by Kass Morgan
Sylvan doors didn’t lock, so she simply opened it and slipped inside the chamber, prepared to retreat immediately if Zafir turned out to be asleep. Yet as her eyes fell on his curled form, she felt a surge of affection that kept her gaze locked on him. He hadn’t brought his shaving kit with him, and four days’ worth of dark stubble shadowed his sharp jaw. Instead of the Sylvan sleep clothes he’d been given, he wore only his underwear—dark blue shorts that covered little of his muscular legs, one of which ended at the knee. It was easy to forget that Zafir had been seriously injured in a Sylvan attack a few years ago; with his prosthetic, he moved with more agile grace than most people Orelia knew.
She was just about to turn around when he murmured something she couldn’t quite hear and his eyes fluttered open. “Orelia?” he asked, his voice thick and scratchy with sleep.
“Did I wake you up? I’m sorry, go back to sleep. I was just…” She realized she didn’t have an excuse other than wanting to see him.
“It’s okay. I was dreaming about you,” he said with a smile. “But this is much better.” He glanced down at his chest, then up at her sheepishly. “Sorry, I’d normally pull the blankets up to preserve my modesty, but you Sylvans don’t seem particularly keen on bedding.”
“That’s what the sleep clothes are for. The fibers expand and constrict according to your body temperature. Are you cold?”
“Maybe a little.” He moved over to make room for her in the narrow cot. “Want to help me warm up?”
“Is that the line you always use in situations like this?” Orelia asked, doing her best to keep her voice light despite her growing nerves. Growing up on a military base had given her a ton of experience in some areas, like code cracking and hand-to-hand combat, but it hadn’t provided many opportunities for romance. Until she’d met Zafir, Orelia had never even thought of herself as someone who could be loved. She’d spent most of her life training for the mission to the Quatra System, which had left her convinced that she was more valuable as a weapon than as a person.
“I can’t say I’ve been in a situation quite like this,” said Zafir.
“You’ve never had a girl sneak into your room in the middle of the night? I find that hard to believe.”
He grinned. “I’m not sure what I’ve done to give you the impression that this is a regular occurrence for me, but I think I’m just going to roll with it.”
His warm smile melted her nerves away, so she walked toward him and was about to lower herself onto the cot when her wrist buzzed, startling her. Her link hadn’t been confiscated, since the Sylvans were less concerned about Orelia receiving messages from the Quatrans than they were about Zafir sending them. But this wasn’t just a message—it was an incoming call from Arran. “I’ll be back in a minute,” Orelia said to Zafir before slipping into the hallway and hurrying toward her own sleeping chamber.
She pressed accept and a moment later, Arran’s face appeared on the screen. “Hi,” she said, unable to mask the concern in her voice. “Is everything okay?” She leaned in and squinted. “Are you in a fightercraft?”
“Thank Antares,” Arran said with a heavy sigh, then glanced over his shoulder as if looking at someone just out of sight. When he turned back to her, his face was pale and haggard. “We need your help.”
What am I doing? Orelia thought as she sprinted up the stairs toward the command deck, a hastily dressed Zafir right behind her. General Greet was already suspicious about Orelia’s loyalties, and now she was going to try to interfere with high-level military and diplomatic strategy? But if it meant saving countless Sylvan lives and avoiding the deadliest battle of the entire war, then it was worth a try, regardless of the consequences.
“Where’s General Greet?” Orelia gasped as she stumbled onto the command deck, which was empty save for the pilot and a weary-looking navigator.
“Sleeping,” the navigator said, eyeing Zafir warily. “Why?”
“I need to talk to her. Immediately.”
“You can talk to her tomorrow.”
“Call her. Now,” Orelia said, marching over to the communications panel.
“We don’t have any time to waste,” Zafir said as he peered over the navigator’s shoulder at the radar screen. “They’ll be here any minute.”
The navigator scowled and was apparently about to refuse when something on the screen caught his eye and he blanched. He slammed his hand down on a button and spoke into the panel. “I’m sorry to wake you, General, but you’re needed immediately.”
