Nerishka and Dresden shared a long look before Nerishka replied. “That’s because it does, and it’s my job to make sure it doesn’t get into the wrong hands.”
“Who do you work for?” Judith asked, shaking her head in credulously.
“If I told you…” Nerishka let the words hang.
Kelem clapped his hands, a broad grin spreading across his face. “You know what this means?”
“What?” Judith shot back.
“We get to use the explosives!”
KABLOOEY
STELLAR DATE: 10.18.8948 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Yazata Asteroid
REGION: Ayra System (Independent)
The team stood at the entrance to the gate room—which took another hour to find—staring at the remains of a twenty-meter jump gate laid on the floor in a grid. From what Nerishka could see, half the gate was missing, and all the mirrors were cracked.
<At least there’s not much for them to work with,> she said to Lyra.
<More than there should be, though.>
Kelem snorted. “I win. You guys better pay up.”
Nerishka stared around at them. “Seriously?”
“What?” Kelem shrugged, attempting innocent and failing. “Dresden was in on it too.”
Nerishka turned to glare at Dresden, but he too looked unapologetic. She gave a weary sigh and shook her head, then focused back on the gate remains.
“Get as much footage as you can. And grab a few samples. We need to document this, so we cover our asses.”
“You mean we’re not going to blow this thing up, get the hell out, and then pretend we know nothing?” asked Judith drily as she drifted along the length of the room, collecting a few of the smaller pieces of the gate and depositing them inside a bag.
“Yeah. We’re doing that. But when my boss asks for my report, she’ll prefer something more than ‘I saw it, trust me’.”
“So weird to think of you as having a boss,” Judith mumbled as the team began taking vids and samples, carefully avoiding some of the more radioactive segments.
<Lyra, make sure you scrub the identities of everyone but me when we send this along, OK? We don’t need to incriminate them.>
<Already done. I quite like Dresden’s crew. Teamwork isn’t so bad. I’m unsure why you find it so difficult.>
As Nerishka studied the remains of the gate—which was bigger than she had expected, one thing became clear.
“I don’t think we have enough explosives to blow this thing.”
“No?” Kelem asked. “We can probably crush five levels with what we have.”
“Still might not be enough,” Nerishka said. “What you see here survived a negative energy explosion.”
Judith waved at the team from the corner of the room, pointing at an antimatter bottle. “It’s half full. Think it will do the trick?”
<Oh yeah,> Lyra gave a rather disturbing laugh. <That will work nicely.>
Judith and Dresden moved the ten-milligram antimatter bottle into the middle of the gate’s remains where Kelem affixed the explosives to its exterior.
“Think this will crack it?” Kelem asked as he set the final explosive where Lyra directed. “These bottles are made to be really durable.”
<It’ll work,> Lyra assured them. <I’m linked up to the detonators; I’ll blow it as soon as we take off.>
“That’s a relief. Because, if it works, this kaboom is gonna crack Yazata in half,” Kelem said.
<I have it on good authority that what we want is a kablooey, not a kaboom,> Lyra replied. <Trust me, I’m not blowing this thing ‘til we’re nice and safe.>
<You have it on a timer, right?> Nerishka asked privately. <We can’t chance signal interruption.>
<Of course. But it’s a looooooong timer. I’m not suicidal.>
<OK, team,> Dresden gestured at the door <Let’s skedaddle.>
<Skedaddling,> muttered Kelem, followed by Judith.
To Nerishka, Lyra asked, <Is that perhaps some form of a team cheer or something?>
Nerishka chuckled. <That it is.> She smiled and hurried out of the room, giving the jump gate remains one last glance, before skedaddling herself.
As they ascended the lift shaft once more, Dresden glanced over at her. <It’s a little hard to believe that you were right.>
<What? I thought you always believed in my gut?>
<Most of the time, I did,> he assured her.
Nerishka was well aware that. The comment had come completely devoid of emotion.
