Overload Flux Read online

  The retail pharmacy didn’t have much in the way of medical supplies that their expedition kit didn’t already have, but he did buy some extra broad-spectrum antivirals, just in case.

  Mairwen was as quiet as she usually was in public. He’d come to recognize the very subtle signs that she was taking in sounds, smells, and sights like a bloodhound, though he thought of her as more cat-like, all predatory power and lethal grace. He allowed himself a short daydream of taking her to one of the restaurants, then window-shopping, as if they were an ordinary couple with time to kill, but he tripped up when he tried to imagine her thinking of shopping as a recreational activity.

  “What do you do for amusement?” he asked, as they passed a store selling trids, holos, feelies, and other publications. The store claimed to cater to all known languages, and he had a momentary impulse to ask them for something in Icelandic, just to see what happened.

  She gave him the tolerant look she usually did when she thought his topic was random. “I read.”

  “Yes, I know, and you run. I mean, what do you indulge yourself with when you get the chance? See live theatre? Swim the Xochoptl Straits? Volunteer at a pet-trade shelter?”

  She eyed him as if he might be teasing her, then gave him a fleeting smile before blandly saying, “I follow brilliant men around spaceports.”

  He covered an irrational stab of jealousy with a teasing smile. “Men? There are others?”

  “No, it’s a recent interest.”

  “Lucky for me.” He wanted to kiss her, but settled for briefly stroking her hand. It reminded him of the first time she’d touched him, her fingers interlacing his on the crowded crosswalk in Etonver, when he’d so desperately needed that contact and gentle comfort. He realized he’d started falling for her even then.

  The comm center was large, with evidence of a recent expansion, and though not particularly crowded, was unusually noisy. The changed configuration had probably impaired the original acoustics. He chose a corner console and entered his biometric and access codes to retrieve several routine system and personal info packets for the Berjalan, which he dumped to a longwire.

  A separate private message from Zheer had several interesting pieces of news. Juno Vizla, La Plata’s insurance company client, had agreed to pay for the whole trip, which made Zheer suspect they had knowledge they weren’t sharing. There had been two recent breaches in La Plata information security that related to the case, and Zheer urged extra vigilance from the team. Velasco, his erstwhile assistant, had resigned. Luka was pleased because it saved him from having to release him in favor of Mairwen when they got back to Etonver, which had moved to the top of his to-do list after she’d rescued him from the kidnappers.

  The most interesting, if least actionable item was that a pharma company by the name of Korisni Genetika kept coming up in the data analysts’ deep diving of Leo’s files and on the net, and there were indications they’d had a long-standing relationship with the dead telepath who’d tried to interrogate him. He cleared the terminal and pocketed the longwire. He was frustrated that Zheer’s message hadn’t described the nature of the security breaches so he’d know what he was supposed to be vigilant about.

  When he told Mairwen about the message, she insisted they take a different route back to the ship. Mairwen again walked companionably by his side, rather than the usual three-steps-back position she took when she was in simple guard mode, though he didn’t doubt she considered herself still on duty. It was only as they got back to the Berjalan’s entry lock that Luka realized he hadn’t once felt the stir of talent that used to make him almost queasy in crowds. He was congratulating himself when Mairwen put her hand on his arm to stop him.

  “We need Adams and DeBayaud.” Her tone was neutral, but she was taking shallow breaths and her eyes were dilated. He’d seen that behavior when she was scenting something of interest. She stepped to within bare centimeters of him and spoke quietly. “A stranger has been here in the last ten minutes. The fluxing should have been automated.”

  “Maybe there was a problem? Or someone got lost?”

  “Maybe,” she conceded.

  There was nothing visible to make his talent bubble, but Mairwen’s caution was contagious. “I’ll go find Adams and DeBayaud. Go check on Haberville and Ta’foulou.”

  “No. I’m going with you.” There was a determined intensity behind her words and in her unwavering gaze. He got the feeling she’d disobey any order he gave her if she thought he was in danger, maybe because she still blamed herself for the kidnapping and interrogation. He knew he’d survived it only because of her.