A few minutes later, General Greet arrived looking alert and composed, bearing no sign of being roused from sleep. “What’s going on?” she asked in Quatran as she strode across the deck toward them.
“I just talked to Arran. He says that Stepney was the one who planted the malware and that he staged another explosion to make it look like we’d broken the cease-fire.” The words were tumbling out of her mouth so quickly, Orelia could barely catch her breath, but there was no time to lose. “Stepney’s being paid off by a fyron mining company. That’s why he doesn’t want peace—he wants an excuse to colonize Sylvan.”
General Greet remained so still and silent that for a moment Orelia thought she’d spoken too quickly to be intelligible. “Then we’ll destroy them all,” she said, her voice so low and cold that Orelia shivered. “I’d already dispatched a stealth craft to the outskirts of the Quatra System in case they could not be trusted. It’s carrying a bomb capable of reducing a planet to dust.”
“You can’t target civilians.” The words tumbled out of Orelia’s mouth before she had time to stop herself. “It’s not the Quatrans who’ve violated the terms of the cease-fire. Commander Stepney’s gone rogue. If we just hold off for a little bit, you’ll see that—”
“They’re greedy, bloodthirsty liars,” General Greet snapped, cutting Orelia off. “And if you’d like to return to your treacherous friends, Orelia, that can be arranged.”
“Please, General,” Zafir said. “Admiral Haze is contacting the Quatra Federation as we speak. As soon as they learn what Commander Stepney’s done, they’ll order him to call off the attack. Forgive my impertinence, but we think the best thing you can do is put up your shields and wait.”
“And wait?” General Greet spat out as she pressed a button on the command console, triggering an alarm. Almost immediately, Orelia began to hear distant shouts and the thud of echoing footsteps. “Raising the shields requires so much power that we’ll have to shut down all other operations. We won’t be able to communicate with the rest of the fleet, let alone fire our own weapons. We’ll be helpless. But I’m sure you know that already, don’t you, Lieutenant?” Her eyes were so full of fury, Orelia felt she might order the guards to kill Zafir on the spot. “This was part of your plan all along.”
“No, General,” Zafir said, shaking his head. “I know none of this looks good, but you have to believe us.”
“Please,” Orelia said. “Don’t you see this is exactly what the Quatrans want? We can’t give them any reason to believe we actually started this attack or want this war. A diplomatic approach is the best way—”
“Enough. I don’t want to hear another word.” General Greet turned to Orelia. “I’m not sure if you’re a traitor who betrayed her people or a fool who was too stupid and weak to be trusted. Either way, any Sylvan blood that’s spilled tonight will be on your hands.”
CHAPTER 24
VESPER
The three of them sat in anxious silence while Orelia went to relay the message to General Greet. “Do you think it’s going to work?” Vesper asked, no longer able to keep her thoughts to herself.
“It has to,” Cormak said in a flat voice she’d never heard him use before.
They fell quiet again for a moment until Arran jumped from his chair, startled by his buzzing link. “Orelia? What’s going on? What’d General Greet say?”
Vesper and Cormak hurried over to stand behind him, peering over Arran’s shoulder so they could see Orelia on the scr
een. Vesper’s stomach plummeted when she saw the frustration and fear in her friend’s face.
“I’m sorry,” Orelia said, breathing heavily. “She won’t order the ships to put up their shields, and she’s preparing to attack.” She glanced over her shoulder and lowered her voice, leaning in closer to the link. “Apparently, she had a backup plan all along in case something like this happened. There are ships in position near the Quatra System. She… she said they’re carrying bombs powerful enough to…”
“To do what?” Vesper asked as the anxiety in her stomach turned to dread.
“To reduce every planet in the solar system to dust.”
There was a pause as the cadets’ brains raced to process the horror of Orelia’s words. Arran was the first to speak. “You have to stop her. You just have to stall for a little bit, until the Quatra Federation orders Stepney to call off the attack.”
