"You're...I mean...I am?"
My confused tone of voice didn't throw him in the least.
"Yes, you are. When I first learned of its existence, I was inclined to see Branden Ursga's little spy cell as a major pain in my backside. But the operative you two flushed out has made me a believer. We had no triangulation on the signal that was sent from Spoke Plaza, but a directional simulation was run, based on a number of factors, and we hit paydirt. At approximately 02:30 today, an unauthorized vessel was detected in an elliptical solar orbit."
He pointed at a oblong circle on the floating map that glowed briefly in response to his movement.
"It was stealthed. A pretty good system, but we were looking for tell-tales, and it finally stood out. We do not believe it was the same vessel that destroyed the prototype, indicating that an extensive operation is in place. The intruder was challenged, and appeared to power up -- either to shift orbits, or to arm weapons. We chose to interpret this action as the latter. At exactly 03:17 hours firstshift, the Linebreaker Security Cruiser Liquidator fired a single pulse from its Number 4 particle cannon, and scored a direct hit. The enemy vessel was destroyed."
"How far was Liquidator at the time?" I asked, a gunner's curiosity rising immediately. In reply, he pointed to another orbit in the holo, which obediently highlighted itself. I whistled. "That's an impressive shot."
"Liquidator is an impressive ship," the man replied matter-of-factly. "Admin Security, or SpecSign as you seem to prefer, was instrumental in this operation. As far as I'm concerned, it has proven the wisdom of the Montaro BoD in retaining your independent status. I know a good idea when I see it in action, and I'm humble enough to reevaluate my own facts when the situation warrants it. As such, your Department is to be re-established on Mylag Vernier. You are to be allocated a budget, and be brought into the loop on all relevant security matters."
"Excuse me, my... Department? I think there's some misunderstanding. This was Branden's show. Without him, there is no Department."
"As the only member of SpecSign available at the moment -- all others on record were deactivated and out-shifted from the system -- you are now the ranking member of Admin Security Investigations. As an Alliance citizen, even one with a high security clearance, it will require a special waiver from Territorial Headquarters on Interstar to grant you a civilian ranking of CPM07 or above. The paperwork has been submitted for that, but until it comes through, you are to assume the rank of CPM06, and begin assembling a new team. Branden Ursga followed his lead to a very dangerous conclusion. A number of trained professionals have submitted POV reports, detailing the events of that evening, and the word incompetence has come up more than once regarding the way he charged in. You are now cleared to read those reports, and I expect to see your certified comments upon them, as a participant and eyewitness."
"Wait a minute," I broke in, all deference now subordinate to my fear and natural reticence towards management work, "I was hired to help investigate the destruction of the prototype ship, Jaybird. I obtained a position in R&D later on in order to continue the investigation from the inside. But I have no training in this. I'm a Civilian Class gunner; it's the only reason I was ever on the team."
"I'm aware of all that, Mr. Dosantos. But that was then. Don't waste my time arguing that things haven't changed. Whatever it was you were hired to do, you've shown competence and initiative in this arena, and you'll be working within it from now on. This is a promotion by several orders of magnitude. Most people would be extremely grateful."
"Most people aren't sitting here right now," I countered, probably looking as irritated as I felt. "You have the wrong man for the job."
"I have the only man for the job, according to the Board of Directors. You want to quit? Break your contract, and take the resulting fallout. Otherwise, stop interrupting this meeting."
The pall that had fallen over the room was odd to qualify. Amanda Kesselior face was so blank, it could have been her death mask. The others looked at me much the same way.
This was a meeting for the Big Guns, and Admin had insisted that their own little water pistol be included. These people were making it clear how they felt about that. They weren't sure what Admin was up to, and they absolutely did not trust me. The fact that I clearly didn't want to be included failed to mollify them. If I kicked up a nasty stink now, someone might wonder why. They might look at everything I did, day-to-day, and even put a tail on me -- a real one, with real people, if they hadn't already.
So I nodded, and sat back.
