Chaos Vector

by Megan E O'Keefe

  “This is a mistake,” he said.

  “No. You cannot guess how many times I double-checked this.”

  “Did you…” He dragged his mind away from any question Singh might think obvious or stupid. “She might have been trying to beam it to the gate bots en route, to save time on the upload.”

  “You and I both know she made that crater to keep the project from moving forward. Why would she facilitate it in any way?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t see…”

  “Neither can I.”

  Hitton had tried to send her chip data elsewhere. A lot was encompassed in that word elsewhere. She might have been attempting to store it as a backup. Still a gross violation, but the intent would not be so bad. In her paranoia, she might have convinced herself that it was best, that placing her data off-site, so to speak, would keep it safer. She might have simply not wanted to carry that burden anymore.

  But it had not been a storage device she sent it to. For some reason only Hitton could explain, she had been sending her data somewhere, and that left the uncomfortable and obvious implication that she was, de facto, sending it to someone. All acts that would have gotten her chip yanked in a heartbeat.

  Hitton had beaten them to the punch. She was dead. There could be no more punishment for Isa Hitton. If she had done this. If Singh wasn’t just winding him up, angling to make him look like the next Keeper to fall to paranoia.

  “You would bet all our lives that the data got no further than your interception?” he asked after a long silence.

  She nodded. “Yes, I would. I am familiar with some of Isa’s digital habits and had been watching certain pathways after her communications to me became… unsettled. This was intercepted before it reached the satellite. Someone would have had to be watching as closely as I was, at exactly the right moment. I find the possibility improbable.”

  “Delete it,” Biran said.

  Singh leaned back, and for the first time some color returned to her cheeks. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Delete the data. You should not have it regardless, and delete all traces that this happened. Hitton is dead. She cannot be punished further, nor do I believe she should be. Whatever her reasons… they died with her. It’s time we let her rest, so we can move forward.”

  “Well,” Singh said, her eyebrows pressing together until they met in the middle. “I had come to you because I suspected you would not be so sentimental as Olver.”

  “Do not mistake this for sentiment. The project must go forward. The data was not actually breached. Even if someone received it, they would still need the password procedures to access it. There are rumors enough around this incident without stirring up more.”

  Singh smiled to herself and, slowly so that he could see each button press, erased the data from her wristpad.

  “I am pleased that we see eye to eye, Speaker Greeve.”

  Biran smiled back at her, and recalled his discovery of Anaia’s asteroid photos. Nothing was ever truly deleted on a Prime drive.

  CHAPTER 73

  PRIME STANDARD YEAR 3543

  ANOTHER DAMN HEADACHE

  Yaxia was a petite, stern person with a thick black-and-grey braid that reached down to their waist. Hollow cheeks drew craven shadows along their jaw, and their eyes had the dark-circle look of someone who had not slept well in many days.

  The resolution of Bero’s new cameras showed every line of worry stamped deep into the corners of their eyes as they stared down the crew of The Light from within their asteroid stronghold, hands clasped behind their back, a set to their chin that reminded Sanda of General Anford.

  “Min,” they said, “we assumed that you were dead.”

  Liao dug the edge of her thumb into her temple, wincing. Sanda frowned to herself, wondering. Liao seemed to have developed a headache the moment the fringer settlement appeared on the viewscreen.

  “Dead?” Liao asked. “Why would you think such a thing? I haven’t been gone all that long.”

  A flash of color rouged their cheeks as they laughed, roughly. “Guardcore burst into our home. They took you out unconscious, and once you’d gone, they came back to burn the place out. We only survived because Jesson got some bots working in time to control the fire. We presumed you were sentenced to the same fate as all the others. Dead for ‘gate research.’”

  “No,” Liao said, “no, no. Valentine came and interviewed me there. It was all very civil, but it had to be quick.”

  “Min.” Their voice was tired, but gentle. “They slaughtered us.”

  A crevice appeared between Liao’s brows. “That’s not what happened. I would remember.”

  “Doctor,” Sanda said as kindly as she could, “does your head hurt right now? When you try to remember, does the pain get worse?”

  “I… Yes. What’s happening? How did you know that?”

  “It’s not your fault you don’t remember. Icarion had memory rollback technology. They used it on me, and I suppose they got it from their friend Rainier. If Rainier wanted you working compliantly, she would use it on you. It always hurts when I try to remember. Even still.”

  Liao knuckled both fists into her temples and folded over. Sanda gestured to Conway, who put her sturdy arm under Liao’s and helped her into a chair.

  “Memory rollback?” Yaxia said, disbelief making them scoff, but a flicker of worry crossed them as Liao let out a soft moan. “What is this? What have you done to Min?”

  “My crew and I have done nothing to your friend; this is the work of a woman named Rainier. We are here because we need your help,” Sanda said.

  “This station is in no position to help anyone,” they said, but their gaze was locked on Liao.

  “Doctor, I understand your wariness. In your position, I would turn us away. Being hammered by the GC is no joke. I cannot, and will not claim to, understand what happened to you and your people. But I can tell you we share the same enemy. The people who kidnapped your colleague and laid waste to your settlement are not actual GC. They are pretenders, and I am doing everything in my power to stop them.”

