Asterion Noir: The Complete Collection (Amaranthe Collections Book 4)

by G. S. Jennsen

Joaquim shook his head firmly. “I will never trust Justice.”

  “I know you won’t. I don’t know your reasons for it, but I believe you mean it. So we won’t trust Justice. We’ll arrange a meeting on our terms, accept a copy of this alleged vaccine and test it ourselves. But if it checks out, we owe it to all the people we claim to be fighting for to do everything in our power to get it into their hands. Even if it means working with Justice to do it.”

  His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “You sound like Nika.”

  “Shocking as it is, I actually try to pay attention whenever she goes into ‘speech’ mode, and it’s possible I’ve learned a few things. She’s not here right now, but I think that’s what she would say if she were.”

  “You have no idea what you’re asking me to do.”

  They’d been here before, and there was nothing she hadn’t said in response a hundred times over. So she gazed at him quietly, and perhaps sadly. “I’m asking anyway.”

  He studied the training room floor as he made a brooding loop around where she stood before finally coming to a stop directly in front of her. His eyes rose to meet hers; all the fight had drained away, leaving behind a kind of wistful melancholy.

  “Then you deserve to know why I don’t trust them. The truth is, you always did.” He took a step back and slid down the wall until he reached the floor, where he clasped his hands together atop his knees. “I was a machinist and technician for a furnishings fab shop on Synra, and I was in love. Had been for a long time. Her name was Cassidy.”

  “Jo, what are you doing?”

  He looked up at her wearing an odd little half-smile. “Telling you my deepest and most painful secret, so try not to interrupt.”

  LOGIC

  GATES

  25

  * * *

  SR114-ICHI

  Asterion Dominion Exploratory World

  SR114-ICHI MIGHT ONE DAY be a viable location for a small manufacturing hub producing a few niche products with a specific set of requirements, but it was never getting adjunct status.

  The planet was an icebox from pole to pole, a frozen tundra of frozen fjords, frozen lakes and frozen plains. Blizzards sent shards of ice plummeting from the sky like arrows launched from powered bows, creating a constant threat to anyone caught above ground. This explained why the outpost buildings were situated in excavated dugouts, complete with retractable roofs and reinforced tunnels connecting them.

  Given the fury of nature that ruled the planet, it was reasonable to question what could possibly be worth enduring such punishing conditions to attempt actual work here. According to Eventime Solutions, the answer was the next iteration of ultra-high-density quantum storage units. A staff of seventy Asterions lived and worked here in six-month rotations; of those seventy, a full forty-eight were support staff, dedicated to keeping the outpost running and sustaining life so the other twenty-two were able to build and test the new storage tech.

  Dashiel stared out the viewport at a vast white landscape broken only by the outpost tunnels, a few environmental modules and a ship landing pad on the western end of the outpost. Occasional glimpses of activity in the hour since they’d arrived confirmed the outpost remained operational and they hadn’t missed whatever was going to happen here. Their climate gear was laid out in the cabin, ready to be quickly donned should they need to venture outside.

  Nika glanced out the viewport every thirty seconds or so, but she was preoccupied studying the files she’d copied from the Guides’ data server before taking a swan dive off Mirai Tower. She claimed to be reviewing the Rasu Protocol files, but they’d combed through those four times already.

  He suspected she was sneaking in regular peeks at her own Advisor files. Trying to understand who she’d been, as if that information could ever be found in official reports.

  “What would you say the average population of an outpost is?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe five hundred or so?” You would have known, once. “My outpost that disappeared only staffed eighty-two people, but it was just ramping up.”

  “That’s the thing. Every outpost to be hit, all the way from the beginning, had a population of less than a hundred. The Guides are expending an awful lot of effort to repeatedly kidnap small groups of people and erase the evidence of them doing so. It’s highly inefficient.”

  “I don’t think they have a choice. Larger outposts disappearing would almost certainly draw attention, and if we know anything, it’s that they do not want to draw attention to their activities.”

  Her nose wrinkled up and her mouth quirked, as though she’d taken a bite of something pungent. “Which is why they’re pushing as many people as they can into Zaidam. They can move thousands out of there, and no one notices. But then why are they bothering with a few dozen people here and there from outposts, at great cost and risk of discovery?”

  He drummed his fingers on the dash. “If I had to guess—and I’m definitely guessing—they need every body they can get their hands on. The more they can get the easy way, the better, but they need the hard ones, too.

  “It’s like kyoseil. I have contracts for a regular supply of it from Chosek, but I’ll jump at an opportunity to acquire a few kilograms of it from somewhere else. Even at a higher price. The demand for it outstrips the supply to such a degree that it’s impossible to envision a scenario where I have too much of it.”

  She frowned at him. “You said ‘body,’ not ‘person.’ ”

  “I guess I did. I didn’t intend to depersonalize the victims…it’s more that there’s no obvious profile applicable to the people taken. On a percentage basis, most of them are criminals, yes, but as the Guides have expanded the definition of ‘criminal,’ the group has lost any reliable common characteristic. Doubly so with the release of the virutox. The people taken from outposts don’t match a single profile, either. There’s no discrimination based on skillset, previous experience, type of work the outpost is engaged in, or anything else. So it seems as if they need the bodies more than the minds.”

