Chapter 14 - Chasing Patterns

  The temporary office Agent Falk had claimed on Caldera Station was, predictably, just as austere and pragmatic as the man himself. Lieutenant Thalina Veris stood by the desk, her spine straight and expression carefully neutral as she waited for further instructions.

  This was… not the assignment she had expected as a freshly promoted Lieutenant. Of course, the promotion itself was unexpected, really. While she liked to think she was competent and driven, Thalina was realistic enough to understand that everybody else also wanted to believe they were competent and driven. The fact of the matter was that most of those people were lying to themselves or possibly merely deluded.

  It was a large part of why she had requested a posting on a frontier world in the first place. Her test scores were good enough to merit a posting in the core worlds, and even if they didn’t, her family name would doubtlessly be sufficient on its own.

  But Thalina wanted more than that.

  She wanted to know that her position was earned, that her skills were real and that her effort had paid off. Thus, Caldera IV.

  This far out from the core worlds, she doubted anyone even knew about the name ‘Veris’ let alone cared about it. It was… liberating. Not to mention vindicating, when scant months after her arrival she was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant. And then to further be assigned to an Imperial Agent?

  It was a dream come true.

  The Agent in question didn’t bother to look up as his fingers moved across the glowing interface of a datapad. His focus was sharp, as if every keystroke was a calculated manoeuvre in a larger game. She cleared her throat softly, not to hurry him but to remind him of her presence.

  “Lieutenant,” Agent Falk said without glancing up, his tone clipped but not unkind. “Progress on the requisition forms?”

  “They’ve been submitted, sir,” she replied, her voice steady. “I’ve flagged the redundancies for review, but I expect pushback from the Quartermaster.”

  “Of course you do,” he murmured, his lips twitching in what might have been a smirk. “Efficiency isn’t a language they speak.”

  Thalina’s expression twitched minutely, but she showed no further reaction than that. It caught her by surprise, then, when Agent Falk looked up and pinned her with a sharp look.

  “Do you disagree, Lieutenant?”

  She really wished every question he asked didn’t sound quite so much like a test. The stress of it alone was going to age her prematurely at this rate.

  “…I believe they will follow all relevant protocols, sir,” she hedged.

  “A diplomatic response,” Agent Falk acknowledged, though something in his tone told her it wasn’t the answer he was looking for. Thalina somehow straightened further, suppressing the urge to fidget as her mind raced for a more appropriate response.

  Before she could come up with anything, the console in front of him chimed, and a sharp, synthesised alert broke the quiet. Agent Falk’s expression hardened as he swiped at the interface. A live feed from the station’s security cameras sprang to life, displaying three figures standing just outside a doorway. The trio seemed surprised by something, pausing to argue for a brief moment before slamming through the door.

  One of the figures seemed almost familiar. Thalina frowned, stepping closer to the desk. “Isn’t that—?”

  “Kallan and his accomplices,” Torian finished grimly. His hands moved quickly, bringing up additional angles inside the building. It took her a moment, but the layout of the room, combined with the towering stacks of data drives, quickly jogged her memory.

  “Isn’t that the Records building?” she asked, confused. “What could he possibly want from there?”

  According to his file, the man was a Salvage Technician with a minor criminal record and… possible family ties to dissident organisations. “The Freeholders,” she breathed, answering her own question.

  The approving look she got from Agent Falk was more validating than it probably should have been. Her brow furrowed as she watched the footage. “How did we pick them up so quickly? The station’s security systems aren’t—”

  “I’ve installed facial recognition protocols,” the Agent interrupted smoothly, his tone almost casual. “Station-wide.”

  Thalina froze, her mind racing to process his words. “Facial recognition? As in... constant surveillance?”

  “Yes.”

  “But… that’s illegal,” she said sharply, turning to face him fully. “The Imperial courts outlawed it decades ago after—”

  “I’m aware,” Agent Falk said, his tone cool and deliberate. “The law is specifically aimed at permanent, systemic tracking and surveillance. This is a temporary measure that will be discontinued once my mission is complete.”

  Her stomach churned at his nonchalance. “Temporary measures? That’s a loophole, not authorisation.”

  He finally looked up, his gaze steady and unapologetic. “It’s a tool, Lieutenant. A necessary one. I don’t make the rules; I use them.”

  Thalina opened her mouth to argue but hesitated. She had no illusions about the Empire’s willingness to bend its own laws when it suited them. But this... This was the sort of overreach that had sparked protests and reforms decades ago. “Sir, with respect, this kind of surveillance—”

  “—is the reason we’re seeing this now instead of discovering it hours later,” the Agent cut in, gesturing to the footage. “Kallan is in a restricted zone, Lieutenant. Whatever they’re after, we need to stop them before they get it.”

