6

Dasi watched as Hawken raised his hands for silence, and the arguments that had broken out around the conference room slowly died down.

“This is all speculation until we have confirmation,” he admonished the rest of the emergency meeting attendees. “And as a rule, I hate speculation. General Childers, what have you got?”

The general covered the microphone on his holophone with one hand, keeping it pressed to his ear with the other. “It’s confirmed. I have multiple station commanders on Tarkis reporting military vehicles moving into urban areas.”

We are at war, Dasi thought. It’s gotta be related to the attack here.

“And this army is from …?” Hawken asked.

“Jokuan,” Childers said. “Looks like the TV news got that part right. The soldiers all have the Jokuan flag on their uniforms.”

Jokuan?

>>>It is a planet in the Territories that recently suppressed a long and rather brutal revolution.

Six, can you find a link between Ricken and Jokuan?

>>>I will look into it.

See if there’s a link with Foss, too. It’s a pretty big coincidence that he disappeared right before the attack.

“My commanders are requesting instructions, sir,” General Childers was saying to Hawken.

“Instructions?” Hawken wiped at his mouth and swore feelingly. “If they fought back, would they be able to stop the invaders?”

“No, sir,” Childers said, immediately. “They’re out-manned and out-gunned. And my men are law enforcement officers, not soldiers. They’re not trained for war.”

“The Fleet Reaction Force is,” a woman down the table put in.

Hawken nodded. “We’ll get to that in a moment. General, I’m assuming your officers aren’t interfering at all right now?”

“Correct,” Childers replied. “They’re trained to de-escalate situations, not make them worse. So they’re keeping their heads down, and no one’s shooting right now.”

“Well, let’s keep it that way,” Hawken said. “Orders are to stay put, and keep us informed.”

“Yes, sir,” Childers agreed. He turned back to the phone to relay those instructions.

“Okay, let’s talk Fleet Reaction Force,” Hawken said. “Does anyone here know anything about how that works?”

Dasi saw a notification pop up in her eye implants.

>>>I have been studying footage taken from media spacecraft orbiting this installation.

What’ve you got, Six? she asked.

>>>I believe I have an explanation for why the defense systems activated prior to the explosion.

A still image from a video appeared on Dasi’s heads-up display.

>>>This image shows the blast damage incurred by the battle cruiser. Note that the superstructure curves inward around the edges of the blast area.

Okay …, Dasi replied. Then she frowned. Wait. If it blew up from the inside, the explosion would have pushed the hull upward.

>>>Precisely. I am searching through exterior security footage prior to the blast for confirmation, but I believe this installation was attacked from an external source.

Movement caught Dasi’s eye – a short, balding man had pushed the conference room door open, entering with three women in tow.

“I need a moment of your time,” he told the committee.

“Martin!” Dasi cried. She stood and ran to him, wrapping him in a hug.

“Dasi?” He hugged her and then stood back, getting a better look at her. “What a surprise. I heard you graduated – congratulations.”

“Thanks,” she told him. Then she realized the room was staring at them. “Sorry,” she said. “We, uh … we just go way back.”

She sat down, red-faced, but still smiling.

Hawken stood and held out his hand. “Detective, it’s an honor to meet you. I’m Jace Hawken. They’ve asked me to call the shots around here for the time being.”

“Nice to meet you, sir,” Beauceron said, shaking Hawken’s hand. He gestured to Atalia and the two other women. “This is Detective il-Singh, my partner, and two of our … colleagues.”

The tallest of the three women caught sight of the viewscreen at the front of the room, which had been muted, but which showed images of tanks rolling down a city street. The banner at the bottom read: Tarkis Attacked By Jokuan Fleet.

“Is this live?” she asked.

“Yes it is,” General Childers replied.

“Fuck!” she swore.

“You don’t seem surprised,” Childers observed.

“That’s because I’m not,” the woman replied. She turned to Beauceron. “Martin, start at the beginning.”

He nodded, then frowned. “Well, I’m not sure where to start, frankly. I’ll begin with this, though. Ricken was threatening the Senate with a high energy device that was hidden on a ship here at Anchorpoint.”

“It appears he triggered that device, Detective,” a woman at the end of the table pointed out, sarcastically.

“No, that’s impossible,” the taller woman said.

“Why?” Hawken asked.

