Velocity Weapon

by Megan E O'Keefe

  But they didn’t know yet. And he had a speech to give.

  To welcome Sanda home. And to say goodbye.

  CHAPTER 70

  PRIME STANDARD YEAR 3543

  HOME IS FLEETING

  Sanda had only been to Keep Station twice. The first time, she was just a little girl, and the grandeur of the gate anniversary festival had overwhelmed her to such an extent that all she remembered were blurs of color, happy faces, and loud music. The second time, she’d been graduating the academy to take command of her gunship and had been too worried about keeping her wits about her to take it all in.

  Now, she wished she’d had a little time to get used to it before this moment. Keep Station had been a constant in her life, a blip in orbit above the gleam of her habitat’s dome. A smear of light alongside the greater majesty of the Casimir Gate.

  Standing inside it now, it took her breath away. The whole of the station was spun up, layers of rings stacked on top of one another like, well, all Sanda could think of was that they reminded her of doughnuts. But that was probably just because she was desperate for some rich, carby food instead of the nutri-mess and tinned variety she’d been living off of.

  She knew they were rings. Knew that the gravity where she was standing now, on the outer edge, was greater than at the interior where fields for various sports dominated. She’d seen the CamCasts, seen the whole of the station splayed on her screen like an oversized top. But standing in it, she could barely make out the opposite wall, obscured by buildings and parkways, and a clear plex ring that allowed you to view the light shows they often put on in the station’s center.

  Sanda took one long, deep, breath, and savored it. Cooking smells, perfumes, all the bright, green scents of plant life that flourished here on the station. This was humanity at its finest, subsisting on all it loved while traveling between the stars.

  “Smaller than the one at Helios,” Tomas said.

  Sanda punched him in his good arm. “After the accommodations we’ve been dealing with, this is paradise.”

  “But do they have Caneridge?”

  “We can get that for you, sir,” Extra-Stripe said. “Although there are more refined vintages available on station.”

  “See?” Sanda smirked. “Paradise.”

  “Give me the cheap stuff any day. Works just the same.”

  Their escort led them through customs without so much as a nod at the gate agent, a worried little man whose eyes about bulged out when he spotted one-legged Sanda with her entourage. Somebody, it seemed, had been gossiping ahead of their arrival. She wasn’t sure if that was useful or not. It’d make it easier to bully her way around, if she had to, but it’d also make her remarkable.

  A militarily glorified rover awaited them. Its body had been puffed up with extra plastics to look rugged, and its wheels were a good deal thicker than anyone would have a need for on the manicured roads of the station. Typical, Sanda thought as she swung into the backseat next to Tomas. Their escorts took the front, alongside a wisp of a driver who probably just barely scraped through basic training.

  They left the bustle of the station’s common areas, winding upward along narrow paths that climbed the outer wall. About halfway up they passed through a code-locked gate and another ten minutes later passed through a manned checkpoint with a healthy-looking arsenal at its disposal. Maybe it was a good thing they’d been given an escort. Sanda wasn’t sure “Biran’s my brother, I swear” would have gotten her past those gunheads.

  “Here we are,” the driver said, the first words he’d spoken. From the way his voice creaked, they were probably the first words he’d said all day.

  Biran’s house faced the narrow lane, a neat garden taking up the two-meter buffer between his door and the road. Sanda eased out of the rover and stretched, then approached the door and waved her wristpad over the reader. The lights flashed green, and the door slid open into the wall.

  “Welcome to the house of Keeper Biran Aventure Greeve,” a soft man’s voice intoned over the house’s speakers. Sanda resisted an urge to ask the voice how it was doing. Too long chatting with Bero.

  “Do you need anything, Major?” Extra-Stripe asked from the comfort of the rover’s front seat.

  “We’re good here, soldier. Carry on.”

  They turned the oversized rover around, and Sanda waited until they were out of sight to enter the house. Biran’s house appeared to have been decorated by a lazy zen practitioner. It was sparse, as was the style in most spacefaring homes, but the furniture was skewed at random angles and unhealthy splashes of red marred every other surface.