Nine Maelbrott continued to skewer me with his sharp stare for a moment longer, waiting. But I just gave him my own death mask.
The meeting went on for the better part of an hour, covering the events of the morning in greater detail. I had no practical way to take notes, since I hadn't expected to need to. Recording it all with retinals and bonecons would have only produced a massive media file I would have had to sift through later, and I wasn't willing to do that much work. Not for these people. I simply sat there in attendance, watching my new, supposed colleagues.
When the Nine ended the meeting, and dismissed us all, I caught up with Amanda Kesselior as she left the room.
"Don't you see how absurd this is?" I began.
"Everyone does," she confirmed, walking quickly. She was shorter than me, but I had to half-trot to keep up. "A man like Maelbrott isn't used to being over-ridden by the BoD. He sounded approving of their decision back there, because the meeting notes will be off to Corporate HQ with the next courier. But it'll stick in his craw for the duration, and he'll blame you, because you're handy. When your waiver comes through -- and it's likely to, since you have fans on high -- you'll be a Seven. I'll still outrank you, but in the Intelligence field, that's really not much difference. We'll be in distinct departments, effectively doing the same job. We'll step all over each other. It's redundant and stupid, and everyone in this star system in a position to have an opinion on the subject has already voiced it, negatively."
She marched out of the building as we talked, three people in uniform having joined up as her escort or entourage or whatever just as soon as we'd exited the meeting room. A large private roller was waiting, and she paused at its door.
"You want my advice? Bribe a doctor, fake an illness, and get out of your contract through a medical exception. Go back home. You're on the open ocean in a paper boat, Ejoq. You know it, I know, the Nine knows it."
Then she and her posse climbed in, and the car hummed away.
* * *
Floy, Ghazza, and Jake were waiting in ambush when I got back to R&D. CPS09 Maelbrott's staff had wasted no time outing me by sending the entire Department an update on my new status.
I could just see the Nine's gray features. I imagined him smiling. I imagined hitting him with a spanner.
Floyeen knew some people who had clarified the sparse memo for her, and she, in turn, had taken the other two aside.
Jake's office, having escaped the remodelling madness, was now the largest of anyone's, so we ended up in there.
"I didn't know anything about it!" I protested. "When I walked in, it was the first I heard about a new job."
"Why would they want you for some security service?" Jake demanded, sounding as pissed-off as he looked. "Were you with them all along? Spying on us?"
My heart sank.
The other two were looking at me expectantly, waiting for a denial -- waiting for me to fight with CPM06 Hammerhülse about his latest outrageous contention.
"Yes. I was."
Jake nodded, as if this was something he'd always known, instead of something he'd just come up with. Ghazza's dark eyes showed shock, while Floyeen simply frowned.
"There was that other guy we caught," Jacob continued, "Kwon, was it? He came in when you did."
"How could you do this?" Ghaz asked, hurt.
"Jaybird was shot out of the sky!" I shouted, because it felt like they were ganging up. "What did you expect? A bouquet of ro
ses? A door prize? Of course there was going to be an investigation! But that doesn't even matter. I've done the job you hired me to do since I've been here. And it's the only one I'm even qualified for."
"I heard they destroyed another spy ship," Jacob added, displaying that his chatty connections, whatever they were, were good ones.
"What? When?" Ghazza quizzed.
"Ask him," the big man grunted, waving in my direction from behind his desk.
"No, don't ask me," I instructed. "Don't ask anything at all. Instead, listen: just like what happened here in R&D, I never signed a new contract for...this other department when Team came in and took over. Technically, they can't hold me to the old one, so I could refuse this new position, despite what they think."
"If you want to work on this station at all, you'll take it!" Jake bellowed. "Because, I won't have you in R&D! You're a rat and a spy!"
"I'm a gunner! You people have no idea what's been going on. You build a couple of ships, then let them get destroyed. You fight with all the other Sub-Departments about every little thing. Two people died out there! Don't you get that? Someone made a call...someone sent them out after an unknown sensor contact. Two prototype freejumps, running off to do a warship's job!"
