Page 2 of Reformation
The third cup was filled with blood, and it would spill over soon enough.
He opened a connection through his private transponder—verbal only, he wasn’t a complete fool—and paged Orwell. Even accounting for the lag time, his field commander got back to him quickly. “Sir?”
“It’s time.”
“Yes, sir.” Orwell’s voice thickened with satisfaction. “Confirm target Pandora.”
“Confirmed.”
“To what degree?”
“Annihilation.”
There was a pause. “It’ll be hard to sell that as piracy, sir.”
“Consider your cover as gaining some depth, Commander. You’re pirates losing some inhibitions with the headiness of success. I’ll have to send a force out to respond,” he added absently, “but it will be understaffed and underprepared. You’re authorized to fully engage on all fronts.”
“Excellent.” The satisfaction was back and stronger than ever. “We’ve been stagnating out in this backwater.”
“Well, then, you can look forward to some action at last.” Raymond took a slow breath. “Let Operation Reformation begin now.”
“Yes, sir.”
Raymond ended the connection and sat back in his chair. Within twenty-four hours, Pandora would be under attack. And after that?
It was just a matter of time until all the cups tipped, and Raymond would drown Garrett in the mess it made.
Chapter one
Cody
Cody woke up to the acrid smell of something that probably wasn’t supposed to be able to catch on fire bursting into flame. A second later, the fire alarm began to sound.
It said something about Cody’s increased adaptability over the past year that all he did was grab Ten’s abandoned pillow and press it over his face.
“It’s fine, everything is fine, I’ve got a handle on it!”
“It’s too early for this,” Cody mumbled. There was no way Ten could hear him over the sound of the alarm, but there was also very little chance ze’d care about waking Cody up, under the circumstances. After all, “Sacrifices have to be made for science; if it was easy, any idiot could do it!” was Ten’s motto.
Their door banged open. “What thehell,Ten?” Ah, Darrel was up.
“Oh, go back to bed, I’ve got this under control.”
“You think anyone on our entire floor can sleep through the noise? I thought you had official lab space this year!”
“Yes, one tinycubicleof a lab surrounded by people who have no idea of the concept of privacy and keep interrupting my work. Like I can get anything important donethere.”
“They sound a lot like your kind of people, actually.” Darrel raised his voice. “I swear, Ten, if you don’t shut this noise off, I’m going to—” Whatever he was going to do was drowned out by the sudden whistling fizz of a fire suppression system going off.
A second later, the alarm shut off. Nobody said anything, which was weird enough that Cody poked his head out from under the pillow and took a peek.
Ten’s recessed lab space—a reclaimed section of closet that ze’d convinced Cody neither of them needed—was coated from top to bottom in the neon-orange foam that the suppression system in the ceiling had let loose with. Unfortunately, both Ten and Darrel had been in the path of it and were covered from the tops of their heads to the centers of their chests in the same foam.
“So,” Ten said a moment later, hir pale, thin face and bright-blue shock of hair entirely occluded by the foam. “Try not to ingest the foam, it’s toxic.”
“Ten—”
“What? So I started a little fire, so what? It’s out now, no harm done, and I’ve learned some very interesting things about the properties of this particular formula.”
