The Burning Crown (Stone Blade Book 4) (19 page)

With nothing to do now but wait, Kidwell left the building for a 'stick. Her comm beeped again and, under the cover of a hissed not-quite-argument, she picked up a few interesting tidbits of House gossip from the cliques around her. After she finished half of a second 'stick she snapped shut her comm angrily and stalked back into the building. This time her card worked perfectly but the three after her wouldn't.

The Catonatta suite, now looking clean and smelling fresh, should remain unvisited for the rest of the night. Kidwell found a chair in a nook not visible from the hallway, jacked in and prepared for her serious burning. Before she started she messaged Thompson and he acknowledged.

This time she found enough security to rouse even Ferrel's discomfort. She had prepared well, though, and her virus-laden queries slowed the system enough for her to work. She felt a hollow of fear form in her gut but she didn't have the time to quell it. Alone now, she let her facade melt and wished earnestly for Micah's unwavering calmness or Ferrel's easy confidence and skill. Or Ionoski's certainty! None of them manifested beside her but the thoughts of their presence brought some reassurance. Soon she had the system open to her deft touches.

Treasure ship! She knew she didn't have a lot of time but she prepared her warez appropriately. She had an ad hoc datasink made up of rented datamart machines and compromised cores waiting, now she began squirting them data. For safety's sake she planted a few veggs and databombs with almost-findable links to Binkor-Sud or Varl nets.

Once she had the main transfers well and verifiably working, Kidwell turned her attention to the logs and image files. She deleted all security references to herself and left a trap in those cores too.

***

Thomson didn't quite jump when the door opened and Kidwell dropped into the seat beside him.

"Well?"

"Well is exactly how things went, my darling dear," she said, reclining the seat and relaxing into it, "Now take me to a datamart and yourself to another. We have hungry cores to feed! Be sure to pick sites well away from here. I have no doubt this place will soon see many angry people looking for friendly strangers."

By the time Kidwell sat down in a datamart, paid for pipe and settled in she had plenty of data waiting. She and Thompson both had portacores, legally purchased and pre-configured for their information. A few minutes later Thompson fused his pipe with hers and the data-drain doubled. She didn't try to analyze the information, that would come later, but she did keep a wary eye open for any disturbance to the flow of data. She kept her other one fixed on the bait site to which some of her hidden surprises would report when they detonated.

"That's a lot of data," said Thompson as he meshed their terminals.

"Charlie taught me well," she replied, "We'll be through it in no time. I sharpened the queries I used on their nets so the data should be pre-digested for us."

Kidwell claimed first shower after she started the correlates and by the time Thompson finished his, so had the program.

"Polar," she said, examining the results, "Plus-plus polar. This is even better than I expected."

"How so," asked Thompson, "I see a lot of correlation but also a lot of dispersion."

"All truth and no blather, Cap'n John. There's not only correlation there is tight correlation. Near unity in some cases. All of the defective units fall within this single category. Every single one! Not only that, but there are no instances outside of it!"

"So what category is that," he asked, "I don't see any classifications."

"Blind-keyed elsewhere," she said, "Charlie and I have seen this before. They might not even have the categories recorded on any documents here. It's a simple but sometimes-effective way to add to data obfuscation. That doesn't matter, though, since we have the actual data tied together!"

Thompson eyed the results critically. "No blather, for a company spiking the League on bad parts Catonatta sure keeps good records of it. It's not like there is zero possibility of a random audit."

"You are correct," she said, "but blind-keyed hashes like this can be scattered quickly should the need arise. Too, don't forget these are their top-secret company records and not available to any jacked-in nubb on the net. I don't know if I mentioned the fact but it took a lot of work to get them! Charlie probably would've demanded two desserts for it."

"Slib," chuckled Thompson, "We shall take it as platinum that these records will not appear on their annual statement and that the Guild auditors would have to dig hard to find them."

