they’d never escape—and we couldn’t take them back out with us.
“Do you have a preference?” Ian asked.
“Option two probably has the fewest failure points,” I said. “Especially if I can find an actual special delivery we can mimic. I grabbed a bunch of files but I haven’t had a chance to look through them. What about you?”
“It would be better if no one knew we were there, but a ship entering the atmosphere is hard to hide. You’re also hard to hide; you look like a von Hasenberg.”
“People see what they expect,” I said with a shrug. “No one would expect me to be on a Rockhurst planet in the middle of a war. Different hair, glasses, and a little bit of makeup will go a long way.”
All three of them looked dubious. Aoife said, “Assuming that works, how do we get you out?”
“That depends on the capabilities of this ship and whether RCDF is enforcing the neutrality of the gate.”
Attacking enemy ships within five light-minutes of a gate was technically against Consortium law, even during war. But controlling a gate gave one side control of the war, so it often happened when the RCDF wasn’t around to stop it. Both Houses were likely rushing to set up temporary gates near their primary planets.
“RCDF has at least one ship at the gate, but I’ve also heard Rockhurst controls access. House von Hasenberg ships are being advised to use their emergency jump locations if they need to leave the area before the temporary gate is up,” Ian said.
“Can you get us an emergency jump point for Phantom?” I asked.
Ian shook his head. Reserved for active military ships, emergency jump points were calculated in advance and deemed reasonably safe for a certain period of time, usually two months. Predicting clear space so far in advance carried an inherent risk. There had been a few accidents, so they really were meant for emergency use only.
“If the Antlia gate is not safe,” I said, “then that complicates things. We’ll have to jump to von Hasenberg territory. It’s close enough we won’t need a gate. Benedict’s battle cruiser arrives tomorrow. He’ll give us his emergency coordinates and protect us until we can jump again.”
“I don’t like having the three of you in one place,” Ian growled. “It’s a huge security risk.”
“I’m open to suggestions,” I said. “But unless we want to tip our hand by getting RCDF involved, I’m not sure what we can do.”
“I’ll see what I can find in our House intel. You look at the MineCorp files and figure out our cover. We’ll stay here until we have a plan.”
“Sounds good,” I agreed.
Alex stood and gestured me to his console. I thanked him and slid into the seat. I plugged in my secondary com and started going through the files I’d grabbed. MineCorp was dumping a ton of people on both XAD Six and Seven. Ships were arriving twice a month with anywhere from five to twenty workers aboard.
I dug deeper, looking for patterns. Most of the laborers were unskilled indentured servants, as expected. The skilled workers included machinery operators, mechanics, supervisors, guards, and engineers. Occasionally, a new skilled employee would arrive separately to fix some immediate crisis.
I just had to invent an employee and a crisis, something urgent so they wouldn’t look too closely at our identities.
I thought about it for a few minutes, discarding ideas as fast as I came up with them. It had to be scary and something the Rockhurst soldiers couldn’t easily verify one way or another.
That left disease. Indentured servants didn’t have money for nanobots. They were susceptible to all kinds of illnesses, but it needed to be a disease that made the soldiers want to stay away, too. A manufactured virus, sent as a weapon, designed to overpower nanos.
But before I could spread chaos on the ground, I had to make sure we’d actually get to the ground without Rockhurst shooting us out of the sky. The ship’s registration would need to be bulletproof.
I checked the existing registration. Phantom was registered as a mercenary ship to a company I’d never heard of. A quick search didn’t turn up anything, so it was either tiny or a shell company.
“Do I need to change the ship’s registration?” I asked Ian. “Will it lead back to you?”
Ian glanced up from his console. “It won’t lead back to me,” he said, “but I’d prefer not to have to rename my ship after this, so at least update the name.”