by Various
Osman studied her for a moment, then said, “You’d better be sure of that, Lopis.”
“I am. And I can prove it.”
Osman smiled in obvious relief. “Good.” She turned to leave. “I expect to hear from you in two hours.”
The door had barely closed before Mark whirled on Veta. “Why did you do that?”
“Do what, exactly?”
“Lie to the admiral. You know I killed that guy.”
“I do now,” Veta said. “What I don’t know is why.”
“The why doesn’t matter,” Mark said. “I don’t need you lying to protect me.”
“Mark, you’re on my team,” Veta said. “Of course I’m going to protect you.”
“You shouldn’t. Now you’ve put the whole team at risk.”
“Mark . . .” Veta had to pause and bite back the impulse to make a harsh retort, to tell Mark that he was the one who had put the Ferret Team at risk. “Look, we’re all in this together. We either have each other’s backs to the end, or we have nothing.”
“No, the team comes—”
“Mark, shut up.” Olivia climbed out of the seating salon and approached her teammate. “That is so like you, thinking you’re so damn good that you’re all the protection we need.”
“Maybe that’s because I’m the security specialist.”
“Maybe it’s because you have a big head.”
“ ’Livi’s right,” Ash said. “And it’s not just your ego. I’ve tried your helmet. It’s like wearing a ten-liter bucket.”
Mark blinked, his anger draining away. “Really? I have a big head?”
“Enormous,” Ash said. “Can we tell Mom about the dead guy now?”
“Please,” Veta said. “We have work to do.”
Mark shrugged. “Fine,” he said. “But you know most of it. I was walking the fat guy down the corridor when I see this silver blade flash past the corner of my eye and there’s a carving knife slicing down my chest.”
“That’s when I came around the corner,” Ash said. “It was that server from the bar, the blonde? She’s about your height and build, boss, and she was damn good with that knife. If she hadn’t been so small, I would have taken her for a Spartan.”
“I’m not that small,” Veta said. “How did the subject die?”
“Reflex,” Mark said. “I brought him around to use as a shield, then chest-punched him when he resisted. He must have had a weak heart, because he dropped like a sack of water.”
“By then, I was on my way,” Ash said. “The blonde threw the knife at me and took off.”
“What happened to the knife?” Veta asked.
“Same thing as the blood spray,” Mark said. “We came back and got rid of it.”
“So I guess I did just lie to Admiral Osman,” Veta said. “Good. Now, what about the body?”
Ash tipped his head toward the gloomy cryovolcano outside the suite’s window. “We found an airlock.”
Veta frowned.
“Relax, will you?” Olivia said. “We’re not the police. We’re supposed to get rid of the bodies.”
“It’s not that,” Veta said. “We still need to figure out who this guy was, and that’s going to be a lot harder without evidence.”
“Covered.” Ash reached inside his uniform jacket and withdrew a thick packet of personal belongings. “His name is Spencer Hume.”
Veta’s heart climbed into her throat. “What . . . ?” She took the packet from Ash and began to go through it. “You can’t be serious.”
“That’s his cover, anyway.” Ash said. “Why?”
“Didn’t you guys listen to the BuzzCast when we were on Jastolo?” Veta groaned as she found a laminated identity card confirming her suspicions. “He was the newsmonger doing those exposés on ONI.”
“I listened to one,” Mark said. “It was a smear job. The Spartans had nothing to do with what happened on Tanuab III. That was a meteor impact.”
Veta wasn’t so sure about that one, but wasn’t about to argue the point—especially not now. “That’s not what matters,” she said. “Spencer Hume was an investigative reporter—”
“A shit-flinger,” Mark said.
“Fine . . . a shit-flinger,” Veta said. “But he was still here, working Olivia, and now he’s dead.”
“I don’t have a problem with that,” Olivia said. “Not after he dosed me.”
Veta said: “And he had help, remember? Expert help.”
The expressions of all three Spartans fell.
“We need to know who that woman was.” Veta handed the packet of Hume’s belongings to Olivia. “Find out everything you can.”
