Niko and Zella loaded the computers onto a cart that she had brought, then covered them with a dingy brown quilt so it wouldn't be so obvious that they were transporting electronics. “What happened to Block D anyway?”
Fortunately, Niko kept their irritation out of their tone. Or if Zella noticed it, she didn't let on. “There's a problem with the power-distribution system,” the woman said. “Some people refuse to evacuate, which is their problem. But for folks who need power for the medical assists that keep them alive, or who are in sections with shitty ventilation, it's an issue. To say nothing of people like you who have a priority-one need to draw on the camp's power grid.”
Niko suppressed a groan. “It wasn't sabotage, was it?”
Zella's mouth flattened. “Don't say that so loud.”
“If I can guess it, anyone can,” Niko returned, but they lowered their voice.
The two of them approached a junction where a crowd jostled, voices raised in discontent. Niko wished that Asala were still here. She had a way of simplifying problems, even if the solutions sometimes involved violence. They couldn't imagine that clambering onto the cart and shouting at people would clear the way. At times like this, they envied their father his height and presence.
Then they saw her: Soraya. She wore a hideous poncho woven of colorful recycled fibers, no doubt another gift from the people she'd helped.
“Soraya!” Niko shouted at the top of their lungs, waving to get her attention. “Soraya!” She'd be able to clear the crowd for them.
At first she didn't hear Niko; she was arguing with a stout man with a knife at his waist. Probably one of Hafiz's people.
Niko's feelings toward Hafiz and their private army could best be described as wariness with a side of grudging admiration. On the one hand, good for Hafiz for wielding power in the face of Gandesian obstructionism. On the other hand, that army had its own goals, and those goals didn't always align with those of Soraya, who was more likely to help Niko out.
At last Soraya said something that made the guard jerk back, his expression shuttering, and stomp away. Niko would have given a lot to overhear it. Too bad, though; they'd have to settle for the removal of the obstacle.
By then Soraya had spotted Niko and Zella frantically waving across the packed hallway. Her eyes narrowed when she regarded the cart; she'd know what it was. She grasped the situation and said a few sharp words. The crowd reluctantly formed a corridor so that Niko, Zella, and the cart could pass through. As Niko approached Soraya, they said breathlessly, “Thank you—”
“Save your thanks,” Soraya returned, not without a certain grim humor, “and get to work. Camp Ghala needs you.” She nodded cordially to Zella, addressing her by name and murmuring a word of thanks.
Niko smiled back at Soraya, and was gratified by the way her eyes warmed. Just a few short weeks ago, they would have basked in being accepted as part of the team, especially by someone as accomplished as Soraya. Niko had yearned for that kind of recognition, even if it didn't come from their father. But now—now that seemed a childish distraction. All that mattered was getting the job done.
The walls of the camp seemed to close around Niko as they hurried through the passage to the next ship in Block E. They heard people grumbling behind them, anxious voices demanding to know: Why was the evacuation happening now of all times? Was everyone going to be able to escape? Would there be enough rations to go around? Niko was too preoccupied to gather more than a scattershot collage of faces and bodies as they passed by, their entire attention focused on keeping the wobbly cart from toppling and spilling its precious contents.
One of the computers beeped just as they crossed the threshold. Niko held their breath: Had anyone noticed? And then they were through the barrier, the crowd closing up behind them.
Niko and Zella chivvied the cart along the rough connecting stretch between blocks. The warped deck plating didn't exactly inspire confidence in the structural integrity of the rest of the passage. Niko had caught Asala eyeing the stress marks and crazing in the metal during their previous outings, and they wished they hadn't noticed her doing so. Especially when the metal creaked and groaned in response to their footsteps—hardly reassuring.
Niko couldn't track the combat going on in the black skies beyond Camp Ghala's walls. The world could be chaos out there and they would have no idea, which Niko hated. They wiped one of their palms on their trousers before they lost their grip on the cart. Their body ached, not because the exertion was bad but because of tension in their shoulders, the back of their neck, all the way down through their toes, to say nothing of the injuries they'd sustained recently.
