“Riggs, I—”

“Save it for Saunders,” he said. “We all know you killed Lucin, and we know how you left Saunders behind. You’re just lucky the CO made sure the boarding party was full of the oldest marines, the people who don’t understand what you did; otherwise, you probably wouldn’t have made it to this cell alive.” He leaned forward, the tears on his cheeks caught in the light overhead. “I can’t promise you I wouldn’t have joined in,” he added.

With that, Riggs spun away from the wall and marched out of sight.

Molly clung to the bars, speechless.

••••

They gave her another hour to steep. Molly couldn’t help but admire the plan. Even if the Navy had nothing on any of them, she knew they were all receiving the same line from their grillers: your friends are flipping, and he who flips last gets burned worst.

She also knew the best course of action was to think about something else, but it was impossible not to focus on the very thing she concentrated on avoiding. And she knew Walter. She had little doubt the traitorous bastard was spilling his guts. It wouldn’t be the first time he turned them in to the Navy expecting some sort of reward.

Molly looked up through the bars and pictured Riggs leaning on the far wall, his arms folded, his eyes down. It was crazy how young he’d looked. He shouldn’t even be out of the Academy. Neither should she nor Cole, for that matter. They were all little, nubile pawns staggering around a board that Lucin had set up and left unfinished.

She tried to mentally study that board, to determine which opening he’d used and which gambits to ignore. Once again, his tragic death at Cole’s hands haunted her. The only person who could help her understand what was going on had been murdered—adding one more unpardonable deed to her growing list of sins.

She sat on the edge of her bunk, gazing down at the long, straight shadows the bars cast across the floor. It occurred to her once again that jail cells provided her with her only opportunities to calmly sit and ponder her mistakes.

How fitting.

A wide shadow slid over the lines at her feet, interrupting her thoughts. She didn’t need to look up to know who it was.

“Admiral, huh?”

She meant it as small talk, a compliment, even. It came out snide and rude.

“Interrogation room B,” he barked to someone else.

Molly looked over, but he was gone. Two guards in Navy black had taken his place. The bars of her cell descended into the floor, and the two men came at her with cruel smiles.

Rumors of her exploits had likely thinned the herd of people who could be trusted to handle her. They cinched the cuffs behind her back and wrenched them up high as they marched her down the hall. Molly walked on her toes, grunting from the pain in her shoulders, but that just brought sniffles of laughter—and the guy holding the cuffs responded by pulling them up higher.

Just like being back at the Academy, she thought, only these are larger and stronger boys.

Interrogation room B consisted of a metal-plated box broken up by a door on one wall and a mirror on an adjoining one. A metal table in the center had been welded to the floor, as had the wide benches on both sides. A precaution, Molly knew, in the event of gravity malfunctions. The guards cuffed Molly to one of the benches, nodded to the mirror, then walked out.

Saunders entered soon after with a reader and a glass of water. He slid his bulk between the table and the bench, took a sip of the water, then set it down with a clack of glass on metal. He stared at the reader for a moment before setting it aside.

Molly watched the condensation on the surface of the glass drip down, forming a ring of wetness around the base. The entire scene was so cliché, so much like every Navy drama on holovid, it was all she could do not to laugh. Just thinking about how awful and crazy she would seem if she did break out in a giggle-fit made it even harder to contain.

“You keep interesting company, Ms. Fyde.” Saunders leaned forward, both his forearms resting on the table in front of him, his fingers interlocked into one meaty fist.

“I’m sorry,” Molly told him. She looked him right in the eyes. “I’m sorry for attacking you that day.”

Saunders smirked. “Oh? But not sorry for killing my friend, eh?” He grabbed the reader for a reference. “Are you sorry for Corporal Timothy Reed? Or Special Agent David Rowling? Or how about Staff Sergeant Jim McCleary? Aren’t sorry about any of them?”

“Are those the guys from Palan?” Molly asked.

“The men you killed, yeah.”