“Affirmative.” Olivia pulled a commpad out of the dead man’s possessions and retreated to the prep island in the kitchenette. “I’ll need an hour to crack the password.”
“Get started.” Veta turned to Ash and Mark. “But if our target is smart, we’re not going to find her real name in his commpad.”
“Not likely,” Ash said. “We already know she was good enough to block the officers’ club security feeds.”
“And delete the trouble in the service corridor,” Mark added.
“Wait. That wasn’t you?” Veta said.
Ash shook his head. “Not us,” he said. “I was going to ask ’Livi for help.”
Veta nodded. “Yeah, I know . . . just hoping.” The facility AI was pretty basic, but subverting even a dumb AI fell more into Olivia’s skill set than Ash’s—him being the team’s surveillance expert, and her the information specialist. “Ideas?”
“Just one,” Ash said. “All we’re trying to do is identify her, and anyone that good has probably crossed paths with ONI before.”
“So she’ll be in the FRD,” Veta said. ONI’s Facial Recognition Database. “We just need an image of her face.”
Ash nodded. “Exactly.”
“And you know how to find one?” No response. Veta waited for him to answer, then finally asked, “Am I supposed to guess?”
“Sorry, ma’am. I was just thinking it through.”
“And?”
“There’s no use trying to find her through the surveillance feeds,” Ash said. “If she’s good enough to subvert the AI, she’s good enough to neutralize common surveillance files.”
“But there’s one file she can’t block.” Mark was starting to sound excited too. “Not if she wants to keep moving around.”
“The master comparison file?” Veta asked. Like many medium-security facilities, this one relied on a facial recognition system to control access to all interior locations. The target couldn’t erase her image from the master file without eliminating her ability to move around the facility. “Olivia, can you pull up those reference images?”
“We should have access already.” Olivia continued to tap on Hume’s commpad. “Just ask the AI.”
Veta raised her brow. “The AI will let us raid the master security files?”
“Sure,” Olivia said. “He let us have this suite, didn’t he?”
An hour later, Veta was still standing at the door, going through facial images on the control panel’s palm-size screen, when Olivia let out a whoop.
“I’m in!” she said. “And you’ll never guess what kind of intel that bitch was feeding Hume.”
Veta thought back to the snippet of “interview” she had heard while eavesdropping on Hume’s exchange with Olivia. “Details on the Spartan-III program, right?” she asked. “Especially Gamma Company, and your reliance on Smoothers.”
“That, and it gets worse. She mentioned us specifically.”
“Us? As in the Ferrets?” Mark asked. “Then it’s a good thing I killed the reporter. It saves ONI the trouble of sending us after him later.”
“I’m not sure that fixes the problem,” Ash said. “If word is already leaking about the Gammas, we’re done. They didn’t even want us as Spartans.”
“Nothing has leaked yet.” Veta froze the image on the control panel, then said, “And nothing is
going to. I just found her.”
“You did?” Olivia switched to her ONI datapad, and a few moments later, she said, “You’re sure?”
Veta stepped over to the prep island and peered over Olivia’s shoulder. The datapad’s screen showed an image of the blond server from the officers’ club. But now the woman was wearing the dress blues of a UNSC Naval Commander, and below her image were the words OTA GALLO, RETIRED.
Ash joined them and peered over Olivia’s other shoulder. “So, she’s ONI.” The records of most field operatives read RETIRED or, in deep-cover cases, KIA. “They’re stress testing us again.”
“Or trying to sink us,” Mark said. You ever get the feeling Admiral Osman is out on a limb with us?”
“Sometimes,” Ash said. “But if she’s out on a limb, why would she want to sink us?”
“Not her, genius,” Olivia said. “You don’t think Osman has rivals? Word has it Parangosky is grooming Osman to be the next CINCONI. And you know the Section Chiefs aren’t going to take that without a fight.”
“Maybe,” Veta said. Bureaucratic infighting was certainly one motive for sabotaging a mission . . . but this time, the stakes seemed too high. A successful play would cripple ONI—and getting caught meant a bullet in the head. “Show us the rest of the jacket, ’Livi.”
