I can almost hear the cogs in the colonel’s brain seizing up. I hide a smile. One of the nicest things about this is watching the brass realize that they’ve got to actually talk to an Offensive. And if Gutmangler insists that he’s here to stop the conspiracy, how are they gonna disagree with that?
“Our IT expert, Bolt Galloway, also helped.”
Bolt looks modest. I know he is dying to cash in on our coup. He’s already had several job offers. He said that every day he has to stay in the army is costing him four figures.
“So we wound up with an enormous haul of documents. That’s the data dump we released. Literally tens of millions of words of decrypted emails and so forth. Specialist Galloway and CO Scattergood wrote machine-learning algorithms to identify the good stuff, and I put it all together in a narrative format.”
“UNGov is not happy,” the colonel beside me mutters.
This, I know, is an understatement. Zach’s 10,000-word article on the conspiracy, in which he names names—or at least email addresses—and quotes at length from the emails we decrypted, has triggered a political earthquake. Heads are rolling as we speak. In some cases, literally. There has been a string of interestingly timed plane crashes and ship fatalities, as well as famous politicians and completely un-famous (but very powerful) military officers doing perp walks.
I think we got all of them.
I think we did.
As Bolt warned me, the data dump contained numerous references to a Major Scattergood. But I looked at every one in context, and it just doesn’t sound like Elsa. It sounds like someone who works for DirMInt. Plus, I’ve been watching the news, and I haven’t seen Elsa marched away in handcuffs yet.
On the other hand, she hasn’t responded to any of the emails I’ve sent her from the Squish.
Maybe she’s too busy dealing with the fallout herself.
I had no idea how many people would turn out to be involved. It’s chilling and depressing to know that so many of our leaders were negotiating with the Offense, offering to surrender this and that—there was a detailed proposal to offer them Callisto!—if only they would go away. And all this was happening at the same time as we gained a war-winning advantage, a.k.a. Tancred.
The Void Dragons are watching the officers watch us. They look like they are posing for their close-up: Tancred sits on his haunches, with Smaug at his right claw, Pinkie Pie and Nightmare at his left, and all the other dragons perching on his shoulders. I could put this on my bedroom wall and stare at it every night.
“So, in your article,” the colonel addresses Zach, “you listed several email addresses belonging to whistleblowers. These were the people who started the ball rolling by making allegations to Raw News and some other sites. Are you protecting their identities?”
This is why the officers are here, isn’t it? They want the names of the original whistleblowers. But do they want to give them medals and rewards, or …?
It’s a moot question, anyway. Zach shakes his head. “If we knew their names, I would have published them. Truth is everything, remember? Unfortunately, no, every unattributed email address you see in the article is one that we were unable to trace to an individual. No matter how good your decryption tools are, they can’t decode information that isn’t there. So if a person creates a secret email address, using a handle that machine learning can’t link with their identity—something completely random, like superfragile_2316, that’s one of the ones we were unable to trace—and they log onto it from a widely shared network, and they never divulge any information about themselves, we’re not gonna be able to identify that person. But in this case, it doesn’t really matter, does it? The whistleblowers have already done humanity an enormous service. If they don’t want to come forward and be …” A tiny pause. “… rewarded for it, that’s fine.”
The colonel turns to me. She looks like she just stepped out of a full-dress review, spotless in her yellow-and-blue color-blocked EVA suit. I haven’t cleaned my asteroid-gray EVA suit since the fall of Mingetty, and I can see the colonel’s eyes drawn to the matte smears on the fabric. These are baked-on jelly slime from the Grief Merchant.
“It’s a shame,” she says quietly, “the ringleaders of the conspiracy will never be brought to justice.”
This is where I should confess that our Void Dragons killed them. It turns out that a lot of the people identified in our data dump were on board that convoy. The official version of their deaths is based on my fictional report that the Offense attacked them—a supposition reinforced by Gutmangler’s loud insistence that he certainly would have. I ought to tell the truth … but I can’t shake the feeling that we’d somehow end up being punished for it.
