“This one.” He tapped the plex of a tube. “Going to be a snug fit for both of us,” he said with a little smirk.
“I find I take up less space than usual.” She gestured to her leg, revealed by the dress’s high slit, and punched the button to open the elevator door. “After you.”
He stepped in, turned around to face her, and she could see in the half second he went from warm smile to grave concern that he knew what she was going to do.
“Sorry, lover.” Sanda hit the door-close button quick as a whip and keyed in the express line to the personal docks. Tomas lunged forward, palms striking the interior of the plex, mouth opened as he shouted something the plex kept her from hearing.
And then he was gone, whooshed away into the bowels of the station, set on a safer path than the one she meant to follow. She hoped he’d make it. Hoped he’d take the key Biran had passed him and burn hard out of this system. Make his way back to whatever system his Nazca base called home, report to his superiors, and go about some other, safer task without her.
Maybe it was the chip. Maybe it was just plain old Stockholm syndrome. Maybe she had a gunner’s heart after all and couldn’t make the call a major should. She didn’t know why, not really, but Sanda’d be damned if she left a man behind without putting up one hell of a fight.
She stepped into an elevator and keyed it for alpha hangar.
CHAPTER 74
PRIME STANDARD YEAR 3543
THE WISDOM OF REPAIR BOTS
The elevator let her out at the edge of the hangar, just a few short walkways away from Bero. Sanda wished those walkways were longer. Then she might have time to figure out a plan.
Maintenance workers were absent for the time being, which was great, as she had no idea how she’d explain running around the hangar, without clearance, in a silk evening gown. She wished Tomas were with her—he was the spy, quick with answers—but pushed the thought away. He was safer making for Biran’s cruiser.
Sanda followed a catwalk around the midlevel of the hangar, using wayward supplies and equipment to cover her from view as often as possible. From up high, she was better able to get a good, long look at the lay of the ground.
Things had settled down around Bero. The endless convoy of parts being dragged out of his cargo bay had stopped, the guards who’d overseen that work retreated for the time being. She couldn’t see a single soul in the cavernous hangar, and that made her jumpier than anything. Just because she couldn’t see them, didn’t mean they couldn’t see her.
It also stank, rather strongly, of being a trap. But if she turned back now, Bero was as good as dead.
She found a ladder down to the level Bero was on and half slid down it, landing in a soft crouch. The metal of her prosthetic foot echoed on the floor. Hangars weren’t smoothed out for acoustics like the living and working areas of the station were. Here, where raw space was just a door away, every vibration counted, every noise could warn someone of something gone wrong. Not exactly keen sneaking-around ground.
Sanda tore a strip from the bottom of her dress, wanting nothing more than to make a joke to Tomas about being a heroine in an old CamCast, and wrapped it around the contact points of her foot until she could step without sounding like a mechanical army. She lost a little traction, but the leg was quick to adjust. She grinned and patted the coupling. At least it wasn’t completely for show.
The way, so far as she could tell, was clear. No guards lined the ramp that bridged Bero’s body to the hangar floor. Cameras must watch her every move, but unless she did something erratic, their security AIs weren’t sophisticated enough to mark her as a threat, not now that she was ranked a major. She had the clearance. On paper, anyway. So sneaking around like a thief probably wasn’t the best way to endear herself to those watching.
Sanda strode forward, shoulders back, head up, scanning the hangar as if she had every right in the galaxies to be where she was and knew exactly what she was planning on doing next. The champagne warming her system hopefully made her look more confident than she felt. Nothing like a little liquid courage when you were preparing to steal the most dangerous ship in the known universe.
She stepped into Bero’s cargo bay, and the world closed in a little tighter on her. He wasn’t here to greet her, to argue with her, even to lie to her. His voice had been silenced, and the hollow echo of her wrapped foot across his cargo floor sent shivers of rage through her. This was worse than anesthetizing a man and operating on him without his consent. This patient was awake, frozen, and silenced.
