“I was pressed for time,” I tried to say with dignity, but the end of the sentence rose up into the treble of a pained yelp.
“Keep still,” the medic said impatiently. “You left fragments in there. They can partially dissolve, travel into the bloodstream, and act as accretion points for thrombosis. It is a miracle you did not kill yourself.”
“Blood clot—oww! Nghhhh! Can’t you give me an anesthetic?” I said, finally snapping.
“No,” the medic replied with obscene cheer. “We cannot have your nerves dulled for this procedure.”
I gritted my teeth and thought instead about where I’d rather be—with Ken and Devlin, carefully and thoroughly interrogating Hideo about the precise location of the bio-bombs and Earth First infiltrators on the Jupiter front. But Buchanan had assigned them to work on Hideo while the medic worked on me. Perhaps she had already detected that he could get under my skin with a single word. Perhaps Devlin and Ken had told her about the torture. I felt a little resentful about that. I might have had the occasional daydream about subjecting Hideo to the same kind of mental flaying he’d put me through, but I wouldn’t indulge myself and jeopardize the mission.
When I finally emerged from sickbay, bruised and limping, I was surprised and pleased to see Ken and Devlin waiting outside for me. “Finished grilling Hideo already?” I asked with mock disappointment as I headed towards my quarters.
“Sort of,” Devlin said with a tight smile. His eyes flickered up and down, checking me over, and I instinctively straightened and tried to look less in pain. “The good news is, the bio-bombs haven’t reached Jupiter’s moon—yet. The bad news—”
Ken interrupted. “The bad news is that the infiltrators are spread throughout the fleet. We don’t have much time and we need to cut this off at the head, but Hideo can’t pinpoint where the orders will be coming from.”
“But,” Devlin added, “he claims he can figure it out with time and more data.”
“He could be stalling,” I said.
“We know,” Ken agreed, “but we’re going to make it work for us. We’re on course to encounter our first CPF troopship, and we’re going to use it to test our Ghost Reclamation Protocol. Order them to match flight path and prepare for boarding. Isolate the command staff and bring our medics on board to screen them. Return screened personnel to command and proceed with the rest of the crew. It has to be done quickly and without public broadcast so that any Ghosts present won’t have time to react.”
“And Buchanan says she’s prepared to offer amnesty to any Earth First or Ship infiltrators as long as they help us in our investigations,” Devlin said.
“That’s kind of her, but I hope she realizes that not everyone will take that amnesty.”
“I think she expects you to help with identifying infiltrators. You’ve got inside knowledge and . . . stuff . . .” Devlin stammered to a halt at the look on my face.
“I’m not prepared to do that,” I stated bluntly. “If they fight us, if they confront us, then we’ve got grounds to detain them. If they’re saying nothing and doing nothing, I won’t be an informer.”
Ken tried to smooth over the awkward moment with a calm voice. “And should they confront us, we’re going to tag them with a band for monitoring and restraint. We don’t want to overflow the brig, and besides, we’ll need all hands if the Conglomerate brings the fight to us.”
I thought for a moment. “Fine,” I said at last. “We’ll make it work.”
“Good,” Devlin said. “We have ten hours to get ready for contact.”
+ + + +
The boarding party looked eclectic, but it had been carefully chosen. Devlin and Ken led a squad of ten in power armor. I would have preferred more, but with the limitations of a courier ship, we didn’t have more, and the point of the reclamation protocol was to be as inconspicuous as possible.
I decided not to wear power armor, which shocked Devlin. I explained to him that until I had time to figure out how Hideo managed to reset the power armor mode from combat to training and, more importantly, work on a solution to stop it from happening mid-battle, I’d prefer to entrust my safety to light security armor, a sidearm, and Bugkiller.
“Should we be worried?” Ken asked.
“No,” I reassured him. “That level of control only works at close range and on one suit at a time, so if you keep the squad tight and communicate quickly, you should be able to stomp on anyone who tries it.”
