Bossy didn’t seem to care. Belching loudly, she scratched herself as she searched for another drink. Only a few drops remained in the last jug on the tabletop, but she nursed it until it was bone dry.
This is it, she thought, holding her breath. Even inebriated, Bossy was too sharp to fall for any kind of stunt, so Tarsha laid down her hand.
“They took the bug out of my head.”
The dark horse slowly put down the jug. Eyes narrowing, her free hand automatically went to her harness.
Tarsha breathed a small sigh of relief; since Bossy hadn’t been able to restock her 20-20s, she came up empty.
“So are you a Skirt now or—”
“—or are you going to have to rip out my guts and tear out my eyes? You don’t have to say it,” Tarsha said. “It’s not like I haven’t been stuck with your assino for years or anything.”
Bossy studied her carefully.
“What’s my favorite drink?”
“Before you found the Mississippi Diesel?”
“Yeah, ratchakker.”
Tarsha didn’t even have to think about it. “Meatgrinder whiskey. Straight up, no ice, no chaser. ‘It’s gotta burn.’”
“You’re godich right it does!” Bossy said, slapping the table. She scooted closer to Tarsha, making the table rock. Forced to lean forward to keep the balance, Tarsha found herself in a vulnerable position if Bossy chose to strike.
Bossy thought hard about her next question, making her forehead wrinkle. “Why did you dye your hair that ugly color, even when I told you it made you look like a wussy emo punk?”
Tarsha couldn’t help but laugh. “Well, first of all, because Tysek Laoren, lead singer of Earth’s best Industrial Metalcore band, had the same streak. And second, because I knew it would piss you off.”
“He was totally gay!”
“You’re just saying that because he looked better in tight leathers than you.”
Despite her correct answer, Bossy didn’t look anywhere near satisfied, her face still pinched with suspicion.
One of the guards made eye contact with Tarsha, but she was careful not to give any indication that she had communicated back. Regardless, Bossy came at her, hands around her throat. The pile of tables shuddered and creaked. Something snapped. Tarsha hoped it wasn’t her neck.
“Are you my Gracie, or are you some butt-ugly imposter?”
Trying to pry Bossy’s fingers off got her nowhere. The dark horse could out-muscle a gang of Toorks.
“Stop, I’m—”
Seeing her distress, the guards raised their guns, but she waved them off.
With the last of her breath, she croaked as much of their secret song as she could:
“The sun may rise deep underground,
The air may stink of rot,
My food is full of maggots...”
“But this is all I got,” Bossy said, letting loose a little bit.
Tarsha struggled to continue the song as little black motes buzzed before her eyes.
“The dead may roam the wasteland
And the sky may burn and blister,
But I have my drink and I have my gun...”
Bossy released her.
“...And I have my bad-assino sister.”
Tarsha rubbed her neck but didn’t dare sit up. The tables shifted underneath them, especially with Bossy’s constant movement.
“No matter what anyone else calls me, no matter what name I go by,” she said through strained vocal cords, “I will always be your Gracie.”
Bossy thumbed the empty rings on her 20-20 harness and puffed out her lower lip. “It ain’t the same.”
“No, it’s not. We were both tricked; we both believed a lie. But our friendship was real. It is the only real thing either of us knows for sure.”
Tarsha had never seen Bossy cry, even when her arm nearly got chewed off by a Berserker in the fighting rings. “You don’t talk like my Gracie. You don’t sound like her. You don’t even look like her anymore.”
“I know,” she said, lowering her eyes. “I can’t help that. But the person I was and the person I was made to think I was have settled their differences. This is the person I am now. I carry both the strength of Agracia Waychild and Tarsha Leone in my heart.”
“Look,” she added. “I can’t ask you to stay here with me.”
“What the hell?!” Bossy yelled, shooting to her feet. “Double-crossin’, punte ratchak!”
Tarsha clung to the lip of the table, holding on for dear life as it teetered back and forth. “Hear me out, ya numbskull! We’ll both be dead in less than a week if I don’t help the Alliance!”
