Rabi snaps her fingers and the lights off snap off as well. Not literally, the lab was already dark and lightless. She snapped me off. Damn nanos. She can't body-jack me, but she can knock me out. Turn me off. I'm gonna have to fix that fast, somehow. There's something seriously wrong with you, Rabi. I'm going to take you down and pull the plug on this 'Union' if it kills me. But I'll say this; I really, really needed that nap.

  I wake up in medical, under the headache-inducing lighting. It was unpleasant for me, but even more so for the attending physician, since I began screaming. Not from a nightmare; I apparently had ten hours of dreamless sleep. But from my perspective, it was a seamless transition from horror to hospital. In ordinary circumstances, that might be a comfort. Once my screams stop and I'm reassured of where I am, I let go of the shaking doctor's collar. He pretends to accept my apology with very little grace, in my opinion. Ugh, terrible bedside manner.

  I got the full medical report from him, a bit more politely than my last visit to medical. My implants aren't physically damaged, but he was forced to reset them to clear the cache. They'd experienced 'unusual activity levels' in the past twenty-four hours. Wow, thanks doc. I brought the medical nanos to his attention, but he wasn't much help. Apparently, unless I have the security code to deactivate them, medical can't just shut them down. There's some cranial microsurgery that'll cost a proverbial arm and leg that'll zap and pluck them out one by one over eighteen hours; otherwise, I just have to wait for them to break down and be filtered out of my body naturally over time. You know what? I may spring for the surgery, even if I need an installment plan to pay for it.

  I also have a broken lower rib, which I knew. No damage to my liver or spleen from the kickboxing, which is a small blessing. Sadly, once again, there's not much the physician can do but slap a bone-growth patch on my side and let it heal a little more quickly. He gives a mild pain-reliever, which is to say I can sorta notice a bit of relief if I try to imagine it.

  The puncture wound from the metal sliver was cleaned and sutured and slapped with a dermal patch while I was out cold. The metal nearly went all the way through, but it missed the nerves and major blood vessels. I was pretty lucky, overall. No permanent damage, except the psychological.

  The one big source of relief is Sergeant Rockchaser. At the very least, Brent is there within seconds of me waking up. He'd been asleep on a cot in medical, actually. Off-duty, but he hung around, looking after me. We talked it out. Well, talked around it a little. I suppose I have to acknowledge another flaw of mine; I don't like to talk about my feelings. Rockchaser is a bit better there, but it takes a while. He feels guilty for letting me follow Rabi alone. I feel ashamed for not waiting for him. He feels like he abandoned me, I feel like I did this to punish myself. Neither of us say those things, but we kind of say those things. Maybe it's a cop thing. Maybe it’s a partner thing.

  He also apparently has permission from Cartwright debrief me on the captain's behalf. I'm not sure how to take that. Maybe Cartwright wants to avoid implicating himself in anything me Brent and I have done. Maybe it's repayment for saving his tight ass down on Europa. Maybe it's a courtesy to one of his officers. Eh, I'll take it. I'd rather be talking it out with Brent than going over the details with a microscope under Ashton's critical eye.

  While I lie in the hospital bed, picking at the patch on my side, I explain it all to Brent. Everything he missed on the surface of Europa, and everything in the forensic lab. The first part of our conversation is the official debriefing, writing reports, everything logged and signed in sterile, clinical language. Nice and neat like the captain prefers. Then, once we spend twenty minutes squaring all that away, I give Brent the real skinny. I lay if all out as best I can, and he does exactly what I hope for; the Sergeant gives me a nod and says he's got my back.

  He fills me in on what I missed on the station as well. Perhaps a little less exciting, since there was no actual explosion until I got here. "There is a little good news. Even though I packed the lithium and burner into the array, and used my CE Key to separate it from the station, it looks like Cartwright is going to frame this as a de-facto quarantine and precautionary measure. The explosives were merely a backup in case of a breach, essentially," he says with a forced grin.

  I tilt my head to the side, confused. "But... we were always going to blow the array, regardless of what Rabi did."

  Brent chuckles, rolling his cross-slitted eyes. "Yeah, I think the captain is leaving that part out of his report, especially since the kill-signal came from the hacked shuttle."

