In my quarters, I turned on the control panel built into the wall. I was locked into basic functionality—local and Universal time, a map of the ship, current location. I pulled up a hidden diagnostic screen and entered the default von Hasenberg override codes. I tried a dozen options, spanning twice as many years. They all failed. Ian had changed the codes on this ship, too.
I could crack the code, given enough time, but unless I got incredibly lucky, it would be too slow to be useful right now. I’d helped harden our shipboard system against attack. I had not left myself any remote back doors because that’s how other people compromised your system.
But that’s not to say I hadn’t left myself any back doors.
I pried the control panel out of the wall far enough to access the wiring panel behind it. I rearranged a couple of cables, tapped a seemingly nonsense pattern on the screen, changed another cable, entered another nonsense code, and then put everything back the way it had been.
A new screen appeared on the control panel, just a blank box with a numeric input. I used the authenticator in my com to generate a twenty-five-digit code that included a hash of a secret shared key and the ship name. I entered the code on the panel. I was in.
I set myself up as an administrative captain. Ian wouldn’t be able to remove me from the system using his own status, and my status would not show up in a simple query. While I might not need the ability to direct the ship, I believed in being prepared. I also changed the override codes. Even with them, Ian couldn’t remove me from the system, but there was no sense in leaving them the same, either. I didn’t want to make it too easy for him.
One problem down, now on to the next. I put on my smart glasses and set up a lightly secured connection to check my House accounts. Benedict had announced his impending departure on our sibling channel and the channel was rife with impotent rage. Ada was only half joking about plotting a coup.
Veronica had sent me an encrypted message while I’d been dress shopping. She’d found one of her contacts in Matavara who might be able to secure an invitation to tonight’s party. I laughed when I saw the details. It was the same woman Nadia had charged me twenty thousand credits to reveal.
Veronica had forwarded my information as well as a letter of introduction to the woman, though, so I wouldn’t have to figure out how to meet her without compromising the identity of my online avatar. Nadia would no doubt check on who came through the shop because information was money. If I had time to throw her off my scent I would send a decoy after I’d been there.
I sent Veronica a note of thanks, then disconnected. I set up a new connection, using the highest level of security. I didn’t want anyone on the ship to be able to eavesdrop on this information because I was going to check my digital drop boxes.
Thanks to my semipublic call for information, I had received a flood of messages. I deleted most of them and flagged a few for later follow-up. The latest messages were from the last few hours, so information was still trickling in; I just had to be patient.
I worked my way through my various accounts, reconnecting each time. In the account most relevant to House news, I’d received replies to the two messages I’d followed up on before.
The first message related to Ferdinand’s dinner with Evelyn. There was a picture of Evelyn alone in the restaurant and a short note that the photographer, presumably, had been tipped off by a member of House von Hasenberg staff about the meeting. He was trying to get a shot of the two of them alone together, but Ferdinand had never showed.
We screened our staff, but everyone was human. It didn’t surprise me too much that someone had sold Ferdinand out, but the proof gave us a place to start. The informant might’ve told the Syndicate where to find Ferdinand on the night he was taken.
I asked Catarina to look into who had access to Ferdinand’s schedule that day. My baby sister was desperate to help. This should be relatively safe for her, while also allowing her to meaningfully contribute.
The second message had claimed to have information about the shooter. I hadn’t expected much, even from a regular contact when I’d paid the good-faith money, but he or she—and I tended to think she based on the writing—had delivered a treasure trove of information.
I’d have to confirm the authenticity, but based on a quick look, it seemed legit. The Syndicate had put a hit on me. Oh, I wasn’t positive it was the Syndicate, because they weren’t stupid enough to advertise the contract under any of their official accounts. But if it wasn’t them, then it was the most coincidental timing in the history of the universe.
The picture became a little clearer. The Syndicate had hired a patsy to cause a distraction by shooting at me and maybe even killing me. I doubted the best and brightest would take a job on Earth, but maybe I was wrong and someone would see it as a challenge—of course, my continued existence sort of defeated that argument.
I wasn’t sure why I’d been targeted, but as the information specialist, it would make the Syndicate’s abduction of Ferdinand easier if I wasn’t digging for answers. Or it could be that they thought I would be the least protected. Or they could’ve heard that I was in poor health.
Not only did my contact include a copy of the contract, she’d also included a short list of people suspected of accepting it. This person either had excellent sources or was high up in either the Syndicate or the Consortium. No one on the list was familiar, which meant it wasn’t the top 1 percent jumping for a chance to off me. Not that they wouldn’t, they just wouldn’t do it on Earth.
