Conflagration 1: Burning Suns

by Lisa Wylie

  “The hardware, at least, has been denied to the enemy,” Kohath noted. “However their command vessel did escape, so it is a certainty that they have gained at least some intelligence. What data from your memory was accessed Dolos?”

  “Nothing I would class as tactically valuable,” Dolos replied. “It only affected the lowest-security tier of my memory before my countermeasures blocked it. Recent environmental information, possibly records from my recent trip to Terran space, but nothing classified or code-secured.”

  “It still seems an illogical waste,” Praetorius mused.

  “I doubt they were anticipating a total loss,” Kohath observed. “However, they have achieved one significant outcome. We must now look to defend Korxonthos more stringently against assault, and that will limit our projection of force in other theatres, should they arise.”

  “Surely they would not wish to handicap us against the Wraiths?”

  “No, I cannot conceive that to be so,” Kohath concurred. “This is a distraction, an attempt to keep us from looking too closely upon their actions elsewhere.” He looked around at the drone animates scattered across the deck. “Curious. All of these drones are human-based.”

  “The Corrupted have been raiding colonies along the Terran border,” Dolos supplied. “Recent conversions would be the most expendable assault troops.”

  “True,” Kohath acknowledged, “but there are nearer hunting grounds than Terran space if their sole motive is recruitment.”

  “Then we must investigate,” Praetorius asserted, “and determine if there is a specific reason for targeting the humans.”

  “Indeed we must,” Kohath agreed thoughtfully. “And I believe I know where to begin.”

  KEERA

  Chronos Five, Omega Chronos System, Neutral Space

  The trip to Omega Chronos was educational.

  Determined to capitalise on the good impression she’d made handling Orden, Keera threw herself into the task of chasing down Octavius Gullane. The morning after they’d got the name, she’d set up shop in the Fortune’s rec room, hooking her communications rig into the main power and tuning the carrier bandwidths to match the ship’s, while Jennifer ran a few upgrades on the engine software. Sprocket, the relentlessly cheery maintenance VI, was by turns useful and obstructive, its intransigence on one thermal control coding patch such that it eventually drove Jennifer from her own boat in a fury to look for a cargo they could carry to maximise the return on the trip. By the time the Fortune’s still-smouldering skipper returned with a job, Keera had finished optimising her systems and verified that the comm credentials Shan’Chael had set her up with were in proper working order. The broker knew his stuff—Keera was impressed with the package he’d supplied. She was pre-registered with most of the news services and a few good political analysis sites, had a subscription to a data analytics suite that was corporate cutting-edge, and a cybersecurity toolkit that was at least the equal of government-grade protection. “This is a work of art,” she declared as she cycled through the available tools.

  “Well, I’m glad you’re happy with your toys,” Jennifer grumbled. “God knows they were expensive enough.”

  “They were worth every credit,” Keera assured her. “Or they will be. Trust me.”

  “So you keep saying,” Jennifer groused.

  “Did you get out of bed the wrong side this morning?”

  Jennifer glowered at her. “No.”

  “Then why are you in such a foul mood?”

  “I’m… I hate that fucking thing.”

  “What thing?”

  “The VI. It never does what I want it to first time. There’s always this extended bout of negotiations and permissions and pissy little system confirmations, and it drives me fucking nuts. Why can’t it just install the code patches? Why doesn’t it just work, like the engines do?”

  Keera chewed her lip for a moment, then decided to be diplomatic. “Do you want me to do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “The code installs. It won’t take long.”

  “You can do that?”

  “Sure. It’s just system rules. If you give me a couple of hours to read up on them, I can do a manual install. Does it need to be done before we leave?”

  “No. It’ll improve our engine efficiency and save fuel, but it’s not drive-critical.” Jennifer smiled suddenly. “Thanks, Keera.”

  “Not a problem.”

  And so, Keera had spent the trip with her time divided between studying the Fortune’s software systems and connecting her new comm network into the oubliette she’d constructed in the Service’s network, a concealed virtual lockbox containing a complete copy of her system profile, files, and tools. Most agents had them, even if they never admitted to it; their existence officially and strenuously denied, the designing of them never taught in official courses, their secrets passed on from handler to agent, generation after generation. Keera had taken hers very seriously, maintaining it rigorously, and using it regularly to test its security against the Consortium’s cyberwarfare suites. She’d also backed up all of her files and programs religiously, so it was a little like coming home to find that it had remained undiscovered in spite of her apparent dismissal from her post. After many hours of painstaking work she got it hooked up via a secure tunnel, and as the interface screen started to display the familiar system icons and filenames, Keera felt a brief flush of happiness. “Jennifer,” she called over the comms. “I’ve got access to the Consortium’s intelligence network.”

  “Great. Does that mean you can find a good pizza takeout somewhere in Omega Chronos?”

  Keera huffed a sigh, instantly deflated. “All the classified information we have at our fingertips and that’s the thing that leaps to your mind first?”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “Shall I bring you up a ration pack?”

  “I’m not that hungry. Listen, we’re about to make the system transition into Omega Chronos, and we’ll be decelerating shortly after. Then we’ll have a long haul towards Chronos Four—it’s way over the rim-ward side of the system, smack dab in the middle of the Belt.”

