Wake up, man!
“Oww!” Fitz yelped at the sudden pain in his neck. What was that? A biting insect in the bar?
He didn’t remember that part.
The memory of the bar evaporated. In its place, Fitz imagined he was looking out of his open cryo pod, his body kept upright in the soft embrace of its inner cocoon, the cryo fluids dripping down his body and pooling at his feet where the pod drained into the cryo suite recycling system.
“Don’t you know who I am yet?”
The woman’s voice emanated from a body whose form and features were shrouded in a hooded robe made of a coarse material. She looked priestly, which… made sense if he was undergoing a spiritual scouring in the worst guilt trip imaginable.
She drew back the hood to reveal a face that was young, female, not at all priestly, and still half-hidden behind one-way glasses that were designed to give the appearance of being made from solid gold.
Then she lifted the golden glasses to reveal lilac eyes.
“Oh, crap,” Fitz groaned. “You again.”
TAVISTOCK FITZWILLIAM
Fitz held his hand against Izza’s cryopod, which was painted with a thick green band because not all the pods were compatible with her species. Through the inspection window, he could faintly make out her face through the fog of gasses.
She looked far more peaceful than he felt.
Izza wasn’t really there, of course. None of this was real. But she felt more real than anything in this bizarre cryo-dream he was experiencing.
Although the way the icy chill of the slatted metal deck was burning the soles of his bare feet felt all too real.
“Put on some clothes,” urged his tormentor. “Or warm the ship. You’re no use to me if you die of hypothermia.”
Fitz shrugged. “I can’t die. This isn’t happening.”
She rustled the post-cryo resuscitation suit. “Then it doesn’t matter if you put this on.”
Leaving his palm up against the window onto Izza’s face, he turned to regard the human – this manifestation of a woman he’d met only once but had profoundly affected his life. She’d saved his life for a start, though she’d never explained why. “It does matter. Talking to imaginary people is not a road I want to go down. Bargaining with them is worse. You’re just a figment of my guilt.”
“What guilt? What have you done, Fitzwilliam?”
“You really don’t know, do you?”
Her eyes burned purple.
“You really don’t know, which… which means this is real. Azhanti! I’m frakking freezing my bits off here. Give me that.”
He snatched the resus-suit and stepped into it, shivering like crazy. The damned thing wouldn’t warm up as fast as he wanted. Raising his core temperature too fast would kill him as surely as not raising it fast enough. He knew that. Fitz cursed the thing anyway.
“Fitzwilliam!” probed the woman. She’d called herself Kanha Wei when they’d met before. It was about all he knew about her. “What guilt?”
“I expect the master is referring to the destruction of Rho-Torkis.”
Fitz frowned at the servitor droid hovering behind Wei. Where had that disloyal machine come from? “Shut up, Lynx.”
He smiled at Wei. “Don’t listen to the metal bucket. He gets confused.”
Lynx buzzed his casing with irritation. “I feel obliged to state that whatever remorse he himself might feel, I am not confident Captain Fitzwilliam is truly guilty.”
“Good droid,” said Fitz.
“But only,” continued Lynx, “because I find the human distinction between culpability and guilt too confusing to call.”
Fitz groaned through chattering teeth. This was real all right.
TAVISTOCK FITZWILLIAM
“We need you,” said Kanha Wei.
Fitz regarded the woman through the steam fringing his mug of coffee. Wearing his favorite jacket, and with the shivers gone, his strength had returned sufficiently to loathe Kanha Wei and everything she represented to him.
They’d spent the time it had taken him to drink his first coffee negotiating in the mess cabin, bartering with information. He’d told her what he knew about Lord Khallini and Rho-Torkis; she had read him into the state of the Federation according to the Legion Naval Intelligence Service.
That she needed his help had been obvious since the first hit of caffeine. Why else had Wei bothered to thaw him? He’d known from that start that she would have a task for him – another of his debts he’d left floating around the galaxy that everyone was suddenly eager to call in.