  His certainty was as maddening as it was compelling. Thalina let out a slow breath, tamping down the knot of unease in her chest. “And if they succeed?”

  “They won’t,” he replied, turning back to the screen. “Stay focused, Lieutenant. Question my methods later.”

  Thalina winced at the reminder that she had just been directly chiding a superior officer. That… was probably going to come back to bite her at some point. The instructors at the Imperial Academy on Solvaris had repeatedly pointed out that good soldiers didn’t question orders.

  Then again, they also said that good officers didn’t give questionable orders.

  Thalina’s discomfort simmered beneath her disciplined exterior as she turned back to the screen. Agent Falk’s attention was laser-focused on the trio navigating the Records Building. They moved with purpose, and despite the earlier burst of indecision at the door, there was no hesitation now.

  “Interesting,” Falk muttered, his fingers flying across the holographic controls. He brought up a new overlay alongside the footage; profiles of the other two figures.

  “Lena Ward and Harlan Dray,” the Agent said, reading the results aloud. “Not much on Ward, but Dray has an… extensive history in the Freeholder Alliance. Career military-turned-dissident along with a superior officer. Records indicate they… hmm. Got married.”

  Thalina shifted uncomfortably at the dry recitation of the man’s history, especially at the faint mockery in Agent Falk’s voice as he mentioned their relationship. The events playing out on screen provided a suitable distraction as Kallan stopped at a terminal set into the wall. His companions fanned out, Lena glancing back toward the entrance while Harlan pulled something from his jacket that looked suspiciously like a bypass kit.

  “Amateurs,” Falk said, his voice thick with disdain. “They’re trying to brute force their way in.”

  Thalina remained silent as Harlan and Kallan spoke for a moment before Harlan handed the kit over to the younger man. The bypass kit was plugged into the terminal with slightly clumsy motions, and Thalina frowned, something niggling in the back of her mind about the situation.

  Darius Kallan’s file showed no indications of any hacking or computer skills. He was a technician, to be sure, but there was a big difference between wiring up a terminal and hacking into one. But mere seconds after plugging the kit in, lines of code began scrolling across the screen in a blur that made her breath catch.

  “What is he doing?” she asked, stepping closer.

  Falk’s brows drew together. “That… shouldn’t be possible.”

  Imperial records such as this were not considered a high enough priority to merit the heaviest encryption – mostly because heavy encryption tended to slow down transfer rates – but it was still military grade, designed to easily withstand the kind of infiltration attempts of commercial or home-brew bypass kits.

  Yet Kallan was cutting through it as if the safeguards were little more than cobwebs. In less than thirty seconds, the terminal chimed, and its interface unlocked.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Impossible,” Falk breathed. His tone was flat, but Thalina caught the slight twitch of his hand as he brought up Kallan’s file again. “He’s a salvage technician. No formal training in cybernetics, no record of working with encryption this advanced…”

  Thalina didn’t need to be told how wrong this felt. “Could it be the bypass kit itself? A prototype, maybe, preprogrammed to bypass the system?”

  “No,” Falk replied, his voice tight. “That’s manual input – it’s connected directly to his augs. He’s doing it himself.”

  The trio on the screen didn’t waste time marvelling at the success. Kallan dove into the terminal’s directories, pulling up files and searching through them with unsettling efficiency. Harlan and Lena moved to cover him, keeping a sharp eye on the surrounding area.

  Falk’s fingers blurred across the interface as he attempted to track Kallan’s actions through the system. “What are you doing?” he muttered, the question more to himself than anyone else. He initiated a deep scan of the terminal Kallan was using, expecting to see activity isolated to the standard directories of the Records Building.

  Instead, what he found made his blood run cold.

  Kallan wasn’t just rifling through records—he was bypassing secondary encryption layers designed to protect classified operational data. The kind of files that should have been locked behind digital barriers far beyond the reach of anyone short of an Imperial Intelligence cyberteam.

  “That’s not possible,” Falk said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. His hands danced faster, pulling up layers of monitoring tools. Each one confirmed the same reality: Kallan wasn’t just breaching the system; he was diving deeper with every second. Lines of defensive code flickered and fell, one after another, as if they weren’t even there.

  Thalina leaned closer, her expression tightening. “What is he doing now?”

  “Digging,” Falk snapped, his usual calm veneer cracking under the strain. “This encryption isn’t meant to be accessible from a field terminal. It’s not even supposed to be accessible on-site. He’s punching through to classified records.”

  “How?” Thalina asked, her voice sharp with disbelief. “He doesn’t have the training, the tools—”

  “Exactly,” Falk cut in, his tone clipped as he opened yet another layer of monitoring. His jaw tightened as the screen updated: Kallan had reached a directory marked with the Imperial Intelligence seal. The encryption protecting it was far heavier than the Records Building itself, and yet—

  “Unbelievable.” Falk stared at the screen as a chime indicated that another layer of encryption had fallen. “He’s breaking into our files.”

