Take his yacht away, for a start. Dakota wasn't ready to tell Corso or anyone else just what Moss had given her at Derinkuyu. She had thought more than once of trying a gentle infiltration of the Shoal-member's ship, but had held back for fear such an intrusion might be detected.
'I can't make any suggestions when it comes to the rest of the people on board,' Dakota replied. 'They tend to… keep their distance.'
'They do?'
She shot him a look of annoyance. 'Come on, Lucas, of course they do. I'm a machine-head and, worse, I'm the one they've all heard of, the one who gets blamed for just about everything that's gone wrong in their lives since Nova Arctis, right? I mean, apart from me and Ted, who the hell else has some kind of implant?'
A strange look passed over Corso's face, as if he had suddenly remembered something.
'What?' asked Dakota, peering at him.
'Nothing,' said Corso, a little too quickly. 'Look, it's true the rest of them can't help but remember what happened at Port Gabriel every time they see you. But that just makes it all the more important to prove you've not been compromised in the same way again.'
'And how do you propose to do that?' she asked, tightening her lips into a thin, bloodless line.
'Remember how I tracked down and destroyed the routines that Trader placed in your head back at Nova Arctis? Well, the med-bay should be up to the same job, and a deep scan on your implants would show if they're clean or not.'
Dakota's expression turned defiant, but Corso could detect the faint dampness at the corners of her eyes.
'All right,' she said, standing up. 'If that's what it takes. But you're going to have to persuade Ted to do the same.'
'I've already talked to him,' said Corso, straightening up once again. 'He's going to meet us there.' They found Ted Lamoureaux waiting at the entrance to the med-bay. He was looking distraught.
'You'd better take a look inside,' he said. 'I've already alerted the bridge.'
Dakota and Corso entered and immediately saw that the diagnostic equipment had been badly vandalized. Every unit above the examination table was blackened and burnt with scorch marks.
Lamoureaux came in behind them. 'I got here about twenty minutes ago,' he said. 'Everything's fried except for the medboxes.'
Dakota surveyed the damage, feeling suddenly numb. The labyrinth of bays and corridors that contained the med-bay was one part of the ship they had not searched during their hunt for Olivarri earlier.
Lamoureaux pushed past them, bringing himself to a halt by grabbing the edge of the examination table and pulling himself close to it. He reached up and levered open a panel on the side of one of the diagnostic units, revealing the scorched and blackened circuitry.
It occurred to Dakota that the easiest way to go around destroying the diagnostic gear would have been by using a handheld plasma cutter, just the kind of thing you would expect to find lying around a ship like the Mjollnir.
'The Commander told me to get here as fast as I… shit.'
Dakota turned to see Nancy Schiller appear in the doorway. She stared at the ruined scanner, then turned to look at Dakota, her knuckles turning white where they gripped the plasma-rifle that had barely left her hands since the start of the outage.
'We can manufacture new units, can't we?' asked Corso.
Lamoureaux pushed himself away from the table. 'I don't know if we can. It's going to take time to get the rest of the fabricators back online and up to full capacity, and we're pushing them to the limit as it is in manufacturing the new drive-spines. Full-body imaging gear like this is pretty advanced even for the fabricators we've got on board. It's not like knocking out gun-drones or spider-mechs.'
Corso gestured to Nancy to follow him out into the corridor, where they began conversing together in quiet tones.
Lamoureaux touched Dakota's elbow and she moved closer.
'This is going to make things harder for us both,' he said, keeping his voice low enough not to be overheard. 'It's going to seem like one of us did this so we couldn't be scanned.'
'Don't take this the wrong way, Ted, but you were in charge of the ship when everything shut down. And you were also the first one here.'
'I've been up on the bridge the whole time until now, and I'd also say this damage was done during the outage.'
'All right,' she said. 'Does it feel to you like someone's trying to set us up?'
'If they are, they're doing a very good job – not that we were winning any popularity contests before this.' As he said it, he glanced towards Nancy.
'You know,' said Dakota, 'I came down here and ran a scan on myself the first chance I had after coming on board. Just to be sure. Anyway, I'm clean.'
The corner of Lamoureaux's mouth twitched slightly. 'I did the same thing. Also clean. Did you tell the others that?'
'You think they'd just accept our word for it?'
They pulled apart as Schiller and Corso re-entered the med-bay.
'Commander Martinez is on his way here,' Nancy announced, still glaring at them both. 'Nobody moves until he gets here. Got that?' The several minutes before Martinez arrived were some of the most uncomfortable Dakota had ever experienced.
She could have communicated with Lamoureaux via their implants, but her gut told her that Nancy would only become even more paranoid if she guessed what they were doing. So they waited in silence, trying to avoid looking directly at Nancy, while Corso checked data-files on the med-bay's terminal.
Martinez, when he arrived, studied the ruined equipment with a defeated expression. 'Well, looks like nobody's getting scanned any time soon,' he muttered.
'Or maybe one of them did it,' said Nancy, her eyes burning into Dakota's. 'It's what we're all thinking, isn't it?'
Dakota did her best not to flinch from her gaze. 'Or maybe you did it, Nancy,' she suggested. 'It's not like anyone doesn't know you've got a problem with me and Ted.'
'Oh, come on,' Nancy snapped, gripping her weapon closer to her chest. 'Nobody's going to smash this stuff to pieces unless they were scared of what it might reveal.'
'Shut the hell up, Nancy,' growled Martinez. 'I don't want to hear one more word of idle speculation.'
Nancy fell silent, but still looked defiant.
'Lucas,' Martinez continued, 'how long would it take for us to build some new diagnostic units?'
'We can't,' Corso replied wearily. 'I just checked the fabricator databases and the med-bay blueprints have all been wiped as well.'
Nancy's gaze once again settled on Dakota, as if she had just heard a piece of particularly damning evidence. 'Well, what do you know,' she murmured, and stepped back out of the room.
Corso stared after her with an alarmed expression. 'Eduard-'
'Don't worry about her,' Martinez interrupted quietly. 'She's not going to do anything stupid. She's just scared – like the rest of us.'
Scared people do dangerous things, Dakota almost observed, but thought better of it. Martinez declared the bay off-limits and sealed the room with Schiller's help, placing a couple of dedicated sensors on the door that would sound a full alert if anyone tried to enter without permission. Corso and Lamoureaux made their way back to the bridge together.
As soon as they were out of earshot, Lamoureaux pulled Corso to a halt. 'We have to talk about Whitecloud,' he said urgently.
Corso nodded, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. 'I think I know what you're going to say. He's the only other one on board with an implant, so maybe he can also be compromised.'
Lamoureaux nodded. 'Uchidan implant technology isn't so very different from what I've got in my head.'
'I thought the Uchidan technology was a lot more limited?'
'Sure, extremely limited,' Lamoureaux confirmed. 'No localized environmental data, no ability to interface with any machinery outside of a dedicated transceiver, and even then only in the crudest possible way. I could stand right next to him and I wouldn't be able to tell if there's anything lodged in his brain, but that wouldn't necessarily mean he isn't vulnerable to outside control. I mean, I don't know whether it can be done, but that's not the same thing as saying it can't.'