  “Who are you?” Their voice had lost some of its edge, a hint of desperation seeping in.

  “Sanda Greeve, commander of The Light.”

  Their lips curled into a wry smile. “A major in the fleet. We literally live under a rock here, Commander, but we are not so unaware of the world that the name of the war hero of Dralee hasn’t reached our ears. I have no desire to treat with the fleet, regardless of our common enemy.”

  “I am not with the fleet.” The words tasted bitter, but she got them out without wincing.

  Yaxia narrowed their eyes. “Really. You may have removed the logo, but that doesn’t erase what you are, and if that man”—they pointed their chin at Nox—“is not a soldier, I will eat this asteroid I live on. Your ship I do not recognize, but I know enough to realize that expensive, experimental equipment is not something a retired major would stroll around the universe in. Prime went to great pains to erase the murder of Keeper Lavaux from your record. They do not let polished trophies go so easily.”

  “This ship…” She closed her eyes briefly. “I will parley with you honestly, because we need your help and I suspect there is very little time. This ship is not of human design. It was discovered behind a deadgate, and is currently piloted by the Icarion AI known as The Light of Berossus, though he prefers to be called Bero.”

  “Hello,” Bero said.

  Yaxia blinked. Their jaw chewed around for a moment. “I have heard of the Icarion intelligence. The ship, however—”

  Sanda pressed on. “The ship contained a sphere of information that we believe the woman who commands the false GC might use to harm people. We only got fragments of the data before we were betrayed by a real GC, one of Okonkwo’s personal aides.”

  “That is a hell of a story, Commander. Some would say the war has broken your mind.”

  “Some do,” she admitted.

  Liao lifted her head and brus
hed the hair off her sweaty forehead. “My mind hasn’t broken, no matter that I can’t remember. Arden—send them the first fragment of data. See for yourself. These are not alloys we use. It’s not even notation we use.”

  “Fine,” Yaxia sighed. “My ident number is—”

  “I sent it,” Bero said.

  They scowled. “I am not exactly listed, ship.”

  “No. But your network security isn’t as good as you believe. I can help with that. Arden can help with that.”

  “Just look at the data,” Liao said.

  Yaxia rolled their eyes, but they looked down, their already drawn face growing more and more pinched as they read. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Yes. That’s the problem,” Sanda said. “Doctor, we have more. We need your help to figure out what it all means. You need our help to secure your station.”

  “And how will you do that?”

  She waved a hand. “Bero and Arden will handle your network. Nox and Conway can provide you with arms and better threat-response protocols. Knuth can look at your life-support systems.”

  “I should send you packing and report you to the fleet,” they said.

  “Xia,” Liao said tiredly. “Please. I was tricked into doing research that may cause harm to many people. If you won’t help the commander, help me fix what I’ve done.”

  “There are so few of us,” Yaxia said softly.

  A realization rocked Liao with a fresh wave of pain, but she gritted her teeth and grabbed the arms of her chair. “The children? Tell me the children—”

  “Safe,” Yaxia said firmly. “Most of them. The Keeper who came for you ordered stunners right before she took you, and we lost a few to a bad reaction. We were able to hide the rest before they came back to mop up after taking you.”

  “What Keeper?” Sanda asked.

  “We don’t know her name, but there is no one else the GC would protect so thoroughly. Here, we have footage.”

  A few quick taps from Yaxia, and security footage filled the screen. Jules. Jules Valentine wore the grey-cyan armor of the Keepers, her face so cold and hateful Sanda hadn’t recognized her at first. That woman, that warrior, was not the scared, desperate person Sanda had met on Janus. Valentine had been faking control on Janus, play-acting confidence. There was nothing fake about the Valentine on that footage, dropping bodies like she was chopping wood. No room for uncertainty in those laser-sharp eyes.

  “Turn it off,” Nox said, voice shaking. What had he been trying to save? What had they all missed?

  Sanda couldn’t bring herself to look at either Nox or Arden. “We want to stop more incidents like this.”

  “We are done being used,” Yaxia said.

  “Please,” Liao said. “Help me. Help me fix what I have done.”

  Yaxia stared at Liao for a very long time. “Very well. The beta dock is still standing. You’re cleared for approach.”

  “Thank you,” Sanda said.

  Yaxia met her gaze. “I do this for Liao, and Liao alone.”

  INTERLUDE

  PRIME STANDARD YEAR 0002

  TO KEEP THE SECRET

  Nothing. Nothing living waited for Alexandra Halston on the other side of her second gate. On the forward viewscreen of a ship large enough to spin for gravity, Lex watched the live footage coming back from the swarm of scout bots.

  Watched barren rock and inert dust pass by as, planet after planet, moon after moon, the data came back the same: dead, having never lived at all.

  “I’m sorry,” Maria said.

  Her hand was on Lex’s arm, but she could not feel it. All she could feel was the endless nothing, the empty universe at once all-encompassing and utterly pointless. A gift. The sphere had been a gift from a more advanced race, curling a finger, beckoning them to the stars.