Hideo was not permitted to attend and Lang stayed behind to guard him. Major Buchanan kept command of the courier, and so the rest of the team consisted of twenty struthiform medics in light armor led by a junior commander called Ikvar.
Buchanan put me in charge. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, but she took time to explain.
“It’s very simple, Ms. Singh. You are an excellent coordinating point for the action. You possess an accumulation of military intelligence that few can match, and you have the personal technology to tap into every camera and control panel on the ship. Plus, you can tell us where the Ghosts are.”
I opened my mouth and closed it again. This didn’t seem like a good time to share my doubts about my ability to detect ghost sign after my amateur and professional tech-cleansing.
+ + + +
At first it went smoothly. Our transit vessel was accepted into the docking bay, and the welcoming crew was scanned and briefed about the situation. Ken took five soldiers to escort half the medics to the bridge to begin screening the command crew while the rest of us waited in the docking bay. I say the rest of us, but I was busy looking ahead throughout the ship, trying to pick up the electronic patterns of ghost sign. I checked and double-checked. Nothing. No Conglomeration signals or messages going out or coming in. I relaxed just a little.
“Bridge has been secured. All personnel are clean and none admit to belonging to Earth First or any other subversive organization.” Ken’s voice ran from cheerful hope to dry sarcasm.
“Noted, Sergeant Awojobi,” I replied formally. “Let me speak to the commanding officer.”
There was a short pause, then a brisk voice. “Commander Boris Ivchenko here.”
Stupidly, I felt a pang at the familiar first name, reminding me of one of the many fallen at Icarus. “Commander, this is Ms. Amira Singh, consultant under Major Buchanan. We specialize in the study of Conglomerate aliens. Sergeant Awojobi has explained the situation to you?”
“He has,” came the terse reply.
“All is well, Commander, and you are still in charge. I am asking your permission to send a contingent of medics to your sickbay. We can set up our main screening center there. If you could then order all personnel to sickbay in small groups, we should be able to clear your entire crew. There is no need to alarm them with details. We will organize for them to be briefed in sickbay.”
He gave a relieved sigh. “You have my permission, Ms. Singh. I want this to be over and done with. I don’t feel comfortable knowing that my ship could be compromised.”
I quietly echoed his sigh. I hadn’t been sure how CPF officers would react to our mini-takeover. I had to thank Major Buchanan. Putting me in charge, having someone with a civilian title and position make requests instead of demands—that might well have made our job easier.
“I only have one question. You mentioned screening all my personnel, and that is in order, but what about the refugees?”
“The who?” I said blankly.
“The refugees of Newark, Beijing, Cape Town, and a few other places. We found them a few days ago in a fleet of jumpships and orbital shuttles about to run out of fuel. We were going to drop them off at Ceres to get civilian transport back to Earth. We have about three thousand on board. What do you want us to do with them?”
I gaped for a full three seconds before I gathered enough breath and sense for a reply. “Commander, kindly secure all entry to the hold. I would also like to recommend that you secure the bridge after the sergeant and his troops leave. We will proceed for
now with screening the crew and get back to you promptly.”
I dropped the link to the Commander and spoke on a private channel to Devlin, Ken, and Ikvar. “Gentlemen, we can start stage two. Ken, take your squad and medics to sickbay. Devlin will join you there with his squad and the remaining medics.”
“Acknowledged,” Ken replied, “but where will you be?”
I touched Bugkiller lightly to reassure myself. “I’ll be around, preparing the ground for stage three.”
“The protocol doesn’t have a stage three,” Ikvar said suspiciously.
“It does now.”
+ + + +
I waited until at least two thirds of the crew had been scanned, giving us more medics, faster screening, and more reinforcements that we could trust. Devlin and Ken handed over security responsibilities to the crew and left Ikvar to supervise the screening. When they arrived, I was in the same position I’d been in for almost an hour—in front of the main doors to the hold, standing still and focusing furiously on several different cameras in the vast space.