  “And we can’t get closer in FTL?”

  “Nope. Flying through a planet tends to be detrimental to your health, and there are two hundred and seven of them in Omega Chronos. It’s not a good system for indulging a cavalier approach to navigation.”

  “Noted. Please don’t feel you have to fly through anything just to prove your point.”

  “I’m comfortable with not getting to say ‘I told you so’ in this instance.” There was a pause, then the comm clicked again. “Keera?”

  “Yes?”

  “I am that hungry.”

  Keera groaned.

  A few blessedly collision-free hours later, the Fortune had settled inconspicuously into geosynchronous orbit on the dark side of Chronos Five. The Chronos Belt was some distance off the major transit lanes through the system, and while Chronos Four was the major outpost for the Belt, it was still small enough that discretion was warranted.

  Jennifer had set the autopilot and was sitting on the couch in the wardroom, legs stretched out, head against the backrest. She looked tired—navigating the intricate channels between the gravity profiles of so many planets had been an arduous job. Keera made them both some coffee and handed a mug to the shattered human as she sat down beside her.

  “All right, what do we know?” Jennifer asked.

  “Gullane is human, of Terran origin. He’s a moderately large player in the arms trade, particularly active in the neomorph and leviathan sectors. Needless to say he’s been getting a lot of business lately.”

  “He has?” Jennifer queried.

  Keera blinked. “With the border tensions between the leviathan Giants and the Neomorphs. There’s been a skirmish just about every other week, and Gullane sells to both sides.”

  “I don’t pay much attention to politics,” Jennifer shrugged.

  “Evidently,” Keera said dryly.
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  “Don’t get all snotty about it,” Jennifer retorted. “Not all of us are thinking about the greater galactic good all of the time. Some of us have to get by with real work.”

  “It’s not about that,” Keera protested, stung by the rebuke, “it’s… oh, fine, never mind. Gullane’s been doing well for himself. The estate on Chronos Four is a new acquisition, he only moved there last year. It’s close enough to the main settlement to be easy to supply, but it’s isolated enough to be easily defended.”

  “And all that data was just lying around for you to find, huh?”

  “The Service keeps close tabs on the black market,” Keera half-explained, ignoring the scepticism. She didn’t feel that sharing her government’s intelligence strategies with a complete outsider was entirely prudent, even for her own good. At least not voluntarily, and not yet. “Using third parties helps us keep operational deniability.”

  “Scapegoats,” Jennifer mused. “You do like to play dirty, don’t you?”

  “Intelligence isn’t a game where playing fair gets you any points,” Keera noted. “Honourable intentions are best kept confined to election speeches and other works of fiction.”

  “Wow, and I thought I was a cynic.”

  “You aren’t even close to being a cynic.” Keera looked at her thoughtfully, granted a sudden flash of insight. “You’d like to be, but you do actually believe in doing the right thing, don’t you?”

  “You’re not helping your case for your own trustworthiness, you know,” Jennifer deflected sharply.

  “You wanted me to be honest,” Keera shrugged. “I studied intergalactic law and politics at university, then did my Service training. It’s safe to say that kind of education gives you a pretty low opinion of the galaxy in general.”

  “You’re depressing the hell out of me, secret agent,” Jennifer chided. “Let’s get back to the point. Gullane’s a wealthy, successful arms dealer with a swanky new fortified pad. So something tells me we’re not going to be able to just walk up to the front gate and ask about his plans for acquiring Templar collectibles on the quiet.”

  “No. We will need to be a little more subtle than that. But speaking of Templar collectibles, I’ve been researching your target artefact,” Keera continued.

  “Why?” the human enquired with a pained expression. “It’s just an ancient piece of junk, isn’t it? The plaque at the museum said it wasn’t functional.”

  Keera nodded. “I know. And that’s been bothering me. Solinas said that you’d picked the wrong job. So, logically, we can infer that whoever he was working for didn’t want the artefact stolen. But if it’s useless, why worry about it being stolen, to the extent of compromising a second operation?”

  “So you think Gullane is another front? That maybe the Templars wanted it back?”

  “I think if the Templars wanted it back, they’d just have thrown a colossal temper tantrum. Stealing it back would be beneath them. And if Gullane really just wanted a broken relic gathering dust in his trophy room, why bother trying to stop you? So yes, I think it’s a front. Whoever’s after it doesn’t want their interest publicly declared. Gullane could well have been using his reputation as a collector as cover for a risky business deal.”

  “Sounds like leverage to me, if we can figure out where to apply it,” Jennifer remarked.

  “I agree.”

  “So, do you know what the damn thing’s supposed to do?”

  “No,” Keera admitted. “I haven’t found a good source beyond the museum records as yet. And the thing that bothers me there is how ridiculously worked up the Assembly got about it. The Templars going ballistic was to be expected, but the Guardians and the Ercineans don’t normally get excited about botched thefts.”

  “It wasn’t botched, it was sabotaged,” Jennifer corrected stiffly. “And a good man died because of it.”

