Rogue Stars

by C Gockel et al.

“There must be a way. There could be, I don’t know, incompatibilities. Illness. Accidents. Long-term effects you haven’t discovered yet.”

  Tague nodded. “Yes, we have some challenges. But I’ve been able to eliminate several threats and we’ve put our early setbacks behind us. Please be assured that you will receive continuous support from our team should the need arise. Agents like you take risks every day.” He smiled thinly and turned to the door. “It’s what you live for, isn’t it? It’s what makes you valuable.”

  “It does sound like an adventure,” Seth allowed.

  “Please join us for a meal. In nine hours we will travel to the keyhole and run one more experiment with a few volunteers already aboard my ship. If all goes well you will find yourself on the most exciting journey you’ve yet taken.”

  Seth remembered the last few days aboard the Dutchman with Khoe and silently agreed. What was less likely was allowing this Human to get close to his interface with his experiments. “Where have you found your volunteers?” he asked casually.

  “Wherever I can!” Tague said brightly. “I sent around a request for volunteer testers to the other stations.” He leaned toward Seth in an unpleasantly conspiratorial way. “They think we’re studying brainwave activity during subspace transit. Easy money for the junior staff tired of compiling charts and monitoring the satellites. It’s a wonderful change of pace for them. There is so little to do here on Csonne.” He contemplated his own cleverness for a moment. “But in fact I’m going to allow the Alpha itself access to my ship’s communications net during the traverse. It’ll draw the entities directly to our subjects via their neural implants.”

  Seth smiled broadly to keep the look of disgust from his face. “Won’t they be surprised.”

  “Indeed. I don’t hold out too much hope for complete success. Some of these people have woefully outdated interface modules. But I suppose that’ll give us another variable to consider. Is the quality of the nodes the key? We’ll find out. This is an exciting time for us here. For now I just need a few viable Dyads, fully functioning, to show the Brothers what can be done.”

  I may have to punch him, Seth sent.

  “He’s experimenting with people who aren’t even rebels?” Khoe said. “People who don’t know what he’s doing? Don’t let him do this!”

  He’s rushing this just so he’s got something interesting to show his money-people. I’m guessing those Shri-Lan outside are here to make sure nothing gets in the way of that. They’ll be monitoring any outgoing message.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked.

  We need to stop tomorrow’s experiment. We should be able to sabotage the Explorer out there if you can break into it. Then we can find a way to contact Air Command to take this place apart. But first we need his files. And the Alpha. I don’t want some Union outfit to get their hands on them before the Delphians have taken a look.

  “I can’t reach the Alpha but I can feel it close by,” she said. “Probably down in that closed-off lab. I can’t get into that from here. That level even has a separate power supply. I’m finding a few things here and there, though. Downloading now. Mostly just early notes. I have the schematics for the collector.”

  If this guy is right, the collector disks won’t matter. Is there nothing about that Alpha resonance he was talking about?

  “Not yet. Oh.”

  What? Did you find something?

  “Uh, no. Ramblings about brainwashing the Dyads when they first become aware. Making them hate the Commonwealth.”

  Keep pulling out what you can. Find out how your other pals are stored. Maybe we can cut them loose.

  “You’re going to steal them?”

  If we can, yeah.

  “Are you ready?” Seth whispered a few hours later.

  The compound had settled into its rest period as decreed by the doctor. According to the scanners, the few people living inside had retired to their cabin-like rooms and only the low hum of power generators intruded upon the silence.

  Before retreating to the Dutchman, they had endured a tedious evening with Tague and his colleagues, listening to several convoluted theories regarding dipoles that had even Khoe looking for diversion. The young assistant, Avi Tashad, added a few amusing things to the conversation but, annoyingly, was interrupted by his superiors just when it seemed that things might take a lighter turn. The single highlight came in the form of a surprisingly delicious dish of grilled reptile.

  “Yes, this is very exciting,” Khoe said, making no effort to get up from the lounger.

