Desperate Measures Chapter 29

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Erik’s eyes shifted left to right as he pored over one of the files on a large data window projected in front of his chair in his living room. Numbers, numbers, and more numbers.

“This isn’t what I’d expected,” he complained. “I thought it was going to be more dramatic.”

“It’s kind of exactly what I expected,” Jia replied, looking between four different data windows. “He’s a piece of trash, but at the end of the day, Barbu is a businessman, and he understands how devastating records are.” She smiled. “This was how we discovered our first big lead, by looking through records.”

“That was more you.” Erik smiled. “I just followed your example. I don’t know, I was expecting a recording of Sophia Vand plotting something. A concrete lead.”

“This

is

something,” Jia insisted. “We just have to figure out what it is. With this volume of data, these must be important. Once we know the context, everything will fall into place. This seems familiar, and at least some of these are dates, but I can’t figure it out.”

“Dates?” Erik squinted. “They are?”

“Julian dates in an astronomy context,” Jia explained.

“I’ll take your word for it.”

He wasn’t seeing the pattern in the numbers, and he had no idea how an astrometric Julian date was calculated, but they’d already established that at least one set of numbers meant something. That gave them a better chance of figuring out the rest.

“Yes, you are correct, Jia.” Emma appeared with a triumphant smile. “I’ve been reviewing both the data on the rod and my own data concerning Barbu during the encounter. I can find no evidence that he hacked the drones. He must have achieved a temporary disruption, followed by some form of advanced camouflage. I see no evidence of unusually advanced technologies, but there are certain limitations in the sensors in this body compared to the

Argo

or the

Bifröst.

”

“I really was joking about the jumping.” Erik looked up from his window. “So, instead of Barbu having unusually good hacking skills, he has access to advanced technology that lets him trick drones, cameras, and your sensors, and active optical camo, too. I don’t know if that makes me feel better just because it’s not Hunter tech. Those bastards on Molino only needed to be a little more advanced than my unit to ambush us.”

“Be that as it may, it implies he would not be able to easily disappear if he was, for example, in a small restaurant.” Emma let out a snort of triumph. “As for the records, I’ve established what they are with a less than 0.2 percent margin of error.”

“Care to share with us mere fleshbags?” Jia asked. “I’m thinking they’re not only dates.”

“Your deduction is correct. They are sanitized shipping records. They don’t all appear to be from the same companies, given the routes, and without additional information about their source, I have no method of determining what was being shipped, but they all indicate dates and locations. They appear to be from all over the UTC, as one file clearly indicates HTP coordinates.”

Erik wrinkled his forehead. “Shipping records without the companies or the cargo. How is that helpful?”

“If it’s the conspiracy, it tells us where they’ve been and when,” Jia offered.

A three-dimensional star map of the UTC appeared, white lines stretching between the actively connected systems. Red and blue lines stretched between different systems, marking some of the shipments, forming a dense, impenetrable web.

Emma pointed to the map. “There’s a pattern of someone using a lot of different companies to carefully conceal the mass movement of unknown cargo while simultaneously coordinating it with military-like precision. I can’t be certain of what was moved where, since these records don’t include any detailed tracking information for the cargo, but by overlaying dates and locations, at least some of the routes could be traced from origination. And there is a curious specificity to our current situation.”

She magnified a star system on the edge of the UTC. Bile rose in the back of Erik’s throat when the colony moon appeared. He recognized it before she added the helpful legend.

Mu Arae System, Molino, First moon of Planet Quijote

“According to the information on the rod,” Emma continued, “there were shipments shortly before and after the ambush. Unfortunately, as I noted, there is no clear identification of cargo or tracking numbers, so I can’t follow the entire path of the Molino cargo. Please note those shipments don’t seem to correspond to other shipment data I previously obtained while investigating this matter.”

“That doesn’t help,” Erik replied, his voice low. “I found messages when I first got back to Earth talking in code, but that made me think they’d already shipped stuff, probably whatever Hunter or Navigator artifacts they found there and didn’t want the government finding out about it. What good is any of this?”

Jia shook her head. “It might not help us to look at the data since despite having Emma, we still have limited access to the breadth and depth of possible data to compare the contents of the rod. We should hand it over to Alina and let her analysts go to work. She could plug the holes, and maybe even figure out the companies and cargo.”