  He gave her a small smile and brushed the side of her face with the backs of his fingers. “Lucky for me.”

  * * * * *

  Mairwen was unhappy. The incident had disturbed her, and she’d instigated a full security sweep as soon as they got back to the ship, but there was nothing to find. Her nose and Luka’s talent told them whoever had been at the portal hadn’t been on the ship. Haberville and Ta’foulou insisted the resupply process had gone like clockwork, and the portal logs agreed. All she could do was tell Luka her misgivings, but it was ultimately his decision to continue the mission. It had been his friends who were murdered, not hers.

  The Berjalan entered transit without incident. The phantom sonics of the light drive sounded ordinary, but she didn’t know the ship well enough to detect subtle variances. Luka held his planned meeting to talk about the types of samples they’d need from the planet, and the safety precautions they should all take. If it was a viable planet, the owners would likely have ways to protect it. He mentioned Korisni Genetika, the new pharma company player, but everyone said they’d never heard of it.

  Adams was in the kitchen chopping fresh vegetables for omelets, and DeBayaud and Haberville were napping while they had the chance. Mairwen had followed Luka into the exercise room, where he was pacing, his mind a thousand light-years away. She didn’t envy Luka his leadership position, and hated putting pressure on him because of her strong, quite possibly pathological, sense of caution. Trackers who didn’t assume the universe was malevolent didn’t live very long, but she wasn’t a tracker any more. Didn’t want to be one any more.

  She now stood indecisively in the doorway, torn between wanting to stay close to see that he was safe, and recognizing that it was a kind of arrogance on her part to think he couldn’t take care of himself. She was afraid she’d lost her sense of objectivity when it came to his well-being.

  Besides, the proximity enforced by the ship would evaporate once they returned to their normal routine on Rekoria. She knew it would be harder if she didn’t start separating herself now. Alone in her stateroom, perhaps she could find her elusive equilibrium and start thinking like a hardened tracker instead of a soft human. She had just about convinced herself to go when they were interrupted by Adams.

  “Something’s wrong with Ta’foulou,” he said. “I went to ask him what he wanted in his omelet, and I found him out cold, still jacked in. Haberville’s with him now.”

  “Get DeBayaud,” Luka ordered, but Adams was already on his way. “Helvítis,” he swore, and headed toward the nav pod. He put his hand on her shoulder as he passed, as if he needed the brief contact. She let herself find her own comfort in his touch.

  In the nav pod, she narrowed her focus to the sight and scents of Ta’foulou unconscious and slumped in the pilot chair. Blood trickled down his tattooed neck from his skulljack. It was stark, wet red against the pale grey of a tattooed eagle’s wing.

  Haberville held up a bloody wire. “Mal virus payload. If he blacked out in time, he might still have a few brain cells left.”

  Mairwen allowed herself a moment to be grateful that tracker brains didn’t work with implants. Modern skulljacks were designed to stop all input when the host was unconscious, but malicious viruses had been known to override safety features.

  “What can we do for him?” asked Luka. Adams brought their medical kit in and set it next to the m
ain console.

  “Damned little,” said Haberville, “unless you’ve got a healer or a telepath hidden in that kit. Give him an auto-hydroline for dehydration, I guess. He’ll have to sleep it off on his own for now.”

  Adams pulled out a fluids bag and pressure line and slapped its adhesive patch on the back of Ta’foulou’s hand, where the unit would find a suitable vein and insert itself. DeBayaud shouldered Ta’foulou’s bony frame easily and headed out of the nav pod and toward the pilot staterooms.

  Meanwhile, Haberville tossed the bloody wire into the recycler, and pulled hers out of her skulljack and tossed it, too. Mairwen approved of her caution.

  Haberville called up a holographic interface and began manipulating it with rapid-fire gestures. “So far, everything else in the navcomp looks okay. We should check the other comps, in case there’s something we missed.”

  “On it,” said Adams and headed out of the nav pod.

  Mairwen decided to do her own investigation, as well. She’d start with the engine comp, then access the shipcomp from there as well. Not that she had reason to distrust Adams, but she didn’t know his skill level.

