Into the Fire

^{CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT}

When the signal came, Ky and Palnuss were both in her office. “Commandant Vatta,” Ky said. “Major Palnuss, the Security duty officer, is also present.”

“General Molosay,” he said. “At your request, Rector Vatta and Sergeant Major Morrison are also present, along with Major Hong of Base Security, and Captain Gunsey, my aide, who will be recording this discussion. What’s happened?”

“Colonel Stornaki, Kvannis’s second in command, is in custody, on my orders, for evidence of conspiracy. I found an intentionally mislabeled bound book in Kvannis’s desk containing information of operational significance: names, contact lists, dates, and at least one outlined plan of action for a mutiny within the military.”

“Is it the only copy?”

“I don’t know, General, but I doubt it. I believe Kvannis left this one for Colonel Stornaki to retrieve. We are concerned that this facility is not ideal for holding Colonel Stornaki; nor do we have the forensic and interrogation expertise.”

“You want to send him here?”

“Yes, General, if you have the facilities.”

A pause. “We have the facilities, technically, but we, too, have discovered disturbing problems in personnel. Major Hong?”

“Yes, General. Commandant, we also have identified a few individuals who appear to be involved with the same conspiracy to mutiny, but we are by no means certain we have found all of them. We’ve been working on this problem, as it regards this base, since the sergeant major returned from TDY—”

“I know about that,” Ky said.

“Yes, Commandant. That’s why I’m not at all certain we’ve found all the conspirators—we still don’t know how many there are, and we’re having to rely on self-reporting far more than is safe. Some of those we’ve detained have managed to suicide.”

“Do you have another suggestion for Colonel Stornaki?” Ky asked.

“No, Commandant. Just giving you the latest facts. I can arrange transportation by a team I trust, if that is your decision. What about the book? Do you want the forensic team here to go over it?”

“Yes. We will make plain copies here, then send the original to you. The Academy does not have multiband scanners and other forensic tools.”

“Understood. We don’t actually have much in the way of documentary evidence here, so it can go to the top of the stack at once. From your brief examination, is there immediate threat status in it?”

“I’m not sure,” Ky said. “I’ve looked at only a few of the pages. Though the header is in clear, dates appear to be encrypted.”

“Definitely an urgent concern. It will take me about an hour and a half to arrange for the prisoner transport.”

“We will make copies of the book—”

“Two witnesses, if you can, from separate organizations—”

“Understood, Major. If there’s nothing else—?”

“Not from me, Commandant. Sir?” Hong turned to General Molosay.

“We have a plan,” Molosay said, with a tight smile. “Rector?”

“I will contact the Commandant later,” Grace said.

“Then I’ll get my people busy on those copies and continue a detailed search of this room,” Ky said. “And of course Stornaki’s quarters.”

When she disconnected, Major Palnuss said, “There’s a copier on this floor, Commandant, just down the hall. We can snag a Student Services clerk on the way.”

The copying went smoothly and the clerk prepared affidavits for them all to sign and thumb-stamp. Back in the Commandant’s office, Major Palnuss did a quick search of the desk, finding another hidden compartment in the bottom drawer on the right. Both, when opened, held slim folders full of more information. The right-hand drawer’s compartment also held the little book Ky had last seen in Miksland, Colonel Greyhaus’s logbook.

“We won’t have time to copy all that,” Palnuss said when she showed it to him. “We could send it along—”

“I turned it in to the military once,” Ky said, “and it disappeared, along with the other evidence I’d brought.”

“What other evidence?”

“IDs from the pilots of the shuttle and everyone who died. Bio samples from those poisoned—”

“Poisoned! I didn’t hear anything about that.”

“No. Well, the pilots’ emergency suits—and the Commandant’s and his aide’s—were all sabotaged to inject poison when they closed the faceplate. I collected samples of foam—saliva—from their lips. And the shuttle’s black box. Carried all that everywhere we went, handed it over to the military on my return to Port Major.”

“So we should be looking for that, too?”

“If you see something like a flight recorder—it was in an orange case, by the way—it could prove that the shuttle itself was also sabotaged.”

