Gambit

(Starspeak)

“[I hope you realize I’m only humoring you,]” Ingrid said.

“[That’s fine,]” I said.

“[Seriously, Caleb, Cadrune might be a total douche in the corporate world, but they’ve been kind to me. So have all the people at that manor,]” she said. “[So when I look at what you’ve got on them? Circumstantial, and I’ve known them more than long enough to give the benefit of the doubt.]”

“[Okay,]” I said.

I wasn’t too concerned. With Ingrid officially taking over one of the Jack’s berths, my genius plan was well into its final stages.

Ingrid could rationalize about not wanting to be around humans all she wanted.

I was the first one she’d met in more than a year, and she was none too pleased to see me at first. But it had been minutes before she’d been digging into social contact like a Sunday brunch.

She missed having humans around, and I wasn’t above exploiting that fact.

“[So?]”

“[So what?]” I asked.

“[So let’s hear how you plan on changing my mind. I haven’t put down a timetable, but…three days? How does that sound?]”

“[Sure,]” I said. “[The ‘plan’ will unfold quicker than that anyway. Children! Someone tell me what I want to know.]”

The munchkins were currently split up into teams of four, half here on the Jack reading documents, processing them into psionic form, the other half were helping Jordan and Nai make psionic preparations for confronting Cadrune and the natural follow-up.

“[Look at the cloud!]” Ulrich said with the exasperation only a tween could muster.

“[Ser-ver. Ser-ver. Ser-ver!]” Gemma obnoxiously gestured to the psionic-integrated computer panel on the wall.

To be fair, they had a point. I didn’t really need to ask them for their work. They were following instructions and dumping the files into the ship’s storage system so anyone could browse them in searchable form.

“[I was being polite and expressing interest in your efforts,]” I said. “[But hey, if you want me to—]”

I started to make a friendly threat, but I was cut off by the kids collectively deciding that anyone older than they were was technologically illiterate.

“[Old man doesn’t know how to work the computer,]” Jonathan said, pretending to talk down to Ingrid. “[Stick with us. We’re the ones who really know how things get done around here.]”

Ingrid snickered.

“[You’re all monsters,]” I said, playing along. “[I just need names and addresses, and you are choosing to cruelly besmirch your fiendishly handsome leader.]”

“[Fiendishly?]” Gemma snorted. “[Are you leaning into the whole ‘I’m the devil’ thing now?]”

I glared at her. Little gremlin…

<[They’re ruthless,]> Ingrid observed, not without a smirk still shameless plastered across her face. <[…But it’s good they can joke about things.]>

I wanted to say ‘it’s what happens when we support each other’. But that might have been too on the nose.

Instead, I scanned the Jack’s dropbox, finding the police document Mashoj had shared with us in connection to arresting Cadrune Junior: names, phone numbers; and home addresses for everyone employed at the manor.

Including one rak named Douric.

<[Anything you want to ask me about the doc?]> Ingrid said.

<[Anything worth volunteering? The reason we were after the doc in the first place was to blackmail them so we could force Cadrune to…let us help you I guess? Honestly we were just after information. We’d figure out what to do with it later.]>

<[How could you blackmail the doctor?]> Ingrid asked.

<[Mostly with the threat of Organic Authority based legal action,]” I said. “[I know they’re really harsh when their own people break laws, but that doesn’t mean they let people off easy. Your doctor—and Cadrune by extension—broke a lot of protocol keeping you off the Org’s radar.]>

“Yeah, because we’ve never done that…” Tasser joked.

“Shut up,” I said.

“You ready?”

“Got the address,” I nodded.

“[Wa-] Wait, I thought you didn’t need to blackmail my doctor anymore,” Ingrid said.

“We don’t, but if we find them, we can leverage Cadrune next.”

“What for?!” she said. “I can just ask them.”

“And we’ll be sure to give you the chance to ask,” I said. “But just in case they’re the monster their kid thinks they are?”

I cued Tasser.

