At some point someone must have set off a nuke at the bottom of the beam aperture, because there was a giant hollow space there instead of whatever machinery should have filled the void. The marines waved us towards one of the many openings in the wall, which led into a maintenance tunnel. Our route was already marked out by compact signal relay boxes stuck to the ceiling at each intersection.
Akio caught up with us quickly. He gave me an amused look, but didn’t say anything as his guards got themselves organized around us. They let a squad of marines take the lead, and didn’t start moving until Yamashida had finally caught up with us too.
Moving through the wreck with all these people was surprisingly slow. The marines checked every corner and posted guards at every intersection, like we were expecting enemies to pop out of nowhere at any moment. The bodyguards were worse, and the shield bots they kept between Akio and any possible threat made it hard to get a good look at things. Fortunately a work party had already cleared out the dead bots from our route, or I’m sure they would have wanted us to wait while they checked every one of the things.
“Is it always like this?” I asked Akio as we came to a giant open space, and his guards paused while the marines swept it for snipers.
“Only in unsecured areas,” he assured me. “They’re a bit on edge due to the risk of heavy warbots. It’s curious that there’s no bridge across this room, isn’t it?”
I casually poked my head out and looked around. Sure enough, none of the guards cared if I was exposed myself.
“I think this is one of the lasing chambers,” I said. “If I remember right they use some kind of nuclear reaction to generate gamma rays for the grasers, so when the gun is fired there’s a big plasma arc across the middle of the room. It probably doesn’t even have artificial gravity, since normally no one would ever come in here but the techs.”
“I see. You know, Alice, I’d feel better if you didn’t do that. We don’t know what might be active out there.”
I pulled back under cover, and turned to look at him. “The marines are exposing themselves.”
“The marines wouldn’t look like a high-value target to a sniper bot’s analysis software, Alice. You do.”
That warm feeling was back. I smiled.
“Alright, Akio. I’ll just stick with you, then. Did your people made any more progress while we were getting organized?”
“Major?” He said.
Major Wen practically materialized next to us. “No major discoveries, my lord. It looks like there was a firefight in the captain’s quarters, and the damage there is extensive. We’ve found a large section adjacent to it that was probably being used by the princess and her staff.”
We finally started moving again as the major’s report went on. “I have recon teams searching the area for the secure hold now. Fortunately we don’t have to worry about security doors, since the boarders have already dealt with them all.”
“So there really was a princess leading the expedition?” I asked. “That’s not just a rumor?”
“That’s what our analysts believe, my lady,” she said. “Princess Susan Long, eldest daughter of Emperor Kazuo’s second wife, Esmeralda Long. We aren’t certain if she was the expedition’s military commander, or simply the intended leader of the colony… my lady? Is there a problem?”
I realized I’d stopped dead. I shook my head, and started forward again.
“Just an odd coincidence,” I said. “So, um, if we don’t find the mirror in this secure hold we should check her quarters, right? Someone like that might have wanted to keep it close.”
It didn’t mean anything. It was just a coincidence. It had to be.
Wen gave me a concerned look, but she didn’t press. “Yes, milady. I have a couple of intel types checking her quarters for safes right now. But it’s the less likely possibility. An object of this importance really demands the maximum possible security, and a lady wouldn’t want an army of guards cluttering up her private chambers around the clock.”
I noticed that Akio was still watching me, his expression more thoughtful than concerned. Like he thought he knew something, or at least suspected.
The datalink back to the ships was painfully slow with all those relays to go through, and my hurried search did me no good. The briefings and intel reports Akio’s people had made available for general use didn’t have pictures. I tried the Square Deal’s historical database, but that wasn’t much better. The only image of Princess Susan was from some public event before the war, and it was a long-distance shot with terrible resolution. She was just a mop of blonde hair in a flowing dress, half-hidden behind her mother.
“Ma’am, we’ve found the vault!”
Thank Gaia for timely distractions. I hurried over to where an excited marine was reporting the discovery to Major Wen, and stood next to Akio listening.
“Delta squad is sweeping for threats now, but it doesn’t look like there was any fighting there,” she said hurriedly. “The bots cracked the vault door with heavy mass drivers, but once you get a few meters in there’s not much collateral damage.”
“That sounds promising,” Akio said. “Let’s have a look.”
The trooper bowed. “Yes, my lord. We just need to take this drop shaft down two decks, and then it’s a hundred meters down the hall. Oh, and there’s gold in the vault!”
As it turned out, that was an understatement.
The secure vault was a space the size of one of the Square Deal’s larger cargo holds, protected by an armored box eight meters thick. It was a good thing the bots had already blown the door, because otherwise we’d have spent weeks hammering that thing open. They must have brought heavy tankbots in through one of the vehicle access hallways, and fired hundreds of hypervelocity rounds into the same spot until finally the craters ate all the way through. Even so, the opening in the door was only a meter across. Big enough to climb through one at a time, but getting heavy equipment in and out would be tricky.
Inside, the room was dominated by a giant shelving system of translucent diamond that ran all the way up to the ceiling ten meters overhead. The shelves divided the room up into long hallways, wide enough for cargo bots to move around comfortably. But it was the contents of the shelves that held my attention.
They were full of cargo containers, each as tall as I was and made of transparent diamond that showed off their contents. Gold. Big hundred-kilogram bars, neatly stacked to fill the containers that kept them from drifting around. I did a rough volume calculation, and multiplied by the current price of gold. Oh, my.
“I guess they did want a cash reserve,” I said weakly.
Akio looked up at the endless stacks of bars, and nodded. “Apparently so. Is it all like this?”
A very furry dog girl with a datapad in her hand bounced over. “Yes, my lord. Assuming it’s all real gold, we’re looking at almost ten billion credits.”
“I see I’m going to be giving out a lot of bonuses this quarter,” Akio said thoughtfully.