CHAPTER 35

Sayers’s words echoed in Nat’s head, but they hadn’t quite sunk in. “Say again?”

“Imperial Fleet Security,” the specialist repeated. “I don’t know if they’re ex-military or moonlighting or what, but I recognized the tattoo on one of their wrists.”

Nat found herself shooting a surprised look at the only other person in the compartment but, to her credit, Ofeibia Xi looked equally nonplussed.

“Did you know about this?” Nat asked.

Xi tapped one slender finger thoughtfully against her lips. “No, though it does fill in some gaps. Apparently Flores’s connection to the princess came with some perks. Illyrican backing would definitely help explain the speed of his rise.”

Nat’s mind spun through the logic, but it checked out. From what Xi had said, Flores had capitalized on the collapse of the Black Watch, slipping into the vacuum left behind. But the Watch were Caledonian nationalists, dedicated to shaking off the Illyrican rule of their homeworld.

The Coire Ansic, it seemed, had taken a more… flexible approach.

The real question, then, was what the Imperium was getting out of this arrangement. Why lend armed security to a criminal organization that already had its own surfeit of muscle? Illyrican Fleet Security wasn’t even technically under IIS’s purview. Had the princess called in some favors? Or did she, as not only head of the Imperium’s intelligence apparatus but also a member of its royal family, have even more clout than Nat – or most of the Commonwealth – realized?

Suddenly, getting ahold of all the surveillance Xi had on Isabella was quickly becoming the highest priority.

“This does explain some things,” Gwen said slowly over the comms. “I’ve wondered why local law enforcement hasn’t been able to make any significant inroads into the Coire Ansic. If the crims are feeding them information, that would make sense.”

Xi reached up and touched her own earpiece. “This is all most interesting, but you’re here to take Roche Flores’s money. I don’t really care who his security is.”

To a certain extent, Xi was right: security was security, whether they were private goons or Imperial soldiers. Granted, they were a higher caliber of protection than expected, but the fundamentals of the plan were still solid.

Not that Nat liked it. But the sooner this job was over, the sooner she wouldn’t have to worry about Ofeibia Xi again. Her lips pressed into a thin line. “We proceed as planned,” she said over comms. “Marking Checkpoint Alpha.”

A chorus of double-click acknowledgements flitted over the channel, and then radio silence.

“If anything, this ought to make it all the more satisfying for you, major,” said Xi, leaning back against the bench, her arms draped across the top. A smile tugged at her mouth. “Getting one over on the Illyricans would be a nice bonus.”

That wasn’t worth a response and Nat didn’t deign to give it one. Instead, she reached up to the luggage rack and pulled down the bag containing the gear Gwen had acquired for her. Out came a portable terminal and interface cable.

She headed for the compartment’s door, feeling Xi’s gaze dog her every step. But the syndicate boss didn’t say anything as Nat slipped out of the compartment.

In the corridor, with the door closed firmly behind her, she couldn’t stop her sigh of relief from escaping. Having Xi looking over their shoulders every step of the way had proved not just complicated but downright irritating. She hadn’t even had a second to look at the slip of paper from Sayers’s brush pass; she plucked it from the inside of the collar of her shirt, where she’d hidden it.

It was a short note, but her eyebrows went up as she read it, and a smile threatened to break out despite all her frustrations. However Sayers had pulled this one off, it might be exactly what they needed.

Bringing up the train schedule on her sleeve, she watched the blinking dot that represented their progress along the route; still about an hour to go before they hit their target, which meant she had plenty of time for her next part in this job.

When she slipped into the third car forward from their position, though, she spotted a pair of people lounging near the far end, apparently engaged in a perfectly normal conversation. But the way both of their eyes tracked her as she entered, not to mention the set of their shoulders and their feet, told her everything she needed to know.

More security.

Nat didn’t slow her pace, continuing forward as any average passengers would. She saw one of them spare a curious glance at the terminal she carried under one arm, but neither of them made an immediate move to intercept her. Still, she’d have to pass by them to get to the next car.

No conflict. Not yet. That would tip her hand and potentially jeopardize the whole operation. So instead, she’d just keep the polite smile on her face and walk on by without any problems whatsoever.

That was the plan, anyway.

When she reached them, she murmured “excuse me” as she squeezed by and felt their eyes rake her, looking for anything suspicious or out of the ordinary. But neither made a move to stop her, and she was almost through the passageway into the next car when one of their voices called out from behind her.

“Hey, wait…”

She forced herself not to freeze, not to hesitate, just to glance back over her shoulder with a quizzical look on her face.

One of them – a slender man with a hawk nose and heavy brows – was holding out a hand in which was coiled the interface cable Nat had been holding. “I think you dropped this.”

Nat’s heart thumped in her chest, but there was nothing to do but smile and hold out her hand. “Oh! Thanks,” she said, trying to inject a note of brightness, even with her dead certainty that she hadn’t been clumsy enough to drop a piece of her equipment. Had they made her? Her mind flicked through anything that might have given her away but came up empty.

The man grinned. “No problem,” he said. “But if you’d like to thank me, I’d take a cup of coffee from the café car.”

Oh good, he thought he was cute. Her smile was frozen in place, much as she’d have preferred to give him an earful.

His partner, the one who’d seemed curious about the terminal in the first place, rolled their eyes, and nudged them. “On duty,” they muttered.

“Can’t hurt to ask!” protested the first.

Just what she needed: a come-on from Flores’s security. “Sorry,” she said, dangling the cable from one hand. “Work calls! Maybe another time.” Any hopes she’d had of remaining inconspicuous had just gone out the window, so her only remaining option was to make herself scarce.

