Alarm flashed in her eyes. “But you know—”
“Code theory and program structure? Totally. But this is an Imperial government-created program and fail-safe.”
“Government issue? Well, hell, Dev,” she drawled. “That should make it easy.”
His laugh was a half snort, half chuckle, and then she was grinning too. Until he held her gaze for a little too long. Then her smile faded. “We’re wasting time.”
“We have”—he glanced at the holographic display hovering over the edge of the Rada—“four more minutes to waste. Backup’s still in progress. Tell me the biggest problem I’ll encounter and we’ll go from there.”
“This is a legit freighter, not a pirate rig or conversion. Tampering with an Imperial ident program can trigger the complete lockup of ship’s primaries. Backups won’t reinstall. Engines shut down. Systems we need—like lights, grav, enviro—quit. We drift until we run out of air and die. Unless we freeze to death first.”
That was a big problem, although the idea of wrapping himself around Makaiden’s body to keep her warm held definite appeal. He stared at her a long moment. Those problems weren’t the ones he expected. Threat of jail times, fines, okay. GGS was always facing the threat of fines for some alleged and often imagined discrepancy. But the fact that the ship itself would turn into judge, jury, and executioner …
He saw Tage behind this. It was brilliant and horrific at the same time.
“Our chances sound better if we face whatever ship is behind us. We don’t have to do this.”
She leaned both elbows on the table. “Chances are, if the worst happens—and knowing you, I’m betting it won’t—whoever’s behind us won’t let us drift and die. We have about five hours of air on board once we kick in backup enviro. We blow the engines and regular enviro, we’re no worse than if they ID and board us. But if we make them go away, that increases your chances of getting to the Prosperity and home.” She leaned back.
“This all comes back to my registering this ship in my name, doesn’t it? Makaiden, I’m sorry.”
A shrug preceded her answer. “You’re not used to Dock Five.”
“I’ve dealt with marginal business operations before. It wasn’t that.” He hesitated for a second. Guthrie men were horribly inept at expressing their feelings. He abandoned all the romantic avenues he’d tried to this point—and failed with—and went for plain honesty. “It was finding you. Nothing’s ever been so important to me before.”
That brought her arms crossing protectively over her chest.
“I know you don’t believe me and that a big reason is because of my relationship with Tavia. In a way, you were right when you said she and I deserved each other.” He shook his head with a short, derisive laugh. “She always said that by being together, we were saving two other people from heartache. She’s a barrister with aggressive political ambitions, and she’s very up front about wanting only a low-maintenance relationship. And I … I thought you were happily married.” He paused. “I know it sounds cold, shallow. But Tavia or I aren’t so cold and shallow that we’d fake loving someone when we didn’t. We also had an agreement. If either of us found someone we loved, the relationship would end. No problems, no rancor.” The slight narrowing of her eyes signaled her suspicion. “When we get back to Garno, you can ask her.”
Suspicion wavered, Makaiden’s lips parting slightly. Devin hoped that was a good sign.
“When we get—” But her sentence ended when the panel on the bulkhead chimed.
“Captain Makaiden? That ship’s three hours forty-five minutes out. They’re really moving.”
Makaiden reached back and tapped the comm button on the panel. “Thanks, Trip. We’re just finishing backups here. Alert me to any more changes. Captain out.” She tapped it again, then turned back to Devin. For a very long moment, she was as quiet as he was before. Then she sucked in a long breath. “Okay. Truce for now. We have to get working on this ID program. Because if we don’t, it won’t matter how we feel about each other. We won’t be alive long enough to enjoy it.”
The acknowledgment—albeit oblique—that she did have feelings for him made him smile. “That’s the most encouraging dire prediction I’ve ever heard. Backup’s done.” He expanded the Rada’s holoscreen and motioned Makaiden closer. “Let’s take a closer look at that program.”