A muted, drawn-out beep made her nearly jump straight out of her fancy dress. She dropped to a crouch, taking cover behind one of the few mag pallets left behind, and waited. Nothing.
Then the beep again, a double punch this time.
“Grippy?” she whispered.
She’d last seen him hunkered down in the Hermes, hiding from the crew gutting Bero. The Hermes rested where she’d left it, severely lacking in cover now that most of the pallets had been hauled off. She forced herself to stand tall and walk straight over without a moment’s hesitation.
The cockpit plex was hinged up, the system lights dimmed to power-saving mode. Grippy’s little sonar eyes peered at her, and he hiccuped a double beep. He’d dragged himself into the backseat, scraping the pretty paint job on the ship in the process.
“I appreciate your redecorating, but you don’t need to hide in here, little guy.”
One short beep for no, which, considering the circumstances, could mean a lot of things.
“You think you need to hide?”
Beep.
“Huh. But you need to be in here?”
Beep-beep.
Grippy may have a brain the size of her fist, but hers wasn’t much bigger, and she was sure his was more efficient. She leaned over the edge of the cockpit, peering into the low light in the backseat. Grippy was messing with the access panels she’d pulled the broken air filter out of, his thick clamps having a hard time gaining any sort of purchase on the handles. He must be trying to fix the broken filter. That was his purpose after all. To help fix up Bero. And with the big guy out of commission, it only made sense that his programming would move him over to the nearest damaged ship.
“You’re not set up to fix the Hermes, and I need you to come and help me fix Big B, okay?”
Beep.
“Fine.” She really didn’t have time for this. “I’ll figure it out on my own.”
Beep.
“You don’t think I can?”
Beep.
She reached to grab the bot. His treads hissed on the fake leather seat as he rolled out of reach, clamp-hand pawing at one of the panels like a cat trying to break into the food cupboard.
“Look.” She hauled herself up so that her torso hung over the cockpit’s edge and strained, grasping the handle on the panel. “Nothing but a broken air filter. You can fix it later, I promise.”
She yanked the panel out. It wasn’t the air filter panel, but a long, sleek brick of black metal. Frowning, she turned it to its side on the backseat, leaning so far forward that her feet lifted off the ground. A line of LEDs ran along the far edge, symbols etched just below them, all flashing green. She turned it over, trying to remember where she’d seen something like it before.
Tomas’s signal jammer. The device he’d used to make sure they weren’t overheard discussing the chip in her head. His was smaller, slimmer, but the structure was the same. The symbols beneath the LEDs almost a perfect match. A signal jammer of that size could easily silence Bero.
“Grippy, you’re brilliant.”
Two beeps.
She dragged it toward her across the seat, looking around for any ready tool to bash the thing in. There’d been wrenches stowed in the bay’s side panels. Those would do.
“You’re a long way from the party,” Lavaux said.
Sanda dropped to her feet, pretending to have never seen the jammer, and stretched like she’d been going for a stroll. Lavaux walked u
p the ramp into Bero’s cargo bay, a cigarette dangling between his fingers, one hand on his hip as he surveyed what was left in the bay. Maybe three meters stretched between them, the Hermes a physical barrier. She smiled, stepped away from the Hermes, and leaned against a wall panel.
“I’ve been isolated a long time,” she said. “Needed to get a breather. I guess this ship still feels like a safe place.”
“Really?” He flicked ash. “I would have thought it was more of a prison for you.”
“It’s complicated.”
“I see.” He circled toward her, slowly, pretending to look around the bay but drawing closer to her with every step. “They’re looking for you. Wondering where their manufactured hero has run off to. Biran’s a clever boy, but he can only stall for so long. Luckily my dear wife keeps tabs on everyone of consequence. It’s why I married her, you know. Saves me the trouble.”
“Have to keep an eye on a lot of people, do you?”
“Me? No. But it can be useful. At the end of the day, I’m only looking for one man.”
“And who might that be?”