Olivia scrolled down. Gallo’s record listed a handful of postings over the better part of two decades. Beyond that, the details were sketchy. More than a hundred entries read either REDACTED or CLASSIFIED.
But it was the final entry that Veta found most interesting. Just a week earlier, Gallo’s file had been marked FINAL DISPOSITION: DARK MOON. NO CONTACT, NO ACCESS.
“What’s Dark Moon?” Ash asked.
“I have no idea,” Veta said. “But whatever it is, ONI doesn’t like it. See what you can pull up.”
Olivia typed an inquiry, and an entry appeared.
Dark Moon Enterprises was listed as a comprehensive security company that provided force-enhancement services throughout the human-controlled portion of the galaxy. A month earlier, the firm had appeared out of nowhere with a prestigious list of clients and began to hire former UNSC personnel to provide security services in a broad spectrum of hostile environments. Within two weeks, Dark Moon had grown so fast that they began to pursue active-duty personnel, and the UNSC put them on the NO CONTACT, NO ACCESS list. Rather than back off, Dark Moon offered its clients a menu of privatized intelligence and threat-management services, then started to recruit former and current ONI operatives to fulfill its contracts.
Mark whistled softly. “I don’t know who’s in charge of that outfit, but they have more guts than brains.”
“You might have it backward,” Veta said. “Dark Moon has a lot of guts, clearly. But they’ve only been in business a month, and already they’re an interstellar company growing so fast they need to raid ONI for employees? I’d say they have plenty of brains too.”
“Yeah,” Ash said. “Doing all that in a month seems kind of remarkable, at least by civilian standards.”
“It is.” Veta turned back to Olivia. “Is there is anything else on Dark Moon? The identity of the founder, perhaps? A list of company executives?”
“What you see is what we have,” Olivia said. “There’s not even an above-clearance file.”
“Then they’re making a smart play,” Veta said. “A bold one . . . but very, very smart.”
“No way,” Ash said. “Messing with the military is one thing, but pissing off ONI? That’s a death wish.”
“Don’t do that, Ash.”
“Do what?”
“Underestimate the enemy.” Veta tapped the datapad’s screen. “Assuming this file is right, Dark Moon came out of nowhere, and they aren’t afraid to poke a stick in ONI’s eye. But ONI doesn’t even seem to know who’s behind Dark Moon—much less why it was founded.”
Olivia shrugged. “That’ll change soon enough,” she said. “Intelligence takes time.”
“Not for Dark Moon,” Veta said. “They’ve only been in business a month, and already they know enough about Gamma Company to give ONI a public-relations nightmare. That means they’re either as good as ONI—or a whole lot more agile. Whichever it is, I wouldn’t bet against Dark Moon when this thing turns ugly.”
The Gammas scowled in unison. “Come on,” Mark said. “You’re being crazy.”
“Am I?”
Veta reached up and jammed a thumb down on Mark’s wounded clavicle. He didn’t drop to his knees, but he did flinch and back away. Ignoring his look of surprise, Veta raised her thumb, presenting it to the trio.
“The biggest guy doesn’t always win.” She raised her index finger, leaving about a centimeter of space between it and her thumb. “Gallo came this close to killing Mark because she struck first. And so far, Dark Moon has been doing all the punching.”
The Gammas remained quiet for a moment. Olivia finally said, “And we’re their point of attack. If word gets out that Admiral Osman is using Gammas on her Ferret Teams, ONI is gone.”
“Probably not gone,” Veta said. “But certainly crippled—and that leaves a power vacuum to be exploited. I’ll bet Dark Moon has contracts ready to sign now.”
“You’re saying this is about contracts?” Ash seemed horrified. “Dosing ’Livi and trying to kill Mark—that’s just business?”
“Ash, people kill for a lot of reasons,” Veta said. “And you better believe money is at the top of the list.”
“I guess,” Ash said. “I really miss being just a soldier. Risking your life used to mean something.”