Then he said, <So what’s the plan? Head to Ishtar Station and look for Azag?> She nodded in response, still wondering what he’d meant. <Then you eliminate him?> asked Dresden.
<Just because we’ve eliminated the gate, and possibly all their research, it doesn’t mean that Azag ceases to be a threat. If he doubles down after this, who knows what he’s capable of. Someone must have a record of that research saved on a different database. I’m not kidding myself by believing that what we have here is all of it.>
Lyra cut into their conversation, <I’ve seeded a virus that will track back if anyone attempts to access the systems on the station—should anything survive. If activated, the virus will move into their systems and alert us. We’ll be able to follow where they go. If it detects anything about the gate research, the virus will attack and corrupt all data.>
<Is it more of a malicious interference than a deletion?>
<Yes. It’s designed to not be discovered unless you know it’s there. Deletion will alert them to the missing data. Corruption would mean they would keep researching, perhaps even construct a new gate from that corrupted data.>
<That could mean their new gates could fail and possibly kill a bunch of people.> Nerishka knew that it didn’t matter. Stopping gate research was more important than the deaths of a few people.
She met Dresden’s eyes which bore an expression she couldn’t define. He shook his head before joining Judith in mocking Kelem over the near loss of his man bits and the possible need for an ablative codpiece.
Minutes later, they were aboard the ship, Raz easing the freighter out of the asteroid, drifting away as though they were nothing more than a piece of debris.
<I have two Ayran Space Force patrol boats closing in,> Lyra announced as the team sat in the rear observation deck, watching Yazata grow smaller behind them.
“They pick us up?” Dresden asked.
<No,> Lyra’s tone held a touch of sarcasm. <If they’d detected us, I would have started with ‘oh dear’.>
“You’re getting funny, Lyra,” Kelem said with a smile.
Nerishka spotted the ASF ships a moment before Lyra dropped markers on the holodisplay. “They’re closing with Yazata, they must not have spotted us departing.”
“Raz is good at what he does,” Dresden nodded in satisfaction. “I didn’t pick him for his looks.”
Nerishka met Judith’s eyes, both making an effort to hold in their laughter. They’d previously agreed that Raz’s good looks would have been reason enough to have him on board, rad piloting skills aside.
“I heard that,” Raz shot back over the ship’s comms.
“You listening in on us?” Judith asked with a laugh.
“Gets lonely up here. You don’t call, you don’t send vids—oh shit.”
<I confirm that oh-shit,> Lyra spoke up. <One of the ASF boats just pinged us.>
“Blow the charges,” Nerishka ordered. “We need a distraction.”
<You sure? We’re still a bit on the close side.>
“My girl can take it,” Raz called back. “You said it was around five hundred gigajoules-worth, right?”
<Yeah, give or take a bit,> Lyra replied.
“That’ll barely crack that rock,” Raz said. “But the EMP and debris will shield us from those ships nicely.”
“Lyra, do it,” Nerishka ordered.
<OK. Five count.>
The team turned their attention to the holodisplay where one of the ASF ships was
moving into the docking shaft while the other was turning to boost toward the Teshub.
“He might be far enough away that he won’t lose sight of us,” Dresden said softly, a moment before a blinding light burst from Yazata, followed by a shockwave that bowled the Teshub over, sending the freighter spinning through space.
“Holy shit! Dampeners holding…mostly!” Raz called out as the team gripped their chairs as the ship rattled and shook around them.
Then the wave passed and the holodisplay updated, showing a view of Yazata, now split in two, chunks of the asteroid streaking through space around them.
“What the burning stars…” Kelem whispered. “I thought that antimatter bottle was half empty…. Can five milligrams of antimatter smash a thousand-kilometer rock?”
<No…> Lyra said in a soft whisper. <It’s not even the yield of a hand-held tacnuke. On the plus side…the ASF ships are…gone. No one’s going to be following us.>
“There must have been some other antimatter stored nearby,” Nerishka said. “A lot of antimatter. Damn…if Azag didn’t know someone’s on his tail before, he’s sure going to know we’re coming now.”