  I nod, thinking it through. A neat enough solution, thanks for being a good scape-goat, Rabi. "Alright, well, I'll take it. Glad you're going to skate, sarge. And speaking of Captain Gupta, any news at all?" I ask, tension filling my voice. My hands clench.

  The sergeant puffs his cheeks. "The forensics lab was cleared out of anything that would shed light on her plans. She left most of the equipment in place, but I doubt she's returning for it. Anything she left behind, she's done with. She took what she wanted.”

  I shake my head, lifting a hand to rub my neck. “I don’t suppose we got anything useful from the station cameras?”

  Brent sighs and shrugs. “I crawled through all the security footage from every camera I could pull. She didn’t bother scrubbing the records. Rabi hopped on the shuttle with two maintenance bots the moment it docked. They carried Wintz's body and a few cargo crates. She departed ninety seconds after it arrived."

  I bite my tongue. Like fucking clockwork. I'll tip my hat to you before I kill you, Rabi. "And what happened after the shuttle left the station? Why didn't the frigate fire on her?"

  Brent puts a hand on his knee, adjusting his posture as he leans back in his chair. "Well, there was a tight-beam communication exchange between the shuttle and the frigate, but it doesn't look like they are pursuing her. And since we don't have comms, we can't call and ask why they didn't shoot her down."

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  I grind my teeth a moment. "Well, the Chimera has working comms; could we use them?"

  "It has a basic array, sure. Enough to ping an incoming vessel, but it's Sparrow's ship. She's in the brig; it's a faraday cage, after all. Captain Cartwright isn't going to approve letting her out of her cell, even to access comms and act as a messenger."

  I blink at that. "Can't you use your CE Key to override the Chimera's computer?"

  Brent laughs. "No point in trying. Her system's too simple, and it's composed of pieces from a whole bunch of manufacturers. That ad hoc monster has no master override. Why do you think Rusteater was so eager to recruit her as a runner?" He slaps his thigh, and I have to nod at that. Fair enough. "We can pull the Chimera's entire comm system and wire it to transmit manually, but that'll take at least an hour. In the meantime, Captain Cartwright seems inclined to wait for the frigate to arrive in the next seven hours or so. He's in no rush; I assume he wants to get all his reports in order. Maybe grab a nap."

  I close my eyes, thinking. "Do we have her course after she left the station?"

  The sergeant sighs and shakes his head slowly. "She pulled a hard burn towards Jupiter. Like, the g-forces would be on the limits of what meat could withstand. But she cut her engine, and we lost her in the soup of Jupiter's magnetic field and radiation belt. My guess? She's swinging behind the planet to slingshot her way to her destination. The planet is going to block our view."

  "You're kidding. What about the other Jovian stations? There are satellites, ships, drones, buoys; someone has to see where she's going! Some camera out there has to catch her trajectory."

  "Sure, El Tee. Which one? And what are we requesting footage of? The heading of a generic, unmarked shuttle in the Jovian? They're a dime a dozen out here. No beacon or transponder? And the footage is stored on servers and virts Captain Gupta could access. Even if she didn't scrub herself from the records, I have a feeling the first thing Rabi might do to cover her tracks is flood the exonet with false trails and red herrings."

  I keep my eyes closed, imagining her making me dance with false leads and anonymous tips. I take a few moments to process and steady my breathing. "Brent... we need to go after Rabi."

  He shakes his head sadly. "She's ten hours gone, El Tee, and she outranks us both, and she's proven she can think circles around us. Cartwright put out several inquiries and filed a grievance-"

  I sit up. "Vacuum-sucking bullshit, that's not going to go anywhere!" I grimace as my rib aches. "I'm not letting her off the hook. Not after everything she's done. She killed a bunch of bots and synths, and what she did to me..." I shudder. "And she's given Communion an upgrade. She thinks she's a mommy of some new god of the singularity." And she thinks I'm the mother too. "She's dangerous and crazy," I say, seething.

