Mutiny at Vesta

by R. E. Stearns

  “The way things are now, it can only come together.” Ogir took a pull from his beer, and beads or clips in his black dreadlocks clicked against each other. “This,” he waved his unoccupied hand at the projected mass of information, “is all Oxia, according to what you stole from the datacenter, and it’s also almost all contracted. No local government anywhere, and Sloane’s crew, well . . .” Ogir pointed to a small corner near the floor, shaded gold and surrounded by Oxia red. “Maybe don’t show this to the captain yet.”

  “No,” Adda said firmly. “It’s not ready. We have this now, and we want to turn it into this.” She whispered to her comp, and the projection flickered to a new configuration. This one was more like a decorated Christmas tree with text on all the ornaments. Sloane’s gold area of influence perched at the top, with two green and blue areas beneath, labeled Rheasilvia and Albana. Red Oxia orbs clustered near the base.

  “No station governments,” Ogir said as the projection reverted to the chaotic state it was in when Iridian first saw it, “to puppet station governments that Captain Sloane controls.” The projection changed back to the Christmas tree model. “Sloane will control more of the ’ject than before the captain and Tritheist got trapped on Barbary Station, because Oxia consolidated Vesta’s infrastructure contracts last year. And the council, meaning Sloane, can keep the people employed and making money in the meantime.”

  His neutral tone suggested that he didn’t care about the impact this conspiracy might have on the station populace. Iridian trusted Sloane’s judgement, but she’d made the choice to rely on it. The Vestans wouldn’t be offered a real choice of station leadership. That was kind of fucked up.

  “But we’re missing details on the conversion in the middle,” Adda said. “So it’s not ready.”

  “Yeah, that sounds like the hard part.” Iridian sat on the couch arm beside Adda. At least Vestan welfare was part of the conversation, if not their primary consideration.

  “Forget the diagram. We didn’t make it for you.” Adda shifted to press her shoulder against Iridian’s hip. “Here’s the simplified version: Step one, convince Sloane it’s all feasible. Step two, leverage the stolen Thrinacia Project data to get Sloane out of the contract with Oxia. Step three, publish it all anyway, with all credit to Dr. Björn and without bringing Oxia’s lawyers and enforcers down on ver, while protecting ourselves.”

  Ogir turned away from the projection to look at Adda. “What are we crediting the astronomer with?”

  “Vis part in the research,” Adda said. “Ve discovered the interstellar bridge, and history’s going to remember that discovery. For once, I want it to remember the right person. Besides, those papers ve wrote on it never got published. That’s a big loss of time and effort.”

  Ogir was smiling when he looked back to the projected diagram. “That’ll catch everyone’s attention, lowest plebe to the NEU prez. At which point Captain Sloane gets all the big interested parties to make Oxia’s occupation here impossible.”

  “And everyone can use Vestan stationspace to test the new ships they’ll all be developing,” said Adda.

  “Not in stationspace. That’s eight kinds of unsafe,” Iridian said. “They’ll dock here. Anyway, if those interested parties can push Oxia around, they can push us too, yeah?”

  “Unless . . . ,” said both Adda and Ogir at once. They looked at each other for a couple seconds, until Ogir raised his beer to his lips. “Unless they have a reason not to,” said Adda.

  “Everybody knows where Sloane is right now,” said Ogir. Iridian gave him a confused expression at the leap between topics. “All of us are being watched here, most of the time. We need to take what’s keeping Oxia independent from the governments and make that ours.”

  “The fleet.” Iridian’s eyes widened. “That’ll be a hell of a job.”

  Adda gave her one of those smiles that meant she had a secret Iridian was just going to love. “We know where to start. Oxia’s thoroughly documented its intention to kidnap and threaten family members or friends—”

  “Or a ferret, in one case,” said Ogir.

  “The ferret counts as family.” Adda’s smile faltered as she continued, “Whenever somebody steps far enough out of line, Oxia gives them one warning about their endangered relative. If the contracted employee tries to break contract or makes any further trouble, Oxia kidnaps someone important to the employee.”

