“And?” Sanda prompted.
Liao braced herself. “I will not divulge that information until my team is delivered to Monte Station.”
As much as it annoyed her, Liao’s defiance cranked Sanda’s estimation of her up a notch. “I see. Were you not present for the call I just made? Do you lack the capacity to understand that I have made a promise to my commanding officer to see you safely to Monte Station?”
“Forgive me,” she said, and her voice shook. “But I do not know what that promise means to you. Many things can happen between here and the station. W-we need assurance.”
“You have my personal assurance.”
“That’s not enough. I will help you. I want to help you. But first my team must be safe.”
Liao’s gaze drifted off of Sanda to take in Nox, Conway, and Knuth, her expression pained but resolute. She must know that Sanda could take the sample off of her at any moment and have her own tests run.
Sanda sighed raggedly and glanced at Novak. “And do you know what it is?”
“No, ma’am. I only just got there.”
“Very well,” Sanda said. “You may keep your secret until your team is safe on Monte, but I expect an immediate handover and full explanation. For the time being, you will bunk on this ship and have no communication with your colleagues. Arden, cut her network access.”
“What? Why?” Liao jabbed at her wristpad, but Arden was already at work, and her brows knitted in frustration. “I will transit with my team—”
“You have the sample with you, don’t you?”
“Does it matter?” She crossed her arms, drawing the pocket of a buttoned-up lab coat tight across her chest. The telltale square of Nox’s flask pressed against her hip.
“Yes. It does. I will allow you to keep the sample on your person, but it cannot leave this ship. I won’t give your team a chance to put their heads together and tamper with what’s inside.”
“We would never—”
“And I wouldn’t space you before Monte, but here we are. Conway, show her to a bunk and get her some zero g–appropriate clothing. I’m not dodging that coat the whole way to Monte. Is this deal acceptable to you, Liao?” Sanda held out her hand to the scientist.
“We’re agreed,” she said, her voice firmer as she shook Sanda’s hand. Good, she was the kind of woman who needed a plan to feel grounded. Sanda could work with that.
“Novak, go to my quarters. I’ll meet you there in a moment, because you and I need to have a very serious talk about your employer.”
INTERLUDE
PRIME STANDARD YEAR 3543
THE INTELLIGENCE, SEARCHING
Arden locked their door and retreated to the serenity of the net. They would have to come out soon, they knew Sanda would rely upon them for the next steps—whatever she decided those needed to be—but right now, right now, Arden needed peace. They needed emptiness.
They drifted alongside the intelligence once more. The realization startled them, for they didn’t remember the trip. Physical space was meaningless in the net, but digital space was its own monster, and while Arden could manifest themself anywhere at any time, there were security procedures to take, red herrings and false trails to lay down.
They checked their recent history and found they had done all those things instinctively. For Arden, the digital obfuscations required to arrive at this fringe place were now a simple reflex. They hadn’t counted on that reflex to be triggered by pain.
Jules. Fuck, but they had been so sure she was held against her will. So sure that Rainier had done something to her, manipulated her away. That still might be true—had to be true—but she’d played her role so well. Too well.
They didn’t know what to do. That was the problem. Arden always had a plan, a next step. If condition A fails, initiate condition B, and so on, until they got close enough to their goal to obtain it. But this was something else. This was years of failure, piling up, and not only were they not used to failing, they weren’t used to asking for help.
And they needed help. Arden understood that, even as they hated the reality of it. Sanda had been good on her word, getting them the ship and getting them into Janus, but not even that was enough. They’d taken control of the entire station and still that wasn’t enough and when, when would they ever be enough?
Arden caught themself dissolving into anxiety and closed their nonexistent eyes, sighing into the digital ether that didn’t care whether they breathed. Sanda had data on Rainier. The scientists had data on Rainier. Arden was certain that Rainier was pulling Jules’s strings. They’d follow Sanda and this crew of the Thorn, and do what they could to help, because they needed more data. That was the problem. Not enough data to make a plan.
