by Jacen Aster
Her expression blanked for a moment as she processed his answer, before shifting to reluctant resignation. “Henry, I hate to ask this of you, but if you're not seriously hurt I want you to go back there. Poke around. See if you can get a look at things. I don't want to think that this might have been sabotage but....”
He nodded, suddenly grim. “But, given that it almost squished you, you specifically, we can't rule out another assassination attempt. Teva said there was an official investigation going on though.”
She gave a reluctant head shake. “There is, but if someone has really gotten to me aboard the most secure ship in my fleet, they might have gotten to someone in security as well. I want a second opinion.”
“I'm not an investigator, Areina.”
“No, but like you said, you've spent a lot of time in engineering compartments. Knowing your talent for trouble, you probably know what to look for better than anyone else aboard.”
Henry only had to consider that for a moment before nodding agreement. “Fair enough. Even ignoring that I know what a proper accident should look like, I've probably seen more cases of sabotage than your entire security force combined.” He paused for a moment as that sunk in. “I'm not entirely sure what that says about my life, now that I say it out loud.”
Areina took one look at Henry's face after he said that and her serious expression broke. She seemed to struggle for a moment before bursting out in laughter. In between fits of gasping, she tried to reassure him, “Only...only that you've...you've really led...an interesting life...Henry...an interesting life.”
Looking at her ruefully, he shook his head and headed for the hatch. “Fine, laugh at poor Henry. I see how it is. Just wait until you wake up with pink hair tomorrow morning.”
For some reason, that just seemed to make her laugh harder. Seeing as that had been the point, however, Henry grinned to himself once he was out of her sight.
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
Henry slid quietly back into Areina's quarters, afraid she might be sleeping. He had been gone nearly three hours and it had been one hell of a stressful day. As he made his way through her small receiving room, he cocked his head and listened. Okay, yeah, those were voices coming from the living area. Ceasing his efforts at stealth, he crossed the rest of the entryway and reached out to knock on the hatch frame to draw the attention of both Areina and Teva, who was apparently the source of the second voice.
“Come in, Henry.” Areina's voice came before he could bring his knuckles down.
Well, since they were awake, the system had probably alerted them. So much for being sneaky. He stepped in…and momentarily wished he was a few years younger. Both women were in nightclothes. Neither apparently believed in an abundance of material. Shaking off the random thought, he looked at Areina, deliberately catching her eyes and drawing them with his own to Teva. He quirked an eyebrow, something he always tried to do around her, as he'd never forgotten her jealousy of independently moving eyebrows. Her frequent cross looks when he did it on purpose let him know she remembered too.
She seemed to understand his silent question readily enough. “You found something then? Go ahead and say it. I'm choosing to trust Teva on this. She needs to know.”
Henry shrugged, being largely in agreement on that. Plus, he liked Teva. “I found something all right, and you're not either of you going to like it.”
Teva piped up, looking curiously between the two of them. “Wait what? What's going on here?”
Areina enlightened her. “I sent Henry to take a look at the accident site. We figured if someone had gotten to me here....”
Teva's face shifted from its normal happy-go-lucky expression to a dangerous, hard look that seemed at odds with her usual personality. “Then they might have someone inside security already. Yeah, I figured that was possible but didn't know what to do about it, other than keep an eye on them.”
Henry nodded and picked up the thread of conversation. “Right. Areina knows I've been around the block a few times. I’ve seen quite a few cases of sabotage and even more legitimate accidents like that. She figured I'd be able to tell the difference.”
“And you could?”
Henry looked angry as he replied, “Yes, and it wasn't an accident. The structure had been deliberately weakened. I don't know how they made it come down at just the right time, or how they got us in position, though I'm guessing the latter was just decent planning. Visiting the rift projector was on our itinerary for the day, and when the doc wakes up, he might very well tell us he'd planned to show us that data all along.”
Teva and Areina looked upset, but it was Teva who spoke first. “Shit! We just got the official report fifteen minutes before you showed up. They said it was a definite accident. That means security is compromised.”
Areina was tight-lipped but shook her head to the negative. “Not necessarily. The security team here isn't exactly used to assassination attempts. They could have just missed it. There's no way to be sure.” She looked to Henry. “Unless it was really obvious?”
He grimaced. “No, it had been made to look like metal fatigue. I only spotted it because I was looking for it. That and I've seen that particular trick before. There were tool marks where there shouldn't have been any.”
Teva let out a breath in a hiss. “Great, just krikking fantastic. We can't be sure if they're corrupt or just incompetent. Either way, we're in trouble.”
Both of the others nodded in grim agreement. Areina motioned for Henry to pull up a chair, once he had done so she tiredly but firmly stated, “Alright then, let’s figure out what we're going to do about it.”
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
The steps they had taken seemed to have worked, however much they annoyed Areina. Mostly, they involved the far more visible presence of an armed Teva, and far fewer personal visits to unsecured places. Months passed and even Henry began to think that maybe he had overreacted. That perhaps there was some other explanation.