“I’m a little distracted,” I warned them. “Pay attention. Inside the hold looks like a cross between a three-day music festival and a tent city. Bedrolls, portable toilets, lots of privacy screens. Obstacles, poor lines of sight, and plenty of potential for collateral damage.”
“Sounds like a tactical nightmare,” Devlin muttered.
“Exactly. We can screen them in sickbay in small groups like we did for the crew, but there’s no military discipline here. People will question, they will argue, and they will simply refuse to go.”
“So tell them the truth,” Ken said. “Let’s walk in, shut the door behind us, and just talk to people. They’re already scared and far from home. Let’s not make this into an incident.”
Devlin grinned at him. “Are you planning a ‘heroes of the Accordance’ performance?”
Ken smiled as if embarrassed. “Could be.”
I looked at them in disbelief. Months of being pressured into PR, and now they were acting like they actually enjoyed it?
And that was stage three: Ken and Devlin working the vast crowd, signing autographs and taking pictures, and politely asking them to pay a visit to sickbay as quickly as possible.
“Where’s the girl with the purple hair?” I heard someone ask as they went past me with a double-autographed T-shirt. She shook the shirt in frustration. “I wanted the full set!”
I turned away hastily and began to cross-check faces to my database. There were a few Ship members. No need to declare their presence; they were only civilians, after all. I made note of at least two criminals—one wanted for document forgery, the other for human trafficking. I would have been tempted to spare the forger, but his record showed that forgery was mild in comparison to his past transgressions.
I stopped dead. Slate?
Hunched against a wall, half-hidden behind a suspended sheet, bundled in a blanket . . . it was Slate. He was barely recognizable. He’d ditched his Ship uniform for more neutral civvies and his face was bruised gray with insomnia.
He didn’t look at all surprised. He smiled sadly. “Amira. I knew you were coming.”
I stood in front of him, concentrating hard. The EMP shielding in the hold was thick, and there was nothing in the patterns of communication going back and forth that hinted at anything alien. And yet . . . when I faced Michael Slate, I could sense that suppressed vibration, that slight pulse that whispered ghost sign.
“I need backup,” I said urgently over my comm as I raised my sidearm and pointed it at Slate, ignoring the startled noises behind me as people scrambled to get away from us.
He raised his hands in surrender. “Whoa, wait a minute. Are you arresting me?”
“I’m asking the questions, Slate. How did you get here?”
His expression hardened. “Evacuating with a group of scared struthiforms just ahead of the bio-bomb blast. Burning out our fuel too fast because we were desperate to get out of range. Drifting for hours. How did you get here? On that fancy courier ship?”
“Ordinarily, I would say I’m glad to see you alive, but before I do that, I really have to know—where do your loyalties lie? With JP? Hideo? Elsewhere? Because I’m sniffing ghost sign around you and that’s new for me.”
He sagged, looking vulnerable and helpless as Ken and Devlin joined me, imposing in their power armor. “We discussed this before. I told you that traces will always remain.”
“That’s not an answer. I need to know if you’re a Ghost spy. Can you prove that you’re not?”
He shook his head. “The traces are slight. There’s nothing left for them to manipulate. It’s just a scar. You’re as likely to be a spy as I am.”
“That’s a lovely theory, but I don’t see the proof. Either way, since I’m still not sure which side you’ve chosen, I’ll err on the side of caution.” I turned to Ken. “Band him.”
Slate grinned as Ken affixed the restraining band to his ankle. “Fine. Don’t trust me. But what about you? Why should they trust you and not me?”
I stopped and glared at him. “Ken,” I said quietly, holding out my wrist.
Ken shot a worried look at Devlin and received in answer a frown followed by a slow nod. Ken fumbled a bit but finally managed to get the band secured around my wrist. Cold pinpricks tingled into my nerves and around my nano-ink.
