Your mother said a lot of things, Ruben . And she’ll need to say a lot more before this is all over .
“I know.” Ming touched her forehead to Ruben’s. “Trust me?”
“I’ll be fine,” he said, though she could hear the tremor in his tone. Then, in a whisper only Ming could hear, he said, “I just don’t want to lose you too. Like Lily.”
Ming hugged him hard. “I’ll come back to you, Ruben. I promise.”
The boy nodded into her shoulder.
When she stood, Ming found another man had joined Anthony. It took her a moment to recognize the captain of the Revenant , the ship that had brought her to Mars.
“Captain Lander?”
“Dr. Qinlao,” he said, nodding. “Nice to see you again. And it’s just Lander now. I got demoted to chauffeuring you in the Roadrunner here.” He patted the side of the ship.
Anthony sighed. “Long story. But since he’s available, I’m sending him to watch your back.”
Lander looked down at her from his full height of six-foot- plus. His faded blue eyes took in her outfit. “Nice ninja suit.”
“One of Viktor’s inventions,” Anthony said.
Ming felt her cheeks burn with embarrassment at acting the part of a soldier, but the feeling was quickly washed away by her newfound mission. She had a job to do. Screw him and his male chauvinist bullshit.
“I’d rather do this alone, Anthony,” she said. “Viktor’s got me loaded to the gills with upgrades and gadgets.”
“He’s going with you,” Anthony said, his tone uncharacteristically firm. “Lander’s a first-class pilot. And I want you to come back safe and sound. We both do, right, Ruben?”
“Right,” the boy said.
Ming considered making a fuss, but the tick-tock of her real mission was always in the back of her mind. She would never find out who murdered her father sitting here on Mars. She needed unlimited access to a real network, one unmonitored by her host.
Anthony Taulke was a cautious man, a man who protected his investments. If he wanted to send this Lander character with her, there was probably a good reason. “Well, if you insist.”
She gave Ruben a final hug, then followed Lander aboard the shuttle. Conditions were cramped and utilitarian, just four crash couches and a small cargo area at the rear. Ming felt the adaptive foam of the chair cushion mold to her body.
Lander strapped himself in and popped a mock salute to Anthony before lifting off. The older man stood well back from the takeoff radius, his arm around Ruben’s shoulders.
Ming waved at Ruben. The boy did not wave back.
“Where to, ma’am?” Lander said .
“Darkside,” she said. “As fast as you can get us there.”
“Be careful what you wish for.” The shuttle’s engines fired up, pressing Ming deeper into the womb-like embrace of the copilot’s cushioned seat.
They rose high above Mars Station, the three domes looking like white coins against the red landscape.
“Do you trust Taulke?” she said.
Lander looked at her with narrowed eyes, as if he didn’t understand the question. “I work for the Taulke family. I take orders and I get paid. There’s no trust involved.” His screen flashed, indicating a flight path was confirmed. “Buckle up.”
• • •
William Graves • Haven 6, Blue Earth, Minnesota
“We’ve got him, sir.” Captain Jansen’s voice was clipped with tension. Without even turning around, Graves could imagine the tight smile of triumph on her face, the fist pump of victory. She’d never trusted Remy Cade and this betrayal was sweet satisfaction to her.
He shared none of her elation. Instead, Graves felt a mixture of anger and sadness at Remy’s betrayal. Another casualty in this never-ending war.
“Sir?”
“I heard you, Captain.” He was so goddamned tired. Physically. Emotionally. Spiritually. “Well done,” he added.
The tracking device in Cade’s shoulder had been Jansen’s idea, as had using Luca Vasquez as a way to drop tidbits of information to Remy .
But the betrayal had been all Cade’s.
He watched the tiny blip on the hologram display break from the suborbital traffic pattern and join the ring of satellites and space stations in Earth orbit. Cade had followed a circuitous path before docking at one of the stations. It would take Graves a week of paperwork and court orders to find out who owned the station, much less secure the legal permission to board it. That was not going to be necessary. He had other plans for the Neos.
