Thanks go to Kristy for vetting her dialogue and finding a missing word, and to Nick for looking it over and pointing out a continuity lack.
I sat on my bunk in the Dirtbox, and winced as my augmetic eye powered up.
Dis waited until the feed was ready to go, and blatted, YOU TOOK YOUR TIME.
"Yeah, well, I still had to finish my business with Laets. That was a barrel of laughs, let me tell you."
YOU DON'T NEED TO. YOU LEFT YOUR COMLINK ON THROUGH IT.
"Oh yeah. Right. Still, I had to get back out here, and it's not easy finding a cabbie who wants to drop a customer off near the forest."
Dis gave me a suspicious-sounding blatt, so I continued, "And I had to buy some changes of clothes. And I had to chat with the Ewoks." Dis seemed to be satisfied with that, in his inimitable style.
I TRIED PULLING SURVEILLANCE FOOTAGE FROM LAS VEGAS FOR YOU TO FIGURE OUT IF IT WAS THE SAME FEMALE DESIGNATED 'GRACE' AS ATTACKED THE QUEEN AND THE JEDI, Dis twirtled. SOMEONE GOT THERE BEFORE ME. IT'S ALL GONE. I COULDN'T EVEN FIND A TRACE. WHOEVER DID IT IS VERY GOOD.
I didn't ask how he was able to verify data missing from a store that was likely offline. He just would have gotten huffy. Again. "Did you get any footage from this morning?"
A LITTLE. FEWER CAMERAS TO WORK WITH, BUT I THINK I HAVE ENOUGH TO WORK UP A HOLO. I DIDN'T LEAVE ANY TRACE. HOWEVER GOOD THEY ARE, I'M BETTER, he twirtled proudly.
"Good. Now, shush and run an emissions scan on what I'm about to give you." I rummaged through my duffel bag and produced the phone Grace had given me, then took it over to Dis. I'd had it wrapped in several layers of clothing to muffle any audio, and I'd yubbed quietly when talking to the Ewoks - I couldn't be sure there wasn't a protocol droid on the other end of any putative bugs.
Dis opened a port on his carapace and I stuck the phone in. After a while, he bleeped, NO BUGS. JUST A CELLULAR PHONE, GPS ENABLED. IT'S NOT LISTENING TO US.
"Right. I need you to spoof it." I pulled out the phone I'd bought that morning. "You can impersonate me if you need to, right?"
In response, Dis projected a hologram of me doing a stupid dance. "I'm a stupid Earthling," it said in my voice and accent. "Stupid, primitive and stupid. Did I mention stupid? I can't remember, because I'm stupid." The hologram fell over, then flickered off.
"Okay, well, keep it short if you have to cover for me," I said. "Otherwise, route calls through to this phone, and can you mess with the GPS? If they're monitoring it, I want it to show me to be where I want them to think I am."
Dis opened another port, and I fed it the second phone. THIS MAY TAKE A MOMENT, he twirtled. THIS PRIMITIVE STUFF JUST ISN'T AS ROBUST AS REAL TECHNOLOGY.
"So, with the holos, have you run any facial recognition on her?"
OH YES, I'VE MATCHED HER AGAINST EVERY ONE OF THE BILLIONS OF FACES ON THIS BENIGHTED PLANET, BECAUSE I JUST SO HAPPEN TO HAVE THEM ALL ON FILE. He made an untranslated blatt, then continued, I'VE GOT TO RELY ON THE PRIMITIVE SYSTEMS TO DO THE GRUNTWORK FOR ME, SO IT'S TAKING FOREVER.
"Well, if it can be done, you can do it," I said, which seemed to mollify him a little.
AT LEAST I'VE GOT THE CHALLENGE OF LEAVING NO TRACE, he said. IT'D BE BORING OTHERWISE.
"Well, I wouldn't want that," I said with a smile.
WHICH IS WHY YOU LEAVE ME IN HERE WHILE YOU GO OUT AND GET AMBUSHED, he said. He extruded the second phone. HERE. AS FAR AS THEY KNOW, YOU STILL HAVE THE PHONE THEY GAVE YOU.
