Captivate (Manipulate, Book 2)

Chapter 2

True to Sam’s promise, Akemi experienced no more black outs after their escape pod was recovered. They didn’t think it advisable to link her with the ship, since no doubt she wouldn’t be staying, but they’d given her a very serviceable mobile computer to dock with.

Akemi felt a little limited, but she definitely did not want to be linked to an active ship. If the ship had to jump... Akemi shuddered. She’d only put a ship through hyper-jump a few times, and each time had killed part of her brain. She hadn't known that at the time. To her it just felt like a really unpleasant brain freeze, but she'd discovered it later and had no desire to repeat the process.

The Spo usually used trouncer brains in their biocomputers, and they only used those for a few jumps before disposing of them. The trouncers were intelligent animals, and the fact that their brain tissue only lasted a few jumps made her extremely nervous. She didn’t want to be disposed of any time soon, so no more jumping for her.

Everyone was talking about the attack on the space station. Akemi (once she had enough space to really get going) was reviewing all she could remember of the moments before the string of explosions ripped through her beautiful halls.

The Spo were of two opinions: some said it must have been a technical malfunction, the others said it had to be sabotage.

Akemi couldn’t absolutely rule out malfunction... but she seriously doubted it. For the last few months, she was the space station. How could she have been so sick and not known? But then again, how could someone have sewn explosives into her skin and she not know that?

Either way, it was a professional and personal embarrassment and Akemi was determined to get to the bottom of it.

If it was sabotage, someone on the space station must have been responsible, because the explosions had occurred from the interior. The space station was designed to withstand some significant level of attack from outside. Even if an explosion did rip through into the domicile area, that section could be immediately air locked to prevent the spread of fire or loss of air.

This many simultaneous explosions in the interior of a Spo space station was unheard of.

It was now six hours after the explosion (T+6 hours) and the first reports of the forensic team were coming back. They were examining the ruined hulk of the space station, in which, Akemi now learned, eight Spo had died. Akemi felt a sinking feeling of loss, though she had not personally known them. They had lived on the space station, it was their temporary home; and she had failed them.

This couldn’t have been a malfunction, Akemi sent to Sam. I haven’t reviewed every option yet, but I know it.

Sam and Nat were now in the captain’s personal quarters, along with Senator Fontley and several Spo officials. It wasn’t a large ship, and this was the roomiest place for them to meet. Akemi could only see the room through Sam’s glasses, as Nat wasn’t wearing hers, and she found the one perspective tedious. On the space station she’d had over a hundred viewpoints at any given moment.

“We just retrieved another escape pod,” the captain said, returning from the piloting room. “With eight more people aboard. But more importantly, my sergeant found the remains of a device. Here is the image.” He passed around a large, glossy paper that showed fragments of a blue cylinder embedded in one of the blackened walls of the station. The cylinder was slightly tapered with a slight flare at the base. The blast had exited the top of the cylinder, leaving the rest of the casing in surprisingly good condition.

“At first inspection it looks like...”

A Rik cluster bomb,Akemi said.