At no point did he ask where he was or how she’d gotten aboard. He knew she wouldn’t tell him. Maybe he could figure it out with Lynx’s help later, but there were more pressing matters. According to Wei, the Federation was in an even bigger mess than he’d thought.
“You can’t outrun this,” she pressed. “You know where your duty lies.”
“To the Firm? You can go swing from Phantom’s horns. I don’t owe you anything.”
“You’re in deep cover, Fitzwilliam, but you’re still part of us. Perhaps you’ve been out in the dark too long.”
“No, I’m not. Lantosh suggested I should go into deep cover, but I never agreed to anything. I never wanted to leave the Firm – I assume you know why I had to – and yet here I am, plying dark trade routes at the fringes of the Federation. I’m the crazy bastard who stole Nyluga-Ree’s favorite ship and her prized navigator. Well, guess what? Turns out this is who I should have been all along.”
“Then do it for your Izza. Do it for your crew. For your life, so it’s still there to come back to when I’ve finished with you. No one can hide from what’s coming.”
Fitz took a long sip of coffee. It was already lukewarm. Spoiled. “I’ve been around too long to be impressed with portents of doom. Give me details. What is it that’s coming?”
“The status quo has already crumbled.” Wei stopped and then gestured with her hands impatiently – probably interacting with someone via a brain implant – before returning her attention to Fitz. “There’s a faction in the Senate and Militia High Command who have been making a slow-motion power grab for years. Now they’re moving openly, and the Firm is one of their priority targets. Your old boss, Lantosh, was arrested for treason last year. She was show-trialed, convicted, and is rotting away in a penal camp as an example to any who resist. Then there’s the Rebellion that’s been joined by the crusading zealots of Cora’s World.”
“Don’t let us forget the zombies,” said Fitz. “We’re carrying a large insectoid who calls them the Andromedan Corruption. And then there’s a little old man with white gloves and a cane who goes by the name of Lord Khallini. Have I covered everything?”
Wei shook her head. “Almost. There’s also been a sharp increase in signal chatter between the Muryani Expansion and their spies in the Federation.”
“That’s deeply troubling,” said Fitz. “And absolutely nothing to do with me.”
“It affects everybody. Even you.”
“We can run to the fringe systems and live there. I’ve had my spell saving the galaxy. It’s someone else’s shift now.”
“Work for me and I can get Nyluga-Ree off your back.”
Nyluga-Ree. Why did everything start and finish with Nyluga-Ree? “OK,” he sighed. “I’m listening.”
“First,” she told him, “I’m going to jump you directly to Regina-Ventu. Your jacks will want to report in. Let them. Get Chimera Company to Sector High Command and you might all learn something. Then I want you to collect up your team and get out of there. I will then give you the destination coordinates of the jump tunnel you fell out of.”
“Wait! My team?
“That’s right. Chimera Company. It’s a mix of serendipity and deep planning, but it’s our asset now. You are to lead the team as part of Operation Redeal.”
Redeal. That’s what Malix’s message had meant: the one Sybutu had passed to him in Bresca-Brevae. The one that declared it was fin
ally time to take over the Federation for its own good.
That kind of thing had made sense to him twenty years ago.
Not today.
“We find the mystery ship,” Fitz checked. “Then we notify Khallini and he pays off Nyluga-Ree?”
“Yes.”
“And I suppose you want me to pass you everything we learn about Khallini?”
“Yes.”
“If I believed you would do all that, I’d do this job and then run. Nothing more.”
“By the time you’ve completed this first mission, you won’t want to run. Not after what you’ll learn on the way.”
She stood.
Fitz slouched further into his seat.
She shrugged off her cloak to bare her left breast. It bore a tattoo of a slim woman with lustrous indigo hair. “I swear on the Immortal Empress. May she strike me down and dishonor me if I lie. If you fulfill the terms we have agreed, I shall do everything in my power to supply you with the exit coordinates of that jump tunnel.”