“We’re going to go search your doctor’s home for incriminating evidence and other dark shameful secrets.”

“That can’t be legal,” Ingrid frowned, “and—[waitasecond!] You can’t just leave me here.”

“I’m taking Tasser with me,” I said innocently. “Besides, this is just how much we trust you: the munchkins need supervising.”

Ingrid made the mistake of showing on her face exactly how much she didn’t want to be left behind, and the munchkins pounced on the weakness.

“[Come on, Ingrid! We can show you Jordan’s card game!”

“[Psionic video games are the best!]”

“[We’re trying to add dogfighting to the flight simulator.]”

That last one actually got Ingrid’s attention enough for me and Tasser to slip out. I gave her a psionic prod through my handbook just to make sure she was still available though. We really would be using her as an opening gambit, so it was important to keep her looped in.

I just wasn’t optimistic about how Cadrune would respond.

“She’s right you know,” Tasser mused. “Mashoj probably won’t be able to use any evidence we find.”

“We will not be conducting any illegal search,” I promised, “…because this is simply a welfare check to make sure no one died in the hurricane.”

Tasser cackled.

* ····

My flashlight beam cast wide across the dusty shack. This section of town had been particularly hit badly by the hurricane, and while the building we were crawling through had avoided severe flooding, it was on the verge of collapse just from the winds. .

“This place is a dump,” I noted.

“Expecting something different?” Tasser asked.

“Someone on Cadrune’s payroll? Yeah, kinda,” I said. “”

In addition to my flashlight, my handbook was clipped to my chest like a bodycam, giving real time video back to the Jack.

Tasser shot me a look: reproachful.

Okay, I was rubbing it in a bit too much. I was still really frustrated by Ingrid’s radio silence.

…Maybe Sid had a point about my pettiness.

I had people I knew I could trust to rein me in, but still. Best not to give them any more work than I absolutely had to.

“” Ingrid defended. “…Honestly, if that’s where they’re living, I kinda pity them.”

“That’s fair,” I nodded.

All four walls were thin corrugated steel, and the storm had punched more than a few holes in the roof. The contents of the shack were tossed like salad across the interior, shelving units having tipped over, furniture soaked and overturned.

There was so much shattered glass strewn about, it was impossible to identify where any of it came from. Picture frames, vases, cups. Could have been anything.

“Well, Douric definitely hasn’t been back here since the storm,” I said, finally reaching the kitchen. “Pests have gotten into the food.”

In particular, some small and slimy figures scurried away from my light when I shone it into some of the broken cupboards.

“Are we wasting our time here, then?” Tasser asked.

“Not if that’s a computer,” I said, nodding to what had once been a desk.

The desk was probably the nicest thing in the apartment, or it had been at one point. It was one long slab of wood, curved at each end so the work surface could fall away to form its own legs. Wind had blown it over though, and now, despite a completely gouged and cracked surface, it formed something of a wall around the machinery that had once sat under the desk.

The machine in question was the size of a portable generator, with a number of cables and wires protruding from it, half of them stripped of their other ends by the storm.

“No way,” Tasser snorted. “You think a place like this has a home computer?”

“I think Cadrune had to be paying Douric something,” I said. “The paycheck definitely didn’t go toward rent, so I’m thinking it could be this.”

“Earth and the Flotilla have warped your sense of affordability when it comes to computers,” Tasser said.

“For the average rak, you’re probably right,” I said. “But—and feel free to correct me, Ingrid—but I somewhat doubt Cadrune would hire the average rak or pay them an average salary.”

“” Ingrid said.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Thing’s still got juice,” I noted, cascading the machine. Strange. The overhead lighting was kaput, and as far as I could tell, nothing else in the shack was powered.

A battery backup of some kind then? All aliens lacked in computer tech, but the Vorak in particular made up for it in many ways with the absurdity of their other electrical technology. Every battery in the cosmos had been manufactured according to Vorak expertise for more than the last hundred years.

If I was cascading the machine properly, this computer’s battery could sustain its current ‘sleep mode’ for the next ten months without being recharged. Not bad at all.

