[scifan] plantation 03 - shadow empire

by Stella Samiotou Fitzsimons

  THE SHADOW EMPIRE

  Book 3 of The Plantation

  by

  Stella Samiotou Fitzsimons

  ©2013 by Stella Samiotou Fitzsimons

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  Twitter: @plantationworld

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by electronic, mechanical or other means, without permission in writing from the author.

  PART ONE

  Cradle Will Rock

  1

  There’s a stillness in the damp woods that calms my soul. The heavy scents of leaves fallen on wet earth and spring blossoms hidden within wild foliage fill up my lungs. The mystical dew of early morning cools my naked feet as I wander aimlessly beneath the blue sky for the first time in days.

  Finn sits on a jagged rock by the edge of the river, his willow fishing pole bent like one of Nya’s huge bows. Finn once belonged to the morning. His smile would break like the Sun on the horizon, warming you with health and possibility. Those days are gone. He sits quietly now. Thinking more than fishing. None of his thoughts are likely to lead to a smile.

  This change of perspective is to be expected after what we have all been through, but something I have not yet learned to expect is his close-cropped hair. It still throws me off every time.

  “You should be inside,” he says when he senses my presence behind him.

  “If you can be out here, I can, too,” I reply as I sit down beside him.

  “It’s not the same,” he says. “There’s not an alien army trying to capture me no matter the cost.”

  “No, but the same army would just settle for killing you.”

  He turns to me disappointed. “Are you trying to be funny?”

  “Not at all,” I say.

  This is how we have been communicating for the past week. Sarcastic jokes, half-sentences and snappy comebacks. Even when together, we don’t really reach out to each other. We discuss things we have learned from Pip, we take part in daily meetings, we go over plans about raiding Plantation-15 but we never bring up the one thing that truly stands between us.

  A fish takes the bait and Finn turns his attention to the task at hand. He gives the fishing pole a sudden jerk backwards and up, then starts reeling slowly. I can tell by the way his muscles tense that he’s fighting against a big creature.

  When he lifts the fish out of the water, I turn my face away. I can’t think of a worse end, gasping for oxygen.

  “We’ll be having genetically enhanced trout tonight,” Finn says.

  I nod and grimace. I make an imperceptible sound. I don’t like to be there when my food dies.

  Doc says it’s a miracle that I’m up and about so quickly after having almost died. He marvels at my complete recovery, both physically and emotionally. I don’t tell him about the thing that drives me. I don’t tell him my passion to destroy and annihilate is as nourishing as mother’s milk. Fiery visions of vengeance and war trigger my immune system.

  Each Savior burns with the desire to rescue Damian. I want more. I want to level those who hold him. Revenge is so sweet in my dreams. We need our leader back. We hope that Pip’s intuition is true. I need his eyes again, his lips, but I also want to kill his captors. An odd craving for someone who can’t bear to watch a fish die.

  Pip has finally revealed her special ability to us, at least one of them, and Doc has concluded that she is a human database. There’s no end to the information she carries in her brain, including useful specifics pertaining to the plantation network and the laboratories within and underneath it.

  She doesn’t know the purpose of it all, but she knows every detail about the design and layout of the entire plantation district.

  Finn gathers his pole and tackle and throws them in the bucket along with his huge, dead trout.

  “Stay,” I say. “I’ll go and give you peace. You can catch more fish for dinner.”

  He softens as he considers me through squinting eyes. “It’s not you, Freya. I like to walk in the morning,” he says. “Fishing is just a necessity and this catch is enough for all of us.”

  “We could walk together,” I suggest. “Maybe have a good chat.”

  He pauses to think about this. It doesn’t take him long. “Another time,” he says. “I need to meditate more and more these days.”

  Finn hasn’t called me Tick once since we returned to the Sliman base ten days ago after the big battle against the drones. I had no idea it would hurt so much not to hear him call me by the nickname. I don’t have the right to complain. I made my choices. Finn deals with them the best he can.

  He deserves the space and time he needs to adjust to this new reality. I must use the time to do whatever it takes to perfect the plan that will get Damian out of Plantation-15 as soon as possible.

  That’s where they keep him, according to Pip. Not exactly in the plantation but rather underneath it. Gritu and Malzod have never even heard of a subterranean network that connects all plantations to Plantation-15 and Zolkon wasn’t of any help at all when we questioned him about it but Pip is adamant.

  She also insists that there is a laboratory area right underneath Plantation-15 where experiments are conducted on Sliman daily. Where all exceptional young Sliman specimens are gathered to be studied and tested. It’s not only humans who have that privilege.

  But there’s something else there, too. Rehabilitation holding cells for Sliman who have strayed from the alien agenda ingrained in their brains. This is where the aliens fix them, restoring them back to their original state. That’s where we will have to look.

  It still feels like the world is spinning out of control every time I associate Damian with Sliman. It doesn’t matter whether I believe it or not. He could be an android for all I care. It wouldn’t make any difference to me.

  Rabbit and Scout meet me halfway back to the base.

  “Who sent you after me?” I ask.

  “Nobody, we’re just getting some air,” Rabbit says.

