Sloane’s angry snarl was slowly replaced by cautious hope. Adda actually had the captain considering her scheme. “You seem determined to pursue this.” The “and I can’t stop you short of violence” was left unsaid. “I have contacts, among the ITA, the NEU, and other interested parties. If any of them would support this . . . venture, I’ll let you know.”
Sloane’s coat sleeve brushed Iridian’s arm on the captain’s way out the door. She waited for Tritheist to follow, but he let the door shut instead. He looked back and forth between Iridian and Adda. “Captain Sloane deserves full control of the crew and of Vesta. The captain earned it.”
Adda just looked at him, so Iridian said, “We think so too.”
“You’re going to need somebody leading Captain Sloane’s protection detail when Oxia sends stationsec to take the crew down.” Tritheist stood taller, which let him tower over Adda and see Iridian eye-to-eye. “It’d better be me.”
“So you two aren’t just fucking.” The idea of Tritheist loving anyone enough to put himself on the front lines of a firefight was enough of a surprise that Iridian’s brain let that observation get verbalized.
Tritheist scowled at her. “No.”
“It will be you,” Adda said calmly. “You’re well regarded,” which wasn’t true, “and well qualified,” which was true enough. And well motivated, apparently, she added to Iridian subvocally, who smiled as widely as she could without infuriating Tritheist.
The lieutenant relaxed minutely, though he stared at Adda like her telling the truth or lying to get rid of him were equally likely possibilities. “Damn right.” He let himself out of the suite, and Iridian locked the door behind him. Captain Sloane would have an override for it, but the officers seemed content to let her and Adda alone for now.
Adda sat down hard on the bed. “We’re doing this.”
“Hell yeah, we’re doing this.” Iridian sat and pulled Adda against her in a one-armed hug. “It’ll be the crew we always wanted, all Sloane’s again, in, what, a week?”
“Four days,” Adda corrected her like it was a reflex. “Realistically we can’t secure enough of the fleet to hold headquarters in fewer than three days, even with the commander advocating, and Oxia’s response will take at least a day to run its course.” She wrapped both arms around Iridian and rested her head against Iridian’s chest. When seated, they were about the same height. Iridian had much longer legs. “In those four days,” Adda continued, “we need to tell the NEU and ITA, and maybe the Ceres syndicate, that something noteworthy is about to be published, and if they side with us then Oxia can’t maintain its high refueling prices. And, obviously, there are going to be a lot more people interested in traveling beyond Mars’s orbit once everyone knows about the interstellar bridge.”
Iridian grinned. “See? Nobody will turn down cheaper refueling and more customers. It’s as good as happened already.”
“Casey expects losses.”
And there went Iridian’s good vibes. “Why are you asking the Casey?”
“Because Casey processes data much more efficiently than I can,” said Adda. “I want the closest I can get to evidence before I . . . before I’m responsible for . . .”
“Babe, we have everything we need.” Iridian squeezed Adda tighter against her. “Oxia is going down, and the NEU and ITA are bound to fall in line afterward.”
Adda sighed. “Not without a fight.”
CHAPTER 23
SHQ40>Torrential>45999ru>Immunisity> ITA533
This was the second address Adda had sent a message to. With luck, this one would reach Suhaila Al-Mudari, former spokesperson for Martian refugees trapped on Barbary Station and current “costs of the war” correspondent for TAPnews. Four years after hostilities ceased, there was still enough fallout from the colonial secession to make “costs of the war” a viable news specialty.
Captain Sloane hadn’t specified a medium for releasing the details of the Thrinacia Project, only the timing. Adda had selected the one reporter she trusted to release the information on her and the captain’s schedule. On Barbary, Suhaila had withheld information about the crew’s true status while begging the populated universe to help the refugees, and she still kept some of Sloane’s secrets today. She’d protected the captain and the crew then. Adda was counting on her to do so again.
In her workspace, Adda reviewed the message she’d recorded and trimmed off an “um” that ruined the rhythm. She started recording again. “We have really important news we’d like everybody to hear. Reply on the most secure medium you have.”
