat on the floor.
There was nothing else to do.
For a moment, anger and frustration threatened to overwhelm her, but then she beat them back. No. She w
asn’t going to allow herself to get worked up over things she couldn’t change. Not this time. Whatever was going to happen, she’d strive to face it with a sense of self-control. Things were difficult enough without making them harder on herself.
Besides, coming to Sol had been their only real option. The offer from the Knot of Minds was too crucial to risk delay by trying to pass it along from another system in the League. With all the jamming and fighting going on, there was no guarantee the intel would have gotten through. And then there was Itari; the Jelly was an important link to the Knot of Minds, and Kira needed to be there to translate for it. She supposed they could have just jumped in, transmitted the information to the League, and then jumped out. But that would have been a dereliction of duty. If nothing else, they owed it to Captain Akawe to deliver the Jellies’ message in person.
Kira just wished that she hadn’t gotten Falconi and the rest of the crew tangled up in her mess. That she felt guilty about. Hopefully the UMC wouldn’t detain them for too long. A small consolation, but the only one she could think of at the moment.
A deep breath, and then another as Kira tried to empty her mind. When that didn’t work, she recalled a favorite song, “Tangagria,” and let the melody displace her thoughts. And when she tired of the song, she switched to another, and then another.
Time passed.
After what felt like hours, she heard the heavy tread of an approaching suit of power armor. The armor stopped next to the cell, and then a narrow slot in the door was pulled open and a metal-clad hand shoved a tray of food toward her.
She took it, and the hand withdrew. The cover to the slot clicked back into place, and the trooper said, “When you’re done, bang on the door.”
Then the footsteps withdrew, but not very far.
Kira wondered how many troopers were standing guard. Just the one? Or was there a whole squad of them?
She placed the tray on the floor and sat cross-legged before it. With a single look, she cataloged the contents: a paper cup full of water. A paper plate with two ration bars, three yellow tomatoes, half a cucumber, and a slice of orange melon. No fork. No knife. No seasoning.
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars Page 62