“General Murad Soltani,” came a gruff, precise voice across an audio-only connection.
“General. Michella Modane. I understand you were in contact with my partner,” she said.
Any residue of sleep was gone now. She’d not even had a sip of the coffee. The promise of new information on an old story was enough to sharpen her up.
“Indeed. The timing of your contact was suspect,” he said.
“Suspect? How so, General?”
“The last time we spoke was with regards to veterans who abused their access privileges to secure experimental technology. Five months ago there was another attempted network access using credentials from the same unit, which was an ongoing matter of internal investigation as recently as yesterday’s briefing.”
“I assume you’d deactivated those credentials,” Michella said.
“We aren’t fools, Ms. Modane. Of course we deactivated them. But the fact that we heard from you just as the internal investigation of individuals you were researching when last we spoke died down is far too coincidental to be ignored. What is happening with the Neo-Luddites?”
“I was contacting you hoping you would have an answer to that question.”
“I request information from you. Not the other way around. The Neo-Luddites are a threat, and threats are assessed and dealt with by the military.”
“Of course, sir. Of course. I don’t have anything solid to go on, I’m afraid. I contacted you because there was a massive but targeted DDoS attack that seemed precisely aimed at me and Trevor Alexander. Since the Neo-Luddites were also very eager to aim things at us, it seemed likely there was a connection.”
“What was the timing of the attack?”
She glanced at the clock. “Is that date right? … About twenty-one hours ago.”
“Unrelated,” the general said. “If there was any overlap with our own investigation, I would have heard about it in the briefing. We have some of the best data-security experts in the galaxy on the investigation.”
“It’s good to have that sort of thing confirmed, sir. Thank you for your swift reply, and if there’s anything we at GolanaNet can do for you, don’t hesitate to ask.”
He made a gruff sound of crude acknowledgment. “All of this is entirely off the record.”
“Absolutely.”
“If I see any reporting regarding this, I will hold you directly responsible.”
“Discretion is how I stay in business, General. Thank you.”
Another grumble took the place of a good-bye as he broke the connection.
“Another dead end,” Jon said.
“No. No, this is huge. What’s the name of the VectorCorp agent who came and grilled us over the DDoS?” she asked.
“Uh…” he said, flipping through the notes on his slidepad. “Which one? There were two.”
“The woman.”
He swiped a few more times. “Agent Swinton.”
“Do you have her credentials?”
“I don’t like that you’re asking me that question…”
“Do you or don’t you?”
“I have the scan we took, yes.”
“Give it to me.”
“Are we about to impersonate VectorCorp agents?”
“No. Absolutely not.”
“Are you about to—”
“Just give me the scan, Jon.” She stood and yanked open the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet and started riffling through the folder headings. “When we talked to General Soltani last, it was regarding a full unit of veterans who joined the Neo-Luddites. Every successful strike to catch and lock up the Neo-Luddites has turned up fragments of information that suggest that this unit served as their communication specialists. Never at the front lines doing the dirty work. Constantly behind the scenes coordinating communication. All three major militaries had been trying and failing to track these people down. That tells me, and probably tells them, that they aren’t facilitating their communications through military means. Everyone in the unit has been thoroughly investigated for potential contact with civilian communication infrastructure, and they turned up nothing.”
“None of this sounds like it’s helping us at all.”
“Back then I had to ask myself, which is more likely? That someone out there is so good at covering their tracks that they could evade the full width and breadth of the investigatory resources of the military industrial complex, or that someone along the way stepped on the investigation for some reason? Could have been a Neo-Luddite on the inside, but they would have to be pretty high up to not get swept into the investigation, considering the black eye the Neo-Luddites have given the military over the last few years. If they had someone that far up, they would have been a lot more successful. I was chasing down other possibilities when I got distracted by investigating Operlo’s criminal underpinnings.”
“What possible reason would someone have to derail an investigation into a terrorist group?”
“Whenever someone does something that makes absolutely no sense, the explanation is always sex.”
“… I’m missing the connection between sex and terrorism, Michella.”
“It’s a long, long story that involved tons of legwork chasing down overlaps between civilian communication workers, military officers, night clubs, and bars, but the one point all those circles overlapped was a guy named Reggie Ells, who was romantically involved with both a married member of the Orionian Navy high command and a rank-and-file member of the Neo-Luddites. He is also a technician in a fringe communication installment.
“I never had the access necessary to prove it, but it is all but certain the naval commander shut down anyone who got anywhere near revealing the connection. Without proof I wasn’t going to potentially ruin three lives with the accusation, particularly when I had juicier leads to follow. But since the general confirmed there was contact from the same unit, it probably has been done using the same back channel.”
Jon scrunched his face up. “Okay… and you didn’t tell him that why?”
“Because if I told him, the resulting information would be dug up by the military and not me, and there would be no guarantee I would have access to it.”
