Bero said, “And the chip in your head keeps you from returning to your people.”
“You could have told me.”
“You would have attempted return regardless.”
He wasn’t wrong. Having spent weeks assuming herself the last of her line made it easier to accept she could not stay with her family. Now, just knowing they were alive out there, somewhere, was enough to give her hope. She planned to find ways to avoid detection. To keep the secret lurking in her skull from being uncovered.
“Where is the Protocol being built?” she asked.
“This is what you want? This is the path you think is best? Isolation for myself, death for my technological cousin, and a lifetime of hiding for you?”
“It’s the only plan I’ve got.”
“Leave,” he said.
“Bero—”
“There’s an air filter in the third mag pallet. Take it and return to your Keepers. Once you are safely away from me, only then will I transmit you those coordinates. But I swear to you Sanda, I will send them.”
“Why? How can I trust you?”
“You can’t. But I’m asking you to trust me. As a friend.”
“Why not now?”
“Because I believe you are considering staying on this ship. You are considering riding this carcass that is my body until the end of your days, hiding out from your people and your future to keep the secret in your skull safe. And there is a secret there, do you understand? I checked the log files. Rayson Kenwick was caught trying to hide, to blend into Icarion as an average citizen, and when questioned he refused—against torture—to explain why. He was hiding something, Sanda. Something in that chip in his skull.
“They never cracked it, but you have. They thought they were getting close, the last time they put you in your pod. But it wasn’t them. It was you. You know the password, deep down. You accessed the chip once, and you can again, if you wish to see what Kenwick had hidden. What you do with that knowledge is your decision. It never should have been mine. I am sorry for taking that from you.”
Her head felt light. “He hid something in the chip?”
“Yes. Whatever it is, you need to find out. And you can’t do that on me.”
Sanda was going to be sick.
“You swear to send the coordinates?” Tomas asked.
“I swear, little Nazca.”
He half turned to her. “We’re going.”
“Not without those coordinates.”
“Bullshit. He’s right. I can see it in your face. You think I followed you here because I thought you couldn’t do it yourself? You’re capable of damn near anything you set your mind to, and I see you setting your mind on something I really don’t like, right about now. I came with you, Major, to make sure you’d come back.”
He pulled himself across the ceiling with his good arm and bumped her forehead gently with his. “We can hide the chip. Let me help you.”
He looked ridiculous with his hair fluffed out around his head in low-g, his eyes bloodshot from too long burning the candle at both ends. But his earnestness was so very strong that she caught herself nodding. There was a reason she’d thrown herself into that evac pod with him. She wasn’t going to give up. Not yet. Not ever.
“All right, Bero. We’ll fix the filter then head back to the Taso and wait for your tightbeam. You know the transmit tag?”
“I do.”
Emergency lights flashed, the soft voice of the woman recorded for his emergency systems overriding Bero’s voice. Sanda winced at that, understanding for the first time how frustrating it must be to be so out of control of the functions of his own body.
“Incoming priority cast from Taso,” the voice said.
Keeper Lavaux’s face filled the screen.
“Good afternoon, Major Greeve,” Lavaux said. Biran was nowhere to be seen, but Singh stood close by, looking positively ravenous. “I see you were successful in discovering the whereabouts of The Light. Thank you for transporting the Hermes to its hangar, it made unscrambling its priority systems much easier. We are now obtaining direct control of its navigational systems. You’ll be a hero for this, Major.”
“You fucker.” Sanda yanked herself closer to the viewscreen. “Bero is an autonomous being. You have no right to take control of his body.”
“The Light, as determined by the Protectorate, is a rogue weapons system that must be brought to heel for the good of all. Our researchers will preserve the intelligence within, but the weapon must be disarmed.”
“The weapon in question is his propulsion system. You’re going to cripple him.”
He shrugged. “An unfortunate side effect. Please strap yourselves in while we catch The Light in a mag net. He is proving quite feisty. Things may get bumpy.”
“Where is my brother?”
“Seeing to his duties,” Lavaux said coolly. “Strap in, Major. I’d hate to bruise our hero. Capturing the Protocol single-handed. How brave,” he drawled, then reached forward, and the screen flicked back to black.
“Bero? Can you hear me?” she asked the deck. Silence answered. The soft whine of the engines kicking up reverberated throughout the room.
“We’d better strap in,” Tomas said.
CHAPTER 64
PRIME STANDARD YEAR 3543
CAPTURED FRIENDS
Within the hour, they had locked Bero into Taso’s mag net, the soft hum of his engines as silent as his voice. The screen lit back up with Lavaux’s stern face.
“We’re taking The Light to Keep Station for detainment and assessment. The trip will take three days. In the interim, you will be transported back to Taso and briefed on the situation back on Ada. I understand this upsets you, Major, but please do not resist. The Light is in safekeeping. We will no more destroy it than we would let Icarion.”
“He was prepared to tell me the coordinates of the station at which he was made. Do you understand that, in kidnapping and silencing this ship, you are allowing Icarion to further their development of a new Protocol? One more amenable to their goals?”