“I am very sorry for them. And I’m sorry for Lucin. But they were all in self-defense. You were the exception. You were the only person I attacked in anger, and I’m sorry—”

“I don’t want your apology, Fyde. I’m actually glad you attacked me. I was going to spend the rest of my life at that Academy. I would have been happy, sure, but I turned down dozens of promotions out of love for that place. I needed a kick in the ass to get me out here fighting the good fight.”

Molly was dying to point out that it wasn’t a kick in the ass that she’d given him. Her desire to laugh returned—she swallowed it down, afraid she might be losing her senses.

“What about the fourth guy on Palan?” she asked. “Was he okay?”

Saunders looked at the reader again. “Agent Simmons? No, we know who killed him. Not that it’s going to save your butt. We’ve got more than enough to jettison you into space. I’m just here to make sure we have it all.”

That wasn’t the person Molly was thinking about, but she ignored the discrepancy.

“I’ll answer everything honestly, Captain—I’m sorry, Admiral. I’ve been hunting for answers for over a month, and you’re welcome to the few I’ve found.”

He smiled at this. “You sound as eager as your Palan friend. Boy had so much to say, we couldn’t get it down fast enough. Horrible English with that kid. Turns out he is a fast typist, though. We put him in front of a computer, and the lad is writing a book on what you guys’ve been up to.” Saunders set down the reader. “Now I want to hear it from you.”

Been up to? Molly wondered how much Walter knew of the disaster on Glemot and just what kind of trouble he could really get them in.

As if they could airlock her twice.

“What do you want to hear?” she asked Saunders. She tensed up, afraid of his answer.

But, as it turned out, not quite afraid enough . . .

Saunders smiled at her and unclasped his hands.

“Why don’t we start with who we’re talking to on your ship’s nav computer.”

31

“I’m sorry?” Molly licked her lips and eyed the glass of water, but her hands were locked behind her back and fastened to the bench. She pictured a long straw extending from the vessel, ushering fluid into her dry mouth.

“Our computer guys found something in your nav computer. They think it might be an AI, or some sort of complex logic tree. It claims to be your mother, and of course, she thinks that our guys are you. Did you steal her off Dakura just now?”

“Yes,” Molly lied.

“I thought you were going to tell me the truth, Fyde. I have to say, I’m disappointed. Lying to me on the very first question. We’ve been talking to Dakura Security. They assure us that such a theft is not possible and that nothing in a standard ship could host one of their AIs. So. Who is she?”

“My mom.”

“How’s that possible?”

“I don’t know. She said she was a copy from when they originally admitted her into Dakura years ago.”

“You want to tell me why you killed your mother on Dakura?”

“What?” Molly furrowed her brow, confused.

“Your friend Walter confessed to doing it, but he said it was your plan. We just want to know why. Why kill your own mother? Or is there no reasoning behind your madness?”

“I didn’t know she was dead,” Molly said somberly. Her dry mouth suddenly felt full of saliva. She felt sure she’d vomit if she tried to swallow it, but had no choice. Her stomach twisted up in knots thinking about her mom, happily birthing and mothering little Mollies just a handful of hours ago—and now gone.

If any of it turned out to be true.

“Well, now,” Saunders said, leaning away from the table. “I would expect you to be a bit more enthused to find out your attack was successful. Or are you just upset at getting caught?”

“I didn’t want to kill her.” Molly looked down at the desk as another layer of blackness heaped on top of her miseries. Each was like a smothering blanket, except they just made her more cold.

“Let’s come back to that. I want to touch on a few things during this session to help steer the next one. We have several jumps before Earth, so you and I will have plenty of time to drill down to details.” Molly glanced up, saw his chubby face break into a smile. She looked back down as he asked the next question:

“How did you get recruited into the Drenard Underground?”

“The what?”