  Once Iridian finished swearing, Ogir added, “They might’ve gotten away with it if they’d included that provision in their contracts somehow. A lot of Vestans would’ve tolerated it, even if it wouldn’t have flown in NEU space.”

  “Twelve ranked crewmembers in Oxia’s fleet already have missing loved ones, and those are just the people we’ve matched up with kidnapping orders in the records you took from the datacenter,” Adda said. “The important part is that we have Oxia’s documented plans for the rest of the fleet personnel. If you received evidence that Sloane was doing something like that to you and me, what would you do?”

  “Validate the information. And then, something bloody,” Iridian growled.

  “Or,” said Ogir, “you’d maybe change sides and ally yourself with a criminal organization that’s motivated to take Oxia down.”

  * * *

  Which was how Iridian ended up playing spy in a venue bar crammed between Rheasilvia Station’s two enormous port modules. She settled at a bar with bottles behind it, one or two of which might’ve been real and contained liquor. The 167-degree projection stage was showing a small ship race that kept zooming off the left end of the stage, which caused excited shouting from those on that end. The ships reappeared at the right end and traversed the stage again.

  A projection of stationspace covered the ceiling, with a frame at the edges of the projection to remind patrons that the hull was still intact. No ships were coming in or out at the moment. Stars glittered clear in the cold and the black beyond Rheasilvia Station’s latticework exterior, giving the illusion of stability while the station spun beneath them.

  Ogir says the fleet commander is near the right side of the projection stage, Adda whispered in Iridian’s head. And the commander’s comp is connected to the station net, so I can confirm he’s somewhere in that building.

  Iridian turned toward the race on the stage while she used her peripheral vision to scan the crowd for a tallish guy with brown skin and nice-enough clothes to be an officer. She spotted him cheering with a couple other guys and shouting advice at two fliers maneuvering side by side. One swerved away to pass and the other got in front again to prevent that, resulting in more shouting from the officers by the stage.

  “Got him,” Iridian muttered.

  The next part was Ogir’s idea, and if it didn’t work Iridian would kick his ass. She fiddled with her new wedding ring, the replacement she’d made that incorporated the braided wire from the original makeshift one into a wide, white-gold band. She feigned surprise when it slid off her finger and bounced into the crowd by the stage.

  “Fuck!” she exclaimed loudly for anybody who might’ve been watching. Ogir was, and he’d assured her that some contingent of Oxia’s station security force and at least one ITA agent was watching too. She dived into the crowd after the ring, because she sure as hell wouldn’t lose it on this little trick.

  It’d rolled toward the wrong end of the stage, so after she grabbed it off the floor she pocketed it and pretended to keep searching for it, nearer and nearer to the target, shoving at people’s legs as she went. Somebody kicked her, accidentally or not, but she finally ended up next to him.

  Okay, doing the passing thing, she said, as much to herself as to Adda. This was her only shot at this part of the plan. She put her back to the bar and the exit, where Ogir said the stationsec cams were, grabbed the target’s comp arm with hers, and yelled, “Hey, I dropped my ring and I think you’re standing on it” over the projected race noise, about five centimeters from the target’s face.

  He frowned in understanda
ble annoyance when he had to look away from the stage. In the course of getting his attention and pointing at the floor, Iridian got her comp glove near enough to his, she hoped, for Adda to do her thing with their comps’ proximity sharing function and his open connection.

  Iridian couldn’t get her ring out of her pocket convincingly enough to pretend to find it on the floor while the target was watching, so she lunged at a shadowed spot of floor instead. “Got it, thanks!” she shouted. She returned to the bar, put her ring on, and examined it for scratches.

  Less than two minutes later, the Oxia fleet commander stepped up to the bar next to her, looking like he’d like to make a scene but had been sufficiently persuaded to just be grouchy. “How the hell did you make that message look like it came from Oxia HQ?”

  Iridian grinned at his consternation, and ignored the rude response she thought of first. “I married well. That the only question you had?”