  “That’s horrifying.”

  “I know—” Two vessels descended out of the leaden cloud cover toward the landing pad. The larger one was utilitarian in design, with a rectangular body dominating its profile—a cargo vessel of some kind—while the other was a small personal craft. No one had emerged from the sunken buildings to greet the vessels; was their arrival a surprise?

  Nika activated a small display. “Starting the recording now. Whatever happens, we’ll have evidence of it.”

  As soon as the ships landed, a person and a utility dyne disembarked from the smaller vessel, but the individual was too far away to identify. The two hurried over to the central piping and bulky environmental module that drew in the marginally breathable air, transformed it into something pleasantly breathable and channeled it into the underground buildings. Activity ensued, but damn if he could tell what exactly they were doing. Altering the ventilation system in some manner, but how?

  The Wayfarer’s new cloaking system had passed its first test, as their presence a mere one hundred fifty meters away had not attracted any notice.

  Three minutes later, the two returned to the landing pad and boarded the cargo ship. Still, no one from the outpost materialized from below to meet them.

  Additional utility dynes exited the cargo ship, and with them a series of….

  “Are those stasis chambers?”

  Dashiel studied the scene for another second. “I think so. I’d bet my company that they injected a chemical into the environmental system to knock everyone out.”

  “We have to stop this.” She leapt up and hurried into the main cabin, pulling her sweater off over her head as she did so. She grabbed her climate suit and began tugging it on.

  “Nika, wait. We talked about this. If we burst in with weapons firing, maybe we disrupt things enough to prevent these people from being taken. But we lose what could be the sole chance we’ll get to find out where they’re being taken and what’s bein
g done to them.”

  She hesitated, one arm in the climate suit. “I know what we decided. But seeing it happen right in front of us? I don’t think I can let these people die, no matter how greater the good.”

  “They’re not dying. If they’re being put in stasis chambers, it means they’re not being shut down or left to rot. They’re being kept alive for some reason, and deliberately so.” He gently grasped her shoulders. “But even if we are consigning them to die, it will still be worth it for the chance to save untold thousands from the same fate in the future.”

  Her brow knotted up in violent turmoil. It was an outward expression of a raging internal battle, and one he was getting used to seeing. The life-changing events of five years ago, and what they had meant for her every day since, had made her profoundly sensitive to the ramifications of life and death decisions.

  Finally her jaw hardened, and her mouth set in a determined line. “Then we need to get a tracker on that cargo ship.”

  He nodded, though he took no joy in it. “Yes, we do.”

  Their ship was camouflaged, and now they were, too. The exterior of their climate suits tuned adaptively to the surrounding color palette, and at ivory white they blended nicely against the frozen landscape. Kamero filters completed the illusion.

  Nika claimed so long as you didn’t make any sudden, dramatic movements, a kamero filter rendered you invisible up to as close as a single meter. He understood the technology, conceptually, but the idea of standing directly in front of someone with them being unable to see you was nonetheless disconcerting. It was also a reminder of the continuing fallibility of their sophisticated biosynthetic structure.

  If they survived this crisis and were one day able to return to living normal lives, he thought perhaps he’d devote some time to creating an ocular augment that could detect incongruous signals measured by Asterion visual receptors. In the name of continual improvement—and to thwart the occasional thief.

  The climate suit material covered their bodies from head to toe, excluding their faces, where a small force field projected out five centimeters to deflect the wind. Yet for all their protection, it was frigidly cold out here.

  They fought a relentless wind to trudge toward the landing pad as a long line of stasis chambers was escorted out of the cargo ship’s hold and guided down into the outpost bunkers.

  When they were thirty meters from the landing pad, Nika placed a hand on his arm and pinged him.

  You keep watch outside, and sound the alarm if any of the dynes or their director start toward the ships.

  You’re boarding the cargo ship? Why can’t you put the tracker on the outer hull?

  It would get dislodged or destroyed during transit. Space is brutal. Trust me, I know.

  So did he, for he’d been the one to pull her frosted, colorless and breathless body into the airlock at Zaidam. Her spacing had marked only the third or fourth time he’d thought he’d lost her again after finding her. She might be blasé about it, but he was not.

  If you must, but be quick.

  Sure.

  I’m serious.

  Mm-hmm. And with that, she released his arm, moved forward and after a step, vanished. He sighed and checked the Glaser on his hip then faced the outpost to watch for threats.

  To him, Glasers had always been tools, but to Nika, they were weapons. She had shared a targeting sim routine with him so he could practice shooting at virtual targets, and he had done so. Didn’t mean he was ready to shoot someone. Or something for that matter.

  Her current world existed one hundred eighty degrees from his, and from the world she’d been stolen from. Given this, he shouldn’t be surprised at how she instinctively recoiled from the idea of having been an elite diplomat. Here in the icy wasteland of a distant planet, cloaking themselves and their ship, wielding powerful weapons while tracking down an insidious government plot…it felt like a dose-induced hallucination to him, but for her it was another day on the job.