Thank goodness for small favors, I guess.
I closed the connection and reconnected to a different set of secure servers. I would keep digging until Ian returned or it was time to prepare for the party. I set a timer, set the ship to alert me when the cargo door opened, and dove into the Net.
Nearly two hours after they’d left, Ian and Alexander returned, their armor scratched in multiple places. Both moved easily, though, so nothing serious had made it through the tough composite and into their flesh.
Aoife handed them each a bottle of water and a protein bar. Alexander stripped off his helmet and chest armor, revealing sweaty hair plastered to his head. Ian took off his helmet, but left his chest armor. He frowned at the floor, not exactly the look of a man victorious.
I made my way down to the cargo hold. Alexander, Ian, and Aoife were arguing fiercely about something I couldn’t quite hear but the three of them went silent when I appeared.
“Well, that’s not suspicious at all,” I said.
“What are you doing?” Ian asked.
“Deciding if I need to start getting ready for a party or for a foray into Matavara. Did you secure an invitation?”
“No.”
The word was so unexpected it took me a few seconds to process it. “No? Did you go to Yuko?” I asked, naming Veronica’s contact.
“Yes,” he said wearily.
“Did you tell her it was for me?”
“No, but she knew. She said you had to come yourself. It’s a trap, of course.”
“Veronica vouches for her and sent me a letter of introduction. It’s not a trap.”
“You’re not going.” The words rang with a finality that made me want to gnash my teeth.
“Director Bishop, I am going to Yuko’s shop or I am crashing a Syndicate party. Which would you prefer?”
“Matavara is even worse than I remember. I’m not letting you out of this ship.”
That wasn’t really his decision, but I let him think that it was. “Then we’re crashing the party. Any idea how to get past security without getting caught? I hate going in blind.”
“You and I are not crashing the party. I’m sending you home. Alex and I will infiltrate the party. Fortuitous—”
“Fortuitous, remove authorization for all personnel other than myself,” I said. I had hoped to save this ability as a surprise for later, but I wasn’t going to let Ian ship me off the planet.
“Yes, Captain von Hasenberg,” the ship acknowledged. “Authorization removed.”
“I changed the override codes,” Ian ground out.
“Yes, you did.”
“How did you get in?”
My smile was sweet enough to cause cavities. “I told you that I’m one of the best systems crackers in the universe. That was not hubris.” True, but in this case, it happened to be more helpful that I was a von Hasenberg on one of our own ships. I kept that bit to myself.
I continued, “So, with the understanding that I will do one of the following with or without you, would you prefer to go get an invitation or crash the party?”
“Aoife, armor up,” Ian said. “Alex, you have the ship.” Ian’s furious gaze flashed to me. “You’ll have to give him access to the doors and defensive systems.”
I used the cargo bay’s control panel to give Alexander limited tactician authority. He wouldn’t be able to take off, but he could access the other systems required to keep the ship safe on the ground. I gave Aoife the same access, and after a brief pause, Ian, too.
“Do you know how to wear that combat armor in your crate?” Ian asked. It didn’t surprise me that he’d gone through my stuff when he’d transferred it over.
“I’ve had the training,” I allowed. I hated combat armor. I found it incredibly claustrophobic, and I wasn’t usually prone to claustrophobia. But Matavara was hostile to outsiders and going out without armor would be incredibly stupid. Locals had some degree of protection from whichever gang claimed their territory, but outsiders stood out like red flags.
“Get it on,” Ian said. “We need to make this quick.”
On the protection spectrum, combat armor fell somewhere between simple ballistic armor and fully mechanized armor suits. It was made of a lightweight composite, but a full suit still weighed more than half as much as I did. Combat armor was powered and had some built-in movement assistance, but nothing like a fully mechanized suit that would let a user lift a transport.
Ada had procured a suit sized to my height—a feat in and of itself. I’d worn armor that was too big before, and it just made the whole experience worse.
I pulled the armor out of the crate, inspecting each piece. It was all pristine. I stepped into the lower body section and it clamped around my body from the waist down. I squatted down and the armor moved with me. So far, so good.
The chest piece went on over my head, like a bulky, oversized tank top. The front and back clamped together. It wasn’t tight but I had to fight the feeling of suffocation.
