Abyss Deep by Ian Douglas Page A

particular interest in this mission, I imagined. Though we certainly hadn’t told them we were going in—­why tip off the tangos who had access to GNN feeds on Capricorn Zeta?—­the newsies knew about the station’s takeover, of course, and would have been flooding local virtual space with netbots and snoopers. There were reporters embedded with the unit, I knew, and—­shit. They were up-­El, up in Synchorbit with Major Lansky.
    I felt a sinking feeling in my gut, something like a realization of impending doom.
    â€œCarlyle!”
    It was Singer. “Yes, sir.”
    â€œWhat the fuck are you doing?”
    â€œI’m with the prisoners, sir. They’re clean. I, ah, went ahead and pulled a DNA analysis on them. They’re Central Asian . . . probably CAC.”
    There was a long pause. “I ordered you to sweep them for nanobots, Carlyle, not play geneticist!”
    â€œYes, sir, but—­”
    â€œNo buts. Get your ass in here!”
    I looked at Aguirre. He wouldn’t have heard the conversation going on in my head, but the glazed look in my eyes would have told him I was talking with someone. “Gotta go,” I told him.
    â€œKeep your ass covered, Doc,” he said. I wondered how he knew, or if that was just a lucky guess.
    â€œIn here” turned out to be Capricorn Zeta’s primary command center, two levels farther out from the rock. It was cramped and high tech, filled with microgravity consoles, bulkhead vidscreens, and couches with palmlinks on the armrests, so that mining personnel could connect directly with the facility’s computers and operational controls. A smaller version of the transplas window on the lounge deck looked down on Earth’s nightside. Glowing cities drifted past as the station orbited above them. A soft-­glowing mass of cloud flickered and pulsed with lightning deep inside.
    Singer was floating beside the main console, talking with a man in corporate utilities bearing the rank tabs of a senior administrator. A ­couple of command staff ­people floated nearby, obviously just released.
    I thumped the side of the hatch. “HM2 Carlyle reporting as ordered, sir.”
    Singer ignored me for a long moment, continuing his conversation. Then the admin guy nodded, said, “You’re the boss,” and pushed off for the hatch, followed by his staff. Singer turned then, glaring.
    â€œWhy did you link through to Synchorbit?” he demanded.
    â€œI needed access to a better DNA library,” I told him. “The ones we have in-­head aren’t that comprehensive.”
    â€œWhat the hell were you doing running a DNA scan? That’s a job for our S-­2.”
    I started to reply, then stopped myself. Singer was furious, and if I said anything, anything at all, I was just going to make things worse.
    â€œYes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.”
    â€œSorry doesn’t cut it, Doc! You broke SCP and got tagged by a fucking newsie!”
    It was worse than I’d imagined. Secure Communications Protocol is like radio silence, but more flexible. It allows us to talk to others on our command Net, and query local, secure subnets, but not link in to unsecured networks or AIs. Breaking SCP during combat was serious, a potential court-­martial offense.
    â€œSir, I thought Ops Command was secure.”
    Singer started to give a sharp retort, then softened a bit. The scowl didn’t leave his face, though. “Normally it would be, Doc. But those damned embeds are up there now, following the hijacking. And they obviously had netbots on the prowl. You understand? You bypassed the chain of command, you idiot, and you told Major Lansky we had CAC prisoners on an open channel. Don’t you think GNN would be all over that?”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    I could just imagine. As soon as the neo-­Ludd ultimatum had hit the GNN newsfeeds hours before, the whole world would have been