“Zafir and I both tried, but without proof, there’s no way to make her believe us.”
“Maybe she was bluffing,” Cormak said. “The fleet would’ve noticed Sylvan battlecraft on the edge of the solar system, right?”
“Sylvans don’t bluff,” Orelia said.
“Then try again,” Arran snapped. “Disable her if you have to. You can’t let millions of people die just because your commanding officer doesn’t trust you.”
Cormak put his hand on Arran’s shoulder to steady him and looked to Vesper for help, but she barely noticed as she turned her attention to something Orelia had said. General Greet didn’t believe that Stepney had gone rogue because there was no proof that he was acting on his own against the wishes of the Quatra Federation. Except that Vesper had seen proof when she’d snuck into Stepney’s room and read the message about the malware.
“We have to get into his messages,” Vesper said, thinking aloud.
“Whose messages?” Cormak asked.
“Stepney’s. If we can find a way to show General Greet the note about the malware, then she’ll believe us when we explain that Stepney’s not carrying out the fleet’s orders, and that there’s no reason to launch such a devastating counterattack.”
“You’re right,” Cormak said, nodding as he began to pace around the fightercraft cabin. “But how the hell do we do that in the next hour?”
“The next ten minutes,” Arran said hoarsely. He was staring at the radar panel with a look of stunned terror. “General Greet wasn’t bluffing. There’s a Sylvan destroyer headed toward Tri.”
“We have to warn them!” Vesper said, dashing back toward the comm system. “They have to evacuate whatever planet it heads toward.”
“You can’t evacuate an entire planet,” Arran said, suddenly sounding very tired.
“Then they can try to disable the weapon before it detonates. Or maybe knock it off course,” Cormak said desperately. “Vesper, you have to tell your mother.”
Vesper adjusted the frequency on the control panel and pressed the button. “Mom? Are you there? Can you hear me?” She paused to listen, but there was only static. “Shit.” She slammed her hand against the control panel and tried again. “Is anyone there? Can anyone hear me? Hello?”
“There’s no time,” Cormak said, rubbing his temples as he paced. “Arran, is there any conceivable way of hacking into Stepney’s account and stealing that message?”
“Anything’s conceivable. That doesn’t mean it’s possible. But I can try.” He frowned and pressed something on his link, then looked up at one of the monitors on the control panel. “I’m going to run a rainbow table of passwords against Stepney’s account. It contains about a million combinations, but I doubt the commander of the Quatra Fleet’s account would be so vulnerable.” The icons on Arran’s screen disappeared and were replaced by lines of rapidly flashing numbers. Vesper held her breath, then cursed when the words ACCESS DENIED appeared.
“Keep trying,” Orelia urged. “I’m going to talk to General Greet again. I’ll let you know if anything changes.”
Arran’s fingers flew across the controls, then he slammed his hand against the console when the same error message flashed on the screen. “I don’t know what I could possibly do. The local encryption is too sophisticated. The only thing we can do now is wait… and hope.”
“For the love of Antares,” Cormak whispered as his head fell into his hands. Then he stood and walked over to squeeze Vesper’s shoulder. “It’s going to be okay. There’s still time.”
The three of them fell silent again, subsumed by their own terrifying thoughts. Vesper began to tremble as she imagined all her family and friends back on Tri, going about their day, completely unaware that, in a few hours, the sky would darken as the Sylvan bomb passed between Tri and the sun. Would they have time to grab the people they loved for a desperate, hasty goodbye before the world exploded around them? Would their final sensations be one of terror or pain? No, Vesper thought as she closed her eyes. Please, please don’t let that happen.
“They’ll take out the Academy too,” Arran said hoarsely. “Dash is going to die thinking that I hate him.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Cormak said. “There’s still time. We can’t give up. There has to be a way.” He took a deep breath and began to pace again. “You said the local encryption’s too sophisticated, but Stepney’s files can’t be stored locally. It’s too dangerous. There has to be a backup somewhere, right?”
