Domeria blinked. She closed her eyes again, dazzled by the lamps in the room. She was lying on something soft. Probably a gel couch… Less soft than her own… which had disappeared in a terrible explosion…
Shaken by her thoughts, she sat up.
She was back in the common room, lying on one of the sofas. Sitting opposite her, Lhom was looking at her with concern. Seeing her awakening, he questioned her:
“Don't get up so quickly! Are you feeling better?”
“Yes... yes... What happened?”
“You felt dizzy... After learning of your death.”
She glared at Hom and he smiled, pleased with his poor sense of humor. But she was angrier with herself for letting herself go like that.
“I probably haven't recovered from my operation yet... Please allow me to send a communication to Center to indicate that I'm not dead...”
“No way, and you know it. The Administration would track the communication and I would be in danger. You too, by the way, if those who seek to kill you are indeed corrupt agents, as you seem to suspect…”
Or worse, she thought. She would not share her suspicions with this pseudo-pirate, but the more she thought about it, the more she believed in the Zcarbbs' version of an attack voluntarily organized by Administration officials… Ready to sacrifice a galaxy to the Zcarbbs for… for what? To prove that they are indeed a threat and motivate the rest of the population? Maybe… after all, the universe was vast. A galaxy was only a few million inhabited planets each by a few billion individuals: not even a percent of a percent of the administered population, a speck of dust for cold and unscrupulous individuals…
But for what gain? Could they be opponents of the current president, trying to promote the rise of their candidate by polluting the current mandate with failures? If that was indeed the case, their side had much greater power within the Administration than the current president legally held. Agents capable of organizing such operations were not only alpha+ level: they also had to be senior enough to hold important permanent positions and have been validated and recommended by several independent inspectors…
There was no point in speculating on cause and effect. She looked at Lhom and he had just enough time to make disappear the amused grin that adorned his face, so quickly that she thought she had imagined it. Apparently, the time of reflection in which she had lost herself, without realizing it, had amused him a lot…
“Where are we?”
“You are currently aboard my ship, the ‘Lost Truth’.”
Crossing her arms, she looked at him in annoyance until he relented. With a smile, he explained:
“We're currently on our way at superluminal speed to Hogloo space. My contact is waiting for us at a rendezvous point, but it's best to reach him without leaving a trace. We should arrive in a few hours, after about a hundred jumps.”
A hundred? The jump engines on this craft must have been heavily modified... But who was still modifying this type of engine now that “Walker” engines were becoming more and more widespread? Ah, yes, pirates, terrorists, and agents... The ones who need to move stealthily without leaving a trace of a “Walker” jump behind them...
She jumped when the Hom's voice called out to her. What was happening to her? She kept getting drawn into her thoughts. Again, the day before, it was understandable because of her fatigue, but now? Was it the tension, the fact of having survived an assassination, of being presumed dead, of going to Hogloo territory, of trying to flush out a ruthless terrorist group probably linked to a major political party?
“Are you sure you're okay?”
“YES!”
She had shouted. The Hom seemed upset at the time, then amused. She hid her embarrassment by getting up and walking a bit, making a small tour of the room.
“Well, if you're okay, then you could answer my previous question.”
“Who was?”
“Let's suppose my contact manages to find this Zoghoze, which is very likely. Let's suppose we manage to talk to him, which is likely but very risky. Let's suppose he gives us sufficiently clear information on who had hired him, which is not a given...”
“Well?”
“What do you plan to do next? Denounce it and call the Hogloo to the stand at trial to testify?”
“Yes. Why? What would you do?”
“I would kidnap the person responsible and have it psychically probed in front of holo-vision cameras…”
He burst out laughing at her shocked expression, pretending to have made a joke. The gleam that had crossed his eyes nevertheless indicated that he was considering this solution… And, perhaps the culprit deserved it, for the billions of victims of its crime.
“More seriously,” he continued, “I think that someone capable of endangering an entire galaxy will not let himself be eliminated by the simple deposition of an enemy of civilization before a court of justice. Even if the Hogloos are known for their sense of honor, there have already been cases where some have acted... differently. The deposition will probably not be enough.”
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“But we will at least know who this criminal is. By putting a few agents on the case and asking for help from the inspectors, we will inevitably end up putting them out of harm's way...”
“Of course... For the moment, we are going to have bigger problems...”
Turning to the table, he sent it a mental command so that it would deploy a series of holograms containing various data. If half were there only for decoration, others were very clearly tactical maps representing the progress of different objects.
“There are currently three different ships pursuing us. These ships have no communication with each other and are slowly gaining on us, trying to guess our next exit vectors. Hogloo space will be full of danger, but we might not reach it.”
Sava looked at the maps in astonishment. Without the help of her AI, it was a bit complicated to understand all the data, but her school memories came back to the rescue. Three ships, well equipped enough to be almost indistinguishable. No visuals, just tiny variations in some data... The fact that they did not communicate with each other did not prejudge their possible relations... Of course, all this could have been an invention of Lhom, intended to study her reactions. A way to distract himself during these hours of waiting... No: that would be ridiculous.
