Breach of Containment

by Elizabeth Bonesteel

  She might have left him a message. He might be able to follow her after all.

  He tried to shake off the conviction that she had come to him, finally, only because she knew she was running away. But it was the only way it made any sense. With everything they had been through, all the ways they had let each other down—she had told him, bluntly, that he did not have that part of her heart, and she had neither said nor done anything since to suggest that it was not still the truth. Not even this. Why else would she have put her arms around him, made love to him, said what he asked her to say, except that she knew he would have no more memories of her?

  What would he say to her if he found her?

  I should never have met you, he thought, bitterness overwhelming him. I should never have brought you onto my ship, into my life. You have been poison, all this time, and I’ve taken it willingly.

  Would he really give her up, if he could do it all over? All the years of laughter he would not have had? Would his marriage have survived if he had not had Elena to talk to, to share his good and bad days—or would it have ended sooner, before he and Caroline had torn each other to pieces? Would it have been worth giving up all of that joy to avoid this pain?

  You left me to go to your death, he thought. You gave me everything, and then you left me forever. Why couldn’t you choose to live instead?

  “Field termination in thirty seconds,” Leviathan said. “Debris detected.”

  Debris. He sat forward, dread in his stomach. “Get as close as you can,” he told the ship, and watched the field fade away to starlight.

  And he came out into the classic debris field of a shuttle that had blown its weapons banks.

  So much for wanting me to follow.

  He scanned, knowing it would be futile. She would have been careful, making sure the logic core went up with everything else. The shuttle was too small for a flight recorder, but it wouldn’t have mattered; she knew exactly how to take care of those.

  “Scan for other ships,” he ordered. “Anything that might have left here around the time of the blast.”

  Leviathan scanned. “Seventy-two ships within range,” it said. “Sixteen without idents.”

  Sixteen was not insurmountable. “How long ago was the blast?”

  “Two hours, thirty-four minutes.”

  Too far ahead. “Get me the destinations on those seventy-two ships. Extrapolate for the ident-free ships.”

  Leviathan paused. “Sixty-four destinations acquired.”

  “Why the discrepancy?”

  “Eight ships are untraceable.”

  “Why?”

  “The field generators are not providing sufficient information to allow the destination to be calculated.”

  “Are all eight ident-free ships?”

  “Yes.”

  “Keep track of them, then,” he said, frustrated. Where sixteen had seemed optimistic, eight seemed impossible. “Let me know when they drop out.”

  Another pause. “Drop-out data may not be accurate.”

  “Understood.”

  He leaned back, closing his eyes. He was grasping at straws, shooting in the dark. Even if he figured out which ship was Elena’s, she had too much of a head start. Catching up with her before she did whatever it was she was doing would be nearly impossible. He felt it rising in his chest, a bubble of frantic frustration.

  I never want to leave you, she had said.

  Liar.

  “Incoming message,” Leviathan told him.

  He opened his eyes. “Play it,” he said.

  “Playback is delayed.”

  Which told him who it was from. “For how long?”

  “Twenty-one hours, twelve minutes.”

  Whatever she was doing, she thought she would be done in twenty-two hours. At least that gave him a time frame. “Override,” he said.

  “I cannot.”

  He rattled off his command code.

  “Message is locked with a non-Corps command code,” Leviathan said.

  “How the—” He stopped before he could finish the thought, and stared out the window at the remains of Admiral Herrod’s shuttle. She had beaten him, then. Becoming a civilian, of all things, had taken away the last hope he had of being able to follow her. Whatever she had to say to him, he would not hear it until it was too late, until she was irretrievably gone, until his rage and fury would be piled upon a ghost.

  There was nothing on Leviathan he could punch, and that had been shortsighted of him.

  He had nothing. Nothing to move toward, and nothing to go back to. Elena was gone, out of his reach, unable to even explain the mission she thought she was fulfilling. She was caught in Herrod’s trap, finally pinned by Shadow Ops, and they would have what they wanted: the First Sector back, the Fifth Sector shamed, and all of their power structures fully intact.