“There,” I said. Slate was shocked into silence. I gave him a cold smile. “Oh, you thought this was a game? It’s not. When it comes to our survival as a species, I don’t play games, not even with myself.”
I walked away and quickly opened a private channel. “Ikvar, Ken, Devlin, I have to go back. Can you handle it from here?”
“Certainly,” said Ikvar, “but—”
“Good. Ikvar, you have command.” I left the hold without another word, with only a slightly raised hand when Devlin attempted to follow me. I had to get to sickbay and figure out what was going on with me and what I could do about it.
19
* * *
“Ahh, yes,” said my least favorite struthiform medic, squinting at a set of medical readouts and images on a grid of wall screens. He refused to give me his name, so I had started to think of him as the Anti-Shriek. “This is fascinating. I can see the permanent change has been well established.”
“Explain,” I said, gritting my teeth to hold onto my patience.
“You are right. Your genetic signature has shifted, but whether it is due to Ghost interference, I cannot tell. Regardless, it would be impossible for you or anyone to sense a particular kind of DNA.”
“What do you mean? What else could it be if I’m still sensing ghost sign?”
The Anti-Shriek paused to ponder. “You first met the Slate person on Earth?”
I nodded.
“Did you sense anything at that time?”
“I didn’t, no,” I said with a frown.
“If I may, I have some information that might help?” Hideo said, appearing in the door of sickbay. He was wearing his apologetic persona, which meant that his hands were clasped in front of him in a gesture that was both supplicating and calculated to show off the new restraint band on his wrist.
“Come in,” said the medic. “You are the dangerous fool who brought the bio-bombs to Earth? Such a historic moment to meet you.”
The words made me smile, but Hideo’s wince made me grin outright, and for a moment I liked the medic a little better.
Hideo ignored the medic and spoke directly to me. “I believe you didn’t sense anything from Slate because he wore special clothing which acted as shielding. Nothing out, nothing in. It was designed to ensure that what little remained of his nano-ink could not receive anything harmful from a Conglomerate source. At the time I thought it more placebo than practical, but perhaps it did have some effect.”
“Okay, that makes sense,” I said, feeling instantly depressed. I’d tried to cut the invader out of me and I’d failed.
“I can make something li
ke that for you,” Hideo continued.
I tilted my head and raised an eyebrow, skeptical but willing to hear him out.
“You already know that I have a similar layer in my coat to shield my threads. EM pulse, covert data extraction—it protects from all these things, and maybe Ghosts, too.”
My despair lifted immediately. All I needed was to know there was something I could do. “I know how your shielding works. I can make it myself, but thanks for the idea.”
He winced again at the rejection. “I owe you a lot.”
It sounded like an apology. I stared at him silently until he turned to go.
The medic yelled after him, “You owe me too, foolish human. You owe us all. Where is our compensation?”
I bit my lip, caught between agreement and concern. I wanted Hideo to regret his life choices, but not so much that death looked preferable. “Hush,” I told the medic. “Let him finish what he’s here to do. After that, we’ll both give him hell.”
“Oh, I would enjoy that. Let that be a promise between us.”
“No name, no promise.” It was worth a try.
“I would not burden you with that responsibility. Call me Wei. That is a common enough human name.”
“All right, thank you, Wei—but why is a name a responsibility?”
Wei went very still for a moment. I realized I’d probably asked something stupid and he was bracing himself to answer calmly. “One’s full, unique name is central to the ceremonies of birth and death. I have seen this even for humans.”
I was about to risk asking him just how important it was to struthiforms when Devlin appeared. “Got a moment?” he asked, his gaze skittering nervously over the masses of unfamiliar information on the screens.
I said goodbye to Anti-Shriek Wei and joined Devlin. “Where to?”
“Pre-debriefing at Buchanan’s,” he answered. “What the hell were you thinking back there with the band? No, don’t tell me. Wait till Ken gets in.”
We had barely settled ourselves in the small meeting room before Ken came in demanding, “What the hell was that nonsense with the band?”
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