Did the intelligence have enough data?
Their own mind settled, Arden turned their thoughts back to the being that was birthing itself on the edges of net space. An intelligence—human or otherwise—was only as good as its data set and the framework on which it could slot that knowledge together. They’d gotten the sense that the intelligence was looking for someone.
That was what had drawn them to it in the first place. The technology itself was thrilling, yes, but the subtle sense of its need to find someone, or maybe something, had been the reason Arden kept coming back here. The being did not judge. It only searched, as they did.
Arden wasn’t sure the being even knew what it was looking for, but whatever it was, they hoped it would find it, and they hoped they could be there for that moment of triumph.
CHAPTER 38
PRIME STANDARD YEAR 3543
ONE LIE TOO MANY
All the training in the universe couldn’t stop Tomas’s heart from trying to drum its way out of his chest as he let himself into Sanda’s quarters. He had never, in all his long years of service, blown his cover against mission orders.
He’d told her who he was once, but that had been different. If he hadn’t told her then, he wouldn’t have been able to leverage her trust to get her safely off Bero and returned to his client—Speaker Greeve. Such revelations were allowed the Nazca during the execution of duty. Now, he treaded dangerous waters.
The Nazca implants in his body could do a lot more than boost his alertness. His stomach soured at the thought of the recall juice his bosses had pushed into him back on Atrux, making him uncomfortable enough to know that, if he didn’t return to base, then the next time they called him home they wouldn’t give him the chance to answer.
It wasn’t just his body in danger. He thought he’d done a decent enough job covering for the chip in Sanda’s head, but every time he brought her to the Nazca’s attention, he risked that discovery. He couldn’t entirely discount the fact that they’d rip the chip out themselves to see how it worked, given the chance. More banally, they could send a hit squad for her because he’d revealed himself outside of protocol.
As all the ways his confession could go wrong played through his mind, he questioned why he was doing this. Worst case, the Nazca would come for him and take down Sanda in the process. Best case, he could figure out how to disconnect his implants before the Nazca discovered he’d abandoned mission, and scrub his location. With Sanda backing him up, Arden might even help him figure out how to pull the implants. The gamble could work.
He could still lie to her, convince her he was Novak the Nazca. But Sanda wouldn’t give Novak the same counsel she’d give Tomas.
Sanda Greeve was the most competent commander in Prime, a soldier with a bullheaded sense of honor. He needed her help. And he… he needed her to see him.
The door dilated and she pulled herself in, then turned to face him.
“Who are you? There may be a Leo Novak in the universe, but he’s not the man standing in front of me. This? This is bullshit.” She turned her wristpad around so he could see a short dossier on him, the fragments of the digital footprint Novak had left throughout his life analyzed and broken down into chunks that didn’t line up. Arden’s work. He swallowed thr
ough a dry throat. She pressed on.
“I may have only taken fleet intelligence, but even I can see this isn’t the profile of a real person. It’s got white noise, yeah, but white noise that makes sense. People aren’t this logical in their interests, one idea branching neatly from another. Real people have random thoughts, careers that didn’t take off, parts of life that don’t make sense. Leo Novak is a construct. So who the fuck are you?”
“I’m Nazca,” he said. A painful clench grabbed ahold of his stomach. He gritted his jaw and made himself maintain eye contact. The pain was psychosomatic. Not even the Nazca could analyze his words and intent on the fly fast enough to punish him right here, right now. Her gaze, however angry, soothed the ache. “I’m Tomas.”
Real pain exploded behind his eyes. He flew against the wall, head snapping back, and for a moment he feared the Nazca’s reach was longer and more sophisticated than he’d ever expected. But when the white stars vanished from behind his eyes, he saw Sanda shaking out her fist, knuckles red, and he reached up to touch a sore jaw. Blood ballooned at the corner of his lips.
“Don’t,” she rasped. “Don’t you dare try that shit with me.”
