At Galactic Central

by Kate MacLeod

  “That was a guess, right?” Daisy said.

  “There is a contingent in space that dresses all in black who has been influencing upper management and also disappearing people,” Joelle said.

  “They were supposed to be working for Bo Tajaki, the cousin of the Months. He’s the one who will have charge of Amatheon once the court proceedings are concluded.”

  “Only at some point his number one, a woman named Shi Jian, started changing the orders. That’s when influencing decisions became disappearing dissidents, and then outright massacres across the station,” Daisy said.

  “Some of that we know,” Joelle said. “Although the uniforms aren’t black now. They’re green.”

  “That’s good,” Scout said brightly.

  “How is that good?” Joelle asked.

  “It means that Bo still has some influence over them. He orders the color changes for all his employees. We might still be able to wrest them out of Shi Jian’s control.”

  “I don’t know,” Daisy said. “Maybe it’s just their smart clothes he can still control.”

  “They could disable that if it mattered,” Joelle said.

  “Or just change to normal clothes,” Tucker added.

  “Still, I’m going to mention that to our friends in space. If they can convince those employees that Shi Jian doesn’t speak for Bo Tajaki, that’s a start,” Joelle said.

  “This rally just now,” Scout said. “What’s that about?”

  “The gun is complete and ready to fire,” Joelle said.

  “So when are they planning to fire it?” Scout asked.

  “I don’t know for sure, but soon,” Joelle said. “Things can’t go on like this much longer.”

  “It’s getting desperate up in space,” Ken said. “Our government has halted all shipments to the space stations. They have some means of producing their own food, but it’s limited.”

  “They’re getting hungry,” Joelle said. “They can’t wait much longer.”

  “Our mysterious leader ordered us to rob all the supply ships and trains, to maximize the shortage,” Ken said.

  “So that was part of it,” Joelle said. “That was when my father was supposed to be getting medical care, getting better. Two people came down from space to help him get clean. But I don’t think that’s what they were really there for.”

  “It could have been all his idea,” Tucker said.

  “What could have been all his idea?” Scout asked.

  “Taking the gun,” Joelle said. “Rather than stealing food and supplies, my father took a small team and wrested control of the gun away from the councilor’s security detail. It’s impossible to steal, it can’t be moved from where it's been installed, but we’ve been sitting on it ever since. And up until now working around the clock to finish the construction.”

  “Why did we stop sending food?” Daisy asked. “Was that the governor’s decision?”

  “Officially, yes,” Joelle said. “It’s hard to say if he was forced into it or not. But after all the data on those discs you had went public, there was a public uproar.”

  “Because the Space Farers were inflating their numbers to demand more than their fair share,” Scout said.

  “Among other things,” Joelle said. She leaned past Scout to touch the screen of a console next to the door. “Do you see?” she asked, pointing out a video feed of a network of satellites orbiting low over Amatheon’s skies.

  “They’re all still up there,” Scout said.

  “For now,” Joelle said. “But they’ve been rigged to blow. With one push of a button, the Space Farers can take them all out at once. And they aren’t rigged just to blow. They’re rigged to fall.”

  “Of course they are,” Scout said through gritted teeth.

  “They said they will only do it if they detect activity coming from the gun,” Joelle said.

  “Which your father intends to fire,” Scout said.

  “The gun takes time to power up. Powering up creates an energy signature detectable from space. They’ll know we’re about to fire and destroy the satellite net before we even get a shot in.”

  “Will that take out the gun?” Daisy asked.

  “Even if they aimed all the satellites for its position, it wouldn’t be enough to reach it. It would still fire,” Joelle said.

  “And from analyzing this video feed and where they placed the explosives, I’m fairly certain they are aimed for the cities and not us,” Ken said.

  “And the gun is aimed at?”

  “Amatheon Orbiter 1,” Joelle said. “But we’ve tracked all the stations. There are points when their orbits draw closer together. If we aimed for one of those confluences, we could take out most of the population in space.”

  “When is the next confluence?” Scout asked.

  “Tonight,” Ken said. “Then about three weeks from now.”

  “So that’s the point of the rally,” Scout said. “Not just celebrating finishing the gun. They’re celebrating firing it. Tonight. Because why wait, right?”

  “They’re willing to sacrifice everyone in all those cities?” Scout asked. She looked at the image of the satellites again. There were more satellites than major cities on Amatheon. They’d be taking out everything.

  “We’re going to stop this,” Tucker said. “It’s why you’re here.”

  “How?” Joelle asked.

  “Destroying the gun?” Scout suggested.

  Joelle laughed a humorless laugh. “Sorry,” she said. “You’ll understand when you see it. It’s so immense all those satellites falling down on it couldn't scratch it. So what are we going to do to it?”

  “If we can't destroy it then we dismantle it,” Daisy said. “There’s got to be a way.”

  Joelle opened her mouth, but before she could speak, Tucker, who had been leaning in the doorway, suddenly stood straight up.

  “It’s your dad,” he said. “Closet?”

  “You two have to hide,” Joelle said, grabbing Scout and Daisy by the arm and guiding them deeper into the long room. “He stops in randomly, but he never stays long. He won’t find you. Just stay quiet.”