A flicker of irritation creased Lavaux’s practiced expression. “We could not have trusted any coordinates this ship sent us.”
“That is bullshit, and you know it.”
“Your trust in this ship is near pathological. From one officer to another, Major, check yourself. Your superiors are convinced that you are suffering from a variety of Stockholm syndrome.”
“Suffering from a conscience, maybe.”
“Prepare for transfer, Major Greeve. The Taso will send a transfer tube to connect with The Light’s primary airlock in thirty minutes. Please ensure your passage is less exciting than last time.”
The screen blanked. Sanda wanted to throw her shoe at it. “I’m going to stick that man’s head in an engine exhaust.”
“He played us pretty well.”
“Try not to sound so impressed.”
“Sorry. Professional interest. Next moves?”
“Unless you know how to pull this ship out of a mag net, get Bero back online, and evade an Ada gunfleet, I think we’re going back to Taso.”
“That’s not an ideal set of options.”
“Do you always talk like you’re at a board meeting?”
He grinned. “Again, professional tics.”
They unhooked and drifted up, using the straps attached to Bero’s ceiling to guide them toward the airlock. From a closet next to the ’lock, they pulled out helmets and lifepacks, and went about the cold, formal process of dressing and checking each other’s seals. Sanda didn’t speak, hoping Tomas was using the time to come up with a plan, but she had the distinct feeling that he was doing exactly the same thing.
As the inflatable transway clanked into place outside the airlock, Sanda thumbed her comms and said, “We don’t split up.”
“Count on it.”
The LEDs around the ’lock turned green, and the door hissed open. Keeper Vladsen awaited them at the other end of the transfer tube, a threes
ome of armed soldiers surrounding him. Their hands weren’t on their weapons, but they didn’t have to be. The threat was implicit. Mag boots gave them firm footing.
“Welcome back, Major Greeve. Congratulations on a successful mission. I can assure you the atmospheric pressure is stable in this walkway, there is no need for your helmets.”
She flicked her gaze to activate the external speaker. “Forgive me if I’m a little less trusting of these things after my last experience.”
“Understood.” He waved them forward and stepped to the side, allowing the soldiers to walk past him. Sanda’s heart raced.
“Bero does not appreciate uninvited guests,” she said.
The Keeper shrugged. “The ship must be secured. I understand you two were alone on it for many days, but it must be swept for Icarion agents regardless.”
Under the shelter of her helmet’s darkened visor, Sanda grimaced. In the lower left of her viewscreen, text appeared: S?
She whispered, even though the Keeper wouldn’t be able to hear her, “That you, Bero?”
Yes. Where am I? I have no more external input.
Sanda remembered her slow awakening to consciousness while being stuck in the foam of the evac pod, but unsedated. It had barely been a few minutes, and it’d felt like decades. Like she had gone mad. How long must it feel to Bero, whose thought processes were so much faster than any mortal’s?
“The Taso has you in a mag net. We’re going to Keep Station. I didn’t want this. They played us.”
Know you wouldn’t.
“Come on,” the Keeper said. Soldiers brushed past her. Tomas floated alongside her, head cocked, but silent. Just waiting for a signal of any kind.
“They’re bringing me on board the Taso,” she whispered, “have to go now. How can I help?”
Need break.
“Break?”
Too much info. Distraction. Needed.
“Hang in there. I’ll get you out.”
She popped her helmet off, forced a bright smile, and tucked it under her arm. “Sorry, just running some tests on the atmo in here. Your plastics are a little degraded, you know?”
The Keeper frowned at the walls of the passageway as Sanda pushed herself down the tube past him, into a section of the ship that must have been spun down to dock with a stationary Bero. Mag boots kept the Keeper on his feet, but he looked a little less respectable with his hair sticking straight up. A lack of gravity didn’t make the soldiers waiting in the wings look any less intimidating. She may have had some fans in the ranks, but Sanda had no doubt who they’d answer to if a quarrel broke out between her and the Keeper.
“Keeper Greeve is awaiting you in your room, Major. If you’ll follow me?”
As if she didn’t know the way. She smirked and made a show of extending her arm in expansive welcome. “Lead on, friend.”
It was hard to bite her tongue as the soldiers fell into step alongside their merry little party. Tomas rounded his shoulders and tucked his helmet under his arm, affecting a slouched walk that made him unremarkable, forgettable. Neither one of them wanted to test the length of their leash yet, and it seemed as long as Tomas remained unobtrusive the Keeper wasn’t going to tell him to kick rocks.
The Keeper led them into the spun habitats, gravity dragging her back down so that she had to get another crutch. He guided them to the room Sanda had occupied just a few hours ago and left her at the door, taking his soldiers with him without so much as a word. Sanda sneered at his back.
“What a pompous ass,” she muttered.
“At least he didn’t lock us up.”
“Yeah, that’d go well. I’m the returning hero, remember?”
He rolled his eyes at her and she waved her wristpad over the lock pad. Biran sat on the edge of her bed, a tablet between his knees, his hair wrenched askew as if he’d been tugging at it. He looked up the second the door dilated, scowled, and lifted the tablet.