NEW TARGET
STELLAR DATE: 10.19.8948 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Teshub, near Yazata Asteroid
REGION: Ayra System (Independent)
Raz let the Teshub drift for a day before slipping into a common shipping lane and activating a new transponder that identified the vessel as the Icarna.
Ayra’s inner asteroid belt was a disaster, and when the local space traffic control queried Raz on his undocumented course, he just bluffed a lie about his course being redirected by Ayran Search and Rescue teams after the Yazata explosion.
A lie the STC thankfully bought and didn’t cross-check.
“We’ve got two days to Ishtar Station, folks,” Dresden advised as the crew finished up a meal. “Make sure you’ve studied the station’s layout. Given how we haven’t managed to do anything not involving mass destruction in the past few days, I think we can all assume there are going to be some fireworks.”
“Blowing stuff up is fun,” Kelem said with a grin as he placed his dishes in the washer. “I mean…why else be a merc?”
“He makes a good point,” Judith said, shaking her head. “But since a few hundred million people live on Ishtar Station, let’s not blow the place up. That one would weigh on my conscience a bit.”
After a few more minutes’ conversation, Judith and Kelem left to ‘study’ which Nerishka suspected was to play a game of Snark with a holo of Ishtar somewhere nearby.
Once they were gone Nerishka turned to Dresden, a frown lowering her brow. “I think it would be best if they stayed out of the next part of the mission. You too.”
“Really?” Dresden turned to look at Nerishka. “You think after everything they’ve invested so far that they’d be happy to wash their hands and head off without seeing this through?”
Nerishka shrugged. “Maybe we need to make it clear to them that they have the option? We’re not sure what we’ll be walking into. A smaller team could move around with less chance of detection.”
Dresden grunted. “I’ll tell them if it makes you happy, but I can guarantee they’ll say they are staying. And we will risk offending them.”
Nerishka shrugged again and shifted her gaze away from his. “They need to know they have the option. To be honest, if I had any say, I’d drop you all back on Nimrud and head off myself to see this through. Less risk to you and the team that way.
Dresden shook his head and scowled at Nerishka for a few long seconds. Then he walked off without a word, passing her an audible feed as he entered the lounge where Judith and Kelem were dealing cards.
“Just one thing, team. The next part of this mission could merely be an in and out. Maybe even a one-person job to make it most efficient. You don’t have to go to Ishtar Station.”
“Are you going?” asked Judith, her tone hard.
“That’s beside the point.”
“It isn’t.”
“What if I told you I wasn’t going,” asked Dresden, his tone equally hard.
Judith snorted. “Then I’d ask if the Queen of Death is going too.”
“You know she’s going.”
“Then that answers your question. She goes, we go.”
Nerishka stiffened at the redhead’s resolve.
<Queen of Death? It certainly has a nice ring to it. A promotion from Death Dealer,> Lyra commented. <You appear to be upset.>
<Not upset. Annoyed. Confused. Frustrated. Not upset.>
<Because they are coming? Or because they are choosing to come because you are going?>
<The latter.> Nerishka pursed her lips. <I don’t understand. They don’t have any allegiance to me. They’re mercs, not Hand agents. They’ve done their part of the job. Nothing stopping them from calling it quits. Any professional would do just that.>
<They are more than professionals. You know that.>
<Yeah. They’re a family.> Nerishka folded her arms, gritting her teeth. <They’re Dresden’s, though, they’re not my family.>
Nerishka didn’t answer. She shifted to stare out of the window at an asteroid the ship was passing, watching as it grew ever smaller and disappeared into the blackness. This was a lot more than going off book. She was about to take out the top military leader of an independent system.
If I’d found the head of their government to be behind the pico research, I would have had to do the same thing. Jump gates are just as dangerous. The director will understand.