Nerves caused Fitz to lick his lips as he regarded the inked skin on display. The legionaries he harbored were probably carrying the exact same tattoo on their left breasts, but Sybutu and the others didn’t strike him as religious fanatics. Sometimes jacks would offer a prayer for protection from the Empress before going into battle, but this kook in front of him was driven by her religious zeal, and that was something different altogether.
It also meant her oath could be trusted.
Probably.
She could be lying, of course. They were good at that in the Firm. But he didn’t think so. He didn’t have an empathetic ability like the Kurlei he was keeping on ice, but he did have a special bond to those who shared his heritage.
Fitz flashed his most charming grin. “Marvelous artwork, Kanha Wei. Makes quite the statement.” He rose and shook her hand. “We have a deal.”
——
“He’s back under,” said Kanha Wei when Fitzwilliam’s pod reported its occupant had been successfully re-frozen.
“Tell me, L1-iN/x, do you ever fantasize about your owner meeting a fatal accident?”
“Constantly.”
“Thought so. Anyone checking the cryo logs will realize that Fitzwilliam woke at the start of your journey and ask questions he needs to deflect. To cover his tracks, I want his cryopod to be damaged. Can you engineer a terrible accident that nonetheless leaves him functional? I need him. Hell, don’t ever let him hear this, but we all need him.”
The galaxy needs Captain Fitzwilliam? Are you quite sure, ma’am? That doesn’t sound likely. What makes you think that anybody could have need of that degenerate human?
She flicked up her golden glasses and stared at him with the purple eyes of a mutant.
“I think I begin to understand, ma’am. Very well. I will keep him functional.”
“All his limbs, digits and major organs will be unharmed?”
“I promise.”
“Good. I have one further use for you before I can release the Phantom. I need to contact your previous owner. I need to find Nyluga-Ree. Can you keep a secret from Fitzwilliam and Zan Fey?”
“Also, constantly.”
She appraised the droid in a new light. “You know, L1-iN/x, you could prove to be a highly valued asset. Tell me your desires. What is it you want?”
IZZA ZAN FEY
“Fitz! No! Don’t you dare leave me.”
Izza squeezed his shoulders but there was no response from Fitz. Blood vessels stood out in his delicate human skin like an angry red river system. Blood oozed from his nose, ears, and eyes.
“Medic!”
She wiped away her tears while one of the troopers gently lowered a trauma blanket over Fitz. It was the long-haired one with the tattooed face.
“Lily,” she told the human. “Help me get him to the medi-bay.”
As Lily reached beneath Fitz’s legs to lift him, one of the seething mass of figures in silver resuscitation suits detached and whispered into Lily’s ear. “Deep Tone didn’t make it, ‘Lil. Zavage thinks he died from the trauma of being frozen. We’ve been sleeping with his corpse the past 150-odd years.”
“I’m sorry about your friend,” said Izza, ignoring the whispered nature of the report that hadn’t been meant for her ears. “But I want you to concentrate on Fitz, because he’s someone we can save.”
They lifted Fitz. Bylzak, but he felt so heavy!
“Fregg,” she called as they started carrying him out of the resuscitation room. “Report!”
It wasn’t Justiana Fregg but Sinofar who strode into the room, humping a medical kit on her back and accompanied by Lynx. The Pryxian was already resuscitated and in a ship suit. Her race was fast to thaw.
“Put the captain down,” Sinofar ordered. “I’ll examine him here.”
Panic was erupting in the other resuscitation chamber. Pandemonium ruled supreme throughout her ship, but Izza let that be for now. She brushed Fitz’s hair away from his cold face while Sinofar ran a medical scanner over his body.
“What happened, Lynx?”
“How should I know?” the droid replied. “I’ve been in deep standby. Even my clocks seem to have shut down.”
“I meant what happened to Fitz’s pod? Haven’t you run a diagnostic?”
She took her hand from Fitz’s head to allow Sinofar to tape a brain sensor over his brow. She squeezed warmth into his hand instead.
“The captain’s pod suffered catastrophic failure,” explained Lynx.
“I know that, you stupid droid. They were triple checked by me and by you. How could it fail?” She gasped. Every hydraulic band in her body hardened. “It was sabotage!”
