TAC 01.08.3595 — H-1230 | [CS Overgate City, Kellao]

  Knight was only just stepping out of his car when Kyoko sprang her ambush. "You're late."

  He arched a brow. "Good morning to you, too."

  "It might've been. It might've been a wonderful morning had someone arrived in time to catch Horne."

  "Ah, of course." Knight accepted Kyoko's proffered Glass as they strode across the parking garage. "At this point, it's almost admirable."

  "No, it's not!" snarled his assistant, seething. "Every day! He begs us every fyzzing day! Actually, he begs me, since you never bother to show up."

  Knight smirked. "Network management, Kyoko. I'm teaching you to keep doors open."

  "Oh, that is a smoking heap of—"

  The elevator doors' opening chime interrupted her. Knight again stifled a chuckle at Kyoko's glower.

  "Any word from Laer?" asked the general as he queued the console.

  "No. Honestly, I'll bet we've already seen everything of relevance from Synaka. Analok punched in, swiped marks and booked it. All rote. His supervisor's the opposite. And categorically worse. Guy pumps every scorching scrap of intel." She snorted into her tablet. "I'm talking hull brand analyses to climate package assessments. Gotta feel for his team. Haven't seen anyone so desperate for a promotion in years. Full fan peacock."

  "Not much for feathers, either." Knight grimaced at the staff sergeant's profile picture. "Did you call Jerry?"

  Kyoko's lack of reply caused Knight to turn and face her affronted expression. He raised apologetic hands. "Sorry, sorry."

  "Why keep this job if you won't remember anything about it?"

  "That's what you're hired for." The elevator parted, and they stepped into the lobby. Instantly, the floor thumped with sharp salutes as the entire room snapped to attention.

  Knight gestured distractedly. "At ease and dismissed." He turned back to Kyoko and asked, "So, Jerry?"

  "Yes, General Knight, I briefed General Temple. He sends his regards and hopes Draven is doing okay after the Installation fiasco."

  Knight shook his head wryly. "Thank you."

  The base's lobby was largely composed of silvery, burnished flooring shimmering against dull grey wall work. Glass security gates lined the entrance, manned by clusters of D-rank Scions. Above them hovered a massive floating chandelier, welded in the shape of a golden, ribbed sphere. Light specks glittered down onto wandering staff, haloing officers in reflective, twinkly yellow. The reception desks connected to the east wall sat behind three-inch impact-resistant glass, while the clerks parked behind them attacked anchored Boards.

  Knight and Kyoko bypassed them all and slipped into a concealed corridor from a restricted side entrance. A private shuttle guarded by a pair of deSummoned C-ranks awaited the two inside.

  A minute later, they stepped into an executive hall. It was aesthetically congruent to the lobby, just with a lower ceiling, and digital paintings over gaudy fixtures. Kyoko followed Knight across smooth, tiled flooring before hooking a right, then left. The conference room, a rectangular, windowed office furnished by a single long wooden table balanced over a thick, cubic stalk, was occupied by three generals.

  "Krogawa," greeted one, Tonson, warmly. "How are you?"

  For a self-proclaimed statecraft cynic, Kyoko had the smile of a politician. It was so good, in fact, that no one believed Knight when he spoke of her temper. "Fantastic, sir. How was Nardarai?"

  "Freezing. I swear, if we found water in Hell, those damned Baltans would institute an immigration initiative."

  General Spinley, a tall, dark-skinned woman, snickered. "I thought we taught you to swim?"

  "Nice to see us all in good spirits." Knight pointedly faced the final general, Wouse. The old, wiry soldier, engrossed with his Board, hadn't noticed him enter. "We are all in good spirits, yes?"

  Wouse glanced up. "Hmm? Oh, yes, of course. I apologize. Good to see you, Damien."

  Knight settled beside him and arched his brow. "Likewise, my friend." He squeezed Wouse's shoulder. "How was the surgery?"

  "Successful, thank goodness." Wouse fluffed his hair. "She's back to fussing around the house, even after the doctors' serious push to cuff her to a gurney."

  Spinley smiled kindly. "Just the way you like it. Good to have you back, Jed."

  "And I'd say it's good to be back," started Wouse, "but of course, we have the worst job in the world."

  Knight looked uncertain. "Ehh, I dunno. Kyoko, how much do I pay you?"

  "Not nearly enough."

  The generals shared a laugh. Knight docked his Glass with a smirk, then readdressed his assistant. "Where is he?"

