bar out to Aoife. “Care for a piece of chocolate?”
“Real chocolate?”
I nodded and she took the bar from me as if it were made of gold. It might as well have been, based on the price. She broke off a square before handing it back. She nibbled a tiny bite.
“This is only the second time I’ve had real chocolate,” she said with a delighted sigh. “It’s better than sex.”
I hummed my agreement. It was better than bad sex, definitely. Good sex . . . well, I hadn’t had any of that in a long, long time, so chocolate had the edge, if only thanks to recent history. My mind flashed to Ian. I bet he’d beat chocolate. Too bad I’d never know.
I carefully wrapped up the chocolate and put it back in the crate. I couldn’t be trusted with it in my quarters, not if I wanted it to last more than a day. I left everything else, too. I had enough clothes already, and if I needed to be armed or armored, I could grab whatever I needed on the way out.
For now, rather than sitting on my hands, I was going to do some digital digging. Being on-planet would give me greater access to the local systems.
“I’ll be in my quarters if you need me,” I told Aoife.
She moved to the cargo bay control panel and brought up the outside video. “I’m going to keep an eye on the perimeter,” she said.
“Call me if you need backup. I’ve been trained with most weapons. I’m rusty, but I can shoot.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” she said, but not unkindly.
I silently agreed. If I was the only thing standing between raiders and Fortuitous, then we truly would be in deep trouble.
Chapter 14
In my quarters, I turned on the control panel built into the wall. I was locked into basic functionality—local and Universal time, a map of the ship, current location. I pulled up a hidden diagnostic screen and entered the default von Hasenberg override codes. I tried a dozen options, spanning twice as many years. They all failed. Ian had changed the codes on this ship, too.
I could crack the code, given enough time, but unless I got incredibly lucky, it would be too slow to be useful right now. I’d helped harden our shipboard system against attack. I had not left myself any remote back doors because that’s how other people compromised your system.
But that’s not to say I hadn’t left myself any back doors.
I pried the control panel out of the wall far enough to access the wiring panel behind it. I rearranged a couple of cables, tapped a seemingly nonsense pattern on the screen, changed another cable, entered another nonsense code, and then put everything back the way it had been.
A new screen appeared on the control panel, just a blank box with a numeric input. I used the authenticator in my com to generate a twenty-five-digit code that included a hash of a secret shared key and the ship name. I entered the code on the panel. I was in.
I set myself up as an administrative captain. Ian wouldn’t be able to remove me from the system using his own status, and my status would not show up in a simple query. While I might not need the ability to direct the ship, I believed in being prepared. I also changed the override codes. Even with them, Ian couldn’t remove me from the system, but there was no sense in leaving them the same, either. I didn’t want to make it too easy for him.
One problem down, now on to the next. I put on my smart glasses and set up a lightly secured connection to check my House accounts. Benedict had announced his impending departure on our sibling channel and the channel was rife with impotent rage. Ada was only half joking about plotting a coup.
Veronica had sent me an encrypted message while I’d been dress shopping. She’d found one of her contacts in Matavara who might be able to secure an invitation to tonight’s party. I laughed when I saw the details. It was the same woman Nadia had charged me twenty thousand credits to reveal.
Veronica had forwarded my information as well as a letter of introduction to the woman, though, so I wouldn’t have to figure out how to meet her without compromising the identity of my online avatar. Nadia would no doubt check on who came through the shop because