“It still does,” Olivia said. “But we’re Ferrets now, and I’m not about to give that up too.” She turned to Veta. “How do we fix this?”
“Gallo was Hume’s source,” Veta said. “That means she can be someone else’s source too. We have to stop her before that happens.”
“Then it’s simple,” Mark said. “We kill Gallo.”
“Mark,” Ash said, “we’re not supposed to kill anyone this time. Remember?”
“That’s right,” Veta said. “But Gallo really isn’t part of the training exercise.”
Mark flashed a smug smile. “Excellent. So we do kill her.”
“Only if we have to,” Veta said. “We should try to capture her—if she gives us the chance.”
“Like that’s going to happen,” Olivia said. “She doesn’t seem like the surrendering kind.”
“Not really,” Veta admitted. She was already turning her thoughts to locating Gallo, trying to put herself in the other woman’s position. “Now we just have to find her.”
“That’s not going to be easy,” Ash said. “For all we know, she could be offworld by now.”
“I don’t think so,” Veta said. “She just started at Dark Moon a week ago. This has to be her first assignment.”
Mark cocked his head. “So?”
“So would we give up?” Olivia asked, catching on faster than the other two Gammas. “Especially on our first job?”
“Exactly.” Veta turned to Mark. “What are the chances that Gallo knows Hume is actually dead?”
Mark looked at Ash, and Ash said, “I’d say good. She was closer than Svenson, and he knew Hume was dead.”
“Then we’ll have to do this the hard way,” Veta said. “Olivia—”
“On it.” Olivia set her datapad aside and started to tap a message into Hume’s commpad, then spoke without looking up. “And, boss, maybe you should send a copy of Gallo’s file to Admiral Osman and ask her to lock down the facility.”
Veta nodded. “Good idea.” She raised her wrist and began tapping a message on her own commpad. “Thanks.”
“It won’t work,” Ash said. “If Gallo’s as good as we think she is, she’ll slip free faster than we would.”
“Gallo’s not going anywhere,” Veta said. “She needs to recover Hume’s commpad before ONI can start digging into it. Sooner or later, they’ll find something that leads back to her—and she knows it.” She fin
ished her message and sent it, then said, “Putting the facility on lockdown will tip her off, and Dark Moon will hear about it. That puts even more pressure on Gallo.”
Mark smiled. “I like that strategy. If she doesn’t recover Hume’s stuff, they’ll kill her.” He watched Olivia tap on Hume’s commpad for a moment, then said, “But what’s ’Livi doing?”
“Writing a message to Gallo and copying Admiral Osman,” Olivia said. “I’m reporting everything we learned about her connection to Hume.”
“So Gallo will know we know?” Mark’s brow rose. “You want to get this done fast, don’t you?”
“We can’t afford to sit around waiting,” Olivia said. “The admiral only gave us two hours, and half of that is gone.”
“And we need to put the pressure on Gallo, not ourselves,” Veta said. “She’s either going to hit us fast or hit us smart, and it would be better to know which.”
Olivia stopped tapping and smiled in triumph. “Okay, done.” She raised Hume’s commpad, her thumb poised to execute a command. “Ready?”
Veta took a moment to consider, trying to think of anything she had forgotten, then nodded. “Do it.”
Olivia had barely depressed the SEND key on Hume’s commpad before a hissed HOLD! sounded outside the suite door. Muffled and barely audible, the whisper was still distinct enough to catch the attention of Veta and all three Gammas. They wasted a precious second looking at each other in astonishment, and Mark smiled and mouthed, Nice plan.
“She’s here!” Olivia whispered, and Ash hissed, “Down!” and the muted click of a snapping switch ticked through the door.
Mark and Ash were already flinging themselves against the wall on opposite sides of the door. Olivia was diving over the peninsula that separated the kitchenette from the rest of the suite, one hand grasping a knife-block she had snatched off the prep island as she moved. Veta, always the slowest to react, was dropping to floor, reaching for a sidearm that was not there and cursing the regulations that prohibited carrying weapons in a facility where intoxicants were served.