  And what would he have left that would mean anything to him at all?

  He closed his eyes. None of this was finished. Commander Broadmoor had it right: Elena’s was only one piece. He might lose her, might never see her again; but she was acting, might still be able to stop the Olam Fleet. With Herrod’s comms and Jessica on Yakutsk, he was not helpless. Or useless.

  He commed Captain Bayandi.

  “Captain Foster,” Bayandi said, and sounded puzzled. “You are not in the field.”

  “I had to take a brief detour,” Greg told him. He could not keep the defeat out of his voice. “I have . . . a missing officer.” He thought, under the circumstances, Elena wouldn’t mind the conscription. “Captain, do you know what information you are being sent from Yakutsk?”

  Bayandi paused, as he often did. Greg wondered why he had never found those pauses ominous before. “I am not sure I can know,” he said, and his voice held that reflexive apology.

  Greg frowned. “What does that mean?”

  “I cannot explain, Captain. This is something you must see.”

  Greg knew he should not have gone alone. Leviathan had sturdy defenses, but nothing that would match him against a PSI starship. And he could not forget Taras’s surprised laugh at the idea that Chryse would see even Galileo as a threat. He was too vulnerable, and he had too little intel. And he was so close to an answer he did not care at all.

  “I’ll be there in a little under an hour,” he said.

  “I will drop out of the field when you arrive,” Bayandi promised.

  Greg found Bayandi no less ominous when he was pleased.

  Chapter 42

  Yakutsk

  It had to be a setup, Dallas realized, running down the block. Someone had recognized Lockwood, or something in what she had found had alerted someone. Which meant they wouldn’t have killed her, because if they’d been planning to kill her, they would have killed Dallas as well and not thought twice about it. They would have both been on the surface by now, cold and dead, eyes staring eternally at the stars. Dallas, bland and invisible as always, and Lockwood, who would fight them every step.

  I only left her for three minutes.

  If I’m alive, she’s alive. It was the only acceptable scenario.

  When Dallas had taken a flat so close to the governor’s office, the other scavengers had found it funny: Dallas has nothing to hide from the government because Dallas has nothing. The flat was big enough, and it was cheap. Today, Dallas would have paid twice the rent without thinking.

  The portable off-grid comm was right where Lockwood had left it, on the table where Dallas had given her breakfast. Work, Dallas thought furiously, keying in the code, waiting for the telltale purple pulse across the small surface. Please, let there be someone on the other side.

  As it turned out, Dallas only had to wait two minutes. “Jess?” said a suspicious voice.

  “Who is this?” Dallas asked.

  There was a pause, then: “I’m Commander Tetsuo Shimada. Who is this? Where’s Commander Lockwood?”

  Dallas took a breath. “I’m Dallas. And they’ve got her.”

  The voice instantly sh
arpened. “Who’s got her?”

  Dallas explained what had happened. “I left for less than three minutes. It couldn’t have been anyone but Gladkoff.”

  “You need to go to the Corps infantry,” Commander Shimada told him. “They—”

  “Can’t.” Do I have to explain everything to these people? “They’re attending Villipova.”

  To his credit, Commander Shimada seemed to grasp the situation without explanation. “Hang on, Dallas, I’ve got to call some people.” There was a silence for more seconds than Dallas wanted to count, and then a new voice came on the line: a woman’s voice, lower than Lockwood’s, but with the same reflexive authority.

  “Dallas?” she said. “I’m Commander Broadmoor, chief of security. I’m in charge of the infantry. Do you have Commander Lockwood’s location?”

  “No.” Where would he have taken her? “Won’t be far, though. Hasn’t been time. Office, maybe. Behind the environmental building. Small building, no windows.”

  “Okay. That’s . . . half a kilometer from Villipova’s office. Dallas, I’m going to contact Lieutenant Bristol and—”

  “Can’t. Villipova kills people.”

  “Bristol is a professional,” Broadmoor assured him. “He’s not going to tip our hand. In the meantime, do you have anyone who might be able to help you?”