"Two ships?" Jake questioned, confused. "Where are you getting that?"
"When Jaybird was destroyed, another ship of the same type was just jumping in to help. It got caught in the blast and was also wrecked."
Ghazza and the big man looked at each other in perplexity.
"There was only one freejump out that day," my Weaponry boss stated.
"I have reason to believe otherwise."
"Well, it didn't come from here," Jacob dismissed.
"You're sure?" I pursued. "Because I did a lot of work on some quality sensor data that clearly showed..."
"Ejoq," Ghaz interrupted, "the only other freejump in existence is Cageless, and you've seen it for yourself stored away, safe and sound. You're data has to be wrong."
I was stymied by that, because I believed them.
I knew the simulation Chris and I had put together was spot-on, yet neither of these people were liars. If there had, indeed, been another ship out there, it must have come from somewhere other than Mylag Vernier.
"Alright, well, whatever. We can come back to that. But I still need to know who sent Jaybird out. Who gave the order? Do you guys even know?"
"No one sent them out to fight," Ghazza said, sounding even more confused. "Jaybird deliberately ignored instructions to return to a safe rendezvous. We told the investigators that, and filled out all the reports. They just took our comm and sensor logs, and told us to keep quiet about it."
I stared at her blankly, the wind very suddenly and very completely, out of my sails.
"I'm telling you, it was that co-pilot Admin brought in," Jake added. "What was her name? Kryor? Smelled ex-military. I never met her before that week. It was supposed to be another single-pilot test run until they waltzed her in."
"The reports I read stated that adding a co-pilot was a combined decision by all the Sub-D's," I said.
"When has that ever happened?!" Jake demanded. "I wasn't in any meeting about co-pilots."
"Neither was I," Ghaz threw in. "Nor any other project leader I've spoken with. I don't think it ever happened."
"Then what went on inside Jaybird?" I wondered.
"There's no way to know for sure," Ghazza replied, "but Kryor must have over-ridden the pilot, somehow, to take the ship off on her own."
"How was she going to over-ride Benjamin Uoule?" Jake demanded -- this, obviously, an old argument between them. "He was a primary engineer on the project, as well as the pilot! He knew the system inside and out, and he was a big guy, to boot. She couldn't have forced him to do anything!"
"Well, we know Kryor turned off comms just before they jumped after the Intruder. Maybe she had a gun or something."
"Why would she attack him?" he dismissed, then fixed me with a dark look. "You still here?"
"Wait a second," I snapped. "Are you saying you already provided this information to the investigators? I've read all their reports -- all your statements. I never saw anything about anyone turning off communications."
"And why is that my problem?" Jacob spat. "Oh yeah, because it brought Ejoq Dosantos into my life. You're fired! Get out!"
"No," Floy intervened, speaking for the first time. "I knew he was part of some sort of special investigation. No details, but it was tacitly approved from over my head."
"Well, you're new here, too," Jake barreled on, characteristically unaware of when to shut his mouth. "Just because you and your Team flunkies can walk in here, and..."
"If you finish that sentence, Mr. Hammerhülse," she interrupted, her voice flat and very hard, "I promise that your Security Classification will get bumped down so low you won't be cleared to wash toilets on this station."
"Go ahead and try it, lady," he retorted. "I've got more friends here than you know."
"If you have even one, it's more than I know about," Floy responded, acidly.
"Just stop it!" I bellowed, and they did. "It's done. The investigation...my investigation is over."
"You mean...that's it?" Ghazza queried. "You could have asked us these questions on the very first day. Why all this...nonsense?"
"Because, I was told..." I shook my head in pure wonder. "It doesn't matter what I was told, or the reports I was given. They were faked. It was a cover-up. If Kryor was pushed through by Admin, then Team had reason to distrust the Board of Directors. They would withhold certain facts while they looked into it more deeply. But the Montaro BoD must have suspected Team of keeping secrets, so it created its own investigatory group: SpecSign."