  By tacit agreement, they all ended up in the nav pod again forty-six minutes later, and the news wasn’t good.

  Haberville reported first. “Ta’foulou was, to use an old-fashioned word, a pervert. He liked to covertly watch or listen to people having sex. I caught him spying early on and warned him about it, and I thought that was enough. It’s probably been a dull trip for his tastes. After this afternoon’s meeting, the log says he accessed the emergency monitoring system to listen to my room and DeBayaud’s. Maybe he was hoping we’d be making a hot-connect instead of sleeping in our separate rooms.” She shrugged. “That system was where the payload was, and it launched as soon as the idiot accessed it. I don’t know if someone targeted him specifically, or maybe they thought all pilots do that sort of thing.” She frowned at them all. “We don’t, in case you’re wondering.”

  Haberville sounded more irritated that Ta’foulou made pilots look bad than she was worried about his health. Unfortunately, that was just the start of their troubles.

  “Morganthur and I found two more virus payloads,” said Adams. “The obvious one is in the navcomp, targeting the pilot during transit exit. It’s like the one that got Ta’foulou. We can’t flush the navcomp while we’re in transit, but as long as Haberville isn’t jacked in, she should be fine.” Adams gave her a brief nod. “The other one’s really subtle, in the shipcomp. If we hadn’t isolated it, in about eighty minutes, the habisphere would change the air and pressure mix to give us all nitrogen narcosis. The logs look clean, but the recovery array says none of the viruses were there before we docked at Horvax.”

  Mairwen had also checked Adams’s work and snuck further queries into the navcomp modules when Haberville wasn’t using them. Neither Haberville nor Adams had given her reason to think they were behind the attacks, but the only person on the ship she fully trusted was Luka.

  She thought Luka was feeling the need to pace, but there wasn’t enough room. She didn’t think the others recognized the signs that his intuition was firing.

  “Someone,” he said, “wants us to have a lot of chances to die, and in ways that would look like an accident.”

  Haberville looked shocked, and Adams and DeBayaud looked grim.

  Luka didn’t look happy, either, as he ran his fingers through his hair. “We need to get to Insche before the timed virus would have started making us dopey and delusional. It’s too easy to have sabotaged the ship’s hull on Horvax.” He looked at Haberville. “What’s our ETA for realspace?”

  She brought up a holo countdown clock and pinned it to the permanent display. “Two hours, three minutes.”

  “Is there any way we can get there in eighty or ninety minutes?”

  “Impossible,” said Haberville.

  Mairwen knew that wasn’t true, but pointing it out would reveal knowledge that a night-guard-turned-security-assistant shouldn’t have. On the other hand, keeping her secrets was likely to leave them adrift in uncharted realspace. She cleared her throat. “We could decouple the light-drive safeties and overload flux to the light drive, which will bounce the ship rather than let it skim. If we start now, it would cut transit time by forty minutes or more.”

  Haberville’s jaw dropped. “Holy Mother of…” She stared at Mairwen a long moment. “That’s suicide!”

  Luka looked at Mairwen, and she met his questioning gaze with tacit assurance. He nodded, then turned to Haberville.

  “It’s a good bet the virus is timed to go off with something else. We can’t check the hull for an exterior problem while in transit, right?”

  “No,” she said. “We’d have to be in realspace. We could drop at the next packet beacon and check.” She brought up another countdown clock. “The next beacon is only ten minutes away if we angle and do an emergency drop.”

  “Which puts us where?” asked Luka.

  Haberville shrugged. “The middle of nowhere.” She glowered at Luka and Mairwen both. “But we’d be alive in the middle of nowhere.”

  Luka shook his head. “Not if the hull is breached. Is Morganthur’s solution invariably fatal?”

  Mairwen wondered uneasily if Luka was thinking of making her the pilot. He clearly trusted she had skills, but she’d have to talk to him privately about her limitations. For now, he was focused on Haberville, his expression hard.