"Thanks," I said, pocketing the phone. "I'm probably going to need you on-hand over the next few days trying to navigate this mess, and there's a lot of rough terrain between here and the palace. The Batcave's up and running, though, and the magcon bay is open and operational. Shall we?"
Dis didn't reply, but the Dirtbox's power systems began spinning up, and a hum at my feet told me the repulsors were online. I grinned at the little guy, hopped into the cockpit and activated the comms. "Mendellia control, Mendellia control," I said, "this is shuttle Dirtbox, requesting a vector to subaqueous landing. Say again, shuttle Dirtbox requesting vector to subaqueous."
The first controller I spoke to was a young woman, who clearly had no idea what I was talking about, and tried to get me off the channel. Before long, an older hand took over and gave us our vector in a bored-sounding voice. Clearly the newbies hadn't been coached on some of the finer points of Mendellian air traffic. The Dirtbox's repulsors kicked in and we were underway. Had this been any other country on Earth, then SACUL would probably have been breathing down my neck in a heartbeat, but Mendellia's skies had seen starfighter dogfights, and more than a few had crashed in the city. The younger generation of Mendellians might point and stare, but those who remembered Thayer's reclamation of power would be blase.
Dis wasn't letting me drive, so I was the front-seat passenger as the little guy took us through the motions. We stayed on repulsors the entire way, and I paid close attention as the waters closed up around our deflector shield. The shield compressed a little, but held, and we coasted through the magcon field without incident.
He set us down daintily in the hangar. It seemed huge, and empty - I was used to seeing the Red Home and the Gaia in it, and the Dirtbox was smallish by comparison. Still, it was an actual hangar, even if the fuelling facilities and such had been removed, so the next order of business for me was to check for vermin and detritus from our forest stay. I remembered well the story I'd heard of a slack technician who had failed to find a fish that had snared on the Red Home's landing gear. Apparently even with the scrubbers on full the smell had lasted a few weeks.
The Dirtbox may be rough as guts, it may be a bit ugly, it may be cheap and nasty. But dammit, she's my ship, and I'm going to look after her. My first car was much the same, and I'd loved that little hatchback. The Dirtbox had taken me to the stars, and had kept me alive when the skies got unfriendly. What I'd felt for my first car was, by comparison, a mild crush. And the reason was much the same - if I wanted, I could get in my ship and just go. Freedom.
The Dirtbox's arrival had drawn a bit of a crowd, so I had an audience while I went through the motions.
I was underneath the Dirtbox unhooking some branches from the landing gear's mechanism when a hush came over the hangar, punctuated by some very deliberate footsteps. I got the last of it out and scooted across the concrete to where I could see the feet, and looked up at an angry-looking Kristy.
"What do you think you're doing bringing that - whoah," she said, breaking off as she saw the augmetic. "What's that on your face?"
I clambered to my feet. "Augmetic. More useful than the cosmetic one I had in last night. How are you, Kristy?"
She blinked. I got the impression I'd sabotaged a good rant. "After years away - how am I? Is that all? You just show up at the movies like a ghost, melt away before I can talk to you, and now you're parking your..." she gestured at the Dirtbox, "...thing here? Did you even ask permission?"
"I asked Mendellian traffic control," I said cheerfully. "Come on, I'll give you the tour." I turned and walked towards the rear hatch.
"No-one's supposed to know that we have the cave up and running," she said, following after me. "Did you think about what you were risking bringing it here?"
"What risk?" I asked breezily and opened the hatch. "Come on in."
"I think we can have a civilised chat out here," she said defiantly, standing her ground.
"Suit yourself," I said lightly, and went inside, leaving the hatch open after me. I opened the furniture locker and pulled out a hoverstool, and waited.
"Have you injured your brain?" called Kristy, and Dis began to snigger. I glared the astromech into silence, and bided my time.
After about half a minute, Kristy stormed in through the hatch. "What is wrong with you?" she asked, and the hatch shut behind her.
"Welcome aboard," I said. "We need to chat where we can't be overheard. I'm sorry about this, but I swear I'll explain. Caf?"
Her hands twitched on the stool, like she was wanting to use it as a weapon. "What precisely is 'this'? So far, you've blown our secrecy and trapped me in here. 'This' isn't looking good."
