Victory Conditions Read online

  “Oh, no. You want me to take her in? In the middle of all this?”

  “It would be a great kindness,” the officer said. “And in accordance with our customs.” That sounded more like a forced exchange of hostages than a kindness. “It might be helpful in our investigation of your cousin’s disappearance,” he continued. “Sera Louarri seems to be linked to more than one problem. Otherwise, I’m afraid she’ll have to stay in protective custody in jail, and we have no facilities for that, really.”

  “I do not think I can take the responsibility for another juvenile,” Stella said. “Not when I’ve already lost one.”

  “You will have our assistance,” he said. “Please, sera…”

  Zori looked at her, tears obvious. Stella could not ignore that, any more than she could have ignored Toby. “But is it legal?” she asked.

  “You will become her warden under our regulations governing protective custody.”

  “The problem I see is that my ward was abducted and his escorts attacked—one of them killed. I’m not sure I can keep Zori safe, if someone comes after her—and her family certainly may.”

  “We will notify her family that she is in protective custody. They will understand what that means under our laws and customs. We will provide additional security for you—quite reasonable, as your cousin was abducted—and this should deter potential attackers. You are free to use your own security service, as well, and make such additional arrangements as seem best. We would recommend that she not attend school tomorrow.”

  “Very well.” Stella thought a moment. “I would like an official vehicle, with shielding, for our return to my apartment; whoever went after Toby may have intended to go after Zori as well. And she needs a chance to clean up and get some rest.”

  “I don’t need rest—!” Zori burst out.

  “Are you sure the dog can’t help us find him?” the officer said.

  “Not absolutely certain,” Stella said. An idea glimmered in the back of her mind; she needed time alone to figure it out. “And it is an idea to be tried, perhaps.”

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  B ack in the apartment, Stella prepared for whatever might come next, opening the first drawer of a locked cabinet to look at the array of knives there.

  “I didn’t know you had weapons,” Zori said, eyes wide. “You’re a businesswoman.”

  Stella smiled. “That’s true, but even businesswomen may have weapons.”

  “Toby said you weren’t just a…” Zori’s voice trailed away as Stella considered the row of weapons in the next drawer and chose two.

  “Just a pretty face?” Stella said. In the same drawer was a complicated web harness; Stella eeled into it, attached holsters, and slid the weapons home, then removed them and laid them out on the desk. “That’s been useful, Zori, a few times in my life. People see the pretty face, the yellow hair, and they think that’s all I am.”

  “I didn’t mean to insult you,” Zori said, flushing.

  “I’m not insulted,” Stella said. She locked that drawer and opened the next, each compartment stocked with a different ammunition. “I’m flattered that a girl your age would think me pretty. You’re beautiful yourself, and you know it. Often that creates a rivalry.”

  “I’m not—” Zori started to say, then stopped. “You think I’m beautiful?”

  “Don’t be silly.” Stella loaded the propellant canister in one weapon, then the flechettes, their tips translucent; in the other, a roll of thin wire. “Do you know what these are?” She tapped the containers of wire rolls.

  “No,” Zori said. She sounded more interested than frightened.

  “The flechettes are high-velocity chemstun rounds. The highest concentration allowed to non-law-enforcement personnel. The rolls are tangle-tie. Expand on impact, stick to anything until they harden, which takes five seconds. None of this is lethal, thus none of it is illegal. Never be illegal if you don’t have to, that’s what my Aunt Grace always said.”

  “Your Aunt Grace…Toby said she’s now the Rector of Defense of Slotter Key?”

  “The same Aunt Grace.”

  “And the…er…blades?” Zori looked at Stella’s sleeve, which showed no bulge beneath it.

  “Insurance,” Stella said.

  “What am I supposed to have?” Zori eyed the drawers with more eagerness than Stella had expected.

  “A good night’s sleep, Zori. You will be quite safe here, with all the security around the place.”

  “You can’t expect me to stay here while Toby’s in danger—!”

  “I expect you to do exactly that,” Stella said. “I’m not risking your life, too, and I don’t need to worry about you in a tight situation.”

  “But—but I’m the one who thought of using Rascal!”

  “And I’m grateful for the idea. But Zori, you have no training—”

  “I can handle a weapon—I have my own pistol at home!”

  “Zori.” Stella took the girl by both shoulders—stiff, resistant shoulders. “I don’t doubt your courage, your intelligence, or your willingness to help. But I have done this sort of thing before—I got Toby away alive from people who wanted to kill him at Allray—and I will have trained, experienced personnel with me. I need to know you’re safe. Toby needs to know you’re safe. Yes, this is the boring part—but the boring part is useful, too.” Zori’s stubborn expression didn’t change. Stella thought of something. “There is something you can do, something very important.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I have the transcript of a message sent by pirates—intercepted by my cousin Ky during a battle. Toby recognized some of the words as those you’d taught him, but he can’t read the whole thing. Would you give it a try?”

  “It’s really important?”

  “So far, only the pirates understand pirate jargon. If we had a translation…”

  Zori’s face relaxed a little. “Yes…I can see that might help, and it’s something to do while…while you find Toby. I know I couldn’t sleep.”

