“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why?”
“Think about it. Yates has been telling the world that Sean Beck sacrificed himself. He’s been very definitive. He’s never said anything like ‘I’m not sure what happened to Sean,’ has he?”
“No.”
“He won’t admit it, and you’ll be tipping him off that you know.”
She was right.
“What do you think I should do?” I asked.
“Forget about Yates. For now. Don’t tell him anything. We have to focus on finding your father.”
At that moment, Ana-Zhi Agrada’s voice blasted over the intercom. “Incursion team, get your asses down to the launch bay. Briefing in five!”
I stood up.
“Give me your AuraView,” Chiraine said.
“Why?”
“I’ll load the data from the security logs. Don’t leave without me, okay?”
Ana-Zhi and Galish stood waiting at the arms locker.
“Dig in, kids,” she said. “Grab whatever you want.”
I returned to my old favorite: the Winton snub railgun, and added a Kinesis radiant blaster. I also grabbed a bunch of bonerattler sonic grenades. They might come in handy.
As I was suiting up, Yates arrived. He had a sour expression on his face, but then abruptly smiled when he saw me. I couldn’t help but wonder if the smile was fake—and also wondered what else was fake about Virgil Yates.
“First field mission, Jannigan,” he said. “How does it feel?”
“Technically, wiping out a ship-full of Faiurae and rescuing Chiraine all by myself was my first field mission, but I’m feeling okay.”
“Don’t get cocky, kid,” Ana-Zhi said. “Nothing gets you killed quicker than cocky.”
“I know there’s a lewd joke in there somewhere,” Galish said.
“Seriously, even if the Princess is able to shut down the defensive grid, this won’t be a walk in the park,” Ana-Zhi said. “Not by any means.”
“Duly noted,” I said.
“Speaking of which,” Galish said. “Where is the little—”
“Genius?” Chiraine asked, as she walked into the room. “Was that the phrase you were looking for, Galish? Little genius?”
“Yeah, you read my mind, sweetheart.”
Chiraine ignored him and told Ana-Zhi that she would set up her datapad in the ready room for the briefing. As she brushed by me, she slipped my Aura into my hands. It was a pretty slick move, and no one seemed to notice.
Once we had loaded our gear on the sled, we all headed to the ready room. There Chiraine had a holo schematic of Bandala up on the conference table. A circle marker pulsed with light towards the center of it.
“Unfortunately, the Kryrk is pretty far into the Bandala,” Chiraine said. “And it’s a big place.”
“So this won’t be a simple smash and grab,” Ana-Zhi said. “Yeah, I figured as much.”
“I sent the coordinates to your Auras as well as full topographs.”
“Yeah, they’re here,” Galish said.
I checked my own AuraView, keeping it tilted so no one else could see. Besides the coordinates for the Kryrk, Chiraine had added a lot more information—including the location of the lifeform in hibernation: my father.
No, I couldn’t get my hopes up. I didn’t know for sure that it was him. But I sure as hell would find out. That was when I started making a plan.
“What about the defensive grid?” Galish asked.
“I’ve got that,” Yates said.
I looked questioningly at Chiraine, and she said, “Yates has the codes from what we sliced. It’s a persistent block system, so there’s no way to just flip a switch and shut everything off. You’re going to have to deactivate one zone at a time.”
“And let me guess,” Ana-Zhi said. “They don’t stay deactivated.”
“Yeah, that’s the gist of it,” Yates said. “The zones are roughly a hundred meters cubed, and we’re going to have to go through a bunch of them. No way around it. Stop and go.”
“That’s going to slow us down,” Galish said.
“It could take us a few hours,” Yates said. “Maybe longer.”
Chiraine said, “That doesn’t take into account the time it will take to remove the Kryrk from its vault. That’s on a separate control grid.”
“Which you’ve sliced, I presume?” Ana-Zhi asked.
“That’s why you brought me along.”
“Actually, it wasn’t our choice,” Galish said.
“But it was a good choice,” I said. “A very good choice.”
Ana-Zhi took over the briefing and described how we would go in, the movement protocol, communications protocol, and combat protocol.
“Speaking of which,” I said. “That Faiurae is still out there. What if he follows us in?”
“That’s where Obarral earns his paycheck,” Ana-Zhi said.
A voice came over the intercom. “I heard that, darling!” Obarral said.
“Good!” Ana-Zhi said back to him. Then she turned to us. “Hap’ll set the Freya down nose out on the landing deck. We’ll be running all systems battle ready for the duration of the ground mission. Something comes near us, Obarral blasts it. Ion lances are fully charged, as are the proximity plates. No one’s catching us with our pants down again.”
That sounded good to me, although I was still bothered by the Faiurae out there.
I stood in the bridge watching Bandala loom larger in the viewport as we drew closer. It was a massive alien-looking cube of metal with all sorts of extrusions, sensor arrays, heat dispersement units, solar mirrors, and nav beacons.
As Yates had told us, it was easy to enter Bandala. Ana-Zhi scanned for any potential hazards while Galish carefully maneuvered the Freya through the containment field and into position on the landing deck. Once we touched down, Ana-Zhi had one final exchange with Obarral, then called for us to meet at the launch bay. There, Ana-Zhi, Galish, Yates, and I did another check of our gear and Yates locked into Bandala’s defensive grid with the LVX controller mounted on the sled. There were smaller controllers he could have used, but Ana-Zhi didn’t want to take any chances with range issues, so we went with the highest-powered unit we had.
“First zone is officially locked down,” Yates said.
“Clock’s ticking, ladies. Let’s do this.” Ana-Zhi entered the airlock, with Yates and Galish lined up right behind her. As low man on the totem pole, I brought up the rear—with the sled.
“Good luck, Jannigan.”