  Shadow gave a single bark as if in agreement, and all of the blood drained out of Joelle’s face.

  “We’ll be quiet,” Scout promised, herding the dogs into the dark interior of the closet.

  “If he heard that, I don’t know how I’m going to explain it,” Joelle mumbled to herself. “Quickly now.”

  Daisy scooped Gert up into her arms and carried her into the depths of the closet behind Scout and Shadow, and Joelle closed the door with a click that seemed to echo.

  Scout sat on the floor so that Shadow could settle himself on her lap. Gert probably didn’t register that anything strange was even going on, but she could feel Shadow trembling at being back in a small, dark place again.

  Then she heard the sounds of a number of people coming into the communications room, all chattering and scuffling that died out when a heavier set of footprints entered.

  “Joelle, all of these are online?” Malcolm asked.

  “Yes, Dad,” she said. “We’re all set.”

  “Good,” he said. “Ken, run through the prechecks for the gun. I expect to see a panel of green lights when I come back here.”

  “You’re firing the gun?” Joelle asked.

  “Shortly,” Malcolm said. “Call the chief and patch that through to my conference room. Kira and Mitch, with me. The rest of you get back to work.”

  “This isn’t a scheduled call time,” Joelle said once the shuffling of people leaving had died down.

  “She’ll take the call,” said a male voice. Scout assumed this was Mitch. She didn’t know anyone named Mitch, so why did he sound so familiar?

  “Her people get testy about breaches in protocol,” Joelle persisted. “What should I tell them if they try to refuse to put me through?”

  “Come on, kid! If you tell them we’re fixing to fire the gun, they’ll patch you through so fa
st the lines will smoke.”

  Scout held Shadow tighter, burying her nose in the soft fur of his neck.

  That voice had been familiar too, and hearing both of them together, she knew who Kira and Mitch were.

  They had been working in the radio watch room when Geeta and Scout had been trying to find Liam on Amatheon Orbiter 1. They had been working for the Months. From the one conversation she had overheard, they were in charge of keeping Malcolm doped up and pliable.

  And now they were on the surface. If they were the advisors Joelle had mentioned, that meant they had come down from space just to break him out of rehab, capture the gun, and pretend it had all been his idea.

  All while getting him most certainly hooked on whatever Galactic Central pharmaceutical they used to manipulate him.

  And apparently, they never left his sides.

  19

  When Joelle opened the closet door, Scout came out still holding Shadow. Daisy stayed in the closet doorway, holding Gert’s leash very near her collar. Her eyes kept darting back to the doorway as if she expected Malcolm to come storming back in there.

  “I know who those two are,” Scout said. “They work for the Months.”

  “No surprise there,” Joelle said. Then something on her console started to beep, and she ran to plug her headset back in.

  “Now what?” Scout asked Tucker.

  “I guess Malcolm is asking permission to fire the gun,” Tucker guessed. “But personally, I don’t think he’ll listen if whoever they are says no. This is happening, today. Right now.”

  “What can we do to stop it?” Scout asked.

  Tucker began, “I can take you to the gun—”

  But Daisy spoke over him. “What are you looking at?” she asked, leaving the closet to look at the array of screens all facing Ken.

  “The call,” he said. “Here’s the visual. I can give you audio if you’re curious.”

  “No, that,” Daisy said, pointing to a screen that just looked like streams of data to Scout.

  “That’s my program working to find the source of the call,” he said.

  “But Joelle originated the call,” Daisy said.

  “There’s a protocol in place. She uses a special program that doesn’t let her see what she’s doing. We don’t really know who we’re calling or where they are,” Ken said.

  “You have other recordings, of other messages?” Daisy asked, scanning the data as if she were looking for something specific.

  “Tons,” Ken said.

  “Incriminating?” she asked.

  “Oh yeah,” Ken said. “The hits on the trains, the stockpiling of supplies, lots of stuff about the construction and seizure of the gun.”

  “If we could prove who it was, and disseminate that information, would it change things?” Daisy asked.

  “I mean, maybe?” Ken said. “It depends.”

  “Everyone would know we were being swept up into a mess caused not by three conflicting parties but by one person, either Mai Tajaki or Shi Jian,” Daisy said.

  “This would only prove they’re controlling the rebels,” Tucker said.

  “The rest is much easier to prove,” Daisy said. “Give me a couple of hours and a computer terminal, and I can remove the scrambling. We’ll see who this is and hear their voice.”

  “A couple of hours?” Scout repeated. “We can’t wait that long. We have to get to the gun.”

  “No, you don’t need me for that,” Daisy said. “You can handle it.”

  “I don’t know anything about guns,” Scout said. “You do. If I still had my AI, maybe, but on my own? I’m next to useless.”

  “You’re not useless,” Daisy said at the same moment as Tucker said, “Never.”

  Scout bristled as they exchanged a glance and Daisy gave him a little grin. Great, Tucker’s charm had snared her best friend.

  “Scout, I have to focus on this,” Daisy said. “I’ll pull out what I need from the government’s systems; those are a piece of cake to get into. Emilie will be doing the same up in orbit. That plus unmasking this person—we need that information.”

