by Taylor Smith
“Maybe,” Andy replied with a shake of his head. “Whatever it is, though, will have to wait until after we get Saundi back safe. I’m going to command the Reaper. Once we return home, I’ll step down.”
Cade grinned, finally seeing life in Andy’s eyes again. “About time we cleared that up.”
“You have to know, Cade, we’re in a bad situation here,” Andy said in a dead serious tone. “Everyone thinks that the Alliance is bad; it’s nothing compared to my mother.”
“Come on, Andy. I don’t think –“.
Andy shook his head and leaned toward Cade. “She’ll burn the colonies to get what she wants.”
Chapter 16
Haley edged Strix-9 out of subspace with a shudder of its ISD drives. She checked her navigation station to verify that they’d entered the Lordell System, and activated her ship’s stealth.
The flight to Lordell, and her continued conversation with Saundi, had been enlightening to say the least. Her old friend had expressed sincere regret at the events that transpired after the Deshi attack, and the two had made amends; at least it was a start to making amends. Haley still felt the flicker of betrayal at being such a pawn in Clew’s plans, and the pain of being stripped of her life in the Allied Fleet. To know that their initial plan was to extract her from the Alliance immediately after the Academy helped very little. But it was a start.
Unfortunately, the deaths of Jerry and Criss loomed over her, and she couldn’t bring it upon herself to tell Saundi what she’d done. That and the fact that she’d destroyed the treasured Neese burial site wouldn’t exactly make for a warm welcome back at Clew either.
Haley turned slightly at the sound of footsteps on the metal deck plating.
“I felt the drop-out,” Saundi said as she wiped the sleep from her eyes.
“We’ve entered the Lordell System,” Haley said as she turned back to her instruments. “We have to figure out a way to get you somewhere safe.”
Saundi was quiet a moment before she said, “So you’re not going to turn me over to the Alliance?”
Haley paused and turned back to Saundi. “I’m still mad at you.”
Saundi took several desperate steps toward her and said, “Come with me.”
“I can’t,” Haley replied and turned back to her controls. “I think I’ve already made my bed as far as Clew is concerned.”
“We can fix things,” Saundi pleaded as much for her friend as for her people. “They’ll understand.”
Haley turned back to Saundi and shook her head. “What about Sol Fleet? If what you’ve told me about your mother is true, then an interstellar war is about to begin. I can’t let that happen. At least I can’t let the Alliance be unprepared for it. I have to report this.”
Saundi slid down the bulkhead until she was sitting on the deck. “Haley. Come home.”
The fluttering in her chest and the tightening of her throat told Haley that she wanted to, desperately. Knowing now that her mother and father were both from Clew Station, and her friends had indeed gone to great extents to find her after the trial, tore at her.
The anger she bore for Clew and its denizens, the years of pure hatred, certainly stemmed from being used, but more so from the abandonment by her so-called friends. To learn otherwise had shaken her resolve, but she still had a thread of duty to the Alliance left in her. “Onisia is the closest non-aligned star system,” she said as she brought the navigation information up on her primary screen. “We can be there in a day and a half. It’s outside Clew’s normal operating area, but it shouldn’t be hard to get transport to Yanna or even back to Bonnell.”
Saundi huffed behind her. “So that’s it then? You let me go and then run back to those blood-suckers who’ve killed so many of our friends and family?”
“I’m not arguing this with you,” Haley said as she began the necessary course corrections to take them back out of the Lordell System. “There’s more going on than you know, Saundi. I might even have a way of –“. She stopped short as several angry tones emanated from her flight computer.
“What?” Saundi asked.
“I don’t know,” Haley said slowly as she re-checked her calculations. “The ship isn’t accepting the course information.” She rekeyed her data into the computer and was met by the same refusal. “Something’s wrong.”
Saundi stood and leaned over her shoulder. “Damage from that scrap with the Sol ships?” she asked worriedly.
