Unraveling Conspiracy (Forgotten Fodder Book 3)

by MJ Blehart

  “Nice of him to say that,” Smith said.

  Onima gestured at Kara. “Deputy Marshal Teru Smith, this is Deputy Marshal Kara Martinez.”

  The pair shook hands. “Deputy marshal?” Kara said.

  Smith grinned. “Sometimes even working on things that should be unnoticed gets you noticed.”

  Onima gestured again. “This is Special Consultant Jace Rojas.”

  Smith didn’t hesitate to offer Jace their hand. “I have heard about Mr. Rojas from Samarin. Is it true, Mr. Rojas, that you saved the Aquila after her sabotage?”

  “Yes,” Jace said.

  “I would love to hear that story at some point.”

  “Just wait,” Kara said. “If Jace doesn’t care to tell it, someone else will.”

  “Are you ready to get to work, Deputy Smith?” Onima asked.

  “Absolutely,” they replied, then added, “Please, go ahead and call me Teru.” Teru looked at Feroz’s workstation. “Agent Jones worked here, correct?”

  “Yes,” Onima said.

  Teru nodded. “Typical setup. I know Jones didn’t have a lot of implants, relatively speaking, but that’s a personal choice.” They took a seat at the station, rolled up their sleeve, and tapped on the underside of their forearm.

  Jace watched, fascinated, as a panel on Teru’s forearm slid open. They withdrew a connecting cable to plug into the terminal.

  “That’s freaky,” Kara said, echoing what Jace was thinking.

  Teru grinned. “Ever since I was ten, I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to be capable of merging with infodrives and computer tech while still maintaining my humanity. When I was in school for cryptanalysis, coding, info tech, and everything else I could study, I learned that a professor had been working on experimental implants with an engineer. I volunteered, and this was what I got.”

  Teru snaked the connection to plug into the terminal. They visibly shivered a moment after it was plugged in.

  “Never gets less awkward,” Teru remarked. The visible implants at their temples shifted, and a moment later, narrow metal arms presented, extending just past the tip of Teru’s nose. A holographic screen appeared between the metal arms, which only Teru would be able to see.

  “Damn,” Onima said. “I haven’t seen anyone with that sort of tech since I was on the team that busted Noguchi and his gang.”

  “I learned about that case,” Kara said. “A gang stealing tech and performing illegal upgrades, implanting themselves and others. They were purported to be as present on the infonets as they were in person.”

  “Oh, they were a piece of work,” Teru said. “Funny thing is, they barely scratched the surface of what was possible with what they had.”

  Jace had no idea at all what they were talking about. For the first time in a while, he was feeling slightly out of his element.

  “Do you really think you will find something in the infodrives?” Onima asked. “No offense, Deputy—sorry—Teru, but Feroz was the best cryptanalyst I’ve ever worked with. I think he made sure he left nothing behind.”

  “Oh, I have no doubt Feroz was good,” Teru said, “but unless you physically destroy the infodrives, it’s virtually impossible to spike them and wreck them and their data completely. Particularly when you’re talking about a multiple-redundancy memory machine like your ship’s central computer system.”

  Teru sat with their hands on the screens in front of them, but unlike Feroz, their fingers were not moving. The physical connection they had made with the terminal likely gave them mental access far faster than tapping at icons and digital keys. “You should know that, since Special Agent Jones had to have set up his plans for the explosion in advance, it’s no surprise he destroyed the Alcubierre-Natario Warp Drive.”

  “Why is that?” Jace asked, beating his colleagues to the question.

  “Because it offers the most bang for your buck—literally. It’ll breach the hull and do serious damage to the ship, but since the A-N drive tends to be isolated, it causes an impressive shakeup without killing anyone. The ship remains mostly intact, but not going anywhere. I suspect being close enough to the atmosphere to get pulled in was not Jones’ intent—but then again, it might have been a clever way to kill everyone without being directly responsible for their deaths.”

  “Why not just destroy the computer systems?” asked Kara.

  Teru was clearly focused on something else while holding their conversation, but answered nonetheless. “Several reasons. First, there are far too many redundancies to get all the systems without destroying the ship. Which makes escape impossible. Second, doing all that damage renders the ship completely disabled, including life support and gravity. And third, computer function can’t be fully disabled if you want to access a pod and make an escape.”

  “That bastard,” Kara said.

  “Feroz probably has had this plotted out and ready to go since he came aboard the ship,” Onima said without emotion. “He was ready to run if and when he was discovered.”

  “He was caught when he was a hacker,” Jace remarked. “He probably learned to always have a contingency in place from that experience.”

  “Gotcha!” Teru called out.

  “What is it?” Onima asked.

  Teru was still focused on the holographic screen only they could see, but they were grinning. “Oh, he really is good—I will give him that. But I’ve managed to recover, I’m guessing, at least 75 percent of all CBI data, and in the process, I will be restoring about 90 percent of the starship’s overall data core.”

