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

by G. S. Jennsen

  He started toward her, pausing to murmur something to a woman he passed before slipping through the barricade checkpoint and drawing near. “Perrin, I didn’t—”

  She closed the remaining distance between them and shoved him, hard. “You should have rescued him!”

  He staggered backward, and she shoved him again. “We’ve lost our home. We’ve lost everything—and it’s your fault! If you’d gone after Joaquim right away, this wouldn’t have happened!”

  He caught his footing, then stood his ground. When she tried to shove him yet again, he grasped her hands at the wrists. “I know. I’m so sorry.”

  Perrin struggled weakly for a second or two, but all the rage that had brimmed over abandoned her as swiftly as it had arrived. Adlai wrapped his arms around her, and she sank against his chest as the sniffles began. “We should have gone after him.”

  “We should have. I’m sorry.” His hands stroked her back while he murmured condolences in a soft, comforting voice.

  “They must have stolen his memories and our secrets and…what if there’s nothing left of his mind?”

  “I don’t have an answer. I wish I did.”

  She squirmed anxiously until he loosened his grip on her, then retreated half a step. “Then what good are you?”

  “That is an excellent question.”

  The devastated look on his face penetrated her misery like an arrow. How horrible of a person was she, to carelessly bury him in guilt and recriminations. “No, I didn’t mean it.” Her posture sagged, and it took all her effort to remain standing. “This is my fault. I should have forced you to get him out. I should have ordered everyone to abandon The Chalet the instant he was taken. I should have—”

  “Hey, hey. We’ll be here all night if we start tallying up all the blame on a scoreboard. I’m just…I’m glad you weren’t here when this happened.” He glanced behind him. “We haven’t found many bodies yet. How many people…?”

  Perrin wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. They were sopping wet, though she didn’t remember crying. “Almost everyone got out okay. Four, maybe five or six didn’t. We’re still trying to account for everyone.”

  “That’s amazing. I mean how so many people were able to escape once the attack started.”

  “No—well, yes, but somebody warned Nika a few minutes ahead of time. I don’t know the details. But whoever it was saved a lot of lives.”

  Adlai stared at the ground for a few seconds, seemingly lost in thought, before his attention returned to her. “I wonder who—but it doesn’t matter for now. What can I do to help?”

  She studied him, trying her hardest to be objective and discerning. He looked, as he always did, earnest and sincere. And compassionate. Damn him for that. “I need to know something. Are you all in? Are you willing to sacrifice your position and your power if it means ending this nightmare?”

  “I’ve made a number of mistakes lately. I’ve let Dashiel down, let Nika down, let the people under my protection down, but most of all I’ve let you down. If I want to be able to face myself in the mirror in the morning, I’ve got to do everything I can to make things right. Yes, I am all in.”

  She tried not to act relieved, but she was so damn relieved. She reached out and took his hand. “Then you need to come with me right now.”

  IkeBot carried his master inside the repair services building so swiftly yet with such gentleness Nika could swear the dyne was worried. But dynes possessed no emotion programming, which meant her oh-so-clever subconscious must be circumventing her blocked emotion processes to project repressed feelings onto the dyne.

  Dominic and Geoff helped Lily inside, and the rest of the wounded walked themselves off the Wayfarer and into the building.

  They were in the sleaziest part of Mirai Four, which wasn’t much of a city to begin with. The repair center of choice serviced the dregs of the city—black market merchants, smugglers, criminals and others who needed to keep their damage out of the official records. It wasn’t ideal, but none of her options were. She only hoped the repair equipment worked.

  Perrin came running out the door, against the flow of traffic, and grabbed Nika in a ferocious hug. “Thank the stars, you’re okay. Were you really the one who destroyed The Chalet?” She drew back, eyes narrowed. “Wait, you’re not okay. Get inside.”

  “Later.” Nika hadn’t had a chance to change shirts, but at least the blood had dried. Someone, she couldn’t remember who, had stuck bonding tape over her wound during the flight, so there was no new blood, either.

