She nodded agreement and went into the cockpit. “Are they saying why?”
The pilot shook his head. “No, nor are they giving a time estimate of how long the spaceports will be closed. We can return to Aquila or divert to another colony, or we can try to wait it out.”
Well they definitely weren’t going back to Aquila, not with Winslow’s gestapo running roughshod over Lionel’s property and possibly the whole colony. The closest safe world was Messium…she shuddered as violent, heartbreaking memories burst into the forefront of her mind.
Nope. She was not ready to revisit that Hell, she didn’t care how much they had supposedly rebuilt. Pandora then—but not yet.
“Wait it out for now. We’ll pay you for your time.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He adopted a high-orbit course, and she returned to the main cabin.
Noah was sitting near the back, drumming raggedly on his thighs while glaring at the ceiling. Not a good sign.
She sat down opposite him. “What did you find out?”
“Oh, you know, about what you’d expect. OTS has picked tonight to try to blow up Romane.”
EAS STALWART II
Space, Central Quadrant
“Shit.”
“Such language! Scandalous.”
Richard spun around to see Miriam walk in his small but still unusually spacious quarters and close the door behind her. “Sorry. I just saw—”
“I was kidding, Richard. What’s wrong?”
He jerked his head toward the news feed holo where updates on the hostage crisis in Cavare streamed.
Her expression grew progressively darker as she took in the information. Finally her eyes cut over to him. “Shit.”
He huffed a breath. “You’re not wrong. OTS is pushing hard on Seneca. Clearly it’s due to the passage of the H+ bill, but I’m surprised they can bring this level of resources to bear on the ground there. Combined with Romane, they must be stretching themselves thin now.”
“I actually came by to ask you what you knew about the situation on Romane.”
“All signs point to a major offensive by OTS tonight. They’ve been escalating their protests throughout the day, and in the last few minutes several explosions in the heart of downtown were reported.”
She sank against the wall with a heavy sigh. “I all but ordered Alex to go there. I hoped it would be safe, but instead it’s turning out to be the most dangerous place in the galaxy. Of course, my second choice was Seneca. I might as well have sent her to Earth, as it could hardly be more dangerous.”
“She knows how to take care of herself, as does Caleb, obviously. And I think the IDCC is ready for this. Arguably more ready than Seneca is.”
He should have worked harder to ensure Graham recognized the provocation the H+ bill was likely to cause among its opponents, and paid closer attention to OTS’ ability to move people and resources when needed. He should have—
“You should go back.”
He looked over at her, startled. “Where? To Seneca?” He’d almost said ‘home,’ but that still didn’t feel quite right.
Miriam nodded.
“No. I’m not going to abandon you. Graham has everything under control, and Will…is insisting on getting too close to the front lines, but he’ll be fine.” Warring allegiances fought for dominance in his mind and his heart. He needed to stay; he needed to go. He needed to do both with equal fervor. “I promised you I would see this through with you, and I will. I believe in what we’re fighting for.”
“You’ve already done all the hard work here, and it’s been invaluable to me. You’ve helped to put me in a position to legitimately succeed, and I cannot thank you enough. But there’s not much left for you to do, and what there is you can do on the move.
“Now, you’re needed on Seneca. Go make sure the damn government doesn’t fall—I need the Federation to be a continuing threat to Winslow—and Will doesn’t get himself killed. You’d be zero good to me if that happened.”
“Miriam—”
“I’m not being selfless. I’d send you to Romane if I thought you could help there. But you can’t. Where you can help is Seneca.”
“I can also—”
“Don’t make me order you to go.”
“You can’t give me orders any longer.”
“I can kick you off my ship.”
He paused. “Would you really do that?”
“Are we going to be required to find out?” Her glare was so convincing he almost believed her; he might have but for the kindness remaining in her eyes.
He stared at the news feed for several seconds, then exhaled heavily. “I’m keeping my direct access to Thomas. I’ll stay up to speed on all the intel coming in and keep pushing the open issues which haven’t resolved.
“We can expect movement on Scythia within the next few hours. I suspect it will fall our way, and you and Rychen need to be ready to move when it does. Send Colonel Jenner with a squad to defend against a coup attempt on the ground. And Admiral Cuellar has the materials he asked for, so follow up with him in the morning, Shi Shen time, which is in about three hours.
“Also, I checked into Lionel Terrage’s situation, and I’m working on a way to get him released under the radar. As a result of what happened there, we can pursue several new opportunities with certain members of the Allied Manufacturers—”
She placed a hand on his shoulder. “Okay. We’ll get it all done. Don’t presume you’re taking a vacation. You can send me lists upon lists. At all hours. In fact, I expect nothing less. Now go requisition a shuttle and get out of here. Every minute you dally puts us farther away from Seneca.”
His chin dropped to his chest. “Thank you.”
“Nonsense. Off my ship.”
17
EARTH
San Francisco
* * *
Claire Zabroi fixed another Velvet Fantasy and stretched out on the floor in front of one of the couches.
Markos promptly kicked her in the shoulder to try to gain more room for himself; she retorted with an elbow to the arch of his foot. Not her fault he was barefoot.