“Where are we going?” Niko whispered to Zella, even though they'd left the crowd behind and the only people in E block were functionaries who brushed the air in the universal gesture of hurry up, keep moving.
“Three more doors,” Zella said, “and—here we are.” She keyed the door open.
The room had space, and it had been cleaned recently, with scrub marks still visible on the floor and tables. Those were the only good things Niko could say about it. Even with the familiar reek of disinfectant, they could still detect the smell of piss and unwashed bodies and vomit.
One thing did speak in the room's favor: It had numerous power outlets. “Help me test the current,” Niko said curtly. They couldn't risk the whole operation just because a faulty outlet fried their equipment.
Zella knew how to use the testing equipment. Niko started warming to her. When she wasn't talking their ear off, she was competent. Besides, how much of her garrulity could be attributed to nerves? It wasn't as if Niko were doing any better in that department, only that traveling with Asala had taught them the valuable skill of shutting up.
All the sockets except one tested clear. Niko breathed a sigh of relief and began hooking everything up again, arranging the machines on the tables with the ease of long practice. Fortunately, Zella didn't insist on helping them with this part. Niko had a system that helped them remember the network topology they'd set up, and they appreciated not having to explain it to her; it would just have slowed them down.
Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up, Niko chanted inwardly. Asala was counting on them. Uzochi was counting on them. All of Camp Ghala was counting on them. Ekrem had never—quite—taken Niko's choice of profession seriously; he would have preferred for Niko to serve as an officer in the Khayyami military, just as he had. But even the best of soldiers relied on intelligence—and on the support of hackers like Niko themself.
As the computers reconnected and reconfigured, as the toolkits came back up, chimes sounded. Niko didn't have perfect pitch, but they'd booted everything in audio-on mode so that they could keep track of progress by the particular sounds that each program made. It was a useful way to double-check against the visual indicators, since they didn't have to worry about hostiles overhearing the cacophony.
“Cluster Five doesn't seem like it's booting correctly,” Zella said, voice dripping concern. “Are you sure it's supposed to do that?”
Her too-casual tone of voice set alarm bells ringing in the back of their head. The woman was fishing for information.
Niko's moment of hesitation had lasted a vital few seconds too long. Alerted that she'd been caught out, Zella cast aside subterfuge and launched herself at them. Niko just had time to snatch up a screwdriver as a makeshift weapon.
Zella was prepared for that. She batted the screwdriver out of Niko's hand, and it clattered against a far wall, landing too far away for Niko to scrabble after it. What made me think this mission was a good idea? Niko thought with a distant sense of hilarity. Niko sidestepped the woman's next swipe, mostly by virtue of stumbling—pure luck. She wasn't as large or as terrifying in combat as Asala, which was the only reason Niko wasn't already dead.
Niko didn't dodge the blow after that in time. Wonderful—they'd been patched up by nanites just in time to get beaten up again. They retched at the sudden blossom of pain in their stomach. It was sh
ocking how fast the punches came. If Zella landed any more hits, they would be in real trouble.
Niko's eyes fell on the damaged power cord. With an instinctive viciousness that they were shocked to find in themself, Niko grabbed the cord, clawed off the protective tape, and jammed the exposed wires against the flesh of Zella's arm when she reached for them.
For a second Niko thought it hadn't worked—that nothing would work, that they were going to die in this foul-smelling room and no one would find them or mourn them.
Then Zella screamed, except it wasn't a scream. Her throat locked up as she began to convulse, and blood dripped out from the side of her mouth when she bit through her tongue. Niko scrambled away, heart jackhammering in their chest, unable to look away.
Great, Niko thought absurdly, unwilling hysteria bubbling up inside their chest until they gasped with the force of it. Now it's going to smell like roast corpse in here.
No time to lose. When they were sure that Zella was dead, Niko gingerly toed the power cable aside and taped it up again. Asala would have slit Zella's throat too, just to be safe, but Niko didn't have the stomach for it.