  He played idly with a strand of her hair strewn over his chest. “What’s going on outside?”

  “Quiet. Some guards loitering around but a lot of them left for the marshes. There isn’t anyone around for half a mark at least. Just those scaly eight-leggers. Lots of them.”

  He stood up, rearranging her as he did, and pretended impatience when she ducked through his arms to steal a kiss. “Let’s do this,” he said. “Time to find us an Alpha.”

  The Dutchman’s exit gate lowered soundlessly and he slipped around the ship, heading for the shadows to circle around the compound. His mapper had located an open skylight that might just allow him to enter undetected.

  “Guard over there,” Khoe said.

  “I see him.” Seth noticed another nearby, heading this way. “So much for sneaking off.” He stepped away from the Dutchman and strolled toward the edge of the plateau.

  “Up late?” the Human guard said when Seth reached him.

  Seth shrugged. “Lagged,” he said with a vague gesture to show that he didn’t expect ground huggers like the scientists to understand space travel. “Thought I’d do a little hunting. That snake thing we had was tasty.”

  The mercenary smirked when he looked at the gun holstered at Seth’s side. “We don’t use guns for the hunt. No art to it. Knives and bare hands is how it’s done. There’s nothing poison about the lizards. Tracers spook the herd anyway.” He motioned to the other guard to join them. “Let’s see how good you are, Centauri. I’ll time you against Aliam. First one to get back here with a greval gets to watch the other skin it. And that, friend, is a nasty job.”

  The man called Aliam grinned. “Full grown one, too. And with none of your fingers missing.”

  “You’re trying to scare me, aren’t you?” Seth said, amused. “You’ve got a bet.” He was less amused by having to leave his gun with the mercenary for the duration of the hunt.

  They parted ways and Seth finally reached the moonless dark of the swamp. His boots sunk ankle-deep into the mire and he was glad for their waterproofing. “Keep your eye on the scanner,” he whispered to Khoe. “I don’t actually want to run into one of those things.”

  “No, you don’t. They look pretty nasty.”

  He walked out from the parking area and began to circle back toward the north end of the compound. On this side it was only dimly lit as the boggy ground nearly reached to the foundation of the modules. Moving like what he hoped a hunter would appear on someone’s scanner, he approached the side with the open skylight.

  “Seth? That box there…” Khoe said.

  What about it? Seth barely made out a large metal bin partly immersed in the soft soil.

  “There are bodies in them. Two. Human-size, maybe Feydan.”

  Dead?

  “Yes.”

  He spun when a cry rose into the air in the distance, startling both of them. The guttural sound was answered by another. He thought yet another exclamation sounded Human but none of the noise made clear who was preying upon whom.

  “Behind you!”

  He turned again to see a long, ridged body slide along the ground and then disappear in the murk. Only the dim light from the building showed its passage as a line of glistening scales. He crouched, his knife ready.

  The animal switched back and reared up, towering over Seth who had no trouble making out rows of teeth snapping toward him. Several short limbs, more useful for moving the animal than gra
sping anything, waved in the air. He ducked under the whipping body and slashed at it, not particularly interested in harming the creature. Belatedly, he recalled Khoe’s talent for dealing with opponents.

  Could you do your zap thing, please?

  “I thought you wanted to hunt?”

  The greval’s narrow head struck out toward him, hissing dangerously. He reached up and gripped its lower jaw to wrestle the creature to the ground before he felt Khoe’s surge of energy move from him into the reptile. It jerked violently, throwing him down, before it lay still.

  Thanks, he sent, frowning at Khoe as he came to his feet. His leather trousers dripped with swamp water. He shook greval drool from his hands. If I ever had the urge to hunt for fun, this would not be the way I’d go about it.

  “Exciting, though. Did you see those teeth?”

  He turned his attention to the building. The struts supporting the outer skin offered enough hand- and toe-holds for him to scale the short wall and reach the domed roof where he raised the skylight panel to slip inside. A quick glance around confirmed that this module served as a greenhouse, producing mainly vegetables but also a cheerful variety of flowers.

