Transmuted (Dark Landing Series Book 1)

by Robin Praytor

  For the hundredth time since she’d left Earth, she reviewed everything that had occurred before her dad went missing. Not that she had much to go over. It all seemed so normal: a business trip to Mars Settlement for subsidiary meetings. Two of Taleen Industries’ subsidiaries were applying for additional operating capital.

  They ate dinner together the night before he left. Afterward she sat on the edge of his bed chatting about nothing in particular while he packed a small bag for a two-day trip.

  He contacted her on the second day saying he was extending the trip—a common occurrence, nothing to cause concern. A week passed and neither she nor his staff could reach him. The company’s Mars office said George left Mars after two days as planned. A Taleen security staffer escorted him as far as the company’s private spaceport, but the ship’s captain said he’d never re-boarded.

  Three weeks later, frantic and despairing of ever seeing him again, she’d received an in-file message addressing her as “Sweetheart.” No one else called her that. It said only that there was a present for her in her makeup case, one she used when traveling. The unsigned item was without a date stamp or a return address. When she checked her case she found her dad’s handwritten instructions:

  Letty,

  Please leave Earth as soon as possible without anyone knowing. Make your way to the Dark Landing space station and Security Chief Andrew Cutter. Chief Cutter will protect you. Stay with him until I contact you. I’ll explain in detail later. Trust only Cutter and me. Be safe, my sweet gypsy daughter.

  I love you,

  Dad

  She’d found the data vials only two days out from Dark Landing. They were covered with makeup sponges in a side compartment of the case where he’d left his note. She’d stashed them in a hidden pocket of her duffel bag. Surely they’d discovered the vials by now; though, without her DNA, they couldn’t access them.

  Somehow she must get those vials back and locate a processor. The processor unit she’d taken with her, along with a few pieces of jewelry and a sum of K.U. script, disappeared between the time she’d dropped her duffel off for scanning and when it was delivered to her bunk. Her complaint to the Temperance purser only resulted in a these-things-happen shrug.

  Petty thievery was rampant on cargo ships, which operated without the standards or level of security of high-end passenger carriers. The missing processor inconvenienced her, but neither it nor the jewelry held any real value. Either she didn’t leave enough script in her luggage as a bribe, or she’d been robbed by a dishonorable thief.

  The processors in the public area offered no privacy. People were always waiting their turn. Interstellar travelers kept to their own time zones until they reached their destinations, and the ship’s crew worked in around-the-clock shifts. She thought it unwise to access the data vials until she was alone and with time to explore their contents.

  A week later, sitting in a holding cell on Dark Landing, she still hadn’t accessed the vials. But she’d found Chief Cutter, who acted a slack-jawed idiot around women. Strange, since he wasn’t bad looking—she assumed he got his share. I easily overpowered him, she thought, smiling. But maybe that was due more to catching him off guard than to my rusty combat skills.

  None of it mattered. He didn’t know her father and knew as little about why he’d sent Letty to Dark Landing as she did. There must be a mistake. Dad would never entrust me to someone so clueless. But how many Chief Cutters can there be on Dark Landing? Why here anyway? Light-years from home, she saw no hope of finding her dad on her own. At least his note proved he was alive. She would cling to that knowledge for courage while she waited for contact.

  The air pressure changed at the telltale whoosh of the hatch opening, followed by the sound of boot steps approaching her cell. It’s about time they checked in on me. For all they know, I hung myself hours ago.

  Cutter, with another man and a woman, came into view between the bars.

  “Hello, Miss Taleen. I see you’re okay and being well treated,” Cutter said.

  “You’re kidding me, right? You’ve thrown me in jail for no reason and left me here to rot. No, I’m not okay and I’m not being well treated!” Did that sound as whiney and desperate to them as it did to me?

  “You’ve given me more than enough reason to lock you up. But you aren’t being charged . . . yet. I want to introduce you to my associates. This is Chief Fitzwilliam, head of station administration, and Dr. Jameson, Medical Chief. Together, we run Dark Landing. We’d like to talk to you, if that’s okay?” Without waiting for her response, Cutter palmed the door and the three of them crowded into the cell.

  “You mean interrogate me. Sure, I’ve been expecting it. Doctor, are you in charge of the torture bots?” Childish! I should just shut up already.

  “You don’t have to answer any questions, but it would help us understand your situation better if you did,” Drew said.

  Dr. Jameson perched at the far end of her cot. The other two stood against the cell walls. Cutter leaned back with one foot crossed in front of the other, hands in his pockets. His casual self-assuredness recharged her earlier anger.

  “Miss Taleen,” Jameson started, “this isn’t an interrogation, and we won’t be using torture bots . . . at this time.” She smiled at her own little joke.

  When Letty refused to acknowledge the lame attempt at humor, the doctor adopted a more serious demeanor and continued. “I assure you, we don’t have ulterior motives. We want to hear your story and learn how we can help. Drew said you and your father are in trouble?”

  “Yes.” Letty paused to consider her situation. Her dad’s note said to trust only Cutter and himself. Did that trust extend to the people Cutter trusted? She wasn’t sure it did, but she saw no other option or a reason hold back what she knew—which was precious little.

