Crystal Conquest (15 page)

Cheryl stood at the back of the
defense array command center. In spite of the clamor filling the room, she focused
on her burgeoning list of action items. It would be an hour before Sid took off
in the scout, and four more after that before the scout passed the moon. Sid had
asked her to wait until then before kicking the defense array up to condition
yellow. She wanted to act now.

She stepped near a tall cabinet that screened her from most
of the activity in the command center and spoke to Criss. “If the cloak makes
him undetectable, why do we have to wait for him to get past us? I’m anxious to
go to yellow and get the crew out of the ‘it’s just another drill’ mindset.
They’re going through the motions. I want them to be reaching deep and pushing
hard.”

“Understood,” Criss said into her ear. “My belief is that we
have a cloaked intruder approaching and that it’s Kardish. If I’m right, the aliens
will detect it when you go to yellow, and their crew will start digging deeper
as well.”

“If there are Kardish out there, Criss, then we’re headed
for a battle either way.” She realized that the stress of the moment was
affecting her behavior and took a slow, deep breath.

“He’ll be safer this way.”

Those words changed her mindset. She knew Criss used a complex,
multi-tiered analysis to guide his reasoning. She hadn’t a clue how it worked,
but she had faith in both it and him.

He wouldn’t advocate for the delay if he didn’t think it
important. If making Sid safer was some portion of that equation, she didn’t
need more convincing. Their emotional entanglement fulfilled her needs on many
levels. The next weeks of separation would be difficult enough. She wouldn’t be
able to live with herself if her obdurate behavior caused him harm.

“Give me a countdown. I need a visual to help me bring
everything together on schedule.”

The tiny number 4:53 appeared, floating to the upper right in
her peripheral vision. It moved when her eyes did, so it never interfered with
her direct line of sight.

“We go yellow in four hours and fifty three minutes.” She
wanted to be sure there was no confusion.

“Correct.”

She stepped away from the cabinet and watched Grace and Hop
on the platform. They were deep in discussion, so she hung back, waiting for a
lull in their conversation. The number in the upper right of her vision changed
to 4:52.

She walked to the center of the room and stepped up onto the
platform. Grasping the front rail, she studied the crew working through yet
another drill. Her fingers started to hurt from the pressure of her grip, and
she relaxed her hands.

She talked to them while looking forward. “I want you both
to know there’s been an ambiguous sighting some distance out. The data is
flimsy, and the decision is to hold off going to yellow until we get a confirmation.
Unofficially, I ask that we up our readiness level. The board stays green until
a formal order is issued.” She turned to look at them. “Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am,” both replied in unison.

“Hop, I want to borrow Grace for an hour or so. Would you
run seek drills until we get back? Look deep. Hunt hard. See if you can find anything.”

“There’s a lot of space out there. Do you have coordinates
for the first sighting? Or even a sector to look in?”

“Keep an open mind. What I’ve heard so far sounds more like a
rumor. And if it’s real, I want to know if they have company joining them from other
directions. When we go yellow, it kicks thousands of installations on Earth and
in orbit to full alert. I’d like something more solid than gossip before doing
that.”

“You got it, Cheryl.” He turned to face the crew and started
barking orders. Busy planning next steps, she didn’t notice his switch from the
formal to the familiar with the use of her name.

As the activity in the room ramped up, Cheryl caught Grace’s
eye and tipped her head at the exit. She stepped down from the platform and, taking
long strides, walked through the door and into the hall.

“How can I help, ma’am?” Grace asked, scurrying to match
Cheryl’s fast pace as they moved down the hallway.

“I want to take a last run at Geitz, and I want you to be
there when I do. If this rumor turns out to be real, I need to know we’ve uncovered
and corrected every bit of his vandalism. You know him and the equipment better
than anyone. Help me push him. Feel free to ask questions. Watch for tells.”

Her plan was to take random stabs at ways the defense array still
might be compromised—ways she would do it if profit were the motive—and watch
to see if his behavior revealed anything interesting. She’d motivate him by
leaving no doubt in his mind that she was prepared to act as judge, jury, and
executioner. With the world itself at risk, she’d have no problem playing all
three roles.

