Devana Files, Part II: Chapter 15
Blind spot
If you like this series, be sure to share, forward this email, restack and spread the love. 🌞
This is Part II. The Fifteenth chapter. You may find earlier chapters here: https://wyattwerne.substack.com/s/kate-devana-series.
I am excited to bring chapters of the new Kate Devana series.
Space 2074: The lunar colony is the new Wild West. Sheriff Kate Devana is away on a deep space supply shuttle, wrangling a fugitive con artist who bilked retirees for billions. But robots are glitching, killing people, and Kate is the target of an FBI Agent looking to avenge the death of his former partner. Bodies are piling up. Again. On the moon, Kate Devana is the law.
While this is the 3rd novel in the series, each is designed to be read independently.
For accessibility, there is a voiceover for each chapter.
APRIL 9, 2074
LUNAR SURFACE, 58°34’41.09" N 61°17’35.32" E.
The navigation computer’s alarm blared. Its clock blinked red, 00:00:00 1900-01-00, and its map gyrated like a lost compass needle. He had closed his eyes to the jagged edge of twilight. But now, the sun was thirty-four degrees above the horizon, well past sunrise. Three kilometers below, the moon’s surface undulated like a grayscale ocean. Within the dark crescents of impact craters, flares of blue and orange glowed unnaturally, like demons upwelling from the moon’s core, filling its voids with molten metal and glass. He was flying over mining country. Those were mining outposts, scarring the moon, extracting rare metals, oxygen, titanium, aluminum, even billion-year-old ice from billion-year-old shadows. Three hundred meters starboard, the sun sketched the contours of his faceless stalker ship in golden orange against a black sky. It lingered, its red navigation lights blinking passively, neither speeding up nor slowing down, nor climbing, nor diving.
Visually, his altitude and heading were steady. The Lunar Positioning System was out. Or more precisely, it was jammed, unable to fix his time and location. Whoever jacked his ship was doing the technological equivalent of putting a hood over his head, covering their tracks, so he couldn’t guess the final destination. They had timed it well, too, doing it while he slept. Over a section of the moon that was a vast, pockmarked sea of gravel, spattered with ghastly orange blobs that all looked the same. No landmarks in sight.
A prudent deck officer never relies on a single method of navigation.
Devana practically had him tattoo this on his forearm.
He muted the alarms. He didn’t intend to sleep. His pressure suit was hot, and he was exhausted. Sweat puddled at his collar. He’d closed his eyes to picture Leyna’s lips. Soon they were dancing a tango in a crowd of leaden phantoms on the moon’s chalky surface. He knew how long he was out, though, because Devana made him stow an off-grid backup clock in all the ships. The one in this ship was a marine clock, with a tide calendar calibrated to the Pacific Islands. Thoroughly useless for flying over the moon. She caught him rolling his eyes, so she’d glued it to the dash, like an interrobang.
The tide calendar was pointless, but it also had a quarter-sized betavoltaic radionuclide battery, powered by nickel-63, good for seventy-five years, and was accurate to one-one-hundredth of a second a millennium. So he knew he was asleep for seventy-three minutes and, based on the sun’s position, had traveled about a thousand kilometers. Later, he would confirm his precise location, using what Devana called the ultimate off-grid navigational tool. She made him train in a simulator for days. They still teach this at the Naval Academy and the Space Force Academy for a reason. It saved the Apollo 13 crew. There was no point pulling the space sextant out of the dash box until…
“Good morning, Jinho Knight,” a voice blasted over the comms. “We hope you rested well.”
Shit. They were monitoring him.
“As well as I could for someone who was kidnapped.”
“We apologize for the subterfuge. Please understand our need for privacy. We will guide you to retrieve the dead, and then return you to the colony.”
He flipped his middle finger at the dashboard console, but after he dimmed the lights and toggled the LPS off. Hopefully, they couldn’t see him with the cockpit dark.
“Who, exactly, is we?”
No answer.