“What? Why? They threatenin’ you? You and me could take down this rat trap starbase in our sleep!”
“No,” Tarsha said, glad when most of the rocking had subsided. “It’s Victor.”
“That old pruny assino?!”
“Yes. He’s known the truth about me this whole time. He alluded to it the first time I met him in the Spillway. After he’s done using the Deadwalkers to mop up his enemies, he’s going to come after me. He knows what I’m capable of.”
Bossy tilted her head and slurped loudly on her lollipop. “Whaddaya mean?”
Closing her eyes, Tarsha admitted her darkest secret. “I was bred for war. I’m the most dangerous military commander around.”
Bossy chomped down on her lollipop. “I thought Doctor Death and her ugly sister were the greatest.”
“Not against Li and his fleet.”
“You mean that you’re gonna kill all those chubby Republic bastards?”
Tarsha nodded, reverting back into her old Scabber twang. “Anyone who’s dumb enough to stand in my way.”
Bossy thought it over, twirling her pigtails and sucking on her lollipop. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah,” Bossy said. “I’m in. I gotta see this.”
“Still friends then?” Tarsha said, offering her a hand.
Lifting a brow, Bossy took her hand lightly. “Well... maybe. Let’s see how many of those Johnny baechs you kill. Then we’ll talk.”
“I still have to prove I’m not a punte? That I’m worthy of the friendship of Bossy the great dark horse of Old Earth?”
Bossy refitted her engineer’s cap and grinned from ear to ear. “I can’t be best friends with someone who doesn’t know how to have a little fun, now can I?”
TRIEL WENT BACK TO her quarters out of habit, even though there was nothing there that she needed or wanted.
I should be reviewing the mission notes, she thought, looking at the digital clock on her sleeve.
Even so, with the little time left before their launch, she found herself going through her things, trying to find something she couldn’t name.
Recent conversations floated through her head as she dug through her dresser drawers:
“Triel, I just thought you should know,” the admiral had said, pulling her aside after the meeting adjourned, “that Reht and the crew been successfully deprogrammed.”
She didn’t know exactly what that would mean. Will things go back to the way they were? Will Reht remember our love?
(Does it even matter anymore?)
Moving from the dresser to the storage trunk buried in her closest, the Healer sorted through the ragged clothes from her days with the dog-soldiers, scrounging up the few items she had originally brought with her from Algar. The white-heart bead necklace she wore when she was in training. Her father’s bone whistle. It wasn’t much, but they stirred memories of what seemed like many lifetimes ago.
“Father,” she whispered, holding tightly to the whistle and standing by the window. “I’m so sorry I never listened to you.”
As she tried to remember the comforts of his embrace, the gravity of their mission took hold. What we’re about to embark on is dangerous, and the chances of the team’s survival are slim.
(My chances are nil.)
She could still hear Arpethea’s voice in her head: “End her li
fe to save our people.”
Pressing her forehead against the window, the Healer looked down on Trigos and the surrounding stars, unaware of how hard she was squeezing the whistle. I can’t hurt Jetta.
To save the Starways, she would have to stop the Dissemblers, but to do so, she would have to draw upon extraordinary strength. She couldn’t do it alone. She would have to involve the Kyrons. But something like that had never been done before. Is it even possible?
Arpethea came to her again. “She is not ready for what she must do. She will try and stop you. She will not let you fulfill your destiny...”
And to save her people, she would have to perform the ritual of Ne’topat’h as Lady Helena illuminated and Arpethea demanded.
How can I sacrifice both my life and my love?
“Kill the Apparax,” Arpethea called.
I would never hurt Jetta!
The bone whistle cracked, puncturing the meat of her palm. Cursing, she ripped the shard out, kneeling and pressing the wound down with her other hand between her legs as blood gushed out.
“Gods, I’m so... so...” The words wouldn’t come, but the feeling remained. Weak.