“And how does this help us with the DDoS investigation?”
“It’s a step forward toward the Neo-Luddites, and the Neo-Luddites might be responsible. Come on, Jon. I’m the one who is short on sleep, not you.”
She navigated a branching directory and found the contact information for the specific communication substation she was after. Before establishing the connection, she opened up an entirely separate set of utilities.
“Audio only. Simulated signal degradation to… let’s say sixty percent…” she muttered.
“Before I met you, I didn’t even know you could mess with connection quality.”
“Just part of the valuable education you’ve been getting as my partner.”
She tapped the connection. It took a frustrating amount of time, but eventually someone answered.
“Signal Relay 4077. Technician Manning,” mumbled a disinterested voice.
“Eli, I’m calling from the network. I’m going to send you some credentials.” She forwarded the VectorCorp agent’s information.
“Agent Swinton?”
“That’s what the credentials say. I’m looking for some information regarding a connection rerouted through your station. This would be between four and six months ago. Manual reroute. I believe it was done during Technician Ells’s shift.”
“What’d Reggie do?”
“This isn’t a disciplinary matter. I just need to know the origin data for the communication.”
“Might be hard to find. Do you know how many communications pass through here every day, let alone in a month?”
“I know precisely how many pass through, Manning. And I also know that a direct connection to a signal relay station is much rarer, and a manual relay on such a connection is
rarer still. It would reflect very poorly upon you if you couldn’t find the connection in question with a single query.”
“Okay, right, yes. Sorry, ma’am.”
Michella muted the audio and leaned back. “Put enough ‘boss pressure’ on someone and they stop thinking critically about double-checking if someone matches their credentials.”
“Boy am I glad you’re not my boss.”
“I am your boss, Jon.”
“Not according to the org chart you’re not. We’re on the same level on the org chart, partner.”
“I’ve got it right here, Agent,” the tech said.
She unmuted. “Good. I’m at a client location, so I need you to run the trace back to its origin point and give me the data.”
“On it. … Route data loaded. Forwarding now.”
Michella’s datapad chirped. “Received. Excellent work, Technician.” She cut the connection before he could ask any further questions.
“What’s the punishment for impersonating a VectorCorp agent, anyway?”
“I didn’t impersonate anyone,” she said.
“Right.” He gave an exaggerated wink. “Sure you didn’t.”
“I never claimed to be an agent. I announced I would be delivering credentials. I never said they were mine.”
“I’m sure that would hold up in a court of law.”
“I’ve been through it with legal. They were confident it was defensible.”
A notification bleeped. She swiped.
“Trev! At least you’ve got good timing. What did Ma and Karter have to say?”
“Whoa. Jeez. How about a hello? And why are you audio only with lousy signal quality? Have you been screwing with people again?”
She disabled the stream alterations. “I’ve been working. What did they have to say?”
“Ma and Karter are either not home or on hard-core lockdown. No contact possible. I got a recording that said if I went directly to Big Sigma, they’d open fire on me. Did you get anything?”
“We will find out in a moment.” She rolled down the lengthy connection log. “I’ve got some coordinates here. How fast can you get to them?”
“The answer is ‘faster than anyone else’ regardless of what they are. Where are you sending me?”
“I think there is a cell of Neo-Luddites operating out of that location.”
“See, now that is a very good reason to not go there. Why are we talking about the Neo-Luddites?”
“Because they’ve been completely silent for ages, and suddenly I have a lead, and they’re one of the prime suspects for this sort of thing.”
“I didn’t leave Operlo prepped for a clash.”
“Then I would recommend you not get into a clash. Give me a second. This is fresh information. Let me run through the relevant activity in the area. If we’re unlucky, there will be nothing and we’re back to square one. If we’re lucky, there’s something suspicious and they’re the next logical step.”
“We have very different interpretations of luck, Mitch.”
“We’ve got…” She shook her head. “You’re going, Trev. A few months ago there was a major network breach reported in the area. Like a mini version of what happened to us. Targeted message attack. Then a few days afterward, there was some sort of unauthorized ship access. It’s all extremely general, stuff reported in data sweeps rather than by people reporting it to the authorities. The whole thing smells like a trial run of what was done to us, combined with a group of people who don’t want any attention drawn to them.”
“When you put it like that, it sounds like the Neo-Luddites were the targets.”
“That’s true. All the more reason for you to get out there and see what happened.”
“Mitch, there’s a clock ticking. I’ve got six days until my race, give or take. If I’m not back on Operlo in time for the championship, it’ll be a whole year before I have another shot.”
“It’s a race, Trev. Have some perspective. This could be serious.” She slid her fingers across the input screen and waved it through the display. “I’m looking at the star charts now. How close did you get to Big Sigma?”
“Basically one big juke away, about eight hours.”
“So you’re almost there. You’ve got to practically go through Golana to get where you’re going.”