A closer look was both encouraging and discouraging. The encouraging part was that Imperial identification programs hadn’t changed all that much in the past decade or so. The discouraging part was that the program was full of fail-safes and traps, many of which seemed innocuous on first inspection. Devin knew this was no time for distraction. If anything, he needed a cool head and a large dose of inspiration. To him, Makaiden was both. One part of him wanted to send her back to the bridge. The other wanted her here.
He found justification in the latter with the fact that she’d seen this before. He hadn’t. He needed all the help he could get. The holoscreen before him was a jumble of numbers, letters, and icons that made up a ship’s systems codes. This wasn’t the same as unraveling a financial account-protection program. Lives were involved. In spite of all the things that had happened, he’d come to rather like his life. And he was responsible for Barty and Trip. And for Makaiden, though he doubted she’d acknowledge that.
He managed to break down the first two levels of security guarding the program in about fifteen minutes. But then he was staring at a string of coding he didn’t like and didn’t fully understand—and that made him like it even less.
“Out of my realm,” Makaiden admitted. “Maybe Barty can help?”
He hated to lose her presence. A lot of the anger he’d sensed from her hours ago had faded. Their former camaraderie—while not back—felt as if it might consider returning.
“Make sure he brings his DRECU,” he said, not without a bit of reluctance.
She pushed herself out of her chair, then headed for the corridor and the bridge. The room seemed a little colder, a little less bright, without her. Moments later, heavier footsteps sounded through the open doorway.
“Trouble?” Barty asked as he stepped into Makaiden’s quarters.
Devin shot a quick glance toward the corridor. No Makaiden following behind. Disappointment fought with practicality. She’d been off the bridge for a while and deserved to sit in command of her ship. “Sorry to take you from your work.”
“The illustrious Fetter brothers, though interesting reading, can wait. Nothing I’ve come across so far points to why Fuzz-face came after Trip. What’s your problem here?”
“This looks like object coding. But if it is, it doesn’t belong here. I’m thinking it’s a shunting bug.” Error or deliberate, he couldn’t tell, but if he popped it, whole parts of the program could dump or shunt over to a wrong location.
Barty took the chair Makaiden had vacated and stared at the Rada’s display. “I haven’t seen this before, but perhaps I have something in archives.” He slid his microcomp next to Devin’s, tagged the offending data, then started searching.
Devin went back to the ID program, trying another bit of wizardry to see if he could unearth a back door—a deliberate security hole often inserted by a program’s creator, ostensibly for ease-of-maintenance purposes by restricted, authorized techs. Or sometimes for more nefarious purposes. He was hoping for the former. The latter could set off alarms within the program and disable the Rider.
“Try this,” Barty said, turning his screen toward Devin. “It’s a sample code string from an Imperial ID verification program that’s been used on Starport Six and Marker.”
Devin snagged the sample from Barty’s smaller DRECU. Maybe, just maybe. He thought he saw a pattern but didn’t want to be overconfident. He chose a different section of code, copied it, studied it. Maybe …
“Devin?” Makaiden’s voice sounded through the cabin’s comm speaker. “That forty-five-minute window you had is now less than twenty. I need answers.”
Shit. He
rose, but Barty was already reaching back, tapping open the comm-panel speaker. He slumped back in his seat. “Acknowledged,” he said, knowing she could hear him. He wiped his palm over his face, but that didn’t help clear his mind. “I’m not where I want to be with this program. Maybe in two, three hours—”
“We don’t have two or three hours.”
“I know.” He glanced at Barty. The man didn’t look happy either. “Makaiden, can you spare three minutes to look over what I’ve done?”
“Be right there.”
This time the lighter, quicker footsteps in the corridor were the ones he wanted to hear.
She leaned on the table, palms flat on the top, and studied the Rada’s display for just about the three minutes he’d allotted. Then: “This is far from my area of expertise. But what you have there,” and she pointed to a section he’d highlighted, “looks like the stuff my uncle would do. I recognize some of the same commands. But more than that, I don’t know.” She pulled back from the table and shoved her hands in the back pockets of her pants.
