Hammer and Crucible Cameron Cooper (web ebook reader TXT) 📖

a moment. I looked at the reflection of the crags on the surface of the lake, admiring it. “Damn, you’re really running with the full options, aren’t you?” I studied the snow-covered peaks behind the front ones. “Is this from Terra?”

“Shostavich,” he said. “My home world.”

“You’re ball-born…I didn’t know that.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.” He glared at me, waiting.

I leapt. “Michael Powell Moroder.” I watched his face carefully.

Dalton’s jaw sagged. He caught it up. “Where did you get that name?” he demanded, striding toward me.

“Then you do know it.”

“Where did you hear it?” Dalton repeated. His hands flexed as he stood before me and I had the distinct sensation he wanted to shake me to pop the answer out. “No one had that name, not in connection with this.”

“Who is he?” My own heart was thudding once more.

Dalton’s jaw worked. He swore softly. “Noam’s reporting officer in the Shield.” He turned away and stalked over to the railing at the edge of the dock and leaned on it. The dock actually creaked under his feet, as if it really was a genuine plank structure resting on a lakebed. “You shouldn’t have that name. There’s no way you could. I’ve never told anyone.” He was speaking to the water.

“You were keeping it,” I said. “The ace up your sleeve.”

Dalton turned and rested his butt on the railing and crossed his arms. “Where did you get the name?” he demanded. “The man who gave it to me is dead.”

I built up an instant lie, about contacts inside the Shield. Only it wouldn’t hold. Dalton was a master of networking and favors, and he likely didn’t have a contact inside the Shield. No one did. They’re a shield for a reason. They’re impervious to the entire empire.

Dalton waited me out.

I shrugged. “Noam told me.”

His eyes narrowed. “If you knew all along, then why chase after me at all? Why not go straight for Moroder?”

“I found out, just now.”

Dalton’s arms loosened. Then he said carefully, “Noam told you…just now?”

I realized I had crossed my own arms. I deliberately lowered them. “I know how it sounds. But is that any weirder than this?” I lifted my hand up toward the mountains. “Is it any stranger than a ship plucking you out of the depths of a stellar city and spiriting you to a remote station where I just happen to show up?”

Dalton rubbed the back of his neck. “Okay, point made. So…Noam just…what? Sent you a message?”

“I don’t know how it works,” I admitted. “I have…” Damn it, I couldn’t hold back now. “I have waking seizures and when I do, I see and hear Noam. I thought it was my brain getting scrambled by the seizure, showing me what I wanted to see.”

Dalton tilted his head. “I can understand that.” His tone was calmer.

“Only, just now, Noam gave me a name I’ve never heard in my life. You just confirmed it is a real name, and someone connected to the Shield.”

Dalton grew very still. “You’re sure you’ve never heard the name?”

“Never. Not with the three names in there, like that. Maybe there are dozens of Michael Moroders running around the Empire and I just happened to dredge up the name of one of them from seeing it on a roster or who knows anywhere? But this Moroder? Out of all of them?”

“Yeah, it’s a stretch,” Dalton admitted. “So, if you didn’t come up with the name yourself, who gave it to you?”

“At the moment, all I know is that Noam did. As it’s a legitimate lead, we have to follow it, Dalton. We have to find where Moroder is now and go talk to him. Face-to-face, no data across the array for the Empire to pick up. Anyone mixed up in this will have been tagged by the Empire. They’ll be alerted if anyone reaches out to them.”

Dalton shook his head. “We should be reaching out to Cygnus Intergenera.”

“Cygnus?” I let out the shocked breath I’d sucked in. “Why the fuck would we talk to them? If we can even find anyone to talk to in the first place? We’d get the corporate runaround. Appointments, meetings, lackies—they’ll never say no, but they’ll tie us up in red tape for years and never give us what we want.”

“Only if you try to use the official channels,” Dalton said dismissively. “The war Noam was in, the battle he blasted out of existence, was the Empire against Cygnus. You and I and Juliyana—even Lyth—are being nudged into digging through what happened, and if we survive long enough to go public with what we find, Cygnus stands to gain the most out of that.”

I considered it. “You think the Emperor is behind this, too.”

“I think someone really high up in the Shield is behind it,” Dalton replied. “The Emperor doesn’t control their every movement. Although legally, the Shield and the Emperor are the same thing. If we prove the Shield were involved in a massive coverup for whatever reason, Cygnus will then sue the Emperor’s ass and get back control of the array, then happily return to squeezing the Empire with trade tariffs and gate fees.”

“It’s an interesting theory,” I admitted. “Aren’t you at all interested in what they’re covering up?”

“No,” Dalton said flatly. “I couldn’t give a flying fuck. This isn’t my passion project, Danny. I just want my life back. Demonstrating to anyone who cares to listen that the Imperial Shield deceived the entire galaxy is enough to do that.”

“What they’re hiding is the reason you lost your life in the first place.”

“I still don’t care. I stopped caring a long time ago.”

I let him keep the lie intact, and shifted ground. “Moroder is an easier lead to follow.”

“You think?” His tone was withering. “He’s Imperial Shield. We’re better off heading directly for Rozsa Chang.”

“The CEO of Cygnus?” I shook my head. “I admire the scale of your thinking, Dalton, but we would never get near her. She’s as armor-plated as the Emperor.”

“You