She sat back down. They kept flying.
When they were close enough to the asteroid, Emet transmitted his code. A moment later, a hatch opened in one of the asteroid's craters. Several drones emerged, shielded and loaded with cannons. They flew toward the Nantucket and buzzed around the ship, scanning it with sweeping red lasers.
"Mucking hackers," Leona muttered. "Probably stealing our secrets."
"You know we don't carry classified information on the Nantucket," Emet said.
"These muckers can probably hack into our Ra damn brains," Leona said.
Emet gave her a wry smile. "Maybe you should wear a tinfoil hat."
The drones patched into their comm system.
"Visitor recognized: Inheritor Starship Nantucket. Crew: Two. Species: Human. Commander: Admiral Emet Ben-Ari. First mate: Commodore Leona Ben-Ari. Crew outlawed on systems: All Concord worlds. Profession: Underground militia." The drones buzzed out of their way. "Welcome, friends."
"Underground militia?" Leona said. "I thought we were freedom fighters."
Emet snorted. "We're lucky they didn't call us terrorists. Most folk do."
The size of an old Earth yacht, the Nantucket was just small enough to fly into the hatch. Engines rumbling, the ship glided into the asteroid.
The Nantucket floated down a graffiti-covered tunnel. Alien parasites clung to the walls, hissing as the Nantucket flew by, then leaned down to feed on the smog. Grates below revealed shafts that plunged into the heart of the asteroid. Nuclear reactors churned deep below, powering this hidden world.
Several kilometers into the asteroid, the tunnel opened up into a vast cavern. Here was the heart of the asteroid. Here was the galaxy's most secure vault of secrets.
Hundreds of workshops honeycombed the walls. Drones flitted back and forth, and gondolas moved on cables, passing between the nooks. Cables dangled everywhere, flowing out from each nook, coiling together, then plunging into a massive outlet in the floor. It looked like a tree, kilometers tall, reaching out branches to every shop.
But these shops sold no physical wares. They sold information. Hacksaw Cove attracted the best hackers in the galaxy. The brightest and boldest came here. The best cybercriminals, whistleblowers, and data pirates worked here. Some called them electronic terrorists, others saw them as heroes of information. Here lived the famous Captain Electric, the alien child who had hacked into the Peacekeeper Headquarters mainframe, then leaked the information across the galaxy. The infamous Senpai Seven worked here too; any song, movie, game, or software you needed, they offered you a pirated copy. Several shops operated alluring avatars they sent into cyberspace to recruit drug mules. Others streamed illegal content, from pornography to revolutionary manifestos. There were shops that harvested passwords, others that hacked into bank accounts. Some shops hacked into cameras, took compromising photos, and blackmailed their victims.
Here lived the most dangerous criminals in the galaxy. And the most successful. Even the poorest hacker here was wealthier than the entire Heirs of Earth.
"Bunch of lowlifes," Leona muttered. "Online warriors, hiding behind their keyboards. Give me warships and rifles. That's how you win wars." She looked around her, lip curling. "All they care about is money and fame. They fight for no noble cause."
"They fight for our cause," Emet said. "When the price is right, at least."
"Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas," Leona said.
Emet nodded. "Successful soldiers are rarely knights in polished armor. They lie down with dogs, and fleas infest their uniforms. Wars are not won with good intentions, taking the high road. They're won wrestling in the mud."
Leona brushed her uniform, imagining the fleas. She shuddered.
Piers stretched out from the central stalk of cables, and starships docked here. The Nantucket just met the maximum size limit. Normally, Leona hated to leave a ship unguarded, but there was honor among thieves, and here were the galaxy's best thieves. They left the ship.
A rusty robot rolled toward them, dressed in a shabby uniform and tasseled fez. He reminded Leona of an elevator operator from an old movie. The robot held out his hand, and Leona paid him a scryl. The machine nodded, shedding rust, and guided Leona and Emet into a gondola.
The glass sphere began to move along a cable, taking them through the cavern. Hundreds of other gondolas zipped around them, aliens inside them—some blobby, others bony and thin, some swimming inside aquariums. They were all typing at keyboards and peering through virtual reality helmets. Cables ran everywhere, carrying gondolas and power to the pods honeycombing the walls. The air buzzed with electricity and information. Most of these aliens were deep in virtual reality. Here was just the back end, the machine that operated the countless digital worlds.
And in one of these shops, the creature waited. Leona ground her teeth.
"There must be somebody else," Leona said. "Not her."
"She's helped us before," Emet said.
"She betrayed us before." Leona grabbed Arondight, slung as always across her back. "Maybe I'll put a bullet through her Ra damn head."
Emet wanted to rage, to scold his daughter, even send her back to the ship. But as he looked at her, his fury faded.
"Leona, I'm sorry about what happened that day. I'm so sorry. We fight so that no more will suffer like you did."
She looked away. She did not reply.
Finally the gondola reached its destination—a pod in the wall, one shop in this great honeycomb. A sign hung over the round doorway, displaying the words: Tea Party Madness.
To fit through the small doorway, Emet had to bend over, turn sideways, and pin Thunder and Lightning to his sides. Leona paused, forced herself to take a deep breath, then followed.
They found themselves in a cluttered chamber filled with machinery. There were humming computers, buzzing cables, chugging pistons, and flashing microchips. It felt like standing inside a computer.
And there, at the back of the chamber, she waited.
The creature.
Leona hissed and reached for her gun.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Leona stood in the chamber with her father, staring at the creature ahead.
"Hello, Alice," Emet said.
The creature ignored him.
Alice was not her true name. She gave each visitor a different name, choosing one from that species' lore. In cyberspace, she had thousands of avatars. If she had a true name, nobody knew it. To humans, she was Alice.
And we've followed her down rabbit holes before, Leona thought.
The first time Leona had come here, she had mistaken Alice for part of the machinery. Alice was a clockworker, a member of a mysterious and rare alien species.
Millions of years ago, the clockworkers had been computer bugs—literally. They had begun their evolution inside a massive computer halfway across the galaxy, a machine that covered a planet, the masterwork of an ancient civilization. At first, these lifeforms had been mere insects, scurrying through the machine, dying frequently. They got trapped between gears, burned on hot motherboards, entangled themselves in cables, and caused so many hardware failures that their host species—the builders of the machine—went extinct.
But the bugs had survived. They evolved to survive inside the giant computer. They fed on its energy. Their bodies changed, adapting to fit in the machinery. They evolved tentacles that could plug into ports, could access the data hidden within. Over millions of years, those humble bugs became intelligent, living components of a long-abandoned computer. Computers were usually built by intelligent life. Here was intelligent life that evolved inside a computer.