It took three layers of actual official behavior to get to the name at all—making him harder to trace.
Maybe that was why he had never called the yacht by her name.
What’s going on? he sent again.
And again, no response.
That was a bad sign. It meant she didn’t feel like she could respond. He had set all the security features on this space yacht at the highest level, which meant no easily traceable communication during a crisis.
Which, apparently, this was.
Fortunately, he had been in the main cockpit when the crisis happened.
He shielded the cockpit’s controls so that they couldn’t be accessed from anywhere else on the yacht.
The second cockpit, on a different deck, was coded only to his DNA, combined with his warm and living body. If blood wasn’t coursing through his veins, then his skin, his DNA, his entire body, wouldn’t gain anyone access into that cockpit.
He’d bought the yacht for that feature combined with all the other defensive capabilities. He’d known someone would try to get him eventually; he also knew that his brains alone wouldn’t keep him alive.
He had the same training that the people who were coming after him had. In fact, Ike Jarvis had done most of Zagrando’s undercover training.
The big challenge, since Zagrando started running from Jarvis himself, was to think outside that training, in a way that Jarvis would never consider.
No one knew about this space yacht except the woman that Jarvis had partnered Zagrando with on that fateful last mission. And from Jarvis’s panicked tone in their last conversation, she was most likely dead.
The space yacht changed course—and the course change did not come from Zagrando. More warning beacons went up until he shut off all except the one on the console in front of him.
He tapped on a live holographic representation of the yacht’s exterior. It appeared above the console, his beautiful big space yacht, bought with more stolen money so far outside the Alliance that he had never seen a space yacht like it.
Beside it—or, rather, all over it—was a larger ship, made of a black material so dark that it almost blended into the darkness around it. Only the slight reflection of faraway stars gave it away—that, and the fact that it seemed to displace everything around it.
He’d seen ships like that hundreds of times before. They belonged to the Black Fleet. Only the Black Fleet didn’t operate deep inside the Alliance. It couldn’t—at least, not obviously, like this ship was.
Not that it mattered. Someone—or something—had copied the Black Fleet’s design and sent the ship after Zagrando. Jarvis had finally located him.
And if Zagrando didn’t act quickly, he would die.
FORTY-FIVE
WITHIN FIFTEEN MINUTES, Jakande had returned. Deshin had been fielding messages from the eight, all of whom wanted to leave. Deshin was stalling them until he had all of the information.
He knew some of them would send ships ahead; he just wanted to control the operation as much as he could.
Keeping the eight on Garner’s Moon would slow things down, just a bit.
He had made himself some coffee and had just finished making a burger for dinner with the fresh meat the staff had stocked in his fridge when Jakande contacted him through the links.
You need to see something, sir, and I want to show it to you privately. I’ll be right down.
Unlike other members of his staff, Jakande did not ask Deshin to leave the door open or loosen the security protocols. Jakande would never ask for anything like that.
It was one reason Deshin knew that his contact was Jakande. It still didn’t make Deshin lessen the security codes, or even tell Jakande to let himself in.
But it did reassure him a bit.
Deshin’s stomach growled. He hadn’t eaten much at the so-called dinner, just enough to put his guests at ease. Even then, a few of them only picked at their food and Eto hadn’t eaten at all.
Deshin had been around people like Eto for so long that he wasn’t insulted. In the same circumstance, Deshin wouldn’t have eaten, either.
He put the well-done burger on a bun, added guacamole (also from the fridge) and a bit of salsa, as well as some fresh lettuce and a fresh tomato.
He had just taken a bite when the door chirruped, announcing someone’s arrival. At the same moment, Jakande sent a message along his links.
It’s me.
Deshin did not reply. He set the burger down and walked to the door, calling up the security images from the corridor. It looked like Jakande but, as per Jakande’s insistence on this trip, Deshin also did a DNA check.
When it came back positive, he still didn’t have the door open automatically. He moved to the side where no one could knock Jakande out of the way, shoot inside, and then force a way inside.
Then Deshin ordered the door to open.
Jakande slipped in. His skin still looked sallow.
“My guests are restless,” Deshin said. “If that’s what this is about, then I’ve been handling it. We can—”
“It’s not that,” Jakande said. “Can we go somewhere to view some footage?”
Deshin frowned. “How protected should we be?”
Jakande shrugged. “It’s our conversation I’m most worried about.”
Deshin didn’t want to go into another private room, especially the close one where the quarters were a bit tight.
“Did you bring the footage or are you going to download it while we talk?”
“I have it,” Jakande said tightly.
Deshin nodded and led him to the entertainment room off the kitchen. “I just made myself a burger. Would you like one?”
“No,” Jakande said, “and I don’t think you do, either.”
Deshin looked at him sharply. Jakande stood in the doorway of the entertainment room. “Something wrong with the food?”
“No,” Jakande said. “Let me show you this, and you’ll understand.”