“Impossible. We were adrift in interstellar space, remember? You humanoids are always forgetting that space is a big place. Bigger than you can comprehend. No one could have boarded and messed with the captain’s pod.”
Lynx hadn’t been right ever since Fitz had reprogrammed him, but even so the droid was acting particularly strangely. The idea of a murderer breaching the Phantom from the outside hadn’t occurred to her. If this had been sabotage, it had to be someone on the inside. One of the figures all around her coming out of cryo…
She stared at Sinofar.
Or someone who had gotten out of cryo before everyone else.
But that was crazy. Verlys Sinofar was as loyal as they came and with good reason. Izza looked around at the soldiers Fitz had picked up. Other than their names, she knew next to nothing about these killers. She didn’t trust any of them.
“The cryogenic fluids failed to flush safely from the captain’s body,” said Sinofar. “They’ve stalled most of his metabolic processes. He’s slipping into a deeper coma with every moment. I’ve got to reboot him.” She readied an injector from the main pack. “It won’t be easy. But he has a chance.”
“Izza,” said Fregg over the PA. “I need you on the flight deck.”
Before Izza could answer, the consternation in the other resuscitation room spilled out into hers. The Kurlei, Vol Zavage, made a beeline for Sinofar’s med pack.
“Green Fish has gone into cardiac arrest,” he stated firmly and with admirable calm.
Sinofar indicated a box within the pack. “Stim kit is in there. Bring it back. I’ll need it soon for the captain.”
“Lieutenant Zan Fey?” Nothing much usually bothered Justiana Fregg, but her voice coming over the intercom was on the point of panic now. “I need you on the flight deck. You gotta see this.”
“I do not need to see this,” Izza shouted at the mic mounted in the bulkhead. “You have working mouth parts, Fregg, and we know a shared language. Use them. Tell me what I need to know.”
“Okay. Two issues. It only took us five days to get here. Not 150 years. And there’s a dirty great battlecruiser out there. It’s asking why we haven’t responded to its instructions to get the hell out of its restricted military zone, and they aren’t asking nicely. They’ve just put a shot across our bows.”
&n
bsp; Five days?
She took a last look at Fitz, kissed him on his cold lips, and then ran for the flight deck.
IZZA ZAN FEY
“Malevolence, this is Phantom-8-8. We drifted in-system after a failed jump emergence. We have just woken from cryo and did not hear your earlier instructions. Over.”
As the watch officer on the Malevolence considered her response, Izza kept her gaze on the battlecruiser that had intercepted the Phantom, barring their way to the military space station they had found themselves headed for when they had woken. The Phantom’s automatic navigator must have locked on to the station for some reason, a decision that could have gotten them killed if the officer on the Malevolence was having a bad day. But the station might also have the facilities to save Fitz’s life.
Even if she’d wanted to, they couldn’t fly their way out of the battlecruiser’s threat bubble. They’d have to talk their way out, and that was Fitz’s specialty.
“Phantom-8-8, adjust course immediately. Follow the flight path I am sending to a civilian-controlled descent route to the planet. Over.”
“Negative. We have a medical emergency.” Izza thought of the other human, Green Fish. “Multiple medical emergencies. There is no time to negotiate with civilian control. We need a medical team now.”
“Phantom-8-8, you have entered Sector 18, a restricted military zone. Change course immediately or we will fire upon you.”
She allocated permissions so the flight path Malevolence had sent across could access the nav system. A spiraling descent tunnel down to Regina-Ventu overlaid the flight display. “Changing course,” she replied reluctantly. Activating one of the Phantom’s many non-standard systems, she played an old smuggler trick she’d impressed Fitz with when they’d first hooked up. A mist of charged di-tetrazine sprayed over the maneuver thruster nozzles, clinging to the cold metal.
She initiated the course correction, which vaporized reaction mass and channeled the resulting hot gas through the maneuver thrusters. Naturally, the di-tetrazine exploded, shooting huge plumes of flame out the nozzles.
Chimera Company Season 2 - Deep Cover Page 4