“I’m not the next Great Mother,” she said through clenched teeth. Her voice rose in intensity, as did the heat within her chest. “I will not hurt my friend!”
She hurled the broken whistle at the standing mirror. The fragments cracked against it but did no harm, bouncing onto the bloodstained carpet.
The Healer sobbed into her bloodied hand, not caring about the consequences of her emotion. She couldn’t do it. She had to save her people, stop the Motti, but she could not sacrifice the one she loved.
“Take my life,” she whispered, “but please—please—don’t take hers.”
“Triel.”
Triel looked up, confused. Where is that voice coming from? It seemed to originate from all around her, and from within.
The voice called again, this time more insistent. “Triel.”
Fluttering wings. A low insect hum. The lights alternately dimmed and brightened.
What is that?
Forgetting about the pain in her hand, Triel watched the mirror face wave and buckle as something behind it took form. Two hands, pale and veined with crude wiring, pressed through first, followed by the crown of a bald head.
Triel wanted to scream, to run away, but an unseen force grounded her there, kept her from alerting the security team as a face looked up from the bubbling mirror surface.
“Triel...”
Somehow, despite the sickly gray-green color of his skin, or the half of his body devoured by machinery, she recognized his face. Father—
Desperation pitted his voice and brought tears to his remaining cerulean eye. “Help us.”
Any semblance of the quiet authority, the strong fatherly figure, vanished beneath burgeoning decay. The mugginess in the air, the way his words sunk into her heart, the fragility of his voice—
Oh Gods, he’s suffering.
“Father!” she said, lurching forward to pull him through.
“Please, Triel, I can’t—”
Triel collided with the carpet in front of the mirror, dazed and bewildered. When she looked up, the mirror appeared intact, though smeared by her blood. She wiped it down, checking the frame and the edges, pulling it off the wall and inspecting it with maniacal fingers.
“Father,” she said, slumping back against the wall.
Tears and blood wet her face, but she didn’t care anymore. She closed her eyes and slowed her breathing, letting the sensations of the physical world drift away. As she fell back farther into her own mind and heart, she heard her own voice for the first time, clearly and unencumbered.
“Jetta,” she whispered to the listening stars. “I am so, so sorry.”
JAEIA AND HER SISTER followed Jahx through the security hallways until they came to an area where the dog-soldiers were being detained.
“This isn’t going to be easy,” Jetta said under her breath.
Sensing her tension, Jaeia touched the back of her hand. “Maybe you should let me do most of the talking this time.”
Jetta shrugged. “You’re the diplomat.”
“Do you trust me?”
Scoffing, Jetta rolled her eyes. “Oh, I already know what you’re planning.”
“Just because you’re in my head doesn’t mean you know everything, Jetta Kyron.”
While Jetta got a status update from the security officers, Jaeia surveyed the detainment area through the monitors. Instead of spartan prison cells, the Alliance outfitted the dog-soldiers in a semi-open room with most of the conveniences of a Starbase, including gaming terminals, nutrition stations, and even a limited bar. Not a single soldier guarded the double-sealed doors, and the spread of windows on the opposite wall gave access to a breathtaking views of the stars.
Not that Reht and his crew will be fooled by overtures of hospitality, she thought. Even she would assume the worst if thrust in his situation, and suspect cameras and other monitoring equipment hidden in every corner.
“Jahx isn’t budging,” Jetta said, coming up beside her.
Glancing back, she saw their brother swaying in front of the monitors. Dr. DeAnders and the medical staff surrounded him, still looking back and forth between the readings of their instruments, and the medical anomaly standing in front of them.
“Alright, stay behind me. We don’t want to appear aggressive.”
“Whatever you say, sis,” Jetta said, allowing her sister to pass through the doors and into the detainment area first.
Jaeia expected Reht’s usual banter, especially since the Hub had released the Sleepers from their programming, but the dog-soldier captain watched her with a careful eye as she approached. The rest of the crew, some gathered around the gaming terminals and others lounging on the couches, stopped what they were doing but didn’t menace them. Only Mom made a move, standing beside his captain.