“Can you get it?” Tasser asked, looking over the variety of ports and slots on the computer..

“No,” I snorted. “It’s not like the Vorak use USB. So, please tell me you have a copy of Ben’s ripping flowchart.”

“Sorry,” Tasser said. “I wanted to save room for the new crisis engine.”

Tch. Tasser had helped Madeline improve the combat flowchart to be more intuitive and less jarring to use, but that came at the cost of massively inflating the conceptual ‘space’ or ‘memory’ it took up in your mind. At the current default size, it was well on its way to being adapted into a new model of buildplate.

Good for novices finding themselves in a fight, but not so helpful for me right now…

“Well, the computer has a battery, right? It’s not that big. Can’t we just carry it out of here?”

Tasser, bless his heart, didn’t even hesitate to kneel down into the gunk to help me lift it. But no sooner had I suggested it than I found an exceedingly compelling reason why we shouldn’t.

I said as calmly as possible. I didn’t even say it out loud. Ingrid and the munchkins might hear and become alarmed.

My friend knew me, because just that ginger tone was enough to make him freeze.

I said.

“[Everything good over there?]” Ingrid asked.

“[Yep, just cascading the computer’s internals for a bit. Hang on.]”

She grunted, but otherwise accepted the explanation.

Tasser marveled, immediately looking around the room.

<…It’s because…the switch isn’t connected to the computer’s components,> I said.

Tasser asked.

I said, letting out a relieved breath.

I said, double checking with my cascade again.

<[Who ya gonna call?]> Tasser joked.

I rolled my eyes.

<[Oh great and powerful switchboard operator,]> I called out. <[Could you please connect me to one of the Siegfried’s pearls?]>

I could practically hear Jordan’s sigh.

<[Give me a minute to trance up,]> she sighed.

<[Check if someone there is already asleep?]> I asked. <[Pretty sure the timing works out. They should be on night-shift right now.]>

<[…Lucky you,]> Jordan said. <[Give it a few seconds…you’ve got your girlfriend.]>

<[She is—]>

I bit off the obvious protest because Jordan had connected me to Madeline directly, and she’d hear every word.

<[—exactly who I wanted to hear,]> I covered.

Tasser cackled next to me, and I had to be sure to exclude the sound from what I relayed to Madeline.

she asked.

I said.

<…Not sure. Let me see…yes,> she chirped.

I said.

she complained.

I reminded.

<…Yeah, that’s it. Thanks.>

I pulled the file packet through the pearl and confirmed we hadn’t lost anything.

“[Sweet dreams,]” Tasser teased with a grin. “You should really just ask her out already. Take it from an old man like me.”

“Twenty-seven isn’t old,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Especially for Casti. In human terms, you’re like…two years older than me. Maybe three if we really push it.”

Jordan said.

“” I said.

“” Ingrid accused over the phone. “”

“” I accused. “”

The Ramstein abductees were worried sick about her.

“” Ingrid countered. “”

“” I dared them. “”

“Ah. So we haven’t overdone it yet,” Tasser concluded. “Truly, our judgement is flawless.”

“Shut up and let me focus on this,” I complained.

Jordan took the cue and bowed out, going back to monitor Nai’s situation. Tasser at least did stand back and let me parse each step in Ben’s tech manual. And Ingrid just kept watching.

“[Is that kind of thing normal?]” she asked.

“[What kind?]”

“[Just casually ringing up another planet. Trading psionics.]”

“[Yes,]” I said. “[Mmm…but actually keep that under wraps. It’s very classified.]”

“[Coalition secret?]”

“[What? No. I mean we classified it; it’s our secret. Don’t go blabbing about it—to anyone!]”

“[I got it,]” she said. “[I won’t tell Cadrune about this wildly lucrative psionic capability you all have.]”

I unclipped the phone from the chest and stared at the camera. Hopefully on her end I was staring into her soul.

“[I’m serious, Ingrid. This is a life and death.]”

