by J. N. Chaney
“No,” Kira said. “Densmore is calling me.”
Thorn heard a faint, repeating hum from Kira’s comm. He waved at it, telling Kira to go ahead and take the call. She nodded, unclipped an earbud from the comm, lifted it into place and activated it.
“Wixcombe here, ma’am.”
Thorn waited, resigned to hearing one end of a conversation while dinner got cold.
Kira made a face, pointed at the earbud, then gestured to the door. “Yes, ma’am, I can be alone. Just hang on a moment, please.”
She stood and muted the comm. “Be right back.”
“Uh-huh.”
Kira left Thorn’s cabin, closing the door behind her. He rolled his eyes up in disgust. Densmore seemed awfully determined to keep in pretty much constant touch with Kira. Unfortunately, the Hecate was just close enough to be in real-time comms range to the Stiletto, which was up to some spooky business or other in an adjacent sector of the Zone. That would change tomorrow, when the Hecate made her next Alcubierre hop, closing half of the remaining distance to their intercept point for the distress message from the Pool of Stars. Until then, though—
The door opened and Kira came back in, clipping the earbud back to her comm. “Sorry about that. I did leave the Stiletto kind of abruptly, and had some things going on.”
“Not a problem,” Thorn said, waving a hand. “Honestly, I’d rather you stay as close as you can to Densmore.”
Kira sighed as she sat down. “Thorn, it’s been three years. I’ve been with Densmore virtually all that time—oh, and by the way, talk about taking one for the team.” She curled her lip. “Alys Densmore isn’t the easiest person to work for. And she’s not a spy for the squids.”
“If that’s true, then we have no explanation for how your op got compromised and you got captured, or how the Fleet was lured into that Nyctus trap in the first place.”
“Thorn, there are lots of places that could have leaked along the chain.”
“With no evidence any of them ever did,” Thorn replied. “Tanner has friends in various high places and discreetly had them check records of comms, audit logs, signals intel data—” He grunted, once. “Actually, Tanner is really well connected, now that I think about it. No wonder he manages to keep getting away with turning down an up-posting to a bigger ship. That’d be a career killer for most Captains.”
“Thorn, if Densmore is compromised, then it’s in a way that—”
A hum from her comm cut her off. She glanced down at the preview display and sighed.
“Really?” Thorn said flatly. “Again?”
Kira spoke as she stood. “She had a question. I gave her a reference to look up—I guess she did that and, well, has more questions.”
“Is the outcome of the war going to turn on you resolving all of this stuff before dessert?”
Kira shot him a look of apology and left the cabin again.
Thorn crossed his arms. This is bullshit.
Could Densmore be aware of the fact he and Kira were meeting and was deliberately trying to sabotage their conversation? Kira still insisted she had things to talk about with Thorn; it had something to do with the Vision, he was sure, but now Kira seemed the one reluctant to open up. She’d apparently experienced the Vision differently than any other Starcaster, the little girl appending a message intended only for her before—before it ended. Kira seemed to think it was a warning, intended for him, because he was the one who’d be seeking the Star Pool.
If that was the case, though, why hadn’t she sent the warning to Thorn directly. She was obviously a latent Starcaster, and a powerful one, so she had the means. Why send it to Kira? Could it be meant for her?
The door opened and Kira came back in, but she didn’t sit down. She opened her mouth, but Thorn cut her off.
“You have to go and do something for Densmore. It’s urgent and can’t wait.”
“I’m sorry, Thorn.”
He put his fork down with care. “Doesn’t surprise me, really.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t help feeling she knows you’re trying to spend time with me, and she doesn’t want that to happen.”
Kira stopped and stared at Thorn. “What the hell are you talking about? How would she even know?”
“She’s a Starcaster, Kira. And a damned good one. She’s one of only a few that can Join over interstellar distances, remember?”
“She’s not in my mind, Thorn. I’d know if she was.”
“I don’t think she has to be. She knows you well enough that she can probably just skim your surface thoughts, and do it without you even knowing it.”