“I’m getting sick of that as an answer, Fyde. The Drenard Underground. Your parents were members. Lucin’s reports claim they infiltrated the group as double agents, but it’s looking like they were actually taken in by these sympathizers. Now, you visit Drenard and take part in some kind of ceremony, get inducted as an honorary Drenard. Afterwards, you set out to cover up any evidence left behind by your parents. I’m slowly piecing together what they were doing on Lok; I just want to know what sort of nasty business you’re getting tied up in.”

“I’ve never heard of the Drenard Underground,” Molly said. She looked up at Saunders, a half-truth giving her a sense of dignity. But the other part of her knew she’d just sat in front of a simulated fire in one of their headquarters, chatting and having tea with her mother, one version of which spoke Drenard.

“Is your father still on Drenard? Is he working for them?”

“I don’t know where my father is.”

Saunders leaned forward. “Just so you know how this is working, Fyde, the cameras behind that mirror, and the microphones over your head, are all keeping track of your lies. We’ve already established that you’re unwilling to be truthful with us, created a baseline. What we’re looking for now are the things you withhold. The things you think are important.” He spread his fat fingers, his hands folding out like an open book. “The things you don’t tell us are worse than your lies.” He lifted one arm and tapped his temple. “The eggheads behind that mirror are telling me right now that the more you’re aware of this inability to fool us, the more power we have.”

He smiled with how clever he was, his cheeks folding down over the corners of his mouth. “Here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to let you return to your cell and think about what you’re doing here. You’re a traitor to the human race; you’re aiding our enemy and leaving behind a long trail of dead and wounded, including the man who loved you and trusted you the most. You will be killed for these crimes, Fyde. I promise you that. It’s a done deal. You and Cole both. It might help if you just consider yourself already dead.

“Imagine it for a second: imagine you’re in whatever special hell they reserve for Drenard lovers. Now, someone gives you a chance to come clean. To give information that will help our cause. Help your race. Wouldn’t you love to come back and give that information? Confess everything? Do a bit of good with your life?

“I know this Underground business isn’t you. I know you’re just a hurt teenage girl, messed up because your mother and father abandoned you and you washed out of the Academy. You aren’t brainwashed the way they were—you’re just confused. I know this. You know this.”

He stood up. “Go sit in your cell and think about what I’ve said. Think about where your lies and actions have gotten you so far. Think about the people you’ve hurt. And why have you done these things? For a dream of continuing something your parents started? What if what they were doing was wrong? Have you thought about that? Or do you just trust them because they birthed you on some backwoods planet and disappeared? How much do you know them? I think you should dwell on that as well.”

Saunders left the room, waving at the mirror as he went by. The two guards entered soon after he disappeared; they undid her cuffs from the bench and hauled her back to her cell.

Molly tried to see herself through their eyes as they handled her roughly:

Traitor.

Whipped dog.

Beaten.

She could feel it in her own flat, shuffling steps, and the way her toes never left the decking. She knew how it looked, knew it made it easier for them to pull her hands up high behind her, inflicting as much pain as they could.

She couldn’t really blame them.

••••

Not long after the guards left, having shoved her face into her bunk while they uncuffed her hands, Molly had another visitor. She expected Riggs, or someone else from the Academy, but she was surprised to see Saunders’s bulk looming through the bars.

“That’s what you call giving me time to think?” she asked, still rubbing the circulation back into her wrists.

“Get over here, Fyde.”

She pushed herself up and went to the bars.

“That was the speech they’ll record and analyze. This is the one between just you and me. I’ve already established your propensity for lying, so good luck trying to get anyone to believe your side of what I’m about to say.”

“Look, Admiral—”

“Can it, Fyde. Listen. I’m going to make a career off the mistakes you’re making. I’m going to win medals for cleaning up the mess your parents made and that you’re now smearing across the galaxy. But I meant every word of my speech back there. You can do some good with the little amount of life you have left, before you crash and burn in spectacular fashion. And before you start thinking on these things, I want you to know how I found out about your parents and their work on Lok. The official version is some miraculous sleuthing on my part—enough to skip a few ranks and get Zebra command—but I want you to know what really happened. Just so you realize what you’re up against. How good my intel is.”