Velocity Weapon

by Megan E O'Keefe

  This was just like being on set. A really, really big set. The crush of people crowding the dock to grab shuttles up to the station were just extras. Just crew. They had their part to play, and even if they recognized her, they did so as Callie Mera, journalist. Not Callie Mera the person. No one ever recognized her as herself.

  Breathe. Breathe.

  She relished the click of her heels across the dock as she wove through the crowd, almost wishing she could run to speed up the sound, to make it as quick as her heart. Officials held the line in front of the boarding gates, shooing people away, taking far too long to log idents and shrugging apologetically as their systems were “overloaded” from the turnout today.

  Nonsense, all of it. These systems were automated, smooth as silk, and processing power in the habitat domes was, by necessity, never hard to come by. But these people had been raised to never question authority, and so they grimaced, and waited, and wondered in their secret hearts just what was really going on.

  Most of them would never know the truth. And while Callie was supposed to be a fearless defender of truth—of information—she thought it best that way. Riots got messy quickly in closed systems like habitat domes.

  Two familiar figures stuck out from the crowd, standing off to the side with a dock agent. Graham and Ilan Greeve. They’d been peeled away from the rest of the crowd, expertly sequestered so that their voices wouldn’t carry if they raised them, while keeping them close enough to the core of what was going on so they wouldn’t get too suspicious.

  Callie ran a thumb under the collar of her jumpsuit, squeezed the note bundled in her pocket, and set off at a straight line for them.

  “Excuse me,” she said, mustering up all her beam-for-the-camera cheer, “are you the Mr. Greeves?”

  They turned in unison toward her, the dock agent looking up from his tablet with a surly scowl. Ilan’s eyes lit in recognition, but Graham got the words out first, “Who are you?”

  “You’re Callie Mera, aren’t you?” Ilan said, elbowing Graham lightly. “We watch you with Biran every morning.”

  “I sure am.” She pushed hair back from her forehead and clasped her hands together behind her back. She didn’t shake their hands. She only did that when the cameras were rolling, and she was under enough stress as it was.

  “I’m sorry, miss,” Graham said and settled a protective hand on his husband’s shoulder. “As Ilan told you via chat, we really don’t have time for an interview.”

  “I’m not here to interview you, promise. I have a message from your son.”

  Ilan’s eyes widened. “Biran? But why wouldn’t he just—” Graham’s fingers tightened on Ilan’s shoulder, and he cut himself off as his mind caught up with his mouth. There were a lot of reasons Biran wouldn’t send a message himself. And none of them brokered being said aloud.

  “Maybe we should get out of this man’s way, hmm?” Graham said, glancing over his shoulder to the dock worker, who looked more vexed than he had any right to be.

  “You’ll have to get back into line if you want more help,” the dock worker said.

  “That’s fine,” Graham said. “Come on.”

  Callie tapped a short burst against her thigh with one fingertip as she followed the Greeves away from the crush of people, equally happy to be out of the fray and distressed to be the singular focus of their attention. Especially since Biran seemed to have inherited none of his kind features from Graham. It was taboo to ask which genes were borrowed from which parents, but looking into Graham’s eyes, Callie was pretty sure Sanda had gotten the lion’s share of his half, and most of what made up Biran had come from Ilan.

  “Are they safe?” Ilan demanded, shaking off Graham’s protective hand that had found its way to the small of his back as they’d made their way through the crowd. “Are Biran and Sanda okay?”

  “They’re safe,” she said quickly, revising her estimate as Ilan hooked her with a suspicious glare. “Biran sent me to give you th-this.”

  She handed the note to them, unable to hide the shake in her hands, and Ilan took it with an embarrassed grimace. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  “It’s… It’s okay.”

  She watched their faces as they read the note, short though it was. Ilan’s was as she expected—a hot flush of anger coloring his cheeks. But Graham’s… His frightened her. He went still as old, glacial ice. Callie had made a career of reading the faces of those who sat across from her interview desk. What she saw in Graham’s face made her shiver.

  “I have to get to them,” he said.