  “No, it’s doable,” she grudgingly conceded. “But you’re depending on the engine being well maintained, and the navcomp to keep up with the new data and manage the overload, and hoping like hell the bounces don’t hit an anomaly. And it goes through flux like an exploration spacer goes through lube at a joy palace.”

  “As opposed to hoping the people who breached the comps, and targeted our pilots, don’t know how to sabotage a ship’s hull?” Luka was as unyielding as Mairwen had ever seen him.

  Haberville stared at Luka, her eyes narrowing.

  Mairwen spoke up, anticipating Haberville’s next likely objection. “We’d still have enough flux to get back to Horvax.”

  Haberville looked to Adams and DeBayaud for support, both of who raised their hands in the universal “don’t look at me” gesture.

  “Do it,” said Luka. His air of command was unwavering.

  After a long moment, Haberville caved. “Shit,” she said. “Shit!” She glared back and forth at Mairwen and Luka. “Fine, but I’m not covering up a goddamn thing if we live through this. Morganthur’s solution is a jack trick.”

  She released the webbing on her chair and launched herself toward the door, then stopped and turned.

  “I looked up that planet she said she’s from. Its colonies failed twenty years ago, so there are conveniently no records. If she was just some mouth-breather night-shift guard before this, then I’m the fucking First Flight Queen of Albion Prime!”

  Haberville stalked out, headed toward the engine pod. Mairwen silently followed her to help, and to ensure Haberville complied with Luka’s order.

  * * * * *

  Luka’s appetite was nonexistent, but he forced himself to eat every last bite of the excellent omelet Adams made. It would go to waste, otherwise, and no telling when they’d get the chance to eat well again. Thankfully, Haberville was eating hers in the nav pod, where her continued hostility toward Mairwen was out of view. Luka wanted to defend Mairwen, but the real reason for her astonishing skills was a lot less believable than a suspected stint on a jack crew. DeBayaud and Adams didn’t seem to be fazed by Mairwen’s knowledge, though if other evidence appeared, he knew they’d remember Haberville’s accusations.

  Adams and Mairwen agreed that the two virus signatures that targeted the pilots were very different from the one hidden in the shipcomp. Luka was playing with the theory that the virus attack on the pilots was meant to divert attention from the more subtle ship sabotage, but he wasn’t comfortable with it. Ultimately, it didn’t matter, because th
e end result was the same. The ship and everyone on it were in trouble, and he was responsible.

  With less than fifteen minutes before the rushed exit into Insche realspace, Luka ordered everyone to armor up, put on the exosuits, and gather up any weapons they had. He asked Mairwen to move the xeno sampling kit from his stateroom to the kitchen area, while DeBayaud and Adams brought the medical kit and camping gear up from the lower hold.

  Luka was sure he was forgetting a thousand things they could be doing to prepare for unknown trouble, but his jumble of emotions swamped his rational thoughts. He should have trusted his own intuition and Mairwen’s suspicions more and never let them leave Horvax Station. Now, everyone was in danger because of him, and if he’d guessed right about the exterior hull sabotage, they’d be lucky to live long enough to get rescued. He wanted to apologize to them all, but he knew he couldn’t until they were safe again. He wasn’t inclined toward command, but he knew enough not to wear self-doubts and regrets on his sleeve.

  Regardless of what anyone might think, Luka led Mairwen into the exercise room and wrapped her in a long embrace, even though he couldn’t feel the warmth of her through the suits. He didn’t know what to say, so he just held her tight, needing the pressure of her arms holding him. They only disengaged when Haberville announced the two-minute warning for exiting transit.

  The drop to realspace was textbook smooth. For all that Haberville was a pain in the ass, she was a damned good pilot. As planned, she immediately sent a repeating distress packet to the local comm relay, and an automated exobot to examine the hull. She used the system drive to arc over the rocky asteroid belt and approach the solar system’s third planet, Insche 255C. She also began passive scanning for tech signatures, in case there was something to find. She sent Mairwen into the engine pod to return the flux field to normal and re-engage the safeties. DeBayaud and Adams were in the kitchen area organizing the gear they’d brought up from the hold.