The larger workspace generator she’d gotten installed in the suite meant that she could stash water and snacks inside, and leave only for bio breaks. At the moment, she was using it to track and organize reports from a huge number of simultaneous projects coming together to bring Oxia down and raise Captain Sloane in their place.
Sloane’s contacts in the ITA were already responding favorably to the captain’s invitations to a temporary alliance against Oxia, as had an anti-NEU resistance collective which had become the Callistan legislative body. The NEU itself was taking longer to convince, probably due to the Callistans’ early support. Commander Qasid was quietly making inroads with them while Captain Sloane focused on the Ceres syndicate.
The ITA, the NEU, and the Ceres syndicate posed the most danger to Sloane’s crew. One way or another, the captain would have to deal with all of them to retain control of Vesta. The ITA collaborated with every hab to keep spacefarers safe and reliable routes clear. But aside from a few trade route agreements modifying the treaties that ended the war, Adda couldn’t recall the NEU cooperating with colonies like Ceres on anything. Between Captain Sloane’s initiative on Vesta and the interstellar bridge, humanity was getting a lot of opportunities to work together for a change. With luck, they wouldn’t waste it.
In the meantime, the Charon’s Coin was sending Adda detailed traffic reports on ships near Vesta and those that were projected to approach within the next three days. It was odd to hear from it instead of Casey, but Casey was already processing comms and internet traffic and forwarding everything relevant to Adda. She had two separate workspaces running simultaneously, one in the big generator and the other in her mobile generator. Together they barely kept up with what the intelligences were sending. She set a high priority alert on messages with Suhaila’s name and moved on to her next project.
AegiSKADA had integrated itself with Vesta’s two stationsec computer systems. They didn’t run off a unified intelligence, but employed several isolated intelligences for human resources, dispatch coordination, communications, legal processing, and one exclusively in charge of their prison in Albana Station, on the other side of Vesta. AegiSKADA was receiving everything the communications and human resources coordination systems did, and it was probing the port module and prisons for vulnerabilities. It pinged her to approve its next move every other minute, and she struggled to concentrate on each request.
“Fuck,” Adda sighed.
“Anytime,” Iridian called from across the room. Beautiful, resolute, trusting Iridian, who thought Adda had deactivated AegiSKADA the day after they returned from Deimos. Acknowledging Adda’s lie pulled something achingly tight in her chest, and dropped her out of the workspace.
When Adda sat up and pushed the heavy curtain over the installed workspace generator aside, Iridian wore a practice range suit from training with Tritheist and Sloane’s local security crew. A tight jumpsuit lay over her skin like exquisitely thin black netting, except for a thicker section that looked like shorts and an opaque band of red over her breasts. Adda forgot what she’d been working on in the workspace. Rows of gold-colored specks flowed over the suit in barely visible stripes, to communicate with the practice range’s feedback system. The outfit made Iridian look like a workspace figure come to life. No wonder Iridian was thinking about sex in an outfit like that. Adda glanced up at the map on the generator’s ceiling to ground herself in their suite.
; Iridian was supposed to be retrieving a datacask of visiting ship rosters and their crews’ predicted loyalties, which Ogir had stashed somewhere in the port modules. Instead she was lounging in front of the projection stage with fruit juice.
“Why aren’t you—”
“I sent Pel.” Iridian shrugged. “Keeps him out of the club, which reduces his chance of sharing details with his drinking buddies. Also, he was feeling left out.”
“That’s really important information he’s picking up.” Adda frowned. She trusted his intentions, but not his judgement or discretion.
Iridian tipped her head back to look at Adda upside down over the back of the couch, and reached to press a hand on Adda’s hip and pull her closer. “All he has to do is pull a datacask out of a potted plant. It’s not like he’s never done something like that before.”
He’d implied, several times, that he’d smuggled drugs through NEU ports. Adda supposed it was an opportunity to put those skills to a positive use.
“When was the last time you slept, babe? Because it wasn’t last night, and it wasn’t while I was out today.”
