If you mean the sudden cessation of your crew’s activity, I don’t believe that was directly the result of the intruder’s actions. The servitors inform me that there is some sort of security lockdown in effect, likely initiated by the hexarch.
Well, that wasn’t helpful. Thank you, Jedao said by rote anyway, because he didn’t see any sense in alienating the only other person he knew to be conscious. I’ll see if I can get matters sorted.
By the time he made it to Medical, he had passed twenty-nine more collapsed crew. It had been fast-acting, whatever it was. Only a couple had masks on, and the masks hadn’t done them any good, which was even more worrying. Servitors patrolled the halls. He refrained from asking them where the hell they had been when whoever-it-was had attacked him. The security failure wasn’t their fault. Besides, he suspected the assassin had been a professional. He should have enacted protective measures in case someone tried such a thing, and hadn’t. If the crew died because of his shortsightedness—
The medics were no help on account of having fallen prey to the unknown ailment as well. Jedao agonized, then located Colonel-Medic Nirai Ifra and hoisted her up onto a pallet. He devoted his efforts to reviving her first on the grounds that an actual doctor would be of more help in this situation. He agonized some more over whether to hook her up to a standard medical unit. While his augment contained a set of first aid primers that would talk him through the procedure, getting it wrong could damage her. Given the circumstances, though, he didn’t see that he had much choice. He followed the instructions assiduously, apologizing silently to Ifra.
And after all of that, no luck. The medical unit indicated that something was wrong, but beyond that he didn’t possess the expertise necessary to perform further diagnosis. Jedao bit back a scream of frustration. Nevertheless, he wasn’t done. He settled all the other medics on pallets of their own, then Dhanneth as well, feeling faintly guilty for not prioritizing his aide. There probably wasn’t any single good way to decide.
By now, the exertion and shock of the situation had taken its toll. Jedao had sat down for a break and was trying to decide whether it was safe to pour himself a glass of water from one of the sinks when Kujen messaged him. Come to my quarters, the message said. You will be safe there.
Jedao couldn’t help but burst into laughter. What did “safe” mean anymore? Especially since he’d just survived... how many bullets? Four, five? He wondered with a sort of pale horror whether the bullets were still lodged in his brain, or whether the regeneration process had shoved them out, and wasn’t sure which of the two alternatives was more gruesome.
Well, if safe would get him a glass of water, he’d go. He got up and stroked Dhanneth’s hand and pressed a kiss to it, despite the presence of the others, then set out.
By the time Jedao reached Kujen’s quarters, he was drenched in sweat. At least his uniform had repaired itself, although it had failed to cope with his blood. He felt sticky and disheveled, and he was past giving a damn.
“It’s Jedao,” he said to the door. “Let me in or I’ll fall over, not to spite you but because this has not been the best day for me.”
The door opened. Jedao would have limped in if he hadn’t been injured in both knees. Couldn’t you have made me with four legs, Kujen, like some kind of chimera-beast? he wondered. Of course, then the assassin would have shot him in four knees and he’d be in twice as much pain.
The secondary function of Kujen’s outer rooms became clear: they functioned as partitions, cycling like an internal airlock. By the time he reached Kujen in one of the inner rooms, this one decorated with fantastic curtains of lace, Jedao was fed up with the whole enterprise. Too bad he wasn’t still bleeding or he would have enjoyed dripping all over the carpet.
By way of contrast, Kujen didn’t have a hair out of place, and he was perfectly poised in a jacket of dark gray velvet over a silken robe. Jedao hated himself for noticing Kujen’s clothes, although admittedly on a moth full of people in uniform, Kujen’s decidedly civilian clothes stood out. “General,” Kujen said, very gravely. “Have a seat. You look terrible.”
“Nice to know you won’t coddle me,” Jedao said. He hobbled over to the nearest chair and sank down into it, cringing at the way his knees complained when he bent them. Surreptitiously, he experimented with different angles to see if he could find one that hurt less, which only made matters worse. “What the fuck happened to the crew?”
“Security protocol. One I save for emergencies, which this was.”
It took a second for the words to penetrate. “That was you?”
“Don’t stand up. You can shout at me while sitting down.”
“This isn’t funny, Kujen.” Jedao shut his eyes for a moment, thinking with a sick heart of the sprawled soldiers and technicians and medics, of Dhanneth keeling over while trying to defend him. When he opened them, Kujen’s unruffled expression had not changed. Jedao was sorely tempted to get up and hit him, except Kujen was the only one who knew what was going on, and besides, it wouldn’t do any good.
“There is a problem with formation instinct,” Kujen said, as if delivering a lecture to a trapped schoolchild, “which is that if someone manages to subvert an individual of sufficiently advanced rank, the whole thing goes down like a house of cards.”
“I can imagine,” Jedao said bleakly. “So what, somebody stole a uniform and dressed up as a Kel general?”
“It’s not quite that simple. If anyone could hack the uniforms that easily, the system would be useless. Uniforms are keyed to authorization codes that ultimately go all the way back to Kel Command.” Kujen grimaced. “Normally you don’t have to think about this because the augment handles all the crypto.”
Jedao gave Kujen a hard look. “And you just happened to have mine on hand?”
Kujen didn’t answer that. “The intruder managed to get by us by subverting someone. I’ve been going through the security footage and I’ve figured out who gave her the accesses she needed.” He brought up a video on his slate.
The executive officer, Lieutenant Colonel Meraun, stopped to talk to a Nirai engineer outside her office. Then she invited him in and they continued talking. Jedao couldn’t make heads or tails of their conversation, but then, he wasn’t an engineer.
Kujen shook his head impatiently and stabbed the slate in a rare display of temper. “That entire conversation is hash.”
“Maybe it was a joke,” Jedao said despite his unease.
“No, you don’t get it,” Kujen said. “It’s recycled verbatim from an episode of one of my least favorite dramas, which features a plucky Kel adventurer and her Nirai companion. Specifically the episode where they fuck up the engineering so much it’s not even wrong. Someone constructed this footage. If I had more time I could probably even identify the software used to do it.”
Jedao wondered cynically how it could be Kujen’s least favorite drama if he knew the words by heart, but he didn’t want to distract Kujen with a side issue. “You’re sure Meraun and that Nirai weren’t just quoting from their favorite show?”
Kujen snorted. “Don’t be naive.”
“Fine,” Jedao said, “for the sake of argument, Meraun was subverted. How do we know she was the only one?”
“We don’t,” Kujen said grimly. “The silver lining is that only Kel would have been affected. If Lieutenant-engineer Nirai Wennon is still alive, he may be able to shed some light on what happened. The intruder can’t have been unaware of that, but she must have been pressed for time, and she must have decided that the executive officer’s credentials were the best she was going to get.”