CHAPTER 10

The Cavalier was uncharacteristically quiet with the engines powered down. After Brody had finished the initial burn they’d been able to unstrap from their seats and Addy had wandered back into the main hold.

It had always felt cozy and comfortable before, but the compartment suddenly seemed cold and too small. Maybe it’s just knowing that we’re trapped here – there’s nowhere else to go. She was used to the wide-open spaces of a planet, sky stretching overhead. Instead she felt all too aware of the thin skin of the ship’s hull that was all that separated them from the gaping expanse of space.

The adrenaline’s wearing off, she reminded herself, even as she felt her forehead turn clammy. Just a few hours ago, she’d been fighting off armed intruders in her bedroom. Now she didn’t even know when she’d get to go home again.

Home. When had she started thinking of it as home, and not just a place that she was staying?

She shook off the maudlin thoughts and stepped into the galley, pulling a drinking bulb of water. At least the ship had been restocked with the essentials in its downtime; they’d be fine for provisions until they got where they were going.

Wherever that was. Right now they were just running to get away – a feeling Addy knew all too well. No destination, no plan other than survival. But that wasn’t going to be enough.

That wouldn’t get them back home.

Boots clomped down the passage from the cockpit and Tapper stepped into the compartment. The weathered sergeant’s eyes moved to her and gave a wry crinkle, as though he knew exactly what she was thinking.

“Come on,” he said with no preamble. “The commander wants an inventory of our resources.”

Addy nodded to the empty space where the trunk had been. “I think you blew up all our resources back in the hangar.”

Tapper shrugged. “Like the old saying goes, easy come, easy go up in flames.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard that one before.”

“Kids today,” said the sergeant with a mock grumble. “Grab the go bags.”

They’d each brought one. Addy retrieved the ones for herself and Brody and found Taylor’s in the bunk room she and the commander were sharing. Tapper’s was larger and he’d dropped it onto the table in one corner of the cargo compartment, then unzipped it and unceremoniously dumped its contents into a pile on the table: two knockout guns, three burner sleeves, a concussion grenade, a pair of false IDs, and a not insignificant pile of credit chips.

Addy and Brody’s bags were somewhat more meager, but she’d packed each of them with a fake ID and a decent handful of credits – her own had an old but reliable Marks & Gray slug-thrower in there as well, and she saw Tapper cast an appraising eye in its direction.

Taylor’s was perhaps the best stocked of them all, a fact that didn’t remotely surprise Addy. There’s nothing she doesn’t think through. Five fake IDs, including Illyrican citizenship papers that looked totally genuine; four unactivated sleeves; a portable terminal; a KO gun, and enough credits to probably buy a brand new ship if they needed to. It was more than Addy’s official pay for a year.

“I guess she was saving them for a rainy day,” said Addy, as she let them sift through her fingers.

“Good,” said Tapper, “because it’s fucking pouring.”

So we’re not exactly going to have to look through the sofa cushions for spare change.

“Well, this seems fairly promising,” said Tapper. The sergeant still had a hint of the morose about him, which Addy could only attribute to a decided lack of high explosives amongst their little collection.

There were more footsteps from the ship’s fore, presaging Brody and Taylor’s arrival; the other two members of the team joined them to survey the haul. Brody’s eyes widened at the pile of money.

“Whoa. Are we buying a moon?” He reached out and poked them, as if he wasn’t sure they were real.

“Uh, shouldn’t someone be watching things up front?” said Addy.

“Not much flying required right now,” said Brody, with a shrug. “At this point, we’re basically just a rock somebody’s thrown.”

“I’ve been arguing for years that we don’t even need a pilot,” said Tapper. “Nobody ever listens.”

“I mean, it’s not intellectually challenging like setting off explosives or anything.”

“Try it and see how many fingers you have left.”

“Listen up,” said Taylor sharply, cutting through the repartee. “We’ve got a limited amount of time before we have to make some decisions. I know this,” she gestured at the pile of credits and fake IDs, “seems like a lot, but you’ll be amazed at how fast we can burn through it, especially without a plan. Those papers won’t raise questions at a glance, but they’re quick jobs, not backstopped by extensive legends like the ones we’re used to. If anybody starts digging into them, they’ll fall apart fast.”

“Come on, commander. We’re used to working without a net,” said Brody.

Tapper snorted. “There’s working without a net, kid, and then there’s working over a pit of spikes. One will get you killed a lot faster.”

Addy rolled her eyes. Without Kovalic to keep a lid on them, this is going to get old in a hurry. “Will you two shut up? The commander’s got the floor.”

They both had the decency to look abashed at the reprimand.

“Sorry, commander,” said Brody.

Taylor sent a curt nod in Addy’s direction. “Look, I know all of this is overwhelming, and it’s hard to even know where to start. So let’s take it step by step: We can’t stay in Commonwealth space.”

Leaning against one of the bulkheads, Tapper gave a wry grin. “I’m guessing Illyrican territory is right out.”

Brody coughed. “Yeah, one of us is still technically a deserter from the Illyrican military, so I’m going to give that a hard pass.”

As Commonwealth operatives, none of them were going to be particularly safe in the Imperium, but Brody had served as an Illyrican fighter pilot before Kovalic had recruited him, which made it even riskier for him.

“Hanif space is right off the Badr sector,” Addy suggested. “The Ring’s big – we could easily disappear in there.”

Taylor seemed to weigh the option for a second, then shook her head. “The clans tightly police entry, and, more importantly, Aidan Kester came up on the Hanif desk at CID. We can’t risk that he still has connections there. We need someplace off the beaten path.”