So I tell Colonel Perfect, “There’s a higher justice than ours.” I am thinking of Milosz, who died saying that he could see God.
“I hope so. They dumped their buddies in the shit.” She shakes her head. In the military ethos, this is an even worse crime than selling out humanity.
I suspect that if the army gets its hands on Hardy, he won’t live to see the inside of a jail cell.
Which is why I am not going to tell her that he is on my ship right now, eating his heart out in a locked cabin, with only his baby Void Dragon for company.
*
I let Hardy out as we make our final preparations to land on Ceres.
“Didn’t expect to be coming back here so soon,” he says.
“Just sit down and shut up,” I tell him.
Each of us occupies one of the nests around the vast semi-circle of consoles. I automatically start to make a headcount, and stop myself. It hurts too much to think about everyone who isn’t here. Lying in my squashy shallow cup, I watch Ceres growing from a white blob to a moon dotted with the reflective pinheads of domes. It fills the cinema-sized screen over the consoles, giving me a sense of vertigo.
I didn’t expect to be coming back here so soon, either.
We land outside the ARES dome. Our military escort remains in orbit, keeping an eye on the Squish. There are no other ships at the terminal. No doubt they moved them all out of our way, just in case, but the emptiness of the landing zone reinforces my hope that Ceres will now be a quieter but a better place. Many of the bad actors who’ve been carted off to stand trial worked here. There’s a reason they’re calling it the Ceres Conspiracy.
As of yet, however, no one from ARES has been arrested.
The Squish touches down with a feather-light bump.
“And that concludes my military career,” Zach says, making a show of dusting off his hands. “See y’all on television.”
“Not if I see you first,” I tell him, and give him a hug. “Write that memoir.”
“Sure will.” His expression goes somber. “To be dedicated to those who lost their lives on the Grief Merchant.”
We mill around, saying our goodbyes. I’ve decided that Patrick, Paul, Zach, and Huifang will stay with Gutmangler on the ship for now. That’s insurance against the DoD trying to confiscate the Squish. Francie will come with me to ARES. That’s insurance against Patrick and Gutmangler deciding to take off and invade Mars, after all.
Badrick and Bolt are also coming with me. That’s insurance against the DoD’s kinetic and cyberwarfare capabilities, respectively.
I have to leave Sara behind, because she’s my XO.
The stay-behinds line up at the side of the airlock. I salute them, and they salute back.
“Take care of your hands, sir,” Sara says.
Our eyes lock for a second, and I hardly see the others, until—
“Mek your aunt send us some of dem cookies,” Badrick says.
“Wait a minute. You’re supposed to be coming with me, Badrick.”
“Mi switched with Huifang,” Badrick says. I read in his eyes that this was a selfless gesture. I swallow, realizing he’s right. Huifang really needs to get off this ship, the very sight and smell of which must remind her of Milosz’s death.
“You got it, Badrick.” I jerk m
y chin at Hardy. “You’re coming with us, too.” I just decided that this instant.
“You sure about that?” he drawls. “I might get away.”
Tancred smiles—well, curls his lips menacingly—at Hardy and the kitten-sized dragon on his shoulder. He is so clearly saying, Go ahead and try it, that we all laugh. It is a good note to part on.
The five of us seal our helmets, exit the airlock, and half-slither, half-climb down the ramp to the tarmac.
“Hey.” Huifang points at the distant hangars. These giant Quonsets are where they park smaller ships. They offer some protection against micrometeorites and, theoretically, Offense bombardment. “There’s at least one ship left here.” The arrowhead shape of a picket or courier is rolling out of the nearest hangar, making for the terminal building.
“Maybe that’s Patrick’s pizza delivery,” Bolt says. “Doh.”
“Not to worry,” Francie says. “We can get something to eat at Elsa’s. God, I hope she’s there.”
“So do I,” I mutter.
“Huh,” Hardy grunts, like the sound escaped him involuntarily.
“What?” I glance suspiciously at him, but all I can see is the reflections on his faceplate. Earth and Callisto, un-twinkling blue stars in the sky.
“Nothing,” he says.
