Dragonfly by Erica Hayes Read Free Book Online Page A

only transmissions that might fool with the security systems, but any unauthorized transmissions at all.
    Even if you do get lucky and reach the vault alive, and somehow get inside, there’s no way you’re leaving with the loot. Everything going into the Esperanza vault is not only chemically coded for a specific person, but quantum coded for a specific date and time window when it can be removed. If you don’t have the cipher key, there’s no way to crack it open, and in a thousand years no one has come up with a reliable way to break quantum crypto. The rules of physics don’t allow it. It simply can’t be done.
    In my professional opinion, the vault probably couldn’t be cracked. But Dragonfly obviously thought it could. He’d found a weakness. And it had something to do with six nights of tarocchi and a handful of stealthplate rings.
    I jammed my butt into the command chair next to Nikita. “Any idea what his plan is?”
    He shifted over to give me room, the display frosting his perfect face with silver light. His eyes shone, fascinated. He was as captivated by this as I was. “None. That’s why you’re here. You’re the security expert. How would you do it?”
    I chewed on my lip as I scrolled the data. “Well, let’s assume that whatever he’s doing with the ice has worked. No ice means the electromag security systems are vulnerable, so let’s count them out as well. Assume he can bribe the guards, fool them, distract them somehow. He might even be able to fool the biochem with the right samples. But there’s still the crypto.” I stabbed my finger at the display, and a glowing blob popped up around one box in the flow diagram. “He can’t get in or leave without it.”
    “And it’s unbreakable,” Nikita said cheerfully. “Unless you own it. Maybe he’s going to impersonate Santiago Esperanza.”
    Heat spread up from my guts. “What did you say?”
    “I said, it’s unbreakable—”
    “Unless you’re the one transmitting it.” I flipped back to the navigation page. “Where do they generate their cipher key?”
    “What?”
    He hadn’t caught on, but I was too excited to enjoy his puzzlement. “The key that deciphers the code. You just encode a bunch of digits with a cipher key, same as any single-use code. Then you send your friends the cipher key in a quantum-encrypted transmission. It’s secure because it’s impossible to intercept that transmission without garbling it—”
    “I know what the uncertainty principle is, Aragon. I read it on the back of a cereal box.”
    “Then you should know that it means Dragonfly can’t steal the encrypted key without giving himself away. But if he’s the one sending the key in the first place—”
    “—and fools the other end into thinking he’s Esperanza?”
    “Exactly. He’s not going to break the code. He’s going to write the key himself.”
    “But if it’s a single-use cipher,” Nikita mused, “it’ll only be used to protect a single deposit.”
    “Then he must know exactly what he’s aiming for. Something big, that’s leaving the vault during the surrender negotiations?”
    He laughed. “How about the rebel colony’s entire tithe? They’re joining the Empire, remember? You don’t do that for nothing.”
    “Which is how much?”
    “Everything they own plus change.” He shrugged. “Cash, stocks, mining rights, the idents to a bunch of secure deposits. A billion sols, give or take.”
    A billion new rubles. Holy shit. With that, the insurrection could build themselves an army.
    I clenched my fists on my knees, my palms damp. “Okay. So he fakes the deposit code, and the colonists think their deposit is secure until surrender day. But he gets there a few minutes early and steals the loot.”
    “Cocky little shit.” A mixture of contempt and admiration. “So assuming it’s even possible, what’s his next move?”
    “He’ll have to generate their crypto … What’s the surrendering colony called