  “And Zori…whatever you do…do not contact anyone outside. Not your family, not friends, no one.”

  “But if I want to tell you something—”

  “I can’t risk it breaking my concentration. Believe me, I want Toby back safe as much as you do. Do the translation, if you can, Zori.”

  Stella finished her preparations, put a lead on Rascal’s collar, and picked him up. He squirmed a bit, then settled into the crook of her arm. In the next room, she briefed the two men she had chosen from her private security to come along.

  The corridor outside was quiet; the single apparent guard was, Stella knew, only one of many in the area. She made her way to O’Keefe’s, where she was allowed in after a brief check with police headquarters.

  “According to his escort, he was sitting here, sera,” a policeman said, leading her to the booth. She put Rascal down next to it; he scampered over to a puddle of melted ice cream on the floor and started lapping at it.

  “Rascal, no—find Toby—”

  Rascal glanced up, rolling his eyes and flattening his ears, took a last swipe at the puddle, and lunged for a lump on the floor that might have been part of a sandwich, dragging at the leash.

  “Rascal!”

  He had the lump, whatever it was, and gulped it down, then dashed in another direction winding the leash around Stella’s legs, scrabbling at the floor, and giving short yaps.

  Stella followed him, unwinding the leash, with the sense of time passing…she knew, she’d been told, where Toby was sitting—over there, on the left—and that Toby was taken out the back of the place, through the service area and kitchen. Rascal showed no interest in either the booth or the most likely path to the service area. This wasn’t going to work. She herself had no experience with dogs that followed scent trails, but the ones she’d read about kept their noses to the ground and the trail made sense. Rascal looked eager and excited, head up, pulling hard toward the far side of the room at f
irst, but then veering aside to grab another lump off the floor. This time Stella could see the bit of meat in it.

  “It’s not working,” she said to her escort. “He’s just fooling around. I warned them he might not be able to do this.”

  “The girl said it was a sanitation van…but there are hundreds on the station…”

  “Sera Vatta!” Stella turned to see a policeman waving at her from near the entrance. Her heart clenched.

  When she came nearer, she saw that he had a datapad with a visual display up. “Sera, we have a little information, not much. This is combined from the station gravity report and two surveillance vids…a vehicle massing approximately the same as a sanitation hauler and four adults, but not on the normal route of a sanitation vehicle in this branch, moved on this route—” It was highlighted in yellow, Stella saw: inward to the trunk and up two branches, out almost to the tip, spinward. “—and it passed these eight vids on that route, but only two were functioning. We are attempting to ascertain the cause of the malfunction.”

  Enemy action, of course, but they were being correct and polite. Stella said, “Thank you for sharing this information. If you’ll excuse me…”

  “Sera, you should go home and wait—we’ll keep you informed.”

  Stella smiled, nodded, and left the mess behind. “Get us backup,” she said to her escort once they had cleared the line outside.

  “Sera? You aren’t going—”

  “I want medical, some heavy—”

  “Sera!”

  “I am not going to go home and wait. That child will not die or be taken off this station because I did nothing.”

  The escort opened his mouth, then shut it, and instead punched at his datapad. Stella led the way through the still-crowded corridors toward the trunk. The quickest way upstation was the airlifts, which she normally avoided because the pressure changes made her sinuses ache, but this time…

  “Sera, for your safety—”

  “Ganz, I’m wearing armor. And I’m armed. And I’m going.”

  The airlift tube made conversation impossible except by skullphone. It spat them out on the correct branch, and Stella quickly reoriented to the branch layout. Ahead, she saw a meaningful bustle—vehicles, pedestrians, some in uniform. Had they found him?

  Toby felt he was making progress. With the medpad lying to his captors, and the paralyzing drug leaving his system, he’d soon be able to do—whatever he was going to do. But how could he get up—when he could get up—without revealing to the room’s audiovisual surveillance that he was mobile? If his abductors were close enough, they could rush in and dose him again before he could get away.

  He accessed the implant’s security cluster—Stella had insisted on it over his protests. He hadn’t believed he needed that stuff. He had bodyguards.

  Now he extended the sonic and infrared probes. The next room to his right had neither sound nor heat signals. Nor did the room to his left. Beyond that, he could not be sure.

  He eyes still stared straight up; he could not see the door or its lock. He had to know if he could get out that way.

  Wait…if he could access the hardwired connections of the medpad, could he then infiltrate all the wiring, via the monitors the medpad reported to? Was there any way—? What had Rafe taught him about the simple way some ansibles had been disabled?

  Simple in concept, difficult in execution. His implant could trace and identify circuits. Sure enough, a standard magnetic lock. His implant could not create, on its own, the kind of electromagnetic pulse that would disable the lock. But medical monitors had devices to multiply the signal, and these devices were software-controlled.

  With the local circuitry in his implant, Toby knew exactly what to tweak and how, using the medpad’s access via the medical monitors. Could he now call for help past the shields? Not without detection. Would there be backsplash into his implant? Not if he disengaged in time. The really tricky thing would be getting his door’s magnetic lock open after he’d fried the circuits.