  "Lynch?" Kyoko checked her Glass. "Elevator. Anyone thirsty?"

  "We're fine," assured Knight. "Find a chair. You look ready to collapse."

  "No, I don't."

  "Mhm. I'll text you when I'm done."

  Knight shook his head as Kyoko's clopping gait receded. True to her word, a finely groomed blond in the dark coat of a senior military engineer stepped through the door less than two minutes later. He brushed nonexistent dust off his ironed pants before making for the seat opposite Knight.

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  "Morning sirs. Ma'ams." He coughed. "Ma'am, sorry."

  "Seth." Knight opened his Gridbox and ran a search to locate relevant folders. "How are you?"

  "Pretty okay. Yourself?"

  "Good. Will our conversation will change that?"

  "That's up to you, sir," promised Lynch.

  "If only." Knight maximized the document and looked up. "Go ahead. Ruin my day."

  Lynch snorted. "In a moment. Let's start with the good news. How familiar are you gentlemen with bubble net protocols?"

  "Intimately." Spinley regarded Lynch dryly. "Isn't that right, gentlemen?"

  Lynch awkwardly cleared his throat. "Sorry. Essentially, Class C planets do not have the capital to cycle barges like Bs or As, so instead they flood the exosphere with trip nodes. Said nodes are, of course, encrypted with Kyver-Pron meshes wrapped around Cyph-6 Blackboard walls, but that's probably not gonna mean much unless you've taken Year-Five trench crypt."

  "Naturally." Tonson rubbed his forehead wearily. "Which part of… that explains Analok's breach?"

  "I'm getting there. Now, daily planetary border traffic always runs into the millions. And with numbers like that, several are guaranteed to drift out of line. You can't code the net to flag everyone who strays, so instead they make it reliant on documentation. AI sensors automatically skim your paperwork, and if they don't like it, chirp your ship aside for a conversation. Good ink, on the other hand, just gets you routed. The nodes, therefore, just track ingress from chir.... chirpees? Chirped?" He scratched his head. "Flagged entrants. Unresponsiveness scrambles javelins, and now you have a dogfight on your hands. That's what makes quality passports so valuable. Concrete creds makes infiltration laughably easy. Analok's supplier, whoever they are, clearly splurge on printers. Their papers were flawless."

  Lynch raised his hand at Spinley's opening mouth. "However, nuking an orphanage upped the jig. Preacher contact and mission tags updated every node on Synaka. So when they punched out over Rotonmoor, we felt the ripple. Obviously, Analok couldn't care less, since they were already priming to warp." The engineer sighed wistfully. "Pirates. Love 'em or hate 'em, the rezzheads can move. Trail residue suggests they bolted inside sixteen seconds of clearing the sector."

  "Once again, riveting." Knight steepled his fingers. "Look, most of that went over my head, but it didn't sound like good news."

  "None of you have an eye for storytelling," groused Lynch. "And none of you asked what the ripple was."

  Spinley sighed. "Seth, what was the ripple?"

  Lynch pointed at the general. "Great question! Answer? Their transmission frequency."

  "Ah, right. Preacher's commander said something about that." Knight crossed his arms. "Why does it matter?"

  "Because instead of going home like the unions shout at us to, I stayed up all night, pun intended, coding a decryption software. And decrypt it did. It took seventeen days, but I finally forced its stupid hole open and rammed my—"

  Spinley said, "Lynch."

  The engineer cleared his throat. "Sorry."

  "So?" asked Wouse. "Or is there more to your riddle?"

  "Story, general, story. The message itself, translated from Analok's primary Olkadan dialect, spells, 'Moon child, Huellati embraced. Dawning fire blazes.'."

  "Moon child must be Io," reasoned Knight, tapping his desk. "Dawning fire is likely just a forecast of good fortune, but could double as conflict, based on the Light's manifesto." He scratched his chin. "What's 'Huellati'?"

  Lynch produced a Glass, swiped through a few tabs, then recited, "An ancient god of Yorgan culture. Recognized both as warrior and warden. Notable for the many legends where he restrained and incapacitated enemies. Symbolized by heavy blue chains serving as both weapon and burden, assigned by the Great Chieftain as a consequence for choking his yelleme to death. A reward for incredible strength, but punishment for unwarranted brutality and a lesson to always control one's power."

  "Yelleme?" repeated Tonson.

