Flashpoint (Book One of the Drive Maker Trilogy) Read online

  “Hezekiah. Good to see you again. Thanks for your help with the drone.” Taylor lowered her head in thought again. She was certainly happy to see him, but Mantradome’s threat weighed on her mind. Ten days was not a long time.

  By the time Hezekiah reached her and the king, he had been infected by Taylor’s grave mien. “What? What’s wrong?”

  “Aside from all the people who are dead across the Republic?” Taylor asked. “And the fact that these terrorists are still at large?”

  “Well, I certainly don’t mean to be disrespectful,” Hezekiah said, “but here on Cryzdeklith, we won—”

  “We won a single battle,” Taylor said. “If we want to win the war, we have some work to do.”

  Taylor slowly rotated the holographic bomb. Reconstructed from the decontamination drone’s sensor logs, footage of the identical bombs that went off across the galaxy, and her own memory, it was a reasonably accurate rendition of the device that destroyed the Royal City Order War Museum.

  Reasonably, but not completely.

  There were four lines of writing engraved on the bottom of the bomb that she had been trying to decipher for the past hour without success. Hezekiah’s drone had only seen the top and sides of the bomb, which was the case for most of the footage she had found, but on Walletarde, the device had been overturned during the fighting that preceded its activation, allowing security cameras to briefly glimpse its underside. The MRES had access to an arsenal of powerful video manipulation software that had allowed her to enhance the image quality greatly, but the markings’ meaning still eluded her. In case the writing was not even in standard Galactican, she had started running it through the galaxy’s thousands of local tongues. An alert popped up in front of her holographic model.

  Cryzdeklithian (native; southern dialect) recognition failed. Attempting Cryzdeklithian (native; northern dialect) recognition.

  Taylor groaned.

  “Good morning to you, too.” Hezekiah opened the door to the hologram projector room, spilling light over Taylor and her model. He handed her one of the two mugs he was carrying. “I’m surprised to see you up this early.”

  “Thanks.” Taylor took a sip from the mug. It was Marenot juice, a traditional Cryzdeklithian beverage, and her favorite morning pick-me-up.

  Hezekiah regarded her for a moment, perhaps due to her monosyllabic response. “You did sleep, right?”

  “Did you?” Taylor made a weak attempt to deflect the question. “You don’t look like you just got up. You never do. You always look so nice…”

  Taylor took a deep drink of Marenot juice, partly to stop herself from talking, and partly because she definitely needed it.

  Luckily, Hezekiah smiled. “I’m flattered. I do try to look respectable when I’m on duty, representing the Meltian Republic and all that, but I can’t look or perform my best if I don’t get my beauty sleep, and neither, I suspect, can you. So what are you working on? Maybe I can help, and then you can get some rest.”

  “Are you my dad?” Taylor regretted her sarcastic tone almost as soon as it left her mouth.

  “No, but I’m your friend, aren’t I?” he asked.

  “Of course!” Taylor turned back to the model. What was she, a teenager? She had seen far too much of the galaxy in her thirty years to get flustered by a good-looking guy. She decided that after this crisis was resolved, she needed to get out more. In the meantime, she needed to be able to work professionally with those who were technically her subordinates.

  “I’ve sent out reports to the Meltian MRES office, the MRSIS, the Meltian Guard, the whole run, but nobody has gotten back to me yet.” Taylor was regaining energy from the Marenot juice. “I figure they’re up to their necks in leads on the attacks. In the meantime, I’ve been taking a look at this bomb. There’s nothing with quite the same style—or the same level of destruction—in the MRES archives, and the only lead I have on the manufacturer is this writing here, which I can’t decipher.”

  Taylor pointed out the markings on her holographic model.

  Hezekiah leaned toward the model. “That’s NHC—Nechlian Hazard Code. I didn’t know anyone still used it.”

  Taylor turned back to him. “But you do?”

  “Not really, but I learned it in college,” Hezekiah said. “I’m sure there’s a reference table on the interplanetary network somewhere.”