  “Sorry,” Keera apologized, kicking herself mentally. She’d forgotten how raw that nerve still was. “I really didn’t mean to offend you.” She turned to face Jennifer more fully. “Or to belittle your friend’s death.”

  “He was a good guy, and he didn’t deserve to die like that.” Jennifer shivered. “He was trying to protect me. Stupid bastard.” She shook her head, her gaze going distant for a moment. “I was careless and he paid the price.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Keera offered.

  Jennifer shrugged. “People are easy come, easy go, Agent Naraymis,” she said with an edge of bitterness in her voice. “Everyone’s transient, everyone’s working their own angle, everyone moves on when the job’s done, one way or the other. Getting down about it does you fuck all good, and neither does pity.” She met Keera’s gaze with a challenging stare. “Cynical enough for you?”

  “Well, actually, I don’t agree,” Keera objected, but the sudden flash of temper in Jennifer’s expression warned her to drop the subject. “Anyway. Whatever that artefact is, it’s clearly not a useless trinket. How much did you say you were getting for the job?”

  “Two million credits between Orden and me.”

  Keera clicked her tongue in surprise. “I’m not conversant with the antique collectibles market. Would you say that was unusual?”

  “It’s the highest I’ve ever seen,” Jennifer fingered her tattoo thoughtfully as she spoke, “although a finder’s fee in high six or just breaking into seven digits isn’t unusual for Templar toys. It’s not a market I deal in often, but I figured the risk of jacking it out of a high-security environment would have added to the price. Why?”

  “Because the mark-up in black market deals for personal weapons is around a factor of ten, and increases exponentially when you get into ship-mounted calibres and specialised hardware. If Gullane was willing to invest two million to get it, he must have been confident of receiving twenty million or more when he sold it on.”

  “Which tells us what?”

  “Right now? Nothing.” Keera ran two fingers down her nose. “But it’s where the credit trail leads, so we need to look into it. If we can get hold of Gullane’s transaction data, we can see if my theory’s correct.”

  “And that’s not just lying around someplace where you can take a peek at it, I suppose?”

  “Sadly not.”

  Jennifer’s face fell. “Damn. I was hoping we’d earned a break.”

  “It’s just intel, not omniscience.” Keera rubbed at her nose as she thought. “So we need to get into his records, and that means getting into the estate.”

  Jennifer’s expression brightened slightly. “Infiltration? Well, we know you can do that. Do you have a plan?”

  Keera smiled, oddly pleased by the compliment. “I have the beginnings of one, and it’s going to require a little subterfuge. I’ll need you to make a nuisance of yourself.”

  “I specialise in being a nuisance,” Jennifer declared.

  “Oh, I believe you,” Keera smirked. “I need you to go out to the estate and demand to speak to Gullane. Make it clear that Orden sent you to discuss the lack of expenses cover for the job on Earth, and that you’re more than a little pissed off about being extorted and then given the run-around.”

  “That’ll get us nowhere. They’ll just chase me off.”

  “Yes, I know. And then they’ll follow you. Which is exactly what we want them to do.”

  “It is?”

  “Sure.” Keera arched her eyebrows. “We’ll need at least one of his employees to be outside the compound if I’m going to get hold of an identity.”

  “What if it’s a guy?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  Jennifer looked over, interest clearly piqued. “So, your appearance isn’t gender-restricted?”

  “No. Why would you think it was?”

  “I dunno,” Jennifer shrugged, “I guess I just thought since you’re a girl...”

  “It’s more complicated than that,” Keera replied, “but can we maybe discuss comparative biology another time?”

  “Uh, sure, sorry. So, I get their
attention, and get them to set a tail on me. Do I bring our new friend back here?”

  “Yes. I need to be able to identify them.”

  “OK, then what?”

  “Then, you’ll lead them away and pull a good old-fashioned vanishing act.”

  Jennifer grinned. “And am I actually going to disappear?”

  “In a manner of speaking.” Keera held out her hand. “Spit.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Spit. Unless you want me to scratch you. Or you could kiss me, I suppose.”

  Jennifer frowned, but she complied, spitting reluctantly on Keera’s outstretched palm. “Right, so now…” She trailed off as Keera lifted her hand to her mouth and licked it, rolling her tongue around her mouth to get the sample DNA to her receptors. “That’s gross, Keera.”

  Keera ignored her, took a deep breath, stood up, and initiated her skinshift, watching in abstract fascination as her skin tone paled, her arm thickened with Jennifer’s better developed musculature, and the fine, dark hair that covered her forearms lightened to blonde. When she looked up, the human was staring at her, dumbstruck.

  “I’ll need to work on the vacant look,” Keera remarked dryly. “And use some make-up to simulate that ridiculous scribble under your eye, but should be close enough, I think.” She cocked her hip to ape Jennifer’s usual stance.

  Jennifer shook herself. “That’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen,” she breathed, her tone awed. “I mean, I know you’re not me, but fuck, I’m doubting my sanity just looking at you.” She rubbed her hands over her face. “What’s with the spit?”

  “I needed a DNA sample,” Keera replied. “Fluids are the quickest thing to process.”

  Jennifer pouted. “Well, I like the kissing suggestion better, for future reference.”