“We’re running low on options, then,” said Brody, eyes rolling upward as he consulted the pilot’s charts that Addy knew were seared into his brain. “Haran’s too small… Anselm doesn’t have any habitable planets… hmm, there are a few moons in Juarez. I think one has a palladium mining operation.”

“Perfect. Just the kind of place where we can disappear. Any objections?” asked Taylor, looking around.

Addy had never set foot in the Juarez system, couldn’t even remember having heard much about it, which hopefully boded well. There was the pesky matter of what they could actually do from a remote mining colony, but that was a problem for later.

“It’ll take us around fourteen hours once we’re out of the system,” said Brody. “Commander, if you’ve got an idea about how to hide our course from the comm buoy on the other end of the gate, now would be a good time to share.”

“Oh, no, lieutenant,” said Taylor, and the smile that crossed her face was genuine and, Addy thought, a little unnerving in its enthusiasm. “Transparency’s important: I plan on telling them exactly where we’re going.”

Brody’s course setting was on the money; the Cav hit the bullseye from half a system away, sailing right past a small handful of Commonwealth naval ships that were clearly doing their best to patrol the huge swath of empty space before the immense whirlpool of blue and purple that was the Badr wormhole.

Hell of a darts throw.

They used the transit time to get all their gear stowed safely and securely in the ship. After disbursing the credits among the team, the rest had been stashed in a variety of secret compartments throughout the Cavalier. Likewise with the weapons and extra fake IDs.

Tapper, over Brody’s protestations, even secured one of their pistols with a magnetic holster on the underside of the pilot’s console in the cockpit.

“Sarge, I don’t really do guns,” said Brody.

The old man snorted. “That’s only because the rest of us have been here to cover your ass.” He sighed and put up a hand to forestall Brody’s argument. “Look, I’ll feel better if I know you’ve got it. Just in case.”

Addy watched Brody’s dubious expression turn to one of resignation, shot through with sympathy. The old man knows exactly what buttons to press.

Each of them also chose one of their identities to carry, because the only thing more suspicious than no papers were too many papers. Addy’s proclaimed her as Sabaean native Regina Allingham, though she’d privately already decided that she went by “Reggie”. It also listed her occupation as a freelance journalist, which hopefully provided adequate cover for asking a bunch of nosy questions, should the need arise. She’d even invented a dog named Ginger, because why not? Fictitious pets are way easier to clean up after, although definitely less cuddly.

All of that busywork filled the two-hour trip through the wormhole surprisingly easily, and in no time they’d reconvened in the cockpit as they prepared to exit the gate back into normal space.

“OK, here we go,” said Brody, grasping the Cavalier’s yoke.

Outside the canopy, the blue-purple mottling of the wormhole flashed white, leaving a bright corona in Addy’s eyes, and then they were looking out once again into empty space as they emerged into the uninhabited Badr sector.

“Re-entry complete. Commander, it’s your show.”

Seated at the co-pilot’s console, Taylor reached out and tapped a control on the holoscreen in front of her, lines of code unspooling at a breakneck pace. “Deploying the countermeasures now.”

Tapper leaned forward, staring at the lines as if he could unpack their meaning just by looking, then shook his head. “So this virus…”

“Worm, technically,” said Taylor. “It doesn’t require any further human intervention once it’s infiltrated the comm network. From there, it’ll self-propagate across the system, making it look like several thousand ships with several thousand different transponder signals exited at this precise time and plotted a thousand courses to every corner of the sector. Even if someone combs through all that data, it’s going to be nearly impossible to figure out which signal was real.”

“Why not just delete our log entry?” the sergeant asked. “Surely that would be easier.”

“Redundancy and backups. There are a lot more protections against removing data than inserting extra data.”

“I don’t suppose this would work with my pension?”

“Worm deployed,” said Taylor. “Lieutenant, the helm is yours. Plot a course for the Juarez gate.”

“Copy that. We’re going to take a nice, long comfortable trip across the system. So I hope you all like sixth wave instrumental techno-pop, because that’s the only playlist I have loaded.”

Tapper groaned. “I’m going to go put a pillow over my head and try to get some rack time.”

Grinning to himself, Brody leaned back and put his feet up on the console, still wearing the dingy shoes that he’d grabbed from the apartment. We’re all going to need to buy some new clothes, I’m guessing. Addy started mentally spending the credits in her head, watching them drain away. The commander was right – it seems like a lot until you start using it.

Taylor stood and jerked her head at Addy, gesturing towards the cargo hold. Leaving Brody to start bopping his head to a particularly aggressive synth track, she followed the other woman out, making sure to close to cockpit door behind them. Like any virus, that music needs to be contained or it’s going to embed itself in my brain.

In the hold, Taylor turned and cleared her throat, shifting her weight back and forth between her legs in a decidedly un-Taylor-like pose. She’s… Addy blinked. Nervous?

“I just wanted to say, I know you and I haven’t always seen eye to eye… but I appreciate your support back there. This is going to be an adjustment for all of us. Not having Simon here, I mean. It’s not a position I thought I’d find myself in. Especially under these circumstances.”

Oh god, she’s trying to bond. Uhhhh… how do I…. “Sure,” she said after a slightly too long pause. “I get it. But like you said, we’re all in this, so we’d better stick together. Otherwise we’re not going to last long.”

“Right.” Taylor offered up a wan smile. “Anyway, thanks.” She nodded her head, as if satisfied she’d gotten her point across. “I’m going to check our medical supplies.”

And with that, she headed across the cargo hold, leaving Addy shaking her head. Never thought I’d see the day when Taylor feels out of her element. A cold tendril snaked its way into her gut, sitting heavy, like a meal of fried food.

I think we might really be in trouble this time.