  He set up the commands, put them on a timer, checked his biological status—drug almost completely metabolized, only a light dose still helping him lie still as if paralyzed. It would clear in seconds…and then he would blink.

  He felt the growing excitement, a mix of nausea—quickly suppressed by his implant—and glee. Then he blinked, and the lights went out. He blinked again. Still dark. Utterly dark. Not even a gleam of light…he sat up, blinking. He had imagined everything except how dark it would be.

  His implant threw up a ghostly visual of the room. Toby stood, amazed at the quick response of his body, the steadiness of his stance. But this was not the time to stand still. He took the two quick strides to the door. Locked, of course. Without his usual tool kit, he had no way to open it easily, not with the whole system down.

  Ky wouldn’t stand here like an idiot. She would do something…and he’d heard about crawl spaces and ventilation spaces all his life. Toby stood on the bed and reached up. He could touch the ceiling…and the ceiling panels shifted as he pushed. It was harder than he’d expected to move one aside…and then he had to jump, with only the virtual light of the implant’s view of the room. His fingers scrabbled on the frame that held the panels. What if it wasn’t strong enough? What if it gave way and he fell back and broke something?

  Voices in the corridor outside…angry voices. “I don’t care—we have to be sure—blow the damned door!”

  He had to try. He leapt up, flailing for the framework, caught hold, and hung a moment, legs kicking wildly, before he levered himself up into the cold, machine-smelling space above. He felt around in the dark, and pushed the panel he’d dislodged back into place. It probably wouldn’t confuse them, but it might slow them down…though that was the only logical way he could’ve gotten out.

  Even as he thought this, he was crawling along the framework, careful to put weight only on the frame itself. The implant gave him a peculiar fuzzy view a short distance ahead; it was detecting different materials with one scan method and distances with another, and he had to keep looking down so it could define the framework well enough for him to stay on it. How far did he have to go? How far had he come?

  Behind him, he heard a crash, and a brief spurt of light revealed ahead of him a line of gleaming material that looked like a solid barrier. The light went out; he smelled acrid burning…if they did that to the framework, he’d fall through.

  “He’s got to be up here,” a voice said. It sounded faint, though, not like someone in the same space. “I can’t tell which way…”

  Toby flattened himself as much as he could, holding his breath.

  “We’ll need a light,” said another voice. “But he can’t get far. The firewall’s only twenty meters inboard.”

  Firewall. Of course. Toby’s heart sank. He had moved in the right direction, inboard, but now he was stuck. Firewalls had no openings at all between decks…but there were maintenance access ports on either side, running up and down between decks. The men could start their search at either end and trap him against the tip of that section or the firewall. And if he dropped out into a room or corridor…they might be there. They must be part of a larger plot; there must be other enemies to fear and evade.

  Even as he thought this, he put more distance between himself and the room where he’d been held. The men were going for lights, or at least IF detectors…he had a little time to get away from them.

  He angled across the framework now, heading for the far corner of the space his implant told him—when he lifted his head and let the implant scan it—was out at the tip of one of Cascadia Station’s branches. Inboard was definitely the way he wanted to go. If he could move fast enough, get to one of the corridors where the firewall had an opening…they’d be waiting, if they were waiting, where the access passage came down through the decks…so he needed a room nearby.

  He was almost to the far side of the space when his implant picked up the noise and light of pursuit. What would Ky do
? Toby set his implant to scan the space below…unoccupied, and open to another space or corridor. He scrabbled at a ceiling panel, but this one was solidly fixed…he felt wires and connections…a light fixture. The next, though, came loose. He peered down; his implant showed him a ghostly image that could have been an office—a room with furniture anyway. He rolled over the edge, holding the frame for a moment to slow his drop, and landed on the floor. He thought of pushing one of the furniture pieces over and trying to replace the panel to hide where he’d gone down…but he was afraid that might be seen. Instead, he moved quickly to the opening the implant showed him. Outside was a corridor, as he’d hoped, and now he had no doubt which way was inboard.

  He ran his hand along the wall as he went, deliberately leaving traces. If things went badly, someone should know he’d been here. Ahead he saw a small bright blue glow…one of the Cascadia Station emergency comunits. They had their own power source…his stomach lurched. He could call for help. If it worked; if it wasn’t blocked in some way.

  He picked it up, punched in the codes for everything he could remember: fire, pressure leak, personal injury, crime-in-progress. He heard voices down the passage outboard, pushed TRANSMIT, and put the comunit back in its holder before moving on as quietly and quickly as he could. A faint glow showed ahead of him…he could be seen against it…he moved to the darker side of the corridor as the light grew brighter. The corridor curved sharply, as always near a firewall opening; now the light came in brightly from a section where he hadn’t blown the power. People were standing around waving their hands, talking loudly…nobody coming in. Someone in a Station Security uniform stood in front of the gap, facing the crowd, where two people were already pointing past him at Toby.

  Toby straightened up and walked forward, as casually as he could, with what he hoped was a friendly and innocent smile.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “I need help—”

  Then the uniformed man turned to him, and he recognized a face with no smile at all.