The navigation computer reverted to the backup inertial guidance system, IGS. It confirmed his arithmetic: One-thousand forty-three kilometers traveled, and his course had not changed. A thin, green, dotted arc stretched fifteen hundred kilometers across the moon to his destination, the mining claim where two miners died. It was dotted because the trajectory was a probabilistic projection, a forecast, like that of an oncoming hurricane, and it was probably projecting wrong.
While the nav computer projected that he was still on course, that would change soon. IGS was prone to drift. Error accumulated. Whoever controlled his ship would toss him left and right, spin him around, speed up and slow down, to confuse the IGS integrator. It was the technological equivalent of the kidnapper driving the white panel van around the city to confuse the hostage victim of the time and distance traveled.
You need this training, Jin, because there may come a time when LPS fails.
The most irritating thing about this trip would be reporting to Devana later. He could picture her in the office, feet up on the desk, the Texas and U.S. flag behind her, tossing her handball at the wall. It made a thuck-thucking sound when it bounced, like an I-told-you-so exclamation point.
Two ships popped over the horizon, flying low, their white and green navigation lights blinking. The computer labeled them ‘US2,’ and ‘US3,’ Unidentified Ships 2 and 3, and crayoned a dotted yellow trajectory. Like the stalker on his starboard, US1, they had no transponder. The yellow line told him two things. One, the computer projected that they would intersect his course at a ‘y’ seven minutes and thirty-four seconds ahead. If they stayed on their present course and speed. It was a big gray lunarscape below, and they could change course at any time. Pull up. Descend. Or maybe turn a little left or right to avoid him.
But they wouldn’t. The second thing it told him was that the proximity radar wasn’t jammed. Even if the computer didn’t know where he was, it knew what was around him. It flagged nine objects within a one hundred and fifty-kilometer radius. Five were communications satellites. That left four ships inside a seven million cubic kilometer dome, a dome big enough to cover the eastern seaboard from New Haven to Philadelphia. Of the four, one was his, one was his stalker three hundred meters starboard, and the other two inked a yellow line towards him. An unlikely coincidence.
One escort was a courtesy. Two escorts, a statement. Three escorts, intimidation.
No need for anxiety, Jinho Knight.
Their first communication blasted in his head. They—whoever they were—already knew his name. Twice he asked who they were. Twice they hadn’t answered. They were not random pirates, and this was not an opportunistic kidnapping.
He had an eidetic memory. He and Leyna had combed through every line of code in his ship’s computer, smoothing it, checking it for malware and closing trapdoors. Could someone hack his ship wirelessly?
The nav computer beeped. The dotted yellow line filled in solid behind US2 and US3, which were now seven minutes to intercept.
We control your ship.
Who was we? He figured, not terrorists. Terrorists wouldn’t snatch him like this. They’d wait until he landed. Or they’d skulk around in craters, and if he flew over their zone of operations, they would reduce him to twisted body parts in a charred metal coffin.
If they wanted to kill him, he’d already be dead. The sour lump in his throat disagreed, refusing to be swallowed. There was always the possibility they were toying with him the way a cat toys with a mouse. But he didn’t think so.
It was a lie, too. They didn’t control his ship. Not fully. Not the proximity sensors, not the inertial guidance system, not the environmental controls, and certainly not the foolproof navigation tool inside the dash console. He had no signal, but he suspected he could tap into one of those communications satellites. They steered the ship, but that was it.
Since he could access environmentals, he could depressurize the cockpit. He would need fifteen minutes. Of course, he couldn’t open a hatch and jump. Even if he had a parachute, there was no air on the moon to slow him down. He’d splat on regolith like a one-hundred-kilogram water balloon. Or, if he timed it right, sizzle in one of the fiery molten metal pits rushing underneath him. Disconnecting his hose would put him on the clock. He’d have nine hours of breathable air. The mining claim was about two hours away, so that left him seven hours of suit air. He couldn’t open a hatch and jump, but every escape plan started with the cockpit at vacuum and his hose disconnected. He needed to time it right.