  “Can’t believe papa Ilan let him get away with this.”

  “It’s… unique.”

  “It’s hideous.”

  “I was trying to be kind.”

  “I’m his sister, I don’t have to be.”

  She stepped into the kitchen and squinted at the fridge. Over the drink dispenser, pieces of peeling tape had been slapped across a couple of the flavor options, curling and lint-dirty at the edges as if they’d been there awhile. Frowning, she passed through into the living room, inspecting the tacky furniture a little more closely. His pillows were threadbare, the rugs under nicked wooden table legs stiff from overuse. She prodded a table with her fingertips, and it creaked.

  “He never upgraded anything?” she asked the empty air.

  “Nazca don’t come cheap.” Tomas rubbed sheepishly at the back of his neck. She cut him a look, but reined in her annoyance. It wasn’t Tomas’s fault Biran had sacrificed so much to find her. A lump solidified in her throat and she cleared it, changing tack before she got too bogged down in emotion.

  “What did Biran give you on the dock, anyway?”

  “You saw? Not the smoothest transfer, was it? As long as Lavaux didn’t notice, I think we’re fine.” Tomas opened his hand, and his eyebrows shot up. “It’s a keystick. Looks like it’s for a craft docked somewhere on this station.”

  “Let me see.”

  He handed it off to her, and she whistled low. “This must be for his personal shuttle. These are dock numbers, and the business end here is the encryption key.”

  He rolled his eyes at her. “Yeah. I got that.”

  “Keepers are assigned their own special shuttles,” she elaborated, “capable of passing through the gates from station to station without prearranged clearance.”

  That got his attention. Tomas snagged the keystick back from her and held it up to the light. “He must think we’re going to need to make a quick exit.”

  “Not surprising. Though it is surprising he’d hand over his personal keys. That’ll implicate him big time.”

  “Could claim we stole them.”

  “I suppose their willingness to believe that depends on how valuable Biran is to them currently.” She sighed. “I wish he didn’t have to get tangled up in this.”

  “He passed you something, too, didn’t he?”

  She opened her hand and peered at the little chip Biran had passed her. It reminded her of a thumb drive but wasn’t like any she’d ever used before. It was a smooth, thin metal box, the face engraved with the copper sigil of the Keepers.

  “Any idea what this is?” she held it up to Tomas. He paled.

  “I’ve only seen spec op pictures of those. That’s a Keeper encryption key, what allows them to use their miniMRIs to access the information in their chips. He must want you to have a look at what you’ve got in there.”

  She stared at the chip as if it were a poisonous spider in her palm. The keystick was one thing; they could say they lifted it off of him to keep him from getting in trouble. But the scanner? She wouldn’t even know what to look for to steal from him. Tomas obviously did, as a Nazca, but these things weren’t publicized.

  Official Keeper thinking on the matter was that what the rest of the worlds didn’t know, they couldn’t attempt to abuse. And that meant keeping their own people in the dark, too. The only way you saw this tech was if you were a Keeper.
Or a spy, apparently.

  “There’s no coming back from this. That thing in my head? That’s a Pandora’s box. If you want out…”

  He gripped her arm and lowered his head to look her dead in the eye. “Even if it weren’t for my professional curiosity, I wouldn’t want out. I’m right where I want to be.”

  “Then we’d better find that scanner, and fast.”

  CHAPTER 71

  PRIME STANDARD YEAR 3543

  DAY FORTY-THREE BRINGS MORE QUESTIONS

  Biran’s scanner was hidden behind a press panel in the wall of his bedroom, a recessed closet that boasted no security devices save its placement. The Keepers probably figured the device itself wasn’t worth hiding. If you made it through the checkpoints into a Keeper’s home, or one of the download stations, then you’d also have to have an encryption key, and a chip in your head, to even make the thing work.

