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Earth, The Oracle
Tessa stalked into the Oracle's medical bay – the closest thing the ship had to a lab – hoping Hermie had finished analyzing the memory cells in captured reapers. She wasn't disappointed.
"They are bad, Boss-Tessa," he said as she approached. "But it isn't their fault. They were programmed to destroy."
"I don't think that matters to the families of their victims," she said gently.
The little android shook head slowly. "No. Hermie knows."
Silence followed until Tessa prompted him. "Did you find a location?"
He trundled over to an empty table and tapped a command into the panel. The table's translucent surface lit up with a map of the surrounding area. "Here," he said, pointing. A set of coordinates hovered over his metal finger.
"Perfect. That helps a lot." Tessa recognized the place from her years on Earth post evacuation. It wasn't far from Gaia's creation cave, ironically enough. It might even be part of the same system. "Was there anything else?"
He lifted his head with a toothy grin. "Oh yes. Hermie found out many things. The reprogrammer wants Gaia to die. He sent a container of nanocytes with the first four so they could build more reapers."
"Lovely. How many have they built?"
"Fifty. So there should be fifty-four, but two of the original four have been terminated. One by you, and another by Dwarf-mother. Now there are only fifty-two. But they are building more."
"And how do they plan to kill Gaia?"
Hermie frowned. "These reapers are soldiers. They did not know. One recalled hearing Reaper578 mention a machine to Reaper577, but this reaper did not know what kind of machine or where it was." He turned an apologetic face to her. "I am sorry, Boss-Tessa."
"Not your fault. Did they know who the programmer was?" she asked.
He brightened. "No. But this reaper has many memories of 578 saying, 'the master.' So, Hermie thinks that 578 knows."
A grim smile lifted the corners of Tessa's mouth. "Well, we'll have to make sure we meet that one, then." She looked down at Hermie, then crouched next to him so they were eye-to-eye.
"Hermie, you know I trust you, and I appreciate your help with the reapers."
The android nodded enthusiastically. "Hermie likes to help, Boss-Tessa."
"Understood. But you can't help me tonight. You have to stay on the Oracle."
"Oh, no, Boss-Tessa. Hermie has to watch Boss-Tessa's back. To protect you."
"I'll have Magnus and the twins with me, plus Val and her crew will guard the perimeter. I'll be OK. But if you come with us, you might not be. You remember the device Sirius made us?"
Hermie frowned. "Sirius is not nice. Sirius hurt Boss-Tessa's heart."
Tessa winced. "He did, but he also made a device that will turn the reapers off so we can capture them. If you are there, the device will turn you off too, and I'm not sure I can reboot your system. So you will stay here, yes?"
In a human, the face Hermie made would be called rebellious. On an android, it could be interpreted as thoughtful. That would be a mistake.
"Hermie?" Tessa said, injecting as much warning as possible into her tone.
Hermie scuffed the ground with his foot. "Is Boss-Tessa ordering Hermie to stay on the Oracle?"
Tessa sighed. "I am, yes."
"Unless there's an emergency?"
"There won't be an emergency."
"But if there was?"
"There won't be."
"But–"
"Hermie. Stay on the ship. Do you understand?"
A long silence, and then, "Hermie understands."
The intercom crackled to life. "Tessa? Val and Alex are here. I'm taking them to our quarters."
Tessa stood up. "Be there in a minute." She looked down at Hermie. "Don't forget. You stay on the Oracle tonight."
"Yes, Boss-Tessa."
Tessa gave him a hard look, but Hermie presented the picture of innocent compliance. She knew better, but short of locking him in a box, she didn't know what else to do.
Atah tugged the folds of her camo-silk closer, blending in to the wall behind her. The fabric made the wearer all but invisible. Anyone looking down this corridor with normal vision would think it was empty.
Someone with infrared vision, like Tessa Graham, would be able to sense her presence, but only if she switched to heat sensing, which she would have no reason to do, as long as Atah stayed quiet.
Still, better to get in and out of the weapons locker without encountering any other people. Others might not be able to see her, but they could see what she did. Control panels opening, components being removed and tampered with – that they'd notice.
So, when she entered the armory and saw one of the crew pulling a box from storage, she settled against the wall and waited.
It didn't take long for the crewman to gather what he came for – ice blasters from the labeling on the container – and exit the room.
To ensure she wasn't interrupted, Atah placed a jammer on the entrance and sealed it. From outside, it would look like a malfunction, giving her enough time to close up the device and blend into the scenery before shutting the jammer off.
They'd be suspicious, maybe, but by the time they figured it out, if they did, it would be too late.
Timing was essential if you didn't want to get caught.
She crossed to the storage unit on the far wall and tapped in Magnus's security code. For a privateer, the man was terminally trusting. He used the same code on everything and wasn't overly careful to keep it secret. Of course, Tessa was encouraging him to change his ways, but so far, the one she'd seen him use last was...
"On target," she whispered as the unit slid open. From there, finding the device was easy. The box was larger than she expected, but the Komisi crest was easy to recognize. She slapped a levitator on the top and, turning her wrist to access the control unit, directed the device to lift the case and set it on a worktable nearby.