  Kara’s eyes went wide. “That’s incredible,” she said.

  “Okay....” Teru said, distracted. The holographic screen in front of their eyes vanished, but the small metal arms from their implants remained extended as they looked at the trio. “I have transferred all CBI data to the Daedalus and into a secure infodrive I am taking off the shipwide network. It’s possible, when I go over it further, that I might be able to restore and recover more.”

  “Good work,” Onima said.

  “Well then,” Teru began, standing. The tiny metallic arms had vanished, as did the cable that had extended from their forearm to the terminal. “Shall we get off this deathtrap and get you all settled aboard the Daedalus?”

  4

  While the Daedalus was much the same as the Aquila, there were some notable differences.

  First, everything was simply newer. The viewports were a slightly different shape and a bit larger. All the compartments—though laid out the same between both ships—were spaced somewhat differently, and also just a bit larger.

  Jace’s assigned quarters were just like those he’d had on the Aquila, except that, once again, everything was newer and larger. He still had to admit that having even more space to call his own was disconcerting.

  He had not seen the bridge, engineering, or the shuttle bay. But when he reached the MBCC, it was noticeably different.

  There were four offices, just like there had been on the Aquila. Onima had taken the same space she’d had before, while Kara was assigned the one next to it.

  But the layout of the rest of the MBCC’s stations was very different.

  All the stations were larger, so that two or three people could work at any one station even though only one was assigned to each. The furniture, again, was new, and the desks a different style than on the old ship.

  They were arranged quite a bit differently, however. Rather than the offices being off to one side, they were more to the front. What was more, each workstation could be partitioned via a forcefield for privacy.

  Aft of the MBCC were large conference rooms alongside the port and starboard external bulkheads. Both had viewports out to space.

  Onima invited Jace to see her office. It was considerably larger, featuring a more prominent desk and a couch to one side in addition to the chairs before the desk. And she had a viewport.

  Kara’s office was smaller than Onima’s, but not tremendously so. It lacked the couch because that si
mply would not have fit. It, too, had a viewport.

  Teru’s workstation was near the forward offices. It was quite a bit larger than Feroz’s had been and arranged very differently. Part of that, Jace suspected, was to accommodate Teru’s implants.

  “Have you taken a look at the medical bay?” Onima asked.

  “Not yet,” Jace replied. “Haven’t checked out the shuttle bay either.”

  “Taking a tour of the Daedalus is an enticing idea,” Onima said, “but we’ve lost five days already, and I would like to get back to work on the data Teru has recovered.”

  “Yes,” Jace agreed.

  “There is one more matter before we check on Teru.”

  “What’s that?”

  Onima led him to the workstation to the right of Teru’s. “This is yours.”

  “What?” Jace asked, taken aback.

  Kara came out of her office to stand beside Onima. “You are a consultant and should have space in the MBCC to work from. We agreed this is the ideal spot for you.

  “Just FYI,” Kara added, “the rest of the staff agreed you need your own station too.”

  Jace was at a loss. He was a clone. Clones did not receive spaces to call their own, nor respect. This was a lot to wrap his head around.

  Which, fortunately, Onima recognized. “Let’s just leave that for now,” she said. “Time to check on Teru.”

  They joined the new cryptanalyst at their workstation. There was enough space to accommodate four to six people around Teru’s station. Teru had the holographic visor in front of their eyes and the cable extending from their left forearm and plugged into a terminal.

  “We’re ready to see what you’ve recovered, Teru,” Onima said.

  “Great,” Teru replied. “Unfortunately, what I’ve recovered isn’t ready for you just yet.”

  “What does that mean?” Kara asked.

  “Agent Jones was nobody’s fool,” Teru said. “Hence, he was well aware that his spike of the system might not successfully delete all the data. He also knows that the CBI has me and a few other advanced cryptanalysts who might be able to undo the damage he did.”

  “So, he may have intended to crash the ship into Aarde, after all,” Jace said.

  Teru shrugged, but otherwise didn’t take their attention away from what they were doing. “Possibly. That would have made data recovery much less likely.”

  “Did you know Feroz?” Onima asked.

  Still not looking away from their work, Teru smirked. “Who do you think caught him in the first place? I was working with Marshal Bianchi when he was hacking.”

  “You were Lashawn Bianchi’s cryptanalyst?” Onima said.

  “Yes,” Teru replied. “But when I became a deputy marshal, my governor became Deputy Director Samarin.”

  Onima looked relieved. Jace recalled, from Feroz’s story, that Bianchi’s governor had been Director Rand.

  “Oh yeah,” Teru said, “and there it is.”

  “What did you find?” asked Kara.

  “A trap,” Teru said. Then, in a strange tone, they called out, “It’s a trap!”