After yesterday’s conversation with Captain Sloane, sleep hadn’t been an option. Adda glanced at her comp’s timestamp. There was no time for tangential topics, or for Iridian’s workout clothes. “I have another ten hours before I’ll have to deal with that. That’s why I have the lights turned up so bright in here.”
“You know, judgement gets fucked up at the forty-hour mark.”
“I’m not sleeping now either. This is wasting the hours I have.” Adda set another sharpsheet on her tongue and entered her correspondence and surveillance workspace. If Iridian said anything else, she didn’t hear it.
How can Iridian be this casual about the situation? A large hollow oak tree interior rose around her. If they couldn’t control Oxia’s security forces, if holding the Thrinacia Project data hostage didn’t get Sloane out of the contract, if the ITA or NEU had hidden ships or agents that changed the balance, they’d end up in one of several varieties of prison, or hard vacuum. Maybe Iridian stayed so calm by trusting Adda to work out all of the details. Like that was possible, for a military coup organized in a matter of days.
The intelligences were the only factor making it remotely feasible. They gathered, analyzed, and tracked the vast amount of information required, and they did it in a workspace-compatible way. Why they were helping was still a mystery, although it seemed likely that they were, like Sloane’s crew, making a safe home for themselves. And since they needed Sloane’s help, or at least the captain’s name, to do it, they furthered Sloane’s cause where they could.
A small, neon-pink tiger with wings flapped through a hole in the hollow tree and circled down toward her. Suhaila had found a secure contact point. Adda let the workspace handle the connection, and it formed a narrow wooden platform for the tiger to land on.
Once all four paws touched the platform, it snapped into a figure of Suhaila, with the accompanying mental impression that she had stood there the whole time. Her long dark hair fell over the shoulders of her dark red suit jacket, which projected the modern ideal of “serious journalistic business” very efficiently. If the hallucinographic suit’s visual focus enhancers worked as well in reality as they did in the workspace, Suhaila would have no difficulty inspiring belief and attention on her newsfeed.
Adda dug into the background interface to examine the security measures that the figure’s “always there” sensation indicated, then listened to the message. They were on distance-delayed comms, according to the timestamp vines had formed on the tree trunk’s interior wall.
“Adda! Good to hear from you. I’ve been watching the latest on Sloane’s crew, of course, notification triggers every few minutes, but it’s great to hear from the real you! Seriously, tell me everything.” Adda had forgotten Suhaila’s dedicated enthusiasm for Sloane’s crew. “I’m contracted to TAPnews now, so I have to be a little particular about what I publish and how it goes out. Just a little, but, you know, I have to mention that. And ask for an exclusive. This is exclusive, though, yes? Anyway, I’m here, just reply on this thing.”
A bright red flower blossomed at the corner of Adda’s vision, signifying that she’d activated the recording function. “It’s exclusive on the condition that you hold on to the information until I give the signal. I’ll do it soon, but it can’t get released early. It would put Captain Sloane in a lot of danger. Let me know if you can do that, and then I’ll send everything I have.” That should stick the fact in Suhaila’s memory. The red flower wilted and fell to the nonexistent dirt as she ended the recording and sent it.
Oxia would relinquish their hold on Captain Sloane, supposedly without a fuss, in exchange for Sloane’s silence regarding the interstellar bridge. If she waited until Oxia officially dissolved the contract, Sloane would retain all the legal benefits, allowing for future deals with the NEU and ITA.
But Oxia had no right to keep such an amazing discovery from the rest of humanity, and it didn’t deserve a chance to steal rights to the new star system using stolen equipment. As soon as it wouldn’t affect Sloane’s freedom from the contract, she’d send Suhaila the signal to share news of the interstellar bridge as far and wide as she could. Dr. Björn would get the credit ve deserved, and the worlds would know the truth.
A small flock of birds materialized in the treetops and descended in a flurry of small wings and airborne letters and numbers. The letters and numbers collected themselves into columns of ship names and Ogir’s loyalty assessments. Pel had retrieved the datacask. The fleet crews were, overall, sympathetic toward Sloane’s cause.