Barty nodded. “I say we go with it. A lot of the Englarian mission ships aren’t that sophisticated and have been cobbled together from donated parts. They have older comm packs, older ID programs. As long as whoever’s behind us doesn’t scan us as the Void Rider, I think we can bluff our way through anything else.”
Devin arched an eyebrow at Barty, the realization of exactly who they had to masquerade as hitting home. “And if they demand visual contact? You can impersonate an Englarian monk?” Devin knew with fair certainty he couldn’t. He’d been raised in traditional Celestialism: a monotheistic religion that much of the Empire followed. Englarians were … different. Where he prayed to God, they prayed to Abbot Eng, who, his followers believed, would intercede with God on their behalf. They also had a whole list of ritualistic blessings that they could spout off on command. If they weren’t communing with the abbot, they were blessing somebody. Their unflappable placidity made him itch.
As he watched, Barty’s expression transformed from its normal penetrating stare to a bland, almost beatific mien. “Praise the stars, brother. It’s clear the abbot has brought you to me as a divine sign. So how may I be of service to you this blessed day?”
Makaiden let out a low whistle. “Damn, he’s good.”
Barty turned toward her. “Through the divine guidance of our beloved Abbot Eng, I always seek that which is beneficent.” His voice was soft, almost sweet. He brought his hands together in a prayerful motion that was graceful and fluid, looking as if he’d made the gesture for decades.
He was good. Devin had no problem blocking out his emotions, but it was his choice when he did so—not because some old man in a flowing robe decreed he should act that way. And he’d be damned if he knew how to look so benignly—and divinely—besotted.
“I think I have a tan blanket or sheet somewhere I can use to make you a robe.” Makaiden stepped toward the corridor. “That is, a robe for Brother …?”
“Brother Balatharis,” Barthol said with a slight incline of his head. “Your humble servant.”
Devin snorted out a laugh. Thank God for Barty. Pun intended.
“Fifteen minutes,” Makaiden called out over her shoulder. She stopped, angling halfway around in the open doorway. “Can you amend the ID in that time?”
Devin’s expression sobered. “I have to.”
She studied him. “You’ll do it. I have faith in you.”
Then before he could wonder further about the softening in her expression, she headed down the corridor, out of his sight.
Ten minutes later, he had the small snippet of code that would alter every mention of the Void Rider to the Veil of Relief, showing ownership by the Order of Devoted Missionaries on Calfedar. The order was real, according to Barty, who provided the data that would make everything look authentic. The ship’s name wasn’t on the order’s roster; however, it was one of the few that would not only work in their guise as a missionary ship but—more important—fit decently into allocated spaces in the code strings of the ID program.
It was a good bit of code. In any other circumstance, he’d have absolute faith that it would do what he wanted it to. But this wasn’t any other circumstance. And he was up against Imperial and ImpSec techs who had no qualms about triggering the destruction of a ship because one of their programs malfunctioned.
It wasn’t the back door he wanted, but it was the one he would use: put the communications system in a ten-second emergency shutdown. When it came back up and the ship’s main computer segued with it, the ship should think it was the Veil of Relief.
He found his palms—annoyingly—sweaty as he took the seat at the comm console on the bridge, then slotted in the small archiver. Trip was still at nav, Barty in the seat behind Devin.
“Blast doors closing, fifteen seconds,” Makaiden announced as she tapped commands into the screen angled out of her armrest. It was a security precaution—if the ship’s primaries failed, there was a limited backup enviro for the bridge and the captain’s quarters. But that was all. No sick bay. No galley.
As the doors clanged shut, Devin noticed that Trip had his bookpad on the decking by his boots. His nephew’s younger sister knew him well. Trip went nowhere without that pad.
Devin touched a series of icons on the screen on his right. “Initiating comm failure.”
The lights on his console blinked. A warning siren bleated softly.
