The unbreakable privacy of e-DNA was its main selling-point, but it certainly made police work a lot more difficult. Neffy had an idea. “You said you had orders. Through the chain of command?”
“Yes, that’s right. But off the books. It wasn’t something we could go public with, for obvious reasons.”
If someone had passed them that order through the chain of command, that person was probably the head of the conspiracy. “Any idea who issued these orders?”
“It was Captain O’Shea.”
So Xena was mixed up in this? That didn’t seem right somehow, though he knew people too well to call any kind of human behavior impossible.
Sergeant Corey continued, “Ensign Walters met with Xena to get the details of the mission; I’ve never met her myself. You can ask her about it if you want.”
“You mean she’s here? Ensign Walters survived the raid?”
“The raid? Sixteen of my comrades were just killed in action. By the Federation.”
The Sergeant was right. Despite the relative autonomy of colony worlds like New Atlantia, the Federation was still their country too. These women were pawns, forced to participate in the plot against their will – and then gunned down by soldiers of their own government. Neffy thought he understood the poor combat performance of the New Atlantian warriors a bit better now. If their hearts were never in the fight, they probably weren’t even shooting to kill.
“I’m sorry, Sergeant. I truly am. I’ll be back in a bit.”
Neffy went out the door and found Brad waiting for him to come out.
As usual, Brad was blandly cheerful. “Progress, I hope?”
“Some, yes. Where did you get off to anyway? Captain Dunham was looking for you.”
“Just having a quick word with the medics. It’s always a smart idea to stay on their good side.”
Before he could say anything, Neffy’s holo alerted him to an incoming message. He flicked the screen open. “Hold on a second. Captain O’Shea just sent me something.”
If she thought the women would flip on her she might be trying to get out ahead of the interrogation by discrediting them somehow.
Xena: We have evidence the rogue faction was being paid to steal the device. The flight plans for all twenty rebels match the details of the plot, and nine out of the twenty women have also had a large sum of credits deposited into their accounts. It’s possible all twenty have, and the other eleven have just hidden it better. We’re still looking into it.
Neffy keyed in a response, keeping it intentionally vague and noncommittal. If Xena was worried the women would turn on her, then let her sweat!
Neffy: Thanks for the info, this will help in the investigation.
He shook his head and sent it off, painfully aware of the treachery and dishonesty all around him. When Ally was still with him, he always felt like he had a partner. Now the closest thing he had to a partner was Commander Brad Cramer – a man who pretended to be someone he wasn’t. He had no one to rely on except himself.
+++
On the FFS Troy, Commander Grace received a holo call from Flight Sergeant Thomas, the young man she’d assigned to oversee the Drewdonia investigation. They were fairly close, but Thomas was clearly feeling some trepidation about the call. The two of them had always worked closely together ever since he’d been assigned as her personal assistant, and he knew how cutting she could sometimes be.
“Flight Sergeant Thomas reporting.”
Grace returned his salute, though her mind was on all the problems they faced and the risk posed by the device. Their mission had not gone very well so far. “Go ahead, Thomas.”
“Our investigation team on Drewdonia uncovered something. The water supply on the planet is tainted with testosterone.”
She had not expected this. “Tainted with testosterone? How did that happen?”
“We think it must have been deliberate sabotage. We don’t know who did it but someone leaked the hormone into the water supply intentionally.”
Commander Grace was shocked. Tainting the water supply of a colony world was a major crime. Who would do such a thing, and why? “That would certainly explain their belligerent behavior! But how long has this been going on for?”
“Since before the start of the crisis, sir. Someone made an error in not catching it sooner.”
“Someone? And who would you say that was, Thomas?”
He hung his head a little. “Me, sir. I should have looked into this sooner. The data was there, but we didn’t look at it ourselves at first because Captain Klingerman had already requested information about conditions on Drewdonia. If he had received any word of their water supply being tampered with, he would have done something about it. Wouldn’t he?”
Commander Grace thought about it for a moment. Her assistant should certainly have checked for himself, but it wasn’t unreasonable of him to have relied on the competence of a Federation Peacekeeper. “I suppose he would. Which suggests the possibility that he didn’t get accurate information in the first place. We need to know if someone lied to him – and who it was.”
“I’ll look into it immediately. I’m sending over all the data on the water. Thomas out.”
Despite all her other pressing duties, Commander Grace looked at the report on her holoscreen as soon as it came through. The artificial testosterone in the water supply was cheap nasty stuff, the kind farmers used on cattle on those planets that still raised animals. The chemical wasn’t so common as to be untraceable and sales would all be registered.
It should be possible to track down where it came from without too much trouble. She could have someone look at the volume used in the sabotage and weigh it against registered sales of the same chemical. With any luck, this might even lead them directly to the perpetrator. She called her assistant back immediately.
Flight Sergeant Thomas looked even more worried this time. The furrows in his brow made him look a few years older than he really was. “Commander Grace?”
“I think we can determine who tainted the water, or at least who sold the testosterone to them. But there’s something else. There’s only one explanation that makes sense here.”
