by M. R. Forbes
"Now what?" Aiko asked.
"We stay out of sight and wait."
They moved back into the nearest brush, keeping their eyes on the gate. Mitchell couldn't guess what was happening inside the house. There had been no echo of gunfire, no shouts of alarm. He assumed Calvin was inside. Still alive? There was no way to know.
An hour passed. Then another. They were both getting impatient by the time the third hour had gone by and the planet's sun was beginning to set.
"Do you think we should check on him?" Aiko asked.
Mitchell considered. He didn't want to screw things up by going in when Calvin hadn't asked him to. At the same time, who knew what was happening inside?
"Let's give it another hour. It'll be easier to sneak in when it's dark anyway."
"Okay."
They were crouched in the bushes for another twenty minutes when the gate swung open.
"Something's happening," Mitchell said. "Get ready."
Aiko retrieved her gun from the holster on her jacket. She had never touched a pistol before she had boarded the Carver, and her aim was still pretty bad. She knew the basics, though, and shooting enough quantity could overcome poor quality.
Mitchell did the same, finding his weapon under his armpit and holding it against his chest.
The gate sat open.
Nothing else happened.
"Strange," Aiko said.
"Maybe that's the signal?"
"Could be."
"Come on."
They cautiously stepped out of their hiding place. Mitchell remained alert, his eyes scanning the wall, the upper floors of the house, and the gate. There was no motion anywhere.
They had just reached the open gate when the front door to the house swung open. Mitchell's eyes scanned the area, finding nowhere to hide.
"Shit," he said, grabbing Aiko by the shoulder and pulling her to the ground. She began to protest until she realized why he had done it.
He aimed his gun towards the door.
A single person came out. A man in a sharp dark gray suit that was now splattered with blood.
"Aiko," Calvin Hohn said. "Can you please contact the driver?"
They both stood as Calvin approached them. The front of his jacket was soaked in blood.
"Not mine," he said, responding to Mitchell's concern.
Aiko took out the handheld to call the car.
"What happened?"
"Plan A," he said. "I tried another way. It didn't work. I wanted to spare her the burden."
"What do you mean?" Aiko asked, her eyes wide.
"Mitchell and I, we're soldiers. Warriors. We've seen death, and we've gotten our hands dirty before. You're a technician. You're very smart, but your heart is not made for killing."
Mitchell didn't make any attempt to counter the statement. How could he, when he agreed to it? Calvin had done what he felt he had to do. "Did you get what we needed?"
"Yes, but we have to move fast. There were two other agents inside. One of them will be missed sooner or later."
"All dead?"
Calvin nodded grimly. He wasn't happy about what he had done. He knew what the other option was.
The HPT car rolled up to the gate. The doors opened, and they climbed in.
"Back to Mirai," Calvin said. "Please stop at a high-end clothing boutique."
The driver glanced back at him, keeping her head up. The opaque glasses made it impossible to know if she was looking at Calvin's face or his bloody shirt. Mitchell assumed it was his face.
"I can get us in," Calvin said.
30
"Where do you think we are?" Alice asked.
"I'm not sure," Kathy replied.
The Goliath had dropped from hyperspace a few minutes earlier after a nearly week-long journey. It had been an unproductive week for the two of them, most of it spent mapping out routes from a small storage room closer to the science labs all the way back to the front of the ship. The idea had been to find pathways that were either little used or little known to Watson or his Secondary; corridors, hallways, ventilation shafts, and in one case a segment of wide, disabled piping that they could travel in to avoid detection.
It had been a grueling process of trial and error. One that left them being shot at on many occasions, and almost captured twice. Kathy had been shot in the arm on one of the first efforts, leaving Alice to watch in amazement as the wound healed over inside of an hour. She had told Kathy she'd forgotten she wasn't human.
Their exploration had finally gotten them exactly where Kathy wanted to be.
On a direct path to the bridge.
When she had said it was risky, she had meant it in more ways than one. She knew the Goliath's bridge had been reconfigured drastically in the weeks since Mitchell had discovered it. All of the command stations had been removed to provide better line of sight to the three-hundred-sixty-degree views of space around the starship, with only the command chair and a needle-tip interface to the Secondary remaining.
Kathy had tried to be secretive and subtle to get what she wanted, but between what Alice had told her that Watson was doing to Jacob and their inability to reach his workshop, she had realized she couldn't waste the precious seconds they had on simply determining what the Tetron was doing. She decided that when the time came, she would seize control of the Secondary and use it to unlock the contents of the chip.
That time was now. The Goliath had dropped from hyperspace, and Kathy knew that meant it was either back at Asimov, orbiting the planet Pulin was living on, or somewhere else on the path to finding Tio's brother.
The same path that Mitchell was on.
She knew he would either be nearby or on a convergent path. If she took control of the Goliath, she could get more insight into their position and arrange a rendezvous.