  “College?” Taylor asked. “I thought you transferred here from the fire department—don’t they have their own academy you attend instead of college?”

  “They do,” Hezekiah said, “but I studied as an engineer before that.”

  Taylor smiled. “Then you gave up a lot of money to come here.”

  Hezekiah gazed into the holographic display. “My mother was an engineer—in the CRSC, actually. When she was lost in the war… I couldn’t stay.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.” Taylor felt a swell of frustration—whether it was because of her unfailing tactlessness, or because, ten years after its conclusion, the Order War was still taking things from her, she could not be sure.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Hezekiah said. “I think she’d be proud I’m using my skills in this line of work.”

  “Definitely,” Taylor said. “So what can we learn from this NHC that will help us take down the Alliance?”

  “Well, the first three lines are about the hazards of the material, so they could help you guess what that bomb’s made of,” Hezekiah said, “but the last line is the most important. That’s the proprietor line, and I don’t need any reference table to tell you that’s the code for Griffin Space Technologies.”

  Taylor nodded slowly. She did not know much about GST apart from the fact that it had notoriously supplied starships to both the Galactic Government and Resistance forces during the Order War, earning its founder and owner, Charles Griffin, a reputation for double-dealing. “Thanks, Heze—”

  “Hey, Commander!” Ciro flung open the door, dousing the formerly-darkened hologram projection room in harsh light. He was still in his bedclothes, with the mua’er sitting on his shoulder. He paused. “What’s going on down here?”

  “Nothing, Ciro.” Taylor blinked rapidly in the bright light. “What do you need?”

  “There’re some people down at the Space Corps station—Meltians, I think—who want to see you. In person. Wouldn’t get off the flipping comms until I gave you the message.”

  Hezekiah glanced at Taylor. “Somebody you contacted?”

  “Maybe.” Taylor stood, downing the last of her Marenot juice. “I don’t know why they’d fly out here for me—although the fact that they got here so quickly means they must have been in the area.”

  “You’re the only one who’s gotten close to one of those terrorists and lived to tell about it,” Hezekiah said. “You’re important.”

  “I suppose.” Taylor downloaded her 3D model onto a datacard and plucked it out of the hologram projection console. “I’ll at least see what they want.”

  Taylor retrieved her Newface from her quarters before departing the frigate on a control boat. She doubted she had anything to fear from the Meltians, or indeed the CRSC, but especially so soon after the attacks, she could not be too careful. When she slid the slim silver band from the Veterans’ Agency around her head, it projected a photorealistic holographic countenance millimeters away from her own. The hologram moved in sync with her own features, but it had straight, shiny black hair to her braided brown, watery blue eyes to her bright green ones, and a dozen other tiny differences engineered to prevent the casual observer from noticing any similarity between the two. It would never hold up to intense scrutiny, but it was sufficient to dispel the kind of suspicion that led to such scrutiny.

  As Taylor approached the CRSC station, she was surprised to find a multitude of CRSC ships of various sizes flying about the station in formation or docked around the circumference of its oblate-spherical form. Despite this confusion, the Meltians’ ship was easily recognizable. Shaped vaguely like a thick-bodied sea
r gun, with a round barrel, boxy stock, and spindly handle, its length dwarfed that of the CRSC station, though the volume of the latter was certainly larger. Taylor pinged the large vessel with her control boat’s scanners to obtain its name.

  The MRS Kindred Spirit.

  The station authorities sounded somewhat exhausted when Taylor contacted them, but she was given a hangar to land in—albeit one crowded with CRSC interceptors. As she left her control boat, she was greeted by a young man in a uniform that resembled hers, though his was pitch-black as opposed to her midnight blue. He wore an emblem that she recognized, but couldn’t immediately place, featuring two stars connected by an arrow.

  Together they weaved through rows of interceptors and other small craft, dodging the pilots and engineers rushing back and forth across the limited space. Taylor had not seen anything quite like it since the Order War. After a moment, she started to become concerned. She had not heard of any hostilities breaking out between the galaxy’s powers, but then again she stayed away from galactic news as much as possible these days.