  She felt as numb as her arm. Chemicals and override routines had carried her through the attack and escape, but her body couldn’t maintain them forever. She wasn’t a machine, and her psyche wasn’t built to go this long with no emotion processes guiding its responses. But she worried what might happen when she turned them back on.

  Instead, she tried to focus on the next step, then the next. This wasn’t over yet. “We need to find whatever safe harbor we can for the people who aren’t injured. Let’s spread people out. I think a lot of our allies will be willing to take in one or two people each.”

  “I’ve already been working on that for the people who weren’t at The Chalet or managed to escape through the doors before the attack. I’ve used up most of our solid allies already, so we’ll—”

  Nika glanced around. “Where the hells is Joaquim?”

  Perrin took a step back, away from Nika. “Someone took him. Kidnapped him.”

  “What? When?”

  “Three nights ago.”

  Nika felt as though she’d been punched in the stomach. Emotions found their way through cracks in her system to form tiny rivulets. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You would have abandoned your mission and rushed here to mount a rescue. He wouldn’t want you to do that, not with so many lives at stake.”

  “Godsdammit, Perrin! It wasn’t your call to make!”

  “Yes, it was. It became my call to make when you left. Then Joaquim was taken, and it was up to me to lead. I’ve done the best I can.” Her shoulders sagged; she looked as beat-up as the people who’d been caught in the attack. “Only, I don’t know how to get him back. And now our home’s gone. And I’m so tired.”

  Nika squeezed her eyes shut in frustration, then reached out and pulled Perrin into a hug. Rivulets became streams. “For the record, I’m angry at you for not telling me. But we have such bigger problems right now, and they’re going to take you, me and a small army to solve.”

  “I know. And I actually did bring a small army—or someone who can bring one, anyway. But we can get to that in a minute.” Perrin smiled weakly. “Did you find out what the Rasu Protocol is?”

  “I found out where our people are being taken, and I have a good guess as to why the Guides are doing it. And it’s all terrifying. But it also has to wait. We have to concentrate on keeping our people safe and getting Joaquim—” she groaned “—that’s how they learned the location of The Chalet.”

  “I assume so. Do you think they’ve psyche-wiped him? Or stored him?”

  “Hopefully not. They’ll want to extract every iota of information he possesses first, and he has a lot.” She swallowed, afraid to utter the words aloud. Then it would be real. “They have Dashiel, too.”

  “Oh, Nika…what are we going to do?”

  I don’t know what to do.

  She dragged both hands through her tangled, bloody hair, struggling and failing to hold at bay a wave of anguish as the dam broke and streams became a flood.

  Hit after hit after hit, they just kept coming. No matter how fast she ran or how hard she worked, they just. kept. coming. Dashiel gone. Joaquim gone. The Chalet gone. Parc gone. Maggie, Carson and Cair, gone. Tens of thousands gone, sacrificed on the altar of an enemy she did not know how to defeat.

  She was only vaguely aware of sinking to her knees and dropping her head against the hull of the Wayfarer, or of the tears flowing down her cheeks. Memories new and very old flitted t
hrough her mind. Happier times. Victories. Moments when the world was hers to shape. Touches, caresses, smiles.

  But the memories were swept aside by despair and hopelessness, returning a thousand fold stronger than before to savage her, exactly as she’d feared.

  “Hey, Nika…gods, don’t you cry, too. You can’t give up. We’ll figure something out, right?”

  She had to find a pathway to a place where those moments were allowed to exist. She closed her eyes, searching for the calm at the center of the storm. She’d once lost a war and somehow built a civilization teeming with wonder and achievement atop the ashes. The strength to do it again had to be somewhere inside her. A light that remained lit when nothing else was left.

  Diplomat. Rebel. Leader. Emissary. Beacon. People had called her many things over many lives, but the actions which made them true all came from the same place—within herself.

