Invictus: Captive by Rachel Neumeier

Author:Rachel Neumeier [Neumeier, Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-09-14T16:00:00+00:00

-14-

For some time, days blurred into one another, one after the next in similar order. Three hours working with the sheets of algae, half an hour learning to perform one of the associated tasks, another hour inspecting the sheets, then a break for the midday meal. Then the same in the afternoon, except with two half-hour breaks from working with the sheets. Then off duty.

Every evening, Syova made his way into restricted linkspace, but he restrained every impulse to intrude into dedicated engineering regions. He searched for library content instead; anything tagged with Graeme’s signature. There was plenty of material that fit the parameters he wanted, but almost all of it was a whole lot too tightly restricted for him to touch. He got into a crew roster, sorted out the engineering crew, and looked for their names instead. A handful of files came up, every one of them also too restricted to risk attempting access. This was frustrating, but he accepted defeat on that front for the moment rather than risk triggering subtle traps or alarms.

He found out where Invictus was: exactly where he’d expected—unmapped space, way out past the Karesheshavin slipway. Complete privacy out here, which was probably the point. Also, nothing to accidentally destroy if some new, half-understood slipway protocol turned out to have unforeseen consequences. Graeme’s proposal had to do with rearranging or disrupting slipways, maybe both. Ubezhishche Command wasn’t certain exactly what the new technology was supposed to do. Whatever it was, they knew Elysium thought it might be potentially truly game-changing. Command had come up with a wide variety of possibilities that absolutely would change the game, and in potentially catastrophic ways. That was why Syova was here.

He mapped out the residential areas of Invictus and specifically marked Graeme’s quarters. He also put a tag on Graeme that would permit him to track the engineering officer’s movements. That was slightly risky, but he made the tag transparent except to a coded query. That should reduce the likelihood of detection to a near-zero level.

Abduction would be so direct and simple. Abducting Graeme and getting him to a pinnace would be exactly the sort of exercise a close-combat S was meant for. In many ways, he liked that option best. He already knew where the pinnaces were located and how to subvert the control overrides that ought to prevent hostile takeover of a pinnace.

The cuffs constituted only a minor barrier. If he could get access to slightly deeper layers of linkspace, which should be doable, then he ought to be able to cut into security protocols and take control of his own cuffs for at least five or six seconds before security personnel realized what he’d done and cut him out again. Five seconds ought to be plenty to get those cuffs off. No way to test that maneuver, unfortunately, as he wouldn’t be able to do it more than once, but he was confident he could do it.

No way to test any of this before he made an actual move.

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