  “What’s going on?” she yelled to her guide over the rushing masses. “Why are all these people and ships here?”

  He seemed surprised that she did not know. “Reserve exercises. In response to the Anniversary Attacks. Telahmir called it ‘Operation Galactic Resolve.’”

  Taylor nodded. The Meltian Republic was unique in the galaxy in that it had a relatively small standing army—a well-trained and well-equipped volunteer force called the Meltian Guard—supported by a vast network of reserve forces on its various worlds. A few of these acted independently, like the CRSC, but most remained inactive unless war was declared. Or the central government in Telahmir wanted to flex its muscles.

  Taylor’s guide led her to what she recognized as a conference room from her time in the CRSC, opening the door for her but not entering himself. When she thanked him and went in, he closed the door behind her. Two beings were already seated at the conference table in the center of the room, sporting the same uniforms—and emblems—as her guide.

  The human woman rose to her feet, striding over to shake Taylor’s hand with unexpected strength, considering her middle age. “Good morning, Ms. Ghatzi. I’m Captain Jareyn Brook of the Interstellar Emergency Service, and this is our political liaison officer, JP.”

  She gestured to her companion, whose hairless dark blue skin, vertical black eyes, and backward-jointed knees identified him as an Archavian. JP stood, visibly relieved to exit the chair, which was designed for humans, but standing he was still barely two-thirds of Taylor’s height.

  “A pleasure to make your acquaintance,” JP said.

  “JP.” Taylor frowned, not wanting to offend the Archavian. “What does that stand for?”

  “Justice of the Peace,” Captain Brook said.

  “Jawar Parriburt,” JP said.

  “That too,” Brook said.

  “So… you’re a judge?” Taylor asked.

  “No, but he knows enough about Meltian law that he could be,” Brook said.

  “Ah. And you’re both from the Interstellar Emergency Service?” Taylor remembered how she recognized their emblem—it had been in her MRES orientation years ago. “You folks are the interplanetary branch of the MRES, right? You travel around the Republic, investigating crises with interstellar consequences instead of just staying put and serving one system like us.”

  She had not heard much about them since that initial orientation—likely because they operated so independently—but apparently they had obtained her Anniversary Attack report. Unless this was just a random visit.

  “Precisely,” Captain Brook said. “Good to know you regulars haven’t forgotten about us. At the moment, we’re trying to take down the group be—”

  “Identify,” JP said.

  “—we’re trying to identify the group behind the Anniversary Attacks, and we believe that you might be able to help us out with that.”

  Definitely not a random visit. “I’ll help you in any way I can.”

  “Excellent.” Brook whipped out a personal screen. “By the way, you can ditch that silly disguise—there aren’t any paparazzi aboard this station.”

  Taylor self-consciously slipped off her Newface and set it on the conference table.

  “The accounts we’ve picked up across the galaxy so far have been pretty uniformly unhelpful,” Brook said. “I suppose that’s owing to the fact that most people who got anywhere near these terrorists were incinerated. But you weren’t.”

  “That’s correct,” Taylor said.

  “Excellent.” Brook nodded to JP, who pulled out a personal screen of his own and rested it on the table. “So, can you confirm that these terrorists actually wielded telekinesis, rather than some kind of sear-gun-esque weaponry?”

  “I’m not sure it was either.” Taylor paused for a second as JP started to furiously type, but then pressed on. “It wasn’t like any telekinesis I’ve ever seen, but he definitely did not have any weapons.”

  “Did he have anything else? Aside from the bomb?” Brook asked.

  “No,” Taylor said. “Wait, actually, he did have something strange above one of his eyebrows—I saw this more when I reviewed the drone’s video than when I was fighting him—it looked like a little metal bar.”

  Brook’s eyes were fixed on Taylor. “How close did your drone get? We’ve seen a few videos, but they’re all low-quality or too far away to see much.”

  “Pretty close.” Taylor smiled; this was getting somewhere. “And you can see the video, if you’d like, but I also used it to construct a 3D model of the bomb itself.”

