by Rachel Aukes
“Did you have it on your ship?” came Anna East’s voice from the radio.
“Of course. It was in a crate, but I can’t find the crate anywhere. Someone stole it,” Pete answered.
Chief’s brow furrowed as he tried to guess why a router was so important.
“No one would know to steal a single crate off your ship,” she replied through the radio.
Pete waved a hand around him. “Well, it’s not here now!”
“Watch your tone with me, Pete. You’re not indispensable.”
“My apologies,” Pete said with a scowl that resembled nothing close to an apology. “I’m just saying that someone stole the crate. Either the GP got to one of our people, or someone on this station nabbed it. Either way, it’s not here.”
“Then you’d better find it.” There was a lengthy silence before she continued, “Until you do, have someone go in and manually make the updates.”
“What?” Pete exclaimed. “That will leave a trace. Plus, that’ll take days, if not weeks.”
“Then you’d better get started,” East said.
Pete lowered the radio and stared blankly.
“What is so special about a router, sir?” Hettinger whispered at Chief’s side.
Chief thought for a moment and glanced at the door behind them. “I don’t know, but if East suspects someone on Free Station stole it, then I expect she’ll want to have a conversation with me.”
Pete started barking orders at his men. “I need you to search this entire dock, search all of Free Station if you have to, to find the router.”
“How can I find something that I have no idea what it looks like?” the man with a bloody nose said.
Pete pulled back his clenched fist as though to hit the man again but stopped before swinging. Instead, he audibly sighed and turned to the computer. He went through a few screens and pulled up an image. “Here. Go find it. Everything depends on it.”
Chief squinted at the screen. The image was so small, he could barely make it out. He’d only ever seen an item like it once before at GP Central. Fortunately, it was a unique enough piece of hardware that made it easy to identify.
He cocked his head. “Why would they need a naive Bayse router?”
“A what?” Hettinger asked before stammering, “Sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to be so blunt.”
“I appreciate the candor. It saves time and cuts through the bullshit,” Chief said. “A naive Bayse router is AI tech, so it’s only authorized for government use. The router itself is basic. It’s the system inside that makes it special. Essentially, it’s a system built on advanced algorithms that—when connected to another system—it reads and updates information without leaving a trace.”
Hettinger shrugged. “It sounds like a simple copy-and-paste.”
Chief smiled. “Oh, it’s a bit more complicated than that. The system is doing all the work in this case. Once they program in a few key criteria, the naive Bayse algorithms would then search out everything it deems appropriate to change, and then modifies it as it sees fit.” As he spoke, his smile morphed into a frown. “They clearly want to change something on the Atlas network, and I’m beginning to wonder if that’s not the real reason Anna East is here on Free Station. But I don’t know what’s so important for them to change on Atlas.”
They each thought for a moment. Hettinger spoke first. “Most things are about money, right? Maybe Anna East is trying to move properties or bank accounts under her name.”
“Atlas tracks property, but it’s not the source of record. No, that can’t be it.” He glanced at Hettinger, then patted the young man’s shoulder. “But it’s a good idea. Keep them coming.”
Chief steepled his fingers as he thought. Hettinger was right that money was behind most of the crime committed across the human systems. If Pete had a naive Bayse router, why hadn’t he used it on a banking system to bring him unlimited wealth? It made far less sense to use it on a system used for peacekeeping.
Atlas was a massive network of databases, pulling from thousands of source systems across the star systems. Much of its data was fed by other systems, but not all. Data created and updated in Atlas included all law enforcement-related information, from the roster of Peacekeepers in each system to a list of fugitives and everyone in between. Every person with a birth record on file was in the Atlas network.
Something Hettinger said triggered a thought. “Properties. Atlas does track ownership of GP resources. Our ships, weapons, stations. East specializes in piracy. I wonder if she’s making her raid of Free Station look legal. If the system said she owns all the GP weapons in this system, no court of law could prove her wrong.”
“But what would she do with all those weapons?” Hettinger asked.
Chief shrugged. “Start a war; lay claim to Hiraeth. I suppose she could do anything she wanted.”
Chapter Eleven
Yank nursed his bloody nose as he turned and left Jazz with Skully Pete at the computer array Jazz used to hack into the Atlas network. Yank figured it would’ve made more sense for Jazz to work his magic from the Atlas server room or from Free Station’s command center, but Jazz preferred his own equipment when it came to hacking and system sabotage. Jazz was a smart guy, so Yank went with whatever he recommended.
Now, Skully Pete on the other hand…
Yank scowled, and he dabbed at his nose. The bleeding had stopped, but he had to breathe through his mouth. Even then, it hurt to breathe. It wasn’t the first time he’d had his nose broken, and in his line of work, it probably wouldn’t be the last time, but he swore it hurt more every time.
He tried to ignore his throbbing sinuses while he walked, instead concentrating on the task at hand.
“If I were a fancy router, where would I hide?” he asked himself.
The answer didn’t reveal itself. A small black box could’ve been hidden anywhere on Free Station, on a ship, hell, even in someone’s pants. How was he supposed to find something like that?