“Yes, Commander? I assume the purpose was to make the Drewdonians more aggressive. At least that’s the effect the testosterone would have.”
“Exactly. Which means someone has been priming the Drewdonians for violence, trying to goad them into starting a war. We need to get to the bottom of this as quickly as possible.”
“I’ll get right on it.”
Thomas ended the call, and Commander Grace went back to one of her many pending tasks – reviewing the holo-notes Neffy had sent her. It was hard to stay focused. Stopping a war from breaking out accidentally was one thing. Stopping a war that someone was determined to start was a much taller order.
+++
Back on New Atlantia, Brad was still trying to find out what Neffy had learned in the interrogation. “You said you made some progress?”
“Yeah, some. The women were ordered to steal the device by Captain O’Shea, but they also received e-DNA messages threatening to kill their families if they didn’t comply.”
Brad whistled. “Nasty stuff.”
Nasty stuff? What exactly does that mean to a spy, or whatever it is you really are?
Brad seemed to be unsettled by something. “I wonder why Xena would get mixed up in something like this. You described her as a real professional, right? A warrior to the bone or something like that.”
Neffy groaned inside. If Brad knew exactly what he had said about Xena in his holo notes, that must mean he had read everything on Neffy’s device back at the hospital. Including all his personal ramblings about his feelings for Trent as his surrogate father. This was beyond embarrassing – it was downright humiliating!
Brad threw him a little grin, as if he knew exactly what he had just done. “Who was the contact point with Captain O’Shea?”
Neffy could feel himself blushing at the exposure of hi
s personal secrets. But he had to ignore it and keep going. “An Ensign Walters. She’s one of the survivors here.”
“Well, let’s bring up her personnel file. Maybe it will tell us something.”
Neffy brought up a holoscreen, and Brad read it over his shoulder along with him. Maybe that was why he never respected Neffy’s privacy – because Neffy had never had any as far as he was concerned. After you read a person’s most private thoughts, reading over his shoulder is more or less trivial.
Neffy was feeling a little defiant, so he read the file out loud as if to emphasize that it was his own choice to share the information. “Let’s see here. Ensign Walters. Two years in the service. No parents. One brother, still in school. The comments here describe her as a perfect candidate.”
Brad’s grin disappeared, and his face took on an uncharacteristically grim expression. “They used her.”
“Exactly. And your point is?”
“I hate it when people exploit each other, that’s all.”
Neffy couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh, really Brad? Well you should be used to that.”
Brad almost looked hurt, although there was no way of telling how sincere it was. “What do you mean by that, Neffy?”
“Working for Trent is what I mean.”
Brad raised one hand and shook his head. “You’ve got it all wrong. That’s why I work for Trent – to right wrongs where I can.”
Neffy didn’t reply, but he had to admit in his own mind that Trent had done some good at various points in their history together. Trent was a man who could get things done, however twisted his ethics might be. But did he ever do good for the right reasons, or only as part of a larger agenda?
As far as Neffy was concerned, it was time to change the topic. “I wonder why the women would be threatened and bribed, instead of one or the other.”
“That’s a good question. Maybe they’re being set up as patsies?”
“That’s possible,” said Neffy, “but why would Xena offer us that information, if she was the one behind it all?”
“She must know we’re interrogating the survivors.”
“I thought of that too. But it doesn’t add up. If they had already flipped on her, then letting us know they were also bribed would only put her on the hook for those charges too.”
Brad’s grin had returned, although this time there was a sardonic edge to it. “You’re being a bit naïve here, Neffy. There’s galaxy-changing technology involved. She’ll do anything she can to muddy the waters, hoping to somehow stay ahead of it all and end up with the pot of gold at the end.”
Neffy thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. “That doesn’t track. She could never claim to have developed the device with the Drewdonians already claiming it’s theirs.”
“If this had worked out the way the New Atlantians originally intended, they could have just spent a few years processing the tech in R&D. When they went public with it after all of that, it would be their word against the much more primitive Drewdonians. They would have gotten away with it. The only reason it didn’t work out for them is that the Drewdonians were willing to go to war. At the current stage of Drewdonia’s development, that’s something they could never have anticipated.”
Neffy had to admit that was a reasonable interpretation, even if didn’t feel quite right to him. “Okay Brad, you have a point. But we still need to talk to this Ensign Walters…”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
In the Federation building on New Atlantia, Captain Eryn O’Shea’s call with CIC Loiselle was not going any better than their previous conversation. For one thing, Loiselle wasn’t even giving the call her full attention. She had a half a dozen holoscreens open in front of her, and Xena’s call was only one of them. She was never going to save the women at the outpost this way, but she had to try. They were her soldiers, after all.
“Commander, the rebels’ communications with their families are all either way up or way down. Like they’re desperate to stay in contact or too scared to try. This is exactly the behavior we would expect to see if their families were being threatened, so that scenario is far more likely than the idea that they were just doing it all for money.”
Loiselle gave her an exasperated and half-disbelieving look. “Does it really matter, Captain O’Shea? Treason is treason, whatever the motivation. And even more important than the principle is the political reality. These women must be found guilty of treason to New Atlantia if we are going to stop this war. A war that threatens the survival of two planets!”
