Cassandra Kresnov 04: 23 Years on Fire (47 page)

“How do you know who we came to meet?” Ari asked. Tung blinked.

Suddenly all three adjoining doors slammed shut and locked.

“Fuck it,” said Vanessa, immediately grabbing her facemask out of a coat pocket and sealing it on, as Ari did the same. “Rhi, you smell anything?”

Rhian didn’t bother with the facemask, pushed off a wall to float at a sealed door, and tried to find leverage. Tung and the pilot pulled out their facemasks also, but Ari took them away.

“No chance,” he said. Sealed in like this, the room could just be gassed, or decompressed. But ISO had two of their own in here, and gas wouldn’t stop Rhian, mask or no mask.

“I could punch it,” said Rhian. “But in zero-G there’s no leverage.” She removed a small explosive from a leg pocket and clamped it magnetically to the door. Vanessa gestured Ari and the two captives behind the open elevator door, as Rhian got above her impending explosion.

Tung and the pilot chose that moment to try and grab Vanessa and her gun. Vanessa fended easily and punched one in the head, then broke the other’s ribs with neat, short jabs. She had no leverage either, but with her augmentations at point blank range it didn’t matter.

“It’s odd,” said Ari as they dragged the men behind the elevator door, one unconscious, one injured. “When I’m dealing with combat ops I’ll attack the small woman last, ’cause logically she’s the most augmented. But there’s still so many guys that won’t figure.”

“I can’t figure if that makes you chivalrous or chauvinist,” Vanessa replied. “Rhi, we’re clear.”

Rhian’s charge blew with a deafening crack. Rhian quickly got a hand into the hole, another on the bulkhead, and pulled. Steel shrieked and began to bend. Soon she had both hands in, and with more pulling, it was large enough to fit through.

“Guess who’s going first,” said Vanessa, eyeing the size of the hole.

“Me,” Rhian corrected. “They’ll try to shoot us coming up the passage. I’ll shoot them first.”

“Wait,” said Ari, eyes distant, “my schematic says there’s a cross-corridor halfway up, better to go around them than through.”

“Never been my experience,” said Rhian, making a last adjustment to the size of the hole, then pulling out weapons. “See you in a minute.”

One of the corridors abruptly opened, and all weapons swung onto that space. A man emerged, empty handed, palms up, floating into the room.

“Who the hell are you?” Vanessa demanded.

“A friend,” said the man. Chinese features, young, handsome, strongly built under all the clothes. “Come to help.”

“GI,” said Rhian, not taking her pistol from his head. “Are you ISO?”

“No.”

“League?”

“No.”

“Well you’re not Federation because I’ve never seen you.”

“Doesn’t leave a lot of options,” said Vanessa.

Ari abruptly winced, a hand flying to his ear. “Ow.”

“Please don’t access my uplinks without permission,” said the new GI, with a faint smile. He seemed quite comfortable with the whole situation. “It’s not polite. Now if you please, the ISO will realise their trap was sprung, and will be hurrying around to block this corridor even now. Let’s go.”

He disappeared back the way he’d come. The three Feds looked at each other.

“You okay?” Vanessa asked Ari.

“Sandy’s the only GI I know who can do that,” said Ari, looking quite astonished. “He went through all my layers just like that, could have fried my main perimeter if . . .”

“That’s great, Ari,” said Vanessa, pushing off to follow. “Sounds like a man crush.”

“Is that safe?” Rhian wondered.

“Says she who was about to charge an ISO position single-handed. Move.” Vanessa hand-over-handed her way up the corridor after the GI. They emerged into a new chamber, this one with walls stacked around with safety equipment and storage containers. And the floating body of a woman.

“ISO?” Vanessa asked the GI, who was checking adjoining corridors for signs of movement.

“Yes. High designation, unconscious.”

“Unconscious?” GIs were notoriously hard to knock out or disable. It made non-lethal neutralisations nearly impossible.

“Fast hack,” said the GI, patting the lump in his pocket. A booster cord? “This way.”