Each arm was designed as a single sleeve that clamped into the chest piece at the shoulder. My hands were covered by a stretchy, reinforced glove with light armor on the backs of my fingers. Blasters for use with combat armor had to have oversized trigger guards.
I swung my arms and hopped in place, testing my movement. I was slightly slower and heavier than usual, but it didn’t feel as if I was wearing an additional thirty-five kilograms of weight.
The helmet was my least favorite part of this whole ensemble. I pulled it over my head, but left the face guard open. I consciously kept my breathing slow and even.
Ian finished checking Aoife’s armor and turned to me. “Do you feel any air gaps?”
I shook my head.
He circled me, stopping to press on my left side. Once satisfied, he handed me a pistol blaster from the crate. “Yuko’s shop is close to two kilometers away. It’s ten blocks and the territory changes ownership around block six. We’re going to run the entire way. Can you do it?”
Back when I was in shape, a two-kilometer run in armor wouldn’t even be a warm-up. Today I would feel each meter. “I can do it.”
“Don’t stop for anything. Aoife or I may fall back to defend. Don’t wait for us. I will send the address to your suit.” He pulled his face guard closed.
I took a deep breath and held it as I closed my own face guard. It was made of a thick, transparent plastech. As soon as the helmet clicked closed, the heads-up display came on. Screens provided additional peripheral vision from helmet-mounted cameras and even the transparent face guard was overlaid with information streaming from the suit’s systems.
I released the breath I’d been holding. The suit filtered outside air and could even be completely self-contained for an hour or two, but I always felt like I was breathing stale air. It was entirely mental, but that didn’t make it feel less real.
While I was fighting panic, a request popped up to join Ian’s squad. He would be able to monitor my vitals, which meant I had to get my heart rate under control ASAP. Another breath and I approved the request. An address popped up, along with a faint green route marker stretching out in front of me.
“Ready?” Ian asked.
“Yes,” Aoife said.
I echoed her. Time to make good on my promise.
Ian took point and Aoife took the rear guard, leaving me in the most protected middle position. As soon as the cargo door was high enough, Ian jumped to the ground. I followed him, landing with a slight stumble. I caught my balance at the last second, saving myself from a mortifying face plant.
Ian had already put two meters between us, so I dashed into a run. Oh yeah, this was going to suck.
As soon as we cleared the ship’s shield, a blaster bolt glanced off my arm. I returned fire on instinct without breaking stride. I missed, but the shooter went to ground.
When he popped back up, Aoife didn’t miss.
“Shields up!” Ian barked.
I activated the suit’s shield and kept an eye on the distance between us. Overlapping shields might do nothing, or it might cause one or both shields to catastrophically fail.
We cleared the spaceport and moved into the city. Very few transports operated in Matavara. Most people moved around on foot or on personal vehicles, predominantly hover bikes.
The buildings were short and square. Most had started as plastech but the constant fighting meant they were patched with whatever was handy, giving the city a hodgepodge appearance under the brilliant blue sky and harsh yellow sun.
Ian ran straight down the middle of the street. The few pedestrians braving the sidewalks hugged the buildings or darted into alleys until we passed. Most of them were just normal people, trying to go about their day. They wanted no part of the trouble we would bring.
Others, however, saw us as prey. A block ahead of us, three heavies in older mechanized armor spread across the street. They were trying to herd us into an alley half a block away, but Ian wasn’t having it.
“I’ve got left and center,” he called over our coms. “Bianca, straight through, right of center, don’t slow down. Aoife, right and cover.”
Ian wouldn’t risk us unnecessarily, so I didn’t question his orders. I might poke at him normally, but he knew what he was doing when it came to combat and security. He rested his blast rifle in the crook of his right arm and drew the electropulse pistol strapped to his left hip.
Designed to disrupt communication, electropulse pistols also worked well against older unshielded mechanized armor. It wouldn’t penetrate to the person underneath, but it would shut down their system.
Electropulse pistols weren’t super accurate at a distance, but Ian managed to hit his two targets and Aoife’s shots from over my shoulder hit the target on the right.
The two outer suits froze, but the person in the center brought up an ancient projectile gun and opened fire. Bullets went straight through Ian’s shield and glanced off his armor with metallic hisses. Ian holstered his pistol and pulled up his blast rifle.
“Bianca, stay behind me. Aoife, hit him if you can.”
“On it,” she said.
She moved two meters to my right and brought her blast rifle up, still running. The mech decided she was the biggest threat and changed to shooting at her.