I don’t trust his nothing. Even though Tancred is right here, keeping pace with us at a stately prowl, I decide to take extra precautions. I unclip a pair of handcuffs from my belt. I got them off Colonel Perfect, anticipating this very moment. What I told her was I might need them for Gutmangler. Ha, ha, like you could put handcuffs on a jelly. “Francie, do me a favor?” I hold out my left wrist. “Cuff this asshole to me.”
“You sure?” she says dubiously.
“Yeah. Remember, he’s an escape artist.”
“Thanks for the compliment,” Hardy says, submitting. “Douche.”
“Same to you.”
We walk diagonally across the tarmac, bypassing the terminal building. It is a pain in the neck being handcuffed to Hardy—we have to exactly match our strides, in Ceres’s micro-gravity. If his legs weren’t as long as mine are, it would be worse. As it is, we’re constantly jerking at each other. People press against the fish-eye windows of the terminal building, looking out at us. When they see Tancred they flinch away from the glass.
A half-klick beyond the terminal, we hit the road to ARES. It’s really just a track bulldozed out of Ceres’s ice-and-rock surface. The dome looms ahead, mountain-sized. From outside it looks as black as the sky above it.
Ceres, slowed down by the same gravity-casting operation that moved it into Jupiter orbit, has a 25-hour day. This is its night, so it’s dark inside the dome, too. But not totally. This is not the darkness of space. It’s broken by the twinkling lights of the labs and fabs around the lake, and the houses set back in the woods. The dirt road from the airlock also has little lights set into the verges, turning it into a fairy path through ground-lit trees. 75% gravity grips our bodies. We unseal our helmets and breathe the familiar smells of wild garlic and banana trees and leaf mould, the smells that to me are like coming home.
“I’m kinda surprised it still recognized us,” Huifang says with a nervous laugh.
She is referring to the ARES airlock’s biometric recognition lock, and as she speaks, I realize that it recognized Hardy, too. If it didn’t, it would have piped up. He has been here before. He has permission to be here. What does that mean?
I’m still thinking about it as we turn the corner and run slap into a pickup. Its AI auto-brakes inches from me, chiming indignantly. These pickups are used for transporting heavy equipment. Squinting past the headlights, I see that this one’s loaded with lab instruments.
Dr. Clay Joy jumps down from the cab. “Jay! Oh my God! Francie! Huifang!” He hugs us.
Dr. Joy is my aunt’s right-hand man. He is moon-shaped— “optimized for low gravity” is his joke—with a goatee dyed in the colors of the Earth flag. It is great to see him again, but as I embrace him, I feel like something is off about his effusive welcome.
“Didn’t know you already landed,” he says.
But wouldn’t everyone on Ceres have been glued to the arrival of the Squish? Most of all, one of the scientists who has a professional interest in studying it? Well, maybe that’s where he’s going with all these instruments, at this time of night. Can’t wait to get started.
He greets Bolt, and then— “And you are?”
“Oh, don’t play innocent, Dr. Joy,” Hardy says. “You know exactly who I am.”
Dr. Joy’s mouth opens and shuts soundlessly. A cold premonition squeezes my bowels.
“I’m Jay’s new toy boy, isn’t it obvious?” Hardy lifts up our handcuffed wrists. After a second, Dr. Joy laughs. Everyone laughs.
“Well, I have to be going,” Dr. Joy says. “Everything’s so chaotic. But it was great seeing you. I hope we’ll meet again soon. Tell Elsa I said hello!” He jumps back into his pickup. We press ourselves into the foliage to let the over-laden vehicle squeeze past.
“That was weird,” Francie says, looking after his taillights.
“Yeah,” I say.
“I guess he was in a hurry,” Huifang says.
We shuffle back onto the road and continue towards Elsa’s house.
As we walk, I notice that lights are going out one by one in the facilities around the lake. Every time we turn a curve so I can see over the trees, more of the buildings have gone dark. The residences are going dark, too. Well, it’s late at night. Even the workaholic ARES staff have to sleep. Right?