Kira narrowed her eyes. “Okay, this is getting a little ridiculous, Thorn—” She stopped and shook her head. “No, not ridiculous. Paranoid, more like.”
“The Nyctus have compromised people into Skins, Kira,” Thorn replied, his tone hardening. “It’s a genuine, serious threat. A little paranoia isn’t necessarily a bad thing, when you might have an agent of the enemy sitting at the workstation next to yours.”
“This isn’t a little paranoia, Thorn. This is a lot of paranoia. I mean, think about what you’re saying here—that Densmore is sitting light-years away aboard the Stiletto, putting the effort into keeping her awareness focused on me, just so she can disrupt our dinner plans.”
“If she doesn’t want us to talk—”
“We could talk any time. She can’t possibly monitor me constantly.”
“Honestly, Kira, you don’t know that,” Thorn grated. “You don’t know how much of a threat Densmore considers you to be, or how much she’s prepared to invest in keeping track of you.”
“You think she considers me a threat?”
“You’re one of the most powerful Joiners in the Starcaster Corps. Maybe the most powerful. Of course she considers you a threat.”
“Only if she’s actually compromised, and again, Thorn, I don’t believe she is.”
Thorn pushed his meal away. “Kira, look—”
“No,” Kira snapped. “You know what? I don’t have the time or the energy for this right now.” She turned to the door. “I’ll get back to you about your new colleagues, and whether they might be spies, too. Anyone else you suspect? Tanner, maybe? How about me?”
A dozen things tumbled through Thorn’s head, a barrage of responses he could fire back at Kira. All of them were some version of trouble. Instead, he let silence rule for a moment, taking the cloud of anger away to be replaced by resignation and exhaustion. Those, he knew well.
“Goodnight, Kira.”
She locked eyes with him for a moment, seemed about to relent—
Then turned and left.
Thorn looked down at his dinner. The gravy had started congealing into something gelatinous. He dropped his fork again and gave up. Even the best ship-board food wasn’t good enough to consider eating cold.
One step forward. One step back.
9
Thorn had already pondered his next move for several minutes and decided to come out swinging. He pushed forward, aiming to assume a dominating position, from which he could threaten either of his opponent’s flanks.
His opponent reacted immediately, lunging straight for his only real vulnerability—
“Check,” Brid said, smiling.
Thorn leaned back. This was the fourth game of chess he’d had with Brid, and he hadn’t won one yet.
Thorn considered the board, then tipped over his King. “I’m seeing checkmate in four moves, and there’s not much I can do about it, so—yeah.”
“Three moves, actually,” Brid said, moving her pieces to demonstrate. Thorn shook his head.
“Well, shit.”
They shook hands, and Thorn stood. “Well, I have a duty watch shift coming up on the bridge,” he said. “Maybe I’ll give you another chance to wipe the deck with me tonight.”
Brid grinned. “Once you get used to my style, you’ll be the one consistently beating me, sir. Happens every time—I have the
upper hand, then it all gets turned around. I’m used to it.”
Thorn smiled back. “Ah, so it’s something about your style that I need to suss out, huh? Good to know.”
“Of course, that might just be what I want you to think, sir,” Brid replied, winking. “Oh, by the way—I thought Starcasters were normally exempt from doing duty watches.”
“Not aboard the Hecate,” Thorn replied. “Captain Tanner expects every officer aboard to be able to take command, if they have to, and manage at least a halfway competent job. That includes yours truly.”
He grinned and left with a wave.
As soon as he was out in the corridor, though, his grin vanished.
Thorn didn’t mind losing to Brid; hell, he knew he was a decent chess player, if not a brilliant one. But he’d never faced an opponent like Brid, who seemed to know what his moves were going to be before he did. He typically spent time considering his move, then made it, and Brid immediately responded with a move of her own.
And it wasn’t just chess. He’d watched her repeatedly win at poker, blackjack, and euchre; she’d also defeated the Hecate’s champion player of CQBSIM, a close-quarters battle simulator that was, in theory, meant as a training tool, but that frequently got used as an elaborate computer game by the crew.