  Got a grip on the motion detectors?

  “Yes. They’ll cascade as we go. Just move quickly.”

  He stepped into the darkened corridor. Not having a gun in his hand when sneaking through a night-silent building felt oddly like he’d forgotten something important, like his pants. Light panels glowed along the floor, making this place seem like they were aboard a transport ship. Khoe floated ahead of him, leading the way around a corner and into the first of the locks connecting the modules. The doors slid with barely a sound but Seth froze and strained to listen, anyway.

  “Come on,” Khoe urged.

  He crossed into the adjoining segment, an octagonal lab space lined with workstations and equipment. A few dimmed light strips and some of the equipment cast feeble illumination to show him the way. Apparently, whatever work was done here did not require around-the-clock shifts. He found the short stairway that Khoe had discovered during her mapping exploration. Here, too, the motion and heat sensors remained silent at his passing.

  “They’re down there,” Khoe said. “Hurry.”

  He followed her down and peered into the below-ground lab. It was brighter in here and he felt an odd, dead weight against his eardrums as if something dampened sound in this space. Before him a row of workstations with both flat screens and holo emitters faced a glass wall, likely also reinforced. Beyond that they saw a peculiar contraption with cylinders leading up to the ceiling. One of the familiar metal disks was attached at the bottom of each one.

  Any idea how to get those off?

  “I think so. They’re just containment units.”

  We’ll take a look. First see if there is any separate data storage. Just download everything and then wipe it all out.

  She didn’t seem to hear the request. Her attention was caught by the device holding the subspace entities hostage inside the clean room.

  “It’s not here,” she said. “The Alpha. It isn’t here!”

  You said you could feel it.

  “I can, but I thought it was down here. It’s not. He must have it already on his ship, for tomorrow.”

  Seth pondered this revelation, switching gears, changing plans, weighing their options. If it’s on that Explorer we’re not going to get near it. But we can probably disable the ship to stop the launch for now. It’ll buy us time to get help.

  “What my people?” Her voice faded to a whisper. “Caught in this terrible machine. They’re in pain.”

  Pain? How do they feel pain?

  “Do I have to shoot you for you to feel pain? Or would being stuck alone in a metal pipe be enough? They’re so damn alone! We’re never alone. And they’re diminishing. Coming apart.” She raised her hands toward the cylinder. “Oh, Seth, such misery! Help them.”

  How?

  “Go in there.”

  Radiation?

  “No, it’s safe. Some traces of radon.”

  He let the door slide aside and stepped into the lab. The metal cylinders seemed to hum at several different frequencies, sounding almost like the distant notes of some stringed instrument. He examined the mechanism holding the disks in place. How do we get that off?

  “Touch it.”

  What?

  “Just touch it.”

  Mystified, he gripped one of the disks, prepared to wrench it out of its clamps or whatever held it in place. Feels pretty solid. Maybe we can—

  A flare of heat, light, noise and pure fury blasted through his body, freezing it in place. It was carried by a wave of pain in his head and his chest that felt like his body was torn in two. He stared at his hands, unable to move, feeling bolt upon bolt of energy surge through him. He felt the skin of his fingers blister. The overhead lights dimmed and were immediately replaced by duller emergency panels.

  A final blast of now-kinetic energy shoved him away from the container and he was thrown backward to collide forcefully against the glass wall behind him. He collapsed onto the floor and barely rolled aside when a rack of metal tubing crashed to the ground. “Gods, Khoe,” he managed. “What happened?”

  “Dead,” she cried. “I had to. I couldn’t stop!”

  He rolled onto his hands and knees and then staggered upright, swaying. The violent hammering of his heart nearly obscured the ringing in his ears. There was blood on his hand when he wiped his mouth. “You killed them? Why?”

  “They were dying. Such pain, Seth. I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

  “This isn’t what we’re here for. Now the whole place is awake.” He lurched from the clean room, again acutely aware of his lack of firearm. His knees wobbled beneath him but he did not feel weak. He thought his heart might tear out of his chest if a massive embolism didn’t do the job first. “We have to get out of here.”