“[…Sorry. I really won’t tell anyone.]”

“[Thank you.]”

Ingrid was at least willing to listen to me that much. Good.

Funny she’d picked up on that though. I thought I was one of the only abductees in a position to see where the Flotilla’s strengths really lay.

Fact is, half our personnel were humans without diplomas. Yet, we’d successfully carved out multiple niches for ourselves. In the past two years, we’d dipped our toes in cargo shipping—both interplanetary and interstellar, diplomacy, engineering research, law enforcement, a smidge of guerrilla warfare, and now we could even add disaster relief to that resume. And we went into every mess knowing that we needed to do more than just pull our weight. We had to excel, because both survival and our chances of returning home hinged on our ability to prove we were worth helping above and beyond whatever was most convenient for any alien we came across.

Psionics were the ‘not-so-secret’ secret to our success.

Had Agent Mashoj or even the M&Ms come across an unfamiliar computer, they would be stuck for a day while they gained access, maybe two.

Us?

A two-minute psionic chat, and I had a step-by-step guide on how to identify parts of the alien computer.

The Flotilla might have looked up to me as a leader and invaluable resource with good reason. My psionic expertise was elite enough that, if we wanted, the Jack could divert to any inhabited star system and start earning enough cash to stay afloat just from selling my skills alone.

But even with my expertise, I was not the Coalition’s single most valuable member. It wasn’t Nai with her peerless Adept skills, it wasn’t Madeline or Ben with their knowledge of Earth tech.

It was Jordan.

We’d looked high and low, and her superlocator was just plain unique. The only ansible technology besides the Beacons themselves.

If we needed information, we could query different planets, or even star systems, for help with the problem in seconds. Talk, research, teach, learn; psionics let the Flotilla do everything faster.

It was why I could materialize the right dongles and thumb drives to both get a peek at the computer’s software and know which component inside the frame was the hard drive. Between Ben’s computer engineering manual and my own tactile cascade, it was child’s play to cut open the shell, avoid the booby-traps in the computer, and rip out the hard drive intact.

“[Easy-peasy,]” I grinned.

Tasser called.

I asked ruefully.

she chuckled.

I guessed.

she agreed.

I agreed.

Tasser asked.

<…Noodles,> Nai requested.

* ····

Less than an hour to go on the clock, we were all munching on an early dinner. Cadrune would be leaving their tower downtown to retire to their estate for the night, and we’d been ghosting them all day about Ingrid.

Cadrune wasn’t stupid. Ingrid disappears in the night, and we don’t hound them? Yeah, they’d infer Ingrid was with us.

Ingrid had put us on an arbitrary three-day timer, but it didn’t matter because Agent Mashoj put us on an even stricter timetable.

“If this takes longer than thirty-six hours, you can safely assume Turoi will abandon the city—likely taking the original Human corpse with them,” Mashoj pointed out. “Honestly, thirty-six hours is pushing it.”

“Our plan should move faster than that,” I said. “Step one is to confront Cadrune, leverage them to flip on Turoi. Shouldn’t be hard. They hate each other.”

“Begs the question why Cadrune would buy a corpse from Turoi in the first place,” Ingrid muttered.

“Or even if they did…” Mashoj said reproachfully. “So far we only have the word of Mavriste.”

“He showed me video,” I assured the agent. “There was a corpse in that tower last night, and we’ve been watching the building pretty closely. They haven’t transported it out, best we can tell.”

“The trouble is, an office like that conducts highly confidential international business,” Mashoj pointed out. “There’s a one-hundred percent chance there’s an incinerator on the grounds.”

“…Doesn’t matter,” I said. “Even if they dispose of the false corpse, we still have plenty to threaten Cadrune with in the short term. Counting your cooperating witness? Cadrune should have enough legal pressure bearing down on them, they’ll want to give us a way to Turoi.”

“Or I could just ask,” Ingrid repeated.

Mashoj glanced at me.

“Would that really work?”

“…Maybe,” I admitted.

