Kinsey grunted noncommittally, reaching for his glass. Brushed it with his fingers and grunted again, leaving it on the table when he realized it was empty.
“So what exactly did Karansky and his accomplices steal from Kepler?”
Kinsey blanked on him, growing cold and distant again. “That’s classified.”
Standard response. A polite way of telling Henricksen to mind his own business.
Something terrible, then. Or else…
“You don’t know, do you?” Henricksen asked. And, on a hunch, “Does the government even know?”
Kinsey didn’t say anything. Didn’t have to say anything. His face told it all.
“Son of a bitch.” Henricksen stared across the low-slung table, shaking his head in disbelief. “Some DSR snoop hacks into the supposedly ultra-secure systems on a secret squirrel base and you don’t even know what they took?”
Kinsey flicked at his cuffs, picked at a piece of lint. “Some of it. A few things.”
“How is that even possible?”
“Black Ops has thousands of mothballed projects, Captain. Most of them never make it out of prototyping.”
“You’re telling me you don’t keep records? You have no way of doing an inventory or something?”
Kinsey grimaced, folded his hands and dropped his eyes.
“Oh God. The backups. They took the backups, too? The hard assets and the design specs?”
Kinsey shrugged—stiff, angry movement. Everything about him stiff and angry now. “We’re hoping to get it all back.” His eyes lifted, head following suit. “That’s what the RV-N project’s about.”
Henricksen straightened, hands resting on his knees, remembering his last conversation with Kinsey in these quarters. Thinking of the sim asteroid field scenario that kept repeating. That massive, unknown something lurking at its center. “That’s it,” he breathed, eyes widening. “The asteroid field. That’s what’s in there. Whatever they stole, the DSR are hiding it somewhere in that minefield of oversized rocks.”
“That’s the theory.” Kinsey nodded. “Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to get close enough to confirm it. Lot of activity in there over the last few months, though. A lot more since we relocated from Kepler.”
Henricksen was quiet a moment, watching him, trying to read Kinsey’s face. “What they took. Is it that bad?”
Kinsey tilted his head, looking simultaneously angry and amused. “Bad,” he grunted. “That’s what you assume.”
“Black Ops.” Henricksen shrugged. “What else am I supposed to believe?”
“I’m insulted, Captain. On behalf the RV-Ns.” Kinsey stared at him, dark eyes glittering, face a mask of stone. “Believe it or not, Black Ops isn’t all about destruction.”
“Meaning?”
Kinsey twitched his shoulders, adjusting the drape of his expensive pants. “Some of the things they took have medical applications. Advanced cybernetics. Cutting edge tissue regeneration research.”
“Tissue…” Henricksen frowned, shaking his head.
“Organ regeneration. Regrown limbs.” Kinsey touched at his arm—the false one, hidden beneath his pinstriped jacket.
“Soldier repair.” Henricksen’s lip lifted in a sneer. “Fix ’em up, replace the missing parts, send ’em back out on the battlefield. That the idea?”
“Combat often spurs advances in medical treatment.”
Henricksen stared at him, overwhelmed with disgust. “And the rest of it? What else did they get?”
“I told you, I don’t—”
“You told me they stole medical research, but that’s not all the DSR took was it?” Henricksen leaned forward, eyes locked onto Kinsey’s face. “You might not have a full accounting of what’s missing—I actually believe that part—but you know something. What is it?”
Kinsey stared silently back, lips pressed in a hard line.
“So it is that bad,” Henricksen said as the silence stretched out.
A slight pause, mouth opening and closing. “Yes,” Kinsey admitted in a soft, dangerous voice. “What the DSR took is very, very bad, Captain.”
“How bad?” Henricksen asked just as softly.
Kinsey considered a moment, eyes sparkling with secrets, brow wrinkled in thought. “I’ll show you.” A nod to Henricksen and he pushed to his feet, retracing his steps to the office. Disappeared inside and returned with a reader—a twin to the one Henricksen brought with him—plugged it into the room’s audio-visual system and sat down in his chair.