  Fleet Commander Qasid frowned. “You’re Iridian Nassir, yes? The pirate.”

  “That sounds pretty good.” Iridian grinned a bit wider. “More important for you, I’m Adda Karpe’s wife.” The change in his expression was subtle, but marked. He was much more interested that Adda was reaching out to him than Iridian. She’d be jealous if she weren’t so damned proud. “She came across the list attached to that message while she was looking for something else. Thought you should have it. And if you want to do something about it, she’s got a plan.”

  Qasid’s comp glove bore a military-looking insignia she didn’t recognize with small print words around the circular border, maybe representing a division of his fleet. The comp was projecting a mostly empty message inbox. One of his buddies by the projection stage yelled something at him, and he waved back with his other hand. After he skimmed the list Adda had found in the stolen copy of Oxia’s HR data, he glared at Iridian. “What the hell is this, and where did it come from?”

  “It’s what it looks like.” Iridian watched him in case he reacted too publicly, or violently. Discovering that your employer spying on you and your family, and that it’d already picked which detention center to send each family member to if you looked like you’d do something that hurt the company, had to be a nasty shock. “As for where, well, you know Adda. No computer system she can’t crack.” As Adda had said, the real story of how they came across that information wouldn’t help him make the right decision.

  “Why? What can I do about this?” His voice was so choked with emotion that Iridian had to resist leaning toward him to hear more clearly. That’d draw too much attention from whoever was watching.

  Iridian had turned her back to him, playing for the cams that he’d tried to pick her up and failed. Ogir had thought it was a good idea, but she felt stupid doing it. With her back to Qasid, she couldn’t tell if he was pissed or scared. If it were her family and Adda on that list, she’d be angry as hell. “What you can do is hit Oxia before they get a chance to follow through. They’re not sending your fleet to make these arrests, are they?”

  “Stationsec,” Qasid spat.

  “You can’t stop them by yourself. Same with us,” Iridian said. “Adda’s got a plan, but she needs most of your fleet combined with all of Captain Sloane’s resources.”

  “And they have . . . one of these lists, on every one of my spacefarers?” Qasid asked.

  In her ear, Adda said, Probably just for the lower officer levels up to him, but I haven’t confirmed that.

  “Yeah, every one of them,” Iridian said gravely. “Sorry. We don’t like it either. That’s why we’re doing something about it. If we call for your help within, say, the next three days, will it just be you with your sidearm, or can you bring ships with you?”

  Commander Qasid’s breath shook when he inhaled. “I’ll bring whoever I can. Get me the rest of those lists.”

  Adda: Sending with ten-minute delay, to optimize receptivity appeared on Iridian’s comp in purple text.

  Ogir: Trust markers are good slid down from the top of the comp display in blue. The speech pattern analysis Ogir fed their conversation through apparently said that Qasid wouldn’t betray them, at least not in his current state of mind. Iridian would have to find out what they said about her side of the conversation sometime.

  Qasid’s friends crowded into the booth behind him, talking about the race and what he’d missed. Iridian paid her tab and left.

  * * *

  Captain Sloane’s and Adda’s voices carried down the residential-level hallway in crew HQ, all the way to the elevators. Four of Sloane’s favorite security people had spaced themselves evenly along the wall between the elevators and Iridian’s and Adda’s suite. Their expressions and nondescript, lightly armored clothes said “professionally discreet” as clearly as projected-on labels.

  Iridian nodded at the security detail as she passed, all of whom looked more sympathetic toward her on approach. She’d been training with them long enough to know their titles, their names, and most of their kids’ and pets’ names too. If they saw her as a threat to Captain Sloane they’d put her on her ass, but a couple of them would hesitate, at least.

  When she let herself into the suite, Adda was saying, “. . . done it the slow way like you asked, but this discovery will reform the political balance. We have to adapt.”

  It was a lot for Adda to say to anyone other than Iridian or Pel, let alone to shout at Captain Sloane in a voice husky with disuse. Her pupils were dilated like she’d been in a workspace when Sloane arrived. Talking while drugged up aggravated her because she couldn’t affect reality the way she could her workspaces.