“Ten seconds, Devin,” Barty said. “Nine …”
Devin launched the program from the archiver, the display on his Rada—linked to the Rider’s main system—alive with data.
“Seven, six …”
It had to find that back door, that security hole. Numbers, symbols flashed by. Everything looked right, but he’d thrown this together so quickly. But, yes, okay, the communications program shifted over to a seek-and-repair mode. Just as he thought it would. His back door should be …
There! Yes. His fingers flew over the Rada’s suspended display, forcing the communications program to recognize his altered code as what it sought.
The program stuttered, his Rada’s display wavering. His heart thumped in his chest in the same erratic movement. Damn it, damn it, no! It was running a bypass, sequestering his codes as if for later reference. He must have missed—
But, no, it wasn’t sequestering. It was authenticating. Hell’s fat ass, it was authenticating, accepting the false data as its—
The bridge plunged into darkness just as the rumble of the sublight engines beneath his boots died.
Kaidee hated when her ship didn’t work. Dead in space was not a place she liked to be. Especially with an unknown bogey on her tail, closing at a disturbingly fast rate of speed that made her heart pound in her chest and her throat go dry.
“Devvvinn?” She drew out his name in a long question as she flipped open the small panel cover on the pilot’s console that housed the bridge’s backup enviro. The resulting whoosh of air through the overhead ducts was encouraging—but it would be encouraging for only five hours. The silence and stillness beneath her boots was not encouraging at all.
“On it!”
He was—or at least his super-expensive microcomputer was—still working, its holo display pulsing with data. She glanced over her shoulder, catching the odd reflection of the display in the lenses of Devin’s eyeglasses. It was almost as if she could see into his brain, as if the green-tinged images were coming from his eyes.
Other screens glowed around her. Not her ship’s—those were dead. But Barty’s military DRECU and Trip’s bookpad provided small sources of light.
The silence and stillness around her screamed louder.
Deep breath, Kaid. Long, deep breath. This wasn’t the first time she’d gone dead in the lanes. It had happened once on the Prosperity and twice when she’d flown for Starways. All three times it was simply a matter of correcting a power-overload problem: when the power goes out, seek first the source of the power. That
was from the official Starways manual, chapter and verse.
That wouldn’t help her. Some unknown fart in her ship’s power source wasn’t the problem. This was known, and she’d helped to cause it.
Hell of an epitaph.
She forced her gaze away from the Rada’s bright glow and stared out the darkened viewport, letting her eyes adjust. This time when she glanced down at the decking, she could just discern the small emergency lights set at the base of her chair and—she swiveled around away from where Devin was—at the hatchlock to the corridor. There would be more guide lights there. Those would all fade eventually if they didn’t get the damned ship up and running.
“Here’s one good thought.” Barty’s low voice broke into her thoughts. “We probably disappeared off their long-range scanners.”
“That would work only if we could go stealth and still have maneuverability,” Trip replied. “Since we’re drifting on the trajectory of the last known coordinates their scanners have on us, all they need to do—”
“Trip, you might want to shut down your bookpad,” Devin said, without turning around. “Conserve power. We may need it later.”
Devin didn’t have to interrupt Trip’s comment. Kaidee knew the answer anyway. Yes, they’d gone cold. But if their pursuer stayed on course, it wouldn’t be long before short-range scanners and sensors defined that there was an object in their path that matched the specs and configurations for a medium-size jump-rated freighter like a Blackfire 225.
She pushed herself out of her chair—her console was useless—and headed for Devin as the dim glow of Trip’s bookpad winked out. Devin’s glasses still reflected the Rada’s display and highlighted his frown and the tightness around his mouth. He didn’t like whatever he was looking at.
“Reinstall the primaries,” she said. “We’ll take our chances, try to outrun them.” Try being the operative word. She doubted they could. But maybe there was another smugglers’ gate—someplace they could play duck-and-hide until she could get Devin, Trip, and Barty to the safety of the Prosperity. Something that was starting to look less and less likely.
Rebels and Lovers Page 29
