“I’m here to work,” she said.
“You can’t keep coming in here!” the guard insisted.
“She can as long as Captain Andrewson says she can,” the escort insisted.
“I’m telling Commander Babiak about this,” the guard whined.
The guards bickered, but Mav noticed Rebecca didn’t get into the middle of it. She just kept up the work removing the security panel. She pulled out her tablet and began working. Eventually, the two guards gave up arguing and resorted to staring daggers at each other.
Mav watched her work and tried to piece together what was happening. This Captain Andrewson, whoever that was, clearly was now in command and not Dags. He’d heard something about Dags and an accident. Had someone finally gotten to the bastard? More than that, who was Captain Andrewson and why was she getting Rebecca…
Mav choked on his fruit bar when the connections snapped into place.
Security File: Captain Amelia Andrewson
Security Virtual Assistant Y3-01M Special Surveillance Report
Security Risk Unknown: Personnel files restricted due to Blackout protocols.
Security Assessment: Unknown.
SVA Protocol: Captain Andrewson has met with several suspected members of Jupiter Station rebellion underground. Some have disappeared since her arrival. Others have continued to work. She has met with nineteen people total in the last twenty-two hours; files attached. No evidence that Captain Andrewson is Captain Katherine Frances. No DNA sample or biological scans of Captain Frances are on file for comparison. All DNA and biological scans of Captain Andrewson have been deleted.
Attached File: Known Associates
Rebecca St. Martin. Risk level: high. Behaviour change: high
Ensign Nate Lowell. Risk level: low. Behaviour change: low
Unconfirmed female. Risk level: high. Behaviour change: high. Security eye witness partially identified her as Tobi Rowe (known terrorist, Threat Level 8: Code Orange). Security unable to locate her whereabouts in nineteen hours.
Lieutenant Commander Viviani Feema. Risk level: low. Behaviour change: low. Feema has given all indications that she believes Captain Andrewson’s identity. She has authorized the investigation into Captain Dags’ death.
Captain David Emmanuel Dags. Deceased. Under investigation.
Corporal Chadwick Marshall. Risk level: moderate. Behaviour change: moderate.
Master Corporal Nino Gozi. Risk level: low. Behaviour change: high. Gozi is on assignment for Jupiter Central Intelligence, investigating security leaks from the station. Newly revealed to be the former lover of Rebecca St. Martin. Report confirmed by Rebecca St. Martin and Gozi to fellow podmates. Relationship is a violation of JCI procedures and protocols.
Forward message to Babiak:
I need your help.
ZR
Chapter 16
“Are you ready?”
Rowe’s voice came back in Katherine’s ear annoyed and out of breath. “No, I’m not ready. I’ve had security on my ass for three hours now. What the fuck is going on up there?”
“A Blackout had my helper under surveillance. Looks like he wanted to fuck her last night and she turned him down. Not sure after that. Where are you? Sounds like you’re in a wind tunnel.”
“Cock,” Rowe said. “Hold on. Guards.”
Katherine used the silence to continue working. She’d pulled the guts out of her mini food processor and was using the components to complete a small bomb that, hopefully, would wipe out every trace of evidence of her existence from her suite.
She was disappointed they had her face on the security feeds and in the system, though she’d reprogramed her VI to scan and delete whatever it could find. Rowe had someone working on removing the rest of the files, she’d said, but Kat knew her days were numbered now. She’d end up going deep underground. Assuming she even made it out alive, of course.
“They’re gone,” Rowe announced.
“Are you safe?”
“I’m on a Corps military station in the middle of fucking nowhere, with no access to a ship to get off this damn death trap. No, I’m not safe,” Rowe snapped. “Listen, I need sixteen hours.”
“I don’t know if I can get you six, let alone sixteen. Shit is splattering everywhere I turn.”
“Find a way,” Rowe said. “Four of my devices still aren’t in place because of these fucking guards. Get them off my back.”