  “There’s our supply hauler,” Ilan said. “It’s old but it’s spaceworthy, and on the other side of the dock.”

  Graham nodded. “Perfect. Let’s go.”

  “W-wait.” Callie bit her tongue, hard, and counted down from five. “They’ll notice you’re missing. They’ll come looking for you.”

  “I’ll stay,” Ilan said without hesitation. “Go now, quickly.”

  Graham struggled with this for a second before grunting and dropping his head down to give his husband a warm, deep kiss before he spun around and took off at a light jog.

  Ilan sighed and crossed his arms, watching him until he disappeared out of sight around a corner.

  “Well.” He turned to Callie. “Ready to help me?”

  “With what?”

  He cracked an impish grin. “Graham may be off to save the day, but you and I will make sure he doesn’t get noticed. I’m going to go make a stink about this delay. A stink big enough for the evening news. You with me?”

  A flush of warmth washed Callie from tip to toe. She swiped up the camera mode on her wristpad and turned it around to put her face, reddened and harried, into frame. This was familiar territory.

  “Goooood evening, Alexandria-Ada! This is Callie Mera, on the scene tonight where the shuttle docks planetside are experiencing unprecedented delays. Is it a mechanical failure, or a bureaucratic snafu? Stay tuned while I go find out!”

  CHAPTER 72

  PRIME STANDARD YEAR 3543

  FLEEING CAN BE A DANCE MOVE

  The reception was held at a garden near the Keeper residences, and so far as Sanda could tell, anyone with even the tiniest speck of importance had decided to come. Judging by a couple of haphazard hairstyles, some had decided on short notice. She couldn’t help but scowl. These hangers-on were the reason the docks were congested. The reason she hadn’t seen her dads yet.

  Biran took her on a circuit through the crowd, and she did her best to plaster on a smile and shake the hands of people she didn’t care to know and would probably never meet again. The number of gazes on her shiny new leg felt like a weight, dragging her down. Holding her back.

  A waiter passed with flutes of champagne and she grabbed one, downed it in one gulp. Biran raised his eyebrows at her. “Too much?”

  “I spent the last month or so on a ship, alone, and then had a few weeks of Tomas’s company. Seeing a couple hundred new faces all at once is a bit much, yes.”

  “There are some quiet places to rest over there.” Biran gestured toward a spot where the stone patio trailed off into gravel footpaths that wound into the coverage of a plethora of rosebushes and other species of flora Sanda couldn’t even begin to name.

  “But you can’t wander off, can you?” she asked. He shook his head.

  “Wouldn’t do for the Speaker to go hiding in the thorns. But you’re a special guest here, S. If you want to catch your breath, go. I’ll cover for you.”

  “My hero,” she voiced mockingly. She dropped a kiss on his cheek and turned toward the closest path, dodging well-wishers as politely as she could manage. She snagged another champagne flute off a passing tray but resisted an urge to down this one. She was looking forward to a slow drink, alone. But mostly the alone part.

  Gravel crunched behind her. She half spun, spilling a few bubbles over the rim of the glass. Tomas shoved his hands in his pockets and ducked his head.

  “D
idn’t mean to startle you.”

  “Then why were you skulking after me?”

  “You seem to be enjoying the party,” he said, and for a moment she thought he was deflecting, but no, he just couldn’t say what he really thought. That she was stalling. Spending too much time here celebrating when she needed to be figuring out a way off this station, away from the Keepers who might crack her head open if they discovered her secret.

  “I’d enjoy it more if my dads were here.” She sighed and slumped a little, wiping off champagne-sticky fingers on a broad leaf overhanging the path.

  “They might not make it,” he said carefully.

  “It’s been months for me. Years for them. They’ll make it.”

  He took a step toward her, lowered his voice, “Sanda—”

  “There she is!” a woman’s voice trilled through the bushes. She and Tomas stiffened and drew closer together as they turned to peer down a side path. A woman in a glittery cocktail dress swooped toward them. She, at least, had had forewarning of the gala—her hair was immaculate, her makeup so pristine Sanda genuinely couldn’t tell the woman’s age. She wore no insignia, and Sanda was fairly certain she’d never seen her before in her life.