  “Come on, Rabbit, you had it as bad as me during the battle. Maybe I should send someone to watch over you when you go out.”

  “Fine, Doc sent us,” Scout admits. “You really shouldn’t take chances like this, Freya.”

  “I’m perfectly fine, he has said so himself. Repeatedly.”

  “You’re a fine target as well,” Rabbit says. I can tell he’s truly worried.

  My connection with Rabbit has only grown deeper since we both came very close to dying, since Wudak showed me how to bond our life forces in order to save Rabbit and just barely survive myself.

  “Have you seen Shy Boy?” I ask.

  “No, but he should be back soon. There’s no way he’d miss breakfast. Not even Biscuit can provide enough food for that chimp,” Rabbit teases.

  “He deserves every last morsel,” Scout says. “He saved Freya and probably the entire world when he crossed that mud crater on his own.”

  I don’t need to be reminded of what Shy Boy has done for me. Not a minute goes by that I don’t think of it, that I am not grateful to him. I never want to put him in harm’s way again. But it might not be up to me. The world demands justice for everything that lives and justice comes with a price tag.

  In the underground base I come face to face with Gritu. He visits almost daily and seeks me out because I’m the one who understands his grief over Wudak’s death more than anyone else. If Sliman could have friends, Wudak would be Gritu’s closest friend. And now he’s gone.

  What could I have done differently to save Wudak? Or to keep Damian with us? These questions persist though I know they are n
ot useful or hopeful or even answerable. The past entrenches itself behind us, untouchable and unchangeable. We have only the present and how quickly it slips through our fingers faster than water.

  “You are feeling better, but you shouldn’t take chances,” Gritu says.

  “Enough with this obsession for my well-being,” I say. “Maybe the best thing would be for me to perish.”

  “You are speaking stupidly,” Gritu says bending his brow. “Wudak died for you. You must make it count for something.”

  I nod. He’s right, of course. Everyone is right. But I am too deep within my own plans for revenge to consider myself anything more than the harbinger of death. I want to get Damian out of the hellish alien prison and I want to watch that prison burn. He should not have to pay for my mistakes, but the aliens should have to pay for theirs.

  If you want sunrise, you must make it through the darkness of night. To return to the light, you have to walk through the shadows of your fears. And if I dig down to the roots of my pain, I will find my way and my destiny. These things I know as well as anything I have ever known since I was born into this wretched world and forced to play a part in its disintegration.

  *

  THEO AND ZOE SIT DOWN with Pip in the lab. They are trying to draw a map of Plantation-15 and the underground network based on what Pip is telling them. The network is so complex and Pip’s instructions so detailed that I sometimes think the mapping could take months, even years.

  “It’s important that we know all entrances and exits, guard posts, camera and sensor controls, levels, elevators, locked cells, test labs and secret Sliman passages,” Theo reminds us.

  We know it’s necessary. Theo does not have to remind us. There are hundreds of safety systems in use. Even with this preliminary mapping it’s obvious that getting in there will be as hard as can be, but getting out will be next to impossible.

  “It would take an army to break through their defenses,” Zoe mumbles under her breath.

  “We are an army,” I remind her. “A very capable one as we have proven.”

  “When did you become such an optimist?” Zoe says smiling.

  “I’m not an optimist, far from it,” I correct her. “I don’t think we can save the world, but we will save Damian.”

  “Here,” Pip says pointing to a spot on the map. “Here is where they would keep Damian if they intend to restore him.”

  I place two fingers on the point on the map where they keep him. I touch the paper wanting to feel Damian’s presence. I want him to feel me reaching out to him. I want his heart to beat through the paper.

  “Hang on, Damian,” I whisper. “We’re coming for you.”

  “Are you sure, Pip?” Theo asks.

  Pip nods. She turns to me with certainty. “I found him, Freya,” she says. “The data is in my head. That’s where they keep them. Retrieved Sliman Warriors. Level 6.”

  The gravity of Theo’s expression makes my heart skip a beat. “What is it, Theo?” I say.

  “If the map is correct and Pip’s data hold is accurate, then it seems Damian is being prepared for take-off.”

  “What do you mean take-off?”

  “This is where they process mutants for their return to planet Sliman,” Zoe says. “When it has been determined they are of no use on Earth. Isn’t that what you said yesterday, Pip?”

  Pip drops her head. “Yes,” she says, “it’s all so confusing at times. My thoughts are pieces. I never have the whole picture. Retrieved Sliman Warriors return to Sector C which merges with Sector F. They both lead to Sector K. Take-off. That’s how they restore them.” She grabs Theo’s hand. “Take-off is scheduled for the beginning of each lunar cycle,” she says.

  “When the moon is full?” Theo asks.

  Pip nods.

  Zoe calculates in her head. “That’s in eighteen days.”

  “Good job, Zoe,” Theo says. “Eighteen days until the next full moon.”

  “We have to go in now,” I say. “They might change plans and take off sooner than planned. We can’t take that chance.”

  “How do we know Pip’s data is correct?” Finn says loudly as he enters the lab. “What if it was placed there on purpose?”

