Aberrant

Chapter 47

Kaplan strode up to the reception desk of the Silver Dawn's prison facilities, Atlas on his heels. The officer on duty straightened smartly behind his bank of screens. The absent thoughts of a sixty-year-old man thirty minutes from finishing his shift with a beer snapped to those of a Ship Security sergeant, one who recognised a pair of Space Corps officers. And trouble.

Kaplan didn't bother with niceties. "Two of your officers, Landon and Pi'akk, brought in a woman in the last hour. Jinsin Koel. Which cell?"

The sergeant didn't need to check his records, his mind a steel trap. "Not seen Landon and Pi'akk this shift, sir. And no one named Jinsin Koel's been booked. Only female brought in over the last couple of hours was a Throlean stripper who's a regular."

A pit opened up in Kaplan's stomach. "Locate your officers. I need to speak with them urgently." As the man snapped to the task, Kaplan turned to Atlas. Get Temple onto the security feeds. We need to find Jinx and those two officers.

Atlas nodded and shot his subordinate the instruction via his com.

"Sir." The SS sergeant behind the desk looked up from his tech. "Officers Landon and Pi'akk are not responding. Their coms appear to be offline. Would you like me to contact their supervisor?"

"No." The hollow in Kaplan's gut widened. "Thank you for your assistance, sergeant." He strode back to the brig's IST station, but as he entered a transport pod, he had to press the hold option. He had no idea where to head next.

By now, Jinx could be anywhere on the ship.

She could be dead already.

Something deep in his bones rejected that thought. She was in trouble, but alive. That's all he'd accept.

Atlas strode into the IST pod. "Priority call coming in." He tapped his com. "Temple, what you got?"

Lieutenant Jo Temple's swarthy, angular face filled Atlas' com screen. Her eyes, dark gleams in the glow of her HUD visor, flicked to Kaplan as he moved in, a curt acknowledgement, then shifted back to Atlas. "Vid analysis is running, as requested. Not sure how much help it'll be, though. I've already found signs of interference. The Dawn's surveillance systems are definitely compromised. Someone doesn't want us tracking these officers and their detainee."

"We'll trace their movements from your position." Kaplan punched in the Rha Si wards as the IST pod's destination. "ID witnesses for psionic reads."

"Preparing a list now." Temple tapped something off-screen. "Atlas, I have a prelim report for you on the restoration chamber failure. You were right. The unit was tampered with. Sun's hunting down the suspected saboteur now. Gordon Witmore, a med-tech who joined the crew five years ago. No problems indicated at any of his routine psi-scans. No financial irregularities found so far."

Atlas grunted. "Sun will find his motive soon enough, and how he's linked to the security breaches we've seen."

"Copy that." Temple glanced over her shoulder, offering a glimpse of the white, cylindrical medical chamber behind her. "I've also made progress with our survivor. You're not going to believe what I've found."

"The way this day is going?" Atlas drawled. "Try me."

Temple turned back, a predatory gleam in her eyes. "The guy's headtech's not dead like we thought. It's been reconfigured—to mesh with Xykeree tech. Total hack, but an insanely brilliant piece of programming. One that, according to the command history, took days. Looks like he did it himself, using outdated civilian neurotech—while being held on board and paralysed. Finding him half dunked wasn't dumb luck. I think our guy overrode a Xykeree's bio-tech interface. Briefly took control of the exskel hardware. If he survives and is even halfway sane, we're hiring him. He's a genius with planet-sized balls."