  It didn’t take long to relate her story. No one interrupted while she spoke. When she finished, the three of them remained silent for several seconds, processing the information.

  She used the time to study the chiefs. Dr. Jameson was older than the other two, perhaps in her mid to late fifties. A natural blonde, she was graying at the temples. Trim, with straight posture, and wearing a white lab coat, she appeared kind and parental.

  Fitzwilliam had yet to say anything to her. He stood there trying, but failing, to look stern and disapproving. He was shorter than Letty, not over five-foot-five or six, late thirty-something, with a rumpled appearance, as if he was wearing someone else’s clothes. She wanted to like both of them in the same way she’d instinctively disliked Cutter. She considered herself a good people-judge, and her first impressions proved correct more often than not.

  Dr. Jameson pursed her lips, about to speak, when Cutter answered his com patch.

  “Yes, Mattie . . . I see . . . okay. Why don’t you join us? We’re having a little party in Miss Taleen’s cell.”

  To the group: “It seems Mattie may have more information for us.”

  They waited expectantly the few seconds it took for Mattie to join them. The cell was crowded, so she stopped just inside the door frame. Cutter nodded for her to begin.

  “We completed a data search on George Speller and ran a comparison of his profile against yours,” she said, addressing Drew directly. “We didn’t find a link between the two files or any sign that you’d ever met. But we uncovered a three-month-old request from Mr. Speller to review your CoachStop personnel record and your academy psych profile.”

  Drew’s eyes narrowed. To Letty, he seemed unhappy to learn about the search into his background.

  Mattie went on, including the rest of the group. “Also, we confirmed George Speller is considered missing by the authorities, though the public doesn’t seem to be informed yet. We only found one press reference.” She read from a hand-held processor. “‘The always illusive head of Taleen Industries is even more absent from the corporate scene than usual.’”

  She looked back to Drew, waiting for his sign to continue. He nodded once
more.

  “A preliminary review of CoachStop Management shareholders and the Temperance’s ownership didn’t turn up interests by Taleen Industries, but we’re still looking into that.”

  Letty waited for Mattie to get to the meat of her report. As interesting as it was, nothing she’d said so far warranted interrupting her boss’s meeting.

  She delivered the next bit with a curious look in Letty’s direction. “The palm print we ran from Chief Cutter’s desk scanner came back belonging to Rebecca Ann Richards, not Katherine Leticia Taleen.”

  Letty grimaced as they each turned to her with suspicious looks. “Try running a local search for the file name, but include a dash and the words ‘true story’ at the end,” she offered.

  Mattie relayed her instructions to Kyle, and asked him to respond to their combined coms. Letty squirmed under intense stares as everyone waited for the results. After several seconds, all four sets of staring eyes widened and postures relaxed all around.

  “Well, that’s settled then. It appears you’re who you claimed,” Drew said, looking mildly surprised.

  “But it makes the next piece of intelligence interesting.” Mattie glanced at each member of her audience to emphasize the importance of what was to come. “Jonas Trammel, the Temperance crewman who died in yesterday’s airlock explosion, was an employee of Taleen Industries and worked at their corporate headquarters on Earth.”

  All eyes returned to Letty.

  Chapter 8: Interrogation

  “I need to speak with Miss Taleen alone. I can fill you all in later, if you don’t mind,” Cutter said.

  Without comment, Dr. Jameson and Chief Fitzwilliam left with Mattie in the lead. Dr. Jameson gave Letty a sympathetic glance over her shoulder as she went.

  Cutter hadn’t altered his position against her cell wall, feet still crossed, hands still in his pockets, but his countenance darkened. Letty suddenly felt threatened. She disliked the man from the first, but she hadn’t been afraid of him until now. If anything, she’d thought he seemed like a harmless buffoon. He’d imprisoned her, but that was understandable after her little display in his office.

  The trick with Chief Cutter’s desk had been a stupid mistake. She couldn’t let her pig-headed emotions get the better of her. But he’d made her so angry. And she was scared and close to losing it, realizing she’d come all this way to find he knew less than she did. She’d felt an inescapable desire to prove to herself and to Cutter that she was in control.

  Letty tried to hold his gaze without blinking, but when he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, she jumped tellingly. She was alone in a cell with a total stranger. Even if he’d looked harmless when they first met, he could still have a cruel streak, and she had made him look the fool in front of his men.

  After a few more seconds of silence, he stepped away from the wall toward her. She gasped, drawing her legs up and hugging them against her body, pressing herself as tightly as possible into her corner. The space between them was too close to draw on hand-to-hand combat. She wouldn’t catch him off guard a second time. An ineffective groin kick would only incite him.

  Without slowing, he reached past her and palmed the processor panel above her cot. He issued verbal commands to activate the recorder, then stood back and looked down at her stonily.

  “You’re a little jumpy, aren’t you? Now this is an interrogation. You’re not required to answer my questions, and you can have a legal advocate present during questioning.”

  Letty considered it for several seconds and shook her head. “Not now, but I might ask for one later.” She saw no reason to bring a third party into the mess she’d made.