“They’re watching me like a hawk. I’ve already taken out Dags. I can’t do anything else until we’re ready. Because once I start, that’s it.”
Rowe muttered under her breath. “Fine. Can you get up on the upper level, in the markets, near the sushi café? One hour?”
“Yeah, I can be there. I’m almost done wiring my room.”
“Good. Get that done and get up there, order some food, and wait for my signal.”
“How will I know it?”
“I’m going to send a drone sniper after you.”
Chapter 17
Rebecca was back in the tunnels working as fast as she could. She still wasn’t exactly sure about Kat’s actual plan, but Rebecca had pieced together enough of it. On the other side of the pair of tunnels was the secure loading bay. And, a little further, the secure docking port that had plenty of military aircraft. If Kat’s plan was to steal one of those transports, she’d need faster access than what the normal blueprint could provide. She’d need to blast some holes.
Zain’s threats echoed in her thoughts. He was on to them, she was certain, so she fed the reports back up through proper channels so that it seemed like she was working above the system and not against it.
Junction A17: I’ve cleaned up the security hatch locks as best as I can, but they need to be replaced soon. There is corrosive damage on all of them, most likely from the cleaning drones.
Ensign Chen’s VA: Thank you, Rebecca. I have added this to the appropriate list for Ensign Chen to add to the repair duty roster. Please continue to inform me if you encounter more concerns, as per her instructions.
And on it went, working diligently to offer up repairs for the murderers who ran this station and trying to find ways to make it easier for Kat to blow a hole clear through the entire ward without killing them all in the process.
A little pang of hurt struck her; she might get Chen in trouble for all of these false flags. She actually like Rosamunde Chen, who was a vibrant, happy young woman who was born and raised on Jupiter station. She joined the military because she had only ever seen this side of the Corps; a group of well-meaning people striving for order. She never had her home invaded. She never had her life ripped from her. She never had to mourn.
Rebecca closed her eyes, just for a moment, and let the screams from the video of Maverick re-enter her thoughts to wash away the uncertainty. She mentally replayed the recording of the prisoner’s assault by those guards. The helplessness of the situation. The vulnerability of being tortured at the hands of a more powerful enemy.
She had heard so much since she’d been on Jupiter, but words were easy to ignore. It was easy to call them lies or fabrications. It was easy to brush them under the rug, by saying this wasn’t a common issue. This was an isolated event, and besides, she’d never seen it so it was easier to dismiss it.
She couldn’t run away from the truth now. It had screamed in her ears. So Rebecca steeled her nerves and reminded herself that if she didn’t help these people, she would never leave this torture cave. She would live every single moment of her life here, never to leave those screams behind until she found a way to put a bullet into her brain. And if there truly was an afterlife, she expected Hell to be a place where she would hear those screams for eternity.
Rebecca stared at the backup drone panel in front of her. Then she took a deep breath, shoved on her specialized gloves and safety helmet, and cut the power. She yanked wires out of the guts of the panel and began rewiring them. She glanced at the specs in front of her and back at the panel, and began rewiring the
panel, the screams keeping her steady on the prize.
Kat was going to need backup when she let lose all hell on this place. These drones might just do the trick.
*****
Katherine brought her tray of alien sushi to a table near the edge of the canteen and turned her back to the crowd. She didn’t want to see the shot coming. In theory, Rowe’s friend would guide the drone’s laser to a non-vital part of her body. In reality, there was nothing like covering everyone’s tracks like blasting the head off someone who was under suspicion to turn attentions elsewhere.
At least she’d managed to rig the door on her quarters. If anyone tried to go in there, it would explode. She had hoped to have something strong enough to blast through the supports and cause multi-level destruction, but security scanners would have picked up something that powerful before it could ever go off. She’d make due with crude and simple with the hopes of total destruction of evidence.
The sushi was quite good, at least, and Katherine enjoyed her meal of raw whatever-it-was. She programmed her translator to call the pink slices salmon, the greyish slime eel, the white rounds tuna, the green slime seaweed, even if she suspected it was processed algae paste and cricket guts in a place like this. The egg wrap tasted almost like chicken egg omelette stuffed with white rice, which was a nice surprise. Katherine missed eggs.