Now she and Alice were climbing slowly through a ventilation shaft, on their way from their hiding place to the bridge. Their journey would bring them out in the lift shaft, which they would have to climb to the bridge. The good news was that if Watson were on the bridge, it would be obvious because the lift would be above them. The bad news was that if the lift were above them, they couldn't get onto the bridge, and they would have to make their way all the way back having achieved nothing.
They moved slowly, pausing every few seconds to listen for the skittering of Watson's machines. The smaller, crab-like constructions had surprised them in the ventilation before, causing them to abandon two of the alternate routes to the lift shaft and sending them scrambling once they had destroyed it. They both knew the same thing could happen on this route anytime, and if it did they would be starting almost from scratch.
There was a measure of luck with them, and they managed to make the half-kilometer journey to the lift without being seen, the same way they had done it three times before. Kathy carefully unhooked the shaft cover from its placement, sliding out into the shaft to look down.
The top of the lift was visible below them.
The bridge was clear.
She leaned back in to flash a thumbs-up to Alice before pushing herself far enough out to secure the shaft cover to its maintenance hook on the wall.
She made a downward gesture to Alice, and then she jumped.
She fell ten meters, hitting the top of the lift, doing her best to absorb the impact. She felt the pain of her legs breaking beneath her, and she tumbled and rolled over, grabbing the center of the lift and holding on before she slammed into the side and made even more noise. She clenched her teeth against the throbbing of her damaged body, pulling herself back to the middle and reaching down into her pocket for the screwdriver. She took it out and began removing the screws from the maintenance cover on the top of the lift.
She put the cover on the side, reached down to the screen and keying in the override sequence that Alice had provided her. Then she used the panel to direct the lift up, stopping it at the floor beneath the ventilation shaft.
Alice slid out and onto the top of the lift,
noticing the blood on Kathy's pants.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
"I broke my legs. They'll be restored in a minute."
"It's just genetics, isn't it?" Alice asked. "Can you pass that healing ability on to a full human?"
"I don't know," Kathy replied.
She directed the lift up to the floor below the bridge before pushing herself up onto her hands and knees.
"We're almost there," she said.
"Let's hope Watson doesn't decide now is a good time to head to the bridge," Alice said, climbing and standing on her back.
A moment later, the hatch to the bridge slid open.
Kathy felt the weight disappear from her back. She stood up slowly, testing her legs, before reaching up to take Alice's offered hand. The Rigger pulled her up and into the Goliath's command center.
"Oh no," Kathy said, the full view of space around the Goliath suddenly visible to them.
A second Tetron was next to the Goliath, along with a large fleet of Federation starships.
31
"What's happening?" Alice asked, staring at the ships.
"I'm not sure. Look." She pointed out to the right.
A Federation transport had emerged from the Goliath's hangar and was crossing the short distance to a nearby battleship.
"Is Watson leaving?" Alice asked.
Kathy tried to determine why the Tetron configuration would depart from the Goliath. It didn't make sense. "I don't know."
She stood transfixed, watching as the transport disappeared into the belly of the battleship.
A moment later, the battleship disappeared into hyperspace.
"Whatever it is, it can't be good," Alice said.
"I agree," Kathy said. She turned towards the command chair, sitting alone and vacant on a raised pedestal towards the center of the space. "Cover me."
Alice unslung her rifle from her shoulder, following Kathy over to the chair.
Kathy stood at the base of the pedestal, looking up at the thin tentacle that ended in a needle behind the chair. She wondered if the Secondary could see her standing there. That facilities that remained would depend on how much of Origin's configuration had been destroyed during the takeover.
It had never exhibited signs of being able to visualize her before. That the needle remained in place suggested that it wasn't able to now.
"If I don't survive this, I'm sorry," Kathy said.
"You'll survive," Alice replied.
Kathy nodded, climbing to the chair. She breathed deeply before lunging forward and grabbing the tentacle in her hand.
Her vision exploded in rainbow colored light for only an instant before it was lost completely. Her hand burned with cold numbness, and she cried out as she turned herself away and plunged the needle tip into the back of her neck, stabbing it through her flesh and into contact with her spine.
Her heart beat too fast as she felt the flood of information open up to her, the Secondary launching an immediate defense against her invasion.
She struggled to keep up, swimming through a sea of impulse and instinct in an effort to pause the sudden and immense swelling of energy that charged into her. She pushed back, using the innate internal knowledge she barely knew she had to stage a counterstrike against the oncoming storm.
She chose what she believed was an uncommon path, through subsystems that were so rarely used she wasn't certain the Secondary would consciously know they existed to defend them. It was very similar to her approach within the Goliath, moving as a mouse might in a maze.
The Secondary didn't fall for the trick. It nipped at her heels, following behind as she attempted to make the leap from the subroutine to the parent, to shut down something, anything, in an effort to weaken the configuration's power.
Her external self writhed in pain, her failing assault leaving her body wide open to attack. Somewhere in her mind she could smell her burning flesh and hair.