  Everything okay in there?

  Yeah. Having a look around.

  Why wasn’t she afraid? Or at a minimum properly cautious with her life and freedom? Of course, it was this very fearlessness and refusal to turn a blind eye to wrongdoing that had started everything five years ago. Yep, he should definitely stop being surprised—

  In the distance that wasn’t distant enough, the Asterion in charge of whatever the fuck was going on here emerged from the closest bunker, accompanied by a dyne and two presumably occupied stasis chambers. The group headed in the direction of the landing pad.

  Time to go! We’ve got company incoming.

  One second. I’m having trouble getting the tracker to initialize. It’s almost as if something is blocking its operation.

  Then we’ll have to find another way to get answers.

  The Asterion reached up and scratched at their forehead, dislodging the skull cap of their climate suit, and strands of crimson hair escaped to blow about in the wind.

  Gemina Kail. Was she doing all the Guides’ dirty work? He shelved the question for later as the contingent drew within a few dozen meters of the landing pad.

  Get out of there now! Gemina Kail is running this operation, and she’s headed your way fast. We are out of time.

  It’s not working. A pause. Track me instead.

  What?

  I won’t let this chance slip away. I’m stowing onboard. Get to the Wayfarer and track me.

  Godsdammit, Nika!

  He took a step back, away from the landing pad. It was already too late for her to escape the cargo ship unnoticed, wasn’t it? Another step. He needed to move before it was too late for him as well.

  I trust you to find me. Trust me to stay alive until you do.

  The words hit him as viscerally as a punch to the gut. He hadn’t found her last time, had he? Her faith in him was misplaced until he proved otherwise.

  He backstepped as swiftly as prudence allowed, unwilling to look away as Kail and her entourage reached the cargo ship and went inside. He held his frigid breath and focused his aural receptors, listening for the tell-tale sounds of violence.

  None came, and Kail exited the ship. Nika might have a chance to—

  —in his peripheral vision, more dynes accompanying more stasis chambers exited the bunkers, and a regular procession to the cargo ship began, extinguishing his brief surge of hope.

  As soon as he reached their ship, he activated a tiny frame in the bottom right of the HUD display and set to it capture the signal from Nika’s internal locator.

  The frame remained blank.

  He checked the settings, then refreshed the frame. Blank.

  Nika, your locator isn’t transmitting.

  It is. I think the problem with the tracker wasn’t with the tracker, because I can’t get my own location at the moment. The ship must be broadcasting an interference field, similar to what we use at The Chalet.

  Panic wound like a nest of serpents through his chest to strangle his heart.

  That means I won’t be able to follow. I won’t be able to find you.

  It’ll be okay, darling. As soon as I exit the ship, we’ll both know where I am. Just hang tight.

  Just hang tight? You could be across the galaxy before I find out your location. It could take me days to get to you.

  That’s a risk we’ll have to take. It’s the only way.

  Do not get yourself put in one of those stasis chambers. Do not get yourself erased. I will not lose you again.

  No, you won’t. We are forever.

  The panic spread through the rest of his body, overloading any functioning logic processes in his mind. The last time she’d spoken those words, it had taken five long, miserable years for them to be reunited.

  The final stasis chambers were shepherded into the cargo ship, and its engines ignited. He watched in horror as it lifted off and was consumed by the clouds.

  No. This was not going to happen again.

  He flushed the panic-inducing biochemical
s with a single order. His sordid history of abusing mind-altering substances meant his flushing routines were of the highest quality, and ruthlessly effective. Then he went to the storage cabinet, where two additional trackers were stored. He retrieved one, activated his climate suit’s face protection, and left the Wayfarer once more.

  Kail and the last two remaining dynes had returned to the bunkers. Kail stood watch while the dynes placed what Dashiel assumed were explosives in an ordered pattern around the edges of the outpost structures.

  He risked jogging most of the way to the landing pad, trusting that Kail was far enough away not to see any minor ripples in the air he caused.

  Nika was right; a tracker affixed to the outer hull of a ship would not survive for long in the ravages of space. But the small laser protruding from the chassis of Kail’s ship had a retracting cover over its aperture to protect its inner workings. Though strictly necessary only during superluminal travel, as a rule the cover stayed in place whenever the laser wasn’t being used.

  Like 99.9% of the population, Dashiel shouldn’t have known such miscellany about the laser and its housing. But in the early days of Ridani Enterprises, quite a few generations ago and well before he refined his focus to networking hardware and consumer augments, his company had built one of the components for these types of lasers. Not the cover, but the full equipment schematic had informed the design of every component.

  It was one of millions of quanta of information that he kept in his primary memory stores. His business had long been the second-most important thing in his life, and he regularly passed off to external storage knowledge other people considered essential in favor of keeping information related to his profession. This wasn’t exactly the situation he’d imagined himself needing one of those data points in, but he was damn glad he had it.

  When he was twelve meters short of reaching the ship, Kail pivoted in its and his direction. He froze, then laughed to himself. Literally freezing while freezing.