  There could not be nothing, for there had been something, and she would find the originators if it meant mapping every speck of dust in the known universe.

  “Director,” one of her Keepers said. “Scanners are picking up unusual inorganic matter.”

  “Show me.”

  A cloud of silver pulsed upon the forward viewscreen. At first she could not tell what she was looking at. That sense of unknowing sent a shiver of excitement through her, for there was not a banal formation in the universe that Alexandra Halston would not recognize on sight.

  Patterns emerged from the glinting cumulus. At first she feared energy strikes tearing through something terribly normal like a nebula, but these were not the bursts and throes of physics as she understood it. Bright lines hinted at connections, winked at thicker coalescences connected by filaments. It reminded her of visualizations of the universe’s dark matter, but this was no artist’s rendition. This was new.

  “Set course,” she said, and the twelve Keepers of the first Protectorate rushed to fulfill their director’s order.

  Months. It’d taken endless months to cross that dead, empty space before they reached the cloud field. Lex would have to do something about that—such wasteful travel times were unacceptable for the future of Prime—but now, now she had other matters to see to.

  For the closer they drew, the more the anomaly changed.

  It solidified somewhat, compressing into a cylindrical shape that could be only a mirror of their own ship. Hails had gone unanswered. Scans had come back with nothing more than evenly distributed signatures of heat. By the time they were in range, it accepted their transfer tunnel as if it were any other ship.

  Alexandra went first, to wait another second would have been agony, but her Keepers came behind her. Maria brought up the rear with suspicious eyes. Lex ordered the guardcore to stay behind, and so it was Maria alone who carried a weapon.

  The twelve knew of the sphere that spawned the gates. Knew of the secret instructions inscribed on impossible metal and still, still, when they found the second they wept, for a gift knocked out of the skies was one thing. To stand in a vessel built by unknown hands and watch alien technology uncoil from the ceiling, extending a single sphere cradled in tendrils of metal, was something else altogether.

  Lex could not hear their gentle tears through the racing of her own thoughts. The sphere lowered into her hand, and though she couldn’t feel it through her glove, the subtle weight was enough to give her goose bumps, as if she held ice.

  Her HUD picked up scratches in the perfect metal, subtle variations that could be only the ones and zeros of binary. She’d memorized the first section of the original sphere. This was new. And the only people in all the universe who knew about the existence of either sphere were in this room.

  Slowly, deliberately, Lex tapped at her wristpad. In terrible synchronicity the first twelve Keepers of the Protectorate fell, their brain stems immolated with merciful swiftness as Alexandra Halston cut the threads of their lives.

  Maria alone was left standing, and when Lex turned to face her, she was unsurprised to find that woman’s firearm pointed at Lex’s head.

  “Why?” Maria asked, and her voice had gone as cold as Lex’s heart.

  “Do you not remember my would-be assassin?” Maria shook her head, mute. That was all right. Lex had plenty of practice speaking for them both. “Erik. He piloted the Reina Mora, do you remember? The ship that brought us through the Charon Gate to Tau Ceti. He spoke of the sphere, in his final breath.”

  “But… That was months ago…” Maria’s gaze fell to the dead. Her lips thinned.

  “Yes. One of them shared.” She shook her head sadly. “The secret must be kept.”

  They’d had this conversation a thousand times a thousand, batting back and forth the fanged truth of the gate’s origin. And in the end, always, they came to the same conclusion: The risk that humanity would rip itself to shreds over the knowledge was statistically significant, and such an event could not be allowed.

  How embarrassing it would be, to self-destruct at the final hurdle before they met their intergalactic betters.

  Lex held the sphere up, admiri
ng the shining surface. Without tearing her gaze from the object, she extended one hand to Maria. It was a full minute before she took it.

  Slowly, inexorably, the lights of the ship began to brighten.

  CHAPTER 74

  PRIME STANDARD YEAR 3543

  KNOWLEDGE IS NEVER ENOUGH

  What was left of the settlement came out to see The Light dock. Sanda watched them gather at a safe distance—adults and children, dirty and scared, clutching hands and jackets and looking upon The Light with a mix of resentment, fear, and fascination. She would have to acquire some lander shuttles if she wanted to dock at any other station or planet.

  Bero could stealth the ship in open space, and they’d crawl into dock on the shuttles. It was one thing for Liao’s people, with whom she planned on sharing the data, to see the ship. Even if they didn’t keep her secret, they were already on the fringe of society. Any reports they made would be brushed aside as conspiracy.

  The Light being spotted at a larger station or planet could be a problem, though. Sanda already had the fleet and Rainier hounding her heels. She didn’t need extraterrestrial hunters on her tail as well. That was definitely not a problem covered by her fleet protocols.

  Bero molded what she thought of as his airlock to the entry tunnel. Sanda watched the fine filaments wrap around the human construction, so clumsy in comparison, and repressed a shudder. They were so terribly outclassed by the beings who had built this ship. Where were they? Was Rainier the last of them? And, if so, why did she look like a human woman? Maybe that was the point of the nanites—to reshape what she was into something that could be understood by whatever species she encountered.