He was near enough to lunge for. Up close, his skin was eerily smooth. She slipped a hand behind her back, trailed her fingers across the cool metal of the wall in search of the panel’s release mechanism.
“His name is Rayson Kenwick. I believe you’ve met.”
She tried to keep her expression neutral, but she could see by the hungry gleam in his eye that she’d given away her surprise. Her fingers curled against the push mechanism.
“Never had the pleasure. We had better get back to the party. Maybe we’ll find your friend there?”
“Your brother was not careful when he watched the message from The Light’s captain on my ship. Kenwick was here.” He gestured to take in the ship. “And you, it seems, are the recipient of his misplaced gift.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Even she didn’t think her tone of voice was convincing.
He tsked. “Don’t fib, my dear. It’s unbecoming of a major to lie to a Keeper.” He twisted his wrist, and something dark and metallic dropped into his palm. “I think it’s time you and I had a little one-on-one.”
CHAPTER 75
PRIME STANDARD YEAR 3543
ONE MORE GOODBYE
The party swirled around Biran, indifferent to his pain. The smile he wore was tight, but natural enough to pass muster among those who did not know him. And no one at this party knew him. Not really. Those few of his cohort who’d finagled their way out of the Cannery and into the celebration stuck close to him only long enough to find someone older, more important, to drift off to talk to.
Biran couldn’t blame them. He wasn’t very good company. Every ounce of his willpower was funneled into not looking in the direction he’d last seen Sanda and Tomas go. Into not thinking about Anaia, locked up somewhere deep in the Cannery, unaware of the jubilation going on above her.
Did she even know he’d been successful in bringing his sister home? Would she care?
At the edge of the party, near the entrance the butler bots used to bring drinks and snacks out, Hitton approached Director Olver. Biran watched, grateful for the distraction, as Hitton leaned over and whispered something into Olver’s ear. The older man’s face wrinkled as he grimaced and nodded once, firmly, then set an empty glass on a butler bot’s tray. He offered his arm to Hitton, who took it, and as they skirted the edge of the party toward the exit, Singh caught sight of them and followed as discreetly as she could.
Biran frowned.
Keeper Shun appeared out of the crowd, her young face bright with a real, happy smile. The most unfettered expression he’d seen in weeks.
“Speaker Greeve,” she crowed with pride, placing her hand on his wrist while he struggled to watch Olver and the other Protectorate members over his teacher’s shoulder. “I’m so very proud of you.” Her smile widened to manic proportions. “I always knew you were special—your aptitude tests were the brightest we’d seen in decades, after all—but I’d never dreamed you would actually do it. That you’d bring your sister home.”
She kept on talking, praising him with a fervent passion that would have made his cheeks turn scarlet under other circumstances. Now, he couldn’t take his eyes—or his attention—off of the other members of the Protectorate, schooling together like fish toward the exit.
“Excuse me, Shun,” he said, forgetting to use her Keeper title as he gently removed her hand from his wrist. “It is good to see you again, but I have something I need to see to.”
Her brows pressed together in consternation. “Is everything all right?”
But he’d already slipped away from her, following Singh, Olver, Hitton, and Garcia out of the party and through the doors into the Cannery. They froze as a group, hearing the door open behind them, and turned around to face Biran. He said nothing, only crossed his arms and waited.
Olver sighed and shook his head. “We’d hoped to keep your nose clean of this.”
“I am a member of this Protectorate.” He scanned their ranks, swallowing as he realized Vladsen and Lavaux were absent. “And it seems we are not all gathered. What’s happened?”
“Nothing’s happened,” Singh said, stepping forward with her chin tipped up. “We are going to execute our duties.”
Something in the way she said execute made his skin crawl with sick realization. “Anaia. You’re going to hear her trial.”
“Trial?” Hitton shook her head. “There will be no trial, Speaker Greeve. You caught her red-handed acting as an agent of Icarion. The footage from the Taso has confirmed the fact, not to mention what we learned from the data scrub of her laptop. She’s been feeding information to Icarion for years. We go to remove her chip, for Ms. Lionetti is no longer a Keeper.”