“Keep an eye on him. Let’s make sure this isn’t a bait and switch,” he said. “This is not the B squad we’re dealing with here.”
“Understood, sir.” Jansen hesitated again, weighing her words.
“Question, Captain?”
“How’d you know, sir? How’d you know Cade would run?”
Graves turned to her, studied Jansen’s face. There was an ashen undertone to her dark skin and the skin under her eyes sagged. She was every bit as exhausted as he was. But their mission together was almost done. The realization registered as a slight drop in his stomach.
“When good men do bad things, they don’t do them well,” Grave said. “Lying, for example. Remy’s a good man, but he fell in love with the wrong person. I suspected he wasn’t truthful when he said he’d given up on her, despite his attentions to Ms. Vasquez. Now we know for sure.”
Jansen enlarged the hologram again. “Sir, he’s disembarked. That’s got to be the Neo base of operations.”
Graves nodded. “Analyze the comms traffic from that space station. Look for embedded, encrypted information packets. And let’s see if any transmissions match up with Ms. Vasquez’s Neo frequency.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And her eraser devices? Are they ready?” Graves had managed to screen most of the Neos from the Haven crew, but the ones who managed to slip through would need to be dealt with. Luca Vasquez had been working overtime to produce enough of the handheld devices that deactivated the Neo implants.
“Yes, sir, the last batch just left for Haven 2 this morning. We’ve got the Neo crew isolated in each location. As soon as you give the order, we’ll start the inoculation.”
“And the Disruptor?” Graves asked with a smile. He’d asked Vasquez to produce a transmitter that could broadcast a signal to disrupt Neo communications. It would produce no more than a mild buzzing sound to normal people, but to a Neo it might be enough to knock a person unconscious for a few minutes.
Might being the operative word. The Disruptor had not been tested.
“Yes, sir. It’s pretty bulky, about the size of a small suitcase, but it’s the best she can do with the time left.”
“Very well, Captain. Please pass along my compliments to Ms. Vasquez as well for a job well done. She’s certainly earned that spot on Haven 6 for her and her sister.”
“Will do, sir. It’ll be a welcome piece of good news. She’s pretty torn up about Remy dumping her like that.”
Graves sighed. Luca had played her part well, feeding Remy just enough information to entice him to run back to the Neos. Right up to the bitter end, she had maintained that Remy would stay with her on Haven .
She was wrong.
He returned his gaze to the holo-display, zooming in on the space station Cade had boarded. “Are we ready for this, then?”
“I’m ready when you are, sir.” Her eyes glowed with a second wind of excitement. She was enjoying this, he realized. The cloak-and-dagger subterfuge that left him queasy, the unanswered questions beyond deck 36—Jansen found all of that exciting.
They left his office together, heading for the main lift. When the doors opened on deck 36, the marine guard came to attention and snapped a smart salute.
“They’re expecting you, sir.” He keyed in a code, and the heavy steel door rolled aside.
Chapter 18
Ming Qinlao • Lunar Orbit
It was a long two days with Lander. He wasn�
�t given to small talk and Ming had much bigger issues to think about. Two sleep cycles had mercifully spared her the need to interact much, and that was just fine with her.
“Lunar orbit,” Lander announced. He hadn’t slept as far as she could tell, but he seemed fresh. He handled the shuttle like a natural, eschewing autopilot most of the time in favor of staying busy. “What’s the plan, Ming?”
She passed coordinates for the Erkennen facility to the nav system. Viktor’s tech had managed to scrub any mention of the facility from public records and he employed digital camouflage to obscure any chance visual sighting.
The chill inside Ming thawed a little when LUNa City appeared on the edge of the horizon, filling her with a longing for Lily and simpler times.
Lander left the commercial traffic lanes as soon as they crossed the sun line into darkness. He was cautious. The Roadrunner ’s stealth design should keep them off sensors, but they weren’t invisible to the naked eye.
“I don’t see anything,” Lander said when the nav system told them they had arrived.
“It’s there,” Ming answered. She accessed the comms and released a coded sequence on a tightbeam aimed at the coordinates. A single light pulsed on the shadowy lunar surface like a beacon.