“I know I look different.” He spoke too quickly, pushing the words out in a rush to make her understand, “but that’s the MetBath. It changes—”
“The what? Please, are you trying to tell me the Nazca have access to some super-speedy plastic surgery? Don’t insult my intelligence.”
“We don’t share a lot of our technology,” he said, feeling ridiculous.
“If something like that existed, then rich people would use it all the time to rearrange themselves. Your organization wouldn’t be able to keep a lid on it, and they wouldn’t want to. Do you know how much something like that would be worth?”
“Sanda, just, look closer…” He held out a hand to her, mind spinning, and she slapped it away.
Her hand closed around his chin, yanking him so close her breath dried his eyes. His heart thundered at the proximity—surely she could feel its frantic beat—skin going hot, but her touch was purely professional.
She dragged her thumb along his jawline, prodded his cheeks where Tomas’s dimples once formed, then snorted and pushed him away.
“You have a similar body type, I grant you that, but your facial bone structure is completely different. Fillers and other injectables can’t achieve that. You came to work on Janus two days ago. Even if Tomas underwent plastic surgery within hours of—of—leaving, he’d still have scars healing, or need bandages to cover it. You don’t even have scar tissue, so unless you’re about to wipe off some seriously impressive makeup, I need you to shut the fuck up about being Tomas and tell me who you really are.”
“I can tell you things about our time on Bero—”
“You can parrot facts you read in a report and, frankly, I know Tomas has his job to do, but I don’t want to know all the details he wrote down for his superiors.” A shudder passed through her, and he felt sick. “You knew Lavaux was connected to Janus. Your organization knew all about my encounter with him. I’ve no doubt you read my file in case we crossed paths, but this angle of yours is shameful. Tell me who you are. Now.”
“I can’t tell you anything else.”
She held up a hand. “Your inclination is to dance around this. I get it. You spent your whole career honing those instincts”—absently, she rested her hand against her hip, fingers brushing the blaster holstered there—“and you can’t shake them. But I don’t have time for bullshit on this ship. I don’t have time for bullshit in this life. So, look, I won’t put you on the spot and grill you about your real name. I don’t need it.”
Tomas longed to bring up the program that managed his implants and send a wave of painkillers, or anxiety-reducers, or something through his system to make this hurt less. Sanda was too clever, too wary, and the MetBath had done its job too well.
If he kept pushing, she’d get only angrier, and if he dared to mention the one thing that Tomas would never have put into his report—the chip in her skull—then… then she might convince herself that Tomas had betrayed her secret, and he couldn’t bear to see that pain on her face.
Tomas pulled from every tool in his skill set to keep the desperation hammering through him from seeping into his voice. “Then what do you need?”
“Don’t ask me leading questions to get at whatever secrets you think I’m hiding. And I am hiding secrets you won’t learn, just as I’m sure you’re hiding things I’m not going to get out of you, but let me be real fucking clear here because I’m no spy so I can’t do your subtle interrogation dance. You and I, we’re probably on the same side, and we’re better off sharing information.”
“What side is that, exactly?”
“At this point I’m not sure ‘preservation of civilization as we know it’ would be too hyperbolic. You were on that station for a reason, Novak, and it wasn’t to fix some amplifiers.”
He couldn’t help but smile. “You sure you’re not good at this interrogation thing?”
Her eyes narrowed, briefly, and he bit his tongue. He couldn’t let himself fall into their old give-and-take speech patterns, as much as they soothed him, because if she ever started to believe that their easy chatter had been anything but natural, if she even began to suspect the way Tomas spoke to her was trained into all Nazca, not something that came naturally in her presence, then that might break him.
“Why were you there?”
“Rainier Lavaux. She’s gone missing from the public eye. My bosses want to know why.”
“That’s a hell of a fishing expedition. So you have no client? This is a Nazca-sponsored mission to kick the dust around Rainier and see what settles?”
Tomas licked his lips. “I sincerely doubt you will believe me, but Prime Director Okonkwo ordered this mission.”