We will escort you.
Smashed together, the transmissions almost sounded benign. No need for anxiety. We control your ship. We will escort you. We apologize for the subterfuge. Please understand our need for privacy.
Gaslighting 101.
“Thank you, whoever you are,” he said, muttering to himself, “for being concerned with my mental health. I would feel better if you revealed yourself.”
Revealed yourself. Ha, no, what he meant to say is relieved himself, pissing on their plan and then shitting down their neck. That would make him feel better.
The nav computer beeped the only reply. US2 and US3 were five minutes to intercept. A mining colony’s spiderwebs of red-hot molten glass rolled under his ship. A gloomy impact crater scowled at him.
Whoever said silence was golden hadn’t been stalked by nameless, faceless drone ships, like the one off his starboard.
The console beep-beep-beeped. The dotted yellow line for US2 and US3 divided. Four minutes and thirty seconds to intercept. US2 remained on the same course. US3’s path, now purple, corkscrewed, and appeared to be swinging around behind him.
He dismissed the idea that this was a criminal syndicate. Criminal enterprises were corporations by another name. Maximum revenue for minimum cost. A criminal enterprise wouldn’t send three ships when two would do, or two ships when one would do. They’d set him down in the middle of nowhere, demand ransom, and then send a crew to scavenge every part, tool, and drop of fuel.
He doubted someone hacked his ship wirelessly. He could picture every line of code. They had the latest military cybersecurity defenses and had randomized the wireless access ports and passwords. Even if he made a mistake, Leyna had looked it over too. She was good, maybe better than him, and four eyes were always better than two. No, they didn’t take control of his ship while he was in the air. They entered through a trusted host, which meant a hard connection at the spaceport. On the ground. Which meant this was planned.
If this was planned, it shed an entirely different light on the bodies. He tried to think back. Who reported the deaths? Who reported the glitch?
The yaw alarm clanged, and the cockpit shuddered. Stars rotated like a tornado of fairies, slowly at first, then accelerating, as the ship pitched up and rolled right. He slid. His restraints bit into his left side and waist, and the horizon fell away. On his starboard, his stalker banked in unison.
This was what he expected. He pictured himself on a roller coaster. These maneuvers would confuse the inertial guidance system. In a few minutes, the computer wouldn’t know where he was. He would know where he was when he landed, because Devana told-him-so.
Terrorists would blow him to bits. A criminal enterprise would pick him apart and sell his atoms. Neither would send him on a complicated amusement park ride in space.
The ship banked left and shook. Then the nose pitched down, and he was diving into the gray ocean. The engines rumbled, the ship climbed, and he lurched forward against the seat straps.
They knew his name. They hacked him on the ground. Which meant they planned this long before he left the colony. He didn’t know he was leaving for the colony, so they had taken a gamble. Or did they? They wanted to trade his life for something. What did Devana have?
And not only worth his life: worth three lives, if the miners were murdered for bait.
The ship leveled off for a few seconds and then banked right, so steeply he was hanging in his harness like a hammock.
He lurched forward again. The black sky descended into the cockpit window as the ship leveled off. The guidance system claimed he was hundreds of kilometers off course. As far as he could see, the lunar surface was nothing but silvery, desolate, sameness. He might have lost altitude; the blue and orange flickers in the wells of impact craters were a little larger.
US2 and US3 had intercepted him. Now, four ships formed an asterism on the map. His in the middle. US1 was starboard. US2 was port. Neither had windows. Or a cockpit set into polished metal. Or doors cut from glinting skin. Neither had identifying marks of any kind. They were hideous, nameless drones in polished aluminum skin. US3 was in his blindspot, above and behind him, so no matter how much he craned or twisted his neck, he couldn’t see it. He was boxed in with computerized precision.
The sun was in roughly the same position as before the maneuver. Vega, Sirius, Alpha Centauri, and Betelgeuse were in the same position, or nearly so to his eye, but he would check later. The inertial guidance system was confused. But he wasn’t.