Haley’s hands now flew across her instruments. Each system she tried to access gave her the same horrific response. “No,” she said as she worked furiously in attempt to find the problem. “Navigation, sensors, tactical, core systems” she rattled off as each system denied her control, “I’ve been locked out. I still have informational access to most systems and access to the computer, but command and control has been locked out.”
“Great,” Saundi said from behind her. “So we can see where we’re going while the Alliance –“.
Haley heard a muffled thump from behind her and twisted around to find Saundi lying unconscious behind her. Panic surged through her veins as she realized that the small ship was filling with ether-theta gas. Either it was part of the Eclipse Protocol, or Admiral Jonas had somehow found out what she was planning to do. She took a deep gulp of air and quickly ripped the data chip containing her mission logs from its housing and stuffed it into her boot.
Her eyes began to water in reaction to the gas and lack of oxygen as she pulled a blank chip from its storage, and inserted it into the reader. She blinked tears away and ignored the pain in her chest as she worked the computer terminal to activate a program that she wrote during the subspace trip to Lordell. She hadn’t intended to use it, or at least she was unsure of herself at the time of writing the program that would scrub the positional data of Clew Station from all of Strix-9’s systems. The information gathered would be replaced with falsified data, placing Clew four light-years from its true position.
She slammed the terminal with her fist as the program wouldn’t activate due to the lockout of her systems. Her head swam and her vision began to darken. Her throat and chest bucked in futile attempt to gather air but she held on long enough to queue the program in the ship’s immediate-run buffers. Her hope was that the moment the ship’s systems were unlocked, which it would have to be for anyone to obtain the mission logs, her program would run, and she would have the only uncompromised copy of the data.
Haley gasped, finally unable to hold her breath any longer. The sweet air filled her lungs, along with a slight metallic flavor that she knew would render her unconscious.
***
“What have you done?” urged the strong, yet panicked voice of Admiral Jonas.
Haley’s eyes fluttered open and her mind cleared as the guard dropped her unceremoniously to the hard metal deck. She shook her head of the fog to see an angry Jonas as he strode toward her. She squinted at him before trying to get up off the cold deck just to find her wrists had been bound. “Sir?” she managed to ask, her voice raspy from the gas.
She winced at the soreness of her throat before she realized that she was lying on the deck of an immense room filled with screens, monitoring stations and a large vista of the stars outside. She’d never seen Strix base’s command center, but she was fairly certain that this room was just that. The two guards that had dumped her to the floor moved to stand behind Jonas with heavy assault rifles held at the ready.
Jonas leaned over her and anger flashed across his face. “You were under strict orders not to engage any member of the Neese family!” he shouted with a waved hand toward Saundi, who sat dazed beside her.
Haley glanced at Saundi, who was beginning to show her defiance through the haze of the drug that had overcome them both. She rolled to her side to try and stand and asked, “Sir, how did you know that she was –“.
Jonas was quick to draw his sidearm and aim it at Haley’s head. “Do not move, Agent,” he growled.
Haley froze at the sigh
t of the weapon. The guards mimicked their commander and aimed their rifles toward her. “Sir, I don’t understand,” she whispered slowly before she finally found her voice through her shock. “What difference does it make? The Eclipse Protocol was activated,” she said as she stared down the barrel of his service pistol. “Sol Fleet is still out there. That overrides all of my mission parameters. We have to warn the fleet.”
“You have no idea what’s at stake here,” Jonas said with a fervent shake of his head. “You may have ruined everything!” he shouted and holstered his sidearm. “Arrest her,” he said to the guards and moved toward Saundi. “Ms. Neese,” he said in an overly calming voice as if speaking to a child. “My name is Harold Jonas,” he said with a wide, forced smile, “but you can call me Harold.”
Saundi flinched back from him. “Fine, Harold. What do you want?” she asked in an angry tone.
Jonas stepped back from her and held his hands up. “Just to talk,” he said with the same calm composure that was edged with a disturbing nervousness.
Haley watched her Admiral’s demeanor with puzzled interest as the guards lifted her from the floor and onto her feet. “She can’t add anything that I don’t already have in my report!” Haley shouted as the guards ushered her away. “We have to warn the Admiralty of –“.