Brid was an intel wonk—supposedly. But she seemed awfully capable in CQB for someone whose background was linguistics and cryptography.
He’d spent less time with Dart who, as an engineer, was more interested in his own kind. He mostly hung out with the Hecate’s engineering crew and had racked up an impressive amount of winnings from the games he played with them. It wasn’t real currency, of course; Tanner allowed games like poker on the understanding they were to only be played for bragging rights, not create real-life debts.
So Brid and Dart were good at everything they did. They’d done exemplary work on the Pool of Stars op, drawing insights and proposed courses of action out of the data that Thorn hadn’t even considered. Both seemed ready to answer every question he posed to them, in the moment, without consulting references. Brid in particular seemed to have a way of anticipating the things Thorn was going to want or need.
And yet, Kira insisted they were clean. She’d surreptitiously used her Joining to peer into their minds and found nothing to suggest they were compromised by the squids, or anyone else. Thorn had no reason whatsoever to doubt her, which meant that should be that.
But it wasn’t. Thorn resisted doing his own peeking into their minds, simply because while he might have Kira’s sheer power as a Joiner, he didn’t have her finesse. He’d wouldn’t be quietly peering into their thoughts; he’d be breaking in and rummaging through them like a burglar, and a none-too-subtle one at that. So, all he had to go by was his own observation of their exemplary behavior, as well as Kira’s findings—and the fact that their final screening before being assigned to this op had been done by, or at least under the supervision of, Alys Densmore.
Tanner had brought that little gem to Thorn’s attention. “Thought you’d be interested to know that we weren’t the first rendezvous the Mystic had. They made a stop along the way.”
“Where, sir?” Thorn asked.
“The Stiletto.”
Tanner hadn’t said anything else, but he hadn’t needed to. He was in the know regarding Thorn’s concerns about Densmore’s loyalty and had been instrumental in getting Kira assigned to the Stiletto in the first place. So, he’d just given Thorn a bland look, then left him to carry on. Sometimes, unspoken things sounded loudest, especially with an officer as capable as Tanner. He could lift one brow and issue an order; with a look he could issue three.
In fact, the only thing that made Thorn truly doubt that Brid and Dart were Skins or spies was that it was too obvious. Competent spies generally didn’t draw attention to themselves by being supremely capable and competent, to the point of being over-the-top about it. These two didn’t seem to care, though, and were happy to flaunt the ways in which they were seemingly better than anyone else—and that was in essentially all the ways.
Thorn turned to his terminal and once more called up the personnel files he’d been sent regarding Brid and Dart. As their current commander, he was entitled to full read and write access to their files. Nothing in them set off any alarm bells, which was itself a problem. Like them, their files were just too clean, too neat, too perfect.
He studied the screen and its odd story of flawless competence, then cleared it, stood and reached for his cap. He needed to talk to Tanner. If anyone could get access to the records that weren’t being shared with Thorn, it would be him. Because there would be such files. Spooks maintained their own records, most of which were heavily classified, and some of which weren’t even formally acknowledged as existing in the first place.
It would be a longshot whether Tanner could get access to them, though, and he might not even want to. It would almost certainly require calling in yet more favors at Fleet, and Thorn wasn’t sure how many of those he had left.
Favors were like aces. You held onto them until the moment was right.
Tanner called Thorn into his quarters shortly before the Hecate’s final Alcubierre hop to intercept the distress signal. The Captain had actually kept the destroyer on station longer than the original timetable for the op projected, so he could remain in real-time comms range of an ON relay station. Fortunately, the timetable was entirely at his and Thorn’s discretion, so it didn’t provoke any questions from higher authorities regarding the holdup. As far as anyone else was concerned, Tanner needed real-time comms with ON headquarters for a while longer yet, and that was that.
But apparently, he’d finally heard something. It had only taken half a day, at that, so it didn’t even set the op timetable back much—certainly well within the slack they’d deliberately built into it, to account for unexpected delays like this one.
