by Sean Danker
Sirpras rubbed his chin. “We’ll go with it. Listen to me very closely. You, Kladinova, I know about you. There’s a big smear on your record, and if what I’m reading is correct, today’s only going to make it worse. And you, Private Salmagard, not only are you under some scrutiny right now, but in light of these events, you’re finished. You might even be looking at criminal prosecution. I’m ordering you to assist in the rescue of Lieutenant Ibuki, and in securing the man who is with him. If you do this, you might have a chance at having a life someday. You can’t put a price tag on trust, Private. If you don’t believe that, ask your acquaintance Lieutenant Deilani how life’s been treating her since she lost the Empress’ trust. Am I making myself heard?”
“Yes, sir,” they replied.
“Good. Secure that man. Deliver him to the agents that are following, and not only will I make it my personal mission to fix your lives and careers, but to push you out of this with something to show for it. This is an opportunity. We’re not asking you for much, but apparently this man is notoriously slippery. Price, how much time do we gain by using these two?”
“Thirty minutes at most.”
“Might be enough to make a difference. Ladies, the stakes aren’t just high for you personally. I don’t know how I can articulate the danger this man poses to the Imperium. We need control of him. Make it happen.”
The hologram vanished.
“About time he got some good news,” Price said, stepping away from the wall. “You heard him. This isn’t your show anymore, but you’re still onstage. Follow me—there’s no time.”
He went back out onto the walkway, and Diana and Salmagard hurried after him.
“He’s not telling you the whole story,” Price shouted over his shoulder. “We’re not doing this because you might buy us some time—we need you. You’ve got to get there before they go dark, and they will. And then you need to broadcast so the GRs can find you.”
“What do you mean, ‘go dark’?” Diana asked as they hurried down a set of metal stairs to another catwalk. The wall of the bay was ahead, and there was a short corridor to another bay. This one was smaller and deserted.
“Shangri La,” Price said, setting off across the metal floor. “It’s the gravitational lensing. Once you get too close, you can’t trust your scanners. You have to get there first and broadcast, or we’ll lose our signal before the GRs catch up. And there’s only one way for you to make it in time.”
“What’s that?”
Salmagard was glad that Diana seemed willing to do all the talking; it was all she could do to stay conscious. Her heart was pounding and her brain felt fuzzy.
“Speed,” Price replied. “It’s a good thing you’re a pilot, because I haven’t got one to spare for you, and this isn’t something we can outsource.”
A large set of blast doors opened in front of them, revealing a small antechamber. There were four guards, all wearing mismatched galactic-looking armor. They were imperials, even if they weren’t dressed like it. Intelligence security forces, made up to look like common mercenaries.
They let Price pass without a word. A woman keyed something on a console, and the inner doors opened, revealing another dry dock. There were techs swarming about, prepping the section for launch clearance—but there was no ship.
A woman wearing expensive formal wear and a fearsome scowl stormed up out of nowhere.
“You got it from here?” Price asked.
“Yes, go,” she snapped at him, grabbing Salmagard’s arm, then Diana’s, and pulling them both through a hatch into an office. The man behind the desk got up and left without a word.
“Put these on,” the woman said brusquely, throwing a pair of matte gray ground ops EV suits at them. As they began to change, she disconnected a crystal from her holo. “See this? This is your override. There shouldn’t be anything out there it can’t get you through. This is your SOS codec that we’ll be looking for. You’ll have to find some kind of com array to broadcast it, but it doesn’t matter if it’s secure or not. That’s all it’ll take. It’s idiotproof. Stabilize the situation, get positive control of the target, then keep your heads down. Once the GRs are locked in, they’ll make assisted jumps to reach you faster, and they’ll take care of the rest.”
“How are we getting there?” Diana asked, beginning to slip into her EV. “How do we catch up?”
“There’s only one way,” the woman said, pacing. “Only one ship that’s fast enough.”
“Yeah,” Diana said, snorting. “An Everwing.”
“That’s right.”
The pale woman froze, EV suit half on, red eyes wide. She turned to look at the woman, cocking her head.
“You’re joking.”
“No, Miss Kladinova,” the woman replied, clearly making an enormous effort to keep her temper under control. “I am not.”
“Where are we going to get an Everwing?”
“There’s already one here.”
Diana balked. “Bullshit,” she said. “Why would you have one here?” Then her face fell. “No,” she said. “No, it’s not yours. Someone’s got one. And they’re trying to sell it here. Oh, Empress. How? They’re still experimental. How did we lose one already?”
“We didn’t,” the woman snarled. A vein throbbed at her temple. She folded her arms and squared herself. “It’s not one of ours. Not really. It’s a copy. Reverse engineered.”
“How?” Diana demanded.
Salmagard, not following the conversation at all, had finished putting on her EV. Diana was still only half dressed, and the woman—whose bearing suggested to Salmagard that she worked for IS—was about to have an aneurysm.
“One of our units was captured in combat. It was analyzed, and that data was sold,” she snapped.
“Captured? Oh.” Diana groaned and put her face in her hands. Then she looked up, mouth open. “I remember. But you want to trust a copy? A fake?”
