Final break a space oper.., p.18
Final Break: A Space Opera Adventure (Shades of Starlight Book 4), page 18
Tai nodded. “That was good. We’ve done our best to make sure no one here is working with the Obsidian Force. We’re monitoring all messages and scrambling our location, but it’s possible there’s a leak. The Obsidian Force had more people than we could have imagined. We’ll have to careful with what you say, make sure it doesn’t contradict anything else they might have heard.”
“We obviously can’t tell them where we are, though,” Alexei said. “It would endanger everything. Not just the delegates’ lives but the talks, too.”
“We won’t. Let me think about it for a few hours. That gives you time?”
“I guess,” Jules said. “We don’t have a regular check-in schedule, but I can’t ignore my cousin much longer.”
Tai stepped closer, and his face was intense but kind. “We can use this, Jules. You were right, to come to us. It might be exactly what we need.”
She didn’t know him, had just met him, but maybe, possibly, here was someone else she could rely on. He seemed to know what he was doing. She hoped—because she was risking everything by trusting him.
“What if there is a mole here?” Alexei asked. “And they know we arrived?”
“Reina is only allowing transmissions to go out at set times,” Perrin said. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t let any through until Jules’s message is ready. Then if anyone else is in contact, it won’t be any sooner than yours.”
That sounded as safe as Jules could get.
“Why don’t I show you to your rooms?” Perrin said. “It’s been a long few days for you. Finley found you clothes and comp-pads, and the delegates are done for the day. We’ll figure this out.”
The fact that her boss was being so nice was making this worse. Jules deserved anger, hatred, disappointment, condemnation. Not hot food and a new wardrobe and a stay in a fancy hotel.
Perrin led them outside, through the main front doors, into a glorious purple and pink sunset. On one side, there was a beach and dock. On the other, a bridge jutted into the water, with many branches arcing away from it. Each ended in a smaller, pod-like building that was half above water, half below, surrounded completely by turquoise water. That was where Perrin headed.
“Am I going to drown in my sleep?” Alexei asked.
“Nah, the water is shallow,” Perrin said.
“Yeah, but I can’t swim.”
“You can’t?” Jules asked.
He raised an eyebrow. “Desert boy, remember? Where would I have learned, a puddle? We’re lucky if it rains twice a year.”
“Part of each room is above water,” Perrin said.
“There you go. Stay in the top half,” Jules suggested.
“What if there’s a rogue wave?”
“I doubt this resort would be here if that were a possibility.”
Perrin indicated a pod. “For you, Jules. Finley sent a toolkit for you, in addition to the other things.”
A toolkit. For several days, she’d been trying not to remember losing her ship. The years of work she’d poured into the vessel, the custom changes for smuggling. Her stash of shortbread cookies, her scarves from home. And the toolkit, with items collected over the years, plus the ones she’d modified or built herself.
She wasn’t overly sentimental, but a burning sensation seared her throat.
That was what she got for working with the Obsidian Force. Many others had lost their homes recently, too. Why should she expect better for herself after all she’d done?
These items had been delivered before she’d confessed to treason. The others could have taken everything back, especially the tools, now that they knew exactly what she used them for. The kindness made the burning worse.
Perrin pointed Alexei to his room but lingered with Jules.
“Thank you for telling me, Jules. Tai will figure it out. You’re in good hands with him. We’ll see you in the morning.”
She squeezed Jules’s arm and headed toward land, leaving Jules and Alexei in the glowing light of sunset.
Jules tried to imagine her worries sweeping out to sea so she could enjoy the lapping water, the gentle breeze, the brilliant colors. Alexei’s gaze on her had weight.
“I can’t believe you talked me into this.” She tried to keep her voice light.
“I’m proud of you. I know it wasn’t easy.”
A lump formed in her throat.
He stepped closer. “Everything will work out. You’ll see.”
“You and your shaded optimism.”
His smile shined as bright as the sunset. It was almost enough to convince her he was right. Their eyes locked, and the heaviness inside her melted into something lighter, like froth on the waves or a storm of tiny bubbles.
He moved even closer, and she held her breath. His hand rested on her shoulder, gentle, comforting. His thumb brushed her neck, where her pulse was throbbing.
The galaxy narrowed to this moment, his impossibly blue eyes, his red-blond hair gilded by the fading light.
“Sleep well, Jules.” His thumb made tiny circles before he removed it, leaving goose bumps behind.
She shivered. “Yell if you’re drowning, and I’ll come save you.”
“I would trust you to save me. I mean it.”
His solemn gaze pinned her. For the first time, his optimism seemed founded.
She was glad he was on her side.
19
They were shouting again.
Alexei pressed fingers to his temple, where he was fairly certain a permanent headache was forming. After surviving the night in his room without drowning, he’d hoped a meal and sleep would calm everyone down. There was that optimism Jules kept accusing him of—and it was seeming increasingly unfounded.
He let the raised voices wash over him as he watched a giant yellow fish outside.
