by Sara Creasy
“Where did this thing come from?” Haller repeated, oblivious to her reaction. “Something we picked up at port, a bad piece of code—or what?”
“It’s a distraction,” she said quietly, lost in the code.
It took Haller a second to catch on. She saw the spark of panic in his face before his eyes slitted as his mind started working again.
“You mean a diversion?”
“Yes.”
“Shit. Engineering has been chasing these problems around the ship like legless toms for three days…” He raked a hand through his hair and looked wildly around the room as though the answers might be found there, while Edie channeled the code visuals to the holo.
Finn came over and leaned on the console, taking in the information. “So, what should we really be looking for?”
“I don’t know,” Edie said. “It’s curious, though—the blips haven’t spread from a common source. They’ve been introduced into the ship’s systems over and over again during the last few days.”
“Does it matter?” Haller said. “You have my permission to get in there and fix it. Then maybe we can figure out what we’re being distracted from.”
“Something keeps tapping in, feeding new code. There’s no point clearing out these blips when new ones are appearing all the time.”
“Yes, but from where?”
“Maybe you have a stowaway,” Finn said sardonically.
Haller snorted. It was an insult to suggest that a ship the size of the Hoi Polloi could carry a stowaway this far out of port without detection. Haller’s security wasn’t that sloppy. “What about a hackscript?” he suggested.
“No, it’s deeper than that.” Edie turned the layers over in her head, teased them apart to peek inside, noticed the pits and wrinkles in the clean coding, like high frequency dropouts in a poor quality recording.
Haller shook his head. “A worm, then? Seems like overkill, considering the kind of problems we’ve been having.”
“Maybe they’re planning ahead,” Finn said.
Edie bit her lip to suppress a grin, because a worm was exactly what she’d been wishing for, although one that disrupted cleaner toms wasn’t going to help her and Finn.
Then she found it. “I think they already succeeded.”
The holo displayed the bones of the ship, rotating slowly over the console. A series of orange dots ran the length of each corridor, and more glowed to life in the cargo holds, the gallery, the crew quarters, everywhere.
Haller squinted at the display. “What are those?”
“Access ports for the maintenance toms. They jack in to recharge, to receive instructions, to report their status. My guess—someone planted an infected tom, it infected more, and they’ve been injecting blips every time they jack in.”
“But toms can’t affect any secure systems,” Haller said. “They can’t do much of anything except clean up trash and fix leaky faucets.”
“If they’re programmed right, they can also scurry about unnoticed, squeeze into tight places.” Edie called up the tom roster and overlaid the current location of every tom on the ship. “And burn through locks.”
At least half of the toms were clustered in one location: belowdeck.
The cellblock.
Haller slapped his commlink and started yelling.
It took several tense minutes for Zeke to get out of bed, get to the cellblock, and report back. Three cells open, three serfs missing.
Haller finished updating the captain over the comm, then turned to Edie. “Can we get an idea of the lags’
location—heat sensors, movement trackers?”
“The toms have thrown everything out of whack. We can’t trust the sensors until I’ve cleaned out the blips and shut down the toms’ access.”
“Get to the engine room and do it.” As he studied the holoviz, Haller kept the link open to Rackham. “Sir, telltales are reading that the armory is still locked up. But they showed the cellblock was, too. No way to know what’s going on from here.”
The captain ordered Zeke, Haller and Kristos to the armory. He and Cat would secure the bridge. “If they get a hold of the rifles…” Rackham said tersely.
“They’ll blow holes through the hull,” Finn said, finishing the thought. “They have a lot less to lose than the rest of you.” He eyed Haller, who was checking his spur as he headed out. “Hey. We need weapons.”
“How do I know you’re not involved in this somehow?”
“He’s never even met those serfs,” Edie pointed out.
Haller hesitated, self-consciously fiddling with the spur on his arm, no doubt considering the pros and cons of letting Finn roam the ship armed versus letting Edie roam the ship without adequate protection.
“Fine.” Haller went to a locker near the hatch, thumbed it open, and pulled out a spur. Just one. He tossed it to Finn.
“What about e-shields?”
“Unfortunately, we store them in the landing skiffs, ready for dirtside missions.” He pointed at Edie, his face drawn. “Take the main route to the engine room and get the sensors up to speed. We need to be able to track those lags.” As his gaze rested on Finn again, his lips tightened. If he’d planned to throw any orders Finn’s way, he changed his mind and settled for less. “I’ll be taking that spur back and counting the rounds when this is over.” He left the room.
Finn slipped on the spur and checked it. “You ready?” Edie nodded numbly. “Okay. Let’s go.”
“Wait. Finn.” She had to ask. “Was this… Did you have anything to do with this?”
He glanced over his shoulder from the doorway. “No.”
“I thought maybe it was another plot to escape or—”
“No.”