  She wondered if they’d change the protocols after this. Certainly, her situation was one they’d never planned for.

  “Dark in there,” she said, because she didn’t know what else to say. The smooth cherry wood of Biran’s wall had slid back to reveal a casket-sized recess, lined in a material so dark and cold to the touch she had no idea what it might be. The setup was deceptively simple. A single smartscreen was inset at eye height, a ledge with handles conveniently placed just below. Alongside the screen, a square hole waited. Its backing was carved with the same Keeper glyph as the chip.

  Step in. Put the chip in. Think the password. Let the scanner do its thing. Then read the results on the screen. Easy.

  So why couldn’t she move?

  “You don’t have to do this,” Tomas said.

  “Yes, I do. If I can’t get this thing out of my head, then I need to know what I’m carrying around.”

  She stepped in. The tab fit perfectly into the slot, a soft hum starting up the moment contact was made. The handles were cool under her palms, and it may have been her imagination, but she thought she detected a slight electric tingle from them. A white light flashed across the smartscreen, a blip like a heart rate wave.

  “Image password,” an indistinct voice said.

  Sanda closed her eyes. Bero had said she’d accessed the chip once before, on board his ship, and when she’d done so he’d been able to glean some information, but only a little. The Icarions weren’t set up to decipher Keeper technology, and according to Bero they hadn’t managed to decipher the information she’d so briefly accessed.

  But all of that wasn’t the password. She breathed, deep and slow, counting her breaths in groups of five as she’d been trained to keep her nerves calm, her body steady, during stressful exercises. Maybe the Keepers got more in-depth training on centering their thoughts, but a little light meditation was all she had to work with. She hoped it’d be enough.

  What was she supposed to image, as the machine instructed? What password would be common to both she and Rayson Kenwick, the supposed original owner of this chip? They lived on different worlds, loved different people, different things. Hadn’t even existed at parallel moments in time.

  So it wasn’t a thing, a person, or a specific place. It had to be a feeling. A visceral pull of emotion, something both had experienced, both could call upon at will.

  Her chest ached, her breath caught. Tomas said something, but it was muffled in the distance. A longing so deep and entrenched she felt it as a growing pain overtook her. She wanted, more than anything on any world, to go home, and back to everything that meant but no longer existed.

  A soft chime. The voice said, “Accessing data.”

  She snapped her eyes open and gasped. A warmth radiated from the back of her skull. Disconcerting, but not uncomfortable. Across the viewscreen, data flowed. Her eyes crossed trying to keep up with it all.

  “Flash to my wristpad, please,” she asked the computer.

  To her surprise, it did so without complaint. Tomas leaned over her shoulder, his breath tickling the little hairs on the side of her neck. “This isn’t a schematic. There’s nothing about building the gates in your head.”

  “I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.”

  “These are…” He squinted. She held her breath. She could practically feel him thinking. “Coordinates?”

  “Are you asking me or telling me?”

  “They’re not like any I’ve ever seen. But, yeah, I think so.”

  “What location is so secure that it needs to be buried in the skull of a Keeper? Especially one, who, according to Biran’s records, has been dead for… what was it, a couple hundred years?”

  “Hell if I know, but nothing good. Or something really good.”

  “Neither of those situations sound appealing.”

  “Agreed.” He dropped his chin onto her shoulder, slipped an arm around her waist, and tugged her against his chest. She tensed, fingers tightening on the handles.

  “Shit, sorry,” he said.

  “No.” She eased her grip, leaned into him. “I’m just wound up. That’s all.”

  He moved away from her anyway, standing a carefully measured distance back as he watched the data stream by.

  The house said, “Keeper Greeve has requested you remember that the gala begins in ten minutes.”

  “Thanks, house,” she said.

  “You’re welcome,” the house replied, but there was no feeling in it. Just the hollow rote of selecting the correct response from a logic tree. Granted, the house AI was probably more complicated than she was giving it credit for, but it was still lobotomized, as Bero had said. She was beginning to miss that big beast looking over her shoulder.

