Athena's Ashes (4 page)

“Your guess is as good as mine, sir.” Renna shook her head. “But you’re right. Finn and I didn’t get along. I don’t know what he was thinking.”

Dallas studied her long enough that Renna had to glance away, cursing herself for the action. He continued in a low voice. “I know there’s something you’re not telling us. And I
will
find out. Finn is one of my best men, and if he’s in trouble, I need to help him.”

Her fingers twitched, and she twisted them together in her lap. He sounded sincere. But then again, she’d sounded sincere earlier, too. She couldn’t risk it. Even if he wasn’t the person who’d ordered the hybrid army and planned to destroy MYTH, trusting the wrong person would put more than herself in danger.

She smiled reassuringly at Dallas. “Whatever our differences, I admire Captain Finn very much. I promise I will do my best to find him and his crew. You’ll be the first to know the instant I discover something else, Major.”

Dallas frowned, the lines around his eyes deepening with worry. “Very well. That’s all I can ask. The admiral is looking into giving you a ship and crew to locate Captain Finn and the boy. I assume you know where to start looking?”

Renna had quite a few ideas, but none of them had to do with finding Finn. The longer he stayed hidden, the safer he’d be. “Actually, sir. If it’s possible, I’d like to start here at headquarters.”

“What do you mean?”

She leaned against the edge of the bed and tucked her hands into the pockets of her black leggings. At least they’d let her take off the gods-awful hospital gowns after the first day.

“I’d like access to the MYTH personnel files. Knowing more about the crew of the
Athena
may help me figure out where they went or why they ran in the first place.”

Dallas shifted in his chair, his expression shuttered. “I’m afraid that’s not possible. Only top officials have access to that level of classified information.”

She knew that look. He was torn between doing his duty and helping her find his captain. “Come, Major. This is MYTH. Anything is possible. You want to find Finn, don’t you? That’s the best place to start.”

Dallas got to his feet with a heavy sigh. “No promises, Renna, but I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, I’ll have them move you to better quarters. There’s no reason to keep you in the hospital wing any longer.”

“Thank you, sir. I promise you won’t regret it.”

He shook his head as he left the room. “Make sure I don’t, my dear.”

Dallas made good on his word, and Renna was moved to another wing of the facility an hour later. The new room was much nicer, with soft rugs and a large, comfortable bed. There was even a large-screen holovid on one wall.

Now if they could just get her some new underwear. These army-issued briefs were killing her.

But at least there were no needles in this room or the constant low hum of the monitors. And no sign of Dr. Samil, either, though that was probably only temporary. Renna’s head still pounded and her mind felt fuzzy. Not a good sign. Especially when combined with the strange data download that had happened in the conference room. She still had no idea what that was all about.

When Dallas pushed open her door the next morning instead of Samil, Renna hated the relief that flooded through her. Not another test or jab or examination, just the slightly starched major with the graying hair and kind smile.

“I trust you slept well, my dear?” he asked as he scanned the room. “At least it looks more comfortable than your hospital cell.”

“It was lovely. Thank you for getting me moved.”

“Of course. The least I could do.” He glanced back at the door. “You’ll be pleased to know the admiral agreed to give you limited access to the MYTH database to view the
Athena’s
personnel files.”

Renna whistled between her teeth. “I’m shocked. But you don’t sound very happy about it, Major.”

“Renna, I believe you have Myka’s welfare in mind, but I don’t believe you’ve told me everything. Until you do, I cannot help my crew. Please. Tell me what’s going on.”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“So am I.” Dallas opened the door and gestured to the hallway. “Follow me. I’ll take you to the server room.”

An uncomfortable pressure built in Renna’s chest as they walked through the facility in silence. She risked a glance at the major. Worry had etched lines around his mouth she didn’t remember from the first time they’d met. She wanted to tell him the truth, more than anything, but she couldn’t risk Pallas finding out what she knew. And if Major Dallas was the traitor…

She shook her head. No sense in thinking like that until she learned more.

The major stopped in front of a thick, metal door and entered a code into the keypad. The door slid open, revealing a bank of flickering holoscreens. “You should be able to access the MYTH servers from here. I’ll be back in an hour.”

Renna took a seat in one of the high-backed chairs and used the holo keyboard glowing blue above the long, curved desk. She quickly did a cursory search on the
Athena’s
crew—Captain Finn, Lieutenant Li Keva, Flight Lieutenant Mark Kojima. Most of the information that came up was the dry, impersonal facts the military had gathered about each of them. She downloaded them to her tablet to skim through later, just in case.

Then she cracked her knuckles. Now that she’d created a paper trail, she could get to the real reason she’d wanted access to the system. Her fingers flew over the keyboard as she built her own temporary firewall. She needed to make sure no one would catch the hack she was about to install to disable the search tracer on the server.

When everything was in place, she grinned at the holomonitor. “Time to play, gorgeous,” she muttered. She pulled an optical disk from her pocket and slipped it into one of the drives on the machine. A few more clicks and her hack was installed.

After that, it was easy to open Level Three security information on all MYTH leadership. She might not know exactly where to start, but she did know Major Larson was up to his eyeballs in something sketchy. He was the best chance she had of finding the answers she needed.