"I still work for the NRI," I said, grabbing a couple of mugs from the steriliser. "I'm what they call a 'self-funded asset'. Meaning I work for a living, but they still expect me to dance to their tune."
"You're not helping matters," said Kristy quietly. This was not calm, demure, not-wanting-to-make-a-fuss Kristy. I think she was still outside. No, this was the other one.
"I'm trying to. I'm expected to be reporting on the reformation of a dangerous paramilitary group." I nodded to Dis as I fired up the caf dispenser. "Atmospheric conditions mean I can't file a report for a day or two. So that's the first thing I've got to tell you." I gestured at the stool. "Go on, have a seat."
Kristy looked at the stool suspiciously. It was pretty much just a disc, padded on one side, though it did have an extendable backrest on it. I nodded encouragingly. "It's set to fixed, not free, so you won't go scooting around the hold. You've got your left hand on the power switch." Kristy flicked the switch, and the disc began to hum. She dropped the disc, padded side up, and it stopped, rock-solid in the air, half a metre above the ground. "If you don't like the height, there's a slider. You can pull out a backrest too, if you like."
Kristy glared at me, but sat on the stool and adjusted it to her liking. By this point, the caf was done, so I handed a mug over to her. She accepted it, and didn't drink. This was probably a good thing - she seemed angry enough, and it wasn't like my caf was the good stuff, so if she drank it I'd really be for it. "I'm waiting for you to tell me the other thing," she said.
"Things," I said. "First, or maybe second, I guess, there's no way the Batcave's a secret. You know what gossip in this place is like, and there were a lot of people who cleared it out. So anyone who really wants to know, knows."
"You've been here, what, two days? And you're critiquing our security procedures now."
"Observing, not critiquing. I'm not saying it was wrong. After all, we've got the Batcave back." I took a pull on the caf, tried not to pull a face, and went on. "Also, I think SACUL is still in bed with the NRI, or I never would have gotten through customs as easily as I did. But they're keeping an eye on me, they reckon."
Kristy was giving me her Stupid Boy Plan stare. I felt it was kind of a record, earning it simply by enumerating circumstances. I hoped she had somewhere to go, though, because I was about to drop the bomb.
"Next up, I was ambushed this morning by a woman who called herself Grace, who was armed with a blaster, and is holding a banker's family hostage against me feeding her info about you guys. She says to let her bloodlessly neutralise you, but I trust her about as far as I can spit her."
It was terrible. I could almost hear Kristy's brain breaking under the strain. Eventually, she managed, "Wait. One woman ambushed you? You?"
I shrugged. "I got sloppy. She had two goons I thought were security guards who got positioned behind me. By the time I learned differently, I was in the crossfire. She wanted to talk, so I heard her out."
"She let you go?" The shock had passed, and her brain was getting back in gear.
"I, uh, gave her the impression I was willing to sell you out. Clearly I didn't completely convince her, because she's holding hostages, but she bought it enough." I nodded at Dis. "I got my comlink on fairly early in the piece, and my learned friend there's got the recording of the conversation. He was also able to pull images of her before they got wiped, so we've got a holo. We can figure out whether she's the same Grace as in Vegas."
"Do you know where the hostages are being held?"
"No, and I didn't bother asking. I have, however, got Ewoks out looking for them. When they find 'em we might have the option of telling her to stick it. In the meantime, though, I need to be a dutiful double agent for her, or she starts killing children. And she said she had eyes and ears in quote surprising places unquote."
Kristy facepalmed. "Why are you telling me all this?" she asked.
"You were first into the hangar bay," I said apologetically. "Cochran knows some of it from last night - the NRI stuff, mostly - but I haven't had the chance to fill him in on the Grace developments." I took another swig of the caf. "She also made vague intimations that there was more on the Pacific Monarch than we've been told, and that people are keeping us in the dark."
Kristy frowned. "You can't think Becki and Thayer are keeping secrets from us," she said.
"I can think a lot of things," I said. "But yeah, in this case, I don't think they are. But maybe someone high in their power structure, or maybe trusted servants, have more going on than they want us to know."
"I'm high in their power structure," she said. "I wouldn't call me a servant, but I'm in a position of trust. How do you know I'm not your mole? What makes you think it's safe to tell me?"