  “Uh,” she said, wondering if the scan unit had a name. “Scanner, finish uploading this content to my pad, then wipe this access from your memories.”

  “Data accessed through this station is not stored.”

  “Well. That’s good, thanks.”

  She shook her head. Bero’s big brain may foster a personality, and the house AI might be more complex than it seemed, but she highly doubted the viewscreen she was looking at hosted little more than a basic voice interface. The Keepers wouldn’t be dumb enough to load up the software that worked on classified information with something that could intuit.

  The scan was busy doing its thing, so she stepped out and searched Biran’s house for whatever supplies he’d sent them. When she found them, a carefully wrapped parcel left on the coffee table, she wished she’d “forgotten” to look instead.

  A navy, silk-like evening gown waited for her in the box, along with a scattering of jewelry that looked as if Biran had wandered through a shop and just grabbed things up by the handful. The gown featured thick straps, all the better to pin a medal on, and a high slit meant to show off her false leg.

  “I’m a show dog.”

  “Better go along with it.” Tomas unfolded a much more sedate suit with hints of Ada blue here and there on the trim. Biran wanted him to blend into the background. So not fair.

  “Easy for you to say. I don’t know why they couldn’t have given me a dress uniform.”

  “Optics, Major. They’ve got a sexy hero on their hands. It’s just good business to show her off.”

  She ignored that bait and dressed quickly, sliding on the single black flat included in the box. Her leg adjusted for the slight height difference automatically. Seemed they’d put more thought into showing off their PR spectacle than dealing with the Icarion threat.

  Biran came through the door, looking harried and tired. He’d put a suit on, but his tie hung askew, his jacket tugging at his shirt around the shoulders. Sanda moved to straighten it all, as she’d done one hundred times before for their fathers.

  “The dads are still delayed,” Biran said with a tight frown, “but we have to leave now. I’ve given instructions to have them brought straight to the event.”

  “What’s the holdup?” She patted his lapels and stood back to check her work. Good enough. At least Tomas knew how to put a suit on and keep it straight. Proba
bly some sort of spy training.

  “The usual. Crowded docks at capacity. Lavaux’s got half the station docks requisitioned for Bero and the staff. Not to mention all the corridors he’s shut down to make sure curious eyes don’t find the ship. Don’t worry. They’ll be there. Did you have any luck with…?” His gaze flicked over her shoulder, toward the bedroom where the scanner was hidden away.

  “Not much,” she lied. “Got it to work, but the information was a jumbled mess. Corrupted, I think. It’s going to take us forever to sort out what it all means.”

  Biran sighed. “A chip that old, I’m not surprised. I guess that confirms it was Kenwick’s. Too bad about the corruption—but I guess you don’t need a random chunk of schematics for gate building.”

  “The corruption doesn’t make the chip’s presence any less of a concern,” Tomas said. Sanda couldn’t tell if he said that for Biran’s benefit, or for hers. She hadn’t warned him she’d planned on lying to Biran. Hadn’t even really embraced the possibility herself until she saw him walk through that door and knew she needed to keep him at arm’s length from what was really going on. For his own protection. Tomas might assume she was claiming the chip was corrupt in an attempt to stay.

  “No, it doesn’t,” she agreed. “A chip’s a chip, and they’ll want it out either way.”

  “I’m afraid you’re right.” Biran tried to smile at her as he squeezed her shoulder, but he just looked pained. Sanda swallowed a sob and threw her arms around his neck, squeezing as tight as she could. He grunted and hugged her back hard enough to lift her feet off the ground, his face pressed against her hair. She closed her eyes. Shut them as hard as she could, and dreamed this moment would last forever.

  “Come on,” he said into her hair. “Let’s get a good dinner in you before I have to let you go.”

  INTERLUDE: CALLIE

  PRIME STANDARD YEAR 3543

  SOME DAY FOR A PARTY