When we reach Elsa’s house, however, it’s blazing with light.
Her people-mover—a big SUV, all the passenger seats currently converted into cargo space—stands on the drive.
As we walk towards it, Elsa herself backs out of the house, carrying several boxes stacked one on top of another, securing the load with her chin. She lets the door go. It closes with a snap that seems to echo all around the dome—which, I somehow know now, is completely empty. Elsa is the only person left in ARES. She’s the last to leave.
She turns around on the porch.
Sees us, standing in a row on the drive.
Drops her boxes.
“Hell,” she says, absently. “That was my variable neutron generator.”
“Hi,” I say. My feet seem to be nailed to the ground.
“Jay.”
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“Clay warned me you were on your way,” she says.
This is not the reunion I was expecting. No hug. No “favorite nephew.” Unbelievably, my mouth is wobbling. If I tried to speak right now, it would come out as a sob. I feel like I’m eleven years old again. That was the year she took the job on Ceres and left us.
Francie jumps in. “Where’s Clay going?”
“Same place I am,” Elsa says. “Would you help me pick these up, Francesca?”
Francie climbs the steps to the porch and helps Elsa gather up the boxes. In the light from the porch, I see a tear-track on Francie’s cheek. She’s crying silently. She loves Elsa almost as much as I do.
Elsa sees the tears, pulls Francie into a hug. “I’m so sorry.”
“Fuck you,” Francie cries, jerking away. She picks up the boxes once more and puts them into the people-mover. Throws them in, actually. Elsa bites her lip but does not say a word about the variable neutron generator this time.
When she moves around the vehicle, as if to get in and drive away, panic breaks my paralysis. I stride up the drive, hardly aware that I’m dragging Hardy with me. I position myself in front of the driver’s side door. “Where are you going?”
Her gaze ticks from my face to Hardy’s. From mine to his. “You look so much alike,” she whispers.
I don’t know what she’s talking about. “Where are you GOING?!”
Elsa draws a deep breath. I notice that her hair is slicked back in a professional updo, and she’s wearing make-up. The thought flickers across my m
ind: she’s dressed up for her professional execution. I also notice the outline of an EVA suit collar under her blouse.
“Are you Major Scattergood?” I demand.
“Yes, and no.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“I’m not the Major Scattergood in the data dump. I was not involved with the conspiracy. But that hardly matters now.” She meets my eyes. “Jay, I am going to Saturn.”
Saturn. The word, though spoken quietly, seems to reverberate around the front yard.
“But you just said you weren’t involved!” I shout.
She rolls her eyes, and for a second I glimpse my beloved aunt. Then the remote impostor is back. “Jay, I was superfragile_2316.”
“Oh, shit,” Bolt says, behind me.
“I was also luminous.pretzel and y.uk.y.uk. In fact, I was all of them except kompromat_100.”
“You … were the whistleblower?”
“Yup. Me and Clay, a.k.a. kompromat_100. We infiltrated the conspiracy.” Her eyes slide to Hardy. “We offered to leak data on the ECAPP, and they took the bait.”
The ECAPP is Dr. Joy’s baby. I never have grasped the details, but it’s some kind of energy storage project.
“We wanted to gather more proof before we exposed them. But when the Offense obtained Void Dragon eggs, we realized that we had to act immediately, before any further damage could be done. So we contacted Raw News and told them everything we knew. That started the ball rolling. The rest … well, you guys did the rest.”
“So why are you running away?” Huifang cries. “You’re heroes!”
“Being heroes can be the most dangerous thing in the universe.” Elsa sighs. “Jay, you and your friends published our email addresses. It might take time, but they will figure out who we are. It doesn’t matter that they’re in jail. The walls of a supermax facility can’t contain these people’s networks of influence.”
I did this.
“Besides,” Elsa adds, “they think I was on their side. If Clay and I are the only ones not arrested, the only ones who didn’t run—well, it’s kinda obvious, isn’t it?”
Now she’s trying to make it not be all my fault. But it is.
Exiles of the Belt (Void Dragon Hunters Book 4) Page 10