“Stellers,” he said, when Thorn entered and closed the door. “Sit down.”
Thorn sat in the designated chair. He could immediately tell that Tanner had something of substance to tell him—something more than, sorry, came up dry, can’t help you.
“I’m about out of favors at Fleet,” Tanner said. “And I actually owe a few now. But I was able to get an overview of Fleet intel’s dossiers on Specialists Bridmante and Justice.”
Thorn nodded. “Anything you think I should know about, sir?”
“That they’re apparently as good in the spook world as they are anywhere else. They seem to be the people Fleet intel throws at their toughest problems, because they know they’ll deliver.”
Thorn nodded again. “Okay, sir. But?”
Tanner gave a thin smile. “But, they were recruited by, and spent most of their careers to date working either directly, or indirectly, for—”
“Captain Densmore.”
“Right first time,” Tanner said. “You could say that these two are Alys Densmore’s protégés.”
Thorn leaned back. “Well, shit. That’s not good news.”
“I thought Wixcombe checked them out at your request, and they turned out clean.”
“She did, yes.”
Tanner frowned. “So what are you saying, Stellers? That you don’t trust Wixcombe, now?”
“Oh no, sir, it’s not that at all. I’m sure that Kira—Lieutenant Wixcombe—did her best to try and uncover anything to suggest they aren’t what they seem to be.”
“So are you saying the squids can hide their . . . implanted influences, or whatever, and do it so well that even Wixcombe couldn’t find it? I gather she’s pretty good.”
“Oh, better than pretty good, sir. Probably the best. But we don’t know much yet about how the Nyctus are doing what they do to the Skins, so we aren’t really sure what they might be able to do or hide from us.”
Tanner let a ripple of disgust cross his face. “So you’re saying we might have Skins aboard the Hecate after all, because you couldn’t detect them? That’s a worst-case issue, Stellers.”<
br />
“I know it is, sir. But it comes down to—I don’t know what I don’t know. We know that we can magically detect the Skins we’ve discovered so far, but does that mean we can detect all of them out there?” He shrugged. “There’s no way to know that, sir.”
Tanner leaned back and stared at Thorn, contemplating him for a moment.
“So, from your reaction to all this, I’m assuming you still don’t trust that Densmore isn’t a spy for the Nyctus.”
“Another thing I don’t know, sir. There’s a lot of circumstantial evidence, though.”
“I spoke to Wixcombe. She believes Densmore is clean.” Tanner’s eyes narrowed in a curious way. “So, are we looking at another example of possible collusion involving Wixcombe?”
“No, sir, I don’t think so—”
“Incompetence?”
Thorn gave his head a hasty shake. “No, sir. Kira’s one of the most—”
“So, inability then.”
Thorn had to nod this time. “It’s possible.”
“How about innocence?” Tanner asked. “Is it possible that none of these people are compromised, and you’re seeing the squids insinuating their tentacles into things, when they aren’t?”
“Yes, sir. That’s definitely a possibility, of course. But if we’re wrong, we face leaks of crucial info—or even worse—to the Nyctus. It seems to me a little caution is justified.”
Tanner stood. “Alright, Stellers, I’ll back you on that, if that’s your position. But that means you have to make a hard decision here. If you believe this, that the squids are manipulating these people, then you have to include Wixcombe in the suspect list. She’s involved in all of it. She’s the one who’s been working with Densmore for the past few years and is now trying to convince you she’s clean. She’s the one who investigated our two mission specialists—again, Densmore’s people—and insists they’re clean, too. Oh, and let’s not forget she got herself assigned to the Hecate only days before those two showed up here.” He shrugged. “Could’ve known they were coming, right?”
“Sir—"
“She’s also the only one of all of them who’s been a prisoner of the Nyctus,” Tanner went on. “In her own debriefing, she described how they manipulated her mind to make her think she’d managed to escape them, as a way of digging information out of her.”