"At least four sigmas there. Besides, everything I've observed and read says Brightcrowns are uniformly meticulous, very detail-conscious when keeping track of things and obsessed with following propriety. I'd even venture to say it's ingrained in them, even when it comes to records they shouldn't be keeping. Very convenient for us."

"Truth, but consider a possible alternative rationale. What if they subcontract and the key code is their subcontractor?"

Kidwell indicated a small annotation. "I thought of that too, John. This says each defective part came from a registered and verified Brightcrown source. Not just registered with Brightcrown but registered specifically with an Elder Guard port authority. I did a simple query-veri with Sjoerd credentials on several transactions at random and they checked."

"The individual sources are very scattered. That's strange."

"I concur, but that's where the dispersion comes into play. That's a good way to hide things but doing it right requires a lot more work than these stapes did. These transactions are dispersed uniformly across a set of  Crown systems and obfuscated with a lot of paperwork, all properly documented, but they overlooked one critical detail."

"How so?"

"Official paperwork leaves official trails. I suppose they're so accustomed to it they don't think of it as something that can be used against them. If someone is patient or paranoid enough to drill and search through four layers of indirection, a common origin can be found."

"I take it you are adequately patient or paranoid?"

"Or both." She winked and keyed the terminal. "Observe. Here we have our common origin of every suspicious failure and the veracity of that source is absolute."

Thompson whistled through his teeth at what he saw on the readout. "Hell's frost! I didn't even notice that."

"Because we take it for granted, dear heart. The which is why they managed to slip it under our orbits for so many years. This also adds a lot of weight to the theory that something other than curve-cutting and petty embezzlement is happening here."

"For truth, I'm coming around to your point of view," said Thompson, "It would take titanium nerves and floppers the size of asteroids to even try this."

"Exactly. But, if you play close and tight and make the effort to go out of your way complying to rules and standards that aren't mandatory, legally, even a Guild Arbiter might miss the dirty details."

"Especially from a company with a pristine record. That makes me wonder if we shouldn't check into all of Catonatta's other customers."

"Definitely," said Kidwell, "but not now. Let's crack this one open and get plenty of good, solid evidence. Once that happens and the light hits the dark parts it will be L-shots easier to find anything else."

Thompson nodded and Kidwell began doodling on her 'pad. The display changed to a link-time map of the Crown worlds.

"We are here," she said, highlighting Faircoast, "This is the main transit point between the League and the rest of the Crown worlds. There is some trade between League systems and other Crown worlds but this is primary. The planets where Catonatta allegedly purchased the bad parts are these." Quite a few systems lit up. She added lines from Faircoast to each of them. "The time correlations are mostly uniform and not particularly relevant so we won't bother with them.

"Now. Let's look at the origin points of the components before Brightcrown purchased them. I'm setting the criteria for number of units per planet." She tapped it in and all but two of the systems changed color. Then, when she added the lines...

"Fallstar," said Thompson with a confidant nod.

"Dead on the beam, Cap'n John. Almost all of the bad units came from Fallstar. Officially certified by League clerks as you so duly noted."

"Is it coincidence that Fallstar just happens to be the Crown world farthest from the rest of League space and the most common entry point for traders from outside the League," he wondered.

"That, my dear love, is something we might do well to investigate!"

Thompson ran some numbers of his own.

"The links between Fallstar and the other worlds are feasible both in travel time and cost. They're not always the most efficient but they're not the least, either. Does that sum up to a journey to Fallstar in our near future?"

"For truth! It seems you are developing telepathy."

Chapter 11. Departures

Tobart clamped his emotions hard as he entered Fadding's lair. The man wore a smile so arrogant and condescending that Tobart wanted to remove it with a dull knife. The fool also had a smug and superior look in his eye that Tobart liked not at all.

"Good afternoon, Master Tobart," smirked Fadding, "Might I hazard a guess as to why you are here?"

"Your net was compromised, my Laird. Again! More severely than the last time!"

"Indeed it was."

Fadding's utter lack of concern only increased Tobart's desire to carve the smile off his face.

