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"I thought we had plenty of fuel You don’t tell "
"Yes I do I’ve told you a dozen times, you just don’t listen We need a different kind of fuel or we can’t get back froht be an ally, which we’re in desperate need of Our crew has dwindled down to--"
"I’
"Yeah?" Molly took a long pull from her water, and then fished for another cube of ice "Where in hyperspace were you thiswhen I needed you?"
Walter frowned and looked back down at his computer; he’d hardly touched his food Molly wondered if she should give the plate to the Wadi She looked down at the creature, which was curled up in her lap, chewing on the tablecloth
"Are you still not in yet?" Molly asked Walter
He shook his head, which seeun to recognize as either sha interpretations of his moods
"Seriously? You can crack a StarCarrier mainfraet a wireless signal in a cafe? Look, just letthe sacrifice
Suddenly, the roar of thrusters in the atlance up It sounded at first like another Bern ship heading off to orbit, but they were too far from the rift for it to be that She and Walter joined the rest of the patrons in searching the sky for the source
She finally spotted the vertical plume from the lift-off The tiny ship at its head didn’t ht of it reached thee optical illusion: a silent ship being chased by the gru as Molly still had not gotten used to hearing spacecraft move
She looked away from the ship and watched the other patrons follow the scene They soon began arguing politics a about Callites and iration laws
Walter peered down at his coher than Naval encryption," he said, still s over her jab at his technical prowess "They update their sstuff weekly--the Navy takes decadess Thiss sshop csycle’ss its passsword every half-hour and they usse ten twenty-four bit encryption" He took a sip of his gelatte and wiped the foam off his lips with the back of his hand "If the Navy took half thesse precautsionss, you’d probably be dead"
He slared at hiasp fro crowd cut her off Molly shielded her eyes and looked up as well A second later, the distant roar of the spacebound ship went silent As she followed the plume of exhaust upward to locate the ship, she saw the craft tu down past the pillar of s over thrusters, over and over
Everything in the café froze as the patrons watched solemnly, waitresses frozen in place with pitchers of water dripping condensation When the plu, there was a distant ruradually looked back to their food Forks tinked against plates Whispers began to grow back into conversations
Molly took it all in, desperate to knohat had just happened Were they testing soainst the fleet? Everyone else see, or at least they weren’t terribly shocked by the display She leaned over to ask a nearby table, when Walter hissed excitedly
"I’ He bent over the co
Molly reached across the table "Let me see it"
Walter continued to peck away
"Walter, it’s important Give it here"
He frowned and handed over the co before you’re kicked off," he said
Molly nodded and moved to swipe the top screen away, then noticed it was Palan’s planetary ho the projected hour for the next rains She glanced up at Walter, as looking back over his shoulder at a political dispute in the alley She felt a sudden pang of sadness for hi the page to the side, Molly dragged up a new one from the bottom The few times they’d been connected to the Net in the past teeks, the datastream had been too thin to do even the es had suffered from poor connectivity and bandwidth, even when they were lucky enough to find an available signal A seely countless number of items had built up over the past weeks that she really wanted to check on, but first there were a few she had to
Using the virtual keyboard, she typed: "Molly; Fyde; Navy," and hit enter Hundreds of hits registered, but she could see most of thegestions for " for so within the last two months
She swiped that away and tried: "Parsona; Ship; Navy"
"You looking for newss about thosse sshipss?" Walter asked "The oness froht?"
"No I probably knowto find out how much trouble we’re in"
Walter pushed up fro on Latticse?" he asked
"Yeah Don’t worry about--"
Walter leaned over the table and snatched the computer away from her He pecked furiously at the keys while Molly tried to snag it back "I said not to worry about--"
Walter relinquished the colanced at the screen and nearly dropped the device She looked behind herself, scanned the crowd, then moved the tablet to her lap and stared at the screen
It showed the welcoe for the GN Naval database
"How did you do that?" she whispered
"Eassy I already had the passsword" He slurped through ice cubes for the last of his drink, then looked around for their waitress
"Is this how you hacked the missiles?"