The man’s partner took him by the shoulder and dragged him away, casting Nat an apologetic look, but she didn’t stick around; she was down the corridor and into the next car, not relaxing until the connecting door slid closed behind her.

Too close.

There was no security – no passengers, even – in the corridors of the next two cars, which brought her to the locked door leading to the train’s operations center.

Not a lot of cover, she noted, looking around. Fortunately, the door was slightly obscured because the corridor jogged to the right here, around the row of compartments. Her best defense was that nobody else was likely to come this way.

Pressing herself out of the line of sight for any passengers coming and going from the compartments, she pulled out the multitool she’d brought, then ran her hands around the doorframe until she found the access panel. It only took a few moments to unscrew it and locate the interface port for the door. Jacking in her terminal, she fired up the bypass program she’d retrieved from one of her dead drops on the nets and, after a few seconds, the door seal released.

The operations car beyond was cold and dark, illuminated only by a few blinking lights on control panels in standby mode. Equipment hummed around her, and she flipped on the lantern feature of her sleeve, holding up her hand to peer around.

A handful of consoles lined the walls of the windowless car, monitoring a variety of the train’s onboard systems: propulsion, climate controls, repulsors, communications, and so on. At the far end was another door that led to the operator compartment at the front of the train. While the vehicle itself was automated, a person could take manual control from the cockpit, if necessary.

Granted, if that happened, it was generally because something had gone very wrong.

Nat stepped up to the climate control console and plugged in the interface cable for her terminal. Her cracking programs made short work of the authentication, and the console blinked to life, showing off the current heating, cooling, air purification, water, and other relevant systems as lines of blue and red pulsing along a schematic of the train.

She activated the comm channel. “Passing Checkpoint Bravo.”

Once again, there were double-clicks of acknowledgement from the rest of the team.

Isolating the Coire Ansic’s car was simple enough; she tapped on its representation on the screen and selected the environmental controls. From there, it ought to be a simple enough matter to disable the carbon dioxide scrubbing, making for some very sleepy Coire Ansic goons.

ACCESS DENIED blinked in large red letters across the screen.

Frowning, Nat’s fingers danced over the keyboard, circumventing the authorization request, but even once she bypassed it, there was still an error being thrown. “Environmental controls unavailable?” she muttered aloud. “Why the – oh, shit.” She toggled her comm. “We’ve got a problem: there’s no remote access to the Coire Ansic’s car from the control center.”

“I believe you said everything would be accessible from there,” came Ofeibia Xi’s voice, lined with something dangerous.

Nat gritted her teeth. Given that the syndicate boss had coopted them at gunpoint, it was hard to imagine she could get more irritated with the woman, but here they were.

“I hate to disabuse you of the notion that I’m infallible,” said Nat. “But it looks like they’ve physically disconnected it from central control, along with most of the other critical systems.” Xi had said that Flores was paranoid, but it was only now sinking in just how cautious the man was. He must have paid a pretty penny in bribes to have his car cut off from the train’s systems – no doubt it violated any number of safety regulations.

Or perhaps that was where his Illyrican contacts had come in handy? The gravtrain was nominally under the authority of the local government, but no doubt a high-level Imperial could throw some influence around. Especially if they had some sort of vested interest.

“So now what?” said Sayers.

Nat’s fingers drummed on the console. “We’re shifting to contingencies. Sergeant, Gwen, head to the Coire Ansic’s car immediately. I still need to establish the remote uplink to trigger the track switch. I’ll join you once I’m done.”

There were muted acknowledgements from Tapper and Gwen, but to Nat’s surprise, the only objection to the plan came from an unexpected source.

“That puts almost the entire train between us,” Sayers pointed out. “And who knows how much security. We can’t leave you up there alone. We’ve already left one person on their own.” The emphasis made it clear who she meant, but there was something else beneath it – almost like an injunction sent in Nat’s direction.

“Your priority is to get the job done, Adelaide,” said Xi. “Do what the major says.”

“I appreciate the concern, specialist,” said Nat more gently. “But I’ll be fine.”

Sayers grumbled to herself, and Nat thought she caught the word “stubborn” through the comm static, but elected to ignore it. There were far bigger problems to deal with.

For example, this next bit, which the specialist was really not going to like.

She took a deep breath. “Sayers, I need you to get eyes on the money. It’s the priority objective. The next checkpoint’s coming up and at least one of us needs to be back there to uncouple the cars. We miss that window, and this whole job goes up in smoke.” There wasn’t a sound from Xi but Nat could picture her listening, waiting like a coiled serpent to strike. As long as they got the money, the syndicate boss would be happy. The rest of them could always regroup once the train reached Stranraer.

Assuming Xi didn’t use the opportunity to deal with them once and for all. But Nat couldn’t worry about that right now. She drove the point home. “That’s an order, specialist. There’s an overhead hatch in the connecting compartment between the café car and the Coire Ansic; I’m unlocking it from here.” Nat brought up the car schematic again and tapped a sequence of controls.

There was silence for a moment, then Sayers came back on the line. “I’m not going to lie: I was really hoping it wasn’t going to come to this. You sure I can’t just sweet talk my way through all those goons in between?”

Nat assumed that by “sweet talk” Sayers meant “beat the crap out of”, but she didn’t give the other woman time to elaborate. “Your kit should have all the gear you’ll need.”

“Yeah? I hope it has a defibrillator, because I’m going to have a fucking heart attack.”

This was exactly the kind of plan that Nat, as the team’s executive officer, would normally be trying to poke holes in, to make sure that they’d thought it all through. But now she was the one in charge, they were running out of time, and there wasn’t anybody else to fill that role. So what seemed like it might be lunacy was actually pretty plausible.

Maybe that ought to have worried her more.

“Get moving. And Sayers?”

“Yeah?

“See you on the other side.”