“You,” Jonas shouted back, “stay out of this! You’ve done enough harm to this poor woman!”
Haley balked at that. His eyes looked crazed and she could almost detect fear in his voice.
Jonas turned back to Saundi and held out his hand. “Come with me,” he said as he regained his composure and once again sported the ear-to-ear smile. “I’ll take you home, Saundi. We can go to Clew and you can introduce me to your mother.”
“You have a death wish? What’s wrong with you?” Saundi exclaimed and once again backed away from his proffered hand.
Jonas shook his head and his smile somehow grew wider. “Of course not, Saundi. Don’t you understand? I’m on your side. I know about Sol Fleet. At least with all the intelligence coming in, I had a good hunch. I want to help. I want to see the Alliance crushed, just as you do.”
And then it clicked in Haley’s mind. Her secondary mission, all the report hand-offs, the odd communiques and even the emergency codes she’d been given; it all made sense now. She slammed her heels onto the deck, forcing the guards who guided her to stop. She twisted around as much as she could while still in their grips and shouted, “Traitor!”
Jonas jerked his head toward her as if shocked from a dream and laughed. “You, Haley Varsoe of Clew Station, are the traitor,” he said and rose his hand to order the guards to halt. “Even in Adara City after your trial, you blamed Clew for what had happened to you, when it was the Alliance who turned their backs and threw you to the wolves. Even as Cade searched for you, you hated them all.”
Haley stopped struggling, shocked at what he’d just said. “You knew? How –“.
“Oh come now, Haley,” Jonas interrupted with a wave of his hand. “My teams were watching you from the moment you were drummed out of the fleet. I recognized Cade from your report, and knew what he was about. But I knew he would probably die before giving up the location to Clew, and you were such a perfect candidate for the Strix program. We just had to accelerate your… death, as it were, before he could find you.” Jonas placed a hand on Haley’s shoulder and gripped harder when she shied away. “Plus, if I’d have outed Cade, the information he gave wouldn’t be in my control, and the Alliance would have wiped Clew out.” He leaned close to her and shook his head. “I couldn’t have that.”
“You made sure he wouldn’t find me…” she whispered as a sudden sense of dread slammed into every fiber of her being. “You made me suffer. Why?”
Jonas shrugged. “It was a necessity to feed your anger, a means to an end, if you will. I shared the same anger, the same fury, but not for Clew, or Saundi,” he said waving a hand toward the wide-eyed woman who watched in confusion as the scene unfolded. “I was Fleet Admiral Harold Jonas,” he said as his eyes focused longingly on a distant past. “I was the decorated, respected and feared leader of the Allied Fleet.” He whispered and then focused again on Haley. “And they threw me out like a sack of trash.”
“But I knew that Sol Fleet was out there somewhere,” he said and seemed to recover. “I was the only one to put the pieces together early: The heroic Julian Neese and Sol Fleet spy, the Clew cruisers and frigates that bore a striking resemblance to Earth design, and then the pièce de résistance,” he said and spun on his heel in delight, “The Sol Fleet grade implant and mainboard you were so kind to deliver. That!” he shouted and grabbed her again. “That was the missing piece to my salvation.” He drew close to her again, his eyes smiling madly at her and said, “And my vengeance. The Alliance will fall, Haley Varsoe. They will suffer for what they did to me. Right now, there’s a fleet of advanced, Earth-built ships awaiting my command. With my knowledge, I can lead Sol Fleet to victory.”
Haley caught her breath and shook herself out of shock to say, “You’re insane. They’ll rip whatever information out of you they can, and then toss you out the nearest airlock!”
Jonas laughed and shrugged again. “That won’t happen; I assure you. I would have taken you with me. I would have taken you home, but you’ve done far too much damage to Clew for them to welcome you back.”
Haley glanced to Saundi, who now stood next to the bulkhead with narrowed eyes.
Jonas’ eyes widened as he looked between the two friends. “Oh. She doesn’t know that you killed her people’s intelligence officer, Jerry, and also Criss Hulbert?”