  “I’m sorry,” Sanda said, extending a hesitant hand to shake. “I’m not sure we’ve met…?”

  “You haven’t,” Lavaux said. He strolled a few steps behind the woman, an old-school cigarette dangling from his lips. “Major Greeve, meet my wife, Rainier Lavaux.”

  “I’m named after a mountain.” Rainier beamed at her and gave Sanda’s hand a vigorous shake, then turned to face her husband with her hands on her hips. “I told you I saw her coming this way.”

  “Never doubted you for a breath, darling.” He breathed out a great cloud of smoke and closed the distance, curling his arm around his wife’s waist. She settled against him with a triumphant smile.

  “Too much humanity for you, Greeve?” he asked.

  “A shock to the system,” she admitted.

  Rainier eyed Tomas. “Who are you?”

  “Now dear, that’s not very polite,” Lavaux chided good-naturedly. “This is Tomas Cepko. He’s a spy, and our little major’s shadow, it seems.”

  “A spy? And you let him run around free like this?”

  Tomas offered an anxious laugh. “I promise you, I’m not all that dangerous, ma’am.”

  “But you are a little dangerous?”

  “No more than the Keeper here, I’m sure.”

  She paled at that. “Lavaux’s just a teddy.”

  Lavaux shook his head as if to say, Can you believe this woman? and gave his wife a squeeze before taking another drag. “Cepko here is a man for hire, currently in the employ of Speaker Greeve, isn’t that correct? So he’s a spy, love, but he’s on our side.”

  “I am still in Biran’s employ,” he lied. Sanda was beginning to feel like she’d been dragged to some sort of bizarro world tea party.

  “Pardon,” she said, “but I was trying to find a moment’s quiet…?”

  “Of course, of course.” He waved his hand, streaking cigarette smoke through the air. “I haven’t been through what you’ve been through, Greeve, but I’ve seen my share of battle. I know what it’s like to come back to the real world. What it’s like to feel like this”—he flicked his hand again, taking in the whole station—“is less real than what we experience out there. You’ve been tossed in the deep end, and I’m sorry for that. Take a moment. Collect yourself. No one will fault you that.”

  “Thank you, sir,” she stammered. Was this his way of apologizing for using her against Bero?

  He linked elbows with his wife and headed back down the path toward the party. He stopped halfway and turned toward her. “Sorry to hear about your fathers being held up. My people are doing everything they can to clear the docks for them.”

  He winked, flicked ash off his cigarette, and strolled away.

  She gripped her glass so tight she feared it would shatter. “He’s holding them up. He’s the delay. That sonuvabitch.”

  Tomas said, “He wants you to stick around.”

  “Or he’s trying to make me bolt, just like on Taso.”

  “And if he is?” Tomas asked.

  “He doesn’t know we have Biran’s keystick. If he wants to accuse us of piracy, he’ll have a hell of a time.”

  “And if we’re wrong and stay, he could be preparing to do something… public.”

  “Which means we have to go. Now.”

  Tomas touched her cheek, featherlight. “I’m sorry you won’t get to see your dads.”

  “Me too,” she said, and downed what was left of her champagne.

  CHAPTER 73

  PRIME STANDARD YEAR 3543

  KEYS CAN CLOSE DOORS, TOO

  Snugged up next to the Cannery, they didn’t have a lot of options for sneaking away.

  “Do you know anything about this area’s layout?” Tomas asked as they hurried down a likely path. Likely, in that it cut directly away from the core of the party.

  “Houses up here, businesses down there, docks over there. That’s it. What about you, Master Spy? Aren’t you supposed to have the blueprints of every important station memorized?”

  “You watch way too many CamCasts.”

  “You disappoint me, Cepko. But lucky for us, one universal truth holds steady.”

  “Which is?”