If the router had been taken from the Rabbit, it had been taken after arriving at Free Station, because Yank had watched the marshals examine the ship out by the asteroid belt, and they hadn’t removed anything. If the router was valuable, chances were it was stolen, and the station was crawling with pirates who’d steal from their own mothers if they had the chance.
If the router had been stolen by a pirate, Yank had no chance in hell of finding it. He saw a pair of Jaders standing near the elevator, and he approached. “I’ve got a job for you.”
“Does it pay?” one of them asked.
“Sure, but you’ve first got to find it and bring it to Skully Pete,” Yank replied.
The other man scowled. “Skully Pete is too cheap to pay for anything.”
“Anna East is doing the paying,” Yank said.
“Anna East, you say?”
Yank nodded.
The pair glanced at each other before turning back to Yank. “What’s the job?”
“Pete lost a computer component for the Atlas hack. It was on his GP ship. You find it, you get the reward,” Yank said, and explained what the router looked like.
One of the pair shrugged. “Sounds a lot better than just standing around here and twiddling our thumbs.”
“So I can count on you to look for it?” Yank asked.
The other man snickered. “Sure thing.”
Yank gave him a smirk and then went on his way. Anyone dumb enough to count on a pirate deserved to be taken advantage of, but Yank had nothing to lose. He wasn’t out anything if they didn’t find the router, and he could tell Pete that he’d sent people out to look for it.
Finally not running around, being a gopher for Pete and Anna East, he strolled through the hallways. Most of the walkways were empty and clean. If he ignored the blood smears along the walls and the bodies shoved to the edges, he found the station to be peaceful. It was a pity Anna East was going to destroy it.
While he knew blowing up Free Station was the right decision—h
ow else could they wipe out nearly all the Peacekeepers in one fell swoop—the plan seemed like a waste of a good station. Why couldn’t Anna have a specialist manage the environmentals and purge all the air? That way, it’d be a simple case of cleanup before converting the station into another Jade-8 appendage.
He had to give Anna East credit. She loved to make dramatic moves, and blowing up a Galactic Peacekeeper station was as dramatic as they came.
He paused, suddenly distracted by a sign above a door. His jaw slackened and his lips parted. A smile formed as he read the sign again.
EVIDENCE LOCKER.
Yank walked up to the door. He swiped his hand over the touchpad, but the message LOCKED OUT displayed. He went through several screens, trying different things, each time getting the same message. He pulled out his switchblade and tried to pry the panel off. No luck. The lockdown that Chief Roux had implemented might have kept the Peacekeepers locked up, but it also kept Yank from a roomful of goodies.
He took a step back, put his hands on his hips, and analyzed the door. It was made of a composite metal he wasn’t familiar with. He tapped. Solid. He unholstered his blaster and searched for a weak point, but the door was one of those that slid into the wall, which meant it had no hinges or handles to use as leverage.
He raised his blaster and shot at the center of the door. The shot bounced. Yank ducked, but he felt the icy burn of a photon beam on his left bicep. He looked down to find a hole burned through his shirt. The initial coldness morphed into a constant burn. He ripped the material more to see that the shot had only grazed his arm. He stared at the blackened line of skin for a moment. His stupidity had nearly gotten him killed.
He swallowed and looked from side to side. Relief filled him. No one had seen what’d happened. He holstered his blaster, took a deep breath—which made his nose throb again—and continued on his way.
Yank didn’t stop until he reached the command center, where Anna East was coordinating all Jader activities through her personal hacker, Nelson, and a few Peacekeeper specialists.
She sneered and held up a hand as he entered. “Stop. Don’t bleed in here.”
He frowned and touched his nose. The bleeding had stopped, but he felt the dried, crusted blood on his skin. He stepped back into the doorway, pulled out a handkerchief, and scrubbed away the blood, even though every touch near his nose was a spike of pain.
Nelson looked over his shoulder from where he sat before a wall of screens. “Smooth move back there, Master Blaster.”
Yank’s eyes widened before he regained his composure. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The skinny hacker grinned. “I mean the attempted suicide by self-inflicted photon blast. Don’t worry, I have it recorded, so everyone else can get a chuckle, too.”
Yank glared. “Share it and die.”
“I can delete the file for the right price,” Nelson said.
Yank gave a simple, single nod. “When we get back to Jade-8.”
Nelson nodded. “We have a deal.”
The hacker assumed Yank would pay him, but Yank would kill him for having the audacity to blackmail Yank, in front of Anna East, no less. Anna hadn’t seemed interested in the brief exchange, but he had no doubt she was paying attention to everything around her. She was a smart woman; she had to be, to lead Jade-8 for so long.
Yank pocketed his handkerchief and strolled into the room.
Anna gave him a lazy glance before turning back to the screens. “Tell me that you’ve found the router, Yank.”
“I’ve assigned a couple of Jaders to search for it, Ms. East,” he said.
She blew him off. “I suppose it doesn’t matter as long as my changes are made in the system. The router was going to be of more help for the rest of you.”
Yank frowned. “Will you still be able to route the money from the banks into our accounts?”
“Of course,” she said, yet he didn’t feel convinced. She turned to him and smiled. “So tell me, what are you going to do with all that money?”