Everyone in the apartment was a Prevo; they didn’t need to gather in person to be together. They did it anyway, because they’d always done it. And because with the new laws and gestapo crackdown underway, though no one wanted to admit it aloud, they all felt safer in numbers, behind the same walls and with an encrypted door sporting a few nasty surprises between them and the outside world.
Especially given what they were doing behind the encrypted door.
As soon as her injuries from the attack at Rincon Plaza had healed, Claire had quit lollygagging around and gotten into the game. OTS needed to die in a fire, then the whore Winslow and half the Assembly needed to burn in the pyre built atop the fire’s ashes. She and her mates were doing their part to help make that happen.
They’d been breaking into various government databases for days now, placing traces and smart worms and daemon bombs. As a result of these efforts, they were now getting advance warning of seventy-two percent of planned law enforcement raids in North and South America and Europe—enough time to allow any Prevos in the targeted locations to make themselves scarce. A couple of times the vacating Prevos had left behind gifts for the cops, too.
Tonight, however, this group had a very specific purpose. Despite their small victories in this underground war, the government was getting too good. They knew too much too fast about individuals and safe houses.
Because the government had never been and would never be that good, the most logical explanation was a mole inside the Noesis.
The thought of a Prevo acting as a double agent and betraying their own kind disgusted Claire. But she’d known enough disgusting people in her time to be forced to admit it was not only possible, but likely.
While the Noesis itself was an open system, any reporting to the authorities had to be private, thus outside the system. But a Prevo never truly left the Noesis—well, except for
Alex, and she had to go to another universe to do it—which meant somewhere evidence existed of the break.
It might be no more than a microsecond glitch, a blip, an identical cat in the matrix. But they would find it. Then they would find the perpetrator. Then they would handle the snitch in their own way.
“Sandi, babe, toss us up some pasta, would you? I’m famished.”
“Zabroi, babe, cook your own damn pasta, and bake me some cookies while you’re at it.”
She flashed Sandi a middle finger and sipped on her drink, trying to decide how much she wanted the pasta.
Markos: Check this. I’ve got a 723 millisecond hole in Sector 83.9x12, hit four times in the last week.
Claire: Same ID?
Markos: No, but the hole is obscured using the same trick every time. It’s a tell.
Claire: Can you follow it down its rabbit hole? Where’s it lead?
Markos: Let me just wiggle my fingers around and…wait, they actually converge pretty quickly. And…and….bingo! We’ve got our rat all right. The trail leads straight into a top level government security comm network in Washington.
Claire: Sandi, Drake, get on figuring out who this is, live and in the flesh. Markos, you and I are going to retrace their steps. What have they been touching lately?
The average Prevo made some sort of active contact with the Noesis hundreds of times a day—thousands if the Artificial involved was the dominant sort. Most of it was simply…life, meaningless from a security perspective. But sometimes it involved important things: credits, chimerals, hacks, war maneuvers or safe house security, for instance.
Markos: They left a big impression three hours ago in a deep, dark corner they had no business being in. A Noetica corner.
Claire: What’s the data? Show me.
Her mind dove along a weaving, spinning stream of virtual qubits. It felt like swimming through a sea teeming with life, which it mostly was.
As she neared the flagged area she began to see an increasing number of high-priority markers on the data. Devon Reynolds. Mia Requelme. Prevo security operatives. IDCC directives. Details about—
“Oh, bollocks.” She bolted upright on the floor and took a long swig of her drink. Since the Noesis was no bullshit bloody compromised, she sent a directed message.
PESSIMAL EXCL
Alex and the rest of the Noetica A-Team:
There’s a mole for Winslow in the Noesis, and they are successfully tracking Abigail Canivon’s protection detail.
Luck!
— Claire
ROMANE
“Ebanatyi pidaraz!” No, please, not Abigail. Not now. Alex honestly didn’t know if they were her thoughts or Valkyrie’s. Probably both.
Caleb swiftly reappeared from wherever he’d been brooding as she threw on her pullover.
She had wanted to get out there and help—help manage the riots and generalized OTS-engineered chaos. Help Devon and Mia and Morgan, because her conscience reminded her she was supposed to want such things. Caleb had wanted to help as well, yet somehow they’d still ended up arguing about how, which resulted in them doing nothing productive.
He’d retreated below to brood; she’d retreated into the ship.
“What happened?”
“We need to go. Abigail’s in trouble.”
She had to give him credit. Whatever else was going on, he instantly moved into Intelligence Agent mode, heading for the cabinet where their weaponry was stored with an intensity of purpose. “Okay. Go where?”
“I’ll let you know as soon as I do.” She stopped only long enough to grab her personal shield generator on the way to the airlock.
Alex: Devon, tell me where she is. Now.
Devon: 314 Haliford Suites, Tevior and Stratford. I’m closer, though, and already on the way.
Alex: I don’t give a damn if you beat us there as long as someone fucking gets there, yesterday.
Devon: You think I don’t want the same thing?
Alex: Then stop talking and run.
