Read Online The Iron Admiral: Conspiracy by Greta van Der Rol - Free Book Online Page A

guess that’s the idea. It’s hidden, the exit to the hangar is hidden. You can only see that place on the graphic if you’re authorized. And they wanted me to make sure not even a military InfoDroid could penetrate the security.”
    “And you’ve done that.” He felt faint at the thought. But he’d seen the demonstration.
    “Yes.”
    “How?”
    She flapped her hands in a circular motion. “It’s what I do. Engineer software.”
    Good God. She said it as though it was nothing. You could count the number of people in Fleet who
    could do that on one hand and have fingers left over. The InfoDroids maintained themselves. They were virtually impenetrable.
    “Do you know what they’re using that medical research center for?”
    She stared at him with those wonderful green eyes. “Just testing toxins, aren’t they? That’s what I was told, to develop drugs.”
    “What security is there?”
     
    “Only to get in there. You need a special pass which has only been issued to the researchers. That’s six people.” She shrugged. “If they have sensors or a computer system in there, it’s kept separate from the main system. Shielded, I guess.”
    “That’s a bit odd in itself, isn’t it?’
    “Is it? I wouldn’t know.”
    Weapons smuggling and a laboratory to research drugs? Not comfortable bed fellows in his opinion.
    What were they really doing in there?
    “Who are these researchers?” he said.
    “I can show you the personnel files.”
    She unclipped the oblong device from her belt and pressed a button to project a keyboard. She
    frowned, concentrating. A few key presses and a list of names appeared above the device with a face
    next to each.
    He moved to stand behind her, reading the list. Most of them meant nothing to him. Except Rostich.
    Where had he heard that name? He wished he had access to his good friend, Admiral Vlad Leonov,
    head of Fleet intelligence. “Can you do me a search on Rostich?”
    “Sure. Come and sit next to me.” She moved to the sofa, rotated the device and bent over the table,
    dark hair hanging around her face.
    He swallowed. What he’d give to put his arm around her, kiss her. But he sat down beside her, the
    subtle scent of her filling his nostrils, the very thought of her stimulating his groin. She ignored him, pressing keys, filtering data.
    “There are quite a lot of entries here. Toxicologist, won a prize for research. But they’re all fairly old.”
    He leant toward her, reading over her shoulder. What had it been? Unethical? Drummed out? “See if
    you can find anything about unethical research.”
    She altered the search criteria. A list of articles appeared, all with variations on a theme. ‘Rostich exposed’, ‘Rostich to be charged’, ‘Rostich dubbed murderer’.
    “That’s it. Open the third one.”
    Doctor Leon Rostich had been drummed out of the Confederacy Institute for Medical Research two
    years ago for unethical behavior to do with testing drugs. He’d paid impoverished people to act as guinea pigs without telling them the risks of the drug he was developing. Ten died and as many as fifty suffered disfiguring illnesses.
    “That’s awful,” she said.
    She’d turned her body so she could look at his face. Her knee touched his, sending a shiver of heat
    through him. He hoped she couldn’t see the naked lust he was feeling right now.
     
    “He got away with it, too. He left the Confederacy just before he was charged. Looks like we know
    where he went.”
    “What are you thinking?” Two lines had appeared between her eyebrows and her lips were parted, just
    a little.
    “You know the ptorix abandoned this planet thirty years ago?”
    She nodded. “Yes. I was told silly stories about karteks getting everybody and some sort of jewel deep in the mine that irradiated everyone. I also heard the mine was just not economically viable. And that’s actually true. But it was a virus.”
    “You know that? How?”
    His contact on Chollarc had mentioned