  Kara and Onima both gave Teru an odd look.

  They sighed. “Doesn’t anyone ever watch classical twentieth- and twenty-first-century sci-fi movies?”

  Neither Kara nor Onima said anything. Jace had never seen a movie - unless you counted training videos during his reskilling.

  “Anyhow,” Teru continued, “I found a trap Feroz left behind. It was well buried, nicely hidden—and if it had been sprung, he would have spiked the Daedalus’ infodrives.”

  “Oh, that would have been bad,” Kara said.

  “Worse,” Onima added, “we’re still docked with the Aquila. It would have made matters particularly unpleasant.”

  “Feroz knows his stuff,” Teru said. “And, no, the recovered data still isn’t ready for you.”

  “More traps?” inquired Onima.

  “Likely,” Teru said. “If I were spiking a system and knew that someone might have a chance to recover it, I’d put in at least two more redundant traps. Really cocky cryptanalysts would find one and be done. I’ve watched more than one CBI agent fail that test.” They chuckled. “And there’s number two. This one would only have spiked this particular data, not all the ship’s infodrives. That’s a limitation you get when you embed a trap that deep.”

  Jace recalled watching Feroz work. His hands would fly across the screen, tapping at icons and keys to open, move, and finesse data. Teru, however, had no screens, as they were directly wired into their terminal via their implants. They sat with their hands on their thighs, for the most part.

  Jace had met a human or two with this level of implanted tech before. Often, though, they still maintained a pretense and kept their hands on their screens and such. Teru clearly couldn’t care less what anyone else thought of them being literally wired in.

  “Almost done now,” Teru said. “One more thorough sweep, and I’ll feel okay making this data available. Feroz was one of the best, so we can’t be too careful.”

  “Agreed,” said Onima. “He’s already managed to set this investigation back enough as it is. I’d rather not have him continuing to interfere with us even though he’s gone.”

  “Wise call,” said Teru.

  Jace noted how Teru seemed deeply focused on their work. It was something Jace had seen Feroz do more than once. Like the world around them didn’t exist at all.

  “Okay,” Teru said, “I believe I have everything. But—and I cannot emphasize this enough—if you come across anything that makes you feel the least bit twitchy, have me check it, please. I am 99 percent sure I got it all, but Jones is very good at what he does, and I know most—but not all—of his tricks. So be careful - but have at it.”

  “Do you mind if we join you here?” asked Onima.

  “Frankly, I prefer it,” said Teru. “And please understand, I am not spying—we’re all on the same team here, after all—but I want to keep an eye on your work to make sure nothing surprising or detrimental turns up.”

  “I presume you are limiting access to this terminal, then?” asked Kara.

  Teru smiled. “Yes.”

  The trio sat and began to look at the data. While it appeared at first glance that nothing was missing, it wasn’t long before Jace realized some of the connections they had made were no more. The lines drawn from one point of data to the next were simply gone.

  “Well,” Onima said, “it looks like the biggest thing we’re missing is some of the specific connections that Feroz had made between data bits.”

  “Yes,” Kara agreed. “Like company directors and former leaders of the NEEA and NECC.”

  “I might be able to recreate that data,” Teru said.

  Jace had already started to look it over. “This,” he began, “is the list of known company directors of Gray and Chuang. Names of various people associated with those directors who had connections or ties to the NEEA or NECC during the war.”

  “Ah,” Teru said. “You are making connections to see who might be behind the conspiracy.”

  “How much do you know?” Onima asked Teru.

  “Besides what I have found while going over this data? Deputy Director Samarin gave me a synopsis of your report. He wanted me to know what I was getting myself into when he assigned me here.”

  Jace, at least, felt better knowing that Onima’s trusted governor had shared sensitive information with their new cryptanalyst. Glancing at Onima, he could tell she felt the same.

  “Well,” Kara said, “we know about the connection between Vladimir Bettani and two or three Gray and Chuang company directors.”

  “Let’s see,” Teru mused aloud. A moment later, a screen within Jace’s holographic screen popped up. “If we draw in the lines, we connect these directors to Mr. Bettani.”

  Jace came across a name that felt as though it caused his heart to skip a beat. “Teru, who is Diane Nazari?”

  Teru’s head shifted ever so slightly as they st
arted to run a new inquiry. “Diane Nazari....Well, isn’t this interesting? She was an undersecretary of state for the NECC.”

  “State?” questioned Onima. “Did she go to trial?”

  “Checking,” Teru said. Data appeared on the screen in front of Jace. “Yes, she did. She was brought up on a number of different charges but found not guilty.”

  Kara clicked her tongue. “Yeah, technicalities. Ms. Nazari always managed to show that she was never present when certain decisions were made, that she came in as an undersecretary well into the war itself and made semi-credible claims that she tried to stop the war machine.”