The corpse stared accusingly at Niko as they got back to work. As their fingers flew over the commands that would, with luck, unlock the Gandesian defense system, Niko considered what had happened. It was terrifying how easily their defenses had been breached. Niko could see so many ways for Zella to have fooled Soraya, especially during the current chaos. Soraya would have been grateful for a volunteer, one less thing to worry about. It wasn't her fault. How could any of them know who to trust?
Further musings evaporated when a toolkit informed them that it had wormed its way into an orbital platform's telemetry software. “Good, good,” Niko crooned to the computer, since there was no one—well, except Zella's corpse—to hear them. They would have preferred to gradually establish a presence, then move slowly and cautiously lest any watchdog programs catch the intruder, but time was exactly what they didn't have.
A discrete query revealed what Niko feared. While the telemetry software hadn't cracked Camp Ghala's IFF signals, it made full use of Gandesian IFF. In an ideal world, Niko would have been able to break the crypto, but that wasn't going to happen in the space of minutes. Instead, they would need to trick the station.
Niko's worm spread to other platforms. Niko was sweating heavily, and their shirt clung damply to their back as they coaxed the worm into position. The more platforms they could subvert, the better.
34% . . . 38% . . .41% . . .The worm gained momentum. 68% . . .87% . . .And then it stalled. It would have to be good enough, because Niko could glean from the telemetry that Asala's ragtag forces were outnumbered and doing poorly, with a third of the fighting force down already.
Niko refused to think about the possibility that one of the doomed ships belonged to Asala. Not after everything the two of them had been through together.
88% . . .No more delays.
Niko activated the second phase of the worm. First it had multiplied and spread; now it reprogrammed the orbital platforms. Niko had studied the proprietary software that the Gandesian platforms' computers ran, based on intel that their contacts had smuggled to them. They only had one chance to get this right.
Niko held their breath. All they could hear was their heartbeat, too loud, like a drum at the world's shattering. Had it worked? Or had they screwed it up?
Several of Niko's systems chimed again, noisily. Their vision swam. I did it, Niko thought. The worm had worked. The Gandesian stations had stopped firing on Camp Ghala's ships. Instead, they had locked onto everything that transmitted a Gandesian IFF signal, compiling a target database and placing the Ghalan ships on a “safe” list. Inevitably, someone would figure the trick out and order the drones to stop transmitting. But for now, the database, intended as a backup system, would prove their undoing.
Silently, in the depths of space, the platforms' guns began to speak in the language of fire and ash.
• • •
Asala knew the moment Niko hacked the platforms. It could be no one else. She and the other pilots had barely survived the drones' assault. Now the drones scattered in response to the sudden activation of the platforms' lasers. She couldn't see it except in glimpses, couldn't appreciate the immense distances involved, but the night was crisscrossed with fire.
The drones that she and the other Ghalan pilots had so painfully lured closer to the platforms were rendered into molten slag. She didn't have further opportunity to admire the spectacle unfolding before her. “Commander Asala to all units,” she said. “Get the fuck out of here. Get clear of the lasers!”
She veered below the platforms, closer to the planet. Asala put in another call, this time to Uzochi. She'd received word of Uzochi's maneuvers earlier from Station Control, could see the ship on her scanner. But why was there only one? Hadn't Uzochi spoken of a fleet? Had the others been shot down already?
Uzochi answered almost immediately.“What an excellent trick,” Uzochi said. “It's going to be a wild ride.” Her face flickered in and out, in and out, like a tree-haunt in one of the old Hypatian stories. Tree-haunts were tricksters, neither wholly benevolent nor malicious. The comparison seemed apt; Asala remembered the stunt Uzochi had pulled with the gravity bomb.
“What happened to the rest of the fleet?” Asala demanded.
“Change in plans,” Uzochi said. “It's just this one ship. The wormholes will save Camp Ghala, never fear.” There was a strange hesitation before “wormholes.”
Asala started to ask for details, but was interrupted by an incoming piece of shrapnel that almost clipped her ship. At these velocities, even a small particle could destroy a ship that had any faults in its shielding. Given the amount of debris that ringed Gan-De, her surviving fleet now faced an entirely new threat.