Lander grunted. “That Russian is one clever bastard.”
She whirled her finger to indicate Lander should circle the perimeter. It appeared to be a low-slung dome the color of lunar regolith with a single docking entrance, but she knew the structure extended four stories deep. One way in, one way out, just at Viktor had described.
“The place is in full lockdown,” she said, “and the encryption on the front door is the best money can buy. You try to blast your way in and the place will self-destruct.” She eyed Lander. “A safety feature to prevent any Erkennen secrets from getting out.”
“Wonderful. I’m guessing you can get us in?”
Ming fingered the MoSCOW device in her pocket. “We’ll know in a minute.”
“And you’re looking for what?”
“Clues. Information that will tell me who we’re dealing with.”
Lander eased the Roadrunner into the single docking port. The ship shuddered as it formed an airtight connection with the station. Once the seals showed green, he powered down the engines .
“You’re up, Ming.”
She eased MoSCOW out of her pocket and opened the box. The eyepiece gleamed in the low light of the cabin. She unfolded it and flipped it over, exposing the inner surface. Inside the eyecup and the strap that ran along her temple and behind her ear, rows of tiny needles glistened. Viktor’s warning about the radiation seemed petty next to the array of probes ready to burrow into her skin.
Lander’s gaze cut from MoSCOW to Ming. “That looks like a torture device. You’re going to wear that thing?”
In answer, Ming raised MoSCOW to her eye and pressed it in place. Viktor had told her the device would turn on automat—
Like a nail into her eyeball, hot, blinding pain injected her skull as MoSCOW latched onto her face. Ming’s vision went blank. Of its own accord, the temple piece formed to her skin, wrapping around her ear. A probe wormed into her ear canal, shooting an arrow of blistering agony through her eardrum.
Ming’s vision returned in spasms of vivid neon color. Greens that were too green, blues too blue, reds that were a thousand shades of blood. A high-pitched keening was everywhere in the ship’s cabin, making her want to shout at the source to shut the fuck up, it was hurting her ears. Then Ming realized it was her own screaming.
Her limbs twitched uncontrollably as MoSCOW mated with her suit.
Something on her face—Lander’s fingers—tried to pull MoSCOW’s sensor display away from her eye. She pushed him off, surprised at how easy that was .
“Leave it,” she gasped.
The vivid colors lost their glow, coalesced, and sharpened again into the outlines of objects she recognized. The excruciating pain pressing into her skull dulled to a thousand points of ache. Ming blinked. Her vision had depth again. Meaning.
And more. Identifying tags popped up as her eyes passed over the pilot’s console. Ops, comms, navigation, helm, and the ad hoc control for the recently installed rail gun. She knew everything about the ship’s enhanced engine specs, the normal range of every readout, even how to drive the shuttle manually. All in a single glance. She just knew .
“Are you okay, Ming?” Lander asked.
MoSCOW fed her layers of data about him. His voice carried a faint, generations-old accent of Eastern Europe, Hungarian extraction from the region near Debrecen, modified by immigration to the eastern United States and by his time living on Mars. More than that, his voiceprint showed he was under emotional stress. She studied his face in a sweep of data. Clenched jaw, bunched brow, dilated pupils, tension in his trapezius muscles. MoSCOW’s conclusion: Lander was extremely agitated, nervous. That reaction was normal considering she’d just been screaming in pain, but the MoSCOW system was telling her his physiological response had another meaning.
Lander was concealing something from her.
“I’m fine,” Ming said. She rose carefully from the copilot’s seat, forcing herself to filter the unending stream of data into manageable chunks. Ming focused on her body first. The suit had anticipatory functionality, meaning it would predict her movements based on the data available .
Don’t fight it. Work with it. She opened the shuttle airlock, then made her way to the inner seal. The panel blinked red, indicating a lockdown status.
“You’re sure you can do this?” Lander said from behind her. His voice had new tension now. Lander was afraid.