  Dallas thought of the other scavengers. Friends was pushing it for most of them, even though Dallas had known some for decades. Martine had been a friend. Dallas remembered the look on Friederich’s face when Dallas had mentioned Martine. She wasn’t just my friend. “Maybe.”

  “The more the merrier,” Commander Broadmoor said. “If you can get to Commander Lockwood without us—”

  “Villipova might not even have to know we found her.”

  “Dallas.” This was Commander Shimada. “Gladkoff might have information.”

  “Meaning don’t kill him?” Dallas considered. “No promises.”

  Most of the other scavengers were out on the surface at this time of day, some of them already stalking the wreck of the freighter shuttle, where there were still skirmishes taking place. Dallas reflected that perhaps the sorts of people who would run through plasma rifle fire for a one-day payout were not necessarily going to be helpful in this situation anyway. But Dallas was still dismayed when arriving at the pub to find fewer than two dozen people, all looking deeply skeptical.

  Dallas outlined the situation. None of the skepticism faded.

  “She’s not our problem,” someone volunteered.

  “My problem,” Dallas said. “Grabbed right under my nose.”

  “How is that our fault?”

  “She’s been trying to help us.”

  Friederich scoffed. “Come on, Dallas. They shot Blair. One of our own people. Just because she looks at you with big, sincere eyes doesn’t mean—”

  “She did not shoot Blair. Gladkoff shot Blair.”

  “So she says.”

  “She has no reason to lie about that.”

  “They’re Corps. They lie all the time.”

  And at that, all of Dallas’s frustrations erupted. “I’m the one who found the embedded comms system! Am I lying, too?” Friederich frowned and looked away. “Fuck’s sake, all of you. We put up with Villipova’s bullshit and graft and purges our whole lives. Our parents, too. Shake our heads and say this is how it is, even when one of our own gets fucking vacated.”

  “That was off-worlders,” Friederich pointed out.

  “Yeah, and who is it this time?” We have been so blind for so long. “It’s not the off-worlders sitting on their asses waiting for someone to sell them a shot so they can drink off the day’s bullshit. It’s not the Corps waiting passively for the next wave of purges, for the next governor who’s going to do the same fucking thing this one is doing. Who’s supposed to change all this?”

  Friederich took a step over to Dallas. “Why should we be fucking heroes? Paying protection to Villipova beats the hell out of sucking vacuum.”

  Friederich was big for a Smolensk native, taller than Dallas and not quite as slim, and Dallas wondered if somewhere in the man’s bloodline was a foreign ship that had passed in the night. Dallas didn’t back down. “That why you live your life like this? Because you’re afraid?”

  “I’m not afraid of anything.” But Friederich looked stung. “Scavenging is good fucking work. You’ve said so yourself.”

  “Scavenging, yes. Cowering, no.” Dallas looked over the others, who were all watching with wide eyes. Guess I don’t yell much. “Commander Lockwood is trying to help us. Not to fix it for us, or to install a new government, or to take over. She’s trying to help us keep control of our own lives, and this Ellis asshole is doing something else. I know who I’m helping. You can all fuck off.” And with that, Dallas turned and stalked out of the bar.

  But walking angrily back toward the environmental dome, Dallas heard footsteps following. Dallas stopped, and turned. Not all of them, but more than half, including Friederich. Dallas met the tall man’s eyes, and wordlessly they came to detente.

  “Jamyung stashed pulse weapons,” Friederich said.

  Dallas had sold him some of them. “Not all working.”

  “We only need them to see one taking a shot,” said someone else. “The rest can be props.”

  Dallas nodded. “What else?”

  Friederich looked strangely uncomfortable. “Well. Seems to me if we’re going to fight this guy, we should know more about him.”

  Dallas’s eyebrows went up. “You’re talking about a comms hack.”

  “I have this thing I put together,” Friederich said, almost apologetic. “I mean, I’m not the best cryptographer ever, but it does a pretty good job.”