Deshin reluctantly left his burger behind. He closed the doors and changed the security in the entertainment area so that it blocked all links, including emergency links.
Then he turned to Jakande, and said, “Show me.”
Jakande rubbed his fingers together, activating some chip that had the footage in it. A small holoimage rose to eye level. It showed an Earth-like park—grass, trees that Deshin didn’t recognize, and a path. In a sandy area, children played.
The children—two boys and five girls—appeared to be about three. The girls were laughing, and both boys were looking in the direction of whatever was making the recording.
Deshin’s breath caught.
“Where is this?” he asked, even though he knew the answer.
“The information was incomplete,” Jakande said.
“Where is this?” Deshin asked.
“This is the clone factory.” Jakande’s voice was soft. “It’s not just a single warehouse or something. It’s an industrial park, and in the center are dormitories, two schools, and playgrounds.”
Deshin looked at Jakande, who was studying the image. “How did we miss this?”
“We got the information from Sonja Mycenae,” he said. “She doesn’t care what she kills.”
That was true, but it wasn’t what Deshin meant. “You told me this was a clone factory.”
“It is,” Jakande said. “They make and ship off clones all the time.”
“Fast-grow clones,” Deshin said.
“And slow-grow as well.” Jakande took a deep breath, stealing himself. “What we didn’t expect was that they raise a lot of the slow-grow clones until they’re needed for some operation. I’ll wager that some of the clones who’ve infiltrated the organizations represented here today were raised in this facility.”
Deshin felt the blood leave his face as the import of what Jakande told him sank in. “How many children are we talking about?”
“Mycenae would argue that they’re just clones,” Jakande said.
Deshin didn’t care what that crazy woman would argue. “How many children?”
“We don’t know. Hundreds, judging by the footprint of the facility.”
“And they live onsite.”
“Yes,” Jakande said.
Deshin cursed. He turned away, his right hand gathered in a fist. He wanted to hit something, but refrained from doing so.
“We can order the others not to attack,” Jakande said.
“Sure,” Deshin said, his back to Jakande. “And that’ll be as effective as a fart in the wind.”
“Surely, they’ll understand—”
“Maybe one or two of them will,” Deshin said. “But most of them agree with Mycenae. The children won’t even be human to them. They’re clones, nothing more.”
“But if we tell them we’re not going to do anything—”
“It’ll make no difference,” Deshin said. “Some of them probably have ships already heading toward Hétique. They will want to get there ahead of us, to steal what they can before it all gets destroyed. We can’t stop them now.”
Deshin felt ill. Jakande had been right: what little Deshin had already eaten sat heavily in his stomach.
Jakande didn’t look at him.
The image remained.
“There’s more, isn’t there?” Deshin asked.
Jakande nodded. He tapped his fingers together again and the image enlarged until the boys’ facial features were clear.
Their faces were identical, which was no surprise. But the face itself, Deshin would have known anywhere. Round, dark brown hair, intelligent eyes.
Paavo.
FORTY-SIX
ZAGRANDO KNEW HE had only a few minutes to protect himself, or he was going to disappear into the maw of that gigantic ship and no one would care, no one would find him, and no one would ever know.
The ship held his yacht in place. The ship could have just as easily opened its cargo doors and pulled the yacht inside. It hadn’t.
The Black Fleet would have. They would then have picked the yacht clean of all valuables, disassembled it for parts, and made it appear as if the yacht had never existed, either.
Yet more confirmation that he wasn’t facing the Black Fleet.
Someone wanted him to believe he was, because he would respond differently if he believed pirates were trying to take his yacht.
It was an old trick used by the Earth Alliance Intelligence Service. Make someone think they were being pursued by a different enemy, and plan for that response.
Members of the Earth Alliance Security Division had all received training that encouraged operatives to invoke some kind of standard behavior, and then to respond accordingly.
Zagrando wasn’t going to behave as if he were being attacked by the Black Fleet. In fact, he was a bit insulted that Jarvis believed Zagrando would fall for this trick.
Zagrando might not have been inside Earth’s Solar System for years, but he still remembered how things worked. And the Black Fleet couldn’t get near this part of the Earth Alliance, certainly not with a ship that large.
He hadn’t planned for Jarvis to come after him in a Black Fleet replica ship, but he had planned for Jarvis to come after him, somehow.
And he’d even expected Jarvis to use a much larger ship.
The yacht shook again, more warning signs rising, complaining that its hull had been breached.
It had taken the Alliance ship longer than usual to open the exterior entrance.
Zagrando blessed the saleswoman on Goldene Zuflucht, who had convinced him that a yacht built outside the Alliance would serve him better than anything built inside the Alliance.
She had said: Earth Alliance specs make ships easier to board. Out here, we prefer non-standard luxury ships. They’re safer.
And it appeared she was right—about everything.
Including being boarded.