“Because we located and disabled the device several seconds before the blast went off,” Beauceron said. “But he may have had a backup device that we weren’t aware of.”

“There was no backup device, Martin,” the taller woman said.

“We can’t be sure,” he replied.

“If you disabled the device, then what caused the explosion?” General Childers asked, interrupting their argument.

“Precision kinetic darts,” Dasi said.

“What?” Hawken asked.

Everyone in the room turned to face her, and her cheeks flushed even darker. But she stood and walked to the viewscreen. “I’ve got an internal computer – an implant. I’ve been using it to review footage of the blast damage.” Dasi tapped the screen, and an image of the battle cruiser appeared on it.

“Look at the way the ship’s hull curves down and in, toward the center of the blast area. That indicates something exploded on the hull first, penetrating the cruiser, and then a secondary explosion blew up the Senate Chamber.”

General Childers frowned. “Are you an explosives expert?” he asked.

“No, sir,” Dasi said. “But remember that Anders Ricken claimed to have installed this weapon on a number of orbital drones, armed with these darts. Those drones are supposedly in orbit over every planet in the Federacy. It stands to reason he may have had one here, too.”

Childers shook his head. “I’m not convinced.”

Dasi pointed to the screen again. “I also found this video of the ship, just before the explosion. Watch.”

On the screen, a large anti-aircraft battery sat idle for a second, and then abruptly jumped into action, lifting its barrel and rotating in its housing. The gun fired a sustained burst out into space. Dasi froze the video in place, and zoomed it in.

“This cannon is firing at the darts in a last-ditch effort to detonate them. You can just barely make out the darts against the background stars,” she said. “Look, in this frame this star is covered up, but in the next, you can see it again.”

Childers grunted. “Send that footage to the investigation team.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hawken winked at Dasi. “Nice detective work, officer.”

“Thank you, sir,” she replied.

“I still don’t get why Ricken used the darts, though,” Hawken continued, turning back to the conference table.

Beauceron rubbed his chin. “Perhaps he didn’t ….”

“Of course he didn’t,” the tall woman interjected. “You honestly think Ricken’s plan was to come to Anchorpoint, put on a big show at the Senate for a half hour or so, and then kill himself and everyone inside, without any warning?”

Beauceron met her gaze. “No,” he agreed. “The Jokuans?”

“Yes, the fucking Jokuans!” she said. “General Yo-Tsai planned this – all of this. He was playing Ricken from the start.”

“I’m sorry,” Hawken told her. “I didn’t get your name. Are you part of Detective Beauceron’s investigative team?”

The taller woman glanced at her younger colleague, and Dasi noticed that the younger woman had her hand resting casually on the butt of an auto-pistol in a holster on her belt. The taller woman bit her lip, and then sighed.

“I lead a team known as ‘Project Arclight.’ Arclight was an experimental unit that reported directly into the Senate Intelligence committee. We were tasked with identifying and monitoring military threats to the Federacy. We’ve been gathering intelligence on the Jokuans for several weeks now. I came here to warn the Intelligence Committee that the Jokuans had deployed their fleet, and were preparing to attack.”

“It looks like you were too late,” the fire department head noted.

“I did my best,” the woman replied, shooting him an icy glare. “I wanted to disable the fleet before they could even take off, but the senators wouldn’t approve it.”

I feel like there’s something familiar about her, Dasi thought.

“I’ve never heard of this ‘Arclight,’ ” General Childers commented.

“Well, that’s how black operations work,” the woman replied. “If you’d heard of us, we wouldn’t be very good at our jobs, would we?”

Childers scowled at her. “And you said this team was made up of Interstellar Police officers?”

The woman shook her head. “I did not say that.”

“You’re wearing an Interstellar Police ID badge,” Childers pointed out.

“Yes, I am.”

An uncomfortable silence settled over the room. Dasi found herself suddenly conscious of the heft of her service weapon in its holster.

Six, can you find anything on this Arclight thing?

>>>I found no relevant public search results.

Finally, Beauceron cleared his throat. “I can vouch for her,” he said. “I’ve worked with her before, and she was instrumental in locating Ricken’s ship.”

“We’re all on the same team here,” the woman agreed. “I want to do everything I can to help you fight the Jokuans, believe me.”

Hawken sighed. “I’m sorry, but you have to understand, with all that’s just happened … it’s hard to trust anyone that’s clearly hiding something from us.”