“Right. And ID packets?”

“Yes. I imagine the samples taken from the dead were simply incinerated, but then here’s Greyhaus’s logbook.”

“And he’s dead, too…”

“Yes, so I was told.”

“I think I should go along and make sure that Colonel Stornaki and the other items reach someone reliable.”

“I was about to ask you to do just that, Major. I should not leave the Academy until things have settled out.”

“Agreed.”

After he left, Ky opened the door to her secretary’s office. “Sera, that disturbance you heard was Colonel Stornaki showing himself to be a conspirator; he is now under arrest.”

She looked frightened. “Am I—”

“You are not under arrest, Sera, but I do need some answers. Did you ever suspect Kvannis or Stornaki of wrongdoing?”

“N-no. Commandant—former Commandant—Kvannis hired me; he is—was—such a nice man. I was actually his wife’s social secretary for years. I thought they had only military personnel out here, but he knew I needed a job and said the military pay plus a little more from him would be better. And he said he’d be more comfortable with me than with the former Commandant’s secretary, who was—well, I gather they did not get along. Of course he would prefer someone who didn’t argue all the time.”

Ky nodded, to keep her going.

“It wasn’t a very taxing job, Commandant. Much the same as working for his wife—actually less stressful because I didn’t have to arrange parties or redecorating or anything. Of course he never gave me anything classified to work with—he did all that himself, he and Colonel Stornaki. Are you—are you sure that Colonel Stornaki did something bad?” She looked worried.

Ky said, “Even though you’ve been very helpful today—”

“Oh, please!” Sera Vonderlane looked ready to cry. “Please don’t fire me! My daughter—I mean, I’m sure I can please you, just give me a chance.”

“Sera, you have not given me cause to fire you.” Ky kept her voice soft with an effort. “But the situation is such that I must have you checked out before you continue, because the person who hired you is absent without leave—and in the military that presupposes an ill intent. Before you become my permanent secretary, for however long I’m here, I must be sure that you are not secretly passing information outside this office.”

“I wouldn’t! That would be wrong!” Vonderlane’s eyes were wide open.

“Yes,” Ky said. “It would be. And that’s why you need to pass a security check.” She paused. The woman was trembling and a tear ran down her cheek. Genuine fear of losing a job or good acting? “Tell me—what is it about your daughter?”

That brought on a flood of tears and a narrative broken by gasps and sobs. “She—she was out with her children—for a break—the train to Falls Park and this car—it derailed—and they died—and she can’t—can’t work—and has no one—the house—her pension—”

“I see,” Ky said. “I understand; I’m so sorry. Listen carefully now. I am not firing you. Your salary will continue—though not the subsidy Kvannis was providing. But you cannot be working for me, in this office, until you have been cleared by security. I will do my best to find you a place to work in the meantime, but you will still get your salary regardless. Do you understand?”

“I—I will be paid?”

“Yes. Now, I want you to stay right there while I make a few calls. Can you do that?”

She wiped her eyes. “Yes, Commandant.”

“I will talk to you again shortly.”

“Yes, Commandant.”

Ky went back to her desk, leaving the door open. Sera Vonderlane was crying again, but softly. Now what? The woman was older than her own mother would have been. What could she do? Secretarial work, obviously. But where? It was irregular for her to be the Commandant’s secretary, and Ky would have preferred a military appointment for that post. But she could not toss the woman out to deal with a disabled adult daughter on her own, either. And she doubted Kvannis’s wife would take her back as a social secretary.

Vonderlane’s employment record was available to her: she could look up any of the staff. Sure enough, the woman had not undergone a background check when Kvannis hired her as his secretary. That was a breach of security and standard protocol. Her prior employment, as his wife’s social secretary, was on the record, but her references were all civilian women listed as “longtime family friends.” No credit check had been reported, no check of political connections or conflicts of interest. Clearly both Kvannis and his wife had counted on his rank and appointment to cover this breach. Which meant that someone in security was bent; she hoped it was not here at the Academy. Not, for instance, Palnuss, who now had the Greyhaus diary.