  “Okay,” Drew continued, “let’s hear your story again from the top, and this time include Trammel’s part in it.” His tone was disarming, even menacing.

  “I don’t know Mr. Trammel. I really don’t.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I . . . I can’t, I guess, but I don’t remember ever meeting anyone by that name.”

  Cutter tapped his com patch. “Mattie, send Trammel’s image to Miss Taleen’s monitor for me.”

  The wall monitor resolved into an image of a Taleen employee profile, including the picture of a pleasant-looking man in his mid-forties. His title read “Research & Development Engineer II.”

  She gave Cutter a slight shrug, then shook her head. “I’ve never seen him before.”

  She couldn’t tell if he believed her or not. “Look,” she continued defensively, “Taleen Industries and its subsidiaries have millions of employees. If you include ex-employees, well, this is just a coincidence.”

  “You don’t recognize him from the Temperance either?”

  “No . . . I guess it’s possible Dad had someone keeping an eye on me. He might not have told me. He knows how I hate that. We’ve gone to a lot of trouble so I don’t have to have security tagging along everywhere I go. But, if he thought I was in danger . . . .”

  He studied her a few moments. “All right. Again, what brings you here?”

  She told her story again and twice more at his prompting. He kept pressing for minor details, trying to catch her in a contradiction. She quickly ran out of patience and decided she would refuse to go through it all a fourth time, when he changed the subject.

  “How is it you have system access at Dark Landing?”

  She flinched. “I’m not able to discuss that with you. But I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done it, and I promise it won’t happen again. Please believe me.” She was in dangerous territory now.

  “Since you apologize so politely, I’ll ignore that you have the power to destroy this station and everyone on it.”

  Letty knew Drew’s sarcasm was for effect only. System safeguards wouldn’t allow her to destroy the station. She also knew it would be gross negligence on his part to dismiss her system access based on her apology alone.

  “You understand I’m responsible for the more than six thousand souls on Dark Landing?” he said.

  With a nod, she studied the cell deck to avoid looking at him. To tell the truth would violate Taleen’s confidentiality agreement with the Earth Technology Oversight Commission and possibly make public an inconceivable security breach which could endanger Earth, the Alliance, and Taleen Industries. She’d never been so ashamed of herself.

  As disappointed as she was in herself for misusing that access, she knew her father would be even more so. Worse, Cutter would soon sort it all out and learn she’d been lying.

  When she entered his office yesterday evening, she’d recognized the desk immediately as one of Taleen Industries’ tech pieces. It was the only Taleen-designed product, or any tech product since the end of the twenty-fourth century, that had suffered a security breach. They’d deployed code to check every desk sold for foreign nanoids like those found in the same model unit at Taleen Industries’ home office. It was assumed the nanoids were of alien design since none of the company researchers could discern their origin. They had little to show for months of investigation.

  Perhaps taking her silence as refusal to answer his question, Cutter continued. “Letty, you give me no choice. I’m filing preliminary charges against you for unauthorized access to station systems and your suspected connection to the airlock explosion and death of the Temperance crewman. In my experience, once Earth authorities review the charges, in situations as grave as these, they’ll send a deputation to escort you back to Earth for arraignment and trial. You’ll stay in custody here until then. I can keep the press away, which isn’t a problem this far out, but that’s all I can promise.”

  The press! Somehow that, the use of her common name, and his softening tone, brought into clearer focus the severity of her situation. Once again, she found herself without options.

  “I’ll try to explain,” she said, nervously glancing at the processor recording her statement, “but only to you.”

  Cutter issued a cease recording command and disabled his com.

  “It’
s the desk,” she said immediately.

  “The desk?”

  “The specific model of processor desk in your office. You must have requisitioned it within the last year.”

  He nodded and shrugged.

  “It’s designed and sold by a Taleen Industries subsidiary.” She sighed. “You’re not going to believe this.”

  “I’m sure I won’t, but keep talking.”

  She cast a furtive look around the small cell, trying to compose a plausible last-minute explanation that wouldn’t expose the entire truth. She couldn’t. She had to trust him, or accept that her father trusted him. The word trust suddenly became alien to her in the way repeating any word over and over seemed always to do.

  Resigned, she shook her head and looked at Drew. “About eighteen months ago we discovered something . . . someone . . . breached the security protocols of that model processor desk. Fortunately, it was one of our company units and not a customer’s.”

  He snorted. “Impossible.”

  Letty went on. “Right, that’s what we thought. We located and disabled the offending nanoids, but not knowing who put them there meant it could happen again. And we still don’t know their purpose.”

  All existence depended upon technology. The success or failure of each planet in the K.U., its security, the strength of its economy, and the health and wellbeing of its citizens, as well as the sustainability of the Planetary Alliance, was measured in direct relationship to their combined ability to secure their technology. Without tech security and the stability it provided, there could be no advancement, no sharing between civilizations, and no peace. While the occasional authorized user might act unethically or with criminal intent, those instances were rare, and modern tech was thought to be airtight against external attacks.

  “How could you keep anything of this magnitude a secret? You’re right, I don’t believe it.”