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When the shift siren blew, Rana rose fros felt weak Anxiety had built over the long shift, stealing into every tissue of her body Rana knew that she needed the surety of Herd&039;s drugs Soon
She wished now that she&039;d eaten so today But she&039;d wanted desperately to finish her work in a single shift and never return here
Callow that lit the prefab, Rana joined the othertheir way toward the facility exit The six work shifts of the long Legis day overlapped to prevent this sort of rush-hour crowding, but the narrow corridors of the overstaffed station were always crowded, even in peaceti in a hu
Strange, how humanity repulsed her now The empty chatter, the profusion of colors and body types, the clumsiness of the crowd&039;s , Rana still walked with the avian grace of her captor; the imitation had soed to shuck the wig and its pointless, decorative excess of hair Rana closed her eyes, and saw the clean lines of Alexander&039;s airscreen charts, the sci her lip, she h the halls
Soon, she would be back horess slowed to a crawl as she reached the exit Bodies pressed in closer The overwhelin to shake The scent seeless conversations surrounded and battered her, a hail of e the sniffer&039;s warning signs: Declare Any Volatiles, Nanos, or Facility Property
With a start, Rana remembered that the sniffer could detect stolen equipment
She shook her head to drive away paranoia The nificant, the sort of cheap media that came free with disposable phones and ca the signs, her nervously darting eyes now found the words: Sign Out ALL Data Storage Devices
Rana sed, re the data she&039;d put on the strip A map of the facility, the repeater schematics, the specs for the lethal wire From those three files, her intent couldn&039;t be more obvious The sniffer was only a few meters ahead of her now She planted her feet to resist the bodies pressing her forward
Rana fingered the memory strip in her pocket It was too small to hold a phero patch But what if they&039;d sprayed it with pheros as a ht?
Frantic thoughts crowded her anized; such a subtle measure didn&039;t seem likely But she remembered an old rumor about a creeper security nano that Iated slowly, phero- each machine and hu could be tracked from a central station The idea had seemed fantastic at the time, the paranoia of low-level workers
But now it see her iuards at the sniffer, a ue interest as the other workers flowed around her She ordered herself tothe sniffer without calling attention to herself
But her feet would not move She was too afraid, too tired It was too lev on the way here, her hesitation before cli the stairs That old paralysis--the old Rana Harter--had returned with a vengeance
Theher suspiciously
Move! Rana colint of ht her eye Down the sniffer hallway before her, Rana saw the flash of an officer&039;s badge
It was Herd, wearing herher forward
At that sight, the panic that had held Rana fast was suddenly broken SheHerd would protect her, would return her to happiness
Rana Harter stepped into the sniffer, and was for a moment alone, separated from the press of bodies The updraft took away the rancid san to scream, so loud that in Rana&039;s synesthesia it beca as the sun on lidless eyes
EXECUTIVE OFFICER
The conspirators ee courts that surrounded sickbay The courts were eh acceleration Therackets or dribblehoop in this unstable gravity aments ache
There were only five conspirators present, including herself Hobbes had expected h of a criticalahis hand yet No doubt some of his cards were in reserve
She knew all those present: the ringleader Second Gunner Thounnery; Third Pilot Magus, her face sour and strained; and one of the co Apparently, this was no crewman&039;s mutiny Everyone here had stars on their uniform
They all seemed relieved when she walked in Perhaps as the ship&039;s second-in-command, Hobbes somehow validated the enterprise
But Thoe for the moment He closed the door of the rackets court, which sealed itself seaainst the sht fro into the hall The precautions were hardly necessary, Hobbes thought Under the current cruel regih acceleration, the crew moved about the ship as little as possible She doubted security wasdevices very carefully, though Ensign King or other conspirators unknown to Hobbes ee court in case they were queried later
This was to be a silent coup
"Not really a
"What would you call it, then?" Hobbes asked
Second Pilot Magus spoke up "I guess, properly speaking, it&039;s a murder"
There was an intake of breath from Yen Hu The assembled conspirators looked at him Hobbes was sorry to see Hu in on this He was only two years out of academy Gunner Thompson must have worked hard to break hi," corrected Thous asked
"Us," Thompson finished "The captain&039;s dead, whatever happens No point in the rest of us going doith him"
Tho them his audience
"The rest of the Empire may believe that pardon, but we know that Captain Zai refused the blade of error The E
"This attack on the Rix battlecruiser is a pointless sacrifice of the Lynx," Tho with the Legis planetary defenses Protecting civilians against boed in a suicide e our orders at this point?" she asked
"If the captain accepts the blade in the next day or so, they&039;ll have ti about Zai-the-hero being the only officer who could have pulled off the attack against the battlecruiser The Lynx can gracefully withdraw back into the system defenses With Zai dead, it&039;d be pointless to sacrifice us"
Despite what they were plotting, it rankled Hobbes to hear the captain&039;s name used without the honorific of rank
"My ot twenty-five hours to us said "A few ees after turnaround"
"No thanks," Thoravity field would grow geous said "Any longer than thirty hours, and we&039;ll be cois&039;s defenses"
Hobbes wondered if Magus had taken the precaution of doing the calculations by hand Computer use, even at trivial demand levels, was always recorded
"And once it&039;s done, we&039;ve got to get word back to Hon King "Then they&039;ve got towe draw frole will it take for the Navy to us asked
The four of them looked at Hobbes They knew she&039;d worked as an adned to the Lynx Hobbes frowned She&039;d seen complex, crucial decisions taken in o by before consensus was reached And the decision to save or lose the Lynx was as much political as military The question was: Did anyone expect Zai to take the blade now? Would there be a contingency plan ready to go?
But that was irrelevant to Hobbes The i any precipitous actions If they felt they were up against the clock, they would be harder to control
"It won&039;tit takes," she said flatly
"Why not?" Magus asked
Hobbes paced afuriously Then it came to her
"With Captain Zai dead, the Lynx is my ship The moment I take command, I&039;ll make the turnaround and ask for new orders," she said
"Perfect," Tho direct orders," Yen Hu said "Won&039;t you?"
"If they tell us to continue the attack, there&039;ll be tiet into some kind of position But I don&039;t think they will They&039;ll thankthe decision out of their hands"
Thohed "Hobbes, you old devil I was half certain you&039;d throwto you And now you&039;re going to take all the credit for this, aren&039;t you?" He put one hand on her shoulder, the touch intimate in the darkness
"A subtle sort of credit," she said "Let&039;s just say we don&039;t have to cover our tracks too carefully"
"What do you talking about?" Hu asked He was co ensign "ExO Hobbes doesn&039;t care if the Apparatus suspects thatas they can&039;t prove it She believes her initiative will be appreciated"
Hu looked at her with a kind of horror He had entered into this to save the Lynx, not advance anyone&039;s career He was obviously aghast that she was thinking past the current crisis of survival Good, she thought Hu needed to be focused on the long term Even if this conspiracy fell apart here and now, he&039;d already changed his life forever
"So, sometime in the next twenty-five hours," Thompson said, "Laurent Zai will take the blade of error"
"The later the better," Hobbes said "My decision to pull the Lynx back et new orders froo off his watch the day after tomorrow at 950, twenty-two hours froreed then?" Thompson asked