She used her skullphone to call the Rector again. Grace listened to Ky’s report. “Obviously she can’t stay as your secretary,” Grace said. “If she passes the security check, I’ll see if we can find her another place in the department. Do you think Kvannis is the one who hid all the evidence you brought back?”

“I suspect so, since we found Greyhaus’s log in his desk. Why he kept that I don’t know. My guess is that he incinerated the samples I hoped would help determine what poison was used. But we didn’t find the flight recorder, and those things won’t burn.”

“Someone’s got it, or threw it into the ocean,” Grace said. “Maybe it’s somewhere around the Academy. You should look for it.”

Ky closed her eyes briefly and shook her head. “This place is a warren,” she said. “There are far too many hiding places. But I’ll see what I can do.”

“Put the students on it. A reward to the one who finds it.”

“Aunt Grace, I’m not going to tell a bunch of young people to go poking around when some of them may have families who are part of the conspiracy. Besides, they’re on strict schedules. Military academy, remember?”

“Oh. Well, do your best.”

Next Ky called back to the Academy security team. “I need an escort to take Sera Vonderlane home,” she said. “And start a background check on her—no background check was done at the time she was hired. And do you know who a Colonel Dihann is? Was he ever on staff here?”

“Commandant, there’s only me and Corporal Metis here right now; Major Palnuss took the others with him out to the base because they’d been witnesses to making those copies. We’re not supposed to have fewer than two here in the Academy at any time…” His voice trailed away.

“Then who do you suggest I have escort her home? Any spare bodies around? She’s upset and worried, and I want her to get home safely.”

“Yes, Commandant, I can find someone, easy. Maybe ten minutes?”

“That will do. You can start running a proper background check on her. Her only former employment listed in her file here is working for Kvannis’s wife. And—Colonel Dihann?”

“Yes, Commandant. Colonel Dihann—no, he wasn’t ever assigned here. He came to talk to the former Commandant or Colonel Stornaki. Him and the major didn’t see eye-to-eye sometimes. The major thought there was something wrong about him, but we didn’t dig anything up.”

“Dihann signed off Vonderlane’s employment application,” Ky said. “On Kvannis’s word.” She glanced at the file again. Vonderlane had started at the Academy as soon as Kvannis took over… immediately after the shuttle went down.

“That’d be because he and Kvannis were buddies. He told the major they’d worked together in Dorland, at Joint Services Headquarters South.”

Dorland. Capital Makkavo. Had Aunt Grace been there, or at Esterance, when the Unification War started? “I’ll get back to you later; I need to speak to Sera Vonderlane again, make sure she understands she cannot take anything out of the Academy.”

Sera Vonderlane looked slightly better; she wasn’t actually crying and she remained calm while Ky explained what she would need to do. “You’ll have an escort to your residence; your pay can be sent there, or deposited automatically, as you prefer.”

“It goes to my bank now, Commandant. The military pay, I mean. Commandant Kvannis gave me the extra himself, in cash.”

So—under the table, what could easily be construed as a bribe for her silence. “It will be a few days before I talk to you again,” Ky said. “I have a lot to do, and I’m sure you deserve some days off. And you must not take anything from here—your keys to this room and the files, for instance. I have begun a background investigation, but I don’t expect to find anything amiss. Please do not leave the city, however.”

“I wouldn’t!”

“Good. I—” She paused as a tap came on the secretary’s door to the passage. “Come.”

It was her own assigned driver; she wished she’d thought of that herself. “Ah—Corporal, Sera Vonderlane wasn’t feeling well and will be taking a few days off. Take her to her residence and see her to the door.”

“Yes, Commandant.”

Sera Vonderlane looked at Ky, her expression pleading, but Ky had already given her what she could. “Take care of your daughter,” Ky said. “This will all work out, one way or another.” Vonderlane nodded and followed the driver out. Ky picked up the keys from the desk and locked both doors to the secretary’s office. She would need a new secretary, but before that the office would have to be searched. She was tempted to do it herself, but she needed a witness.