That question's not one that moles ask, as a rule, but the double-bluff's not unheard of. But that wasn't it. "I know I haven't been around," I said, "and I know people change. But people don't change that much. You were always our heart, Kristy. If we can't trust you, then we may as well not trust ourselves."
Believe it or not, that was extemporaneous. I hadn't given it any thought, but it was like I'd put the truth next to my mouth and got it to flap my gums for me. Even back before Quiara went missing, when the Prophetess spoke, we'd listened.
Then my conscience helpfully reminded me of what I'd put her through after Paris, where she'd done her damndest to get me out alive. In some misguided attempt to shield her from the stormie, I'd been a total arsehole to her and made her physically ill with guilt. She was our heart, and I'd stomped on her. That I was probably literally crazy at the time didn't make me feel any better about it. That she'd accepted an apology before I left for Perdition helped, a little, but apologies only go so far.
Still, my sudden sincerity seemed to touch Kristy, and she covered up her reaction by taking a gulp of the caf. Which helped even more as she began to cough and splutter. "That is nasty," she said, when she could breathe again. "How do you drink that stuff?"
"It keeps me awake," I said. "Maybe just because my body knows if it gets tired I might drink more of it."
She giggled a little at that, then got serious. "So you think that there may be spies out there?"
"Spies might be a little strong. But almost certainly, there are people who'll talk a little too much to people they drink with, sleep with, model trains with, whatever."
"How do you propose to explain locking us in here? Won't someone get suspicious?"
"Easy." I grabbed my spare datapad and passed it to her. "Private message from Nick." Her expression changed ever so slightly, and I added, "Cover story, I'm afraid. He's still incommunicado. But let it slip and the Mendellians'll be too busy speculating on what it says to speculate on what we might be talking about instead." I nodded at Dis. "What's more, we can get Dis to put the recording of my conversation and a copy of her holo on there, and you can pass the info around without me suspiciously sequestering myself with everyone."
Dis twirtled, and I translated for the subtitle-impaired. "He says that he also put on a dummy file that purports to be the message. It'll ask for a password, but it won't accept one."
She nodded absently at the astromech, then said, "You're playing a game with lives at stake, Crispy," she said. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"
"I wish I was," I said. "But I'm sure I don't want Grace and her people to come gunning for us, at least not without us being ready. I'm sure I don't want those kids to die, hence the cloak and dagger. If I can play this right, I can get into a place where I can take Grace's organisation down from within, but that's not the primary objective, here." I finished the caf, and this time couldn't stop myself from pulling a face. "But I'm going to need to feed her something until we're ready, and I'm going to have to have something I can put in a report to the NRI. And for that, I'm going to need help."
She shook her head. "Two days, you've been back, and you're already neck-deep in trouble. The worst part is, I'm not even surprised. Have you ever tried not stepping in it, just to see how it feels?"
"Landmines put such a spring in my step!" I protested.
She stood up and, to my surprise, gave me a fierce hug. "You're an idiot," she said, "but that doesn't mean it's not good to see you." Then she punched me in the solar plexus, a surprisingly good hit for such a little lady. "But can you try not to get embroiled in a web of lies before saying hello next time?"
"If I say yes, will you think it's part of the web of lies?"
"Probably." She waved the datapad. "I guess I've got a web to spread, then."
Dis immediately began to fuss. WAIT, the subtitles said. I'VE GOT A MATCH.
"Hold up," I told Kristy. "Looks like Dis has something else for us."
POSITIVE ID ON GRACE. TURNS OUT IT'S NOT EVEN A PSEUDONYM. He projected a holographic screen with a confusing array of pictures, video and text. HEIRESS TO THE POTREVO FORTUNE, OWNER OF THE COMPANY THAT DE FACTO RULES THE ISLAND STATE OF PACIFICA.
"Pacifica," breathed Kristy after I'd relayed this. "Why does that sound familiar?"
"I'd be worried if I could tell you," I said. "But I think you should get moving, and remember to look distracted about the message from the stars."
"Good distracted or bad distracted?"
"Play it by ear," I said, "and good luck." I opened the hatch, and she swept out, datapad in hand.