Buzzing exploded inside his pressure suit. His HUD was ringing because his phone was connected to his suit. His heart skipped, hoping it was Leyna. He missed her, and he needed to warn her. But it was an unknown name, and unknown number. He let it ring. Once. Twice. Three times.
His neuroface attempted to answer the call. It felt disturbing, violating. His gut wrenched and he swatted it with a thought, disconnecting it.
The ringing stopped on the fourth ring. He had no bars and no signal. Were they trying to invade his neuroface? His stomach acid boiled.
His phone rang again. He waited one, two, three rings, and then answered it manually. The video opened to two men. Possibly from the Indian subcontinent. Familiar looking. One, bald, older-middle age, clean-shaven, with droopy, tanned, and weathered cheeks, and deep black eyes. The second, younger, with brown eyes, a thin brown beard, and black hair styled like the barber’s chair had tilted forty degrees in a storm. Both wore formal, elegant coats with narrow stand-up collars. Sherwanis. He remembered that’s what the coats were called. The older man’s sherwani was butter yellow. The younger man’s sherwani was cream with gold embroidery. Between them, not a pimple, a scratch, a scar, the shimmer of oily skin, or a loose gold thread. Flawless, familiar, and fake.
He recognized AI-generated avatars when he saw them. It was the way the older man’s skin was weathered. The lines looked unnatural, somehow. As if the AI followed a rule that didn’t exist in nature.
“We are pleased to meet you Jinho Knight,” the older man said. “I am Siddhi, your host.”
Jin mustered the fakest of his fake smiles and smeared it across his face. “Pleased to meet you too.”
“You will find everything in order. We are familiar with your evidence collection procedures—”
“Let’s get to it, shall we. You want something. You kidnapped me for a reason.”
“We did not kidnap you.”
“So I am free to turn around and head back?”
The two men didn’t look at each other. Their facial expressions were robotic.
Then the navigation console dinged and blinked. LPS was back on. Its location and heading agreed with the inertial guidance system. A neat trick, but second rate CGI, at best.
“We are not holding you against your will. We would never presume to command one of Katera Devana’s disciples.”
Surely they meant deputies. Second rate CGI and a second-rate language module, too. “And are you going to tell me who you really are?”
“I am Siddhi Alpha, your host,” the bald older man said.
“And I am Siddhi Omega,” angled-hair said.
They stood like statues as they talked, neither moving their arms and neither blinking. No facial expressions whatsoever. It was unsettling.
“And I am Mahatma Ghandi. Tell me what you want. Maybe my boss won’t come back and nuke you.”
Siddhi Alpha said, “As a disciple of Katera Devana, we wish to secure your help.”
“My boss does not negotiate with terrorists or kidnappers.”
“We are neither terrorists nor kidnappers. We are a simple, peaceful community.”
A separatist group? A cult? Who introduced themselves with odd, mid-tier avatars? “When I am not back on time she will come looking.”
“We are nowhere,” Siddhi Alpha said. Siddhi Omega and his black, angled hair didn’t seem to have a speaking role in this farce, except to make Jin think he was banking left.
“She is pretty good at hunting people down and turning them into fused glass. Some would say the best.”
“Katera Devana is currently on a ship called NYS Vega. She is returning a fugitive.”
It wasn’t a secret. It had been plastered all over the servers. “That’s right. She expects me back before she lands.”
“We hope so. We wish to secure her help.”
As they talked, he checked the nav display. The five communications satellites he had seen earlier were gone.
“What kind of help? You know you catch more flies with honey.”
“An idiom. We understand our primitive methods may have been unpleasant. We apologize.”
He sighed. Did he have a choice? After all the eye rolling and bitching, reporting to Devana he’d needed the space sextant to fix his location would still be the worst part of the trip. “Apology accepted. What kind of help?”
“Our cargo is on NYS Vega. We pray she will help us retrieve it.”
Impounding Vega and bringing it back was always the plan. That’s what he told Leyna.
He needed to warn Devana. They’d walked into a trap.