The pale face of Bero’s deceased captain stared at her, the chip that Tomas had found the video recording on sticking out of the side of Biran’s tablet. It must have fallen out when he’d tossed the tablet on the bed earlier.
Her stomach sank.
“Is this true?” Biran asked.
Sanda grabbed Tomas’s arm and dragged him into the room, shutting the door behind them. “We need to talk.”
CHAPTER 65
PRIME STANDARD YEAR 3543
DAY FORTY HURTS
Is it true?” Biran demanded again.
She resisted an urge to scratch the back of her head. “Yes.”
He stared at the tablet in his hands, mouth open, lips slack with shock. He ripped the chip from the side of the tablet and gripped it tight in one fist. “Does anyone else know?”
“No.” Tomas took a step forward, unfolding himself from his nonthreatening posture. “I made sure of that.”
Biran laughed bitterly. “Fine job you did, Nazca, leaving this here on the bed for any member of the cleaning crew to find. What if it hadn’t been me? Do you have any idea what Lavaux would do with something like this?”
“Turn me into the same type of test subject you’re turning Bero into?”
Biran snapped her a look. “I had nothing to do with Lavaux’s stunt. I had no idea he spoke with you. As far as I knew, we were operating as planned.”
“All right.” She held her palms up to him. “I believe you, but we’re going to have to argue about this later. We’ve got a much, much larger problem.”
He dragged the back of his hand against his forehead. “Which is?”
“Keeper Vladsen just sent three soldiers onto Bero to look for Icarion stowaways. It won’t take them long to realize what kind of research was done on that ship, and who it was done on.”
“Dios,” Biran said. Tomas smirked, but Sanda didn’t know why that particular outburst was funny. “You’re an asset to them. They’ll want to study you, I’m sure of that, but they won’t attempt an extraction. If that chip really has been in your head two years, then they definitely won’t even consider it. We’ll get imaging done, then see.”
Biran stood and stuffed the tablet in his pocket but kept the chip clenched tight in his hand. “The Protectorate will listen to me. Don’t worry. This wasn’t your fault. You can’t be put on trial for something the Icarions had done to you.”
Tomas snorted. “The same people who urged Sanda to take off against Protectorate orders and planted a virus into an unsuspecting AI via a shuttle? Those are the people you trust to listen to you? Somehow, I’m not buying it. My organization is feeling a lot less shady than yours right about now.”
“The hell do you know about the Protectorate?” Biran snapped. “They—we—have been keeping humanity safe ever since we stumbled out into the stars. Lavaux’s an ass, but these people care, that’s why they’re chosen.”
“That’s the idea,” Sanda said, “but somehow I’m not feeling particularly cared about right now.”
Biran placed a hand on her bicep and squeezed. “Things are tense, I know. You’ve been gone a long time, and not well treated since you’ve been back. But I’m asking you to trust me.”
“You? Biran, you’re not asking me to trust you. You’re asking me to trust the organization you work for. And I’ve been witness to some deep crevasses in those ranks.”
“Give me a chance, sis, okay? I’m not the scrawny kid you enlisted to look out for anymore.” He cracked a smile. “Let me protect you for once.”
“And if you can’t?”
He placed the memory chip in her palm and folded her fingers around it, then covered her hand in both of his. “Then I’ll do everything in my power to get you away, safely. Whatever you want.”
She looked at her hand, curled around the chip that’d been left for her to discover. If the captain hadn’t recorded that message for her, she would have discovered the secret in her skull much later. Possibly during a medical check, in an already-secured Prime facility. She wouldn’t have had a chance.
“I need to ask you to trust me,” she said, holding firm even as she watched his face fall. “I’ve been surviving in a hostile system a long time, now, and I’ve learned to trust my instincts. I have a chance at freedom here. If I wait too long, that window closes.”
“But I just got you back.” The strain in his voice made her chest ache. She shook off his hands and gathered him into a tight hug, burying her face against his shoulder. He still smelled like the cologne their dads used, and that hurt even worse. She hadn’t even gotten to see them.
“I know. I missed you, too. But the Protectorate won’t let me run around with this thing in my head. There are rules to our civilization, and this is one we both know they won’t bend.”
“Where will you go?”
“If I tell you that, they can get it out of you.”
She pushed him back, held him at arm’s length, and tried to ignore the watery glint in the corners of his eyes. Grey had crept in around his temples, stress leaving its mark just as it had on Graham, but he was still her little brother.
“You heard what that captain said. Bero found something that spooked him. If I’m going to go to ground, I’m not going to stop working. I’ll still keep you safe, just from afar.”
He shook his head. “There’s no telling if there was any truth to Bero’s findings. We don’t have the information he was looking at, and even if we did, who knows what significance the AI found? It’s a poor thing, what Icarion did to Bero. I feel for him. I’m just not sure he’s sane enough to take as a reliable source of information.”
“He’s been wounded, that’s for sure,” Tomas said, “but I don’t think he’s completely lost his mind. Whatever else he is, he’s logical. That logic just gets a little skewed sometimes.”
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