  “What purpose would that be?” I say.

  “Oh, let me see,” Finn says mocking the question, “as a simple trap to ensnare you for starters.”

  My blood boils at Finn’s disappointed expression, the only one he seems to have for me lately. I have no answer but to look away.

  “We can’t be hasty or reckless,” Finn continues. “This is no time to be overly emotional. We could lose a lot more than we stand to gain.”

  “Stand to gain?” I say, glaring at him. “There’s nothing to gain in this, Finn. I’m not going to let Damian rot on some weird planet that’s been turned into a concentration camp. I’m the reason he got caught. I owe it to him to bring him back. I don’t care if it’s too inconvenient.”

  “Don’t be so selfish,” he says. “Not everything that goes wrong in the world has you at its center.”

  Finn. His words hit me so hard every time he opens his mouth. I want to destroy everything when he gets under my skin. “I should have protected him,” I say but my voice breaks in mid-sentence.

  “Freya, you’ve seen the blueprint of 15,” Finn says finally softening to me. “We make this plan with our minds not our hearts. We need to make sure nobody else gets hurt. We have to protect what we have left.”

  “You’re the boss,” I say. I feel hot tears running down my cheeks.

  “We all want Damian back,” he says. “And when we work together there’s no power in the universe that can stop us.”

  I feel like I am losing my mind. One moment I want to hit Finn, then a moment later I want to kiss him. The more we have grown apart, the more I hunger us to be close again. Things fade away and change and mutate.

  I am so tired of mutations. Change sucks. Mutation sucks. Why can’t things stay the same for five minutes in this dying world? I was a naïve young girl who loved only Finn, then I became a young woman who loved Damian.

  Now I don’t know what I am, besides a girl who loves vengeance.

  2

  I close my eyes to quiet my mind. I concentrate on one word. Peace. I repeat it silently again and again until the world lets go of me. Until I am part of the shimmering cosmos and its ever expanding consciousness. But then a distant noise distracts me. When I open my eyes, I am myself again.

  Chaos returns to me even more demanding and urgent. Why does Pip know what she knows? What purpose did the aliens have in making her mind so full? Is Finn right? Is Pip’s knowledge an elaborate trap? Is Damian alive, tortured, brain-washed, destroyed?

  This room that I have been calling my own, set deep within the earth by the Sliman rebels, guarded by the people I have been calling my friends and family, what does it all mean now that he is gone? How did he entwine himself so completely within my skin and bones? The questions come like bullets. I wish my heart was bulletproof.

  Everyone is impatient. I’m not the only one. They’re scared to admit it. If they were being honest, they would either run or attack. They would not sit here in a cold, dark cave while Damian is subject to unnamed horrors.

  In many ways, Damian was our courage. If he, the fiercest among us, can be captured, then nobody is safe. Finn is leading us now. There was talk of electing a new leader. I knew what the younger ones wanted of me, but I am too damaged. I cannot lead them in this war. I am an emotional wreck.

  There’s a knock on the door. Zoe walks into the room. She looks tired, haunted. Her beautiful red hair looks duller somehow and her face has grown more pale. I see fear inside Zoe for the first time since I’ve known her. Even when Daphne died, Zoe still believed in victory. Now she’s not sure anymore and there’s nothing she can do to hide it.

  She sits on the floor next to me. “What’s going on with Finn and you?” she asks bluntly.

  I could tell her everything, I guess. Or
I could deflect her questions and act innocent. I look away, then down at my boots. If only I knew which path would make what I’m going through any easier.

  The silence becomes a humming within my brain. “We’ll sort it out,” I say. “We have no choice.”

  “There’s always a choice, Freya.”

  I shrug my shoulders. “When there’s choice, mistakes are quick to follow,” I say impatiently. I want her to go. I want to be alone. I want to wallow. Concern suffocates me even when it comes from those I love.

  “We’re all tense,” she says. “But you and Finn are our rocks. We depend on you two getting along. He can lead us, but the two of you leading us together would be so much better. You could lead the Saviors into the future.”

  “You’re giving up on Damian already?” I say and stare into her eyes.

  “No, I didn’t say that. But for now we need to find our own unity and to do that we will need guidance. We’ve never done it otherwise.”

  “There’s always a first time.”

  Zoe springs to her feet. “I understand you’ve been through a lot, but it’s time you stepped up. Whatever it is that has Finn and you at odds has to stop.” She hesitates at the door, frustrated. “You know where to find me when you feel like talking.”

  “It’s Damian,” I say before she goes.

  Zoe turns back. “What about Damian?”

  “He told me he loved me.”

  Zoe sighs. “He finally managed.”

  “You’ve known?” I say forcing a smile. “Before I did. From Daphne?”

  “Daphne said a lot of things. I couldn’t be sure. Some were facts, some were premonitions. It was hard to tell at times.”

  “So now you know.”

  Zoe nods and sits beside me. “Damian’s confession somehow caused tension between you and Finn?”

  I shake my head. “It’s more than that.”

  Zoe places her arms around me. “You should have told me,” she says as she wipes tears from my cheeks.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “We’ll get him back. Everything will be resolved.”