No sense risking a DNA transfer. Not that there'd be anything to match it to in any law enforcement records. She'd worked hard her entire career to keep that bit of information out of her file. But if she left that kind of evidence lying around, they could match it to her personally, and she hadn’t gotten this far being reckless.
Tugging at her gloves, she tapped in Magnus' security code on the case's control panel.
Nothing.
Atah sighed. It had been worth a shot, but since it came from Elara, she hadn't held much hope that the device would be secured with his password.
Reaching into a pocket on her equipment belt, she pulled out a small, round box and laid it gently next to the keypad. A light on top glowed red above two displays, one rectangular, the other a series of boxes. Numbers and symbols raced across the tiny screen. After a moment, a symbol glowed green in the first box.
There would be at least six numbers, possibly more, if Sirius Komisi was half as savvy as Tessa seemed to think.
The next symbol appeared, and Atah settled in to wait, hoping no one would need a gun in the immediate future.
Killing someone wasn't on her to-do list today, and it would raise alarms.
Finally, a faint chime sounded, and the case opened. Inside was a silver cube with black and white diagonal stripes stretched from corner to corner. A side pocket held a remote control. A quick investigation revealed access to the unit's program lay in the controller rather than the machine itself.
She opened the interface.
A few minutes later, she transported the closed box back to its storage unit and slipped from the weapons locker, the jammer in her pocket and a satisfied smile on her face.
Tessa would soon be dead, and the reward would belong to Atah. A fair day's work, all things considered.
Leaving the locker, she turned left and moved up the corridor. She didn't hear Hermie come around the corner behind her, and she didn't notice when the little android's eyes widened; his gaze trained on Atah's invisible figure until she passed from his sight down the corridor.
Earth, Cliffs Overlooking Ocean Swamneach
(Formerly known as the Pacific)
Tessa and Magnus stood on a bluff several hundred yards above the river. Below them, the ocean stretched away in the distance. Closer at hand, the river flowed toward an estuary. Cliffs, all packed with caves, spread up and down the coast in either direction.
The perfect place to hide a world-wrecking device.
Not that Gaia had put it here, but the reapers didn't know that. Tessa's job was to make them think she was leading them toward their objective, not actually help them find it. She'd leave removing and dismantling the machine to Gaia.
"So, how do we get them here?" Magnus asked. "You can't expect all of them to chase you nine hundred miles so you can round them up."
"I don't. This is plan B, in case there are stragglers. Come on. I'll show you plan A."
The pair went back to the Hazard, the Oracle's on planet transport. Built as a personal jet, the Hazard seated two, four in a pinch, and it was fast. According to Magnus, scary fast.
Tessa tapped in the coordinates Hermie had given them and Magnus lifted off. Half an hour later, they flew over a thick forest, a meandering line of dark water glinting through the foliage. Magnus set the Hazard down in a clearing, careful to scan for underground homes before landing.
They trekked through the forest to the river's edge, keeping inside the tree line and scanning for company as they went. Across the river was a rise of land, and beyond that, mountains.
"Hermie says they found an underground cache of discarded equipment. No oil or other contaminants, just the raw parts," Tessa said. "They've been using them to build new reapers. The entrance is hidden across the river."
Magnus lifted a set of binoculars to his eyes and scanned the heavily forested hillside. "I don't see anything."
"Me neither, but it doesn't have to be big," Tessa said. "I've never seen a reaper over three feet tall."
"No, but you'd think someone would notice them coming in and out."
"According to Hermie, there are three entrances total – and therefore three exits. We need to block those; force the reapers to come through here."
Magnus surveyed the area. The pristine, primeval forest populated with trees that must be over a hundred years old, and a clear, sparkling water source; it all looked so peaceful. Nothing about it screamed 'homicidal hideout.' "Are you sure there used to be a city here? Sure doesn't look like it."
"Gaia rearranged things a little after the evacuation," Tessa said. "But yeah. At one time, this was all industrial. Not many knew about it, but it was here. Gaia just put it underground."
"And the reapers found it?"
"I'm guessing. Either that or someone in the HDL scouted the place first." She ignored the ripple of worry that skittered through her senses. It was a question for later, not one she had time for now.
Magnus cleared his throat. "So, you remember telling me that we were doing a capture mission before?"
She gave him a sidelong look. "I remember."
"We still doing that?"
"No. This is definitely search and destroy."
He turned his gaze back to the pastoral hillside across the river. "Good. We'll put my people in place on the other entrances. Any of the little creepers who come out that way get iced."
Her mouth quirked. "You are enjoying this a little too much."
"Think so?" He gazed back at her with an innocent expression. "And here I was, thinking I was just getting started." His brow lowered. "They tried to kill you, Tessa. Not to mention Val and Tamar. Then there's the folks they murdered, all for some rando's deluded sense of revenge. I want every last one of them destroyed."
She thought of Hermie, and wasted potential, but all she said was, "Good. We're in the same parsec, then."