Crossed his legs, adjusting the drape of his very expensive trousers as the first images appeared: a ship in space, several of them, actually, clustered together in a tight knot.
Colony ships, from the look of them. And at their center, a very large, very familiar-looking silver sphere.
“The Cepheid.” Henricksen blinked in surprise. “This video. Where did it come from?”
He knew the answer already. Saw it in the way Kinsey tilted his head, eyebrow lifting. Recognized the perspective, the angle from which the video was shot. But he wanted to hear it. Needed Kinsey to tell him himself.
“Hecate,” he said quietly, voice a hushed whisper.
“Hell.” Henricksen sank down into his chair, reaching for the glass of cognac he’d abandoned. Scooped it from the table and drained it as the video came to life, recorded images playing out the last few moments of Hecate’s life.
Twenty
“Why?” Henricksen rasped, as the first of the flickering images appeared.
Didn’t want to see this—he’d watched Hecate die once, still carried all that raw pain and seething anger inside him—but he couldn’t quite make himself look away.
“Why are you showing me this?”
Instead of answering, Kinsey nodded to the video projecting on the wall, freezing the feed—mercifully—right before Hecate received that crippling blow. “That,” he said simply, pointing to a silver cloud of stardust spilling from the Cepheid’s middle.
Henricksen leaned forward, squinting at the image, but he came no closer to understanding what he was seeing this time than when that cloud was right in front of him, all those weeks ago. “And what, exactly, is that?”
Kinsey pursed his lips, running the feed forward, skipping past the collision between Hecate and that droned ship, running it right up to the moment that Gogmagog entered the combat space before freezing it again. Toggled it to zoom in on one particular section of the video, getting as tight in as the system would allow.
Still not all that much to see, truthfully, but under magnification, tiny objects appeared. Metal, or so it seemed, just as Henricksen initially thought. Beautiful, really.
Like starlight, Henricksen thought. Starlight and diamond dust. Something twinkling and reflective.
Something, but still nameless. Shapeless. Impossible to pinpoint with any accuracy because the feed lacked details. Made it impossible for him to tell what he was truly looking at.
“Still don’t see it.” He sat back—angry now, tired of guessing at secrets.
Kinsey looked at him, and at that frozen image projected on the wall. “No,” he murmured. “I suppose you wouldn’t. Not unless you knew what you were looking for.”
Henricksen glowered at Kinsey across the table. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Patience, Captain.” Kinsey leaned forward, reaching for the reader, digging through folders in search of yet another image file he threw up onto the wall.
Robot this time. Insect-shaped, like all the robots the Meridian Alliance employed. Multi-legged form resembling that of a spider, but flatter, wider, closer to a tick.
“This,” he said, pointing at the image, “was collected from that site.” A tap at the reader swapped the robotic tick for the ring of silver diamond dust, looping length dividing as Gogmagog approached. Second tap and the image changed, zooming out to show the robot in context—a tiny, multi-legged figure barely the size of a ladybug, squatting in the center of a Petri dish.
Henricksen stared, honestly puzzled. “What—?”
“Nannite.” Kinsey folded his hands, sitting back in his chair.
“Nannite? Those itsy-bitsy fixer bots?”
“One and the same.”
“Thought the Fleet abandoned those years ago.”
“Not just abandoned.” Kinsey toggled the reader back to the image of Hecate’s last battle. “Mothballed,” he said, pointing to the shimmering ring of silver surrounding the Cepheid. “Installed them on a few Auroras a decade or so back—supposed to speed up repairs, perform in-combat maintenance to minimize time in the shipyards.” A flick of his fingers at the images on the wall. “All very cutting edge and high-tech. Sounded great to the Brass, but they never did quite get them to work. Not the way they were supposed to, anyway. Retired them after a few trials and went back to the TIGs and TSDs. Kept the designs, though. Placed a few production samples in storage on Kepler.”
“Retired.” Henricksen leaned forward, bracing his elbows against his thighs, rubbing wearily at his face. “That’s what they took. Forget all that crap about medical research—”
“It’s not crap, Captain.” Kinsey touched at his false arm again. “Believe me, it’s not. As for the rest of it,” a nod to the images from Hecate showing that ring of approaching nannites, “this isn’t our first run-in with those things.”