Criss had examined the actions of Geitz and his band of
thieves in exhaustive detail. He’d assured her that he’d identified all counterfeit
equipment and it had all been replaced. But she also knew Criss had missed an
event that led to her attack in the canteen. She couldn’t recall another time
when he’d made a mistake, but that incident stood out in her mind as concrete
evidence he was not infallible.

Cheryl cleared her throat, and a glowing dot appeared at the
far end of the hall. The glow shifted left as they approached, and she turned
to follow. They turned left again, and then right, went up some stairs, along
more hallways, and started a long descent down a deep stairwell.

“Geez, I’ve been on base for more than a year and I can’t
find my way around like this.”

“Call it a sixth sense,” Cheryl replied, taking advantage of
the low lunar gravity to shuffle down the steps as fast as she could.

After four flights of stairs, Grace asked, “Couldn’t we have
ridden down?”

“There’s a lift,” Cheryl heard in her ear. “But you only have
two more flights to go.”

“We’re almost there,” Cheryl told Grace. “We’ll ride on the
way up.”

The stairs emptied onto a small landing that included a compact
reception station nestled to one side. It was the lowest point of Lunar Base,
and with its institutional white walls and basic amenities, it looked the part.

A staff sergeant behind the lone desk smiled as they
approached. Cheryl guessed he didn’t have a lot to do down in the cage.
I
wonder who he pissed off to get such a miserable assignment.

“We’re here to interview Lieutenant Geitz,” she said as they
approached.

The guard stood and gestured at his panel. “Sorry, ma’am. I
don’t have any visitors on the schedule.”

“I cleared it with the base commander a few minutes ago.” She
flashed him a winning smile and pulled her hair behind her ear on the side closest
to him. She glanced at his name tag as she did so, and said, “Would you mind checking
for an update, Sergeant Ravalli?”

“Got you covered,” Criss told her.

“Wow,” Ravalli said, looking at his panel. “You must have
sprinted to get here so fast.”

Cheryl added a wink to her smile. “You’d be surprised what I
can do in low gravity.”

Flustered and mumbling, Ravalli opened the door he guarded. As
they followed him in, Grace leaned forward and whispered, “Did I just see
Cheryl Wallace shamelessly use her wiles to get a favor?”

Cheryl ignored the teasing and focused on chatting up Ravalli.
“How many prisoners do you have here today?”

“Just Geitz.”

She felt a spike of distress at this answer. “You let the
others loose?”

Ravalli stopped and turned. “Truthfully, I don’t make any
decision but what I’m going to eat for lunch. We rarely hold prisoners for more
than a couple of days. We send ’em back Earth-ward as seats open up on
transports.”

“I had them keep Geitz around for a few extra days,” Criss said
in her ear. “In case you wanted to interview him again.”

“Hmm,” she said to both Ravalli and Criss.

They followed the sergeant along a hallway so stark and
lonely that, except for the diffuse lighting, it seemed more like a tunnel. There
were two visible features—the door they entered on one end, and the door they
stopped at on the other. Ravalli keyed it open and led them inside.

“Are both of you going to be in here, or will one be
watching from observation?”

Cheryl took a quick inventory of the small room, noting that
the walls, floor, and ceiling were an austere white. The furniture—a
utilitarian table and two chairs—was gray. The last feature of note was a
second door, presumably leading to the prisoner holding cages.

“I’d like the three of us in here together,” she said.

As Cheryl spoke, Grace walked to a chair. Her body shifted
as she tried to slide it to one side, but the chair didn’t move.

“Sorry,” said Ravalli. “Everything’s fastened to the floor.
Regs say I can’t bring in extra furniture, so one of you will have to stand.”

Cheryl scanned the room, trying to envision how to make it
work. She noticed a small loop fixed to the wall at the far end of the table. Positioned
a bit higher than head height, it looked both strong and secure. “What’s that?”
she asked, pointing.

Ravalli’s eyes followed her finger. Then he smiled. “We’ll
have the prisoner stand. Have a seat, ladies. I’ll be back in a few.”

He stepped to the second door, and as he keyed it open, Cheryl
said, “Sergeant, please have him remove his shirt before you bring him in.”