Boarding the yacht was a stupid move if this yacht had been under attack simply because it was a luxury vessel. Better to take it apart far away from the spot where it was captured, in privacy. Hell, the rich owner (Zagrando) could even be sold back to his family (if he’d had any). Kidnappings had become lucrative these days.
But boarding the yacht was a smart move if someone were coming after Zagrando. By now, Jarvis had realized that Zagrando had stolen the money designated for buying designer criminal clones.
Normally, an agent would let the money go. But Jarvis couldn’t. Not only had that operation been off the books, but the money had come from somewhere else.
And that money had been millions.
Even if Jarvis wanted to write it all off, he couldn’t.
He had to find out where the money was before he killed Zagrando.
Still, even with the small advantages Zagrando had, Jarvis held the bigger advantages. He had a team, probably a large one. He had a larger ship, one with actual firepower.
He knew Zagrando’s training, and the way Zagrando thought.
And weirdly, he had killed a version of Zagrando before, so he wouldn’t think twice about doing it again.
Zagrando had to act fast if he wanted to stay alive.
Zagrando had practiced dozens of maneuvers since he had bought this yacht. He’d always planned for a larger ship to grab this one. And he had known he would be at a disadvantage.
Now he had to put those practice sessions to use.
He had to do things quickly and accurately. He hoped he had trained himself so thoroughly he could do much of this by rote.
First, he transferred all of the control to the second cockpit. He knew that whoever had boarded the yacht would come to this cockpit first. This cockpit was the only one visible on the schematics. No published design of this yacht showed the second cockpit.
Plus, as the saleswoman had shown Zagrando weeks ago, the second cockpit had layers and layers of protection that prevented it from showing up on most scanners.
Particularly, Alliance-made scanners.
Zagrando forced that thought from his mind, his fingers racing. He touched a dozen different controls, but did nothing with them. His touch was simply to throw off any scans the invaders used, things that might show the invaders how to access the equipment.
The logical thought would be that the last things he touched were the things that made the equipment work.
Then he called up a virtual link, attached to the second cockpit and accessible for only a few minutes. Using it, he set up a shadow cockpit right here. If the invaders came into this cockpit, they would waste a good fifteen minutes touching panels and hitting controls that did not exist at all.
But the shadow control panel he set up would show them that they were making progress. He would use it to buy time.
Next, he changed the sound recording settings inside the cockpit to make any playback run backwards. He hadn’t spoken in the last several hours, so there was no way that the invaders could know what he had done.
He hit the last command just as the virtual control panel ceased to function. He hoped it all would work.
Then he went to a hidden wall panel and used a voice command to open it. The command was in Peytin, a language he simply could not speak well. One of the Peyti ambassadors Zagrando had met early in his intelligence days had laughed at his pronunciation, telling him no one sounded as bad as he did.
Zagrando hoped that was correct. It would be a second failsafe if the backwards recordings didn’t work.
The wall panel slid open to reveal three laser pistols and a laser rifle. He wrapped the belts for two of the pistols around his waist, and then strapped the rifle over his chest. He disarmed the last pistol’s safety, switched the pistol into ready mode, which kept it charged up, and left it inside the panel.
Then he activated the panel’s self-destruct system. It wouldn’t blow unless his life signs vanished from the yacht’s controls. If his heat signature vanished, if it was clear he stopped breathing, if someone took him off the yacht, this panel would explode, and the explosion woul
d be compounded by the pistol.
An image sent by the yacht herself floated across his vision. Invaders crowded into the airlock.
As he suspected, they were human. If he had access to the cockpit controls, he would be able to do some kind of identification. But he couldn’t. Not here.
At the moment, he didn’t recognize any faces, but he saw movement from the other ship. Only four people had entered the airlock—which was all it held.
More waited on the other side.
Waiting to board.
He had no idea how many would come for him. He only knew that there would be more than he could handle on his own.
His heart rate increased. He had never felt quite this alone before.
He had never been this alone before. No partner, no back-up, no government behind him.
He was on his own.
He let himself out of this cockpit and hoped to hell that the masking program he’d set up would hide his life signs from the invaders.
He had three stops to make before he could get to the second cockpit—and maybe, just maybe—an escape.
FORTY-SEVEN
“THEY STOLE MY SON,” Deshin murmured.
He stared at the image floating above the entertainment room floor. The image was a bit see-through, allowing the paneled wall to create a ghostly backdrop to the two cloned faces of three-year-old boys who looked exactly like Paavo had looked five years before.
“They’re not Paavo,” Jakande said.
Deshin looked at Jakande. Jakande hadn’t been working for him when the clone had been his son’s nanny. Did Jakande ever know the details of the clone infiltration?
Deshin wasn’t certain.
“I know,” he said flatly. “I worried that they had stolen Paavo’s DNA. Now I know that they have.”
“We can figure out a way to make sure they’ll never use those clones or others like them to infiltrate—”
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