"That's all guess work," Floy said.
"Well, I admit some things still aren't clear. The freejump's attack was especially aggressive. Stupidly so, in fact. And the fight could have gone either way."
"The Intruder got lucky, you mean?" Ghaz asked.
"Well...its gunner was probably...pretty good," I hedged, "but, yeah. In simple terms, it was lucky and Jaybird wasn't. Why Team covered up what they found, I don't know. Maybe they're using it as leverage at the Upper Management level to get what they want. I imagine they would have done anything to take control of this project."
"Don't even start with that!" Floy puffed up. "I won't hear any talk about a Team coup-de-tat, if that's where you're going. It's simply ridiculous."
"Take a breath, that's not what I mean. Questions of a cover-up and influence pedalling aside, Team doesn't want civilians in charge this, because civilians would mean Admin, and they don't trust Admin anymore. There are moles here. A true spy ring. CPM10 Farlington, who sponsored Branden Ursga, might be trying to stop them. Or he may very well be one of them, I don't know. It would explain why Maelbrott isn't fighting too hard to be rid of me: putting a total novice into a solo security position would allow Team easy oversite of Admin investigatory activities on-station. Heck, they'd control much of what I saw and did. If this Farlington is a traitor, then I'm a serious security problem, even if I don't know it myself. This is their way of isolating a possible enemy agent they can't rid themselves of just yet."
They all sat there, pondering my assertions -- even Jake. He hadn't moved. His hands were still clasped behind his head, forehead wrinkled in concentration, piggy eyes small and angry.
"If you don't take the position," Floy said after a bit, "you'll likely be deported."
"Or they could just lock you up," Ghaz threw in. "Classified military operations aren't going to be derailed by anyone. They'll see to that."
"Please!" Seven Nuellan spat. "Can we leave paranoia and anti-Team drivel out of this conversation?"
"Talking to all of you right now is my insurance against anything like that," I told them. "If Team comes after me, they'll have to go for you three as well, and they'd have a hard time justifying important members in R&D being bounced."
"Not if they think we'
re in on it!" Jake ventured, sitting up at last. "They could see this as an R&D conspiracy, and charge us all!"
"They already know it isn't."
"Couldn't they arrest you just for talking to us, siting breech of contract?" asked Ghazza. "You signed NDA's about this stuff, didn't you?"
"Questioning you three is well within my mandate for AdSec. That's how I'd argue it, anyway."
They were silent for a bit, each thinking, I'm sure, exactly what Ghaz finally voiced.
"So, what do we do now? What do you want from us?"
"Nothing more. You've thrown a little light on something that's been bugging me from the beginning."
"And you expect us to just go back to work, to business as usual?" she pursued, unconvinced. "How am I supposed to do that? You have me starting at shadows, Ejoq!"
"You'll go back to work and do your jobs, and ignore anything that isn't your jobs," I pressed harshly. "Civilian applications of this tech will alter the face of every free market in governed space. Military applications could redraw the map entirely! I'm conviced someone wants those changes to go in a very specific way, and they'll take out anyone they see as a threat."
"But who is it?" Floy asked, looking desperate for something to hold on to. "Who's behind all this?"
I stared at the wall, but didn't answer.
It was getting lighter in here.
The murkiness was starting to part, revealing something ugly and big and hidden up to that very moment. I had that sinking sensation again; this time, it felt like I was drowning, drowning in the light.
Because there was only one power in space that had the foresight, motivation, and technical expertise to initiate these kinds of deep espionage operations; to manipulate the politics and perceptions of nations; to place agents within secret facilities and elite board rooms alike.
United Humanity.
OOOOOOOOOO
A youngish woman in a suit, sitting on the Montaro side like me, perked up quickly with, "We object to the use of the word abscond -- it implies that a Montaro employee was engaged in some kind of pilfering or theft, which we have already stated was not the case."
Risk Analysis (Draft 04 -- Reading Script) Page 34