No elaboration, no explanation. She believed him.
They moved cautiously through the common room on deck one and climbed down to deck two using the aft access ladders. Emergency shafts ran around the inside of the hull, and it was more likely the escaped serfs would use those to get around than the open routes. Edie and Finn didn’t want to meet up with the escapees—
that was Haller’s intention, not theirs.
Deck two was freezing cold and in total darkness. Edie walked into the void, touching the striplight at various points without result. Enviros were screwed up here. Finn went halfway down the next ladder to check below.
“Stay close.”
He was alert but calm, and she was surprised at feeling absolutely certain he could protect her. She hadn’t felt that way since Lukas. Whatever Cat thought about the Saeth, Edie was glad to have an ex-Saeth on her side right now.
I won’t let you out of my sight. Lukas used to say those words to Bethany, and never forgave himself for breaking his promise. Then he said the same thing to Edie, and had kept that promise scrupulously until the Crib forced him to break it and made him disappear.
In the eerie, icy dark, she started expecting serfs to jump out of hatches and access covers. Backing up closer to the ladder, she waited for Finn’s all-clear.
Something flickered at the far end of the corridor. She gasped—and then felt stupid as Finn darted up from the ladder well to see what the problem was.
She waved him down. “There’s nothing there.” It was a striplight on the blink.
“Get back against the bulkhead,” he hissed. His head and shoulders were above the level of the deck, his spur aimed into the dark.
A shadow crossed the struggling striplight. Finn sprang into action, jumping onto the deck in a fluid, silent motion. He pushed Edie firmly behind him. She held her breath, flattened against the bulkhead, the length of her arm and thigh pressed against his side, the heat of his body soaking through her. She felt helpless and light, unanchored in the darkness and in danger of floating away. The solidity of his muscular frame pulled her away from the emptiness. His self-assuredness helped to ground her, but he wasn’t bulletproof. And she was unarmed.
“Move into the light,” Finn said, not loudly, but with enough fo
rce to carry his voice down the corridor.
Another dart of movement as someone shot out of the infirmary. Then a thin voice quivered down the corridor.
“Don’t shoot!”
Edie almost laughed with relief. “It’s Kristos.”
“Jezus.” Finn lowered his weapon, but when she started forward he crossed an arm over her to hold her back.
“You’re supposed to be in the armory,” she called out to Kristos.
“No fuckin’ way!” Kristos sounded both scared and petulant. Edie’s eyes were getting used to the dark now, and she could see him edging his way up the corridor, casting fearful glances to the forward ladder well he’d climbed. “There’s three serfs loose, did you know? I didn’t hear any orders. I didn’t hear.”
The kid was lying, but in his current state he wasn’t going to be much use in any case.
Finn must have realized the same thing. “Stay on this deck,” he said. “Stay away from the skiffs and the emergency shafts. You got that?”
“I got it.” Kristos slapped open one of the hatches—his quarters. “I’m not coming out till it’s over.” He slipped inside and locked the hatch behind him.
“Tough guy,” Finn muttered. “Come on.”
They went down to deck three, which was in better shape. The striplights were running on standby and enviros maintained a reasonable temperature. Instead of continuing down to the engine room, Finn hesitated in the shadows.
Edie drew an unsteady breath, wondering what he was planning. “We’re supposed to—”
Finn held up a finger to silence her. He was watching the armory, forty meters down the corridor. Haller and Zeke emerged, talking in low urgent voices. The two men climbed up to deck two without noticing them.
“Armory first,” Finn said. “Stay close.”
She followed. Now was not the time to wonder how Haller would react to Finn’s insubordination.
Her commlink buzzed and Haller spoke over an open line to all crew. “They got to the armory. Toms must’ve been burning the locks for a while, so it was open by the time they got there.” He sounded breathy from adrenaline and simmering panic. “They took the rifles—all five. They can’t be shooting those inside the ship. And there’s a couple of spurs missing.”
“Did they leave anything for me?” Edie asked dryly.
“You’re better off unarmed,” Haller said. “If any of these lags has a humane thought left in his head, he’ll be less likely to shoot an unarmed girl.”
She wasn’t convinced, considering the way serf handlers prided themselves on dehumanizing men. And she didn’t want to think about what they might do instead of shooting her.
“We’re now in the port emergency shaft, both of us,” Haller continued. “I sent the engineers into the starboard shaft in case the lags double back.”
“And where the hell is Kristos?” Zeke called from somewhere in the background.
“Uh, haven’t seen him.” Edie wondered if Kristos would have his pay docked for blatant disobedience. But right now they had other things to worry about.
