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Spencer knew something was wrong as soon as the three men returned to the Seraphim together. Grant sped off to his office, dragging Crash along. In the normal course of events, she would have darted around looking for answers. Not that Spencer would ever sell out her crew—she’d die first—but if Crash was the glue that held them together, she was the oil that made the gears turn. No one realized it, with the possible exception of Krieger, but Abby Spencer observed and acted in small ways to improve the unity of their little family. Whether it was subtly inserting herself into just the right place and time to join in on a conversation when she knew someone needed a willing ear or making sure a misbehaving piece of equipment was seen to before it could grow into a contentious problem, she worked to make things operate smoothly.
In a way it was the opposite of one of her more distasteful duties as an espionage agent. Information gathering was well and good, but on more occasions than she cared to remember it was up to her to destabilize and assassinate. Grisly, hateful work, that. She liked doing her bit to be constructive even if it was just for the crew.
Yet today her thoughts were on the strange ship before her. The Ab, she was told. Specifically her mind was aimed with laser focus on the man within it. Which was why when Grant, Dex, and Blue returned with stony faces and determined strides, she decided to hop right back into her suit and damn catching up on her duties. They were stuck here until Grant decided on a course of action. Judging from the set of his jaw as he marched through the corridors, one was coming and it probably wouldn’t be very pleasant.
Why not take what might be her last hours in this life to see him one last time?
The lock on his ship was barely large enough for the suit. She had crouch inside it, back curved and waiting for the pressure to equalize so she could exit the shell. Time seemed to stretch as she listened to the mechanism fill the space with air. More than half a year apart and now just a few extra seconds felt like eternity.
He was waiting a few meters inside the ship when the lock cycled open. There was no dramatic swell of music, no rush toward each other. Instead they looked at each other, taking in familiar faces in a new and strange context. He looked no older, but neither did she. He wore a slightly longer beard than usual, a darker auburn than his hair. The smile tugging the corner of his mouth into a crooked slash was exactly as it should be.
She felt no anger. That was how it was always portrayed in the vids, right? People reuniting this way always had an aggrieved party. He had left, after all. The ship, and her. According the laws of dramatics, Spencer should have been furious.
“Hey,” she said. “I missed you a lot.”
His smile broke into a full grin. “And I missed you.”
They moved toward each other and embraced.
It was good.
––––––––
Iona looked terrible. She knew she looked terrible. It was one of the consequences of having a non-organic body built off a human template. The artificial cells that composed her form reacted just as human cells would under the stress she’d been living with. Her face was drawn, her dark skin carrying an unhealthy, ashen sheen. Yet Dex smiled when he saw her. Picked her up and spun her around. Kissed her as if she were the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
Their happy reunion was short-lived. She knew—because Iona was the ship they stood on now more than ever and she had watched Spencer’s departure—that others were having similar moments. She knew Spencer would be thrilled to see Krieger. They’d talked through his hiatus before he left. And who could have known the rest of the crew would be kidnapped and forced into a black operation? It was no one’s fault.
That didn’t change the facts in front of them. If anything, coming back together only underscored the immensity of the threat.
Dex pulled away from her, letting Iona settle back into the cozy station that filled her small nook on the bridge. His face dropped into the contemplative, serious focus she had seen on only a few other occasions.
“How much contact with home have you had?” he asked, something tentative and hidden behind the words.
Iona considered. “Sporadic. Only Admiral Goff and Sharp even know we’re out here. They only use one sim to contact me, and she’s a specialist. Not part of the Ansible network. She’s tuned only to me.”
Dex nodded as if this was exactly what he expected to hear. “Any new orders?”
Iona shook her head. “Just the same. Retrieve information and technology if possible. Leave no one behind who could identify us.” She frowned at that requirement. It left a sour taste in her mouth that any superior would so coldly disregard life no matter how necessary it might be.
He took a long, calming breath. “Have you told them what’s going on? With the new ships showing up, or Blue’s theory about where they come from?”
“No,” Iona said. “I was told to report success or failure once we managed to anchor behind this rock. Why? I’m starting to get a little worried here.”
Dex sighed. “Yeah, I bet. The good news is they’ve nicely covered your ass for us. You’re going to have plausible deniability.”
Despite the serious mood, Iona laughed. “Oh, well I feel a lot better now. That phrase has never been followed by something truly dire and awful. I don’t suppose asking you what the hell is going on will do any good, will it?”
“Kind of defeats the purpose of deniability if I tell you,” Dex said. “Technically I don’t know either. Captain’s keeping the final plan between him and Blue.”
Dex was many things. A genius of unparalleled capacity if not formal education, a brutally enhanced killer when needed, and among a host of good qualities, a loyal and loving human being. He was, however, a terrible liar. Iona loved that about him. True or not, she thought being a bad liar was an indication of his basic goodness.
She didn’t call him out on it, however. Dex would never lie to cover his own ass at the expense of another person. A sneaking suspicion rose up that he’d been ordered to play dumb. It was the sort of thing Grant would do to keep his decisions from blowing back on the crew.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll follow the letter of my orders. I’m sure the admiral who’d love to serve my head on a platter to the rest of the brass will totally give me the benefit of the doubt.”
Dex gave her a nervous shrug. “When the dust settles, I don’t think they’ll much care about you anymore.”
––––––––
Grant sat alone in his office. Hours had passed. The stolen ship rested comfortably on the surface of the planetoid, Blue returned to it and interfacing through the vessel with the much simpler control mechanisms embedded in the rock below. The process would not be fast. Not if they wanted it done right. Though Grant ultimately made the call, he was certain Blue would have gone through with the plan without him, once it had been presented.
This was the one that might get him killed. Not here—though death was definitely a strong possibility—but if they made it home. Greed had a way of stripping the reason right out of people. The admiralty might not be able to look past it.
Though it infuriated him, Grant was perversely glad the strangers had destroyed the Vault. He would never speak the words aloud, but not having to choose to kill the innocent children locked up inside it was a relief. He could safely hate the strangers for doing it, and silently thank them for taking the choice from him.
Dex had the right idea, but the wrong scale. The implications of the Slip drive had never fully sunk in with him before, and they should have. The ability to create an artificial gravity well, even on something as large as a bodyship, seemed innocent. A useful way to move at high velocity without the need for crude rockets or other traditional forms of propulsion.
It had never occurred to him what would happen to a ship moving at those speeds if it deliberately slammed into something, and it should have. Considering how well the technology scaled up, everyone should have been talking about how fucking terrifying it really was.
And the Slip drive was only a tiny fraction of the knowledge Blue now carried inside him. The stolen ship was a treasure all its own. It would have to be enough.
He looked at the sensor feed being ported over from that ship. Blue rendered it into something more familiar before transmitting the data to his desk. The rogue system looked peaceful, a heat map of energy signatures and mass readouts. More ships appeared in the sky over the distant planet only to descend onto it with all the others. Maybe they were automated. Maybe they were packed with hundreds of people.
Grant hoped they were empty of life, but it changed nothing. In a few more hours, Blue would turn this planetoid into a cue ball aimed directly at the alien bastion they had managed to escape. What would follow could barely be described as an attack. It was too big. The scope was beyond anything he’d ever seen in person. The energy of the planetoid crashing into the rogue planet was nearly unimaginable. It was an astronomical event. Perhaps the first man-made one in all history.
“God help us,” he said, staring at the screen.