Saundi’s eyes widened in surprise. “What?”
“Oh, yes,” Jonas continued. “And your family’s burial site is a smoldering crater thanks to her. Even after I warned her, ordered her, not to harm any Clew citizen.”
“That’s not...” Haley looked from Jonas to Saundi. “Saundi, I’m sorry,” Haley managed to say before Jonas struck her across the face. The guards holding her tightened their grip as pain blossomed from her cheek. Her eyes watered as she worked her jaw to relieve the pain, then grit her teeth and scowled at him.
Jonas shook his head and made his way back to Saundi. “We need to get you home.”
“Arrest him,” Haley growled to the two guards who held her in their vices. “Arrest him! He’s going to betray the Alliance! You heard it yourself!” She looked to both guards who simply stared back at her. Their gazes weren’t blank in any sense. In fact, they were focused razor sharp, but seemed not to hear her. “Arrest him!”
“They won’t listen to you, Haley,” Jonas said as he guided Saundi, who was still staring at Haley with a look of betrayal. “They’re loyal to a fault.”
Haley looked back to the guards and wondered how intense their training had to be to completely ignore the conversation that had just taken place. She turned and looked to see how close she was to the main command platform of the station and knew she only had one chance. “Voice authorization,” Haley shouted. “Initiate command override! Omicron, nine-zero, nine-three, baker! Transfer command to Agent Strix Nine, Haley Marks! Initiate!”
Jonas whirled toward her with his jaw hanging open and shouted, “You!” He then turned toward the main command platform as a male voice boomed throughout the room.
“Authorization: invalid. Command transfer denied.”
Haley’s knees buckled in despair, and she hung between the guards who kept her from falling.
“It was you!” Jonas repeated as he stomped back toward her. “I found those codes embedded in the command core two months ago,” he stopped short of her and looked down. “I could have sworn…” he paced several steps as his hand went to his forehead. “Surely they were involved,” he muttered and then glared at Haley. “I had two agents killed because of those codes. But it was you all along. Who are you working for?” He shouted his question, spittle spraying from his mouth. “Tell me!”
Haley’s eyes rolled from th
e floor up to Jonas, and she simply stared at him in contempt. She was a dead woman now. That was obvious. Her odds at living weren’t good before she tried to use the command codes she’d been given, but now they were non-existent.
“No matter,” Jonas spat and strutted away from Haley once again. “Lock Miss Marks up,” he said over his shoulder as he led the confused Saundi from the room.
The guards jerked her forward once again, and she let them lead her away willingly. She caught a last glimpse of Saundi as they turned the corner. Their eyes met and Haley thought she saw more worry than anger at what she’d done.
After a short, forceful trip through the labyrinth of Strix Base, the guards finally discarded her in a small cell that resembled a larger version of the holding room aboard her ship. She collapsed into a heap on the bed provided, pulled her knees to her chest, and wept.
All doors were shut for her now. There was no way she could return to Clew after what she’d done, and the Alliance she loved had abandoned her yet again. She realized she’d tried so hard to cling to the idea of helping the Alliance, even if they didn’t know she was helping. Her quest for vengeance was so strong that she would do anything to hurt Clew, no matter the consequences. She found that the Strix program enabled her far too well in that sense. It turns out she was only helping the twisted agenda of a mad man bent on his own path of revenge.
If only she could contact Admiral Kerris, the man who took Jonas’ position as Fleet Admiral, she would have a chance. Her secondary mission was her last hope. She opened her eyes to see only the disappointment of her cell.
Chapter 17
“All hands are reporting ready,” Cade announced above the battle-stations claxon. “Doc has improved her crew-recovery time.”
The Reaper had dropped out of subspace nearly an hour ago and Andy ordered the other Clew ships to run silent while the Reaper began active scans for their prey. Within thirty minutes, they were queried by an Alliance patrol. Cade knew it was cutting it close, dropping out of subspace in the inner edge of the Lordell System, but they had to risk it to try and catch the small recon ship they were chasing.