She was still studying Ogir’s report when Suhaila’s next message arrived, full of assurances that she’d stick to Adda’s timetable. Adda sent her prerecorded reply while Suhaila’s sign-off was still playing. “I’m sending you access instructions for the Casey Mira Mira’s tanks. Don’t release any of it before my signal.”
Suhaila’s response, when it arrived, was less encouraging. “So, I did exactly what you sent me. It didn’t work. I know security is fiddly, but—”
Adda held up a hand, pausing Suhaila’s recorded figure. She didn’t bother composing a worded message to Casey. Her intention-imbued query scuttled somewhere outside her peripheral vision. Its steps had barely faded when Casey’s disembodied voice said, “Show me why she needs this.”
Adda tore away one of the sequences separating her mental processes from Casey’s and nonverbally emphasized what Suhaila having the information would mean for Oxia, and for the crew. Her head throbbed for long seconds, and then something in the workspace shifted. She sent the message “Try it again” to Suhaila, then refocused on Ogir’s reports.
Suhaila’s reply arrived nearly half an hour later, repeating how significant the information was “To the whole of humanity! I mean, it’s most important that it gets Captain Sloane what’s needed, but . . .” Adda kept reading reports until Suhaila said “. . . risking my job for this. Hell, I guess Oxia could kill me for this, but yeah, you’re the bigger target. Anyway, it’s worth it so long as one of the refugees’ greatest supporters gets well-deserved freedom from . . . Hmm, I’ll workshop that part later. Did you know that twenty percent of Albana Station’s current population was transferred from that Pallas colony the NEU destroyed in ’69?” Adda had been a child when that happened. These days, it wasn’t a common conversation topic. “Oh, I should lead with that in the companion piece. More trouble for the already troubled . . .”
If Adda were delivering news that one of the most influential megacorporations in the galaxy had been committing gross human rights violations during a dubious legal takeover of a high-population asteroid, and their intention to spread their wealth-gathering inhumanities to a new star system, she’d emphasize that rather than the tangentially related unfortunate life histories of the asteroid’s occupants. She’d have to trust that Suhaila knew her business.
Adda had one more message to compose. She br
eathed in, and in, and in, let it out slow, and watched the red flower revive itself in her peripheral vision. “Captain Sloane, schedule the contract renegotiation with Liu Kong at your convenience. Please let me know the precise time. We’ll be ready.”
CHAPTER 24
Stage 4 confirmed
Iridian frowned across the second-floor bar in the club level of Sloane’s HQ, listening for a voice in her head. Although Adda and Ogir had deemed the position insufficiently low-key to meet their standards for “covert,” Iridian and Tritheist had overridden them to prioritize the strategic advantage.
It’d hardly matter anyway, if Adda kept missing or ignoring her comms. Babe, are you receiving? Iridian subvocalized. Because we could really use—
Liu Kong, Captain Sloane, and the lawyers are still talking, Adda said. It was past 21:00, and the negotiation had been going on without a break since 08:30. Iridian, Tritheist, and HQ security had been waiting around for the past couple of hours, expecting them to reach an agreement anytime. Ogir will tell you when the session’s over, Adda continued. I’m working.
Iridian thumbed off her mic before she thought something she should’ve kept to herself. Adda had been working herself half to death, on the potential fight with Oxia and on preparing to release the Thrinacia Project to the populated universe. A corner of their suite’s projection stage was devoted to HQ server statuses and network activity unrelated to Oxia or the ITA as far as Iridian could tell. She hadn’t wanted to interrupt Adda by asking about it. After Iridian had taken up her position on HQ’s club level, Adda had probably drawn that into her workspace too.
Maybe Adda was just managing their resources carefully, or running an analysis on the AIs, or doing last-minute calculations to confirm that it’d take more than one direct missile strike to penetrate HQ down to the residential level. “Hell of a time for distractions,” Iridian muttered.
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