  Thalina’s breath caught. “Imperial Intelligence files—sir, that’s impossible.”

  “I know,” he hissed, but his hands hesitated over the interface. Thalina knew that traditional overrides wouldn’t work; Kallan’s augs had already bridged directly into the system, bypassing the terminal’s standard input protocols. Cutting his connection would take time they didn’t have.

  Time Kallan was using to burrow deeper.

  Agent Falk’s fingers were a blur as he raced through sub-menus, flickering through screens almost faster than she could track. Thalina felt frozen, like she should be doing something, but she didn’t know what it was. Finally, the Agent seemed to find what he was looking for. He paused for a long moment, eyes flickering but to the screen where Kallan was standing over the terminal before he clenched his teeth and inputted a final command.

  On the screen, Kallan paused, his head tilting as if he sensed something was about to happen. Thalina watched him glance toward Harlan, his lips moving in what looked like a hurried warning.

  Then the feeds went dark.

  Thalina gasped, wondering if Kallan had somehow cut off their connection to the security cameras, but Falk’s expression was too calm for that.

  “Sir?” she questioned tentatively.

  The Agent glanced at her. “I cut the power,” he said, somewhat grimly.

  Of course. The simplest solution was often the best one, and no matter his proficiency in hacking, Kallan and his associates wouldn’t be retrieving data without power.

  “Shall I alert the nearby security forces, sir?” she asked, already reaching for her communicator. They would have been alerted as soon as the alarm went off, of course, but knowing more about the situation could make the difference between a capture and an escape.

  “Don’t bother,” Agent Falk waved a hand dismissively. “By the time they get there, Kallan will be long gone. Not to mention, I imagine they will have other concerns at present.”

  Thalina blinked uncomprehendingly. “But, sir, won’t we be able to pick them up on the cameras again? I can’t imagine it would be too difficult if we knew their general location?”

  Agent Falk chuckled darkly. “Unfortunately, Lieutenant, I was forced to be a little… indiscriminate. I didn’t cut power to the records building; I cut the power to the whole sector.”

  The words took a moment to sink in.

  “The… the whole sector?” Thalina asked numbly. The administration section, in which the Records building was located, was lightly populated compared to the residential and industrial zones. This meant that there may be anywhere between three-quarters to one-and-a-half million people there at any given time. All now without power.

  The hospitals would be without power. The traffic systems would be down – how many accidents would result from this? Thalina’s thoughts raced, her stomach churning at the enormity of what had just happened. A sector-wide blackout wasn’t just an inconvenience—it was a disaster waiting to unfold. How many lives had Agent Falk just upended with a single command? How many were in immediate danger now because of it?

  But Falk didn’t seem to notice her growing unease—or, more likely, he didn’t care. His attention was already back on his console, the darkened feeds on the screen reflecting his grim expression.

  “Interesting,” he murmured, almost to himself. “Very interesting.”

  Thalina found her voice, though it came out quieter than she intended. “Sir… the entire sector—”

  “Yes, Lieutenant,” Agent Falk interrupted, his tone detached as he tapped through another layer of system files. “The entire sector. Necessary sacrifice.”

  “Necessary?” she repeated, barely able to keep the incredulity out of her voice.

  “It was either that or let Kallan walk out of here with classified Imperial Intelligence files,” Falk said sharply. He turned his chair slightly to face her, his eyes narrowing. “And I’m not in the habit of letting classified information fall into the hands of dissidents. Are you?”

  Thalina swallowed hard. “I… no, sir.”

  The Agent stared at her for a long moment, head tilted. She tried to ignore how much she felt like a bug pinned to the wall for inspection.

  “I understand that this,” the Agent said softly, waving a hand at the blank monitor, “may be shocking. Understand that it is not an action I take lightly – nor is it quite as callous as it would seem. People’s lives will be disrupted, certainly, but there are systems in place for events like this.”

  Thalina nodded jerkily, knowing it was the only correct response. Either she was a better actor than she thought, or the Agent didn’t care about the conflicted nature of her thoughts because he spun back to his console and pulled up Kallan’s personnel file again.

  “Darius Kallan,” Falk muttered, his fingers brushing across the edge of the screen. “A salvage technician. Criminal record, but nothing extraordinary. Minor infractions. Family ties to dissident groups but no direct involvement, at least on record. Nothing that would explain what we just saw.”

  “How does this change things, sir?”

  It was the sort of question she would have kept to herself in any other circumstance – the kind of thing she could figure out for herself quickly enough. And while the instructors at the Academy often used platitudes like ‘there’s no such thing as a stupid question’, Thalina wasn’t naive enough to believe them. Still, asking an obvious question gave her a moment longer to gather herself, to force her trepidations about the Agent’s callous actions down until she had time to deal with them later.