At any rate, despite the delays caused by Doctor Kitho's injuries, the rift projectors had been brought online, tested, and tuned. Henry and Areina stood on the bridge, with the constant watchful shadow of Teva hovering nearby, as the Starlight's captain, Teraliane Archliea, oversaw the launch of the first manned test vessel. They were listening in as she walked the operation to completion, antsy to be doing something, but knowing that they wouldn't be running the ship in the long run. As such, needed to let the good captain do her job.
“Trial by Fire, correct your drift. You're within tolerance, but let's keep it perfect this first time out.”
The aptly named test ship obeyed, lining up more precisely with the rift projectors.
“Good, begin final countdown. Sixty seconds on the clock. Bring rift projection to eighty-five percent capacity and hold.”
On the holo display, the conduit lines running the length and breadth of the Starlight dimmed as rift energy flowed to a single point on the portside of the great ship. That point, the rift projector, glowed intensely purple, rapidly becoming painful to the naked eye. The holo display shifted to show a wireframe model instead of live feed.
“Thirty seconds. Projection holding stable. Begin launch sequence on my mark...mark.”
There was a bare instant of delay before a beam of fiery purple-blue lanced out from the Starlight, encompassing the Trial by Fire. Between one eye blink and the next, a twisting wrongness existed, unsettling at an instinctive level. Then the fire receded and the Trial by Fire was gone.
But almost no one saw it, for in the instant that the Starlight fired, all attention was wrested to the back of the bridge as a middle aged Arabuli gave a war cry, whipped out a pistol, and opened fire on Areina's position. Teva, showing spectacular reflexes and danger senses to put even Henry's to shame, was moving before the first shot was fired. She brutally slammed Areina to the floor behind a bridge station and rolled away to a clear line of sight. The assailant’s first two shots slammed into the bulkhead and the third into the br
idge station, whose monitors spit electrical sparks before the safeties shut it down.
Henry dove the opposite direction from Teva before the second shot went off, chucking the small puzzle cube he'd been entertaining himself with at the attacker on his way down. The attacker, one of the minor bridge underlings, cursed and flinched as the cube hit the bulkhead centimeters from his head. Luck more than skill.
A fourth and fifth shot were fired, but these came from Teva. She'd come up from her roll holding her sidearm and squeezed off two flawless shots the moment she regained her line of sight. Both shots took the assailant in the chest, or what was once his chest, as the smoking remnants of his chest cavity showed that Teva's gun was very much not set to stun someone. The smoking corpse slid bonelessly to the ground just in time for the panic to start.
Teva didn't tolerate the screaming. She flicked a setting on her pistol and fired again, this time at the ceiling. “EVERYONE DOWN! IF YOU'RE STILL STANDING IN THREE SECONDS, I SHOOT YOU.” About half the room managed to comply as Teva darted to Areina. Wrenching her upright, she placed her boss behind herself and started shooting those who hadn't complied as she made for the door. Thankfully, she'd flicked her weapon to a stun setting. Henry hesitated, not sure if he'd be shot if he moved, but he didn't have time to wonder for long. “HARPER! MOVE IT! CLEAR THE DOOR!”
Henry said nothing as he rolled to his feet, having pulled a small holdout weapon from one of his many pockets. He darted to the door ahead of Teva and her principal. All of the crew were down now, either willingly or stunned. Henry, calling on half remembered training from a dozen eclectic sources, popped the hatch release without showing himself through the opening. He ducked low and rounded the corner. Seeing nothing, he shouted, “CLEAR!”
Teva wasted no more time. She picked up her pace, practically carrying Areina to get her off the bridge. Where was security? Right, they weren't sure of them, so they'd stationed them away from Areina at all times. They made the corridor. Teva and Henry swapped places without a word. Henry used his command codes to remotely trigger a general lockdown as they moved at a near run to the security of Areina's reinforced quarters. Only once they reached them and got in contact with security did they feel any sort of relief.
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
“There was no sign of instability, and he had taken out a life insurance policy. There was also a massive funds transfer to his account.” Teva was pacing back and forth, wearing a hole in the deck of Areina's quarters. Three weeks had passed since the attempt on the bridge and the crew, as well as Areina, were still a bit shaken. Though that may have had as much to do with Teva shooting five of them, even if they were only stunned, as it did with the attempt itself.
“There's also his age and rank. He was a decade older than he ought to have been for his place in the hierarchy and probably felt it. Three kids. I'm betting someone convinced him that he could be famous, and provide a better chance at high ranking for his kids, if he just managed to kill you. Hell, that might even be true if the money isn't recovered.” She ran a hand through her short-cropped hair, making it stand up crazily. Shaking her head and stopping abruptly, she flopped onto the couch beside her boss and added a last thought. “They can't trace where the money came from. It may not even be connected to the accident last time. The methods were about as different as could be. Worse, the bridge guy wasn't anywhere near the rift projection bays at any point, so there's still at least one murderous lunatic on board.”
Henry hmmed. “It could be someone altering their methods when something doesn't work. Or even multiple patsies for the same source with orders to kill you but no instructions how.”
Areina grimaced. “And left to their own devices, each person might try something different. Lovely.”
“Pretty much.”
Teva threw her hands up and said, “Fine! So we've got nothing. Let's get the hell out of here before we all go crazy.”