Stella Vatta stared at the surface of her desk, having finally cleared the morning’s items, and wondered whether the change she felt would last or fade away. For now, it was still vivid in her mind—the attack, her fear, her determination to survive, her realization that she had to walk on blood and broken glass past men she had killed, through the destruction the intruders had wrought inside the house, and finally the moment when she saw herself in the mirrors flanking the door—the mirrors her mother had made her check every time to be sure she was fit to be leave the house—and had seen herself whole, real, for the first time.

Grimy, bloodstained, disheveled, her good clothes fouled past cleaning, everything she had been brought up to avoid—what should have completed her dismay—but still herself. Out of the dirt and blood and fear she had found a new self emerging, familiar and new at the same time. Stella Vatta, CEO of Vatta Enterprises, a woman whose strength was not her beauty, whose elegance was not her wardrobe, who could enjoy beauty and clothes and a fine house, but did not need them.

And that, she was sure after another brief consideration, was not going away. She didn’t want to be attacked—no sane person did. She would rather be clean, well groomed, wearing comfortable and attractive clothes—any sane person would. But never again would she feel incomplete without them. Never again would she feel guilty just because something had dirtied her face. She had earned that internal stability, not just by surviving the attack, but by all the years she’d lived, all the challenges met—even the ones she’d met badly. She had no mirrors in her office, but she didn’t need them. She knew who she was, and being a bastard, adopted, daughter of a monster—was not her identity. She thought of Osman, this time without shame or horror. “I’m not you,” she said quietly. “And you can’t define me.”

She took a deep breath, glanced at the time—three whole minutes?—and looked at the latest security analysis that had just popped up on her screen: threats detected, threats averted, threats reported to authorities. On Cascadia six incidents against the Vatta factory making shipboard ansibles, four of them traceable to the Bentik extended family. Jen’s relatives blaming Ky—and then Vatta—for her death. Somewhat to her surprise, Stella saw that although local law enforcement went warily on the first two, the next incidents had brought the usual swift and efficient response, senatorial family or not. Two family members were under arrest, and the family had been assessed a fine and a financial hold. Only two Vatta employees had been injured, and both were now in stable condition.

Stella sent personal notes to their families and commendations to her security staff and the Cascadian law enforcement. The other two threats hadn’t been traced yet.

Here on Slotter Key, other attacks had continued, at least partly in response to the rescue of the Miksland survivors. Besides the attack on the Vatta aircraft the day of the rescue, Vatta trucks had had tires slashed, resulting in one wreck. The home of a Vatta senior manager in Dorland was broken into and vandalized, with substantial property damage, but the family had been on vacation. She contacted Bry Skinner and promised that he and his family would be getting a Vatta Security detail as soon as possible. They were staying in a remote forest lodge.

“I’d like to send the family to live with my parents in Arland for a while,” he said. “If this gets worse—”

“Absolutely,” Stella said. “Have you been in contact with your parents?”

“Yes, Sera. They have a large house—it was on the market but they’ll be just as glad to stay there as long as it’s not just the two of them. They’re in Arsinine.”

“When can you get to a transport hub?”

“I’m not sure. I’m leery of hiring private transport in an area I don’t know well; ideal would be a VTOL of some sort, but the resort lists only local operators.”

“We’ll send info with the security team.”

She realized, in the midst of making calls to charter a VTOL craft with the range to extract them, arranging a charter flight for the family to Arsinine, letting Bry know that help was on the way, and ensuring ground transportation from the Arsinine airport to his parents’ house—that this was much like what Ky had done. That her care for Vatta employees was like Ky’s for her soldiers. Well. Another new idea, and one she would have to share with Ky when the Commandant had time.

Ky and Corporal Metis began searching Sera Vonderlane’s office. “Tech Coston will call if he needs us,” Metis said. “Did you turn out her purse?”

“Had her do it. I’m sure I have all the keys but the one she said opened her apartment. Also two datacards, the probe with the access built in, a couple of letters. Nothing in her pockets but lint.”

“She seemed like a nice lady,” Metis said. “Of course, I saw her only occasionally.”

