“Except they’re two years old,” Micah reminded him. “Are you sure they’re still good?”
“They can be identified. My contacts know where and when I disappeared, so they’ll figure it out.”
And if not, Micah thought, this could turn out to be a wasted trip.
“And who exactly are we meeting?” Ru asked. They were getting close enough that maybe she thought he would part with the information.
He got up from the chair. “You’ll see soon enough. Let me know when we’re in visual range.” Without further word he headed back to the rear of the ship, presumably to resume his nap.
Ru looked at Micah. Micah looked at Ru.
“You want to punch him in his arrogant face?” she asked quietly. “Or should I?”
* * *
It was another hour before they got within sensor range of their target. It was big, Ru’s ship told them, and it had a complex energy signature, which suggested it was more than a ship. By the time she got a clear visual on screen, with decent magnification, Micah’s heart was racing from anticipation; he gave his wellseeker permission to steady it.
Then: there it was. A station . . . and not a station. Space stations were orderly, rational creations, planned and executed for maximum efficiency. This thing hadn’t been planned. It certainly didn’t look efficient. The best word Micah could come up with to describe it was surreal.
It was a vast structure with ships moored to it in no discernible pattern. Big ships and small ships, some well maintained, others badly degraded. Connecting them was a tangled network of tubes and flyways, all splaying out from a common center, like a web spun by a drunken spider. In the center was a huge chunk of natural rock: an ex-asteroid, perhaps? Its pitted gray surface could be glimpsed here and there between the haphazard structures that clung to its surface, some of which had purposes that could be guessed at—mooring stations, environmental domes, banks of generators, life support domes connected by tunnels—while others were weirdly shaped, indecipherable. New materials had been fused with old, sleek with rutted, fragmented with whole. It was as if someone had taken a junk field, crushed all its contents into an irregular ball, and set it floating in the middle of nowhere. Micah saw a symbol on one panel that looked suspiciously like Shido’s corporate sigil. Had pieces of Shenshido station found their way to this place? This was why they attacked Shenshido, he realized. You can’t build something this large without one hell of a lot of mass.
“Welcome to Hydra,” Ivar said. No longer was he a refugee needing rescue, but a warrior returning to his homeland, and the change was reflected in his demeanor. What status did he have here? It must have been high once, for him to bargain so casually with tens of thousands of credits, but was that still true? How would two years’ absence affect his standing among the fiercely competitive scavs? Beneath that confident façade, Micah guessed that Ivar was worried.
Data was starting to scroll down Ru’s screen, mostly abbreviations that Micah couldn’t interpret. Was she running the application she’d told him about, that could derive social patterns from technology? “Six centers of activity,” she muttered. “Key ships are modern, well maintained. Big money here. Ruling factions?”
“Influential factions. Not officially in charge of anything. There’s a seventh one behind the core, that you can’t see from this angle.”
“Hence the Hydra,” Micah mused. “A monster with many heads.” Did those centers of activity represent clans? Families? Occupational cliques? He hungered to ask so many questions, but was pretty sure Ivar wouldn’t answer them, and he was tired of amusing him. So he just gazed at the seven-headed beast in wonder, basking in the satisfaction of knowing that his speculations about scav society had been accurate. At least thus far.
“There’s no order to the rest of it,” Ru continued. Was she talking to them, or to herself? “Independent ownership. Few signs of wealth. Building materials from different sources. No unified plan or aesthetic.” She leaned closer to the screen. “The flyways look weak. Badly constructed, hence easy to damage. That seems an odd flaw to have. Clearly these people know how build reliable structures, even if the designs are sometimes unorthodox. Some of the joints don’t even look—” She drew in a sharp breath and fell back in her seat. “Holy shit.” She looked at Ivar. “It’s designed to come apart? All of it?”
“Indeed,” Ivar said. “And now you understand the purpose of the sentries.”
“Trouble approaches, and this is all . . . what, disassembled?”
“A stationary structure would be easy for enemies to attack. A few dozen ships going off in different directions would be lost in the darkness of space before anyone realized what had happened.”
“That hunk of rock isn’t going anywhere quickly,” Micah pointed to the core. “Not with that much mass to accelerate.”
“For which reason nothing of value is stored in it. Mostly it’s for hi-G shore leave, for those that don’t run full G on their ships. Human bodies need such exposure or they grow weak.”
Yeah, Micah thought dryly. It’s really a health spa. Why didn’t we guess that?
More data was scrolling across Ru’s screen, but now she was reading it silently. Perhaps she was learning things she didn’t want Ivar to know about. If this is where the Dragonslayer signal originated, Micah thought, it may be our enemy’s home base. From here he could orchestrate whatever attacks he wanted, knowing that Guild authorities would never find him. Only Ru and I will find him.
Ru looked at Ivar. “You said everyone here would be Saito. But this structure obviously isn’t home to only a single faction. Or even cooperating factions. Care to explain?”
“I lied,” he said evenly. “To reassure you.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Should I worry about other lies?”
He shrugged. “The rest was legit. And the only people you’ll have to deal with here will honor my word, so unless you go wandering around on your own, you’ll be fine. Speaking of which, I should contact those people now and let them know we’re coming. So they can start getting your payment ready.”
“Lower right screen,” she said, pointing. “Manual controls beneath it.”
He smoothed a few stray hairs back from his face and angled the screen toward him. It showed his face as it would be transmitted: not a mirror image, with right and left sides transposed, but a true duplicate. “Begin recording,” he commanded.
Bright words appeared across the image. BEGIN RECORDING.
“This message is for Dominic Saito, from Ivar. Forward it to his office if he’s not available. Mark it time sensitive.” He cleared his throat. “I’m pleased to announce that I’m still alive, and after a lengthy and unpleasant stay on Shenshido Station, am coming home. I owe my return to Ru Gaya and Anthony Bester”—he nodded toward the two of them, though they were offscreen—“and ask that they be accorded the status of guests of the House. I’ll require thirty thousand standard creds in unmarked cash chits for them when we arrive, as per our arrangement. Please confirm, and provide docking coordinates.”