Aoife didn’t even break stride, she just consistently put shot groupings right in the mech’s face guard, until, on the fifth grouping, he stopped firing. She had repeatedly hit a moving target fifteen centimeters wide from over a hundred meters away. At a dead run.
Note to self: do not challenge her to a shooting competition.
We dashed past the disabled mechs. Breath sawed through my chest and my head pounded. My main focus became putting one foot in front of another. Ian shot at an unseen target, but they didn’t shoot back.
It felt like a century later when Ian finally turned down a side street. We circled around so we didn’t lead any pursuers straight to Yuko’s shop, but time was of the essence, so Ian didn’t bother with an elaborate deception.
Ian led us through a large, unmarked door. By unspoken agreement we all deactivated our shields. “Aoife, you have the door,” Ian said. She murmured her agreement.
This shop didn’t pretend to be anything other than what it was—an information exchange. A woman in her forties or fifties with straight, graying black hair and dark eyes stood behind a faux wooden counter. “Lady Bianca von Hasenberg, I presume?” she asked, her voice softly accented.
I opened my face guard over Ian’s growled protest. “I am. And you are?”
“Yuko Ponseti, at your service. Veronica spoke highly of you.”
“Of you, too.” I paused, then dived right in. Some brokers preferred to chat before getting down to business, but the longer we lingered, the more time the local crime bosses had to set up an ambush for us. “She said you could get me an invite to the Syndicate party tonight.”
“I can. In return for a favor.”
“What favor?”
“Unspecified.”
“I don’t deal in future favors.”
“I know, which is why it is so valuable.”
I would do about anything for my brother, but open-ended favors were dangerous for both me and the House. “No.”
Yuko stared at me for a long moment. “You’re serious.”
“Yes. I do not trade in future favors. Not even for this.”
“Why not agree and then renege? You’d still get what you want,” she said.
“Promises are important to me. I don’t make them with the intent to break them.”
Yuko smiled, a barely-there tilt at the corner of her lips. “Despite the rumors, I would not have believed it possible if I didn’t see it with my own eyes. A member of a High House who believes in honor.”
“I believe in keeping my promises,” I said. “But if I don’t secure an invitation, I’m going to sneak into the party even if I have to go through a whole host of guards to do it, and most would argue that’s not entirely honorable.”
“Promises are what I care about,” Yuko replied. “My daughter is imprisoned on Pluto. She’s been there for over a year, and for the last three months, my Pluto contacts have failed to check in. If you promise to do everything you can to get her out, I will give you the invitation you need.”
Pluto was one of the oldest prison planets in existence and was now used almost exclusively for political prisoners the Consortium wanted buried. Pardons were difficult to obtain. “Does she have to get out legally?” I clarified.
“Legally would be better, but no. I just want her home.”
“Very well. You get me a valid invitation to the Syndicate party tonight and I will do everything in my power to get your daughter out of prison, though it may end up being less than legal. The Consortium rarely gives up political prisoners, even to the daughter of a High House. Also, my brother’s rescue comes first. As soon as he’s safe—” I paused, but didn’t want to think about any other outcomes. “Your daughter will be my priority after my brother.”
She held out her hand. “Deal.”
I carefully took her hand in my gloved one and shook it. “Deal. Send me whatever information you have on her, no matter how small.”
Yuko nodded, then bent to open a small, biometrically locked safe. She pulled out a square envelope made of thick, expensive paper. “This is the invitation everyone received. There are no names, so you don’t have to worry about faking an ID. Inside are the ship codes needed to land in their spaceport. The invitation itself is chipped and will be needed for entrance. The rules are explained inside, but weapons are strictly forbidden. It won’t stop anyone, but you’ll have to be sneaky.”
She handed the envelope to me, and I carefully stored it in the compartment under my chest armor. If a shot got to it, it would get to me, so it was as safe as I could make it without stripping out of the armor.
“We’re about to have company,” Aoife called over our internal com.
“I hate to bargain and run, but my guard says we’re about to be attacked.”
“They will not attack the shop,” Yuko said with quiet confidence. “And, despite appearances, my shop has many entrances. Go through the door and down the stairs. In the tunnel, go straight, straight, left, and then straight until the tunnel ends. Climb the stairs and you’ll be out near your spaceport. Expect trouble at the end, but they’ll be spread thinner than here.”
I closed my face guard and used my suit’s com to send her one of my private addresses. “Send me everything on your daughter. I will not forget this.”
She inclined her head. “Safe travels, Lady Bianca.”