“Are we even sure there’s atmosphere over there? Maybe we should suit up—”
“Station atmosphere is seventy-eight percent nitrogen, twenty-one percent oxygen, with trace elements of argon and carbon dioxide. And … hydrogen sulfide and methane.”
Ming was startled by the sound of her own voice. MoSCOW had offered up the analysis without prompting. And she’d recited it without thinking.
She placed the haptic sensors in her palm against the panel and interfaced with the lab’s security program. Ming had to close her eyes at the flood of data as the supercomputer tried to crack the encryption on the other side. Her breath rasped in her throat. In the distance, she heard the airlock open and MoSCOW severed the connection.
“Jesus,” Lander said, covering his nose in the crook of his arm.
Inside were half a dozen dead personnel, scientists and security. Dark brown stains swathed the floor and walls. MoSCOW analyzed the injuries as knife wounds from three different blades.
MoSCOW fed Ming the organic compounds contained in rotting flesh. When Erkennen’s lab had gone into emergency lockdown, the environmental controls had automatically minimized to preserve atmosphere for any survivors until rescue arrived .
Just past the airlock was the security cubicle. Ming pulled a sagging body off the panel and placed her hand on the center console. She paired with the system, and a new stream of data hammered her brain. The attackers, whoever they were, had tried to fry the electronics, but MoSCOW wasn’t taking no for answer. She directed her sensors into the guts of the shattered memory banks, gathering bits of information to her, assembling them like they were part of the largest 3-D jigsaw puzzle in the universe.
Seconds passed, minutes, maybe longer. Ming lost all track of time. The suit held her body in place, but her flesh cried out for relief. The bits of information formed about her like a cloud of buzzing angry bees, then slowly coalesced in her vision. A moving image emerged: she recognized the station airlock, connected to another ship. A transport.
“UN Shuttle Model B-12,” MoSCOW reported. “Annan class.”
And on the facing of the ship’s airlock, a number: UN X769.
The party from the shuttle was led by a woman: tall, thin, with straight dark hair and brown skin. She wore the white civilian uniform of the United Nations. MoSCOW identified her as Elise Kisaan,
United Nations Undersecretary for Biodiversity, reported missing months ago.
Kisaan’s shuttle had been the last ship to dock here before the cryptokey had been stolen. Somehow this missing woman was tied to the theft of Viktor’s cryptokey and the control of Earth’s weather.
MoSCOW allowed the suit to lower her frame into a nearby chair next to the stinking corpse. Her body screamed for sustenance.
“Food,” she whispered. “Now. ”
Lander pulled a gel packet from his belt and she grabbed it from him, ripping it open, devouring it. Taste was irrelevant, a non-thing. The pounding in her head slowed down.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” Lander asked.
Ming nodded.
He handed her a tablet. “Show me.”
She transferred the image to the tablet with a touch of her glove, explaining who the woman in the photo was. MoSCOW interrupted her thoughts.
Lander had used his left hand to give her the tablet, his nondominant hand. The tension in his thumb spoke of an unnatural readiness, as did the stance of his feet.
She looked up as he said, “Thanks.”
MoSCOW noted his elevated pulse, analyzed his micro-expressions. Deception. A red rectangle in her vision tracked Lander’s right hand moving toward his weapon.
Ming’s foot lashed out, sweeping the tall man off his feet. The light lunar gravity made him tumble wildly, his sidearm spinning away.
She pounced, her weight forcing them both to the blood-streaked floor. MoSCOW categorized the emotions flashing across his face: Surprise. Shock. Fear.
Her suit formed a knife edge from her extended fingers, and Ming pressed the makeshift blade against the base of his throat. The man’s right shoulder tensed.
“Counterattack imminent,” MoSCOW warned.
“Don’t,” Ming hissed. “I will kill you.”
“Who are you?” Lander focused on the eyepatch. “What is that thing? ”
“You lied to me. Why?”
Silence. Ming pressed down with her fingers until she could feel the ridges of his esophagus. The tension in his right arm did not diminish; his fingers twitched toward the knife on his belt.
Cassandra's War: A Sci-Fi Corporate Technothriller (The SynCorp Saga Book 2) Page 16