“I think she is a nice lady,” Ky said. “But she’s been economically dependent on Kvannis for years. As his wife’s social secretary, she apparently did him some favors, too. And he was paying her another twenty-five percent on top of her salary.”

“That’s… illegal, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but I don’t think she knew. She’d started working for his wife because of her daughter’s injuries; he already knew about her medical expenses from that. She’d be doing him a favor to come to the Academy; he wouldn’t let her income suffer. That kind of thing.”

“I wonder what he wanted her to do,” Metis asked. They had found nothing in the center desk drawer but what should be there: styluses, pencils, notepads, some with notes and some not. A printed list of the Academy faculty and staff, faculty with blue checks beside their names and staff with orange. Metis opened the left-hand drawer. “Well. Here’s something.”

Ky looked over. He held up a small machine. “What’s that?”

“Something she shouldn’t have had. A fully programmable franking printer. She could make something look like it came from any government agency.” He pulled a pad from the center drawer, fiddled with the controls, and inserted a sheet; the machine emitted a beep and then the image of a Slotter Key stamp imposed on the Department of Defense logo. Another sheet; he changed the controls and that one printed out OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT. “These are coded, supposed to be strictly controlled.” He put it into the trolley he’d brought along for evidence.

Also in the drawer were preprinted envelopes with the return addresses of a dozen or more governmental agencies and offices in the military.

“Look at this,” Metis said. On the point of each envelope flap was a small irregular spot, a smudge as if it had been touched by a soiled finger. “A signal that these envelopes weren’t what they seemed?”

“Could be,” Ky said. Her drawer had produced a box of stationery, completely blank, a box of pens printed with the Commandant’s name and title—Kvannis, not Vatta, of course—and at the very back, a small envelope attached to the back of the drawer. “Bet this has a key in it,” she said.

“Let me, Commandant,” Metis said, as she reached for the envelope. He pulled a set of tongs out of his kit and tugged gently at the envelope. It ripped and a cloud of white powder flew out. He dropped the tongs and turned away, scrabbling at his pocket; Ky slapped her own emergency mask on and a second on him before he got his own out.

“Hurry,” she said, pulling him toward her office. Eyes wide, he followed her, but stopped at the door, pointing to his shirt front, speckled with white. “I’ll call,” Ky said. Tech Coston answered from the security office. She told him what had happened, what they needed.

“Closest tox scanner is city emergency response,” he said, sounding worried. “There’s a team out at the base, of course, but that’s twice as far—”

“Call the closest. Corporal Metis has visible powder on his uniform. I’m at my desk and will answer any questions.”

“Yes, Commandant.”

This was going to take hours, even if it turned out to be face powder. “Call’s going in to the city team,” she said to Metis, still standing at the doorway. He looked fine, though worried, as well he might be. “I’m going to check for emergency supplies in this office.”

There was, in fact, an emergency box mounted on the wall of the little sitting room, and another in the toilet. More emergency masks, a fire hood and mask, fire-resistant gloves, in both places. She put on the fire hood and brought the other one to Metis. He shook his head. “Even with tongs, my hands might be contaminated. I’m better off with the one I’m wearing.”

“I can put it on you without touching you,” Ky said. “It’ll protect your face better. Turn around.”

She had put these things on in drills—on herself, on someone else—and in seconds his face was protected. She went to the window of her office and looked out. Flashing lights approached.

“That was fast,” she said. “Something’s coming.”

“Maybe we don’t need them,” he said. “I don’t feel anything. It’s probably nothing. And you slapped that mask on me really fast.”

“I certainly hope so. But you’re going to be checked over and the stuff analyzed, anyway.” She went back to the window. A single vehicle, not any larger than a personal car, had pulled up below. Her desk com chimed. She answered. “Commandant Vatta.”

“This is Port Major Emergency Response. Please state your name, address, and the nature of your emergency.”

“This is Commandant Vatta. I’m in my office in the headquarters building of the Academy, and one of your vehicles just pulled up to the door. The nature of the emergency is possible exposure to a dangerous substance unknown at this time.”

“Oh… this is the actual Commandant? Not a secretary?”