Henry shrugged. “I suppose we could go for food, or drinks.”
She grimaced. “I was thinking more along the lines of off the damn ship. Since we know there are assassins here.”
Areina shook her head and gave a deep sigh. “I want to, T. I really wish I could just load you and Henry up on my shuttle and take off exploring. Somewhere out on the rim where no one could find us.”
Teva pouted. “So why don't we?”
“You know why. We've been over this a dozen times already. I only have two years, less than that now actually, before I have to hand over the company and accept the crown. That was as much as I could get and more than my father wanted. The way things are going, we'll be lucky to get Starlight up and running before time runs out.”
Teva grumbled as she tried to flatten out her hair again. “Fine, let’s at least get those drinks. Even if I have to bring mine back here before I can get hammered.”
Henry chuckled. “We can just go stretch our legs in the hydroponics gardens, then pick up something to bring back here. That way you can drink with us.”
There was general agreement and a small shuffle of clothes and combs before they were out the door, heading for the gardens. The ship was large enough, and incomplete enough, that it took them nearly twenty minutes to reach the entrance.
The gardens were an oddity, almost entirely unique to the galaxy's small number of city-ships. They were intended to offer not just food and atmospheric processing, but also a more natural and open feeling retreat for the city's permanent residents. As the Starlight was still an experimental ship, there were very few actual residents beyond the crew and their families. Thus, they were unsurprised to find the gardens empty. Since this section of the ship was sealed, to allow for a more humid environment and keep contaminants out, Henry was able to program an alert to inform them if anyone entered. Finally able to relax somewhere outside Areina's quarters, they meandered through the walkways, admiring the beauty of the park-like environment and basking in a small slice of tranquility. Eventually, Teva tired of the serenity and declared a hunt, with alcohol as the prey.
They made their way back to the mini-airlock that served as an exit, laughing at Teva's irrepressibly flamboyant gestures and declarations. Stepping through, the inner door sealed behind them, and they waited for the outer to open.
Only, it didn’t.
The chamber was suddenly filled with the sound of a rushing hiss as the system began sucking air from the airlock. Teva swore loudly and darted a hand to the emergency release. She cursed even more creatively when the release did nothing. “Hold your breath!”
She and Areina took deep lungfuls of air, and Areina pushed her aside, reaching the override panel and trying to put in her personal security codes. She pounded the bulkhead when she realized the panel's power had somehow been cut. Teva drew her sidearm and ratcheted up the power, clearly intent on blowing holes in the airlock to get them some air.
Henry grabbed her arm and shook his head. “Don't bother.”
They looked at him askance. He wasn't even trying to hold his breath.
He waved his portable and smiled. “I got this.”
Just as he said this the hissing stopped, before reversing to a blowing gust strong enough to whip Areina's long hair around. Once the airlock repressurized, the doors popped open. Sparing Henry an odd look, Teva shoved them to the bulkheads as she checked the corridor. Finding no assailants, she waved them out and they hurried back to the safety of Areina's quarters. Once they had alerted security to the newest attempt on the princess's life, Teva rounded on Henry.
“Okay, Harper, spill it! How did you do that?”
Henry gave a smug grin. “After the accident in the projector bay I thought there might be another attempt to use the ship against us. I hacked into a few of the more dangerous systems and installed fail safes and backdoors. It didn't help any against a psycho with a gun, but the airlock is part of environmental controls so....”
She frowned, then smirked. “So you accessed them with your portable and took over. Reversing
the problem.”
Henry nodded.
“Nice. I don't suppose you got anything on who did it?”
Henry sighed and shook his head.
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
Over the next six months, Areina's fear and stress, initially high in the wake of three attempts so close together, had shifted to an odd sort of humor as the next three attempts were all foiled by Henry. He seemed to have preemptively hacked an increasing number of both logical and odd systems in his quest for security. One attacker had been slammed to the floor by localized gravity fields. A fire suppression system had nailed another attacker with high pressure foam, and the third would likely never forget being taken out at the knees by a floor scrubbing robot.
Areina finally asked him, half amused and half exasperated, “Henry, just how much of my ship have you hacked?”
He gave a lazy shrug and responded, “Eh, by this point? Most of it, I'd say.”
She shook her head and seemed to think about protesting before visibly giving up the idea.
“Can't protest given the results?” Teva asked with a grin.
“No, I can't protest given the results.”
Teva heaved a misty eyed sigh. “Oh and such glorious results they are! I shall never forget the look on the last one’s face as he was defeated by a floor cleaner, not even till the very end of my days.”
Areina rolled her eyes and Henry snickered.
“What I want to know is how you're doing it, Henry. The systems security people are going completely psycho trying to figure it out. When did you become such a top flight hacker?” Areina's eyes narrowed in suspicion.
Henry gave a mischievous grin. “I'm not really, but I do know a few of the galaxy's best. I know I've told you about Vivian. She's loaded me up with all sorts of helpful tricks and programs over the years. Seems to want me to get up to no good as often as possible. Living vicariously through me I guess, since she can't do anything like this anymore. Too many people watching.”