“May I join you?”
Katherine looked up from her eggs to see Lieutenant Commander Feema staring down at her. Katherine licked her lips and motioned at the seat across from her. “Be my guest.”
Feema took a seat opposite and offered up a weary smile. At Katherine’s puzzled glance at her plate, Feema said, “It’s Noodles #8.”
Katherine picked up her knife and pushed one of the dark-red noodles on Feema’s plate. “Are they alive?”
Feema chuckled. “Not anymore.”
Katherine turned up her nose. “That reminds me way too much of rotten field rations.”
That brought on a genuine, rolling laugh from Feema. “Raw fish, for me. I had a stint on Earth, back at the beginning of the war. We were stuck in this place called…Japon? Japin?”
“Japan,” Katherine said and was thankful for the mouthful of egg in her mouth that muffled the anger she was sure would have been noticeable otherwise.
“Yeah, that’s it. We were pinned down in a food court and I was hiding behind a sushi bar. We were taking fire and the bullets splattered all of these plastic containers of raw fish all over me. It was over a week before I got to shower.” Feema made a gagging sound. “I still feel queasy whenever I’m around fish.”
Katherine popped an eel into her mouth and said, “Sorry, Commander, but I’m starving.”
“I understand,” Feema said. She slurped on some of her suspiciously worm-like noodles. “I had an interesting conversation this morning with a friend of yours.” When Katherine cocked an eyebrow, Feema said, “Zain Ravi.”
“Did he tell you I was a terrorist or that I was Dags’ murderer?”
Feema quirked a grin. “Both.”
“At least he’s consistent with his conspiracy theories,” Katherine said. She didn’t bother to hide the wryness in her voice.
Feema eyed Katherine and asked, “Are you Katherine Frances?”
“Absolutely,” Katherine said and gave Feema a hard grin. “That’s why Zain’s corpse is crucified from the Bubble’s main light fixtures.”
Feema snorted. “Fair enough. Ya know I have to investigate his claims, right?”
“I’d have ordered you to if you didn’t,” Katherine said. The sushi turned out to be a good idea after all. The strategic nature of eating the various shapes meant she could keep her focus on them, as opposed to the conversation. Couple that with her self-admittedly good lying skills, and she might get out of this without a firefight in the middle of a food court. “He’s pissed at me. Thinks this is how he’s going to get me back.”
“What did he do? You know he’s Blackout, right?”
“He was inappropriate with Rebecca St. Martin, the one I have doing the security backcheck.” Katherine leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Sexually inappropriate.”
“I haven’t heard anything about this.”
Katherine sat back and shrugged. “She didn’t want to file a report, but I confronted him and perhaps I threatened to rip his balls off and feed them to the fish in the aquarium wall.”
“Well, at least that…” Feema’s voice trailed off as she stared at Katherine’s forehead. Then she lunged across the table and screamed, “Get down!”
A hot sting rushed across Katherine’s jaw at the same time as arterial blood sprayed Katherine’s face. Feema and Katherine fell to the floor amidst screaming, shouting, rampaging patrons trying to get away. Katherine sluggishly tried to move Feema off her. She must have hit her head when Feema tried to save her life.
Then the dead weight of the dying commander lifted from her and Ensign Lowell stared down at her.
“Over here!” Lowell shouted as he held his hand over Feema’s back. “I need a nurse here! Now! Captain, hold your hand against the right side of your neck. Don’t move. Keep it right there.”
Blurrily, Katherine did as he ordered and winced at the stinging sensation. She pulled her hand back and discovered it covered in blood.
“Captain! Hand. Neck. Now,” Lowell ordered.
Soon, a couple of emergency medics arrived and began proper first aid on Feema. Lowell and another turned their attention to Katherine.
