Chapter 18
Marco
"Really," Marco said, leaning across the table. His elbow rested only an inch from the edge of his food tray. Behind him, a different table of marines erupted in laughter. One of them leaned back too far and knocked into Marco.
"Sorry," the marine offered. Marco waved her off.
"These tables are too close," Barry said, leaning forward to avoid a collision as someone squeezed between the two cafeteria tables. His marine cap, his proudest possession—"it's vintage"—tilted on his head, and he carefully repositioned it. "I swear they have other places available, but they cram us all in here anyway."
"Remember," Joanne said, raising her fork with a poorly hidden grin pulling at the corners of her mouth, "Cafeteria B is being remodeled, and once it finishes, we will be able to dine in absolute luxury."
Marco shook his head. "You keep saying it was open before I got here, but I've never seen any evidence of that yoi."
Barry swallowed a bite of his eggs. "If we consult the seismic activity charts, we can see that the construction didn't actually begin until—"
"Oh stop, that's a waste of department resources," Joanne said, bumping his shoulder.
"No more than that endless construction project."
Marco watched them with a quiet smile, though he had stopped paying attention. Over Barry's left shoulder, Vice Admiral Garp was crossing the cafeteria, a thunderous look on his face. In his left hand, he was all but crushing a sheaf of papers. One of them was stamped confidential.
He shouldered through the doors, undoubtedly on his way to the head vice-admiral's office. Their shouting matches were legendary. Supposedly, the two had gotten along fine, but after the UBMC's assault on the main IPEC facility, Garp had buried their amicable past in favor of pure fury. Rumor was, the fleet had stuck him here so his hell-raising wouldn't be visible to any prying eyes. The UBMC didn't like to show signs of instability. Marco had been passing along everything he knew about that whole situation, but he had no idea how useful that information could actually be.
He had managed to procure up-to-date blueprints of the stronghold for his last handoff, though. He was sure the Revolutionaries had appreciated that.
"Marco?"
"Sorry, say that again?" Marco said.
Barry raised an eyebrow. "I was just saying that, to get us back on topic, yes, really, the Bovekk readings have gone back to average levels. What had you so distracted?"
"Vice Admiral Garp just walked by."
Both Barry and Joanne made quiet oh noises. Barry leaned forward. "Was he on his way to the…?"
Marco nodded. Barry groaned. His fork clattered back onto his tray as he picked up his cap and ran a frustrated hand through his hair before resettling his headgear.
"Shit."
"What's the matter?" Joanne asked.
"I was supposed to go with Ao to meet with him to go over our budget for next month in—" he checked his watch—"twenty minutes."
"I don't think that's going to happen," Marco said.
"Yeah. I gotta go find Ao. I doubt he'll check his email before we're supposed to head over. 'Scuse me."
He stood, took his tray, and navigated his way through the winding maze of tables and bodies. Marco took the brief silence after his departure to polish off his breakfast. He then cleared his throat to get Joanne's attention. The redhead, snapped out of her own musings, straightened in her seat.
"What's up?"
"What was the deal with Bovekk?" Marco asked. "First Barry comes to me with the news that its energy levels are unprecedented, and not even a week later, you're telling me it's all calmed down."
Joanne nodded, her shoulders settling with her thoughts. "Yes. Trust me, I'm as confused as you are. Bovekk has one of the most active magma layers of any celestial body in this solar system, and energy on that scale doesn't just disappear."
"Right, conservation."
"Exactly. But there were no extreme geyser events, eruptions, or quakes that would have bled off the energy we were seeing within two days. I mean, c'mon, these are moons…"
"Joanne?"
She frowned. "Sorry, Naomi is staring this way again. Vulture." Shaking her head, Joanne picked up where she'd left off. "Energy on that scale can't vanish, but it's not showing up on any of our scanners anymore."
"A glitch?"
Joanne bit her lip. "That's a touchy subject right now. We paid millions of beri for our equipment. A lot of it isn't even three years out of date. All our techs assure us it's functioning right. Can you imagine if the brass got wind that our scanners and whatnot were malfunctioning? We'd be drawn and quartered."
"Not literally yoi," Marco said, trying to dispel some of Joanne's serious tone. Unfortunately, she wasn't having any of it.
"All but literally. Our budget, our reputation, our input in operational missions—all of it would be slashed. And then we'd be monitored like children until the higher brass reassured themselves that we weren't going to waste their money again."