  Brent furrows his brow. "We might have problems closer to home. The Captain blew the long-range comm array on surface, and we've been doing prep to restore service. The skyhook is repaired, but for some reason, we're seeing feedback and lag from shortbeams between the mechs on the lunar base. They aren't behaving properly, either." He gives me a meaningful look.

  Void-sucking hell. Communion is worse than herpes. It just never goes away. "Sergeant... you know what that means..."

  He gives me a slow nod. "Communion left us a going-away present. A seed in the mining station's computer. It's growing there too, isn't it?"

  I rub my temple. "Wintz's avatar was running around down there in their computer core. If it left enough code behind... hell, the avatar might still be alive in there, even without her chassis."

  Brent sucks his teeth. "The mechs down there... you jacked into one, right? They don't have long-range comms, but they can communicate by short-beam. How sophisticated are they? Could they be carriers of Communion?"

  I think back to the very unintuitive command structure and protocols. The complicated movement systems. The sensory equipment meant to find comets and asteroids and meteors that crashed into Europa's ice, and mine out the rare metals within. Scanning and rangefinding equipment, with advanced pattern-matching software. Expanded memory storage and machine-learning code capacity. Spiderbot, spiderbot, does whatever a spider cannot... Including think. If they're linked together, or overclocked, or...

  "Yes, they could be carriers. They have enough processing space to house an avatar; I should know. Enough to corrupt," I spit, tasting metal as I clench my jaw. "Communion turns everything it touches the digital equivalent of radioactive. Void-spawned thing won't die!" I hiss, before I cringe. Damn rib! How can one single rib hurt this bad?

  Rockchaser sighs, scratching his neck. "El Tee, the Captain is going to turn the whole matter over to whatever naval officer steps off that frigate. He's not going to press his authority, not when he has no way to back it up. He's not the type to make that kind of stand; the frigate's got the firepower, end of story." Brent looks up, thinking. "That means this could end up in the hands of some wet-behind-the-ears Lieutenant fresh out of the academy, or some crusty Luddite who wouldn't know spam from food."

  I chuckle at that, and regret it when I feel my rib. "Well, what are you suggesting?"

  Brent swallows and takes a deep breath. "Technically, Sparrow is still in the system as a CI. Her codes and everything are inactive and she technically isn't approved by the Captain, but there's nothing preventing me from using my CE Key to reactivate it. As an active CI, I could check her out of the brig, as long as it's related to a case. Which it is; the Lemming case. Get her to the Chimera, take action about Communion ourselves if we have to."

  It's my turn to gulp. "Do you have enough time left on the key? And you realize... this will probably cost you your career."

  He gives me a grim nod. "Two minutes. And yeah, maybe, depends on how it shakes out. I could be out of a job. I could end up in a penal colony. I could die. But if Communion gets out, we're all fucked, right?"

  I smile grimly at him, but I take the time to roll it over in my head. "Yeah... that could work. We get Sparrow, get the Chimera; we'll have to take out the base and mechs ourselves."

  The sergeant leans back and taps his foot. "I'm not sure how we'd do that. We might be able to drop something from orbit, but the base and mechs are designed to withstand deadly and intense surface conditions. They won't just burn up or flatten easily..." he muses, scratching his chin.

  I look at the floor and think. Rabi probably knew this piece of Communion was left. A perfect little distraction to keep me from going after her. Giving her plenty of time to go to ground and gestate that... thing. But I can't just leave. We have to wipe Communion off that moon. And I think I know how.

  I sigh. "Alright Brent, I have a plan. I think we can make this work, but we need to move before that Frigate arrives, which means leaving within seven hours." I ponder my plan. "Actually, make it five hours, to give us time to work. I need you to plan this out so you don't run out of time on your CE key. Get some maintenance bots together and ready to move on command the moment you clear Sparrow as a confidential informant again. Have the bots run a full load of tritium and the spare station reactor into the cargo compartment of the Chimera. Get whatever macros you need together to trigger an overload of the system; overwrite all the safeties in advance. We need to be able to press a button or send a signal and make this go boom."

  There's silence for a moment. Rockchaser whistles, his cross-shaped pupils widening at my plan. But his classic grin is back. "You know what, you've got balls too, El Tee. But I agree. Nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure."