The day, Zeph thought, was inappropriately beautiful. The smell of the salt water was strong as the police cutter glided smoothly over the glassy sea under a perfectly blue sky. Walberg Island was a lush green lump on the horizon behind them, with the Lift rising like God's plumb line into the sky. Above them in orbit, linked by the Lift and hidden in the bright sky, was Blue Station.

“A bit to starboard,” he told the pilot. He squinted toward the horizon, and then looked back at the island, trying to judge their position. “Let’s slow down a bit, too. I think we’re getting close.”

The pilot obliged and the hum of the cutter’s engine dropped an octave. The ship rocked briefly as its wake caught up to it, and Zeph moved to the rail and looked around again. He pursed his lips and finally nodded. “I think this is pretty close. It was in this area.”

Officer Sapani joined him at the rail and looked around. “Very good,” he said, and then gestured to a couple of divers that were nearly done putting on their gear. “We’ll search this area out to a couple hundred meters or so.”

In the ship’s stern, a small team of technicians was setting up a few different devices. Zeph recognized some of them from his time with the Navy—various sensors and scanners for different types of materials and phenomena. The devices would sync to the HUDs of the divers, who would investigate each signal within range, and report back to the cutter what they found. Zeph had never seen an operation like this outside of the net-dramas, and he found the bustle exciting and fascinating.

Once the two divers were ready, the waddled over to the tail of the ship, sat on the small platform there, and slid into the water. Four spotters and a couple of snipers perched on top of the boat, keeping an eye out for any of Strade’s larger aquatic predators. They generally avoided populated docks, but with divers in the water, it was better not to take chances.

There were a lot of signals for the divers to chase, mostly debris from Zeph’s boat. While the blast hadn’t knocked any large pieces off the boat, it had blown off numerous smaller items: several personal buoyancy devices, now shredded almost beyond recognition, the lid of the equipment locker, the ship’s comm antenna, and dozens (if not hundreds) of other, smaller bits of debris.

All of this was brought back to the ship for inspection and analysis. Over the course of about an hour, the pile grew quite significant.

“It’s a wonder you ever made it back to port, yes?” Said Sapani to Zeph. “That’s a lot of debris.”

Zeph nodded. “From the pile, you’d think the ship had been half disintegrated. Pretty amazing.”

One of the divers surfaced just then by the platform, holding something small in his hand. He placed it on the platform and immediately dove back in, hunting the next signal.

Zeph walked over to the platform and bent to pick up the object, but Sapani was faster. He snatched it from the ground and held it up. “Hmm, what have we here?”

It was about palm-sized, rectangular, and just a few millimeters thick. One corner of it had been jaggedly broken off. “It looks like a data node,” said Zeph. “I’m kind of surprised that the blast reached one of those. It would have had to take off the outer shell of the processor to get to it.”

“I agree,” said Sapani. He turned and handed it to one of the analysts. “See what you can do with this,” he told them.

They spent close to three hours there before the divers finally reported that any remaining debris was too small to be significant. The sun was just a half hour from setting, too, and the light was growing too poor to see much underwater. Sapani agreed, and the operation was packed up. Zeph found it all fascinating.

They were on the way back to port when one of the analysts approached Officer Sapani. “Sir,” he said, eying Zeph briefly before focusing wholly on his superior. “We’ve found something you probably ought to hear.”

“Hear?”

“From the fragment of the data node. We were able to recover audio from a net conversation. I think you’ll find it…thought-provoking.”

Sapani raised an eyebrow and followed the analyst. Zeph, not being told otherwise, followed as well, curious about what they might have found. They entered the cutter’s small cabin and descended to a cramped lab below deck. Another analyst sat hunched over a device that cradled the broken data node. She looked up as Sapani and Zeph entered.

“Sir,” she said.

Sapani nodded to her. “What have you found?”

“It’s not complete,” she said. “The data node was badly damaged. The recovered data is fragmentary at best, but have a listen.” She pressed a button on one side of the device, and after a brief pause, Zeph heard his own voice.

“…powerful explosion…tried to blame…said he told me himself, but when I…hope you see that the situation is complicated…”

Another voice, deeper, slightly raspy, spoke next. “…might actually have a place for you…patient, there’s quite a queue…”

Sapani looked sharply at the analyst. “Is that Secretary Marks’ voice?”

The analyst nodded. “We think so, yes.”

Zeph’s voice picked up the thread, then. “Thank you, so much. I really hope…”

“And that’s all we were able to recover,” said the analyst.

Sapani looked at Zeph. “I’m curious what you have to say about all this.”

Zeph looked from Sapani to the analyst. “Well, yeah,” he said. “That was Secretary Marks. He put an ad on the Strade forums recently, looking for an engineer for his private yacht. I applied, and was invited to interview with him via net.”

“From your boat?”

“Sure. My parents’ place is small, I wanted some privacy, and the boat was handy.”

Sapani shared a look with the analyst before looking back to Zeph. “What was this about an ‘explosion’?”

Zeph grimaced. “How much of my history are you familiar with?”

“I glanced at your profile. You were in the Navy, and then the Explorer corps.”

“Yeah, and you know how my Naval career ended?”

“Some kind of scandal, I seem to recall.”

“Yeah. We were part of a blockade, and our ship was damaged. A pressurized line blew, and killed a crewman. Afterward, I was blamed for the accident. One of the officers claimed he delivered an order to me, to repair the line. I maintain that I never received that order.”

Sapani sniffed. “And it was your word versus the officer’s?”

“Mostly. My fellow engineers vouched for me. The Navy discharged me anyway.”

Sapani looked from Zeph to the damaged data node and wrinkled his brow. “And when did you have your conversation with Mr. Gavin Marks?”

“Last night, actually. I was hoping to hear from him today.”

Sapani took a deep breath, as if bracing himself. Then, “Mr. Massey, by the authority of the UIS, I am placing you under arrest. You retain all rights per the UIS charter, but any attempt to resist will be taken as evidence of your guilt.”

Zeph’s eyes widened in surprise. “Arrest? What are the charges?”

“Attempted sabotage of a government facility, at the very least. Perhaps even attempted assassination.”

“What government facility—” Zeph tried to object, but Sapani raised a hand to forestall him.

“I would recommend you not say any more until you are able to speak with counsel.”

Zeph closed his mouth and nodded. “Very well.”