He stood up taller. “I’m going to buy a ship and hire my own crew.”
She watched him for a moment with humor in her eyes. “Why buy a new ship when you can have the Bendix?”
His gaze narrowed. “Because that’s Pete’s ship.”
She gave him a sideways look. “It is. For now.”
His brow lifted. “Well then, Ms. East, you must know something I don’t.”
She hmphed. “I know a great many things you don’t. That’s why I’m in charge. But when it comes to Pete, let’s just say that I’m growing disappointed in his service. I’m someone who rewards those who deliver results. But I’m also someone who punishes those who fail to deliver.” Her features softened. “Back at the Wu Zetian near the asteroid belt, I saw that you’re the sort of man who delivers results. I’ve had my eye on you for some time. I think you’d do well at the head of my Jader army.”
Yank’s brows lifted. “I would?”
She smirked. “Of course you would. I think we’d make a great team. You make sure I get off Free Station when I’m ready, and I’ll make all your dreams come true.”
Yank didn’t know what Pete saw in Anna East. She was attractive, but she was a snake and was obvious about using people to achieve her own gain. Maybe it was because Yank was gay that her charisma didn’t work on him, but it seemed like her magic worked on everyone else around him, regardless of gender or identity.
He nodded. “You can count on me, Ms. East.”
She thought she had him wrapped around her little finger. She had no clue that he was only staying close to her because she was the only person on the station who could guarantee that he’d get paid after this nightmare of a job.
Chapter Twelve
Eddy wiped grease on his pant legs. “There. Try to connect now.”
Rusty allowed power to flow into the naive Bayse router. “I’m connected and running diagnostics now. I can see that this system is quite robust but relatively blank.”
“That’s because you have to train it with inputs, which I figured you could do in parallel with all your regular stuff. It should help your decision matrix by giving you additional options.” Eddy grinned. “Happy birthday, Rusty.”
“It’s my birthday?”
“Well, we’ve been working together for nearly three years, and you’ve yet to have a birthday, so I figured today is as good as any day to be your birthday. Also, it’s the first time I’ve had a birthday gift for you. I know how much you love upgrades.”
“Thank you, Eddy. You have given me the best birthday ever—and my first birthday.” Rusty was familiar with routers but had never interacted with one before, and he was looking forward to the upgrade. As the diagnostics ran, the router bumped against several of Rusty’s protocols, and he created patches to allow integration.
Eddy was right that Rusty loved upgrades. Eddy thought Rusty, like any system, craved faster performance. But Rusty loved the improvements because they helped him to better understand Eddy and the other crew members. He hoped that the router would help him in the one area where his protocols had significant gaps: to understand rationale not from an analysis of benefits and risks but from a sense of right and wrong.
Rusty craved to become more like his friends…to become more human.
Chapter Thirteen
Throttle’s trip back to the Javelin seemed to take longer than her drive earlier into New Canaan. Since Finn had taken the ATV, Throttle had to hitch a ride with Aubree in an ambulance.
Aubree drove and paid little attention to Throttle in the passenger seat. Instead, the doctor shot regular glares back at Punch on a gurney in the back. He was as antsy as Throttle for action and had refused to stay at the clinic and instead groaned and complained about the bumpy roads.
After Throttle and Punch finished coming up with a plan, she’d used Aubree’s wrist-comm to call Sylvian, but the specialist hadn’t answered, and she’d encountered the same result with Eddy
. None of her crew members ever removed their wrist-comms. That could only mean one thing…
They’d been unable to answer their wrist-comms.
Throttle sighed and looked at Aubree. “Can’t this thing go any faster?”
“Not without jostling my difficult patient back there,” the doctor answered.
“I’m just fine,” Punch said through gritted teeth.
“You’re talking like I didn’t have you cut open on my operating table less than two hours ago,” Aubree said drily.
He gave her a crooked grin. “You’re such a good doctor that I don’t even feel like I had surgery.”
“Schmoozing will get you nowhere with me.”
“We’ll see,” he said with confidence in his eyes.
Aubree hit a bump right then, and Throttle wasn’t so sure the doctor hadn’t done it on purpose.
Sun glinted off the top edge of a dull gray hull. Throttle perked up and placed her hand on the grip of her pistol. “Focus, team. We’re coming up on the Javelin.”
As the ambulance emerged over the hill, the ship came into full view. Throttle was relieved to find it undamaged, but any relief was buried under the stress of seeing Finn standing outside and surrounded by five heavily armed Jaders.
Punch and Throttle each had pistols in their hands by the time Aubree pulled up to the Javelin, and Throttle had her door open before the ambulance came to a full stop. Punch slid open the side door and took up a position inside, aiming his blaster at the Jaders. “Aubree, stay inside the vehicle,” Throttle said before turning her attention outside.
She was just about to yell for their surrender when Finn stepped forward and waved a hand. “It’s okay, Throttle. Everything’s good here. Sylvian and Eddy are off the grid, and these guys are here to help.”
She eyed her crew member for a long moment. When she was convinced that he wasn’t under duress, she stepped out from behind the protective door.