“It’s just a lash,” Katherine said, accepting a pad from a medic to hold against her neck. She glanced at Feema. “She saved my life.”
“That’s what a good soldier does, Captain,” Lowell said. “Can you walk? We need to get you to the hospital.”
Katherine pushed past the shock and took charge of the situation. She ordered guards to go with Commander Feema and protect her. She called for a full lockdown of the station, no traffic in or out. She ordered security sweeps to begin and she ordered everyone to their hotels, suites, or quarters. She shut the cafeteria down and ordered free food through the vendors for the next twenty hours.
Lowell stood by her the entire time, mostly in silence, though he occasionally shouted orders to anyone lollygagging around. Katherine glanced at him and said, “With me.”
“Yes, Captain,” Lowell said in reply, his entire body rigid, waiting for her next order.
“Follow,” she snapped, and headed out of the wreckage, holding the absorbent pad to her neck. She put in charge one of the lieutenants she recognized and called up to Command to ask them to send down someone more experienced. She had terrorists to hunt, she’d said.
“Babiak, put the station on lockdown. No one gets in or out.”
“But the new captain is due…”
“I don’t care. No one in or out. Full lockdown. That includes the docking ports and shuttle bays. Lock it all down.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Then, covered in blood, Katherine stormed through the wide corridor at a speed only slightly under a run. Rowe and the would-be assassin had better be somewhere safe because there was no way Katherine could cover for them now, not with Feema shot.
It looked good, though. Damn, it looked good. The drone must have used a targeting laser on her and Feema had seen it. Oh, that was brilliant. Feema might die and it would look like she’d died protecting Katherine. Katherine could order just about anything in the coming hours in the confusion and they would all be followed.
Katherine stopped moving so abruptly that Lowell bumped into her. She tapped her phone’s earpiece twice for emergency security.
A couple of seconds later, a female voice asked, “What do you need, Captain?”
“Arrest Zain Ravi, and hold him without questioning until I can see him.”
“I’ll need a reason, Captain.”
“Terrorism, two counts of attempted assassination on Corps personnel, illegal use of a weapons drone, illegal access to a weapon’s drone…”
Katherine stared at Lowell’s stunned expression. “And trespassing in a private shower.”
Chapter 18
Mav dipped a cracker into the glob of green glop on his plastic plate and chewed carefully. The doctor who’d scanned him said his jaw was just bruised, but it sure as all fuck felt broken. Two of his teeth were loose; he’d need them repaired soon or else he’d be stuck with more artificial ones. And those took a full year before the roots grew enough to feel like natural teeth, so he’d prefer to avoid rejuv dental surgery.
“How you holdin’ up, Mav?” Mic Wallace asked from across their prison corridor.
Mav wanted to ignore him, but he was their leader, even now. So he said, “Enjoying my algae and crackers.”
That brought some chuckles and harmless ribbing until one of the guards told them to shut up. They did, and Mav went back to his meal, picking up another algae-smeared cracker. He loathed this stuff. It was the emergency of emergency rations; you only ate this to stem off starvation. At least he’d gotten the fruit bar.
“I’d kill a guard with my bare hands for a nice bowl of Jupiter shrimp,” Mav said. “Remember that time we broke into the training barracks and stole all of their shrimp for Winter Solstice?”
“Shut up, prisoner,” the guard warned.
“And we cooked it with the onions and garlic,” Patrice said.
“You farted so much that we got found out when we broke into the General’s house and we had to fight our way out,” Grant said.
“My ass is a biological weapon,” Mav said in a serious voice. He munched on another tasteless cracker. “I think I’m coming to enjoy the algae paste.”
“And we’re fucked now for sure,” Grant said.
“When Mav starts wanting the algae paste…”
Sirens drowned out the guard’s protests for silence. The guards stopped speaking to Mav to whisper in their helmets to their command structure. Mav forced himself to his feet, pushing past the lightheadedness and the wobbly muscles. He didn’t bother to hide the wince at his stinging ribs, though.
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