“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.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“I’ll come back right away,” Palnuss said when Ky told him about the evidence she’d found. “Major Hong’s taken over the investigation, reporting to General Molosay. Everything I brought out has been logged and is as secure as they can make it. Stornaki’s not going anywhere; he’s been screened for suicide and is presently sedated and prepped for interrogation. They don’t need me, really.”
“Good,” Ky said. “I hate to keep the police here too long but we want that chain of custody—”
“Of course. An hour at most, depending on traffic.”
Ky offered the police refreshments—it seemed the decent thing to do—and went on dealing with the items on her desk that needed work. Her driver came back after delivering Sera Vonderlane to her home and seeing her to the door. About a half hour later, her skullphone pinged.
“I’m safe,” Rafe said. Ky felt her shoulders relax, tension she hadn’t recognized in the midst of everything else. “I’m exhausted, hungry, dirty, and wearing the clothes of a mountainous thirteen-year-old farm kid. I’m being driven from place to place by friends of the first farmer. Can’t take other transport without ID. Just got in range for calling again. Where is everybody? Where are you?”
“In the Commandant’s Residence at the Academy,” Ky said, over the pounding of her pulse.
“Why?” Rafe demanded. “Are you in trouble?”
“Haven’t you heard?” Ky said, in the most honeyed tone she could manage. “I’m the new Commandant.”
Silence for a moment, then a snort of laughter. “You. The new Commandant. What happened to the old one?”
“Ran away in the nighttime,” Ky said. “Where were you?”
“Running from trouble up and over a small mountain. Then it got dark. Not just dark: cold, wet, and full of big hairy monsters with horns and hard hooves, and I did battle with them. Outnumbered, I fell, was trampled, and rescued by heroes—”
“In other words you stumbled into a pasture and bumped into some cattle and the farmer drove them away.”
“No, I drove them away, but they chose to run over me first. Also, it was a total dead zone for communications. Some of these farms don’t even have electricity. Right now I need a faster way home than from farmhouse to farmhouse, and a change of clothes. But when I finally get to Port Major, I can come over there and rescue you.”
“I don’t need rescue,” Ky said. “I’m fine—new uniform and all.”
“You really are the Commandant of the Academy?”
“Yes. With a full schedule and add-on excitement. Police, military security, attempted assassinations, traps—”
“Gods. Any chance you can arrange a free ride on a Vatta truck for me? I’m a few kilometers outside some town called Stone Crossing.”
“May be much later, but yes. I’ll call you. Or Stella will. Stay where you can catch a ping.”
“Yes, Commandant.” Lilting, sweet.
Relief felt like the bubbles in wine. All the people from Miksland had been rescued. And now Rafe was safe. Or would be, when she’d found him transport. She called Stella.
“Rafe’s called; he’s stuck out on a farm near… uh… Stone Crossing. With no ID, and his visa status still not fixed. Does Vatta have anything nearby he could hitch a ride on?”
“Let me look—Stone Bay, Stone Center, Stone… there it is. We don’t have a warehouse there, and the daily eastbound truck went through there two hours ago; the next truck is westbound, in an hour. He could connect to an eastbound at… um… that’s another four hours and then more hours back. Stone Crossing has a small general-aviation field, no commercial flights. It would take one of the little planes. Is that safe? I heard one of our long-haul planes was threatened.”