“Apparently it’s quite a good fake,” the woman replied, though it seemed to pain her to say it. “We were watching it to see where it ended up before seizing it.”
“Everwings are short-range fighters. They aren’t made for this.”
“It’s a one-way trip,” the woman stated flatly. “The only way anyone lives through it is if you stick to the script. Get there and secure the situation. Then let the GRs hold it down until my men get there.”
“Are all ops this far from home like this?”
“I don’t need that right now,” the woman snarled. “You want to have lives? This is the only way.”
“Price made that quite clear,” Salmagard murmured, and the woman whirled on her, her hand shooting out. Salmagard was so startled that she didn’t do anything to protect herself; the woman grabbed her by the face, her fingers pinching her cheeks, keeping her mouth shut.
“I know about you,” she hissed. “I know about Nidaros. I know about him. What do you know?”
Salmagard couldn’t reply; she was too startled, and she couldn’t speak in this state anyway. The woman went on.
“You know nothing except what he’s told you. You don’t know anything at all,” she said venomously, letting go and shoving her away. “I know you’re both liners. You’re used to bending the rules, getting what you want, and having everyone look the other way on everything you do. I doubt you appreciate the stakes here.”
Too distraught to be offended, Salmagard barely heard what the woman was saying.
“If there was anyone else, this would not be you,” she went on. “That doesn’t mean you can get some ideas,” she said, her eyes lingering on Salmagard. “If something goes wrong, you better hope you end up in Shangri La. Because you’re going to wish you had.”
She held out the crystal.
Salmagard took it and tucked it into her pouch.
Without another word, they went out into the bay, w
here Price appeared, holding out two hypos.
“Just do it,” he said. “In front of me. Don’t argue.”
Salmagard took the stimulant and pressed it to her neck, squeezing the trigger. She didn’t object. She needed the boost. Diana probably didn’t.
“Do you have any questions for me?” Price asked, putting his hands on their shoulders and leaning in. “Because this is the time. Last chance.” He had to shout over the noise in the bay.
“What the hell is this threat that’s so bad you’re making us do this?” Diana demanded. “This is a circus. It’s ridiculous. What was she even talking about?” She jerked a thumb at the woman, who was red in the face, shouting into her holo a short distance away.
“New Unity. They’re planning something big. Apparently this guy you were with might have something to do with it.” Price shook his head. “But I don’t know the real details, and if I did, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. But we’ve never been on alert on this scale before. The threat is real, and it’s immediate. Every office, every asset, every sleeper activated, every field agent operational. Something is going to happen, and somebody obviously thinks we need to take it seriously. So that’s what we’re doing. But that’s got nothing to do with you two. You have a job to do. It’s a good thing that you did what you did to bring it to our attention. Don’t let Collins give you the wrong idea. You’re going to come out of this heroes—just do what the Empress needs you to do. Are you ready?”
They nodded.
“Good. The Everwing is flight-ready, but we still have to get it. And I can’t use my people. My operation here is an open secret, but I can’t have it compromised. That would disrupt my defensive line, and we can’t give New Unity that opportunity, not now of all times. A bunch of them just got busted for buying Mactex.”
Diana and Salmagard both flinched. That was a savage, filthy weapon. Nothing less from New Unity. “Attack” was a vague term. Bringing something like Mactex in made things a bit less ambiguous and a lot more frightening. Salmagard felt a chill.
“Yes. Exactly,” Price said, seeing their faces. “That’s why my people are needed here. The Everwing is in a dock on this strut. We have to do this fast; we’re losing time. You have to do two things. Neutralize the vendors and secure the hangar. Then you move the fighter onto the skiff maintenance pad.”
Salmagard’s eyes widened. They weren’t even securing the craft with an official arrest—of course they weren’t. Evagardians had no authority here. Any action they took would be illegal. Price was speaking quickly, but he was proposing something rather outrageous—in the Service, this could only be called a special operation.
And Salmagard didn’t understand. Hangars were large, so skiffs were used to navigate them. In big docks, there were elevators and built-in transport systems for maintenance. When your skiff needed maintenance, you put it on a cargo pad, and the lift would carry it off to wherever the technicians were, then bring it back ready to use.
“You can’t move a ship with that,” she said. “It’s too small.”
“No,” Diana said, realization dawning on her face. “You might be able to fit an Everwing. It’s not like the fighters you’re thinking of, Tessa. It’s small. That’s clever—then you can move it here and launch it without anyone seeing. The Bazaar people will never know. But you said we had to secure it? Just the two of us? You mean we have to take it away from the people who have it? How many are there?”
“Could be just a few. Could be as many as a dozen,” Price said, waving to a tech driving a small transport cart.
Diana’s red eyes grew large, and she glanced at Salmagard. “Against us? Just us two?”
“No. Just her,” Price said, looking meaningfully at Salmagard. The tech drove up in the cart and got out. Price climbed into the driver’s seat and beckoned impatiently.
Diana climbed in immediately, but Salmagard didn’t move. What Price was proposing wasn’t just shocking and contrary to the Service’s way of doing things; it was a major crime—particularly in the Bazaar, where such importance was placed on merchandise.