He looked over his shoulder. “Excuse me?”

She met his gaze and spoke firmly. “I want him bare chested.
No clothes above the waist.”

Averting his eyes, he started out the exit. Before leaving,
he stopped, turned partway back to them, turned back to the exit, and, without
speaking or reestablishing eye contact during his dance of hesitation, left to
retrieve the prisoner.

“What’s with the shirt?” asked Grace as the door closed.

“Power.”

In her early years as an officer in Fleet, she’d attended a prestigious
training school called “camp.” In fact, that was where she had first met Sid.
Among the skills she’d learned during that time was the art of interrogation.

So she knew that an hour wasn’t nearly enough time to get
anything out of a reluctant prisoner. She needed at least a week. And she knew
that clothes helped to serve as a barrier—a source of strength—to the person
being interrogated. Whatever progress they might make with this guy, it’d move faster
if he was exposed.

Cheryl took a chair on one side of the table, and Grace took
the other. They sat sideways in the chairs so they could face the wall with its
sturdy loop, and waited as Ravalli hooked Geitz’s hands over his head. When he was
done, Ravalli tugged roughly at the assembly to show its strength and, by
implication, that they would be safe.

“He ain’t going nowhere,” he said, stepping back and
admiring his handiwork. “Buzz if you need something.” He stood there looking at
them like a bellhop waiting for a tip.

“Thank you, Sergeant.” Cheryl rewarded him with another smile.
“We appreciate your help. We’ll take it from here.”

As soon as Ravalli left, Cheryl stood and, as she stepped toward
Geitz, eyed the restraints around his ankles. They looked secure, but she
placed herself so a corner of the table stood between his feet and her body. She
studied him up and down. Even though it was relatively cool in the room, a
rivulet of sweat rolled down his chest. It combined with another as it crossed
his stomach, heading toward the waistband of his pants.

She caught his eye, and he stared back, showing more
strength than fear. “There’s been a sighting,” she said. “Rumor has it a
Kardish vessel is heading our way.”

“Sounds a little too convenient.” His tone held a sneer,
though she thought it sounded forced. “They happen to show up the day before I’m
due to leave this hellhole?”

At camp, they’d taught her that humiliation could be
effective against swagger. She eyed his pants. Most men find it difficult to
show bravado when tied up and naked in front of two female interrogators.

“Why did this syndicate even want the slide boards?” She
heard Grace ask the question in a quiet tone of honest curiosity.

Geitz looked past Cheryl and zeroed in on Grace.

“I’m not trying to trick you,” she said. “I’m curious. The
boards are so specialized they only have value in the defense array. What’s the
point?”

Geitz seemed surprised and even shrugged his shoulders,
implying the matter-of-fact nature of the information. “Amalix.”

“Amalix is the synthetic material used to make wafers,”
Criss told Cheryl in her ear. “It’s remarkably resilient to disruptive weapons,
so it’s the material of choice in advanced military hardware. The wafers on
those slides sold for a small fortune to a tribal warlord, who didn’t know or
care where they came from.”

Cheryl turned to Grace. “What other components in the array use
Amalix?”

“The port junction is the obvious prize,” Criss told her in
her ear. “But I’ve traced it from fabrication to installation to testing. The one
in the array is the original.”

“I don’t know,” said Grace, shaking her head. “I’m in operations.
That’s a design question. Or maybe manufacturing.”

Cheryl turned to Geitz. “What other pieces were swapped out?”

He looked at her without expression. And then he smirked.

Her fury spiked and anger clouded her judgment. Her family,
her friends, her colleagues, and her lover might die. The world itself might be
at the precipice of destruction.
And this shit-heel’s enjoying himself.
While
the intellectual observer inside her head counseled her that anger was the
fastest way to lose control of an interrogation, her rage won out.

“I want space coveralls and four stakes.” She said it out
loud but to no one in particular. “I’m going to stake you spread-eagle up on
the surface. I’m going to stick a sign on your stomach that says Me First. You
can watch, up close and personal, as the first Kardish energy bolt flashes your
way and lands on your chest.” She turned to Grace. “Where can we get space coveralls?”