Since he hadn’t wanted to spend longer than necessary in the beautiful room that slightly terrified him, Alexei had risen early to search for other Cobalt Republic delegates. Over a breakfast nicer than anything he’d ever eaten, he’d had good conversations with the colonial leaders and the prime minister’s aide, Yunia, who was especially friendly with Finley. They had decided, with only two delegates outstanding, to begin preliminary talks today.
But instead of the strong start he’d hoped for, he was listening to an Amber Alliance colonial governor who was clearly using this opportunity to suck up to the trade minister and earn himself a promotion. A Confed colony mayor kept repeating demands so generous, Alexei was surprised the primary planet official next to him didn’t laugh in his face. And Rodge, the colonial affairs guy who’d hassled Alexei yesterday, rolled his eyes every time Alexei opened his mouth.
His people were counting on him. He had to do something.
He caught Finley’s attention and mimicked whistling, hoping she’d understand.
She did, and the noise pierced the room. When everyone fell silent, she raised her eyebrows at him as if to say, “you take it from here, they’re your problem.”
All right, then. He didn’t know what he was doing, but if she could convince the Cobalt prime minister to make this happen, he’d do his best to see it succeed.
Ignoring the guy who’d been heckling him, Alexei stood.
“It seems our concerns can be broken down into smaller categories that we can address one at a time,” he said. “For example, production quotas. We face them with prism cores. Many of you do as well, for grain, for ore, for spices.” He gestured to the corresponding delegates, who nodded.
“Then we have the other side, getting needed supplies sent to the colonies. Medicine, protective equipment, water purifiers, tech like comp-pads, even food in some cases.”
More nods followed.
“There’s the issue of protection and security. I realize how fortunate we are on Neridia to provide something valuable enough to warrant protection, but others are left to defend themselves against pirates, raiders, mercenaries. Alternately, many of you would like to police yourselves rather than have the empires do it for you. And would prefer if economic matters like missed quotas weren’t met with military responses.”
Two colonial leaders who had mentioned that issue loudly voiced agreement.
“Which leads to the overall feeling that our concerns aren’t adequately represented in the decision-making bodies within the empires. Did I miss anything major?”
A man raised his hand and, looking toward Finley, said, “My planet would like to be considered as a host for the next Galactic Cup.”
“He said ‘major,’ not utterly irrelevant,” said the lady next to him.
“It’s relevant to me,” the man said.
Alexei cleared his throat loudly. “Anyone else? No? Good. Why don’t we take the issues one at a time, and hear from the colonial representatives? I know we could speak for hours about our complaints, but let’s focus on general statements and offer reasonable solutions.”
“Who put him in charge, anyway?” Rodge asked.
“Yeah, why are we letting a kid run things?”
“Is the Flash recording this? I want everyone to know exactly how the Alliance is screwing us over.”
“Speak for yourself. The Alliance doing their best,” said the suck-up.
“He put himself in charge,” Finley announced loudly, “because none of the rest of you were being productive. Alexei, you go first, and talk about prism core quotas and safety.”
Movement caught his attention—Jules slipping into the room. She made a face at him, and he smothered a smile.
He summarized Neridia’s concerns, describing how difficult and dangerous the mining was, how no Cobalt officials including the previous mayor had ever visited to understand, how accidents like the one they’d had recently were avoidable and stopped work for days or weeks and yet they were never taken into account. He could have gone on for hours, but he’d respect his own rules. When he finished, he motioned to the woman on his right.
“Why don’t we go in a circle?”
Grumbles met his words, but the woman stood and gave an overview of how grain production was affected by storms and they often had trouble obtaining the tech they needed to fix the harvesters.
The man after her talked about factories that produced components for comp-pads and ships, and how they were dependent on deliveries of the raw materials that went into production and were punished when it wasn’t their fault for not receiving those goods.
A voice drew Alexei’s gaze across the table. A Confed official was reading a comp-pad, and the colonial leader next to him was trying to get his attention.
“What’s wrong?” Alexei asked.
“What’s the point if they aren’t going to listen?” asked the colonial leader. “I should have known this was a waste of time.”
He grabbed the comp-pad from the man’s hands, and when the official lunged to take it back, the other man danced out of the way.
The official charged him, and soon they were grappling.
The nearest soldier was Micah, and he stepped forward, drawing a stunner.
“I don’t want to shoot anyone,” Micah said in a friendly voice, “but I’ll stun you both if you don’t stand down.”
More people had risen from their seats at the scuffle.
“That goes for all of you,” said a female soldier who moved beside him.
“Why does Cobalt have soldiers here, anyway? Seems biased to me,” someone yelled.
“Aren’t Confed ships patrolling the planet?”
“One ship, and I don’t think it’s a Confed one.”
“Each empire has soldiers and a ship present, as I told you when you arrived,” Yunia said, but no one heeded her.
Volumes were rising again, but Micah had successfully separated the men and returned the comp-pad to its owner.
“Shall we try again?” Micah asked. “And do we need a no-technology rule?”
