He looked first at the holo—and it certainly looked more like SCat than any of the others had. But SCat’s attention was on the screen, not the holo, and he stared fixedly at the modest insignia in the bottom right corner.
Patrol?
He looked down at SCat, dumbfounded. “You were with the Patrol?” He whispered it; you did not invoke the Patrol’s name aloud unless you wanted a visit from them.
Yellow eyes met his for a moment, then the paw tapped the screen. He read further.
Type MF-025, designation Lightfoot of Sun Meadow. Patrol ID FX-003. Standard Military genotype, standard Military training. Well, that explained how he had known how to shut down the “pirate” equipment. Now Dick wondered how much else the cat had done, outside of his sight. And a military genotype? He hadn’t even known there was such a thing.
Assigned to Patrol ship DIA-9502, out of Oklahoma Station, designated handler Major Logan Greene.
Oklahoma Station—that was this station. Drug Interdiction? He whistled softly.
Then a date, followed by the ominous words, Ship missing, all aboard presumed dead.
All aboard—except the shipscat.
The cat himself gave a mournful yowl, and SKitty jumped up on the desk to press herself against him comfortingly. He looked back down at SCat. “Did you jump ship before they went missing?”
He wasn’t certain he would get an answer, but he had lived with SKitty for too long to underestimate shipscat intelligence. The cat shook his head, slowly and deliberately—in the negative.
His mouth went dry. “Are you saying—you got away?”
A definite nod.
“Your ship was boarded, and you got away?” He was astonished. “But how?”
For an answer, the cat jumped down off the desk and walked over to the little escape pod that neither he nor SKitty ever forgot to drag with them. He seized the tether in his teeth and dragged it over to an access tube. It barely fit; he wedged it down out of sight, then pawed open the door, and dropped down, hidden, and now completely protected from what must have happened.
He popped back out again, and walked to Dick’s feet. Dick was thinking furiously. There had been rumors that drug-smugglers were using captured Patrol ships; this more-or-less confirmed those rumors. Disable the ship, take the exterior airlock and blow it. Whoever wasn’t suited up would die. Then they board and finish off whoever was suited up. They patch the lock, restore the air, and weld enough junk to the outside of the ship to disguise it completely. Then they can bring it in to any port they care to—even the ship’s home port.
This station. Which is where SCat escaped.
“Can you identify the attackers?” he asked SCat. The cat slowly nodded.
:They know he gone. He run, they chase. He try get home, they stop. He hear of me on dock, go hide in ship bringing mates. They kill he, get chance,: SKitty put in helpfully.
He could picture it easily enough; SCat being pursued, cut off from the Patrol section of the station—hiding out on the docks—catching the scent of the mates being shipped for SKitty’s kittens and deciding to seek safety offworld. Cats, even shipscats, did not tend to grasp the concept of “duty”; he knew from dealing with SKitty that she took her bonds of personal affection seriously, but little else. So once “his” people were dead, SCat’s personal allegiance to the Patrol was nonexistent, and his primary drive would be self-preservation. Wonderful. I wonder if they—whoever they are—figured out he got away on another ship. Another, more alarming thought occurred to him. I wonder if my fishing about in the BioTech database touched off any tell-tales!
No matter. There was only one place to go now—straight to Erica Makumba, the Legal and Security Officer.
He dumped a copy of the pertinent datafile to a memory cube, then scooped up both cats and pried their life-support ball out of its hiding place. Then he ran for Erica’s cabin, praying that she had not gone off on shore-leave.
The Spirits of Space were with him; the indicator outside her cabin door indicated that she was in there, but did not want to be disturbed. He pounded on the door anyway. Erica might kill him—but there were people after SCat who had murdered an entire Patrol DIA squad.
After a moment, the door cracked open a centimeter.
“White.” Erica’s flat, expressionless voice boded extreme violence. “This had better be an emergency.”
He said the one word that would guarantee her attention. “Hijackers.”
The door snapped open; she grabbed him and pulled him inside, cats, support-ball and all, and slammed the door shut behind him. She was wearing a short robe, tying it hastily around herself, and she wasn’t alone. But the man watching them both alertly from the disheveled bed wasn’t one of the Brightwing’s crew, so Dick flushed, but tried to ignore him.
“I found out where SCat’s from,” he babbled, dropping one cat to hand the memory-cube to her. “Read that—quick!”
She punched up the console at her elbow and dropped the cube in the receiver. The BioTech file, minus the holo, scrolled up on the screen. The man in the bed leaned forward to read it too, and whistled.
Erica swiveled to glare at him. “You keep this to yourself, Jay!” she snapped. Then she turned back to Dick. “Spill it!” she ordered.
“SCat’s ship was hijacked, probably by smugglers,” he said quickly. “He hid his support-ball in an access tube, and he was in it when they blew the lock. They missed him in the sweep, and when they brought their prize in here, he got away. But they know he’s gone, and they know he can ID them.”
“And they’ll be giving the hairy eyeball to every ship with a black cat on it.” She bit her knuckle—and Jay added his own two credits’ worth.
“I hate to say this, but they’ve probably got a tell-tale on the BioTech data files, so they know whenever anyone accesses them. It’s not restricted data, so anyone could leave a tell-tale.” The man’s face was pale beneath his normally dusky skin-tone. “If they don’t know you’ve gone looking by now, they will shortly.”
They all looked at each other. “Who’s still on board?” Dick asked, and gulped.
Erica’s mouth formed a tight, thin line. “You, me, Jay and the cats. The cargo’s offloaded, and regs say you don’t need more than two crew on board in-station. Theoretically no one can get past the security at the lock.”
Jay barked a laugh, and tossed long, dark hair out of his eyes. “Honey, I’m a comptech. Trust me, you can get past the security. You just hack into the system, tell it the ship in the bay is bigger than it really is, and upload whoever you want as additional personnel.”
Erica swore—but Jay stood up, wrapping the sheet around himself like a toga, and pushed her gently aside. “What can be hacked can be unhacked—or at least I can make it a lot more difficult for them to get in and make those alterations stick. Give me your code to the AI.”
Erica hesitated. He turned to stare into her eyes. “I need the AI’s help. You two and the cats are going to get out of here—get over to the Patrol side of the station. I’m going to hold them off as long as I can, and play stupid when they do get in, but I need the speed of the AI to help me lay traps. You’ve known me for three years. You trusted me enough to bring me here, didn’t you?”