  She breathed in. Stopped trying to hold the emotions at bay and let their full force sweep over and through her. Let them settle and find a balance. Let logic and rationality make their counterarguments. Began to consider how she could change an outcome that was not inevitable.

  Breathed out.

  She opened her eyes and met Perrin’s desperate gaze. “Damn straight we will. We’re going to get them both back. Then we’re going to end this. So talk to me about how we get our small army.”

  45

  * * *

  MIRAI

  THE WOMAN STANDING at the balcony atop the Justice Center wore a simple robe of deep jade with hints of amber threading at the cuffs. She didn’t so much turn toward Nika as glide, as if she stood upon a pillow of air. Rich sepia skin accentuated gleaming copper eyes, lips the color of desert sand and bronze hair wound through with lustrous ribbons that matched her robe.

  “Thank you for coming, Ms. Kirumase. I expect you do not remember me, but I am Guide Delacrai.”

  Nika stopped several meters back from the balcony and the woman. “I’m not Nika Kirumase—or not only. You saw to that five years ago.”

  “I did everything in my power to prevent your psyche-wipe, but I recognize this makes no difference to you. It shouldn’t. Recently, possibly too late, I have come to accept the reality that my attempts to protect our people from within the Guides’ inner circle will never be successful, and my sole remaining choice is to act beyond those bounds, despite the inevitable consequences.”

  “It doesn’t have to be too late. Where are Dashiel and Joaquim being held?”

  “The NOIR operative? He and Advisor Ridani are being interrogated in a secure wing of the Platform. Before leaving for this meeting, I paused the active interrogations and countermanded the eventual psyche-wipe orders, so they are safe for the time being. It will only be a matter of hours, however, before these actions are discovered by the other Guides and reversed.”

  Behind Delacrai, a twinkling light crossed the night sky far more swiftly than any star. Nika intended to be aboard it very soon. “I’ll get them out before that happens.”

  Perrin and Advisor Weiss were both listening in to the conversation, but Nika pinged them nonetheless.

  We’ve got a location. Start putting together a mission profile.

  Already working on it.

  “You will not be able to breach the location where they are being held without my assistance.”

  “Then you will give it.”

  A slight dip of the woman’s chin served as assent.

  Nika chuckled wryly to herself. Interesting. Was it possible she could be the diplomat as well as the rebel? What if diplomacy didn’t have to mean weakness when it came from a position of strength?

  She might never be truly whole, but perhaps she could be everything she needed to be.

  She considered the woman opposite her anew. Delacrai would make good on her promise of assistance, or she wouldn’t leave this rooftop. Still, they had a few minutes to spare while Perrin and Advisor Weiss pulled together resources. This opportunity may never come again, and Nika needed long-overdue answers.

  “What did the Rasu offer the Guides in return for your willing surrender of tens of thousands of Asterion lives?”

  “Nothing more and nothing less than the continued existence of the remaining millions. You have seen the Rasu? You have seen the power they wield?”

  “You could say that.”

  “What you’ve seen is but a tiny glimpse of a tangential appendage of the monstrous weight of their true power. Their strongholds stretch across the Laniakea Supercluster like a spider’s web, ensnaring all who become trapped within it. They can crush us out of existence with nary a thought, and they would have swiftly done so had they not realized we possessed something valuable to offer them.”

  “Which is?”

  “Living bio-synthetic intelligences, powered by kyoseil and a uniquely innovative form of quantum programming. It is a combination rare in the universe.”

  “Says us, or them?”

  Delacrai’s lips quirked into the faintest hint of a smile. “Both.”

  “This doesn’t explain what they’re doing with the people you send them.”

  “I do not know what they are doing with our people.”

  Nika’s jaw dropped, and for a second she had no response. The woman had answered in such a matter-of-fact, affectless tone, it had to be the truth. But how could the Guides have been so passive, so docile and compliant all these years?

  “Have you tried to learn anything at all about what happens to them after you deliver them?”