“I was taking notes,” said the official. He glared at the would-be thief. “You can read them if you want. I’m trying to do my job, but maybe some people here would rather fight than accomplish things.”
Alexei fought the urge to rub his temples again. He imagined what Samir would say if his friend were here. Something along the lines of, I’m glad we came. This is so much more entertaining than dust storms.
Alexei missed the dust storms.
To think the fate of the galaxy rested on the people in this room.
The galaxy was quite possibly doomed.
Jules wasn’t sure which was worse, listening to the dreadful negotiations that Alexei seemed to be single-handedly trying to keep on track. Or meeting a former Confed spy and an infamous hacker to officially launch her career as a double agent.
Tai was waiting for her outside the operations room.
“Ready?” he asked.
As if she could ever be ready for this. “Why not?”
He let her in, and they were greeted by a girl about Jules’s age, with dark hair and eyes and a serious expression.
“Jules, this is Reina. AKA SilverSpark.”
The girl looked young and innocent, and Jules decided that she liked her. Someone else who could use her appearance to her advantage, as Jules often had. Make people underestimate her.
Reina gazed at her with an intense stare than made Jules lift her chin.
“You were working with the Obsidian Force?” the girl asked.
“I was.”
“But you’re not anymore?”
“No. They trust me, I think, so we’re trying to figure out a way to stop them.”
Reina held the stare then nodded. “Okay.”
Jules felt like she’d faced an interrogation in that single look.
As Reina took a seat, Tai murmured, “She and her family were kidnapped by the Obsidian Force. She’s not a fan.”
Great. Her future rested with a hacker who possibly hated her and could expose her to the galaxy, as she had the rest of the revolution.
“I reviewed the information you gave me,” Tai said. “I’m strangely impressed.”
Jules had given him a list of every job she’d done and everything she could remember about the people who’d helped her. He’d promised not to act on all of them at once, since that might reveal where he’d gotten the information.
After hearing of Reina’s past, Jules hoped the hacker never got her hands on that list.
“Several of them were never suspected as sabotage,” Tai said. “Locals thought they were general equipment failures.”
“That was the idea,” Jules said.
“Hmm. Like I said. Impressive.”
Shoving aside a burst of pride that someone recognized her genius, she asked, “What’s the plan?”
“The ultimate plan will involve you giving the Obsidian Force the wrong location for the peace talks, so the empires will have fleets waiting for them.”
Her stomach plunged.
“But I need time to accomplish that. So for now, we stall and give them intel it won’t hurt for them to know. I also want to see if we can feel out whether anyone else here is leaking info. If not, we might enlist the delegates’ help. Convincing three empires to fight side by side won’t be easy, and this group is what could make it happen.”
“What do you need me to do now?”
He handed her a comp-pad. “This is the information we want to give them. Say it however feels most natural to you. We don’t want your cousin getting suspicious because I wrote a script that doesn’t sound like you.”
The text said she was nearing the talks, they’d be transferring ships soon, but she didn’t know exactly where they were going. It gave a system—not the actual one she was in. Comms were being confiscated, so she might not be in contact right away, but because she worked for Perrin, they trusted her, and she’d try to find a way to call soon. Since she no longer had a ship, she’d be staying at the talks until further notice.
Sounded believable enough, and not too far from the truth.
The next part was a list of half a dozen delegate names.
“Why these people?” she asked.
“They arrived not long before you did, so you could reasonably have met them before transferring ships. And their absence is either already known, or they’re from a planet where the empire has enough troops that the Obsidian Force won’t dare make a move.”
She ran a finger along the edge of the comp-pad. “How should I do this?
“However you usually do, and Reina will send it. How are the other messages looking?” He directed that question to the hacker.
She spun to face them. “Most delegates are sending comms, to family, or to colleagues with updates or requests for advice. The recipients check out. I ran the words themselves through a program to check for coded messages, but nothing came up, and I searched for malicious code to make sure no one’s hiding a shadow transmission. When I send them, I’ll encrypt them to hide their origin. That’s the best we can do. Can I ask you a question?”
She stared at Jules again.
“Um. Sure.”
“How were you getting around the empires’ communications blackouts? I know how I’m doing it, obviously, but the Obsidian Force is still sending messages, so they have to have a way as well.”
“I don’t know about the others, but I had an encrypted comm.”
“Can I see it?”
“It got blown up with my ship.” She didn’t want to volunteer more to this girl, who could dig up secrets Jules didn’t even know she had. But she wanted them to trust her. “I can show you what they told me do and give you access to my call record.”
She’d revealed her biggest secret. She supposed there was nothing in her messages more incriminating than what she’d already told these people.
Reina gave her a comp-pad and watched as Jules entered the encryption codes.
“Oh, clever,” the girl said. “Have you sent anything since you got here?”
“No, why?”
“The communications blackout I’ve put in place should prevent you from using this method, which means if we did miss someone here who’s working with the Obsidian Force, they shouldn’t be able to communicate either. But now I’m curious to try it. I can use this to improve my security, and we can alert others to watch for these transmissions. Thanks.”