“So?” Henricksen frowned, puzzled. Sensing a weight of hidden meaning in Kinsey’s words. “I don’t get it,” he said, shaking his head. “What’s so terrible about a bunch of nannites? Thought they were built to fix things.”
“They were,” Kinsey said quietly.
Just that, and another of those meaningful looks.
Henricksen sat back, scowling, eyes flicking from Kinsey to the images from Hecate projected on the wall. Something clicked then—several moments later, after nearly a minute of silence between them—and Henricksen’s scowl faded, replaced by a thoughtful look. “They changed them, didn’t they?”
“Weaponized them.” Kinsey folded his hands, blinking slowly. “Altered their programming. Modified the design specs to destroy ships, not repair them.” He caught Henricksen’s gaze and held it. “I’ve seen it, Captain. I’ve seen these things strip a starship down to its girders in a matter of minutes. Had to destroy the ship entirely to get rid of them. And even then…” Kinsey trailed off, grimacing.
“What?” Henricksen asked, voice hushed.
“They self-replicate.” A nod to the single nannite squatting in its Petri dish prison. “Our design, not theirs. Hyper-functional, capable of self-replication, with a direct correlation to an AI bond.”
“AI?” Henricksen frowned in confusion. “Thought nannites were pre-AI.”
Kinsey pursed his lips, considering the question. “More like...quasi-AI,” he corrected. “Intelligent machines, but with limited independence. And unlike your Hecate, no sense of self-awareness.”
“But they breed.”
“Replicate, yes. Using whatever scrap parts they can find.”
“And the AI bonding?”
“That,” Kinsey sighed, lips twisting. “That’s the part we couldn’t figure out. Our nannites—the ones the Fleet created—would do exactly what you told them to do, but they couldn’t really think outside the box.”
“Which doesn’t really help when the shit hits the fan and an AI needs them to fix things on the fly.”
“No. It doesn’t. That’s why they failed field trials. Ended up mothballing the entire project, shoving everything into storage on Kepler.” Kinsey was quiet a moment, thinking. “Impressive, really. Never imagined the DSR would crack that AI linkage problem.”
“So, what? The DSR’s engineers are better than ours?”
Kinsey gave him a flat-eyed look. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
“But they did solve your problem for you,” Henricksen pressed. “And since you’ve got a sample, can’t you—”
“Had,” Kinsey interrupted. “We had a sample.”
“Meaning?”
“We don’t anymore.” Kinsey blinked slowly, face an unreadable mask. “Like I said, we’ve seen these nannites before. Collected samples thinking to reverse engineer the technology to figure out how to make the AI link work.”
“Build your own weaponized nannites.” Henricksen matched his blank-faced stare.
“But the samples we collected kept self-destructing,” Kinsey continued, ignoring the accusation.
“Suicide?” Henricksen barked a disbelieving laugh.
“Maybe.” Kinsey climbed to his feet, retrieving the bottle of cognac from the bar. Refilled his glass, did the same for Henricksen’s after the slightest of hesitations. “Or a failsafe. Built-in kill switch, something like that. Tied to the AI bond somehow—that much we figured out.”
“Do tell.” Henricksen sat back, glass in hand, eyebrows lifting in interest.
“That ship I mentioned earlier? The one the nannites stripped to its bones? We nuked the AI they were linked to and the nannites just imploded. Caught a few without killing the AI and the same thing happened. Just—poof! And they’re gone.”
Henricksen turned his head, staring at the images on the wall. “Do you think she knew?” he asked quietly.
Kinsey shrugged again. “Maybe. Probably. The nannite project was classified, but the idea’s been around for decades.” He studied Henricksen from the opposite side of the table, hands clasped loosely around the glass resting in his lap. “Hecate knew that ring of objects was a threat. Or at least suspected it.”
Henricksen looked at him.