Emma nodded. “I will continue analyzing the data to the best of my ability, but Agent Koval’s people are more likely to be able to extract something more immediately useful out of it. Please note this does not imply they have analytical superiority.”

Erik chuckled. “Noted, and it makes sense. The ID has a much bigger picture available than we do. We’ll keep the rod just in case, but Emma can send them all the data, and we’ll explain where we got it.”

“Speaking of that, I’m still bothered by how Barbu got this and why he has it.” Jia swiped through her windows and closed them.

“Is it that important right now?”

“It could be. We don’t know who he really is. I don’t buy the Not-So-Friendly Neighborhood Arms Dealer act. He disappeared well enough that the CID couldn’t find him, which means he’s not a normal criminal, and I don’t care how many connections he has, asking around and pulling in favors from friends wouldn’t get him detailed cargo shipments from the conspiracy.” Jia folded her arms. “That’s what this is supposed to be, right? The Molino data confirms it.”

Erik stared at Molino. The memories of the battle were never far away. They motivated his every action between awakening and falling asleep at night. His trip to Provence reached those fifty light-years from Earth to the frontier moon colony. A once-desperate lost cause seemed achievable, and he didn’t mind rolling around in the mud if it helped.

“If Barbu wanted to set us up, giving us some records isn’t the way to do it.” Erik stood. “And that’s the only thing I care about. But you’re right, and we have evidence he was involved in the Chang’e incident. He might not have been happy about them using that bomb, but if we’re right, he had no problem giving guns to people he knew were about to hurt a lot of folks.”

“So what’s his angle? We need to know before the next time we deal with him.”

“Before Sophia died, she mentioned some woman, and now we’ve got Barbu giving us this.” Erik chuckled darkly. “And then there were the two separate ships that traveled to the Hunter ship.”

“The conspiracy turning on itself? We’ve been wondering, but it’s been hard to say.”

Erik nodded. “We’ve got more than enough evidence now. I can’t say I’m going to complain if they line up to screw each other over. It makes it easier for us if they’re tearing each other apart.”

“Then we’re being used.” Jia crossed her arms. “We don’t know how far this goes. They could be purposely leaking information to the ID and us to get them to take out anyone who can stand in the way of their power. How do we know they won’t end up stronger after this?”

Erik scoffed. “Because they won’t end up stronger than our side. They keep losing people and resources. There are always going to be more people hunting the conspiracy than at the top.”

Jia blew out a breath. “I hope that’s true.”

“I’ve been involved in my share of anti-insurgent campaigns,” Erik replied, breezy calm in his voice. “I’d like to say most of them failed because of the superior training and skills of the UTC Army, but that’s only half of it.”

“Okay.” Jia figured it would be faster to ask than wait for Erik to get to the point. “What’s the other half?”

“That simple truth is that a lot of rebellions defeat themselves.” Erik tore his attention away from the star map and Molino. “People get fed up with governments for all sorts of reasons, but they’re often the same ones. It makes sense to band together when you know the Army or cops are on their way, but those differences are a slow poison. Factions end up betraying each other, selling out to the government to try to get influence, or simply becoming arrogant and thinking they don’t need the others anymore.”

Jia lowered her arms with a surprised look on her face. “You think that’s what’s happening with the conspiracy?”

“Fleshbags are ever so disagreeable,” Emma offered cheerfully.

“It’d explain a lot of what we’ve seen, especially on the Hunter ship, and the uneven response to the raids. Not just us, the ID, too.” Erik rubbed his hands together. “Which means we’ll have more opportunities to fatally wound them coming up. Not bad. I’m getting excited.”

He turned back to the star map. Barbu might work for the conspiracy or be nothing more than a criminal wronged by them. It didn’t matter.

Too many of Erik’s and his allies’ actions had been defensive, including going after the Hunter ship. Blowing up a

yaoguai

factory wasn’t satisfying, not as much as taking out the main Ascended Brotherhood base had been. Between the intel from the

yaoguai

raid and this rod, it was time to push their efforts into offense. The best time to take on the enemy was when they were divided.

“It’s inevitable.” Erik smiled. “You know Ben Franklin’s old joke about secrets?”

Jia frowned. “What joke?”

“Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead. Let’s send the info and wait for Alina to get back to us.”