“Cadrune’s got a soft spot for me,” Ingrid explained. “Maybe I’m just a way to soothe their conscience, but if you let me actually talk to them about all this corpse business? They’ll help out in a heartbeat.”

I stared Ingrid in the eyes.

“You realize that, Cadrune has a small army’s worth of private security at that tower, right? You think the guard detail they keep on the estate is big? That tower’s where all the fortune really lies: business secrets, technology, blackmail. There’s a reason they didn’t keep the fake corpse at their home.”

“I think if Cadrune is half the criminal you think they are, they’ll fight their battles with lawyers, not bullets,” Ingrid countered.

I glanced at Mashoj and their expression was the same as mine.

Ingrid kinda had a point.

“Alright then,” I said. “Let’s signal Nai. You’ll be the first through the door.”

* ····

Coming back to the kaleidoscope tower in the evening gave me a new appreciation for the architecture. Dark storm clouds were swirling to the north, but we approached from the south side of the tower where that section of sky had early evening stars twinkling.

The odd angles and spirals of the tower’s glass paneling reflected and refracted starlight, multiplying the pinpricks of light across the body of the whole tower. It should have done the same thing with sunlight, but since it didn’t blind everybody during the day, there must have been some special property to the glass.

So as we walked through the lobby again, I was struck with the certainty that Cadrune absolutely was the type of rich eccentric to bother with the expense of rare exotic materials put into every glass panel covering their skyscraper.

The same secretary as last time was manning the same desk, and Mashoj and I conspicuously followed Ingrid up.

“Hello. Harpe May?” the secretary asked.

“That’s me,” Ingrid raised a hand.

“Harpe Cadrune is expecting you.”

Ingrid glanced at me, part smug, part concerned.

Welcoming? Or lying in wait?

It would be the former.

With the Jack’s temporary Vorak crewmembers handling Peudra’s business, it left everyone else—save Sid, Deg, and the munchkins—surrounding this tower or already secretly inside it, waiting for the first sign of danger. Plus the M&Ms. Plus whatever lawmen Mashoj was bringing. Years of walking into situations had given me an instinct for when our preparations were good enough to be wasted. We were too well prepared for a fight to actually get in one today.

We were directed to the same waiting room attached to the lobby as before, only instead of Cadrune stepping out of the elevator, it opened for us to go up.

I expected their office to be on the tower’s top floor. Or close to it.

But it was on the nineteenth. Out of seventy-seven.

I tried to keep my foul mood off my face. Like the future was come early, I could practically hear the words that would be said next. It had me in a rotten mood, even though they would be exclusively good for our goals.

Cadrune was just despicable. I didn’t like the idea of Ingrid being cozy with them. I didn’t like the idea they might not see some kind of punishment for…something in all this.

I couldn’t even totally verbalize exactly what about them I wanted to see punished.

So I had to swallow it when we stepped off the elevator, directly into the oligarch’s office.

Ingrid strode right up to the rak, still at their desk. Patiently waiting for us.

“Ingrid, good to see you. You gave my security quite a scare when you vanished. Gomi was worried sick too. Next time, I’d ask you to please leave a note,” they said.

They were just a little too pleased with themselves. I could see it in their beady tri-part eyes. Like they’d done something wrong, they knew we knew, but then they also knew their ass was covered somehow.

It made success taste sour.

“Noted,” Ingrid replied easily. The only part of the exchange that reassured me in any way was her upset tone. Even if she’d gone to bat for her patron, she wasn’t pleased with the rak. Not entirely. “Did you buy a human corpse?” she accused.

Cadrune gave a glance toward me, smooth as glass.

“No,” they said simply. And for a split second, I got my hopes up. “The corpse I bought is fake.”

“We know,” Mashoj said. “It’s a serious charge.”

“You can explain why later,” Ingrid said. “I want you to help Caleb find the person who made the corpse.”

Cadrune gave the kindest smile I ever saw on a rak. It made my skin crawl.

“Pup, all you had to do was ask.”