“Indeed, according to this data, it would seem that these ships are trying to follow our tracks. They must also be aware of each other's presences and, if they are not working together, be wary of each other. Are you sure they did not simply follow the trail of the nanobots you left behind? The ones that allowed you to spot them?”
“I am not an amateur... But one of these ships seems advanced enough to be able to do that: I barely detected its presence because of its use of a ‘Walker’ engine, before it started tracking me...”
“Oh? And how do you know it is still following?”
“I think it’s an administrative ship, because it makes encrypted communications from time to time that pass through the Network. My accreditation level is not high enough to try to obtain the encrypted version of this content, but I can locate its broadcast...”
“Not high enough? Above alpha+? What is it? The legendary alpha-omega level? It would be someone extremely important in any case. Why would them be chasing us?”
The captain of the ship stood up, without answering. He motioned for Domeria to follow him and left the room, the holograms surrounding him like a strange swarm of luminous butterflies. As they descended towards the hold, he explained his thoughts:
“Perhaps it is the instigator of the Utela affair, and has it followed your trail? Or is it the one responsible for sabotaging my craft and has come to retrieve the prisoners in order to free them? It is also possible that it is an inspector sent to locate the renegade agent that I am... but in that case, it would have been more logical if it were just alpha+ level...”
“To allow you to spy on its conversations?”
“I wouldn't be able to decrypt them anyway: the inspectors use a code entirely set to their Network identity... If I were still officially an agent... with some pirate software... maybe...”
“And what are the other two ships?”
“I don't know. They don't look like administered ships, or they operate under total cover. However, they seem less well equipped for camouflage than the first ship. I have no clue. They could just as easily be Zcarbbs or Hogloos ships as those of a terrorist group involved in the affair... Yours or mine... More likely mine.”
Sava eyed the hold warily: they were visibly heading towards the stasis cylinders.
“What are we doing here? What do you intend to do?”
The Hom chuckled theatrically while pointing at the central cylinder:
“What do you think? If our pursuers are gaining on us, it is because they have more advanced equipment. I know how to operate my ship beyond its theoretical capabilities, but if we really want to distance our pursuers, we need someone capable of much more…”
“So, you want to free this criminal? Why did you wait for me to wake up to tell me that?”
“So as not to be the only one responsible in case things go wrong, of course. I want your opinion on the matter, and since you will not propose anything more relevant, you will be forced to accept this solution and share the responsibility.”
Sava gritted her teeth, annoyed. She could understand this reasoning and, at least, as a good Homtest he did not hide the intention of his action... At least, the visible one. Maybe he thought he had more luck following the plans of the criminals rather than Domeria's vague lead? At the same time, she mysteriously felt that she could trust him...
“Okay... Wait... Can you tell me first the reason for her imprisonment?”
Satisfied, Libre nodded then tapped on the cylinder's control console to display the details of the conviction:
“I had a little trouble, but I finally unlocked this data. Read it.”
First Name: Xini
Last Name[1]: Xolot
Gender: Female
Species: Missing Data
Security Level: Alpha+
Cause for Sentencing: Attempted mass murder of universal level, selling sensitive data to Hogloos terrorists
Length of Sentence: Eternity
Some other secondary information was then noted and an investigation file, decrypted by Lhom's software, detailed the crime of which she was guilty. Sava paled:
“She... She tried to kill billions of people by hacking the SECURA-02 chip? She's a monster... You can't release... that!”
A hint of annoyance crossed Lhom's gaze: he didn't like seeing his plans thwarted at the last moment.
“You did agree that we have no other solutions, didn't you? And besides, what do we know about her real motives? Maybe she's not as monstrous as what's announced...”
“Okay: give me a probable cause to excuse this mass murder attempt?”
“Well… Um… Maybe she wasn’t the culp…”
“It says ‘caught in the act’ there.”
“Hey, there are witnesses to my alleged crime too, that doesn’t mean I committed it. And then, we’ll keep an eye on her after we release her…”
“Us? So, are you going to give me back my bracelet?”
“No: I was talking about my AI and me.”
He was lying. Not having had time to prepare his arguments sufficiently, he had let his mistake show and he looked away, much to Sava’s satisfaction. But this minor victory didn’t change the fact that he was right: if these pursuers were killers, it was better to use all the assets at their disposal. She still waited a little while to savor her ephemeral triumph before conceding:
“Release her. On the other hand, if she runs away and kills billions of innocent people, I won't be the one responsible!”
“I didn't ask for that much: just the share of responsibility in the illegal act of opening this stasis cell. I'm starting the procedure.”
The small green-skinned creature slowly descended down the cylinder as time gradually resumed inside. A door opened in the safety glass and slid to the side, exposing the prisoner to the open air.
She looked up blankly at the two Homs who were welcoming her back to the present. Her two ears, previously perked up to the sides, hung limply against her shoulders. Her voice, rather high-pitched, was tinged with a sort of monotony:
“Oh? How much time has passed? Ah… never mind… You don’t look like you’re from the prison department. So, I gather I’ve been assigned a special mission. Just tell me what to do.”
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[1] Although there are many customs from one people to another, the forms are the same for all: thus, Xini's clan name is considered a family name. The fact that she is banished from her clan is of no concern to the form.