  “Rich people would rather not see how maintenance on their pretty places is performed.” She gestured to the back wall hemming in the garden. It had been faced with the stone of Ada, a high-albedo granite that gleamed in the soft lighting of the station. Small doors, charmed up with fake wood paneling and creeper vines, dotted the wall at regular intervals. Not inviting enough to entice wanderers, but not off-putting enough to ruin the aesthetics of the garden.

  “Your people know this is a space station, don’t they?” Tomas asked.

  “Did you expect everything to be shiny white and chrome? Primes have spent their entire history on stations or under habitat domes. Just because we live in space doesn’t mean we can’t indulge a little in old-world charm. Are all your Nazca hideouts super sleek? Spies are too cool for a little ambience?”

  “This is real rock,” he said as he touched the wall. “You know how heavy this stuff is, how much it costs to get it into orbit?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe it’s wasteful. But the Primes aren’t exactly hurting for money.”

  “Which is, of course, why you’re so loved across the galaxies.”

  She gave him a sour look, and he winked at her. She smiled. The Icarions had her too wound up, too sensitive to any possible slight against her people. She selected a door at random, nudged it open, and peered into the access hallway. Warm lights lined smooth, steel-grey walls, all the charm of the garden stripped away in an instant and replaced with the cold reality of space subsistence. Sanda found the hall more relaxing than the garden. At least in the hall she could see anyone sneaking up on her.

  A viewscreen set in the inner wall alongside the door blinked at them. Sanda dragged Tomas in after her, shut the door behind them, and searched up the layout for this chunk of the station. A labyrinthine network of hallways wended throughout the curved exterior of this level. She wondered if the staff who worked in these halls had stronger legs than their well-to-do counterparts due to the slight increase in gravity. Probably a good idea to avoid being kicked by one either way.

  She pointed to a glowing section of the hallway. “If we cut down here, we can take this lift straight to alpha hangar, where Bero is.”

  “Bero? Not a chance, Major. Biran gave us that keystick to get to his shuttle. Even if we could get to Bero, he’s got to be under some serious guard, and there’s no telling what they’ve done to him. That’s a dead end.”

  “We can’t leave him here. You saw what they were doing to him, saw him gutted open. They’ll figure out all the information he has to offer, then nuke his personality core. It’s as good as a death sentence to
walk away from him now.”

  “We can’t help him. There are two of us. Unarmed. He’s under heavy guard, and his systems have been hijacked. There’s nothing we can do from here. If we get away, then maybe we can replan, call in for help, shit, I don’t know. We have options if we escape. If we waste this shot, we’re dead.”

  “I’m not sure if you’re right, or a coward.”

  He stiffened. “I launched myself into empty space in an evac pod hoping to come across a ship that might lead me to you. What do you think?”

  “We will come back for him?”

  “Or do what we can to balance the scales, if it’s too late.”

  That didn’t sit right with her, but she nodded. It was the right decision. The kind of decision she should be capable of making as a newly minted major. The practical decision. The one with the least recklessness, the least possible casualties.

  Tomas had probably trained to make decisions like this, in his role as a Nazca. Kind as he was to her, she had no illusions about who, or what, he was. No one spent their life infiltrating dangerous organizations to glean information without gaining a hard, honed edge. He’d be just as quick with a blaster as he was with a smile.

  Poor Bero. If he could regain control of his faculties, he could free himself, but he was locked out of his own body. The feeling, she thought, was mutual. Her false foot clicked down the hallway as they walked toward the lifts to the dock where Biran’s cruiser waited.

  Maybe not entirely mutual, then. She still had her mobility, if not all her faculties. And Bero had been captured because he’d opened his doors to her. Because she’d taken Lavaux’s bait and flown out to him on a Trojan horse.

  She was pissed at him, sure. Wanted to punch him in his giant ramscoop of a nose. But she didn’t want him dead. Didn’t want him driven mad in isolation. He’d panicked. He’d acted poorly, dangerously. But what would she have done, in his position?

  Bero didn’t want to be a weapon any more than she wanted to be a Keeper.

  “Here,” Tomas said. The hall terminated in a bulb of a room lined with clear plex doors leading to narrow elevators.