“Yes, this is Commandant Vatta. Two persons were exposed; one of them has particles of a white powder on his uniform. I was in the room but not immediately adjacent to the release of the powder.”

“What was it released from?”

“An envelope. We need—”

“We understand your needs, Sera; please calm down.” She hadn’t raised her voice; she had an urge to raise it now, when the voice added, in the same tone, “Why were we called? The Academy is outside our jurisdiction.”

“You are the nearest emergency service with the ability to handle toxic materials,” Ky said. “Although you are not military, you are listed as first response anywhere in the city. The Joint Services base is west of the city, and it would take much longer for them to arrive. That is why Tech Coston called you.”

“Is he breathing?”

“Tech Coston? He was not exposed.”

“The person who was exposed. Is he breathing?”

“Yes. But if the powder is any of several things I can think of, it’s imperative that he be decontaminated and taken to hospital quickly.”

“It’s just—a moment, my supervisor wants to speak with you.”

Ky heard voices in the background of the call. She punched her controls for video, but it was blocked.

“Commandant Vatta?” A deeper voice this time.

“Yes,” Ky said.

“We have a problem. You—well, not you personally but the Commandant before you—ordered Port Major law enforcement off the premises, threatened us if we ever intruded again. We’d had an emergency call and sent an ambulance—”

“Surely you’ve heard that former Commandant Kvannis is now a fugitive—”

“I knew he was gone—”

“Yes. And I’m the Commandant for the interim—no dates set yet—and we need you as quickly as you can get here. That Corporal Metis hasn’t fallen over yet is reassuring, but not conclusive proof that he, or even I, haven’t had exposure to a dangerous toxin or disease.”

“A crew’s on the way, Commandant; we just had to check that we weren’t walking into a trap.”

A trap? What kind of nonsense had Kvannis been pulling?

“No trap on my end,” Ky said. “Just a need for emergency response; glad you’ve dispatched one.”

Thanks to the city crew’s delay, the military response team arrived first, by two minutes. Ky made sure its commander was cleared by Major Hong as having no part in the conspiracy before letting them treat Metis—swathing him in a bubble half the size of the room, vacuuming his clothes and mask, and then taking him, in a tented gurney, off to the military hospital. When the civilian team arrived, Ky asked them to proceed with the analysis and search of that office; they also took samples from her.

“I don’t think it’s toxic,” one of them said finally. “I think it’s a marker of some kind. Intended to catch thieves or snoopers, not kill them. It’s been how long since you saw it puff out? Not an hour yet? If it’s what I think it might be, and if it got on your white uniform, you may have speckles—green or blue, usually—where it landed.”

“So I can take this mask off?”

“Yes, Commandant.”

“Why the delay? Why not an instant marker?”

“So the thief doesn’t know they’ve been marked right away. It reacts with protein slowly, creating an indelible mark that can’t be washed off.”

Ky looked at her sleeve. “You mean—it could ruin this uniform permanently?”

“If it’s an animal fiber, like wool. Mostly it marks skin. May I ask what you were searching for?”

“Evidence I had turned in to the military upon my return from Miksland. Former Commandant Kvannis claimed it had been misplaced or lost. We found some in my office, and another piece in that one. I think Kvannis was hiding it in various places; we think it will reveal who was responsible for the shuttle crash.”

“Why would Kvannis do that?”

Ky considered the risks and benefits of opening another gap in the conspiracy of silence and went ahead. “Miksland’s mineral resources and utility have been kept secret for several hundred years, exploited by the few who knew the secret. When we survived to land on it, and found one of the installations there, we—all the survivors—became targets for those who wanted the secret kept. I didn’t know that at the time, of course, so I had collected evidence I thought might be useful later. Kvannis was part of that conspiracy, so of course he suppressed it.”

“Why didn’t he just destroy it?”

“I have no idea. Maybe someone else told him to keep it, or maybe he had a use for it later. He absconded from here when he realized that the other survivors had been rescued from their imprisonment—”

“Imprisonment? What had they done?”

“Nothing. Supposedly they had some contagious disease that required them to be quarantined. Surely you’ve seen the newsvids about that in the last couple of days? The plan was to kill them and dispose of the bodies in sealed coffins.”