Caleb stopped her at the hangar bay exit long enough to clip her Daemon’s holster, gun secured in it, to her waistband. She’d neglected to grab it, what with being a little distracted. Then they hurried out.
“What’s the word from her security?”
Alex merely shook her head, and he seemed to understand.
Meanwhile Valkyrie fretted in her mind. The security team is not responding. Something is wrong.
Wasn’t that just the understatement of the century. Not something, Valkyrie. Everything. Everything is wrong. And getting worse fast.
Devon sensed the Molotov sailing toward him ninety-eight microseconds before it arrived. He ducked but didn’t falter.
The night was eerily bright, lit by fires and floodlights, but it meant he didn’t need to enhance/filter his vision in order to move quickly through the increasingly chaotic streets.
Mia: Devon, get your ass back to Headquarters! You’re going to get yourself killed out there.
Devon: I’m closer than anyone. I’ll get there first. I’ll get there in time.
Mia: Yes, then you’ll get killed by OTS assassins. Let the Rapid Response Force handle it.
He noted a large and rowdy crowd had congregated to wreak havoc in one of the open plazas to his left. I think the RRF has its hands full. I’m almost there.
Mia: Be careful.
It didn’t require a response, and she likely wouldn’t care for any response he did give.
Abigail’s security detail had gone offline three minutes earlier. Too long. No time for him to be stealthy.
Annie, get ready.
Go.
He loved her for being so damn awesome. Later he’d make sure and tell her that—even though simply by thinking it she likely knew it—I do—but right now he concentrated on bursting through the doors to the apartment building.
The lobby was empty and the lift disabled. But he’d downloaded the schematic for the building on the way and bolted to the right and down two hallways to the service lift.
Shouting echoed behind him; he ignored it.
Third floor. First hallway. Second left. Fifth door.
A guard lay sprawled outside the open door. No pulse. No detectable life signs. He leapt over the body and inside, straight into the turbulent sounds of a vigorous scuffle.
He burst into the living room as Abigail sank to the floor, her throat sliced open by a blade held in the hand of the man standing behind her.
In the eternal stretch of time where everything around him froze except for the slow fall of her body, he wanted to run to her, to hold her parts together and save her. It was why he was here, wasn’t it?
Annie’s voice echoed in his head, solemn, dark and painfully forceful. She is already dead. If you try to help her, we will die, too.
But she fought. We heard it. She fought for her life.
I know. Honor her fight and let us not die as well.
Fine. Then let’s do this.
As Abigail’s arms followed the rest of her body to flop lifelessly upon the floor, the man holding the gamma knife looked at Devon, murderous intent in his eyes.
Devon didn’t have a weapon—or rather, he didn’t have any implement the attackers would recognize as a weapon. But he would kill them all nonetheless.
Four attackers. Killer -26°—eleven o’clock, 2.4 meters ahead. Second attacker two o’clock, 3.5 meters. Third to the rear in the kitchen, 4.2 meters and one wall. Fourth in the bedroom, door ahead 3.1 meters and to the right.
The killer was closest. He would die first. As such things should be.
Devon ducked as the man lunged forward and swung the blade toward his head, way too late. He tackled the man at the knees, driving him into another attacker emerging from the corner and in turn driving both of them into the wall.
As the man’s arm flailed around for him, seeking any flesh at this point, Devon grabbed a wrist. Bare skin was all he needed to deliver an overload of electrical charge into the man’s body
.
Third attacker now 2.7 meters and closing, five o’clock.
He leaned away and bent the convulsing man’s arm down and back until the blade in the man’s hand plunged into the stomach of the cohort behind him. Then he shoved them both hard into the wall and lunged to the side, his hand finding the grid connection point embedded in the wall. He sent another surge of power into the circuitry lining the walls of the apartment.
The third attacker reached him, his fist pulled back, cocked to unleash a load of muscle into his face.
He jerked sideways.
The man’s fist impaled the wall, breaking through the insulating material and impacting the apartment’s internal wiring. Devon was already moving as the man shuddered and fell partway to the floor, his fist stuck in the wall and holding him halfway up.
A woman rushed out of the bedroom. She froze for a half-second on seeing all the bodies, then brought her Daemon up and fired.
The impact was point-blank as he crashed into her. His shield absorbed the energy, but it set his skin on fire as he barreled forward.
They landed against the outer bedroom wall. She fought to get the Daemon up between them.
He grasped her neck, wrapped his hand around it, and when his index finger met her ports he delivered a jolt directly to her cybernetics, killing her instantly. He stepped back and let the body drop to the floor.
All vicinity threats neutralized.
Emily had once said that, bravado aside, his heart was too gentle for him to ever really, genuinely, physically harm someone. Wouldn’t she be surprised as all hell if she could see him now?
He fell to his knees beside Abigail.
So much blood.
She was so long gone.
He cradled her head in his lap anyway. “I’m sorry, Abby. I was too late. I promised you that you would be safe, but I let you down….”
A gasp of horror echoed through the too-briefly silent room as Alex and Caleb burst into the apartment.
18
ROMANE
* * *
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