“That’s why she ejected her bridge pod.” Kinsey gestured with his glass at a diminutive silver shape retreating into the distance. “Moved you and the rest of the crew as far away from danger as possible.”
That was Hecate, always thinking of the crew. Often even before herself.
Henricksen bowed his head, missing her all the more keenly. Mind drifting for a while before returning to Hecate and those nannites. Realized as he stared at her, and them, that a couple of things didn’t quite add up. “So, these nannites,” he said sometime later. “What do they have to do with that asteroid field and the RV-Ns?”
Kinsey grunted, lifting his drink to his lips. “Surprised you haven’t figured it out already.” Henricksen sat up straight, face flushing, but Kinsey just raised a hand, holding it palm out in a gesture of peace. “I meant no offense, Captain.” A sip of his drink and he set it down. Moved forward, perching on the edge of his chair again, as he bowed his head and spread his feet wide, resting his elbows on his thighs. “In the sims, did you…notice anything near the center of that asteroid field?”
“Yeah,” Henricksen said slowly. “Something.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Not quite sure what. Sim scenario always dumps out before we can get a good look at it.”
Kinsey’s head lifted. “Never did get a clean image of it, but from the intelligence we’ve gathered, it appears to be some kind of…science station. Research unit, something like that.”
“Research,” Henricksen repeated, frowning. “What kind of research?”
Kinsey pointed at the image of the nannite. The ring of them in front of Hecate.
“Shit,” Henricksen breathed. “Oh shit.” He sat back, staring at that image for a while. “Why not just nuke it? Why all this cloak and dagger crap?”
“Nuking the site would destroy everything,” Kinsey told him, voice carefully modulated, face purposefully blank. “Everything, you understand?”
“And that’s a bad thing? From what you told me, these nannites are pretty damn brutal. Why would—” He broke off, realizing he was an idiot. That he’d missed the whole point. “You son of a bitch. You lost the tech and now you want it back?”
“Not me, Captain.” Kinsey shook his head slowly, eyes locked onto Henricksen sitting across from him. “Brass call the shots on this one.”
Of course they did. Something like this…Kinsey was high up, but the loss of carefully guarde
d secrets would go much higher. Several layers over his head.
“The government spent trillions, tens of trillions on the projects the DSR stole. They’re not particularly interested in investing trillions more. Not when there’s an alternative available.” Kinsey was quiet a moment, blinking slowly. “We can’t risk losing this, Captain. Not again.”
“Lose? What do you mean ‘lose’? Lose what?” Henricksen demanded.
“The station.” Kinsey pointed to the image of the asteroid field. “We found it once before. By accident, actually,” he admitted with a rueful shake of his head.
“The station? You lost a station. How the hell does that happen?”
“DSR jumped it, just as our ships closed in.”
“Jumped it,” Henricksen repeated. “And just what kind of station is capable of hyperspace travel?”
Mass should make it impossible. Couldn’t imagine the size of the engine system needed to move something as big as Dragoon.
Kinsey frowned, waving the question away. “They moved it, Captain. That’s all that matters. That’s all you need to know.”
Henricksen opened his mouth to object and then closed it again, letting it go. “And this science station. It’s in that asteroid field? You’re sure of it?”
Kinsey dipped his head, nodding slowly. “Took us months to track it down.”
“But you decided not to tell anyone.” Henricksen grunted, lips twisting bitterly. “Kept its location hush-hush this time.”
“We had a leak once before. Couldn’t take that chance again.”
“And the Ravens?” Henricksen asked him. “What’s our part in all this?”
“Black Ops is about intelligence, Captain.” Kinsey stared across the table, dark eyes hooded, face an icy cold mask. “The RV-N project was on the cusp of being canceled before this debacle came along. The government wants their secrets back and I intend to give them to them. That’s what I care about. This project—”
“The ships, you mean, not the project. Not the people—that’s for damn sure.” He stared murder across the table, hating Kinsey all over again. “No wonder you rushed the trials. After all, what’s a ship and a few lives worth, am I right? Impressing the Brass—that’s what matters. Keeping the project on track—”
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