“You weren’t flying the shuttle, were you?”

“No. Nor did I sabotage it, or poison the pilots.”

“The pilots were poisoned?”

“The pilots, the Commandant, his aide—all the officers aboard, by a mechanism in their survival suits. If I hadn’t insisted on bringing my own suit with me from my flagship, I’d have died before the crash. I brought back samples of the poison and also saliva from the pilots, hoping it could be analyzed to find out who was responsible, but that’s part of the evidence that disappeared after I turned it in.” The officer opened his mouth but Ky went on before he could speak. “That investigation properly belongs to the military, and now that I’ve located some of the missing evidence I’m sure an inquiry will go ahead.”

“Well—the crime didn’t take place here in Port Major, so I don’t suppose anyone will ask for our help in it.”

Ky didn’t comment on that.

“But we are concerned with crimes within the city. You know about the Vatta house—?”

“The attack night before last? Yes, Stella and I have been in contact.”

“It was a near thing—damage inside the house, from the firefight. Sera Vatta did a fine job defending herself.”

“Firefight! She didn’t tell me about that.” She had cut Stella short, accepting her brief reassurance.

“Yeah. Vatta HQ called us to check when they lost contact with the house and couldn’t raise Sera Vatta. Our first people were attacked, but got off a call for backup. Vatta had a couple of crews on the way, but they’d been all the way out at the airport. In the end Sera Vatta was alive with only minor injuries, all the intruders on the scene were dead, and we captured some familiar faces from the Malines cartel downtown.”

Ky felt another stab of guilt for not warning Stella they’d be leaving the house empty, and remembered she’d agreed to call Stella herself sometime today.

“Sir—there’s a box here with a lock that might fit this key.”

“Try it,” Ky said when one of the officers glanced at her. She watched from across the room. No puff of powder, nothing threatening at all until the lid came up and she saw what was inside: the samples she’d taken in the shuttle that first day.

“That looks like biological waste,” the officer said. “It’s got numbers on it—important, Commandant?”

Her voice caught for a moment, then she cleared her throat. “Yes. Those are the samples I collected. Let me see—I labeled them, and when I handed them over they were stamped with a number—”

“Pilot Hansen? Copil… that must mean copilot?” Another glance at Ky.

“The shuttle was rocking around on the waves,” Ky said. “I didn’t have time for more.”

“Sunyavarta,” the officer said. “And these tissues had their saliva? You collected it?”

“Yes—they had foam at their lips. We had a med tech aboard, she drew blood samples—those tubes.”

“We have a competent forensic lab—you still think all this should go back to the military—?” Who “lost” it in the first place, was the clear unspoken message.

“I do,” Ky said. “Since the survivors have been freed, and their stories are going public—and the military isn’t all bent, after all—these things need to be investigated there. They have the data on personnel that you don’t, and it’s someone on the inside who sabotaged the shuttle and the survival suits. For all we know it was someone up on the station.”

“All right—but I’ll want to observe a clean chain of possession to retain the evidentiary value of this evidence.”

“Absolutely,” Ky said. “I would prefer that your personnel remain here until my security officer gets back from the base to take possession of it, and then we’ll certify that your people didn’t tamper with anything.”

“Fine. How long will that be?”

“Several hours—I’m sorry, but this office didn’t have a large security staff, and they were transporting a prisoner. I’ll call and see if they can cut him loose earlier.”

He left her in her office, and she called the officer’s outfitter to find out what to do about her uniform.

“That powder? Can you change immediately? We were about to deliver your second uniform.”

“Yes,” Ky said. “I hope you can save this one.”

“Do not put it into the ’fresher; that could set the stain. And avoid daylight.”

Which meant cutting through the inside corridors above ground level. Circuitous, and added almost ten minutes to the usual time.

She left word that she was going back to the residence to change and wash off any residual marking powder. By the time she had arrived there, the tailor she had first seen at the base was there to deliver her second uniform and take away the first. Ky cleaned up, dressed in her new uniform—it fit even better—and called Major Palnuss from her quarters.