"Bail," I said. "We just rescued him. He spent four hundred days alone studying salvaged technology. He'd have the knowledge, the motivation?—"
"No." Dana's voice was flat, certain. "Bail was dying when we found him. He had no resources, no capability to infiltrate Mothership's systems. This was built over months by someone with consistent access and support. Bail doesn't fit."
"Then who? You've been aboard two weeks. Jalina, Bea, Elena, none of them have engineering clearances high enough for this."
Dana was still staring at the encryption data, her expression unreadable. "There were sixteen of us rescued from the burning planet. But Liberty had over three hundred crew members. The wormhole scattered escape pods across who knows how much space. If others survived, if they were rescued by different ships and made their way to Mothership through other channels?—"
"They'd have had time to integrate. Build cover identities. Gain necessary clearances while appearing loyal." I pulled up crew manifests, searching for anyone who'd joined Mothership in the past year with engineering skills. "How many possibilities are we talking about?"
"Too many. Dozens of crew members joined during that timeframe. Without knowing which ones might be Liberty survivors in disguise?—"
My communicator erupted with priority alerts. Vaxon's voice, tight with urgency: "All security teams, deck nineteen. We have an active containment breach. Repeat, active containment breach deck nineteen."
Dana and I stared at each other for one frozen second. Then we were both moving, abandoning the encryption work to race toward whatever new crisis had erupted.
Because deck nineteen was where we'd moved the secured communication equipment from the bay.
And someone had just broken into it.
12
Dana
The emergency lighting cast everything in shades of red and shadow, turning Mothership's corridors into something from a nightmare. I ran behind Er'dox, my shorter legs struggling to match his pace, my heart hammering against my ribs like it was trying to escape my chest entirely.
Deck nineteen. The secured equipment bay where they'd moved the communication array. Where someone had just triggered every alarm in the security system.
"Stay behind me," Er'dox said without slowing. Not a suggestion. A command delivered with the absolute authority of someone who expected to be obeyed.
I wanted to argue—wanted to point out that I'd been on a field mission yesterday, that I'd proven I could handle dangerous situations, that treating me like fragile cargo was both insulting and impractical. But arguing while running through corridors at near-sprinting speed seemed like poor resource allocation.
Save the feminist objections for when we weren't racing toward an active security breach.
We hit the junction to deck nineteen and nearly collided with Vaxon's security team moving in tactical formation. The security chief looked like violence barely contained, all predatory grace and controlled fury.
"Situation," Er'dox demanded.
"Someone breached the secured bay three minutes ago," Vaxon said, his cobalt-blue eyes tracking movement I couldn't see. "Used authorization codes that should have been impossible to obtain. By the time our systems registered the breach, they'd already accessed the communication equipment."
"What did they take?"
"Nothing. That's the problem." Vaxon gestured toward the bay entrance, where two security officers stood guard with weapons drawn. "They didn't take anything. They activated it."
The implication hit me like cold water. "They're transmitting. Right now. They came back to finish what we interrupted."
"We sealed the power supply," Er'dox said. "How?—"
"They had backup power cells. Portable units, probably smuggled in piece by piece over weeks." Vaxon's expression was grim. "The transmission started ninety seconds ago. We've got maybe four minutes before it completes, based on the file size Dana identified."
Four minutes. Four minutes to stop classified Mothership specifications from reaching hostile forces in the Contested Reaches. Four minutes to catch a saboteur who'd proven they were willing to cause casualties to protect their operation.
Four minutes that suddenly felt like four seconds.
"Breach protocol," Vaxon ordered his team. "Hard entry, secure the equipment, subdue anyone inside. Non-lethal force if possible, but mission priority is stopping that transmission. Understood?"
Affirmatives from six security officers who moved like they'd done this a hundred times before. Probably had, given Mothership's rescue operations in dangerous sectors.
"Dana, you stay here," Er'dox said, moving toward the breach team.