  “The crew runs on profit, not vigilante justice!” Captain Sloane fought with as few people as Adda did, as far as Iridian had seen. If she weren’t recalling the people Sloane must’ve killed to get to this position, she’d sit down and watch. That, and if Tritheist weren’t standing three steps from the door, glowering, with his hand on a knife hilt. “There is nothing profitable in adapting in this direction.”

  “Captain.” Iridian used the greeting version of the address, pitched up on the last syllable and quiet enough to bring the conversation down a few decibels, she hoped. “We thought you wanted to hit Oxia anyway.”

  “Damned right,” Tritheist grumbled. Sloane glared at him and the lieutenant took a visual interest in Iridian’s boots.

  “After I’m out of the gods-damned contract.” Sloane inhaled slowly, gaze following Iridian’s deliberate pace crossing the room to Adda. Adda frowned, probably at Sloane’s repetition of a point she’d already acknowledged as made. “I’m in this for money. We all are. What you’re proposing will frighten the NEU and antagonize the ITA, which are the organizations in the best position to eliminate us as a threat to travel in the colonial territories. Unless I extract myself from the contract legally, Oxia can and will conduct both organizations directly to my doorstep. Frightened people form mobs, and mobs have a tendency to shove subjects of their ire into the nearest incinerator.”

  The captain already said all of this, Adda subvocalized beside Iridian, as if the repetition was as exasperating as resistance to her plan.

  “A move like you’re talking about takes setup, though, yeah?” Iridian said. “Once you drop all the ‘diplomatic’ threats that’ll get you out of the contract, you have to have the fleet ready to back you up or Oxia will just wipe us off the ’ject quietly, with the ITA’s help. That means the fleet has to get ready.” Which was something the captain already knew. Wasn’t it?

  “The fleet,” Captain Sloane repeated so quietly that the hairs on the back of Iridian’s neck stood up. Fleet pre-op preparations hadn’t factored into Sloane’s contract dissolution timetable because Adda never told the captain that she and Ogir were pursuing that option.

  Iridian pressed her lips together and purposefully found a point on the wall to look at instead of glaring at Adda. She and Ogir investigated possibilities’ viability before bringing them to the captain’s attention, but the captain should’ve known everyth
ing before Iridian had talked to Qasid on the crew’s behalf.

  “Oxia’s fleet?” Captain Sloane asked. “How and when was that arranged?”

  “Just now,” Iridian said. “The first invitation was offered and accepted, anyway. We’ll see what Fleet Commander Qasid comes up with.”

  “Your crew is formidable.” Adda might’ve added the extra emphasis on “your,” or Iridian might’ve just wished she had. “But additional forces will be necessary when—”

  “The biggest megacorporation this side of Mars turns on me after my blatant betrayal, yes,” Sloane snapped. The captain paced the length of their living room while Tritheist and Iridian watched each other in peripheral vision. If the captain needed something physical and dangerous done, Tritheist would get the order to carry it out, and Iridian would have to stop him.

  The captain faced Adda. “That’s not all we need. This is only a part of Oxia’s fleet. They’ll call in the rest, if they’re threatened. They may have done so already, although Ogir would have told me if he’d heard something to that effect.”

  Adda nodded. “I’d hoped you’d consider speaking to representatives of the ITA . . .” Sloane’s bitter bark of laughter was loud enough to bounce off the walls and startle Adda. “. . . and the NEU. With enough Oxia ships, you’d outnumber anything they have locally,” Adda said. “They’d listen to your proposition of alternative leadership if something were in it for them.”

  “Such as the political capital of capturing a widely vilified pirate?” Sloane’s shaking head sent a cascade of black hair across the captain’s shoulders. “What could interest them more?”

  “Oxia’s been marking up their fuel and mineral prices against both groups for years. A captured pirate is a short-term accomplishment. Reduced travel and resource costs would be a much longer-term benefit.”