“Listen,” Haller said, “we’ve got nothing but spurs. Can’t risk provoking a gunfight anywhere near the hull with those rifles. We’re sitting tight until you get those sensors back online, teckie. They don’t have boundary chips so they might head for the skiffs—even the lifepods if they have outside help coming. I need to know where they’re going so we can cut them off. Vent them if we have to.”
Shit. Haller was scared, and that scared Edie. She glanced at Finn as they reached the armory hatch. His expression was hard as he toed aside a dead tom before hauling open the hatch. The lock was a smoldering mess. Half a dozen toms lay scattered on the deck around the hatch, all of them belly-up, inactive.
“You reached the engine room yet?” Haller asked.
“Almost,” she lied. “I’ll let you know when sensors are back, sir.”
She signed off and grabbed the spur that Finn handed her off the rack. He strapped a second weapon to his left forearm and hooked on a spare clip.
They jogged back to the ladder well and climbed belowdeck. Forward was the cellblock, still housing the three remaining serfs. The bolt on the outer hatch hung at an odd angle, looking like it had been chewed through.
The aft hatch took them into the control booth of the engine room. A plaz window filled the far wall, overlooking the expansive engine pit. Down each side of the pit ran a raised catwalk, accessed from doors on either side of the control booth. Edie gazed out over the pit. She knew enough about engine teck to recognize the fusion reactor—a series of four-meter-tall laser rings lined up like skinny donuts, glittering with ice crystals, with the fuel containment chamber running through the center. Behind the fusion reactor, suspended in a web of girders, was the I/M converter mass—a matte-black ball big enough to entirely fill the Hoi’s gym.
A gentle whirring sound came from the magnetic fields that spun the plasma fuel, piped in from external tanks. For all that intimidating machinery, the room was surprisingly quiet.
While Finn guarded the hatch, Edie sat cross-legged on the deck and pressed her fingers to the dataport on the control desk. Many of the maintenance systems were centralized here, and it was her best bet for eliminating the confusing blips so that the sensors could be trusted. Shutting down the toms’ access ports was the logical starting point, so that no more blips could be released. Without instructions, the toms would end up wandering aimlessly once their regular schedules were done, but they were harmless enough in that condition. Next, she coded a sniffer and set it loose throughout the system to tag the existing blips. Then she sent a patcher to chase it. The disharmonious blips were nudged back into place, restoring the melody, note-perfect.
“Can you do anything useful in there?” Finn asked.
“I’ve destroyed the blips, so the sensors should read right. I’m rebooting now to—”
“That’s not what I meant.”
She threw him a look over her shoulder. He was talking about the future, about an escape plan after the mission.
“Okay. I’ve been thinking about it, about how to get into the more secure areas. If I could get access to navigation…”
“Would you know what to do if you had that access?”
Edie shook her head with a grimace. “Enviros, then. If we control their air, we can threaten them. Force them to let us go.”
“The thing about threats is, you’d better be prepared to follow through.” Finn squatted on the floor beside her. His voice was low, intense. “You’d better have nothing to lose.”
She had something to lose—someone. Given the chance, Haller wouldn’t hesitate to counter her threat by threatening Finn’s life.
“What else can I do? We have nothing over them.”
“Can you access external comms?”
“To send a message? Where?”
“What about that CIP patrol ship?”
Edie’s heart missed a beat and her face flushed with anger. “No. I’m not going back to the Crib.” Back to being a pawn in their game of galactic imperialism.
It disturbed her that, not for the first time, Finn thought he might be better off with the Crib than with rovers. He must have seen the determination in her eyes, heard it in her voice, felt it through the link, because he backed down.
“At least find a way to keep that option available. Jam open your access to comms so we can use it later if we find someone who can help us. Can you do that?”
She nodded, returning to the datastream. Working quickly—she couldn’t stall Haller forever, and they were, after all, in real danger from three armed serfs on the loose—she tracked down the external comms and coded a link between it and internal comms. The link would allow her to access an external line even after Haller revoked her security privilege. It wasn’t perfect. A leak between security levels wasn’t something that would go unnoticed for long, but unless someone was looking for it they’d be unlikely to find it. It might hold until they reached th
e Fringe.
Just as she finished, the console beeped, its reboot complete. The reboot had cleared any remaining echoes of the damage, and she called up the sensor readings again.
“It’s done. Best I can do anyway,” she told Finn.
“Good.”
He stood and pulled her to her feet so she could check the holoviz. She thumbed her comm. “Haller, sensors are up.”
“About bloody time. Where are the serfs?” Haller’s panic was lessened now that he was no longer blind. Without rifles, however, he was still effectively declawed.
Finn examined the holo with her. The sensors picked up the body heat of everyone on the ship and relayed their locations to the holo, along with the commclip ID of those who wore them—herself and Finn in the control booth, Kristos in his quarters, the captain and Cat on the bridge. The three serfs still in captivity showed up as unlabeled splotches in the hold.