Free Dragonfly by Erica Hayes Page A

until I dehydrated to death or the air scrubbers backed up. That ignobility was enough to give me pause, but another more pressing itch nagged at my insides, and I realized it was professional jealousy. I wanted to see him crack the vault. There was so much about his plan I still didn’t understand, and it riled me that he might be cleverer than I was. I needed to know exactly how he’d do it before he died.
    Dragonfly stirred, twitching as if he dreamed something unpleasant, and I crept down the stairs before he could wake.
    I plopped onto the sunken sofa, flicked on my virtual interface to slipspace comms mode and pinged the sub-ether frequency Nikita had given me. Slipspace comms aren’t instantaneous, but they’re pretty damn fast, and the beacons boost the signal so it won’t degrade over the vast distance. So long as you’re close enough, you can talk back and forth like regular etherwave comms. Normally I’d have to worry about the ship’s active sensors detecting my transmission, but
Ladrona
’s console wouldn’t pick this up. No one can detect sub-ether, in slipspace or out. It’s too new.
    For a moment Nikita didn’t pick up, and I felt only cold cosmic hash, but then his voice slipped into my head, smooth and warm but tinged with icy calculation that prickled my spine.
    “Wasn’t expecting you so soon. Finished with him already?”
    “He’s sleeping.” I kept my voice low and flicked him the image bundle.
    I tried not to sound irritated, but normal lying techniques are useless over sub-ether, which breathes your emotions down the line as easily as it sends your voice. Axis developed it last year from some experimental prototype interrogation kit. You hear a lot of rumors about the latest techgasm from our hardware people—everything from personal teleporters to space folding and anti-gravity—but this one, they actually came through with. It’s still classified, and it’s the latest craze at Axis.
    “I bet he is.” Nikita laughed, and bumps broke out on my skin. People who say emotive sub-ether is a technological marvel obviously never had to use it to talk to a sociopath.
    I swallowed, sweating. “It’s not like that, okay? I’m on the ship, I’ve got his chip. What more do you want? Any clues to what he downloaded?”
    “None. His algorithm sidestepped the neurospace access log. Last record is you looking at some pictures.” Dark amusement, like a warm whisper on my cheek. “Any luck with the encryption?”
    I scrubbed my hand over my face. “Not yet. The console’s still germed up, and the chip looks like a special hybrid, I can’t jack it. But he got awful bashful when I mentioned faking deposit crypto—”
    A shuffle from upstairs. Was he waking up?
    I lowered my voice even further. “Look, I’ve gotta go. Renko wanted a sitrep—”
    “Taken care of. Forget it.”
    Fine with me. Nikita was the expert at telling directors what they wanted to hear, and I didn’t have time to spin this up. “Thanks. Anything new from your end?”
    “Just this.” A tiny data package drifted down the line and slotted into my interface, with a twinge of Nikita’s careless malice that made my pulse skip. “I thought you might be interested. Seems you’ve still got friends in high places.”
    “What is it?” I asked, but empty hash flowed in like fresh air.
    I felt cleaner already.
    Nikita’s data popped up on my display, and I peered at it with a hint of trepidation. A military action message, classification violet, time a few days ago. Addressed to a bunch of inscrutable Imperial acronyms, heading GCQ-A: ANNEXATION COLONY SANTA MARIA.
    The personnel authorization for the Empire’s negotiation team.
    I scanned the list, and stopped short. The first line read: OIC O9 SHADRIN VY K47757D9E.
    I’d worked for Lieutenant General Valodyi Shadrin when I was military. He’d chosen me as his aide when I’d only just been promoted to major, and I’d served a full tour with him in Expansion