"I must say, my Laird, your lack of concern disturbs me. This is the second severe incident of which I am aware. Regardless of whether you had awkward information there or not, there are still connections to it and to us!"

Fadding actually laughed at this!

"Calm yourself, my friend," said Fadding, "I realize that you have your sources of information. Grant that I also have mine. Did you manage to discover the source of the intrusion?"

"It was from the project. The project!"

"It was from Lithigrove and the subsidiary involved with the project," corrected Fadding, "Our systems were not the primary target of the incident, nor even secondary. Did your sources tell you that?"

Tobart started to object but the absolute serenity with which Fadding spoke stopped him.

"It is quite true, my friend," added Fadding, "
My
sources informed me that the penetration of our system was an afterthought. A consequence, if you will, of the compromise of the system that was targeted. The intrusion into our cores, and those of several other Houses in case you didn't know, was linked directly to a more... profitable attack."

"Profitable?!"

"Profitable. To us. The true intrusion compromised its target to a much worse degree than our systems were, even the first time. The targeted cores were owned down to the last scrap of data they held; nothing was spared. Would you care to guess which House's cores they were?"

Tobart held his silence.

"Brightcrown," spat Fadding, "Catonatta. Every shred of their data was compromised! The penetrations were sophisticated well beyond those into our nets and those fools might as well not have had any security at all! I am also told that the information was filtered for transactions involving our project."

"Do your vaunted sources reveal the source of that intrusion?" Tobart tried to keep the acid out of his voice, and succeeded. Mostly.

"They do," said Fadding coldly, "Not precisely, of course, but enough so for our our needs. You knew this would happen, Master Tobart. Our plan hinges on it. I knew it as well, the day I agreed to the plan. The day I agreed to bear the risks and share the benefits! Do not stray from the course now that it is beginning to bloom and yield fruit!"

"Do you think the League itself is involved?!"

Fadding shrugged airily. "The League, the Crown, the Guilds... Even a private agency from some other source. What does it matter to us? Our plan is nearing its climax and must be allowed to reach it!"

"I would prefer the League not be involved."

"And I would prefer that the foul house of Brightcrown be ground into dust and the soil on which it settled be salted and burned," said Fadding viciously, "But we must settle for what we ourselves can accomplish. You will have your benefits, Master Tobart. The Great House of Varl will ascend to its rightful place, the House of Brightcrown will be no more and I,
I
shall be in place to bestow rewards beyond what you even dream, sirra. All you must needs do is stay the course!"

Tobart bit back on his reply and forced himself to calmness yet again. He little liked the spark of madness he saw in Fadding's eye but he stood in the middle of the fool's own castle. High time, he thought, for a strategic reassessment.

"As you say, m'Laird. We shall do our part even as you have done yours. I shall leave you to your business."

***

"That
stultus
is insane!" Mooke shook his head as he spoke these words. "He is insane and unpredictable, Ken. That equals danger!"

Tobart transferred his conversation from his small and very stylish holocaster to Mooke's more secure terminal.

"I agree wholly, old friend. Message Kenjai. I think it is past time for a strategic withdrawal and redisposition of forces. Inform him that we shall leave soon and that he should not fret while we are out of touch. Have him ready our personnel at the factory for rapid withdrawal. Perhaps he should bring our ship down to the asteroid's surface; I shall leave that to his judgment."

"Yes sir! I'll message him immediately."

Tobart nodded and Mooke left. Overall he and his team hadn't done a bad job. They made a tidy profit, did at least token damage to the League and made several paths inward for future operations. Better to consolidate a partial success than suffer a total failure.

Besides, if the fool Fadding did manage to execute his plan and it succeeded, Tobart and his team would be in position to ask for many things.

***

Karr and Blue sat quietly in Worthington's study. Worthington himself, after providing a rushed meal just sufficient to satisfy hospitality, sat back and spoke little. Rolf Sir Quinby, expression grave and deeply troubled, spoke the most. At first reticent, he finally opened up with Worthington's assurances and upon hearing Karr's suspicions.