Biran licked his lips. “You’re going to kill her.”
“We’re going to do exactly what we’ve said,” Olver countered. “You do not have to join us. A majority of the Protectorate is all that’s needed to enact a removal.”
“No. I should be there. Lead the way.”
Singh looked like she was considering a protest, but Garcia caught her eye and shook his head, causing her to raise her hands toward the ceiling in a shrug before stepping aside to let Biran pass. Cloistered in the middle of the pack, he followed as they filed into the elevator. Olver scanned his wristpad over the level selection and tapped in a floor Biran had never heard of, let alone been to: B.
“We don’t have a basement,” Biran said.
“Correct. It stands for Beta. We rarely need to use this section of the Cannery, but all members of the Protectorate have access. Even you, Speaker Greeve.”
“Though I don’t know why you’d ever want to come here,” Singh said, shivering lightly.
The door slid open. A dark hallway yawned before Biran, recessed lighting in the creases of the ceiling giving the grey-painted walls a sickly yellow glow. Sun-simulant lighting. The people kept down here weren’t expected to leave anytime soon.
Olver led the way past a series of unmarked doors to the end of the hall. He swiped his wristpad over the lock and the light shone green, letting them in. It took Biran a moment to understand what he was seeing.
Four guardcore, in their black-plated armor, stood around the four corners of a chair. It was the same kind of chair he’d sat in to have his Keeper chip implanted, the body thick with soft padding and the back shaped into a cradle to support the head while exposing the brain stem to the technician.
A chair in which Anaia was strapped. Thick FitFlex straps wrapped her arms to the arms of the chair, the inner space of her elbow exposed so that she could be given an injection. Her skin had already been swabbed, the shine of antiseptic and bandage plastics revealing she’d already been stuck. Her grey-green eyes snapped up as the door opened, locking onto him.
He should want to squirm, he thought. Should be embarrassed—ashamed even—that he was standing here, free, while his friend faced extraction. The memory
of her, bent over her laptop, that last look she’d given him that’d been real—and full of guilt—as he’d stumbled through her door haunted his every thought. His fists clenched.
“Has she said anything?” Olver asked as he took a tablet held out to him by a guardcore.
“No, sir,” the neutralized voice said.
Olver sighed, flicked the tablet off, and crouched before Anaia to be on her eye level. “I won’t lie to you. There is no undoing what you’ve done. Our technicians are combing every piece of correspondence you’ve ever sent. Every second you’ve ever been on video. We will figure out what you’ve sent to Icarion, and how long you’ve worked for them. That is only a matter of time. What we cannot figure out from the raw data, what we cannot know, is why? Why have you turned on your people, Ms. Lionetti?”
She slid her gaze away from Biran to match Olver’s, and she smiled at him, slow and predatory. “Then that is what you won’t know. That is what I’ll take with me.”
“Anaia—” Biran said, taking a step toward her. The guardcore shifted their stance, so he stilled and clasped his hands together in front of his abdomen, where they could see them. “I need to know. Please. Why would you do this? Why…” He swallowed. “What will I tell your parents?”
“Tell them whatever you’d like.” Her pupils dilated, widening so that they chased out the green-grey he’d known most of his life and transformed her into the alien creature she’d become. When she spoke again, her voice was slow, slurred. The sedation injection taking root.
“Did you find Sanda?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Her smile relaxed, lost its edge. “Good.”
“She’s ready,” one of the guardcore said.
Olver pushed himself up, knees cracking. “Then there is no sense in delay.”
Sweat gathered in the small of Biran’s back as Olver turned and took a chip injection gun from a guardcore’s outstretched hand. A click echoed in the room as he flipped a switch, transitioning the same device that implanted their chips—an only marginally risky procedure—to one that would remove them. It might as well have been a pistol aimed at the back of her head.
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