He pushed off down a new corridor, with the grace of a natural spacer. Ari peered at the unconscious woman’s face.

“Fast hack a high-des ISO GI?” he breathed. “No way!”

“From man crush to wedding bells,” Vanessa remarked, following after. Ari had a point, though. Technically, the highest designation GI ever made was Mustafa Ramoja. That anyone knew of. ISO only recruited the highest designations and didn’t have the problems with defections the League military had, because they treated them better, gave them responsibilities, trusted them as partners and friends.

Combat GIs were hard to hack. Sandy herself, nearly impossible. Fast hack meant a backdoor, something written into the barrier defences that a simple key could access and disable in a split second, but no high-des GI had anything like that in her systems, least of all one working for the League’s premier intelligence and security agency. Sure, this new GI had used a booster cord, meaning direct access to the back of the head, presumably while holding her in some kind of immobilising grip . . . hard enough to do on its own. Then insert the cord, then do a fast hack and knock her out cold . . . who the hell was this guy?

Further along, the hub became busy—docking crawlers unloading goods, dock workers moving heavy crates with just light touches. Crates were then attached to railing systems down these corridors, then guided to central cargo. It was only small goods, though. Main cargo went through automated systems direct from ship to station down on the rim—the station hub was for stuff that avoided customs, though there were a few people around who looked like security, checking seals and scanning contents.

Vanessa, Rhian and Ari had their facemasks off, manoeuvering past some crates on rails, when security stopped them. “You three. IDs.”

They pulled readers, established direct uplink connections while security inserted their own readers, and verified those barrier IDs on the non-invasive platform the readers presented—less dangerous than a direct uplink, for security and their targets. The security were both men, dark jumpsuits, spacer webbing with many tools, pistols included. On their readers, IDs would show as corporate—Heldig Corporation, semi-shielded background, meaning they were quite high up and couldn’t be verified all the way back to home base. Ari had warned them it would open them up to greater suspicion, but it was the only way to do it—an unshielded ID could be traced by anyone, and found immediately to be fake. Higher level corporate types kept some information behind barriers, not liking to share everything with rival corporates. Station security were theoretically independent, and no corporations trusted that impartiality, so station security could only check so far.

“So,” said one of the security men, in a half-bored drawl as his eyes scanned the reader, “what brings you three Heldig folks up this way?”

“Merchandise check,” said Ari, a steadying hand on a bulkhead to stop him from spinning. “New arrival.”

“New arrival,” security repeated. “That wouldn’t be that
Farseeker
ship, would it?”

“No idea,” said Ari, all skeptical intensity of this man’s right to ask him anything. His accent, Vanessa noted, was spot on—score one for another of Ari’s fast-training upload programs. “Why not take it up with my superior?”

“And who might that be?”

“That’s right!” said Ari, as though it just occurred to him. “You can’t find out, can you?”

“Hey buddy,” said the man with a smile, unplugging his reader. “Just doing my job. You know, we caught someone pretending to be checking on a backdoor cargo, just last week?”

“Did you, now?”

“Turns out they were just black-marketing for personal profit. Not even letting their buddies in on a cut. Someone got pissed, blew one of them out an airlock.”

“You’re joking,” Ari deadpanned. “You know where the airlocks are?”

The security man pointed. “That way, I think.”

“You know how to use them, too? Those little buttons by the door? I think there’s a red one, and a blue one.”

A dry smile. “Have a nice day sir. Ladies.”

“You have to pick a fight with them?” Vanessa remarked as they floated on, down the next corridor.

“It was well done,” said the new GI. “No one trusts anyone up here. It’s neutral territory, so the corporations constantly squabble over jurisdiction. You handled it exactly as they would.”

“Why didn’t they check your ID?” Rhian asked him.

“I’m known to them.”

“Any sign the coalition’s working?” Ari asked.

“Well, they’re not killing each other anymore. Or not so obviously that they can’t deny it. The station staff are appointed by all the major corporations; station master’s a rotating post, two months at a time. There’s big government offices up here. Corporate officials run a lot of the new government from orbit. Safer than the ground.”

