“The Ravana lost all hands after she slipped her Endless buffer limits,” said Nate. “We harvested her logs. She tried using the usual Endless jumps to get away. We did the same thing. Didn’t work for us, not for them either, so we figure the crew agreed to disable the buffer to break free of the system. One last run, a flare fired into the hard black, fueled by human souls. They knew there was something bigger at play than their lives. We didn’t know how to read the signs.” He sighed. “The reactor malfunction was an also-ran in this situation.” He leaned forward. “It’s not important.”
“Captain,” said Karkoski, “I don’t think you understand—”
“Lieutenant Karkoski, I understand that you sent one ship out here already, and then another one. A small, cheap, disposable ship, run by an independent crew. That was my ship. What happened to the Ravana was a tragedy, don’t get me wrong. But it’s not material to our discussion. What is material to our discussion is my completion bonus. Because you sent us out here to die.” One of the Marines behind Karkoski moved a millimeter. Nate was sure of it.
“You haven’t told me what happened to the Gladiator,” said Karkoski. She toyed with the console in front of her. “Big ship. You couldn’t miss it.”
“No, I don’t suppose we could miss a ship with a name like that.” Nate turned to Grace. “Assessor, did you pick up anything like that?”
“No, sir,” said Grace, eyes on Karkoski. “If I had seen a big ship out here full of valuable salvage, you can be sure I would have mentioned it. Tagged and bagged it. Assuming it was a derelict, because if it wasn’t a floating hulk, it would have contacted us.”
“Right,” said Nate. “See, Lieutenant?”
“I think I’m beginning to,” said Karkoski.
“We did find a massive rock floating in orbit around Absalom,” said Nate. “Big. Huge. Something else you couldn’t miss. Did the Torrington pick it up on sensors?”
“We did,” said Karkoski. “It looks like half of it fell into Absalom Delta’s gravity well. There’s nothing left down there but a fine layer of ash.”
“Well,” said Nate, “that isn’t great. How many colonists were down there?” He leaned forward. “How many colonists had to die out here for you to find out the answer, Karkoski?”
“You forget your place, Captain,” said Karkoski.
“No,” said Nate.
“Excuse me?” said Karkoski.
“He means,” said Grace, “that you forget yours.”
There was silence in the room. One of the Marines cleared his throat, but was otherwise still.
“Thank you, Assessor,” said Nate. “What she means, Lieutenant, is that we’re pretty sure you — and don’t take that personally, please, I don’t know if we’re talking you as in the decorated Lieutenant Karkoski, or you as in some asshole back in your black ops division — know what happened here. Or what was happening. And that thing was the sacrifice of over a hundred thousand human souls to a hive of insects bent on the destruction of our race. What I mean is that you’ve forgotten whose side you’re on. Not Empire versus Republic. Not even me versus you. It’s humans, against not humans. You get me?”
Karkoski laid her hands flat on the table between them, trying to smooth away an invisible wrinkle. “You’re trying to say that out here, someone was illegally—”
“Cut the shit,” said Grace. “You knew about it. Not all the details, but enough.”
“I feel like we’ve met before,” said Karkoski. “But you were an Engineer back then.”
“Field promotion,” said Grace.
“Will I find a new Engineer aboard the Tyche?” said Karkoski. “Or will I find the Engineer you hid from us?”
“You’ll find whatever it is you want to find,” said Nate. “You always do. The question you’ve got to be asking yourself right now is what you want to find.”
“I’m not sure I follow,” said Karkoski. Her hands were still flat on the table.
Grace leaned forward, her arm brushing Nate’s arm. Together, but like people should be. “You should think about whether you want to find someone to bust for a petty crime, or whether you want to uncover one of the biggest acts of genocide perpetrated in the last hundred years.”
“Genocide?” said Karkoski.
“The entire colony of Absalom Delta was wiped out,” said Nate. “While minor in comparison, the crew of the Ravana have families that miss them. You and I, and those fine Marines behind you, also know the entire crew of the Gladiator was lost. All because someone was playing with a science experiment.”
“What do you want, Captain Chevell?” said Karkoski.
“What I want is for you to pay us what we’re owed,” said Nate. “What I’d also like is for you to get your people off my ship, and leave my Engineer alone. She’s a good person, Karkoski.” He flipped a data sliver onto the table between them. “She made that. For you.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“We’ll get to that. What I’d also like is for you to repair my ship. The Torrington can do it. Patch up my hull and help with repairs to my Endless Drive. And I’d like you to do all of that without letting your CO know.”
The lieutenant laughed. “Why on Earth would I do that?”
“Because you’re sure he’s dirty,” said Grace. “You’re flying under a black flag, and you don’t like it. The Marines behind you also don’t like it. That you whisked us in here without us seeing another soul suggests you have motives you’d prefer others not know about.”
Karkoski eyed Grace. “You seem … to know a great deal, Assessor.”
“The data sliver,” said Nate, easing himself into the conversation before it could go too far off course, “is important. It’s got data on an alien race. What they’re like. What they do with people. How they communicate. How they breed.”
“Your Engineer put this together?” said Karkoski.
“In a manner of speaking,” said Nate. “She had to steal it first. There was a spy on Absalom Delta. A guy who said he was a Rear Admiral. Penn. Everything on that sliver shows what he was working on. They planted spores away from the colony and watched what would happen. Did you know, Karkoski, that the Ezeroc can subvert our DNA? They use our bodies as fuel and raw building blocks. Our brains are like wind-up clocks to them. They can make us see things. Do things. Penn’s plan, I guess, was to weaponize the Ezeroc. The colony was one big science experiment. He suffered a mighty stroke of bad luck though. Got himself infected. Which is a form of cosmic karma you don’t see much of. But the bugs wanted my ship, Lieutenant. They could have turned us into food at any time. There were thousands of them. They had a new Queen inside Penn, and were going to send it right to the heart of humanity. Everything they did while we were on the planet was designed to get the Tyche down so they could get off the crust. They could have killed us all, but they moved us around like cattle.”
“You’re saying—”
“I’m saying you’re being played, Lieutenant. Whether it’s you, or the Republic, or the whole human race, I don’t know.” Nate sighed. “I think you know it too, which is why we’re here. It’s why you haven’t had us shot. It’s why you haven’t used your comm. And it’s why you’ll also take the images from that data sliver — images of the crew of the Ravana — and see them delivered to their families. Because those families need to know the Ravana died brave, and strong, and trying to warn the whole universe. They cut their buffers to warn us. What we do with the warning? That’s up to us in this room.”