Page 13 of Warrior’s Mate

"Try again."

He did. The message failed immediately.

"Local or off-world?"

"Northern coast. Local."

Maelis's own wrist vibrated. She looked down.

OUTER PATROL FAMILY NETWORK TEMPORARILY UNAVAILABLE.

Taren. The name sent a cold sensation beneath her ribs, and Kaiven was already moving before she could say anything else.

"Back to the signal tower."

"Captain—"

"Now."

She bristled at the command tone, then saw his face.

This wasn't rank for rank's sake. He was afraid—not visibly, perhaps, to anyone who didn't know what to look for, but the controlled economy of his movements had changed. Every action had become exact.

Maelis rose.

"There's a faster route."

Kaiven started toward the main lane. She caught his sleeve.

"Not that way."

He looked down at her hand, then at her. Maelis released him.

"Follow me."

This time, he did without argument.

Chapter 3 — Recognition

The shortcut crossed private orchard land, ducked beneath a freight guideway, and cut through an irrigation maintenance tunnel Kaiven would never have identified as public access. It wasn't public access, and Kaiven decided not to ask how Maelis had the door code until they had the luxury of being amused by it.

They emerged behind the signal tower twelve minutes later. Pel met them on the stairs.

"Regional traffic just spiked," she said. "We're getting failure notices from all over the district."

"Physical network?"

"Still clean."

"Security intrusion?"

"Nothing our systems recognize."

Kaiven entered the operations room to find every display active now.

The problem no longer resembled ordinary congestion. Messages were moving, but not predictably. Some local calls completed at once. Others vanished into routing queues. A medical transport request from two streets away had bounced through three regional relays before returning twenty-seven minutes late.

"That's impossible," Pel said.