“Sure, I suppose. But there’s no way to… wait, hold on.” Arran rubbed his eyes and leaned toward the screen. “The radar scanner keeps picking up a small but consistent burst of signal from the Academy. It happens every fifteen minutes like clockwork. That might be the regularly scheduled backup.”
“Can you track it?” Vesper asked, hurrying over to stand next to Arran.
“Maybe… yes, I think so… hold on. There!” A prompt for credentials appeared on the screen. “I’ll try the rainbow table again.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Vesper saw Cormak frown. “But why would it work this time?” he asked.
“There’s a chance the backup server has a generic system administrator password. It wouldn’t necessarily have the same safeguards.” The same lines of flashing numbers appeared and Vesper had to resist the urge to look away, lest she see the devastating error message appear again. Please, let it work, she prayed. For the love of Antares, please let it work.
She heard Arran’s cheer before her brain had time to make sense of the images on the screen. It was Commander Stepney’s in-box. “We’re in!” Arran shouted. “Vesper, show me where you saw the message about the malware.”
“Just do a keyword search,” Vesper said as she drummed her fingers along the control panel. “It should be the most recent result—there!” She skimmed the message to confirm it was the same one she’d read earlier, then clapped her hand on Arran’s shoulder. “Can you send that to Orelia to show General Greet?”
“Already done,” Arran said. “And I can do one better—I’ve forwarded it to the entire Quatra Fleet listserv.” He glanced down at his link, then closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. “Orelia says she’s going to show it to General Greet now. It’s out of our hands.”
“How will we know if it worked?” Cormak asked. His voice was steady, but there was a hint of fear in his eyes that made Vesper take his hand and squeeze it. After everything he’d been through, after all the trauma and pain he’d endured just to survive, was he going to have to watch everything he’d fought for slip away?
Arran pointed to the radar screen, which he’d configured to show the Quatra System on one side and the Sylvan battlecraft on the other. “We’ll either see the Sylvan ships go dark, which means Orelia convinced General Greet to raise the shields instead of attack…”
Vesper took a deep breath and finished the sentence for him. “Or we watch the Sylvans decimate their first Quatran target.”
An eternity passed before anyone spoke. Before anyone even breathed. Vesper, Arran, and Cormak watched in tense silence as the fightercraft
peeled off and then began to retreat. Finally, Arran extended a trembling arm toward the monitor. “The Sylvan ships seem to have shut down power—they’re not emitting any signals. It worked… Orelia convinced them to stop.”
Cormak let out a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “Using information that you sent”—he clapped one hand on Arran’s shoulder and grabbed Vesper’s hand with the other—“and you found. Seems like another pretty big win for Squadron 20.”
“So what do we do now?” Vesper asked, looking from Arran to Cormak. She felt like she was still in a daze.
A moment later, the static coming through the speakers faded, and a voice emerged. It was Admiral Haze. “Well done, you three,” she said, sounding slightly dazed herself. “The Federation has authorized Stepney’s arrest and military police are on their way. It looks like his ship was disabled trying to cross the asteroid belt. It’s functioning just enough for him to try to make an escape. Think you can keep him from getting too far? I just need you to hold him off long enough for the military police transport ship to arrive.”
Before Vesper could respond, Cormak leaned past her to talk into the speaker. “We’re on it, Admiral Haze,” he said with a smile. “I can’t think of anything we’d like to do more.”
CHAPTER 25
ORELIA
“Do you have any more surprises in store for me?” General Greet asked wryly as they stepped out of their ship onto the Quatran battlecraft. It’d been two days since the thwarted attack, and peace talks were about to resume. This time, the Sylvan delegates had arrived on a fleet of fightercraft instead of docking their own large ship to the airlock.
“Not that I’m aware of. But there’s no knowing what might happen,” Orelia said blithely. She’d never really bantered with General Greet like this, but the giddy relief she’d felt since the thwarted attack hadn’t quite dissipated, and she was feeling strangely buoyant.