  Agent Falk hummed consideringly. “I’ve been operating off the assumption that Kallan’s presence in the reactor room of my ship was a coincidence – just bad luck. Something to be thoroughly investigated, to be sure, but ultimately nothing of terrible consequence.”

  “Gaining access to a restricted, sealed area… a coincidence?” Thalina couldn’t help but ask. It was so unlike her mental picture of how the Agent would think about a situation like this that she had to double-check.

  Fortunately, Agent Falk didn’t take offence.

  “I know how it sounds,” he said, amused. “But when you think about it, there are almost six trillion registered citizens of the Empire. With that many people, you’d be shocked at how many coincidences occur daily.”

  He snorted to himself. “There was this one time a truly mind-boggling series of unlucky encounters had fourteen consecutive governors dying of food poisoning within the span of a decade. We wasted thousands of hours searching for enemy action. Never found anything.”

  Thalina blinked, both at the suddenly nostalgic tone of voice and how the story ended. “Isn’t it possible that it was enemy action, though?” she asked, unable to help herself.

  Agent Falk shrugged. “I suppose. But at a certain point, you have to realise that even if an enemy agent somehow managed to arrange all of that, as well as evade our surveillance, there’s probably nothing we could do about it anyway.”

  …Wonderful.

  Before Thalina could worry too much about that, Agent Falk moved back to the original topic of Kallan.

  “It doesn’t add up,” Falk muttered, almost to himself. His eyes flicked over the lines of data populating Kallan’s personnel file. “If the Freeholders had access to technology capable of this… level of sophistication, they wouldn’t be wasting it here. A frontier colony? A records archive? Hardly strategic targets. Even with classified files present, they’re nothing compared to the treasures locked away in the core worlds.”

  Thalina stood silently, her hands clasped behind her back, letting his words flow without interruption. Falk’s musings had a cadence of their own, the rhythm of a man processing, evaluating, discarding theories at a breakneck pace. She’d learned quickly that interrupting him at the wrong moment was a mistake.

  “And yet,” he continued, his tone thoughtful, “perhaps that’s the point.”

  Thalina raised an eyebrow but remained silent, her expression carefully neutral.

  “Consider it,” Falk said, leaning back in his chair and lacing his fingers together. “This far out from the core worlds, scrutiny is minimal. If they’re testing something new, they wouldn’t risk failure where it could be noticed. A place like Caldera? Small, unassuming, and—until my arrival—outside the immediate attention of Imperial Intelligence.”

  He tapped his fingers against the edge of his desk. “It would make sense. If you wanted to test a cutting-edge bypass program or experimental augment software, you’d do it somewhere far from prying eyes. Somewhere a failure wouldn’t draw attention.”

  “Unless it works,” Thalina said quietly, her tone carefully neutral. “In which case, you’d have proof of concept.”

  “Exactly.” Falk’s gaze sharpened as he turned back to the screen. “The Freeholders couldn’t have known I’d be here. My presence on Caldera is incidental—purely the result of those malfunctions on my ship. Hell, my presence in this sector is off the books. Otherwise, this operation might have gone completely unnoticed.”

  The Agent flicked his gaze over to her, pinning her in place. “And I will expect that tidbit to remain between us, Lieutenant.” The scrutiny only lasted a moment before he returned to his previous train of thought. “If they wanted to remain unnoticed, they failed spectacularly. But if this was meant to be a show of capability… it’s sloppy. Overconfidence or desperation.”

  He rubbed his chin, his eyes scanning Kallan’s file again. “They miscalculated. Didn’t account for Imperial Intelligence being in the area. That sort of oversight doesn’t scream ‘competence,’ but it does suggest that they’re still developing this capability.”

  Thalina felt her throat tighten as he spoke. Falk’s cold, methodical tone made the entire situation feel like a puzzle he was solving, a game with pieces he was rearranging in his mind. Lives, motives, and allegiances reduced to data points.

  “And Kallan,” Falk muttered, as if he’d forgotten she was there. “He doesn’t fit. He’s not Freeholder military. No obvious training. But he’s at the centre of this.”

  Thalina ventured a question. “Do you think he’s aware of what he’s involved in, sir? Or is he a pawn?”

  “A pawn?” Falk tilted his head, considering the idea. “Perhaps. But if so, he’s a remarkably well-placed one. He’s competent enough to bypass encryption protocols that should have been beyond his capabilities. That suggests either deliberate design or a handler far more sophisticated than I’d expect.”

  He stood abruptly, his chair scraping back across the floor. “We’ll find out soon enough. If Kallan’s tied to something bigger, he’ll leave a trail.”

  Thalina followed his gaze to the dark monitors. “And if he doesn’t?”

  “Then we make him leave one.” Falk’s voice was cold, decisive. “This doesn’t end here.”