  “Of course. We’ve placed trackers in several of the bodies and stasis chambers. Without fail they are taken to one of the large platforms circling their star—the same one every time. Once there, one by one over the course of several weeks, they shut down. What is done to them in the interim, we cannot say.”

  Nika paced deliberately across the roof, relishing the feel of the cool night air on her skin, letting it quell her rage even as it reminded her how she was alive and she was fighting.

  “Experiments. If the stasis chambers are kept in one central location and they cease functioning after a relatively short time, but not all at once, the Rasu are experimenting on them. And our people do not survive the experiments. Yet you keep sending them.”

  “To buy ourselves time. Time to find a way in which we can survive.”

  She gazed sideways at Delacrai, one eyebrow raised. “And how’s that going so far?”

  “I suspect you already know the answer.”

  “Humor me. Tell me all the reasons why we can’t win.”

  “In ten thousand years we cannot build a military force to match the one they have stationed here, without considering what manner of reinforcements would soon arrive from other galaxies. We cannot flee the way we did from the Anaden Empire. We are too many in number—tens of millions when before we were tens of thousands—and we must act under the assumption that the Rasu are watching us. If they are, they would be upon us like a hurricane the instant they detected any movements toward an exodus.”

  “So not well, then. You’ve had, what, eight years? Eight years you’ve wasted while more and more of our people die.”

  “Yes.”

  “At least you admit it.”

  “I no longer have the luxury of self-delusion. Still, I fear you do not fully appreciate the burden of protecting an entire species from the great evils the cosmos can send its way.”

  “You might be surprised.” She had thousands more questions poised on the tip of her tongue…but the Platform passed overhead a second time to remind her that time was short and lives dear to her hung in the balance of it.

  “We will deal with the Rasu tomorrow. Tonight, we’re freeing Dashiel and Joaquim, and their psyches damn well better be intact when we do. We’re calling off the inquisition against NOIR and its members. We’re stopping the dispersal of all virutoxes through any medium, the kidnapping of people from outposts, and the shipment of people to Zaidam Bastille.”

  “All of that t
onight?”

  Nika had to give Delacrai credit; she hadn’t expected such a mixture of blunt honesty and sharp tongue from the Guide. “I intend to get a solid start on all of it tonight, yes. By the way, when the fog clears, I’ve got a lengthy list of people needing new bodies and regens. Gratis, seeing as the Guides are responsible for their current lack thereof.”

  “I’ve no doubt you do, but the path from here to there is both lengthy and perilous. I will do what I can to help you free your friends, but the remainder of the Guides will not accede to the rest of your intentions. There is a chance Anavosa can be convinced—it will be difficult for you to believe given your psyche-wipe, but she was always fond of you. The other three will follow their chosen path to whatever end. They are beyond swaying.”

  “Then they can not be Guides any longer, because I’m not asking permission. Now, here’s what I need from you.”

  46

  * * *

  MIRAI

  NIKA DOUBLE-CHECKED THE CONTENTS of her weapons belt to confirm the new additions were secured. The visit to Justice’s armory on the way to a lab in the basement—their temporary headquarters—had been a fruitful one.

  As she did, she studied Adlai Weiss warily. “Perrin says you helped her, and Spencer vouches for you. You didn’t come after Dashiel and I, and apparently you’ve pissed off the Guides something fierce. So I’ll trust you for now, but if I see the first hint of you turning on us, you’ll wake up in restraints.”

  “I believe you.” He took the souped-up Glaser that Spencer offered him and checked it over. “You know, we used to be friends. You and I.”

  “I do know. It doesn’t count for much, though, when you tried to arrest me and had your drones shoot me.”

  “I didn’t…no, excuses fail me. It was a shitty move on my part. I’m sorry.”

  She laughed, but only briefly. His everyman schtick was fairly charming, but he had a long way to go to re-earn her trust. “What kind of force can you muster? I’m down a few people on account of a Justice hunter squad storming our home.”