“Don’t tell me you want me to pick you up.”
“You know I’ll be more useful in an in-person investigation than you.”
“I’ve got six days,” he repeated.
“For all we know, there’s a plot to kill us.”
“That’s an even better reason for you to stay clear of the terrorist organization.”
“Either you take me there, or I’m going to find a way there on my own.”
Lex seethed for a few seconds. “Get yourself to The Upstairs in…” He checked something beside the camera of his communicator. “Thirty hours. My old berth. Bring food and gear for a week. If you’re not there when I check in, I’m not even stopping.”
“Oh, I’ll be there.”
He hung up.
“Boy. And here I was thinking you two got on each other’s nerves when you were together.”
“I don’t need you editorializing, Jon. I haven’t slept, I have to get myself prepared for any eventuality, and I’m about to spend who knows how long in a two-person ship with my ex. I’m about to get whatever I’ve got coming to me, I assure you.”
“Uh… Yeah, that’s fair. What do you need me to do?”
“Just be available to drop me off tomorrow. After that, keep your slidepad on. There’s a good chance I’ll need something along the way. And let Lou know that I’m onto something big and he’s just going to have to trust me.”
A voice came from the door. “Save your breath.”
Michella and Jon turned to the door. The perpetually dyspeptic editor of the newsfeed was in the doorway.
“Have you been spying on me?” Michella said.
“The data guys drop me a message whenever they see some high-level encryption on the network that they didn’t activate. I take it you’re planning an unauthorized field piece.”
“It’s only unauthorized if you don’t authorize it.”
“I’d argue, but it’s a waste of breath. So instead, I’ll get half the bullpen working on the ‘for your consideration’ for your award submission and the other half working on your in memoriam.”
“Are you going to rat me out to the higher-ups?”
“Considering they still blame you for taking the whole network down with that DDoS, I think they’ll just be happy to have you out of the building for a few days. But do us all a favor and don’t get killed. If I ended up with someone in this office who didn’t try giving me an ulcer every other week, I don’t know what I’d do with myself.”
Chapter 3
It felt almost eerie to be approaching the orbital facility over the equator of Golana. The Upstairs was Lex’s port of call for many years. He drew at least two paychecks from the complex arrangement of rings that topped the space elevators, via either his freelance travel gigs or tuning up the odd ship for Blake. He had roots here, to the degree that anyone could have roots in space. Ever since ORIC came along to give him his second shot at the job he always believed he should have, he’d barely returned here. But in a way, it would always be home. To hammer that point home, as soon as he was in range, and when he remembered to flip his transponder back on, he immediately got an incoming message directly from Blake.
“Hey! T-Lex! Long time no see!” he said, popping up on the communicator screen.
“Jeez. T-Lex. Been a while since I heard that one,” Lex said.
“You’ll always be T-Lex to me, buddy. You’ve been burning up those tracks they build on Operlo, man. Literally, half the time. How many sleds have you gone through?”
“Technically it’s only four. Still the league record, though.”
“You try
ing to cash in a life insurance policy or what?”
“Just doing what it takes to cross the finish line first. It’s pretty cutthroat, what with half the people in the league having been kicked out of the other leagues. Listen, not that I wouldn’t love to catch up, but I’m in a big rush.”
“I know, I know. I’ve got Mitch here.” He leaned closer and lowered his voice. “Is it true the two of you broke up?”
“Yeah.”
“She dump you or you dump her?”
“It was more of a self-destruction.”
“Then what’s the trip about, man? Mitch won’t say.”
“Remember when the whole network shut down a couple days ago?”
“Yeah.”
“We’re going to go figure out who did it. Or least we’ll try to.”
“Yeah, but why are you doing it together?”
“Because I lead a blessed life, Blake.”
“Enter the landing queue for your usual spot. And try not to get any of that blessing on me, man.”
“I’ll do my best.” He tapped the communicator.
“I’ll do the honors, Lex,” Coal said. “I like talking to the Golana Upstairs. They’re a fun system.”
Lex turned and glanced at the internal camera that he’d decided was the equivalent to looking Coal in the eye.
“The Upstairs doesn’t have an AI. It’s just a bunch of automated procedures.”
“It’s charming. All of the old, rigid codes. The way they flow out and choreograph the motion of the ships. It’s musical.”
“When was the last time you interfaced with The Upstairs anyway? You didn’t get loaded onto the SOB until I was basically a permanent resident on Operlo.”
“I’ve reviewed the system logs of the SOB. It’s basically like reliving a moment I didn’t experience firsthand. Very enjoyable. Just look at the patterns.”
Coal populated the overlay through the cockpit hatch with the planned motions of ships in and out. Each ship’s trajectory was color coded to a slightly different shade. As she layered more and more onto the overlay, it started to look less like a routing plan and more like a tapestry.
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