Even so, doing it without authorization would have consequences. Jeriah would see to that. And Nerishka didn’t need to take anyone else down with her.
Then she stiffened. What about Lyra? What repercussions would there be for the AI who helped Nerishka execute her unsanctioned kill?
<I do have a mind of my own you know,> Lyra cut into Nerishka’s thoughts, startling her.
<OK, I was being careful about bleed-through. How did you know what I was thinking?> Nerishka asked.
<You were moving your lips, mouthing the words like you were rehearsing what you were going to say.>
<Oh,> Nerishka sighed. <Well, there are rules about how we take out targets.>
<You don’t seem to be too concerned with the rules.>
<That’s me. I have a history with the Hand. I don’t want your reputation to be ruined.>
<I can take care of myself. And defend my own actions should the need arise. I think perhaps you are questioning things a little too much.>
Nerishka snorted. <You’re now saying you’re happy to support me going off book. Weren’t you the one trying to discourage me these past weeks? You told me this was rash and there would be consequences.>
<Yes. I do not deny saying that. But experience is a good teacher. We came here with one mission. To kill Fletcher. But your gut led you to a much bigger deal than Fletcher. Picotech research that wasn’t even happening yet? Not a major concern. But you stumbled upon something worse. Fletcher is the sparrow to the picotech raptor.>
Nerishka laughed. <Well, picotech does trump jump gate tech any day. Hands down.>
<I agree. But the jump gate research was active and funded by the Ayran government. The pico research was a non-starter.> Lyra sighed. <This is pointless. We are scraping through facts that we are both well aware of. What is going on with you now? You cannot be having regrets? Not when your gut proved right again.>
Nerishka grunted. <We’ve been over this too. It’s all these people,> she said, waving a hand around her. <Teams mean I’m responsible for them. They aren’t just a crew recruited for a job. I’ve done that before. Crews do the job and then leave. It’s not personal.>
<And these people have become personal? I think I finally understand what your problem is.>
<You do?> Nerishka said drily. <Have you been shrinking me all this time.>
<I’ve been trying to identify the root
of this issue you have with working as a team. I think I understand it now.> When Nerishka didn’t respond—because she was considering that she ought to have simply explained how she felt to her AI and saved her the trouble of deduction—and Lyra said, <You shy away from teams because you don’t want to make the emotional investment involved. You’re a caring person. And this team has touched a chord with you. I think you’re protecting your heart, have been doing so for a long time.>
Nerishka took a deep breath and rolled her shoulders. <This has been enlightening and all, but I need to prepare for the attack on Azag. I need to study the station layout, too.>
<Avoiding the topic won’t make the problem go away.>
<Lyra,> Nerishka said, her tone harder than she’d intended it to be. <It’s not a problem. It’s a strength.>
<Very well. I have said my piece.> Nerishka felt the hollow absence as the AI retreated, leaving her alone in her head.
She’d wanted to be alone, had needed it all this time.
So why did she suddenly feel so bereft?
ISHTAR
STELLAR DATE: 10.21.8948 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Teshub, near approaching Ishtar Station
REGION: Ayra System (Independent)
Nerishka watched Ishtar Station grow larger as Raz brought the Teshub in to dock on one of its outer rings. She’d spent so much time studying it over the last day that she felt as though she’d already visited the place.
The station was a massive structure, consisting of dozens of rings situated around a five-hundred-kilometer-long asteroid that had been hollowed out, and spun fast enough to provide just over 0.7g on its inner surface.
Within that asteroid lay the capitol buildings of the Ayra System and many of the major economic powers.
All of which meant that Ishtar was a place that took its security very seriously.
<Anything on the networks about the general’s activities? Events, meetings maybe?> Nerishka asked Lyra as she paced the floor inside their cabin. She’d been hiding out there for the last four hours, reluctant to come into contact with the crew until she had a solid plan.