“Trust goes both ways. Someone here at Anchorpoint recently betrayed me and my team to the Jokuans,” the woman shot back. “So I’m not really in a sharing mood.”

Hawken cocked his head to one side. “What if I promised you that anything you tell us stays in this room?”

“I’d say that’s not a promise you can keep,” the woman replied.

“Are you worried because you think your team’s no longer officially sanctioned?” Hawken asked. “With the Intel Committee dead, there’s no one that can prove you were on Jokuan on official government orders.”

The woman narrowed her eyes. “I’m worried that if you knew anything more about me and my team, you’d want to arrest us.”

“Well, that doesn’t help reassure me at all,” Hawken said.

“Then I guess we’re at an impasse,” the woman replied.

Have I met her before? Dasi wondered. I don’t recognize her face. But Beauceron says he knows her. And there’s something about her posture … Suddenly, Dasi sat up straighter.

“Jace,” she said. “I think I know this woman, too.”

The woman shot Dasi a look of shocked surprise. “We’ve never met before,” she said.

Dasi nodded slowly. “I think we have.” She turned to Hawken. “Jace, before we got to Anchorpoint, I shared something with you, something I did before I joined the Interstellar Police.”

“Dasi,” the woman said, her tone full of warning.

“No, it’s okay,” Dasi replied. “Trust me.” She turned back to the district attorney. “Jace, do you remember?”

Hawken frowned. “Yes,” he said. Then his eyebrows shot upwards, and he turned to look at the woman. “I see. Yes, of course – that makes sense.”

“Sir,” General Childers protested. “I’m not at all comfortable with the amount of secrets and lies being thrown about.”

“General, wait,” Hawken said, holding up a hand. “I understand why this woman values her privacy. And what’s more, if she says she and her team are willing to help us, I’m damn well going to take her up on it.” He stood quickly, and held out his hand to the woman. “Stay, please – your secret’s safe with me.”

She eyed his outstretched arm. “No arrests? No investigation?” she asked.

“I’ve got a lot more to worry about right now,” he said. “As long as you and your team are on our side, your past is irrelevant right now.”

She reached out and shook his hand. “In that case, it looks like Project Arclight is back online.”

On the viewscreen at the front of the room, a man wearing the uniform of an Interstellar Police captain appeared, replacing Dasi’s footage of the PKD attack.

“General Childers,” he announced. “I have an incoming video call from Tarkis.”

“For who?” Childers asked.

The captain looked down at a notepad on his desk. “They said, and I quote: ‘Put me through to whoever is running what’s left of the Federacy.’ ”

An icy stillness fell over the room. Hawken turned to face the screen. “I suppose that would be me,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” the captain agreed. “Stand by.”

His face disappeared, and a moment later, it was replaced by a view of a middle-aged soldier standing on the bridge of an older ship. He looked up and gave them a tight smile, but his eyes held nothing but contempt.

“Who am I speaking with?” he demanded.

“Jace Hawken, district attorney,” Hawken said. “And you are?”

“General Yo-Tsai, commander of the Jokuan Forces.”

“General, I must ask you to withdraw your forces from Tarkis immediately, to prevent any further bloodshed,” Hawken said, keeping his voice even.

“And if I do not?” Yo-Tsai prompted.

“I’ll have no choice but to activate the Fleet Reaction Force, destroy your forces, and seize Jokuan to be held as a Federacy protectorate.”

Yo-Tsai shook his head. “You’ll do no such thing. I’m standing on the bridge of Ricken’s command vessel. This console gives me full control of the orbital drones deployed across the Federacy. The minute I hear the FRF has received orders to activate, I will open fire.”

“General—” Hawken said, but Yo-Tsai interrupted him.

“Furthermore, you will ensure that no Interstellar Police units try to interfere with my operations, either here on Tarkis, or on any other planet my forces land on. Again, failure to comply will result in strikes on heavily populated areas across the Federacy. Lastly, any attempt to disable the drones will be met with immediate reprisal. Have I made myself clear?”

“General,” Hawken said. “I urge you to reconsider. You’re declaring war on the Federacy.”

“No,” Yo-Tsai said. “The war is already over. Deny that fact at your peril. I’m merely occupying what I already possess.”

He severed the connection, and the screen went black.