Sanda’s eyes narrowed. “Okonkwo doesn’t need the Nazca.”
He shrugged. “Everyone of power does, eventually. Were you there for Rainier, or for Valentine? You have her old associates Arden Wyke and Noxallari Belten in your service.”
“Noxa-what?”
“That’s his birth name. Didn’t you know?”
“I didn’t ask. Just like I’m not going to ask you who you were before you were Novak.”
“Wyke and Belten are known to the Nazca, and we don’t spend a lot of time gathering dossiers on low-level Grotta thieves. You should be careful around them.”
“Are you lecturing my choice in companions, Nazca?”
“I just…” He threw up his hands and shrugged. “I wanted to help.”
“Then tell me why you were really on Janus.”
“I told you, for Rainier—”
“Yeah, I know, and that’s part of it, I’m sure, but I’m not an idiot. I didn’t need to spend time with a spy to learn that the first information you offer is true, but valueless. You know something I don’t, and I want it.”
He grinned. “You said yourself that we weren’t leaving this room knowing all of each other’s secrets.”
“Funny thing about that. I own all the guns on this ship. So you’re not leaving until I’m satisfied. Keep your secret fetishes and what-the-fuck-ever to yourself, but you’re giving me the real reason you were on that station.”
Tomas pretended to hesitate. He’d planned on telling her everything, and would, but Novak wouldn’t give up the data that easily. “If I give you information that jeopardizes my mission, the Nazca will execute me.”
“They’re not the ones you have to worry about right now. Now, it’s just us. And Nox, probably. He’s been waiting outside that door with a blaster pointed at your head for the past twenty minutes.”
Tomas startled and leaned away from the door. “Very well. Rainier Lavaux owns Janus Station. It’s behind dozens of shell corporations, but it’s hers.”
“Tell me something I don’t know, spy.”
“Rainier has employed the use of remarkable body doubles, seeded across the i
nhabited worlds. Okonkwo wants to know why.”
Nox shouted, “Can I come in now?”
Sanda sighed and shook her head. “Yes, you might as well.”
He stepped through the door, blaster in hand as promised, and eyed Tomas warily. “You didn’t have to tell her my name, did you?”
“Sorry.”
“We’ll muse over the tastes of Nox’s parents later. I need one more thing from you before we part merry ways, Novak.” He grimaced, wishing she’d stop calling him that. “What’s in the flask?”
“That, I had planned on telling you. They’re nanite amps—I had a look at the Prime Standard governors and those have been tweaked. As I did not have time to research the discrepancy myself, I sent my suspicions to my superiors and they alerted me that the modified governors allow access to a gate’s power system, controlling spin-up and spin-down. Dal asserts that the nanites are self-replicating, though I do not believe he knows the extent of the danger the modified governors pose. I suspect Rainier plans to hold Prime hostage, for a yet unknown reason, with these devices, by threatening spin-down.”
Realization flashed across her face. “Have you alerted Okonkwo?”
“My handler has, and Okonkwo ordered me to abandon my search for Rainier’s doubles and work on discovery and containment of the nanite problem.”
“Thank you, Novak.”
“You realized something just then, what is it?”
“Sharing time is over. Nox, we’re taking him back to the shuttle. Novak, you and I are going to pretend we never had this talk and I don’t know what’s in the flask, because Liao might hold something back, and I need to be sure. When she hands it over, she must tell me everything, not gloss over details because she assumes I already know.”
Nox put a hand on Tomas’s shoulder and steered him, firmly, toward the door.
“Commander, please, we can work together on this,” Tomas said.
“No, Novak, we cannot. You will play your part with the scientists and help me convince them that their only chance of safe delivery to Monte is full disclosure on the sample. Once I deliver you to Monte, I expect to never see you again. In the meantime, if you try to escape via any means, I will shoot you. If Arden catches you fucking with my ship’s software, or otherwise trying to send unauthorized communications, I will shoot you. If you dare to impersonate Tomas again, I will shoot you. Is that clear?”
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