  She strode to the front of the conference room, which had a hologram projector, and plugged in her datacard. The bomb sprung into existence in the middle of the room.

  Brook reached out to spin the model around. “We’ll want this too. Nice work, Ghatzi, this’ll help us—wait, what’re these markings?”

  Taylor’s smile widened. “That’s what I said. Turns out they’re Nechlian Hazard Code, and the bottom line tells us that, at one point, at least part of this bomb was in the possession of Griffin Space Technologies.”

  “Charles Griffin.” Brook barked the name with a peculiar mix of derision and elation. “Of course it’s Griffin—it’s not the Jacobins, I knew the MRSIS was full of it. JP, check if Griffin’s attending any public events in the next few days—I want to confront him on our terms.”

  “Wait a minute,” Taylor said. “We don’t know for sure that Griffin is involved in the Anniversary Attacks, we just have reason to believe that his company touched the bomb at some point. What are you going to do when you ‘confront’ him?”

  “Ms. Ghatzi is correct, Captain,” JP said. “I can obtain legal backing for us to investigate Griffin, but only if we can present a preponderance of evidence that he was instrumental to the procurement of this bomb.”

  “Fine,” Brook said, “then let’s get some more evidence. What do the other three lines mean, Ghatzi?”

  “I don’t know,” Taylor said. “My… coworker said they could be used to determine what the bomb was made of, though.”

  “Perfect!” Brook turned to JP. “Look up the whatever-hazard-code for neutronium.”

  “Neutronium?” Taylor asked. She thought she had heard of something like that before, possibly during the war.

  “Exotic matter,” Brook said. “It’s one of the few materials in the galaxy that can be used to make bombs with the size-to-power ratio of these ones. None of those materials are easy to come by, so if we can identify which one was used in the attack, we’re one step closer to finding who is behind this Alliance.”

  JP held up his personal screen to the model. “This is definitely the NHC label for neutronium.”

  “Brilliant,” Brook said. “Now, I doubt Griffin deals in neutronium on a day-to-day basis—I mean, his primary business is starships, and there isn’t enough neutronium in the galaxy to make it a cost-effective starship weapon—so if we can c
atch him making a purchase of it in the past few months, with no products that use it, I’d say that’s a ponderous amount of evidence.”

  “A preponderance of evidence, Captain?” JP asked.

  “That too,” Brook said.

  “But you don’t have that preponderance of evidence yet,” Taylor said.

  “No,” Brook said, “but if it’s out there—and knowing Griffin, I’m sure it is—then JP’ll find it. Either way, we don’t have any more time to do house calls if we want to get back to Meltia in time to make our case and bust Griffin before the next attack, and I didn’t become captain of the IES by sitting on my hands.”

  Taylor blinked. This woman’s points made sense, but she was moving so fast, Taylor felt like she was being pulled through the air by a speeding hovercar: buffeted by wind and noise, without half a second to figure out where she was, much less where she was going. “Hold on, why do you even need to go back to Meltia? Can’t you just contact them over the interplanetary network?”

  “Face-to-face contact is the coin of the Meltian political realm,” JP said. “At some point we will need to go through a Meltian Republic Legislature subcommittee, and they do not even offer electronic hearings, except for Cabinet-level officials.”

  Taylor began, “That’s int—”

  “Stupid?” Brook said. “I agree, but if JP can’t find a way around it, no one can. Luckily, we should have time, but we’ll want to leave as soon as possible to give JP time to clear out all the necessary bureaucratic junk for us, so is two hours enough time to pack what you need?”

  Taylor was strangely relieved that Brook was even considering the necessary “bureaucratic junk,” until she heard the rest of her sentence. “Wait, what?”

  “You need three?” Brook looked skeptical. “You can take three if you want, but we have everything you should need.”

  “Hold on just a minute,” Taylor said. “I’m not going to Meltia with you, much less in three hours. Hezekiah’s already doing most of Ciro’s job—he can’t do mine, too.”