“Captain,” Jaeia greeted.
Nobody said a thing.
Cut to the chase, Jetta said, her voice loud and obnoxious across their bond, and use your second voice already.
Without breaking her composure, she shooed her sister’s thoughts off to the side so she could think.
Reht’s not the same dog-soldier captain Jetta met on Fiorah years ago, she thought, sensing a change in his energy. The grave expression in his eyes only deepened her concern. But he’s no Sleeper drone, either.
“How can I help you, little one?” he finally said.
Jaeia relaxed a little, appreciative of the poke. “I was wondering if I could contract your ship for a job.”
Chewing on the stump of a fingernail, he looked her up and down before spitting out the contents of his mouth onto the carpet. “Hey Sebbs, old boy—you were right again.”
Mantri Sebbs rose up from one of the back-facing couches.
I can’t believe he reconnected with the dog-soldiers.
Jetta chimed in. I can’t believe he hasn’t been killed.
Well, he’s always had a penchant for survival.
But this man stood in stark contrast with the tweaked-out Dominion Core officer that had given her and her siblings the Dominion Academy entrance exam. Glazed-over eyes bore no inner light, and his mind, a cold wash of psionic disturbance, chilled her senses. Even deprogrammed, he hadn’t gone back to what he had been, even if that wasn’t much.
“I was right,” Sebbs said, his voice full of contempt. “I told them that you’d show up. I told them you’d come here and try and convince them to do your dirty work.”
Jaeia caught a string of thoughts from Sebbs’s head.
Whoa, she thought, struck by the amount of material in her grasp. She never passively acquired that much. Then again, her powers always magnified in the presence of her brother and sister.
“You’re mad,” she said, reading his subconscious, “because you think that Pancar tricked you by bringing you to the Alliance.”
Sebbs seet
hed with anger, but he didn’t worry her as much as the Talian emitting a rumbling growl in her direction.
“I’m gonna gut him with a spoon,” Ro hissed, jumping over the back of the couch.
Cray followed suit, making clawing motions in the air. “I’m gonna eat his face.”
Chuckling, Reht tugged at his bandages while the rest of his crew added their own threats. Even Bacthar, the gentle giant, tossed a lounge chair on its side and glared at her.
“He didn’t betray you,” Jaeia said. “He brought you here so we could rid you of the Sleeper Program. He also did it as a show of faith so that the Liberalist Party and the Alliance could join under one banner.”
“What do you mean, ‘show of faith’?” Reht said
Jaeia carefully worded her explanation. “Your crew and Captain Sebbs have served the Alliance many times. Your skills would make you a dangerous asset to our enemies. If an enemy knew you were under a Sleeper program, they could have easily turned you against us. We were certain that Shandin had something like that in mind for all of you.”
“And just who, might I ask, gave the order to program us in the first place?” Sebbs asked. “It’s a bit of a Basic Rights violation.”
“Minister Razar,” Jaeia admitted.
“And where is his ugly mug?” Reht said. “Haven’t seen him around. I miss our lovely chats. I think my boys would like to give him a little thank you, too.”
The dog-soldier crew hooted and snarled.
Jaeia told them the truth. “He was critically injured a few weeks ago. He’s still in a coma. Gaeshin Wren has taken his place during this time of war.”
“So he’s CCO and Military Minister? Seems like a conflict of interest,” Sebbs observed.
Jaeia said nothing. Having Wren co-chair the military and the General Assembly council position is a minor offense compared to the crimes Tidas Razar committed in his tenure. Many of the classified operations that violated the Basic Rights Tenets of the Starways could be attributed to comatose Minister, not just the Command Development Program and the Sleepers.
“There’s nothing you can say to make me help you,” Reht said.
“Nothing,” Sebbs emphasized, “you lying sack of Alliance sycha.”
Triorion Omnibus Page 145