“I'll talk to you later,” Asala said hurriedly. “May the sky hold you safe.”
“And you too, Commander,” Uzochi said with the brilliant smile that had dazzled so many viewers way back when. With that, she cut the connection; her afterimage lingered even as Asala wrenched her attention back to the heart-stopping necessity of flight.
Asala had been afraid that the conflagration in the skies would make it difficult for Uzochi's ship to reach Camp Ghala, even if the orbital platforms were targeting the enemy's drones—for now. But the Gandesians had other ships in orbit, and she flinched when their lasers inexplicably winked out, giving the Ghalans a further respite. Had she imagined it?
A light began blinking amber on her panel: someone wanted to talk to her. Asala toggled the channel open. “Yes?”
“This is Camp Ghala Control,” a tremulous voice came from the other end. “We have—we have a call from General Cynwrig. She offers cease-fire while she—she wants to talk to you.”
As much as Asala wanted to tell the general to eat glow, she owed it to Uzochi—to Soraya and Niko and everyone on Camp Ghala—to hear Cynwrig out. Even if the odds that Cynwrig was going to surrender were low. And even if Asala suspected that Cynwrig was entirely capable of treachery, even—especially—during a parley.
Asala gave the order for all Ghalan units to hold their fire, then said, “Connect us.” There were a few lingering stray shots—these were volunteer troops, not AIs or trained soldiers like Gan-De's disciplined black-clad battalions. Asala couldn't bring herself to feel sorry for the Gandesian drones that suffered the last potshots.
Cynwrig's face was a sharpened axe, made all the more severe by that crisp Gandesian black. Battle was the general's element; it was logical that she was at home in this conflict. The one incongruous element was the beverage glass that she held in one hand.
Rage boiled up in the pit of Asala's belly. Her people had been fighting, dying, to give the refugees a way out—and this infuriating woman had been drinking in celebration. She clenched her hands where Cynwrig couldn't see them, reminding herself that she needed to keep a level head.
“I demand your immediate surrender,”
Cynwrig said.
So much for staying calm. “In case you weren't paying attention,” Asala snapped, “we're winning.” Was the general stalling so her hackers could wrest back control of the orbital platforms?
“You misapprehend your situation,” Cynwrig said. She was relaxed. Asala could see it in the set of her shoulders, the way her fingers curled loosely around the glass. Asala's rage began to curdle into dread. Cynwrig made a curt gesture, and a holo blazed up on the screen.
It took several moments for Asala to recognize what she was seeing. A Gandesian pilot, her hair shaved, her eyes dark and wide, easily visible because she was, against all protocol, failing to wear a helmet—no. Not a native Gandesian pilot, not with those faint traces of vine-like tattoos. Hypatian tattoos.
“Dayo,” Asala whispered. She didn't realize that she had spoken aloud until Cynwrig answered her.
“That isn't her name anymore,” the general said. If there had been gloating in her voice, Asala would have lunged from her seat and punched the screen. Instead, she said it matter-of-factly, as if explaining to a stubborn child that the sun would rise every morning. “We require that all Gandesian recruits of offworld origin take on new names.”
“Dayo,” Asala said again, but Dayo didn't answer.
“Lieutenant Hana, who you knew in another life,” Cynwrig went on, “has a wife and family on Gan-De. Our military provides handsomely for its dependents. We care about our families, Agent. Something that I imagine you never bothered to find out. It also”—and she let the silence fill with her triumph and Asala's helpless rage—“provides handsomely for the bereaved, in case a soldier falls.”
Asala's world narrowed to a singularity of rage. On the vanishingly rare occasions that she had allowed herself to hope that she might be reunited with her sister, she'd never imagined it would go like this. In her subterranean daydreams, Dayo had been the smiling girl who'd nourished Asala with kindness and poetry, who'd been the first to accept her as her without making a fuss of it.
The Vela: The Complete Season 1 Page 30