A sharp pain registered in her mind at the source of the needle. The Secondary overwhelmed her, moving ahead of her efforts and reaching back, throwing her violently away from the subsystems. She had the sensation that she was screaming.
Then the pain vanished. It was immediate and rough. She wasn't sure what was happening, but she felt herself land heavily on the floor.
"Kathy," Alice said from somewhere nearby.
Kathy didn't answer.
"Kathy, are you okay? Shit."
Gunfire echoed in Kathy's ears. She tried to make sense of it, to understand what it was. Her entire body hurt. She was burned, she knew. She needed time to heal and regain her vision.
There was no time. She could hear the machines clambering onto the bridge through the open hatch of the lift shaft, called to action by the Secondary.
Where was Watson? Did that mean he wasn't on the Goliath?
She tried to pick herself up. Alice noticed, reaching out and grabbing her by the arm.
"Kathy, we need to go."
"I can't see," Kathy said.
"Frigging hell," Alice said. Kathy felt the soldier's hands pulling at her. "When I lift you up, wrap your legs around my waist and hold on."
Kathy did as she was told, helping Alice carry her. Then they were moving.
"Get out of the frigging way," Alice said, continuing to fire.
They dropped onto the lift. Kathy had to hold on tight while Alice leaned over to enter the maintenance panel.
"Son of a bitch," Alice cursed.
Kathy smelled the blood.
"Alice?"
"It's a flesh wound."
The lift began to drop, falling much farther than they had come.
"Where are we going?" Kathy asked.
"Away. What happened?"
Kathy felt tears forming in her eyes. She had been made to do one job, and to do it right.
"I failed."
32
"I should have started with this," Aiko said, checking out her new clothes in the back of the car. She was wearing a suit not much different from Calvin and Mitchell's, a dark blue jacket with a high collared white shirt beneath and trousers cut for her gender.
The dress was identical to the suit the agent had been wearing, all the way down to the four-thousand-dollar shoes. It had been expensive to buy and more expensive to keep the shop owner quiet about, but Calvin insisted that he could get them into the Black Hole as long as they looked the part.
"How did you do it?" Mitchell asked as they neared the building.
"Do what?" Calvin replied.
"Get him to talk without compromising the data."
"It was a matter of honor and trust. I introduced myself. I gave him my credentials. He let me in. News of my situation hasn't reached Yokohama yet."
"Why did you tell him you were there?"
"I told him the Federation military had reason to believe the Black Hole was under threat, and that I had been assigned to set up an intervention. He had already checked on me by then, so he didn't verify my current assignment."
"He didn't wonder why a Navy Admiral would be running an operation like that?"
"It isn't unheard of, depending on the situation. Admirals are expected to be leaders and strategists. These qualities are not specific to maneuvering starships."
Calvin sighed, his expression dark.
"I got him to reveal some details of the facility without violence. When he began to balk at the questions I was asking, I retreated until I could get into position behind him. I stole his sidearm, shot the two agents in the temple to both disable their implants and kill them at the same time. I jabbed a small knife into his head to short his receiver before he could signal the delete.
"At that point, I told him the truth. All of the truth. I asked him for his help. He refused. I'm not proud of what I did. Not at all. I broke his trust and dishonored myself by my actions. It is something that I will struggle to live with, for as long as we have left to live. We both know it had to be done."
Mitchell nodded. "I understand."
The car stopped back where they had started. The late hour hadn't diminished the activity in the streets and around the buildings.
"Do people in the Federation sleep?" Mitchell asked.
"This is the night shift," Calvin replied. "Most corporations run at one hundred percent capacity, broken into appropriate length shifts based on the local time."
"So you don't use Earth Standard?"
"Why would we? No, it is difficult to manage when different planets have different cycles. Only the military uses EST."
"The Alliance manages. The human body adjusts."
"Who is to say which is right and which is wrong?" Aiko said, butting in to end the discussion. "It is what it is."
"She has a point," Mitchell said.
Calvin nodded.
"Driver, please remain here."
They didn't wait for the response they knew wouldn't come. They got out of the car and headed across the street towards the Black Hole.
"Let me do the talking," Calvin said. "Hopefully they will not question why I have a upatine in tow."
"Upatine?" Mitchell asked.
"Derogatory Federese slang for a citizen or expatriate of the UPA," Aiko said.
"You have Caucasians in the Federation."
"And their mannerisms are completely different than yours. Even your walk screams UPA."
Mitchell forced himself not to smile. They were nearing the front doors of the building.
"Stay two feet behind me, evenly spaced at my back," Calvin said.
Mitchell slowed to get into position, as did Aiko. They crossed the threshold in that configuration, approaching a stiff man at a central desk. There was no indication that there was anything special about the building. The sign behind the desk read "National Financial Corporation."
The man said something in Federese, his eyes falling directly on Mitchell.
Calvin responded in English. Mitchell didn't know if it was for his sake or if it was part of procedure. Most of the Federation's military structure and customs originated from the global military that had been created on Earth after the Xeno War.