Nine Days Later

  Kat slipped into civilian garb, just a plain worker's jumper over a thick sweater.

  She preferred her flight suit, the male-cut version, with its stronger vise-like compression garment that bit into her skin during high-g pulls, making the burn of maneuvers more bearable. It covered more, too, a blunt ward against the wandering eyes of men that ignored wedding bands.

  All the crew believed that Hidetada spied through their armor, so she donned an earpiece.

  Her drones guzzled Energy Points like ravenous beasts, far too cumbersome and awkward to haul through the streets. She left them behind, her sidearm weighing on her hip as her only armament.

  Not entirely true, though. She was of the sixth Tier, teetering on Seraph, though masked, and the crew believed her to be third Tier.

  She'd refused Hidetada's cybernetics as her body was already carved to the bone by upgrades, almost at maximum allowable mass loss.

  The navy coddled their stars, especially women that matched the top men. The enlistment gap was always a source of bitterness for command. Twenty-to-one overall, nine-to-one in officers.

  A source of bitterness for the fleet, but a boon for her, with top-shelf implants as she rose, turning her into a precision instrument.

  Of course, her star performance was a curse too, deployments and duty stealing years away from her family.

  She found Slavo buried in the machimotarium, on duty until shift's end, buying her solitude off-ship.

  She cleared her throat. He looked up, then his tools clattered down as his face beamed a smile. “I'm heading out to explore the city, honey. I'll find a tailor for Angar's outfits. Maybe pick up something for myself."

  His eyes lit with that pure, unwavering love. He set his work aside, stood, and approached. Kat swallowed revulsion as they embraced.

  "Have fun, my heart," he told her. "I love you to Andromeda and back."

  The kiss lingered too long, so she broke it with a forced smile.

  "Here." He fished out a credit stick, pressed it into her palm. "Treat yourself to something nice. Whatever you want, whatever the cost. Can we meet at nineteen hundred for dinner? I'll take you somewhere special, show the world how lucky I am to have such an amazing woman. One so far out of my league. One I don’t deserve."

  Guilt ate at Kat’s soul. The stick held every last one of his credits, all his wealth.

  She wished he were a bastard who mistreated her, but he doted on her like royalty. If she asked for the stars, he'd spend the rest of his life trying to fetch them. He worshipped her. She knew the honeymoon fire would never dim, not for him. Her whims were his gospel.

  Such a good man, trapped in her vile lie.

  It broke her heart, but better him than her children.

  She knew it was wrong, but she prayed the engine exploded and killed him, freeing her from that part of this nightmare.

  She forced a brighter smile. "Thanks, honey. I'd love that."

  Over her shoulder, as she walked away, she called out, "Nineteen hundred."

  Klamath, Moonlight's sprawling capital, teemed with life, the streets bustling with vendors and shops.

  She passed a couple communication posts filled with rows and rows of rune-etched comcap stations, a network connecting most major worlds, before spotting a Digilink, the company she’d been ordered to use, and stepped inside.

  She had no world or address as a destination, just an account number seared into memory.

  On a slip, she scrawled a text-only message –

  I miss you, friend. How are your kids? Please send me an image of them so I can hang it on my wall. Love, Iyita.

  The total came to 1,094 bits, costing five-and-a-half credits at a rate of a half-credit per hundred bits.

  As the expected reply of a low-quality, blocky but discernible image would clock in around fifty thousand bits and take nearly five hours to transmit, she had plenty of time to spare.

  She hunted today's Imperial Gazette, a slim pamphlet that was one of the few galaxy-wide dailies available everywhere, much smaller than the local papers. The proof-of-life image would include it, confirming her children were still alive.

  She wandered the streets, scanning the crowd for threats, locating a skilled and affordable tailor. Using Angar's measurements, but adding some extra room for growth, she commissioned four quality outfits, practical cuts for his bulk, within budget.

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  She browsed shops, snagging little more than a modest bracelet with Slavo's credits. He'd be disappointed if she returned empty-handed, and she could gift it to Chere once her kids were safe, once this nightmare ended.

  Five hours later, she returned to Digilink. Nothing yet. She killed another hour, then checked again. Still nothing.

  On her third visit, an hour past that, she clutched a grainy image in trembling hands, showing her children and Zhertva, the nanny, posed with today's Imperial Gazette headline visible.

  She bit back sobs, tears of relief.

  She drafted a new message –

  Dear friend, thank you for the wonderful image. I am doing very, very well, so close to perfect, but I need more time before I see you. A crewmate was left to Crusade on Abyssalhome, so we may stay in Perseus for months before retrieving him. I cannot wait to see your children again. Love, Iyita.

  At 2,710 bits, it cost fourteen-and-a-half credits. She paid, silently praying for her children's safety.

  An hour left until meeting Slavo. She slumped on a bench, her mantra cycling like a targeting loop.

  Come Hell or high water.

  There were many advantages to dwelling in the shadows of obscurity, perceived by the masses and the mighty alike as an unimportant footnote in the grand narrative, just a crippled eccentric, devoid of true agency in the cosmic theater.