  “There are people coming. Come this way,” Khoe said, gesturing toward a door on his right. “There is a tunnel to the outside.”

  “The files.” Seth coughed and waved at the workstations along the window. “Get the rest of the files. Seal the doors!”

  “I’m locked out!” she said as soon as she touched the lab grid. “This entire space is shielded from the main system.”

  There were voices now, up in the main part of the compound. Seth checked the door at the end of the lab. “Sealed.”

  “You can break it,” she said.

  He put his hand on the door itself and a burst of energy leaped from him into the mechanism. The door slid aside.

  Before he even stepped into the dark space beyond, an indistinct shape shifted in the gloom of the tunnel. He leaped back when the shape turned into five, moving rapidly toward him.

  “Those are Dyads,” Khoe cried out when she recognized the familiar presence within each of them. “They’ve got my people!”

  Seth squinted at the tight knot of menace coming toward him. There was something odd about the bloodless, expressionless faces. The characteristic violet eyes of the three Centauri among them were pale disks looking at nothing. “What’s wrong with them?”

  Vacant or not, the Dyads’ intention became very clear when the first dove at Seth with extended arms. By reflex that was more Khoe’s doing than his own, he raised his hands and felt the immense buildup of energy flow from his hands into his attacker.

  A massive thunderclap drummed through his chest, just as it had happened on Rishabel when he killed the Vanguard agent. The Centauri dropped and Seth reached for the next. Again and again, he grasped another of the men, discharging more of that energy, feeling it drain from him with each kill.

  “Cazun…” he whispered when he stood alone among the fallen bodies. It had taken just seconds to take them all down. He was able to breathe normally again and that awful sensation of just too much adrenaline faded. His knees still trembled from the exertion. “What was that?”

  “Are they dead?” she said, as stunned as
he.

  Seth crouched beside one of the bodies. “Yes, dead. Probably his experiments. Something must have gone wrong with them.”

  “You’re right,” a voice spoke behind them.

  Seth spun around, ready to attack, only to find three mercenaries with their guns aimed at him. Two more stood on the stairs. All of them carried ballistic weapons.

  Reylan Tague stepped in front of them. He glowered at the fallen men. “This was not necessary.”

  “Didn’t seem that way to me,” Seth said. “What did you do to them?”

  “Nothing that didn’t happen to you,” Tague said. “Isn’t that right? You’ve already been exposed. Although you seem to have a far better grasp on your alien than they did. I’m very interested in finding out why that is. As, I’m sure, will Shri-Lan command.”

  “How did you know?” Seth measured the distance to the armed guards blocking his way to the stairs. Their sneers almost begged him to try for escape.

  “Besides you talking to yourself? We got word an hour ago that Tov Pald was captured on Belene-Noh. He did not send you to Csonne. Something tells me your reasons for coming here are not purely for profit. Probably a Union agent, am I right? I’m guessing that Air Command is eager to acquire the Alpha for their own use.”

  “I don’t give a damn about Air Command,” Seth said through clenched teeth. “These are living, sentient beings you’re torturing.”

  “They are nothing until they use our neurons to create a presence. Don’t mistake them for living organisms.”

  “Are you going to hit him?” Khoe said. “That’s just rude.”

  “What do you want from me?” Seth said. Two of the guards searched him and shoved him back into the main lab. I can barely stand up. Anything you can do?

  “No,” Khoe said, sounding defeated. “I can’t even get as far as out of this room. Not quickly, anyway. He’s found some way to block me completely down here.”

  The doctor went to the glass wall and surveyed the destroyed containment system. “Despite what I told you earlier, every one of my attempts so far has ended in failure. Death, emotional collapse, brain damage. Even those that came through suffered injuries that make them no more useful than a Rhuwac foot soldier. You saw that for yourself. Perhaps it’s the entities inside that have decided this. Perhaps that’s all they understand.”