  Lynch inverted his Glass' display to show them an image. "Omnivorous domestic cattle. Kind of looks like a cow with more teeth and legs. Popular on their harvest planets."

  Knight nodded. "Okay, so Io's shackled, good things to come from it. Concrete validation is nice, but all of this is guessable."

  "As guessable as the source code coming from Jen Vaminax?" retorted Lynch smugly.

  Knight cocked his head. "No. Explain."

  "Way too much quantum computing for me to break down here, but basically, Yorgans are new to coding at the level of sophistication required to dance on our floor. It makes all of their breakthroughs very reverse-engineerable, at least in a developmental sense. One of their tech conglomerates based in the Klinian system wrote the masking script. I just narrowed things down to the right think tank."

  "And you're certain of this… because?" asked Tonson.

  "Dumbed down? Elite encrypters have signatures. Styles. Think of an artist's favoured technique. Or an author's signature genre. Combine that with a ton of other variables like generation speed, deflection programs and load management to get filters for the actual hardware, which only exists in certain physical locations."

  "Well done." Knight gestured encouragingly. "Recommendations?"

  Lynch, after realizing he was still being addressed, startled. "From me? No clue. You're the gun-gun-boom boys." He laughed nervously. "I do all my battling on Boards."

  Knight rolled his eyes. "VR sets are not allowed in my labs, Lynch. Do not give me another headache."

  "What?" Lynch's jaw dropped. "You play BB?"

  "No, but I have two children and an incredibly antisocial nephew," explained Knight.

  "Really?" Lynch suddenly recoiled. "Aw, now I have the image of you trying to f—"

  "Seth, shut up." Spinley faced Knight. "So?"

  Knight shrugged. "Not much to 'so'. Shatter's already outbound. Now they're inbound."

  "Aaand things just rocketed out of my clearance range." Lynch jumped to his feet. "Bye."

  "Seth, sit down. And shut up. He is right, though. That's a gamble, Damien." Tonson shook his head worriedly. "Bulgan's already digging. This could be the shovel he needs."

  "Shatter are already Yorga-liased," promised Knight. "This will, at most, be extracurricular. Discounting catastrophe, curious probers should be easy enough to control."

  "I really don't have enough stars to be in this room," begged Lynch. "I should leave."

  "Seth, I have Abilities and will use them," snapped Spinley before addressing Knight. "Will they need an escort?"

  "No. That'll increase suspicion. Plus, they're A-rank, which is backup enough." He crossed his arms. "However, a squad could suddenly get shackle orders for Az'Sharog."

  Spinley nodded. "On Mirantos? Hmm. How will they find her?"

  Wouse laughed. "They won't. Well played, General."

  "What's happening?" squawked Lynch.

  "You're getting a promotion." Knight straightened. "We're putting boots on Vaminax."

  "What? How will they get around the peacekeepers and military?" Lynch looked pale. "We're supposed to maintain a comm line."

  "Oh, we will. You said the conglomerate is spread across Klinian?"

  Lynch nodded, consulting his tablet. "Yep. Heaviest concentration, excluding Jen, is in… Nibenia."

  "Great. Sic them on that. They've wasted two months sending us static, and now I think we all know why."

  Tonson sighed. "Can take a horse to water, eh? Honestly, I feel for the tusks. They never learn. No matter how hard we try to teach."

  "We play the cards dealt," chuckled Knight, rising to shake his colleague's hand. "You're getting thin, Rocco. Bother your wife more."

  "Or," interrupted Spinley as she met Knight's handshake, "you could cook for yourself. How much are we paying you, anyway? Order something."

  "Bah," scoffed Tonson. "Too much work. For either. Kessia has enough on me as is."

  Lynch blinked. "Wait, we're done? What about my promotion?"

  Wouse arched his brow. "Who do you think advises Shatter? They're infantry, Lynch. Can't point to the crack or cranium of a Board with a pulse mapper and topological compass."

  "That's probably due to the fact that box pits lack both craniums and cra—"

  "Seth, be quiet. You can leave now," sighed Spinley.

  Lynch jumped to his feet. "Finally. Hope my headset finished charging. You should try the campaign, General. The fidelity is insane."

  The Scions watched him sprint out of the room. Knight, shaking his head, said, "He reminds me of Wardell when he was younger. And much stupider."

  Tonson fixed him with a concerned expression. "I'm sorry to hear that."

  "Oh, fyzz off."

  Everyone laughed.