Tears of anger blurred Xena’s eyes. All her stoicism had deserted her since the crisis started, and she kept finding herself caught up in storms of emotion no matter what she did.
“You can’t do this Commander! Can’t you see that it’s wrong? You’re asking my warriors to take the fall, when all they were doing is protecting their loved ones!”
Suddenly and rather frighteningly, she had Loiselle’s full attention. The CIC stared at her with cold and furious eyes, and for several seconds she said nothing at all.
When she finally spoke, Loiselle’s words were clipped and deliberate. “I can tell you what I do see, Captain. I see an insolent subordinate. I see an emotional wreck, whose personal attachment to her people has somehow become more important to her than the duty she owes New Atlantia. I see someone who can be replaced if necessary! Loiselle out.”
The holoscreen disappeared, and Xena was left with her anger and her heartbreak. There was nothing she could do here, nothing at all. She couldn’t even fulfill the basic duty of a Captain to protect her subordinates. Now the survivors would be punished, and not only punished but dishonored as soldiers. There was nothing worse for a warrior than to be charged with treason.
Meanwhile, far above their heads, Commander Ronaldi Joshua Haafiz still waited in the Aegelweard. His onboard missile systems could end her life at any time and rain destruction down on the entire New Atlantian colony. And still the people of the city went about their lives, most of them unaware of how close they were to war.
Between Haafiz and Hidalgo, Xena was starting to wish she had never dated anyone at all.
+++
Trent’s anger was not uncontrollable, but it was about as close as he ever got. He paced back and forth in his office rapidly, occasionally cursing Neffy.
“That ridiculous child! Running off on me after all I’ve done for him. I could strangle that boy with my goddamn hands…”
Having dinner with Neffy had been a mistake; he could see that now. Any gesture of personal intimacy only weakened the authority he had over his renegade protégé. He would have to maintain the distance between them more carefully in the future. The consequences of letting Neffy close were just too unpredictable. Neffy was too unpredictable, and there were not many people he couldn’t predict. He’d based his entire career on that, after all.
And yet Neffy confounded him. Manipulated him. Tricked him? No. Surely Neffy had simply taken advantage of an opportunity. The idea that he might have engineered the situation was just too much to credit. And now he was out there on New Atlantia, getting himself into who knew what kind of trouble!
Ah, well. At least Neffy has Cramer with him. That’s a comfort. Cramer can keep him from going too far…can’t he?
He heard a knock on his door and opened it to see the wise yet vaguely sinister face of Old Man Dar – a cadaverously thin face dotted with little brown liver spots, with two eyes as bright and focused as a bird of prey’s. Dar was a power broker of vast experience, and his social calls were never merely social. He leaned on a walking stick of some hard, dark wood, decorated with elegant knotwork carvings. “Good afternoon, Peter. Care to join me on my walk? There’s a courtyard nearby I quite enjoy.”
A courtyard without any holocams to eavesdrop on our conversation. Old Man Dar always thinks of everything.
Trent smiled affably. “Of course. Vienna is lovely on a day like this.”
It took them only moments to leave the
Academy and walk out into Vienna’s bustling yet cultured streets. As they strolled along, Trent’s anger dissipated to some extent. It was hard to stay angry, here at the heart of the Federation. The ancient cafés and little bookstores, the elegant architecture of an earlier era…it was easy to think of Vienna as the best thing in the galaxy, the epitome of what the Federation stood for. The epitome of everything he had spent his life fighting for, in his own way.
Dar’s cane clicked on the stones as they entered the courtyard. There was a fountain nearby, with cherub faces spouting water. “You seem less agitated than you did before we left your room. I’m glad to see that, Peter. When you are not yourself, I find it…worrisome.”
Trent stopped in front of the fountain to admire the carvings and to wonder how quickly he could have a holocam set up nearby. Old Man Dar would never propose a second rendezvous at the same location, but it would be an easy way to get others to let their guard down. “You have nothing to worry about.”
“The group is not so sure.”
“If you have something to say, just say it. I won’t play games with you, Dar.”
“We’re concerned about your boy. The situation on New Atlantia is dangerous for him. And worse than that, he might be dangerous for…other matters.”
Trent picked up a pebble from the ground and tossed it in the fountain, causing the water to splash a little. The lives of individuals were just like that – here for a moment and then gone forever. “You’re worrying about nothing. Neffy’s not a problem.”
“It’s a critical time, Pete. History is in the making.”
“I understand that, Dar. But he won’t be a problem.”
“I hope you’re right.”
As both men were well aware, field agents like Neffy had been known to disappear without a trace at the flick of this man’s pen. The Council might be the official authority in the Federation, but men like Dar had the real power.
Men like Dar…and men like Peter Trent.
At least for the moment, Neffy was out of the Council’s reach. He’d be in one of their jail cells right now if they had their way, but his reckless action in running away from the Academy had saved him from their grasp. Perhaps there was something to be said for Neffy’s tendency to act like Neffy.
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