“When you put it that way,” I answered, “how can I resist?”
I felt bad letting Cheeirilaq go first. It was the biggest target. But it was also the active-duty Judiciary officer, and I suspected that it was much more current on its combat training than either O’Mara or me.
No matter what kind of nonsense is going on around you, the moment of stepping out of a vehicle into space is always awe-inspiring, the more so here in the Core than elsewhere. It took all my concentration not to stop and gape. Sally was there behind me, at least, adjusting my brain chemistry. I needed all the help I could get right then; exhaustion plays havoc with emotional regulation even when your world isn’t literally coming apart at the seams.
I hauled my heart out of my pants with both hands and followed it through the breached hull, and into the night.
Judiciary training hadn’t entirely deserted me. As soon as I came through the breach I flattened myself against the hull of the hospital, using the curve to protect myself from any potential incoming fire. The hospital was gigantic enough that the apparent curve was nominal, and the protection more theoretical than real—but it made me feel better. I wasn’t the only one: Goodlaw Cheeirilaq was doing the same thing on the opposite side of the breach.
It hadn’t lost hold of the energy projector in its manipulators.
O’Mara—hot on all umpteen of Cheeirilaq’s heels—flattened beside me. Carlos followed with more scramble and less Judiciary precision. He definitely moved like a pipefitter, not a soldier. At least he was being careful, though—watching O’Mara and me and trying to copy us.
It was a good thing the hab wheel wasn’t spinning, or when we used our boot magnets to hold on, the rotational forces would have tended to fling our bodies outward—and into a potential line of fire. As it was, the same curve that we lay close to because it offered homeopathic protection from incoming fire made it impossible to see where Jones had gone.
Cheeirilaq was a fantastic squad mate. Not only had it gone through the door first—and fast—but it laid safety lines of silk behind itself for us to cling to. I walked up them hand over hand, in case the hab wheel started moving again suddenly. My mag boots would probably hold, but if I had one foot off and it started up with a jerk when attitude rockets fired—well, that would suck for the people in free fall inside, but it would also suck for me. Redundancy, redundancy, redundancy. And two points of contact at all times.
Carlos paced beside me. He was comfortable in EVA and by now seemed well able to manage the boots. He, too, kept a hand on the line. “I don’t know anything about this situation. So what if we logic it out? Jones’s objectives, I mean.”
I hauled myself over a projection on the hull. “You make a good point, you know. You don’t know anything.”
“That’s easier to take when I’m the one saying it,” he grumbled.
“Right, but, my point is that Jones obviously knows where she is going. Carlos, how comfortable would you be finding your way around this station on your own? Without a guide or a map, I mean?”
“I’d curl up in a corner and wait for the men in the white coats to find me.”
“I beg your pardon—”
“Never mind,” he said. “I’d have an—an emotional breakdown. A panic attack. If I tried.”
“So she came in with more knowledge than you did. She came in primed for this. She knew the hospital plan, and—”
“What changed right before she went AMA?” O’Mara asked.
Against Medical Advice was a mild way to describe her escape, but I didn’t interject.
I suspect you of asking a leading question, friend O’Mara. The latest round of sabotage took place right before Jones fled.
Sally broke in. The pattern of sabotage started before we went out to Big Rock Candy Mountain. How can it be linked to whatever Jones is doing?
“Table that,” O’Mara said. “Maybe we ought to be asking ourselves how it’s possible that they’re not linked.”
“Once is happenstance,” said Carlos. “Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.” Then, a moment later, he did a double take and said, “Pattern of sabotage?”
We’ll explain later, Cheeirilaq said. I wondered if it would. For now suffice it to say that somebody has been trying to embarrass the hospital for some time.
I grunted. “This last attack was more than embarrassing.”
O’Mara shut us up with a wave of their hand. “Starlight says the target went that way.” They pointed across the turning wheel. “What if we use jets?”
“What if she has a weapon? A ranged weapon, I mean, not a welding torch. We’ll be sitting ducks if we come flying in.”
O’Mara rolled their eyes at me, but somebody has to be the practical one. “If Jones is linked to the sabotage rather than taking advantage of a dramatic situation, then somebody in the Synarche—somebody at Core General—must have had significant knowledge of and contact with the generation ship before Afar found it and sent out the distress signal.”
“The generation ship was significantly off course,” I said. “And much closer to the Core than it should have been, given its speed and when it left Terra. What if somebody moved it?”
O’Mara sputtered. “Big Rock Candy Mountain has to be as big as Core General. How do you move something like that? You can’t slap a white drive around it!”
Oh, liquid stinking excrement. The missing gravity generators, Cheeirilaq said.
“The what?!” I yelled so forcefully I got spit on the inside of my faceplate. I hate it when that happens.
I’ll explain later, Cheeirilaq said.
I was pretty sure it wouldn’t.
“How long ago did this happen?”
About… four ans?
“I’m sorry.” Carlos held up a hand in the universal gesture for I have no idea what is going on here. “What do gravity generators have to do with my ship being off course?”
Time is gravity, Cheeirilaq said. Or gravity is