Renna quickly skimmed through his file. Major William Larson, forty-three years old. Born on Earth. Joined the Coalition military at age eighteen. Married at twenty-four. Joined MYTH at thirty-two. Exemplary record—no blemishes or suspicious activities. The perfect soldier.

Renna tapped a finger against her chin. The man’s file was spotless. A little
too
spotless. She typed in another command, and her hack stripped away the next level of clearance.

That was better. With Level Two access, Major Larson’s file didn’t look quite so squeaky clean. A reprimand after a mission on Anat where three of his men had been killed suspiciously. A formal complaint lodged by another commanding officer regarding insubordination and excessive violence toward prisoners. A number of written warnings about shirking of duty. A series of tests run by Dr. Samil on his physical state after a mission three years ago.

It looked like he’d had some sort of health problem, but the medical jargon made her head ache, so she quickly copied over the records to a storage disk and backed out of his file. Nothing that pointed directly to Pallas, but if the man was unhappy with MYTH leadership, he might have been an easy mark.

One traitor down, one to go. “Pallas, where are you?” she whispered as she typed in a search command. The only thing she knew was that the name itself was a reference from one of the ancient earth myths. She’d looked it up back on the
Athena
. Pallas had been a Greek Titan. The God of Warcraft. Whoever had picked the name had chosen wisely.

She rubbed the back of her neck, rolling her shoulders to ease the ache that never seemed to go away now. She was running out of time; the MYTH server scanners had to be getting close to finding her hack. But there was one more level to go. Level One clearance. It was a long shot, but she was running out of options. Her fingers flew over the keyboard as she tried to code a back door into the file structure. The server beeped and the light on the front of the box flashed red.

Denied.

Renna frowned and tried again. The server squawked at her a second time. Shit. Why couldn’t she get through? She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She was too keyed up; she needed to relax and let herself feel her way into the hack.

A stab of pain shot through her head, and Renna gasped, the sound echoing through the room. Her eyes flew open, and she felt the same trickle of data seep into her implant as she had in the conference room.

What the hell?

A moment later the light on the server flashed green, and she was in. Like her freaking implant had interfaced with the server and found a workaround to the firewall without her help.

Her pulse raced as she stared at the bank of servers. Gods, the implant was moving so much faster than she’d expected. If this kept up, she’d be a robot in days, not weeks. Cold fingers scraped across her skin, and she swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. She was running out of time. Time to stop Pallas. Time to be with Finn.

With a huge effort, she pushed her panic away. More importantly, she was running out of time right now with these MYTH servers. Renna ran a quick search, and her stomach flipped as the machine brought back a hit.

MYTH had a record of a Titan Industries. Based in the Costa system. Planet Crius Beta.

She grinned at the monitor. Pallas was a Titan. They had to be connected. Someone using that name was too much of a coincidence.

A quick scan of the files proved useless. The company had been created five years ago as a front for MYTH to get a foothold on the planet to manufacture long-range communication components. Strangely, there was no other record of who’d created the business or how it was connected to MYTH now. Like someone had purposefully kept the information vague.

Beep
.

Renna jumped in her chair. A red light flashed frantically in one of server banks on the wall, the shrill scream echoing through the room.

“Shit!” Renna quickly pulled her hack from the system and dismantled the firewall, backing out all traces of her presence. She ran a fast scanner through the server, deleting any searches she might have left behind, then shut down the terminal. If MYTH looked, they’d only have records of her viewing the
Athena
crew information and nothing more.

She pulled her data disk from the console. Another beep sounded and she dropped it. It clattered under the desk. “Dammit. Pull yourself together, woman.” She crouched to pick up the disk, then slipped it into her pocket.

Her gaze fell to the console. If she’d had more time, she could have pulled a lot of data from MYTH’s files, a lot of information she could sell to the highest bidder.

Her fingers twitched, but she twisted them together. She’d made her choice to throw in her lot with MYTH for now, and thinking like that would only get her in trouble. Betraying this organization would mean betraying Finn. Air left her lungs in a rush at the notion of forsaking his trust. Something she wasn’t ready to do. She’d made a promise after all.

Renna shook her head and composed herself. Look at her, playing by the rules. Finn would be so proud.

FIVE

Someone knocked at her door, and Renna glanced up from the data she’d pulled from the MYTH computers.

“Come in,” she called, shoving her tablet beneath her pillow. At least they’d finally given her a little privacy.

Dr. Samil pushed open the door and smiled at her. “Good morning, Renna.” She stepped into the room, a metal-globed med-drone gliding behind her.

Renna bit back a shudder at the tray of sterile tools the drone carried in its spindly arms. “Not a social visit, I take it?”

Samil nodded at the floating machine as it hovered near Renna’s head. “Did Monty give it away?”

“That and the instruments of torture he’s carrying.”

Samil chuckled and unwrapped a syringe. “Nice to see your flair for the melodramatic is still intact.”

“Maybe I can start my own robotic acting company once this implant takes over. Shakespeare in the Park: Cyborg-Style.”