  And in the midst of all the urgency and worry, Dallas couldn’t help but grin.

  Chapter 43

  Indus Station

  The meal consisted of soup and sandwiches, nondescript but fresh, and coffee that was, indeed, very nice. Elena ate sparingly, but her companion managed to both talk and eat at the same time. Mika talked with her hands, and Elena grew fascinated by how often a chunk of sandwich would fly through the air as Mika was gesturing. The woman talked mostly about her next holiday, which she had planned on Circe, in the Fifth Sector. She wanted to go skiing.

  “I used to ski when I was a kid,” she said. “There was this one trail they blocked off because too many people got hurt. A couple of times people went right into trees, and that was all she wrote, right there.” She spoke of it with grim delight. “I’d go down that hill with the wind in my hair and my eyelashes icing over, and I’d think, Go ahead, trees, kill me. Because this is how I want to go, with the cold filling my lungs, going faster and faster.”

  “So why Circe,” Elena asked, “instead of going back to . . . where are you from?”

  “Saroseka,” she said, easily enough. She seemed entirely willing to trust. “All the trails on Saroseka are dull. Circe’s got a drop that’s unparalleled. You have to sign a release even to get on the lift to go up. Sixteen tourists a year get killed. Can you imagine?”

  “I don’t think I’d like hitting a tree.”

  “But can you imagine what a run it is if you don’t?”

  I’m sorry, Elena thought. I’m sorry you won’t get to die with your lungs full of cold air. “Circe’s six weeks there and back,” she said. “Do you get that much time off?”

  “I’m coming up on three years,” Mika said proudly. “At three years, I get six months off, with pay.”

  “That’s impressive,” Elena said. “Why do they give you such a good deal?”

  Mika seemed to become aware that she had been talking too much. “It’s a good job,” was all she said. “I’m lucky to have it.”

  Not today. “Well, it sounds like it beats delivery,” Elena said. “You don’t have any openings, do you?”

  At that, Mika perked up again. “I’m not sure, to be honest. But I can find out for you, if you like. You don’t have to
take off right away, do you?”

  “I’ve got another two hours I could spare and still make my next pickup on time.”

  “Great. I’ll dig around after lunch.”

  Just then Elena felt a flash of heat against her leg, and she flinched, and cursed. Mika frowned. “Something wrong?”

  Elena unzipped her pocket and felt for the artifact. It was still warm from burning her, but it was cooling rapidly. Irritated, she tugged it out and set it on the table. “It digs into my hip sometimes,” she complained. “I should have brought the box it came in.” What did you do that for?

  But Mika was grinning at it. “Can I pick it up again?”

  Elena shrugged, and the other woman took it off the table, her fingers tracing the edges. “Undoubtedly done by machine,” Mika said with certainty. “Nobody does these things by hand anymore. And if they do, they’re not this clean. Oh!” She frowned at the underside. “It’s got a scratch down there.”

  “I dropped it at the warehouse,” Elena lied.

  And silently, her comm vibrated, and data began streaming in. There was no audio associated with it, but Elena kept still, not reacting, letting the comm store the information.

  “I wonder if you could sand it down?” Mika wondered aloud. Then, reluctantly, she replaced it on the table. Immediately, the data stream to Elena’s comm ceased. “You about done?”

  They left the cafeteria and walked through a narrow corridor. Elena remembered the exterior of the station, and wanted to put her hand on the wall to feel if it was cold. The ambient temperature was perfectly comfortable; if this was one of the narrow conduits, it was spectacularly well insulated. Solid technology. So much good that could be done.

  They didn’t run into many people as they walked, and Elena began to make plans.

  Mika brought her to a small room with a narrow door. Elena slouched in the hallway, hand in her pocket. The anesthetic patches had been designed to blend with the fabric of the suit, and had fooled the station’s scanners, but Elena was not at all sure how powerful the dose of such a substance could be. Mika brought up an input console, which scanned the woman’s face before bringing up the documents Mika asked for. “I think,” she began, “that if you’re willing to—”