“We don’t know where they’re going,” said Lem. “I told you. They didn’t exactly leave a forwarding address.”
“But we do know where they’ll go eventually,” said Chubs. “Weigh Station Four is the only outpost this far out. All the families and clans go there for supplies. El Cavador headed out into the Deep, so they obviously don’t yet know what’s in our files. As soon as they figure out what they have, they’ll rush to Weigh Station Four and try to sell the schematics on the black market. That’s the only place even remotely close to here where they can do that.”
“They could head back into the inner system,” said Lem. “Maybe they won’t go to Weigh Station Four. Maybe they’ll think they’ll get a better price closer to home.”
Chubs shook his head. “Not families. You have to know how these people think. They don’t take risks like that. Most of them came out to the Deep to get away from trouble. When they try to sell, they’ll use a reliable source, someone they trust, someone they use often. That’s more important to them than getting a better price. They wouldn’t fly down to Mars or the Asteroid Belt. A, it’s too far, and B, they’d want to stay as far away from corporates as possible. They took something of ours, and they know we’ll want it back. Believe me, they’ll play it safe. Weigh Station Four is where they’ll go.”
“Fine. But how will we recover the data?”
“The same way they took it from us. We’ll hack their ship and steal it back. And maybe erase their servers in the process, just to be certain.”
“They could have moved the data onto a mobile device, a portable drive or something.”
Chubs shook his head. “Families use handhelds. Old models. If they want to port the information, they’d use those. But the handhelds are rooted to the ship’s main servers. When we wipe the servers, we wipe the handhelds, too.”
“It’s not flawless,” said Lem. “They still could have the data stored somewhere else.”
“Maybe,” said Chubs, “but I doubt it. We’ll never be one hundred percent sure. Hitting their servers is as close as we can get.”
Lem considered this a moment then realized a snag. “It won’t work,” he said. “If we go to Weigh Station Four, they’ll see us. They’ll see the ship. It’s not a very big outpost. They’ll know we’re waiting for them. They’ll turn tail and run.”
“They won’t see us,” said Chubs, “because our ship won’t be there. By the time El Cavador arrives, we’ll be heading back to Luna.”
“Then how will we wipe their system?”
“We’ll leave Podolski. He’s the only one of us that can do this anyway. We drop him off at Weigh Station Four and have him stay there until El Cavador shows up, which, after all, could take months. We can’t hang around that long without arousing a lot of suspicion anyway. But Podolski and a few security guys can blend in. We’ll even dress them up as free miners so they don’t draw attention to themselves. El Cavador arrives. Podolski swipes them. Then he and the security team hop on the next freighter to Luna. Simple.”
“Podolski will never go for this,” said Lem. “We’re essentially banishing him to a dump outpost. He’d make a stink about this with corporate.”
“No. He won’t,” said Chubs. “All we have to do is convince him that this whole thing is completely and utterly his fault. He’s not doing us a favor. We’re doing him a favor.”
They brought Podolski into the conference room and had him stand at the end of the holotable. Lem put on a grave, disappointed face while Chubs stood over in the corner, arms folded across his chest, scowling, playing bad cop. The idea was to unsettle Podolski immediately, and Lem could see by the man’s expression that it was working.
“I’ve just informed Chubs here of our dilemma,” said Lem. “I’ve tried to keep this quiet for as long as I can for your sake, Podolski, but I can’t put it off forever. We need to address this issue.”
Podolski shifted his feet, uncomfortable. “Issue, sir?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know what we’re talking about,” said Chubs. “El Cavador swiped our files on your watch. This was supposed to be the tightest firewall in the solar system, and a bunch of ignorant gravel suckers waltzed in here and cleaned us out. You screwed us, Podolski, and I’ll be damned if I take any heat for your mistake.”
Lem thought Chubs was laying it on rather thick, pointing and nearly shouting and even turning red with anger, which Lem found particularly impressive-a man who could do that on command belonged on the stage. But it seemed to be working. Podolski recoiled a step and held up his hands, palms out, in a gesture of surrender.
“Wait. Hold on a minute. You can’t peg this thing on me.”
“We can’t?” said Chubs. “Then who’s responsible? The cooks? Janitorial? Or maybe you think Mr. Jukes here is to blame. Is that what you’re saying?”
“No, no, of course not,” said Podolski.
“The firewall is your territory,” said Chubs. “That’s what this company pays you for. It’s your job to keep this ship as tight as a drum. Perhaps you’ve forgotten what we’re carrying on this vessel. Maybe it simply slipped your mind that the schematics and notes and research for the gravity laser, the most expensive prototype of any tech this company has ever developed, I might add, is on our servers. Did you forget that, Podolski?”
“No, sir.”
“You didn’t?” said Chubs, feigning surprise. “Well, that’s astonishing. That boggles my mind. Because I can’t fathom why anyone would allow a group of uneducated free miners to steal that information from us, knowing how valuable it is.”
“I don’t know how it happened,” said Podolski. “Nobody’s cracked us before. We’re impenetrable.”
“You see?” said Chubs, turning to Lem. “Listen to him. ‘We’re impenetrable.’ He’s not even admitting it happened. He’s in denial. He’s not going to do anything about it. We have to go to your father, Lem. Ukko needs to hear about this personally. The Board as well. Podolski isn’t going to fix it.”
Lem moved to Chubs and began speaking in hushed tones, though just loud enough for Podolski to hear. “We can’t go to my father,” said Lem. “He has zero tolerance for mistakes like this. Especially when there’s this much money and company resources invested. He’d string Podolski up. He would ruin him. Maybe even sue him. Podolski can’t afford that.”
“We don’t have a choice,” said Chubs.
“Wait,” said Podolski. “I’m not the only one who wrote the security measures, you know. I helped, yeah, but there are over two hundred coders on Luna working on this stuff. I can’t be the fall guy here. This wasn’t my fault.”
Chubs looked at him with contempt. “Yes, Podolski, we’ll tell that to Ukko Jukes. We’ll explain to him that the man at the controls can’t be blamed. He’s innocent. Did he even notice the attack take place? No, he had to wait for someone to point it out to him. Did he do anything afterward to rectify the situation? No, he twiddled his thumbs. I’m sure Mr. Ukko Jukes will be pacified by that argument and absolve you of any and all blame.”
Podolski considered this. “All right. There’s no need to go to Ukko. I can fix this. Honest. Please. Give me a chance on this.”
“What could you do?” asked Lem.
“Get me close to El Cavador and I’ll hack them back. It would be easy. Free-miner security is a joke. I could get in and wipe their system without them even knowing I was there.”
Lem visibly relaxed, smiling, and turned to Chubs. “There. Satisfied? I told you Podolski would own up. Problem solved.”
“It’s not that easy,” said Chubs, shaking his head. “We don’t know where El Cavador is. We can’t track them.”
Lem frowned, all hope vanishing. “Right. That is a problem, yes.” He sighed. “Then there’s nothing to be done.”
Podolski seemed desperate. “Maybe we could ask around, hit up some of the other clans or families for information. Someone has to know where they are.”
Chubs looked painfully amused. “You think free miners are going to offer up any intel to corporates? They hate us. They’d never sell out one of their own. And whom would we ask anyway? There’s no one close.”
Lem brightened, as if the idea had just struck him. “Weigh Station Four. El Cavador will need supplies. We’ll