And just a few moments earlier these people had been reminding her that she was criminally culpable for her actions at Heimer’s gambling den.
Diana yanked her into the seat beside her.
“Why?” the pale woman was demanding. “Why just her? It’s ridiculous.”
“Hardly,” Price said over his shoulder, beginning to drive. “You’re literally the only person on this station that can pilot that Everwing. We can’t let anything happen to you, or we’ll never catch up to our guy.”
“Guys,” Diana corrected. “I’ll help you get this other one, but I only care about Sei. He’s one of us; don’t you understand that?”
“You’re the one who doesn’t understand,” Price snapped. The cart jolted as he drove it off the hangar’s landing pad onto the maintenance walkway. The techs ahead were doing something with the pressure door for the outer corridor—it wasn’t meant to accommodate vehicles, but Price didn’t care about the rules. The doors opened, and one of the techs used some kind of tool to keep a sensor depressed so they wouldn’t close automatically.
Price accelerated, and they shot through. The little cart’s wheels hummed noisily in the close quarters of the maintenance tunnel. Ahead, blinking lights and chirping noises signaled robots getting out of the way.
“She’s a negotiator,” he went on. “And I won’t send her in blind; we have access to all the surveillance in this sector. They aren’t expecting her, and I’ll handle her personally. Private. Private!”
“Yes?” Salmagard said, trying to straighten up. There were viewports on their left, and she could see space beyond. The stars didn’t move, but the struts did. Much too quickly. The cart hit a bump, and she felt light-headed.
“Are you ready to work?”
“Yes, sir.”
Salmagard knew she had to pull herself together. This man was her superior. Senior officers in EI and IS had the authority to command her when she was separate from the Fleet, as long as there was no compromise to her operational orders.
By themselves, the things Price wanted her to do—neutralize a few hostiles and help move a ship before attempting a rescue—were all functions she was trained to perform. It was the circumstances framing these functions that were holding her back.
The Service had just spent several years teaching her that there was a certain way things had to be done. And here she was, no briefings, no published orders, no real chain of command, no intelligence. Just authority and necessity. It was Nidaros all over again.
“You know, that’s the thing,” Diana said, reaching forward to tap Price’s shoulder as he pushed the cart even harder, clipping a tiny robot that didn’t scuttle out of the way fast enough. “Everwings are small.”
“Yes,” he said impatiently, hitting another bump and struggling to maintain control of the cart. They were moving fast, but hangars and dry docks were massive—even on just one strut, the physical distance that needed to be covered was enormous.
“They’re not meant for two,” Diana said bluntly.
“I know,” Price replied. “But apparently it’s been done.”
“What? Oh.” Diana made an angry noise and did something with her hands that made it look like she was throttling someone invisible. “Bjorn! Why? Why?”
Price abruptly cut the throttle and halted the cart. He touched his ear, then looked at the side of the passage. “This is it.” He climbed out and knelt in front of a release. Salmagard and Diana got out as he tapped in a code and pulled down the lever. The crawl space opened and he stepped aside.
“Kladinova stays with me.” He touched his ear and spoke through Salmagard’s holo. “We’re synced. Go.”
Salmagard didn’t hesitate. She crawled through the opening, and Price sealed the hatch behind her. It wasn’t pretty, but there were functio
ning lights, and everything was in good repair. This was no Evagardian station, but it was a good deal better than Captain Tremma’s freighter.
“Twenty meters ahead,” Price said in her ear. “I’m checking the hangar.”
Salmagard got moving. Every second she wasted was time that needed to be spent in pursuit of the Admiral.
“There’re seven of them in there,” Price reported. “But three of them are in the break room. If you can keep it quiet, we can remotely seal that room so you won’t have to deal with them. I’ll talk you through the other four. But if we seal it now, they’ll know we’re coming—and if you tip them off, they’ll come out, and you’ll have to deal with all of them. No mistakes, Private.”
Salmagard paused. Above her was a grate, and through it she could see lights and the ceiling of a hangar—but the ceiling wasn’t far off. It wasn’t a large hangar.
“Not that one,” Price said. “Keep moving. Take this right. This can work; you just have to follow my orders.”
Salmagard crawled through a slightly tighter opening, into a space with a ladder.
“Up one level. You’ve got to neutralize the eyes up there.”
Salmagard had to take Price’s word for it. She was more than qualified to devise her own plan of attack, but she couldn’t see what Price could. She mounted the ladder and climbed quietly, climbing into the next opening and wiggling through.
“Take the first panel. Get a visual.”
Salmagard got down flat and squinted through the dirty carbon. The panel opened onto a catwalk that ringed the hangar and led to an enclosed room that overlooked the space. There was a man just a few meters away sitting with his back against the railing, his legs stretched carelessly across the catwalk. He was busy with his holo.
“I’m going to find a way,” Price began—and Salmagard knew what he was going to say. Trip an alarm somewhere, do something to get this guy to get up and move, to turn his back on Salmagard to give her a chance to get into the hangar.