  “The last info dump I brought to the people only made things worse,” Scout said.

  “You need to go now and disable the gun. I need to make sure that after that’s done, no one brings it back online, or drops satellites from space, or does anything without getting to the bottom of every bit of intelligence I’m about to unload on them. They all think they know what’s going on, but none of them has the whole picture. And they aren’t going to believe us without proof.”

  Scout sighed and looked to Joelle, who shrugged.

  “You should get going,” Joelle said. “It’s a long walk. Tucker will take you.”

  “Tucker?” Scout objected.

  “Hey,” Tucker said.

  “My father will notice if I’m gone. Ken and Bente are prepping their consoles to turn over to Mitch and Kira; they also can’t be gone. It has to be Tucker,” Joelle said.

  “Because no one is going to miss Tucker?”

  “Not since you left,” Tucker said. “I let you escape. He’s never forgiven me for that.”

  “The call is ending,” Ken said, and Joelle shooed Daisy, Scout, and the dogs back inside the closet.

  The conference room was a lot closer than wherever they had held the rally; Malcolm was in the room the moment the closet door clicked shut.

  “What are you doing, Joelle?” he demanded.

  “Looking for a spare cable,” Joelle said, her voice moving away from the closet door. “I need to set up a remote workstation for—”

  “Ken, how’s the precheck coming?” Malcolm cut her off.

  Scout flinched at the shriek of rage that followed, hugging Shadow tight to keep his whimpers contained.

  Daisy dropped to a knee, holding a hand to Gert’s head until the low growls quieted.

  “What do you mean you just started?!?” Malcolm bellowed. “You’re meant to be done by now. Done! Are you deliberately trying to sabotage me? Because you know what we do to traitors.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ken said.

  “Do you want to be shot in the back of the head and pitched off the mountain?”

  “No, sir,” Ken said.

  “Because you know what? If you make me order it done, it won’t be me that pulls the trigger. It will be Bente. And if she refuses, there will be two bodies to add to the pile at the bottom of the ravine.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ken said. The words sounded muffled, like they had a hard time passing a thickness in Ken’s throat. He was holding back a lot of emotions. The trembling quality of his voice said part of it was fear.

  Fear, or anger.

  Malcolm barked a few more orders and then said, “Mitch and Kira are finishing up another call now. When they get here, I expect they’ll find you ready.”

  Ken didn’t bother to answer that time. The loud footsteps faded away down the hall.

  Joelle jerked the door open and entered the closet with a stack of equipment that towered over her head. It looked like too much weight for someone her size to carry unless you saw the bulges of her biceps as she hoisted the stack a little higher.

  Daisy let Gert go to help Joelle arrange the components and hurried to connect it all before Mitch and Kira arrived.

  “I won’t be able to stall the firing sequence,” Ken said. They all pretended not to notice the little sniffle that ended that sentence or the shininess of his eyes. “Mitch will be running it. I can’t risk it.”

  “Understood,” Scout said. “Daisy will be safe in the closet?”

  “No reason for anyone to go in there,” Joelle said. “If they should need anything in there, they’ll make one of us go get it. She’ll be fine.”

  “Don’t worry about me, Scout,” Daisy said, still assembling the components into a makeshift computer station without the console to hold it all in the correct positions.

  “I’ve analyzed the gun schematics pretty thoroughly since we got hold of them,�
� Ken said. “I’m downloading my notes to Tucker’s wrist communicator. But don’t wait for that. Mitch and Kira will be here any minute; you need to be gone.”

  “Do you want me to take one of the dogs?” Tucker offered.

  “Only if you’re looking to get eaten,” Scout said. But she had to set Shadow on the floor. He moved to stand next to Gert and Scout double-wrapped the leashes around the palm of her hand, just in case of trouble.

  “I’ll make contact with Emilie and the others,” Daisy told her. “Give them an update, see what they know.”

  “Good,” Scout said.

  “Best of luck,” Daisy said, then shut herself up inside the closet.

  There was nothing else left to be done. Scout took a deep breath, then looked to Tucker to lead the way. He gave her one of his best smiles, but when she just glared in return, it faded away until he just nodded, then led the way out of the room and further down the side hall at a brisk walk.

  How had it happened? How, after all of her promises to herself, had she ended up once more alone with the boy who had betrayed her?

  20

  Tucker led her through a maze of hallways, ever further from the hangar deck, going down every flight of stairs they passed until at last the final passage ended in an open doorway.

  And beyond that open doorway was an immense natural cavern. Turning around, Scout could see the back wall of the compound rising all the way up to the ceiling far above.

  The cavern must be put to some use, fully lit as it was. A variety of wheeled vehicles were stored here, although she saw no tire tracks in the sandy cavern floor. If there was a way out that could be driven through, it didn’t look like the rebels were using it.

  “How did you get all of this here?” Scout asked.

  “Train,” Tucker said. “Runs from Jakart, past our old compound, past here, and all the way to the next mountain where the gun is.”

  “The gun is in a different mountain?” Scout asked, panic biting at the edges of her voice.

  “Relax, we’re catching a ride most of the way,” he told her. “It’s just through here.”