“Are there cameras everywhere across the ship?”
“Yes.” Including in here. And she didn’t want someone to know what she’d found.
“I see.” I fell into silence again as I tried to work out what to do next. I had the evidence, here, that Ryon was innocent. Now I needed to use it to stop them prosecuting him. From my medical bed. Hmm...
“Is this tablet networked?” I asked her.
“Of course.”
I wondered if there was a space equivalent of YouTube or TikTok.
“Where can I find a place to watch lots of videos of people falling off things? Like, a place where they’ve posted them online, maybe?”
Falal frowned and looked thoughtful. “My daughter uses this app. Let me add it to your tablet.”
She took my tablet and did something to it. When she handed it back, an app was open which had previews of home-made videos. Some of them had billions of views.
“Thanks.” I looked around the app to learn how to get this video on there. Not being a fast learner, this took a while. Eventually, I had a screen open ready to upload the video. I gave it a catchy title.Grand Vizier Oriel falls flat on his face while talking to Urgoth.Obviously, he didn’t, but I guessed he was famous enough that everyone would click on that. In the description, I explained that it was Urgoth and Oriel in the video.
Once the video was uploaded, I hit publish and waited for the shit to hit the fan.
It took thirty minutes before the video had twelve million hits. Forty-five before Urgoth stormed into the medical bay. At which point the video was approaching fifty million views.
“You! What did you do?”
I laughed, even though I knew I was probably about to get killed. It didn’t matter. Whatever happened in court, the whole world would know Ryon didn’t do it. And that Oriel was in charge of Beta Liberation. I’d like to see them wriggle out of that one.
For the first time in my life, I decided not to speak. It was more amusing watching Urgoth getting more and more purple.
“You ruined everything!” he growled, lunging at me.
Falal grabbed Urgoth’s shoulder, spun him to face her, and punched him hard in the face. It descended into a violent fistfight, and medical beds got overturned as they beat the shit out of each other.
When my bed got knocked over, I landed on the hard floor and stayed behind the fallen bed. Pain surged through my hip where I’d crashed into metal. I heard the doors to the medical bay opening again.
“What is going on here?” Kavat’s voice shouted. “Security to medical bay. Urgently.”
A minute later, footsteps ran into the room and then all the smashing and crashing stopped.
I popped my head over the parapet. The medical bay was completely trashed.
“He attacked my patient, sir,” Falal explained, catching her breath. She had blood running down her face and her nose looked broken.
“Security Chief Eran, that omega has betrayed U-branch! Lock her up with Ryon!” Urgoth demanded.
Chief Eran looked at me, smirked and shook her head. “I saw the video, Urgoth. Give it up. You’re done. Take him to the brig, boys. And release Ryon.”
I smirked at him. “Ye’re nicked, pal!”
Urgoth’s expression of shock was hilarious.
“What about nurse Falal?” Kavat demanded. “She is equally to blame for this altercation.”
Eran shook her head and fixed Kavat with a hard look. She was scary. I wouldn’t want to cross her.
“I see no evidence to suggest that she was acting out of malice. She was protecting her patient. Commendable. Unless you’re siding with Urgoth, Kavat? Pick quickly.”
Kavat held his hands up and shook his head. “No. No. I trust the legal system.”
“Good. And nice work, young lady,” Eran said to me. “We’ve been gathering evidence to find the mole in U-branch for months. Although, it would have been better if it had come to me instead of being made public. Political toes have been trodden on. Waves made.”
“I didn’t even know you existed,” I told her. “And anyway, I was confined to bed rest. I just couldn’t lie here and let Ryon go back to the prison planet for something he never did.”
“You would make a fantastic full-time agent, if you wanted a career,” she told me.
I smiled. “Thanks. I’ll think about it.”
I probably wouldn’t. It was a bit too close to being law enforcement and I didn’t think I could betray everyone I’d ever known by becoming a bizzy.