“Can you identify the attackers?” he asked SCat. The cat slowly nodded.
He could picture it easily enough; SCat being pursued, cut off from the Patrol section of the station—hiding out on the docks—catching the scent of the mates being shipped for SKitty’s kittens and deciding to seek safety offworld. Cats, even shipscats, did not tend to grasp the concept of “duty”; he knew from dealing with SKitty that she took her bonds of personal affection seriously, but little else. So once “his” people were dead, SCat’s personal allegiance to the Patrol was nonexistent, and his primary drive would be self-preservation.
No matter. There was only one place to go now—straight to Erica Makumba, the Legal and Security Officer.
He dumped a copy of the pertinent datafile to a memory cube, then scooped up both cats and pried their life-support ball out of its hiding place. Then he
The Spirits of Space were with him; the indicator outside her cabin door indicated that she was in there, but did not want to be disturbed. He pounded on the door anyway. Erica
After a moment, the door cracked open a centimeter.
“White.” Erica’s flat, expressionless voice boded extreme violence. “This had better be an emergency.”
He said the one word that would guarantee her attention. “Hijackers.”
The door snapped open; she grabbed him and pulled him inside, cats, support-ball and all, and slammed the door shut behind him. She was wearing a short robe, tying it hastily around herself, and she wasn’t alone. But the man watching them both alertly from the disheveled bed wasn’t one of the
“I found out where SCat’s from,” he babbled, dropping one cat to hand the memory-cube to her. “Read that—quick!”
She punched up the console at her elbow and dropped the cube in the receiver. The BioTech file, minus the holo, scrolled up on the screen. The man in the bed leaned forward to read it too, and whistled.
Erica swiveled to glare at him. “You keep this to yourself, Jay!” she snapped. Then she turned back to Dick. “Spill it!” she ordered.
“SCat’s ship was hijacked, probably by smugglers,” he said quickly. “He hid his support-ball in an access tube, and he was in it when they blew the lock. They missed him in the sweep, and when they brought their prize in here, he got away. But they know he’s gone, and they know he can ID them.”
“And they’ll be giving the hairy eyeball to every ship with a black cat on it.” She bit her knuckle—and Jay added his own two credits’ worth.
“I hate to say this, but they’ve probably got a tell-tale on the BioTech data files, so they know whenever anyone accesses them. It’s not restricted data, so anyone could leave a tell-tale.” The man’s face was pale beneath his normally dusky skin-tone. “If they don’t know you’ve gone looking by now, they will shortly.”
They all looked at each other. “Who’s still on board?” Dick asked, and gulped.
Erica’s mouth formed a tight, thin line. “You, me, Jay and the cats. The cargo’s offloaded, and regs say you don’t need more than two crew on board in-station.
Jay barked a laugh, and tossed long, dark hair out of his eyes. “Honey, I’m a comptech. Trust me, you can get past the security. You just hack into the system, tell it the ship in the bay is bigger than it really is, and upload whoever you want as additional personnel.”
Erica swore—but Jay stood up, wrapping the sheet around himself like a toga, and pushed her gently aside. “What can be hacked can be unhacked—or at least I can make it a lot more difficult for them to get in and make those alterations stick. Give me your code to the AI.”
Erica hesitated. He turned to stare into her eyes. “I need the AI’s help.