  Hidetada savored this veil of inconsequence, as it afforded him liberties and opportunities denied to others at the top.

  This opportunity was not solely the fruit of his own intricate designs, though those were legion. No, this was due to the enemy's insatiable desire for young Angar.

  A grand acquisition, that Knight, a gift that kept on giving with unerring generosity.

  The blessed Mother, he was certain, had changed her mind. Somewhat. At least enough to pay Angar some visits. Five of them, if Hidetada had the glitches of the scryer secretly embedded in the boy pegged right, the last time on this very ship.

  Thus, after Azgoth, he resolved to stop using the boy as bait. Or not so often. He was keeping the young Knight secure on Abyssalhome. Safe, insofar as the boy’s ridiculous beliefs and the Glorious Path permitted, surrounded by many powerful Seraphs.

  The boy was strange, an egomaniac beyond measure, but capable. He’d proven he could think, though too rarely, a candidate ripe for queening. But only if pride failed to subsume him first.

  Serendipity aligned this new opportunity with unprecedented precision, though he refrained from premature celebration, for hubris was an architect of downfall, every bit as much as impatience.

  But where once he would’ve needed to expend exhaustive resources to maneuver disparate elements into convergence, here they coalesced with an elegance bordering on true Divine Providence.

  All thanks to his young Knight.

  Probabilities surged, the arithmetic favorable. He, as always, would exploit without hesitation.

  In the centuries since Mara's maiming had mangled his body, Hidetada had made little headway against any Nox infiltrating the Holy Empire, let alone the rare whisperings of a mysterious Teth.

  Their prescience bordered on precognition, always seeing him coming from kilometers away, evading snares with an acuity that suggested the supernatural.

  But, through iterative refinement, analyzing evasion patterns, modeling heuristics, and edging probabilities from marginal to viable, he had honed his methodology.

  Official channels and means were compromised.

  Stored data, even verbalizing schemes, invited peril, every spoken word a potential cascade to exposure. He assumed some new sort of scrying, though he had the best protection against such.

  Thus, he had to fully create his own system, all operations subsisting in the shadow, outside any known means, silent, controlled by his thoughts alone, impervious to scrying.

  Long ago, he meticulously cross-correlated comcap production logs, distribution chains, sales, and usage anomalies, subjected to long and exhaustive analysis.

  The conclusion was that the Noxes’ secret network had to rely upon public communication posts, though which and the specific means constantly changed.

  Operatives of caliber were not scarcities, but not plentiful, recruited and cultivated with painstaking deliberation, always engaged in important missions. Wasting such assets as shop clerks for overly long periods was far too inefficient.

  So, he had bided time until Iyita manifested as an opportune fulcrum, with Angar's time on Tribute furnishing the window to deploy assets across cities, employed at all public communication posts on principal worlds, achieving eighty-nine percent saturation of needed coverage.

  Not perfect, but the best he could do with current assets and without risking exposure.

  Some of his special nanites shadowed Iyita’s voyage into Klamath.

  He assumed querying the account identifier of the message recipient risked alerting the quarry, which would incinerate this glorious chance. Instead, his cadre scoured their shops for the message content.

  And it worked.

  The transmission went to Janus, a world he had nearly deprioritized, overridden by gut instinct alone.

  And he not only found the destination, but also the retriever, whom his operative tailed, knowing to prioritize evasion over detection.

  She stopped at a shop, then entered a building, exited ten minutes later, returned to the Digilink, and transmitted an image of children and a woman holding an Imperial Gazette, then retrieved Iyita’s subsequent missive the following dawn.

  A new outbound relay by her, this time from a Budget Post, targeted a new account number. Luckily, also found in turn, its target dispatching his own communication to yet another account, this time via Century Com, that message also found.

  It went to Stormwell on Holy Bastion, a world teeming with Hidetada’s assets.

  The recipient delivered the message to a man, that man sending it via the world’s network to another, easily traceable by his operatives without leaving a fingerprint.

  The message was seemingly trivial, devoid of significance without context, couched as a policy request to allow mothers more time with their newborn before tithing.

  The final recipient surprised Hidetada, an uncommon occurrence, unmasking someone of importance, impervious to suspicion, a pillar of the establishment.

  More pieces fell into place. If his inferences held, they proffered not just the apprehension or elimination of a Nox, but retribution for old grievances.

  Hidetada opened comms. “Deli, extend shore leave and preparations to make ready for the void by a local day. Our destination has changed. We get underway for Sol.”

  A feint. The Zephuros would veer to Carina-Sagittarius, to Holy Bastion.

  A wise hunter lulls his prey, not startling it, thus the extended shore leave.

  The false Iyita's children were hostages, likely doomed on contingency if the Nox fell. Saving them risked exposure, far outweighed by a real chance to capture or kill a Nox.

  The arithmetic of war, brutal and ugly as it was, blessed the steadfast, the patient, and Hidetada would reap a grand bounty.

  The west wind blew.

  The board tilted, leaving a bishop en prise.