Marco kept his face covered in a mask of professional concern. Inside, though, the final piece of his latest saboteur puzzle had just fallen into place. Barry was right: Marco was good at departmental politics. Whether the tectonics department's equipment was really malfunctioning or not was moot; Marco was going to cripple them regardless. A rumor here, an email there, a few offhand comments…With Garp already stirring up everyone's anxieties, it wouldn't even be difficult. He would work through and weaken this stronghold's mission prep one department at a time, wasting every ounce of UBMC resources that he could.
"I'm sure it won't come to that," he finally said.
Joanne sighed. "Yeah, I hope so. Anyway, I need to get back to my team. See you around."
"See you."
Now alone at a brief stretch of table, Marco stared at his empty tray. They were good people, but he wasn't here to help them. If they truly cared about their morals, they should've been raging alongside Garp, not quietly getting out of his way.
That night, the halls were more crowded than normal. Marco slipped into his usual bathroom. There was one guy washing his hands. There was a brief moment of eye contact, a quick nod of mutual acknowledgment, and then the man dried his hands and left. Marco chewed his lip. To go or not? While the risk hadn't changed, he didn't like being seen this early into things.
He had to give a report in front of some of the brass in a few days, though. He would be too busy maintaining his cover the next few nights to send anything back, and Garp's rising fury was too important to leave unknown. Furthermore, the Revolutionaries needed to know that Cysk's interest in Bovekk had cooled.
Marco sighed. His reflection in the mirror met his gaze, the bags under his eyes exacerbated by the sickly lighting.
A flicker of blue and gold fire lived and died behind his irises. Memories of space and freedom surfaced and sank in the same instant. Marco swallowed, checked his right pocket to ensure he did, in fact, have the drive, and then turned for the exit.
He had a job to do.
The first two hallways passed without incident. No cameras caught so much as a whisper of his shadow; all those late-night jaunts through the Moby Dick's secured decks (usually at Thatch's insistence) were paying off.
Thatch's excuses had always been terrible, too. A lost item, something Marco "had to see"; what had he been trying to do? Or had Thatch taken it upon himself to give Marco some training that the IPEC never would? Not that speculation would get him anywhere now.
"Oop!"
In the middle of drawing breath, Marco got what little he'd earned knocked out of him. His backside hit the floor, the jolt carrying halfway up his spine. He winced and looked across the sudden moat of papers to see Naomi massaging her back with a grimace. She caught his eye.
"Sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going."
Marco didn't believe her for a second. Her prim glasses caught the light, but they couldn't hide the gleam in her eyes. She had been suspicious of him since catching him on his first ever run to the vent, and his fumbling excuse had barely been enough to get her to leave him alone. Sure enough, when he patted his pocket, the drive was gone.
"No worries," Marco said. "Here, let me help you yoi."
"Oh, no, it's fine, I've got it."
She set to collecting her papers. Marco insisted on helping, of course, but all the while, he eyed Naomi's pristine uniform. Which pocket would she stuff it in?
Too soon, Naomi was standing up again. She favored Marco with a thin smile. "Thanks. Be seeing you, Mr. Marco."
Marco just nodded and stepped aside to let her pass. He watched her through narrowed eyes until she rounded the far corner and disappeared from sight. Vulture indeed.
He smoothed out the vest resting over his white t-shirt and resumed his route. He passed several other people on his way, but none of them tried any underhanded tricks like Naomi. Only one of them even bothered with a verbal greeting, which Marco reciprocated with exactly the same amount of enthusiasm.
The vent was the same as it always was, rusting and full of dust. Whatever they did to pick up his drives, they always somehow managed to replace the dust his handoff disturbed.
Marco reached into his vest's inner pocket and removed his actual drive. The one Naomi had lifted only contained Marco's draft for his presentation on Ava's icy surface. Marco went to place the drive, only to freeze. There was a paper there, about the length of his index finger.
A chill raced along his shoulders. Was he discovered?
He worked his fingers through the bent and rusting slats. It took a few harrowing seconds, but he got his fingers around the paper. He read it with his heartbeat thundering in his ears, but it held no warning, no sign of impending doom. It had only three words on it, but those three words carried enough force to tip Marco back off his heels. He sat hard on the floor.
Your crewmate lives.
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