“Go faster, Drake,” Callie said. “I want to feel my brain trying to climb out the back of my head.”

The pressure of acceleration increased, and Callie sank back into the jumpseat, trying to focus on the task at hand: find the perpetrators, secure or destroy them, and see justice done. She was just a contractor, more bounty hunter than policeman, but right now it was entirely possible she was the whole of the law, and she intended to represent the Trans-Neptunian Authority to the very edge of her abilities.

Except Meditreme Station was the Trans-Neptunian Authority. The two were basically synonymous. The station was the center of the corporation’s organization and power. There wasn’t much else to the TNA but a few asteroid outposts, research stations, mining operations, and some articles of incorporation floating in a database somewhere. The CEO was gone, the CFO, the board, all the senior management, most of the employees… The TNA was a giant in the region, but its head had just been blown off.

Callie couldn’t think about that, any more than she could think about all her dead friends and colleagues. Do the job in front of you, and then think about what comes next. “Ship, do an intelligence analysis. Who had the means and motive to do something like this?”

“Ah. I’ve been working on that. Ask anyone in the system and they’d say it must be the Jovians, probably funding mercenaries or pirates or terrorists to commit the actual attack. The Jovian Imperative has joint projects with the TNA, but the TNA has been getting stronger, upsetting the balance of power. With the TNA crippled, the Jovians could invoke emergency clauses to seize control of all those joint operations around Neptune and Uranus. The loss of Meditreme Station is the certain ruin of the TNA, so the Jovians could snatch up all their property for next to nothing, and then everything from the asteroid belt to the edge of the solar system would be under the Imperative’s control.”

“That’s monstrous,” Callie said. “Corporate espionage is one thing, but they blew up a city. There are sure to be investigations, Earth itself will get involved. It could even lead to war. It’s an insane risk.”

“It is,” the ship agreed. “If we believe it was a deliberate attack, though, it’s the only plausible explanation. Only, I don’t think that’s what happened. I don’t think this is the Jovian Imperative’s fault.”

“Then whose fault is it?”

“It’s gotta be ours, cap.” Ashok spoke softly.

Callie stared at him. There were tears running from under his lenses, down his shiny metal face. She hadn’t even realized his tear ducts worked. Then she understood. “The bridge generator. That’s what changed. That’s the new variable.”