“You don’t say,” said Vanessa. She knew all that, but their new friend seemed quite talkative. “Who’s the new ship in port? League vessel?”

“Ghostie, Fleet recon.”

“Any idea why she’s here?”

“The same reason anyone docks at Antibe Station,” said the GI. “Someone invited her.”

“Who, and why?”

The GI smiled, gliding easily down the corridor with gentle touches on the wall to recorrect. “Wouldn’t that be telling?”

More floating down corridors, and dodging station hands who spared them not a second glance, brought them to an elevator bank at the top of a station arm. Small elevators for small groups of people, larger ones for cargo or larger groups . . . further along would be a big one for shuttle and other heavy cargo, mostly an automated system.

The GI keyed in a code and they slid into a waiting elevator car. With a whine and shudder of magnetic rails it accelerated, creating faint gravity for a moment, then nothing.

“Talk,” said Vanessa to the GI. “Not ISO you say, not League, not Federation. Are you just non-aligned? Gone AWOL?”

“Can’t say,” said the GI.

“Can’t, or won’t?”

“My name’s Cai. I’m here to help you. I’m aware of ISO’s operations on this station, and on Pantala. So of course I’m aware of the FSA, too. I knew you were coming because I was monitoring ISO networks. That’s how I knew they were going to spring a trap.”

“Any idea why?” asked Vanessa.

“Yes. Cassandra Kresnov’s mission was betrayed. I think most of her team were neutralised, but she is missing. Given her reputation, I suppose that means she’s still alive and operating. The ISO certainly think so.”

“ISO betrayed her?” Vanessa’s heart was thumping. Ari and Rhian looked worried. Not shocked, but definitely a little scared, in that way that only concern for a good friend could do. “Why?”

“I do not know,” said Cai. There was a certain calm intensity to his eyes. Rather like Sandy’s, Vanessa thought. An unblinking, intelligent penetration. “I was hoping perhaps you would know more from your end. This is an unorthodox move of you, to come. Why do it?”

Vanessa glanced at Ari. She was technically in charge, but Ari outranked her on intelligence matters. Telling a high-des GI anything was dangerous, because they couldn’t be guaranteed of shutting him up if they required it.

“He’s not ISO,” Ari told her. “His attack barriers just now aren’t like anything the ISO use. Or anything anyone uses.” Watching Cai with intense curiosity. “He’s not League, either; all their loyal GIs are dumb.”

“Not all,” Cai corrected with a faint smile. “But most. And no, not League. All that you need to know is that I’m on your side. Or more correctly, on Cassandra Kresnov’s. What Chancelry does to their GIs on Pantala is evil. I want it stopped.”

“I’ll decide if that’s all I need to know,” Vanessa warned him. And took a deep breath. “League pulled an intel operation in Tanusha that we fear may have compromised Cassandra. But now you’re telling me the ISO betrayed her . . .”

“It may be connected,” said Cai. “ISO and League gov have only been estranged, not divorced. Perhaps the intel operation you describe uncovered something that brought them back together.”

“What designation are you?” Rhian asked, as gravity began to increase, and sunlight from outside strobed the elevator car through the porthole.

“What designation do you think I am?” Cai asked her.

Rhian struck at him. Cai’s hand flashed immediately to intercept. Rhian smiled, sent drifting despite the low gravity.

“High,” she said. “You’re as fast as Sandy.”

“I wish you’d give some warning before you do that,” said Vanessa, heart restarting.

“You didn’t answer her question,” said Ari.

Cai smiled. “I’m sorry. You’ll find it’s occupational.”

The answer reminded Vanessa of Mustafa. And the next time she met Mustafa, she was going to kill him. These days, with her upgrades, she reckoned she might even survive the attempt.

Sandy woke. Again, she’d slept in. Danya and Svetlana were busy with some device on their bed, while Gunter made breakfast in the kitchen. She blinked her eyes and head clear. Normally she didn’t need much more than four hours, though it varied. It had been a long time since she’d slept this long.